"Feel like I'm trapped in an animal shelter,
with all these pet peeves."
—Eminem, "So Far . . ."
So, even though I was put through a ringer of bullshit psychological exams for having the audacity to send someone mean emails, I think perhaps no one ever diagnosed me with what I was really having trouble with, which is probably indicative of their professionalism and effectiveness as much as it is, perhaps, of some kind of perhaps subconscious urge not to help the unsavory people you're dealing with, there, at the prison. (This may sound cheeky, but I think it's probably on some level, and perhaps a very deep one, the Case.)
Anyway, the thing that I have been having issues with for years, and I have seen this—not to make myself seem better (okay, to make myself seem better, but also just to put out a point)—in such things as Steven Crowder adjusting a cup on the table in one of his often memed "Change My Mind" episodes, those sports heroes who do the same motion every time they go up to bat, or Ray Bradbury, even, running home from his friends to write a story as a child, on a lesser level—following the inspiration, as fast as he could, so he did not lose it.
I have seen clear wavelengths of what I was going through in these people, not to mention with many, many Eminem lines ("Stayin' wound up is how I spend time," he says in "Believe," and he says, I think elsewhere on the album, that he—no, this was on "25 to Life," on Recovery—he said that
"Look at how I dress, fuckin' baggy sweats, go to work a mess
Always in a rush to get back to you, I ain't heard you yet
Not even once say you appreciate me, I deserve respect
I've done my best to give you nothin' less than perfectness"
), which often indicate high levels of tension and gripping onto reality. Eminem is dealing with the same thing I am: Perfectionism, or, in a more descriptive sense, some kind of "OCD."
This sense, just like in the Rick and Morty episode where Morty gets the death crystal and keeps living his life to follow it to a death where his teenage love is telling him, "I love you, Morty," or something, that if you just angle your life perfectly, you will achieve what you want by basically following the spiritual energy to it.
I kid you fucking not, and this works. Clearly. Ask Morty, making what the TV news anchor refers to as "the tones and frequencies that just came out of his mouth" outside of a court house, or inside of it, moments before, when he did the same kind of searching-for-syllables thing and was able to sound his way out to telling the judge some kind of message "from her dead loved one" that got her to drop his case. If you follow this shit, you will be successful. It's like Abraham following God.
Anyway, you can follow this shit too much. And it becomes every moment of your life, following it. It's like you're not even living your life. (That Rick and Morty episode, Truly got it.) And so I did my little Note, tonight, and realized that, indeed, everything that you're thinking is the voice in the head.
Aw, the myth of molecular perfection that I used to be compelled to follow when I was young. It can be a complex solution, but I found that it had more to do with a lack of self-love or self-respect, in how I grew up. Learning that you are sufficient, and putting down the voices of doubt, and those that spew such bilge is a key component to victory toward gaining your own trust.