The good news, I tell my husband, I didn’t just wake up one day like this. I have always been like this.

I was referring to how I am obsessive, I’m a perfectionist and I get overwhelmed easily.

I understand now, the getting overwhelmed easily. I put so much pressure on myself to have things a certain way. To have things a certain way, I need to do things a certain way.

It’s a process. I have to have a process. I can’t just do things; I have to do things in a certain order.

So, when you have to have a process for every angle in your life, well uh, it can get overwhelming.

I was the kid who sat in front of the 3-story Barbie doll house that I shared with my sister, and despair would come over me when it was time to clean house.

I had to come up with a plan of attack first. Which floor should I start with? Should I remove the furniture first off the floor or should I start with removing Barbie’s clothes and shoes off the floor?

Then that would turn into, shoes first or clothes first?

Etc.

I would feel like I failed doing it right if I accidentally went out of the order, I had decided on.

And it was especially frustrating when instead of helping me clean up the mess she made, Barbie was swimming instead.

I did enjoy pushing her face down in the water during some of those times.

Perhaps the earliest memory I have with obsession and feeling overwhelmed with the process, happened when I was around six years old…

The latest rage to hit the first graders at Christian Life Center in Stockton, California, came in the form of heeled sandals.

They were black velvet, with black velvet bows at the open toe and your feet rested on cream colored velvet. They buckled around your ankle.

I just had to have a pair of these, and I let my parents know.

One Saturday when it was time to go to bed, I decided that it would be too much for me to get ready the next day for Sunday School and also having to make the bed my sister and I shared.

You know, I didn’t just make my bed, it involved a whole process. It involved complete focus. It involved a certain order, a certain pull of the sheet and bedspread, a certain fluffing and placement of the pillows.

And I wasn’t even in the military!

So, I asked my brothers who had bunk beds, if my sister and I could sleep in one of them for the night.

They said, yes and I woke up the next morning feeling pleased with myself that all I had on my to do list was to get ready for Sunday School.

As I was walking into my bedroom, my dad was standing by the doorway and said, “Look what I found in your bed!”

I looked at my bed and I had an internal meltdown when I saw all the bedcovers in a crumpled heap.

But I walked towards that heap, and I started moving around the blankets.

Lo and behold, I found two pairs of the coveted black velvet sandals! A pair for me and a pair for my sister.

But I was so upset that my dad messed up our bed and now I would have to make it, that I was not able to enjoy getting them at that very moment…..

I was somewhere in my 30s when being obsessive got the better of me, so I threw caution to the wind and tried to be normal.

I hated it. My mind having no boundaries, no rules, made me feel worse and left me feeling out of control.

So, I went back to being obsessive and being a perfectionist.

And I’m okay with that.

Sure, I have my moments of being tired of it all, but I’m sure that happens to some of you normal ones too.

~missy salcido wead