Chapter Seven:
The Dating Game
I was in about grade 3 when I recall having my first “girlfriend.” It wasn’t serious. It was more of a game,... but I liked it. We were still living in the house on 6th street at that time. One day I was walking to school and I looked down and saw a shiny object. I stooped down to pick it up and realized it was a gold chain. I took it to school and gave it to my “girlfriend.” I didn’t feel much anxiety at that time,..., I never “asked” that girlfriend “out,” and we never went on any “dates,”... it was really very innocent and childlike. We didn’t ever kiss or have any kind of physical contact.
I began to really notice girls in about grade 5, in a physical kind of way, although I wasn’t sexually active AT ALL. In grade 4 at school, we started having Health and Sex Education classes, and in that class the HIV pandemic was a major focus in the curriculum. Outside of school in society, HIV (AIDS) was getting a lot of coverage on television and radio. Many people were dying of HIV and the entire narrative made a marked impression on me. You see, AIDS was a disease that seemed to be primarily occurring in gay men, but could also occur in hetro-sexuals, and intravenous drug users, and I was immediately afraid of it. Some celebrities were on TV and it was being made public that they were HIV positive. I immediately thought to myself, how horrible it would be to have HIV and be on T.V., in the eye of the public, because the disease carried such a negative stigma….
There was another key element to this time period and the Health and Sex Education class’s narrative, that must be explained here because it is very important. When we were taught that the AIDS virus could be transmitted from one individual to another in various ways and that the virus could live and remain dormant in an individual for up to 10 years without presenting any sort of symptoms, I instantly knew that it was the kind of thing I might (easily) worry about. In a nutshell, this information on HIV was the manifestation of the perfect storm for an OCD nightmare! A deadly disease, for which there was no known cure, that was predominantly spread through sexual activity (or intravenous drug use,) was capable of remaining in a person, undetected, for up to ten years while the person was completely unaware of its presence and could be unknowingly spreading it!
Obviously, I thought, people were going to continue to have sex,.... The fact that it was sexually transmitted, was at the crux of it,.... Sex is something that our species, it seemed, is hardwired to seek out and to do for reproduction and for enjoyment,....Obviously, some people were going to be more relaxed and doubt the risk factor that the AIDS virus posed. Obviously, the AIDS pandemic was going to affect many. It was already affecting me! But more importantly, I knew, somehow, that I had the type of mind that would obsess about possibly having AIDS, if and when I had sex, even if the chances were extremely remote. I knew that my propensity for anxiety and obsessing would very likely sink its teeth into that content, if and when I became sexually active, and, that is exactly what happened to me several years later….
To further complicate life, as I hurtled into puberty, there was the issue of pregnancy and responsibility. As soon as I realized the biological facts behind pregnancy, I became extremely woeful at the thought of any type of sexual activity. The reason? I shuddered at the thought of “getting somebody pregnant” and at the thought of the fear I would experience if I took a chance and had sex. In short, I dreaded the imagined mental discomfort that could possibly take place if I had sex, even protected sex, and then had to wait for two or three weeks to be sure that my partner was not pregnant. I vowed to never have sex until I knew that I could actually support a child. I knew my mind, and I was afraid of it. The fear of fear is a major component to OCD and it had manifested very strongly by the time I was in Grade 4 or 5.
Responsibility was a major theme for my OCD over the years, and it is actually a thoroughly documented phenomenon. Over the years, since the mid 1980s, many people have begun classifying certain types of OCD by its themes. People with “responsibility OCD” have obsessions and perform compulsions related to fear of doing something or not doing something that could cause damage to property or personal injury in themselves or another person. People with responsibility OCD spend exorbitant amounts of time worrying about causing harm to someone- it could be a complete stranger or someone they know,.... This was how I was, beginning in 1996 and lasting for nearly 25 years…. Some of the things (a small sample of the things) I obsessed about were, getting AIDS and passing the AIDS virus to somebody, being responsible for an event like a house fire, or, hitting somebody with a car. I experienced all of these and (many) other themes over the years, and no, none of it ever happened, but it was still excruciating, to have these obsessions and not be able to stop them.
Before I got my hunter safety, at age 11, I privately worried about a gun incident/accident happening and being responsible for somebody being killed or seriously injured… then I had the idea, “if I pass a Hunter Safety Course and get the certificate, then maybe I won’t worry anymore.” That’s what I hoped. That was me. From a young age I sensed that something was off in my mind,..., because I worried and obsessed uncontrollably. The guilt and anxiety I would experience, just at the thought of certain things, were in themselves a source of more anxiety! This is the cycle that manifests with anxiety disorders, when one begins to fear and dread anxiety itself, or, fears situations that trigger fear, like going on a date…. How was I ever going to be able to get a job and be a “normal” member of society?
