Facing the Facts

Psychoanalytical account of neurosis

As an illness, neurosis represents a variety of psychiatric conditions in which emotional distress or unconscious conflict is expressed through various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances, which may include physical symptoms (e.g., hysteria). The definitive symptom is anxieties. Neurotic tendencies are common and may manifest themselves as depression, acute or chronic anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, phobias, and even personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. It has perhaps been most simply defined as a "poor ability to adapt to one's environment, an inability to change one's life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality." [1] Neurosis should not be mistaken for psychosis, which refers to more severe disorders.

The term connotes an actual disorder or disease, but under its general definition, neurosis is a normal human experience, part of the human condition. Most people are affected by neurosis in some form. A psychological problem develops when neuroses begin to interfere with, but not significantly impair, normal functioning, and thus cause the individual anxiety. Frequently, the coping mechanisms enlisted to help "ward off" the anxiety only exacerbate the situation, causing more distress. It has even been defined in terms of this coping strategy, as a "symbolic behavior in defense against excessive psychobiologic pain [which] is self-perpetuating because symbolic satisfactions cannot fulfill real needs."

So tonight I couldn't stop myself from cleaning things at work. It started with Rebecca's phone, was followed by Nick's and a spare, then cleaning my desk. Rubbing alcohol should be a mandatory product kept by each person working in an office. But I think i might have gone a bit overboard and a bit on the OCD side when I popped off all my keys from the keyboard and cleaned each one and under them. Sure I had work to do, but who can work in a place that is grungy and disgusting? (disgustimapated? I don't remember the other word)

Turns out, everyone but me can deal with this. When I worked at Starbucks, I was so obsessed with making things clean i used to get down on my hands and knees and clean the floor with a deck brush, drains were immaculate, bathrooms pristine, etc. The only thing that kept me from taking apart the pipes and cleaning the inside was I couldn't figure out how to keep the store open and still have water. Way back in the day, Brendan and I would have cleaning parties at the store, where we would gather a few people to come up after work and attack the place from ceiling to floor and clean everything we could. All without pay, just so as to suprise out boss when she came in the next day and saw everything shiny.

Yet somehow, in the place I spend most of my time, I can't seem to make myself finish laundry or clean the bathroom. I want to devote such care to it that unless I have about a good 5 hours, I can't bring myself to clean even just the top floor of the apartment.

And it is the contrast that really bothers me. Like tonight I know that if I hadn't been running areas and it was slow enough, I would have started to clean other people's phones and keyboards, anything that looked really gross. Not that they would notice, but it would make me feel better. The only thing stopping me was the necessity of keeping my job and the overwhelming desire to go home and drink,

Which, as always, wins out over all cleaning or other disorders. Yay alcoholism!