I have OCD and Asperger's Syndrome. Between the two of them, I lack an effective "nonsense filter." Most people have one and don't know they do. The function of this "nonsense filter" is to help people do sensible things. The problem with the universality of nonsense filters is that people's communications are tailored for those with good nonsense filters. They chronically overstate things or say things in ways that could easily be misinterpreted because people's nonsense filters get in the way of their understanding anything. In order to function, I've had to develop my nonsense filter, train it to catch when I'm misinterpreting something, taking it too literally, or taking it to an extreme. I used to get angry at people for overstating things or saying things they didn't mean. I used to hold others responsible whenever my nonsense filter failed and I took something to an extreme. Although I still sometimes get angry, I usually also realize that it's my responsibility to interpret what people say. Unfortunately, I've generally used other people's levels of caution to train my nonsense filter. "Maybe some expert said we need to do such and such, but nobody actually does that, so I won't," or "This or that conclusion sounds crazy, like something Mr. Monk (from the TV show) would do, so I think it's probably extreme." I have to have this nonsense filter. OCD is like a black hole. If you give in to it, it sucks you in further and further. It is like sin. It consumes your life if you obey it.
A year and a few months ago, people collectively lost their nonsense filters. At least, it seemed that way to me.
It might seem strange to say that, but that's what happened. So many of the things people were doing to prevent Covid, particularly at the beginning, were things that would never have made it through my nonsense filter. People were avoiding going outside, sterilizing everything, thinking they could get the virus from cardboard, and calling people irresponsible and selfish for going to the beach. (seriously). How could I know what was true? People were behaving more extreme than I'd ever done, but these were normal people, not people like me. What's worse, I felt expected to go in a direction, to take my thinking in a direction, that I generally avoid like the mouth of Hell.
Now, somebody will say, "But this was a new situation. We didn't know. This was more dangerous..." Was it really that new? I live in a city where tuberculosis is a thing, there's been trouble with typhus (or typhoid, I don't remember which) at the local market, reports of disease-laden water (even cholera) at the local beaches are a frequent occurrence, and we used to find used syringes in our stairwell. How did I live my life, you may ask? I generally washed my hands after coming home, but not as religiously as I do now. I swam at the beach even when the water wasn't clean (just like most of the people there), and I wore open-toed shoes (just like many other women in the city). Most people don't run the numbers to determine the exact chances of something happening before they decide whether or not it's safe to do something. More often, I think, they go by more atavistic, more primal drives. People fear a danger not because it is dangerous but because it is new. But the old danger, even if it is greater, is met with a shrug and denial.
I remember being told that I must be washing my hands too much because they were getting dry. I was only washing them as much as good sense said to, and I probably wasn't washing them for twenty seconds. Now, the conventional wisdom is that it's fine if your hands get dry and chapped, even though Covid isn't thought to be transmitted by surfaces. Go figure.
The needs of people like me have fallen by the wayside. With the national panic underway, the last thing anybody has wanted to do is tell people to use common sense, not to be cautious, and not to be extreme. Yet, these are they very things we OCD people need to hear. It's not enough to tell us to do breathing exercises. That doesn't take away the crazy thoughts, the direction of thought. You can do crazy things and still be really calm about it. You can bleach your vegetables with a low heart rate. You can stay away from the rest of your family because you have some congestion that you'd never worry about except for Covid, that you know is in your head. You can do that with a low heart rate, too. You can wash your hands after every time you touch your phone, even though you're starting to get sores on your hands. You can have such low cortisol when doing it, too! But what you want to do is stop bleaching your vegetables. What you want to do is say that congestion is nothing and live like it. What you want to do is stop washing your hands. But nobody will help you on that journey. You have to defy every piece of advice you can find on the internet and take that step away from the abyss, not knowing if you're protecting yourself too much from the abyss and too little from other dangers. OCD doesn't let you care.
At this point, I'm tempted to ask, who's neurotic? This pandemic has made me pessimistic about human common sense and about my efforts to have a good nonsense filter. For one thing, being normal doesn't guarantee a good nonsense filter. Anybody can panic. I actually felt like I had a less extreme nonsense filter than some people. The second thing I've had to face (again, I faced it in college) is the way my nonsense filter has been about more than protecting myself from getting sucked into my own extremism. It's about trying to live a normal life and live up to expectations that I be a normal person. Maybe I've put living a normal life before my own safety. I have to admit there's resentment there. It seems unfair that there are people being more extreme than I ever was and "getting away with it". I'm not sure what the future is for me and my nonsense filter. I'm pretty sure now that I can't trust other people to teach me what my nonsense filter should filter out.
For all of you out there hyperventilating and saying "She's going to get Covid! She's going to kill us all!" I reply, "I'm not stupid, and I'm not going to act stupid. I'm just done being messed with."
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