This Week In Bingo

I don’t, technically speaking, have OCD. I have what my therapist calls OCT—obsessive-compulsive trait. The thing disordering my life isn’t the compulsions—I don’t have to run back to check the door is locked a bunch of times, or wash my hands until they bleed. Anxiety is what disrupts my life; the compulsions I use to deal with it are actually pretty adaptive.

Take my bullet journal. I started bullet journaling in 2010 (?) and for the next thirteen years I kept it up religiously. Every month, week, and day was sorted into lists of tasks and reminders to make sure that nothing ever fell through the cracks. I appeared hyper-competent, because of my deep, painful dread of being incompetent. Miss an appointment? Forgot to pay a bill? Didn’t get a field trip form returned in time? My god, you are a monster. And worse than the feeling of being a monster was the shame of having let other people see it. Life depended on not letting anyone else find out that I was an inept, lazy, useless goblin on the inside.

Well, I’m medicated now. I’m no longer overwhelmed with shame by the box I keep forgetting to take to Goodwill. Self-loathing no longer drives me to make sure that dishes never pile up in the sink. And whereas I once wanted every day to be exactly the same, bound by routines (or rituals, if you like) that ensured nothing went wrong, I now shrug and say, I did that yesterday, I don’t feel like doing it again today.

WHO EVEN AM I?

This left me in a bit of a pickle. It’s still annoying for things to fall through the cracks, but my old tools for making sure I didn’t forget things (and I am pretty forgetful) no longer work. After forty-five years of being motivated by fear, I didn’t know how to get myself to do things without it.

Enter Bingo!

I made a list of things that need to get done on a weekly basis—chores, errands, self-care. I added in a few things that I enjoy doing but usually neglect in favor of scrolling on my phone.

I printed the list and cut it into slips. Then I went to myfreebingocards.com, plugged the list into the randomizer and voila! Life Bingo.

The sole reason that I’m writing this blog post right now is that I have to fill a “write something for 20 minutes” box in order to get a bingo. It also forced me to make two phone calls (I still hate phone calls, the medication didn’t fix that) and go for a walk.

Some day I draw slips from the jar to find out what I’m going to do that day, but other days I just look at the boxes and see what I can fit in, and what will get me closer to a Bingo. And what do I win if I get a Bingo? I haven’t even figured that out yet. I’ve just been doing it for the sense of accomplishment.