OCD and Wetting My Pants

As I've become older, I've decided that I have OCD, not to a debilitating degree, but enough that I notice it. For me, it's that most of what I do has to have a pattern or a schedule to it. I have a routine, and when my routine is disrupted, my mood suffers.

Some examples:

• I do laundry every Wednesday and Saturday. This happens pretty much without fail. The only exceptions are if Christmas falls on one of those days or if I am out of town on one of those days.
• I wash my hair every Thursday and Sunday and I condition my hair every Sunday. I might have this wrong but it seems like I learned on an episode of Queer Eye (first iteration) that you should wash your hair every fourth shower or something like that and that you should condition half of the times you washed your hair. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that's where I got it and that's pretty much what I do.
• I shave every Sunday. I've rarely gone with a clean-shaven look in my adult life so I can get away with shaving once a week. When I was a church-goer (maybe we'll get into that at some point), it made sense to do that on Sunday and I've maintained that since I ceased being a church-goer.
• The last Friday of every month, I run the "basket clean" cycle on our washing machine.
• Every April, I order a new water filter for our refrigerator and new furnace filter for our furnace.
• At the end of each year, I map out my exercise plan for the entire next year. For example, on May 16, 2024 I will do P90X2 Yoga and run three miles. I would be extremely surprised if that doesn't happen.
• Every Sunday I fill up both our cars with gas. And every other Sunday I wash them. (This is something that started after I stopped being a regular church-goer).
• After I finish a run at the gym, I go to the drinking fountain and take 30 sips/swallows of water. Next I get a wipe and go and wipe off my treadmill. I then return to the drinking fountain and take 25 more sips of water. Then I stretch (same set of stretches every time with a 10-second hold of each position). Finally, I take 20 sips of water, gather my things, and leave.

There are probably other examples, but I think that's enough to give you an idea.

One other aspect of this part of my personality is that it is very difficult for me to stop working on a task before it is finished. And I can recall a specific incidence in the 2nd Grade where this had a detrimental effect.

My 2nd Grade teacher was the wonderful Christy Syndergaard. I have nothing but fond memories of her and her class and she remains one of my favorite people.

On this particular day, we were working on a math worksheet in class and as I got going on mine, I suddenly needed to use the bathroom. But I couldn't just stop with the worksheet half-done and go to the bathroom. I remember thinking, I'll just finish these last problems and then go ask if I can (may) use the bathroom.

But the urgency of the situation increased, and the need to go became so intense that it began to interfere with my concentration so I was doing the problems slower, creating a terrible negative feedback loop. The more I needed to go, the slower I could do the problems and psychologically I couldn't go until those problems were finished. I just couldn't bring myself to leave the unfinished assignment and go to use the bathroom. 

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I didn't end up making it. At some point before the assignment was finished I lost control. And let's be honest, it wasn't just a little pee. In fact, I don't know if to this day I have ever urinated as much at one time. My pants were soaked. There was a puddle on my chair. It was not a good situation.

This would have happened late 1984 or early 1985 so I don't remember a lot of details about the rest of the day, but two things I do remember.

The first is that it was winter, and that not too long after my accident it was time to go outside for recess. And I remember it was oh so cold. If I had been outside when the accident occurred, it's possible there would have been an initial sensation of warmth as in Dumb and Dumber, but where I went outside some time after the accident, all I remember was the cold.

The second thing I remember about it is that no one said anything about it. I don't know if it was that no one noticed (I don't know how that would be possible) or if everyone was just trying to be nice about it, but neither Mrs. Sydergaard nor any of my classmates said anything about it. I went home at the end of the day and came back the next day as if nothing had happened.