I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Portrait of Dora Maar Seated
Pablo Picasso
1937

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone around you, all your friends, family, associates, co-workers, are all completely together and normal and fully functioning, and you feel like you're ... well ... not? I sometimes feel like that. At times I feel like the woman in this painting, sort of disjointed. Over the years I have developed some very strange idiosyncracies and a couple of phobias that any normal person would think are ... strange. A few years ago an ex-friend of mine said, "Everything in your house is all neat and arranged, and even your handwriting is too tidy." He did not mean it as a compliment; he was trying to find things to say that would make me feel bad about myself. It worked. But it is true. I may have a touch (a touch?) of obsessive compulsive disorder. I am more comfortable when things are orderly. Even the labels on my soup cans all face the same direction. It's an instinct with me. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Oh, I know, I know...

I have also developed a couple of full-blown phobias which can at times be quite debilitating. I hate flying and I am not crazy about going up very high in elevators. And when someone I love is not where they should be, when they should be there, I become convinced that something terrible has happened to them.

Anxiety is a physiological and psychological state characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components. These components combine to create an unpleasant feeling that is typically associated with uneasiness, apprehension, or worry. ... Wikipedia

It's also completely ridiculous, and yet completely real to the person experiencing it.

I often wonder, as I look at other people, if they have quirks and foibles and idiosyncracies that they deal with. I try to convince myself I'm not completely insane, I'm just human. Are you too? "I know you are, but what am I?"