Whoever decided that Hell is a place you go AFTER you’re evil and you die was a little off. I am here to testify on behalf of those living life with a little Hell. Hell doesn’t have to be all-consuming. It can be a smalll. Hell can wiggle itself into mere minutes making up entire days and during these moments, when Hell comes to visit, Hell is worse than an all-consuming Hell because it’s easily compared to what the minute was like BEFORE Hell showed up. Hell sucks. And if you should believe that Hell is filled with an assload of fire, then mine is sort of like this:
I’m pretty neurotic. At times, I am whole-heartedly neurotic. And I do believe that my neuroses is an enabler (or lack there of) to my depression that comes from time to time as well. For example, when I don’t have anything to worry (and fret and become neurotic) over, I become depressed. Perhaps I need to put my mind someplace at all times. I don’t know. I do know that at some point, I got a hold of my neurotic behavior just enough to stop all the insane self-diagnosis. I’m not sure when that finally happen. It could have been the time I decided that I could no longer swallow my spit after it had been in my mouth for longer than 2 seconds because it was dirty (even now, as I think about this, I start swallowing excessively.) Maybe I stopped playing doctor after I convinced myself that I might have internal male organs which hadn’t dropped yet. Or was it the Meningitis that finally stopped me? I don’t remember. But I do know that I fired myself from self-diagnosing myself.
This neurosis began early, too. I was once terrified of skeletons. When my very pleasant, all-caring mother (in an attempt to alleviate me of this fear of boney skinny things) informed me that I had one actually LIVING INSIDE OF ME. I became afraid of myself, believing that at any given moment this raunchy bitch might decide to bust out of my skin and leave me for blob.
Toby’s pretty neurotic as well. He’s neurotic in different ways. He worries more for other people than he does himself. He’s a self-diagnosed, non-practicing, non-religious Catholic. He worries about everything. And retrospectively, he thinks he could have controlled everything, but only after the fact and only if the fact didn’t prove positive. Basically, like any other decent self-hating Catholic, he is responsible for almost all things that go wrong.
Most of the time, Toby and my neuroses don’t meet. The days where I come down with a deadly new disease like Skeleton, he’s talking me down, letting me know that if Skeleton should exist it’d be too weak to break through the skin. On the days where he realizes he could have stopped Gacy from purchasing his first clown suit, I’m letting him know there are just way too many clown suits out there and he didn’t stand a chance. We work well together. Usually.
Over the past several months, my shins have decided to start turning themselves inside out. Basically, the underside of my skin has decided that it has been in the dark for long enough and it wants some sunshine. So it’s begun the transition. To put it simply, at 30, I have discovered a new form of Hell (especially for a fidgety, neurotic person with hands) called Excema. And boy does it suck. My legs itch constantly. They itch so badly they feel ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL when I scratch the color out of them. I have stopped doing that, now. I realize this was some sick catch 22, that I was placing myself into some conundrum, (not entirely unlike ‘No Exit’ or Sisyphus, and other cyclical stories about Hell.)
And I realize that this is a self-diagnosis (for now) and that’s because we don’t have active health insurance at the moment. But I am pretty sure I am right. You might argue that I am over-reacting, that maybe it’s just dried skin.
Here are the other choices:
- A). I have Herpes of the legs.
- B). I am dying of the Ebola Virus, or
- C). My skeleton has finally figured out a way to exit my body.
Excema isn’t such a bad self-diagnosis. I assure you.
Let’s visit Razor Mountain.
Yesterday I was sitting with Toby at a local brunch joint. He was telling me about all the things he could have stopped, I was telling him about all the neurotic little piles.
“Piles?”
“Yes, piles.” I answered
“What piles?”
“Well, for example, where do all the human razors go? They don’t biodegrade. We just use them, we throw them away, they go someplace, ALL OF THEM and then stay there forever. Somewhere there are just piles of yellow, blue, orange, clear, opaque plastic razors. There are razors without handles, razors from England, Japan, and America. I hate knowing about all those razors.”
“Hmmmm, well caring about the environment and thinking it’s a neurosis are two entirely different things.” He tried to relax me.
“Not if this idea kept me from changing my razor for months on end my entire shaving life.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s a neurosis.”
I think I have given myself Excema. And now I do believe whatever it is going wrong with my legs was born directly out of my fear of Razor Mountain. All these years I have said, “One more shave! It can last for one more shave!” have finally piled up (oh dear we have an overlap on piles) and paid off. I fear I have given myself a skin disorder by way of a neurosis. (Oh why didn’t I remain a full-on hippie? Why did I start to shave again at all?)
Am I being neurotic still? A little. Am I making this all up in search of a reason? Perhaps. But I do know one thing, I am willing to bet that in a few days Toby will let me know that there was something HE COULD HAVE DONE to prevent this from happening.
Like I said, we work well together.
Mihow 
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