Not doing such a great job of adult-ing...

I am in kind of a deep shame spiral right now, and it all has to do with a lack of functionality as an adult in some aspects of my life. There is something in my home that needs to be repaired right now. It will not cost me anything to repair it. Being without it is a major inconvenience and has resulted me needing to come up with creative ways to fulfill some very basic daily activities. However, I also look around my home and see nothing but a mess...the kind of mess that caused me to believe I fit the definition of a hoarder. And that leaves me paralyzed...unable to make the call that will result in this repair being accomplished. I have done some frantic "cleaning" this afternoon, in an attempt to make things passable enough that repairmen can come in without me being afraid of their judgment (and I do recognize that there is a very real chance that they will not give a flying fuck what my home looks like), and I think that if I vacuum and then close all the doors to the bedrooms and the bathroom (under the guise of locking up my pets because that also will have to happen for someone to come in but mostly to hide what a shithole it is in here), I may be able to bring myself to send an email tomorrow alerting the maintenance service to the issue and setting up a time for them to come in and deal with it.

I also continue to hang out on some pro-Ana sites, and one thing about hanging out on social sites filled with people who feel very much the same as you do about themselves is that you learn all kinds of other fun ways in which you can be reminded of what a mess you are. I was introduced this week to a word that I did not even know was A Thing, but it was not only A Thing, but it was A Thing That I Do. The word is "dermatophagia," and if you know anything about the roots that make up a word, you know what that means, and yes, it is as gross as it sounds. I asked my therapist quite a long time ago about the condition "dermatillomania," which is similar to trichotillomania, which is the compulsive pulling out of one's hair. I definitely am someone who picks at my skin, especially around my cuticles (although I used to do this on all my fingers and am able to limit it now just to my thumbs), and I thought it was a leftover habit from when I used to bite my nail, but now the idea that it is more than that has taken hold and is doing a great job of fueling my anxiety (which does not need help, really).

So this is not about me self-diagnosing (which is also sometimes A Thing That I Do), but it is about getting an idea out there and mulling it over and deciding whether to investigate it further. I get a little touchy about that because my psychiatrist once asked me, when I asked her about the possibility of me having some OCD-type behaviors, if I thought perhaps I was someone who wanted to have a lot of psychiatric disorders. But I am pretty sure that I don't have a large audience out there, so I guess that disclaimer is for myself...mostly.