Organization Terrors

I have a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder.  It doesn't manifest itself in constant hand-washing or a flicking lights on and off a certain number of times, but in my ability (or inability, really) to organize.  In my ideal world I would have an infinite number of shelves/drawers/places to put things so that I could have as many categories as I feel I need.  

The best way to describe it is a scene in Wall-E where he has just found a spork and is trying to place it on his shelves.  It doesn't fit with the spoons, nor does it fit with the forks, so he creates a new category just for sporks.  Luckily, he has the space to create that new category.  

My brain likes categorizing things into minutia.  Unfortunately, doing that level of organization is impossible without everything turning back into chaos, and the chaos is so overwhelming that I feel trapped by it and cannot organize.  If I cannot have the organization that my brain wants, then I don't know how to handle it, and suddenly piles (upon piles upon piles) are the only way to go.

But eventually the piles begin to meld together back into the chaos from whence they were formed, and I'm back at square one.    

After speaking to someone who knows more about how to handle issues like this, I'm going to start organizing, slowly.  Very slowly.  Starting with big categories.  Categories like: Books, Clothes, Jewelry.  Once everything is in its own container, I'll slowly start going through each container.  It's going to be difficult.  I accept that.    I also will NOT do things in large chunks. I'll dedicate 15-20 min at a time to go through the containers. This way I am limiting the amount of stress I'll be going through - taking nibbles instead of bites.  

I have a Pinterest board dedicated to organization.  I'm hopeful that sometime in the near future  I will be able to utilize many of these ideas to make my world a more organized place - a place that is closer to what I see in my head.

Building Bridges

Since you can't change it - what are you going to do now?

This is a question that my therapist puts to me frequently.  There are things in my past I cannot change, but still have quite an impact on my emotions today.  I carry them with me all the time, and while I know I cannot change them, I also don't know what to do about them.

Most people are probably rolling their eyes and saying "well, build a bridge and GET OVER IT!"  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that... or maybe it is.  Maybe I've been looking at bridge as one unit, when really, it's multiple steps.

Sometimes my engineering brain takes a smoke break.

Now, I have no true idea on how to build a bridge.  I'm basing this on my experience designing cathodic protection systems.  I assume the theory behind design is the same.

First, you have to get the lay of the land.  You need to know the distance across the river, whether the bottom of the river is silty or rocky, how many cars theoretically want to cross the bridge each way, what kinds of materials you might have access to... etc.  This is where you are going to start.

So, emotionally, what is the lay of the land?  Right now, I'm still exploring what emotions are and how to deal with them.  I've never truly been angry.  I don't know how to deal with strong emotions.  And that's what I'm learning.  I'm learning to embrace the anger, and how to experience it and not let it become overwhelming.

So that's step 1 - learning about what is going on inside me right now.  It's been an eye-opening experience so far.