Obsess Much?

I don't normally do two posts in one day, but I have been thinking of this post for a couple weeks now, and I wanted to share this.  I'm sure it will give you a bit of a chuckle.  I know Jeff and I laugh at my crazy obsessions a lot!

I'm a nature FREAK!  I love being outdoors, looking at the sky, listening to the birds, being by water, trees are beautiful to me, flowers, even bugs.  Certain bugs.

Most bugs don't bother me.  Mosquitoes and black flies are obviously unwelcome for the fact they leave bites, horseflies, hornets...I don't like being bit.  But I wouldn't care if they were just around if they didn't bite me.  I love lady bugs, some beetles, spiders (super interesting), even ants.  They all are just so neat to watch.  BUT!  Cockroaches.  HOLY SHIT!  (you won't find much swearing in my blog, but for this topic...for expression purposes, there could be a lot.)  I grew up in the Yukon.  We didn't have cockroaches and centipedes.  I go to the museum here in Edmonton, one of my favorite places in the city, and they have a wonderful bug exhibit.  They have a huge spider, beautiful butterfly specimens, ALL BESIDE A FREAKING CAGE FULL OFF MADAGASCAR HISSING COCKROACHES!!!  Have you ever SEEN Madagascar Hissing cockroaches??  They are ENORMOUS!  And they HISS!!!  They EFFING HISS!!!!  EFF ME!  Centipedes?  Yeah, those are the most hideous, creepy....God...I can't find words strong enough.

Yesterday, one of my FB friends posted a photo of a dead centipede in a wasp catcher.  IT'S DEAD!  AWESOME!!!  YES!  Even if it IS in Minnesota, it's dead.  The way that thing should be.  So I tell Jeff about it.  He says "But centipedes are good.  They eat other bugs!"  "Great.  They can eat other bugs.  Awesome, as long as they do it where I can't see them!"  Then...then he says the WORST thing he could have said.  "Centipedes even eat cockroaches."  SON OF A BITCH!  My absolute worst nightmare.  OMG!  It's like...wow.  I can't even describe it!  It's THAT bad.  Just seeing cockroaches on TV make me shudder and want to cry.  They are awful.

And I have NO purpose to be scared of them.  None at all.  Up until I moved to Edmonton, I'd never seen either a cockroach or a centipede in real life.  So...yeah.

Another obsession?  Frigging cops.  Seriously.  Cops.  I have the HIGHEST regard and respect for police officers and their profession.  I think they are incredibly heroic for the choice to protect everyday citizens.  Most are great men and women, risking their lives for you and me.  But when they drive behind me, I'm about 100% positive that I will be pulled over.  My insurance and registration are up to date, I'm not speeding, my kids and I are seat belted in properly, I'm not on my cell phone, I'm not drunk...but they're going to pull me over.  And when...not if...WHEN, the officer pulls me over, I will become an anxious, crying mess.  There was community police event in the parking lot at the mall near us.  I never saw it as I passed it, and I admit, I zipped into the parking lot a bit quicker than I should have.  One police officer was pulling out of the lot and my heart jumped into my throat and my anxiety sparked right there!  BOOM!  I was in for it.  I was sure of it.

Until he turned the other way and went to do his job.  Yeah...I really wasn't going that fast.  But I sure got startled.

Bears freak the hell out of me.  And not like a normal type anxiety.  Like, total over the top, I'm going to die because a bear will eat me, type anxiety.  I will lose sleep over a small noise while we are camping.  The thoughts that race through my head are completely irrational.  The campground can be absolutely packed, but that one little stick snapping was a bear coming to eat ME!  Yep...ME!

I obsess about health matters.  One of the worst things I can do is go online and research symptoms.  Inevitably, something is connected to cancer in one way or another.  If I'm having an anxiety attack, my chest gets tense and sore.  Not anywhere near my heart, but sweet mercy, I'm having a heart attack.  I obsess and worry about the kids health.  I know they are healthy as hell.  But if one of them starts exhibiting what I think are signs of illness, I start to worry about them.  I start to think of all the kids who are sick with cancers and other devastating illnesses and I freak myself out even more.

These are the worst ones for me.  There are few more, but they don't set my anxiety off into irrational proportions quite like these four.  My reactions can be quite funny.  Jeff and I laugh about them all the time.  I remember picturing in my head when I was younger, killing a bear with an axe.  God...looking back on it, it's too funny.  I stayed awake all night long, in my tent, with an old small terrier, a lantern and stared at the axe all night long, thinking of how I was going to kill "the bear".  With the police, how ridiculous.  I'm not doing anything wrong, how ridiculous and yes, even self centered of me, to think that I'm even remotely that important in that moment for an officer to take the time to pull me over for nothing.  Same goes for the kids and their illnesses.  I am well aware of how healthy my children are.  I would never wish a devastatingly sick child on anyone...ever.  No parent should ever live through that.  However, those thoughts are there, as self centered as they can be, and I deal with them, most of the time.  My counselor called it "catastrophising".  That's a fabulous word for it.  One of my favorites.  It describes it PERFECTLY!

Somedays, I just need to chill.  LOL  And often, laughing about my obsessions and my irrational reactions helps to minimize them.  I don't need them to take me over.