I experienced a shocking bout of anxiety when I began to ask girls out, in my early teenage years…. I had no trouble being social and friendly with girls.., actually, I really enjoyed talking to them and I still do….! A major problem did arise, however, once I had asked them out and I began to make plans with them. As strange as it may seem, and embarrassing as it is, as soon as I began to contemplate kissing a girl, I would, without fail, become absolutely obsessed with the whole idea of “the kiss” and riddled with anxiety. I worried about whether I would do it properly, and it was a kind of performance anxiety. If it hadn't been so acute and disabling I would laugh about it now! But it was acute and it was disabling, and it was anything but funny. I would awake in the early morning, back in those days, and the thoughts of kissing my girlfriend would just pop up, first thing. It was a kind of fear of the unknown. Maybe I would do something wrong, or my breath would be unpleasant or I would be too this or too that,.... My mind just kept on creating scenarios and my body kept going into fight or flight mode. I couldn’t relax, and I found it extremely difficult to focus on anything other than potentially disastrous scenarios about kissing and “making out.”
In truth, it was extremely unpleasant, scary, and humiliating. I had yet another major problem and I felt it wasn’t supposed to happen! After all, I was big. I was getting strong,... I had shot many partridges, and, I had prepared their meat,... the same for ducks and geese. I had always taken the time to be very thorough and pluck the birds, so as to not waste any meat. I had also been a good boy,... ethical and responsible, studying diligently, never or seldom, if ever, lying to anybody. So, why was God allowing this to happen to me? This was the way I thought. I was so ashamed and alone,.... I was ashamed of feeIing anxious and I didn’t have the courage to confide in anybody about it,.... I saw only one recourse, which was to promptly end the relationships, and that is what I, invariably, did. The whole issue was very stressful and exhausting. How would I ever get married? How would I ever complete these social requirements/obligations that I felt were my responsibility?
After a couple attempts at dating, in my junior high years, and going through hours and then days of anxious Hell, I decided that it simply was not worth the trouble and I abandoned the dating scene entirely…. I started spending the majority of my free time hunting, or, reading about hunting. I found that solitude posed far fewer problems or causes for anxiety. I shied away from team sports because I lacked confidence and specifically dreaded being called “fat” and secretly I hoped that I would outgrow all of these issues and someday just be normal, and that I would be able to date and have a sex life! Again, the whole situation would have been comical, had it not been so tragically debilitating. The same is true of OCD. If it weren’t so real, if the anxiety and the distress from thoughts weren’t so real, it would be funny, but it is real! Not only could I not have sex for fear of HIV and pregnancy, but, I was also too anxious to kiss a girl,...! I was so perplexed! This anxiety and self-doubt caused incessant questions to erupt in my mind, like “what was the matter with me?” “Am I ever going to be a real man?” And on and on and on the additional worries and questions emerged—- and what was I to do?
What was I to do?
What was I to do?
What was I to do?!
Millions of questions continuously flooded my mind….
My inner critic scoffed at me and laughed at my (silly) plight…, and my cheeks burned in shame. This is also a major aspect of OCD suffering,..., the first arrow that hits you is the anxiety due to an imagining, coupled with a certain brain chemistry that is triggered very easily (by thought itself), but the second arrow that hits you is caused by you yourself, by having no compassion or insight into what is happening, and by reacting in anger or loathing, toward your inner experience and toward yourself. It was a terribly humiliating time and I wished I could just forget about it all….
Not long after, I had my first experience of getting drunk. I instantly loved the pleasant and confident feeling that alcohol gave me, and I noticed that I didn’t feel nearly as anxious when I drank and was under the influence of alcohol. Maybe that was it,...! Maybe I was just a nervous guy who could function normally and have a great life if I just had a couple of drinks in me. I had faith in that idea, and faith in the idea that all of this would pass as I physically matured and my brain made its final adjustments into adulthood. It was worth believing and I forged forward, studying, dieting, and becoming more intrigued with the idea of self-help, and changing my life through conscious endeavor. When you’re young and inexperienced you have no idea about what is happening when you have anxiety and I was afraid of my own thoughts and the potential for suffering that they seemed to pose,.... It turned out I had good reason to be worried.