Tag: Compulsion

Welcome — However You Found Your Way Here

Resting is Easier Said Than Done

In my last article, Writing for 40 Days and Nights: Time for a Break, I said that I was going to take a break. That I was going to finally give myself time to recover from, not only publishing for 40 consistent days, working on my downloadable Stratagem’s Manifesto 1.5 and making sticker drafts you can find here, Two Manifestos + A Gift (For Fellow Archivists), in, what, less than a week? Yeah, less than a week to finish.

As much as I want to hibernate for a month, my mind is buzzing with more ideas, more things to sit with, more things to process than I can keep up with. It’s not bad, though, it can be a lot to juggle.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m holding myself hostage to the grind of writing and publishing, but also wanting to answer for myself, “what else can I do?”

The only way I know how to answer this question is to take action — keep writing, keep thinking, keep breaking myself because it’s the only way forward.

Sometimes I think that doing the things that I do are simply out of habit. However, I started wondering that it might be more than habit, discipline, or motivation fanning these flames.

I Don’t Have a Diagnosis

This feeling doesn’t feel like it’s OCD — at least, I don’t think so, without a proper diagnosis. But it’s close enough that the shadow it casts follows me everywhere.

I live by certain rituals, routines, and rules not because I want to, and not because I’ve mastered discipline, but because I feel like I have to.

Without them, I spiral. Hard. And there’s no way to swim against a current made to drown me.

When Routine Becomes a Lifeline

Every morning, my life is dictated by a checklist that I didn’t write with freedom — I wrote it with survival.

I wake up between 2:00 and 2:45 AM, leave my studio before or exactly at 3:30 AM. If I don’t? My mind sounds the alarm:

“You’re late. You’re slipping. You’re behind.”

Even when I’m hours early for my shift, even when I still get a parking spot — if the routine breaks, so does my mental calm.

And the rituals don’t stop there.

I lock my door, then push on it exactly three times to make sure. If I don’t, anxiety starts building like a pressure leak. At best, it simmers. At worst, it floods my thoughts with doubt, fear, self-blame. My own mind turns on me.

This isn’t about productivity. It’s about pacifying the part of me that believes something will go wrong unless I do everything right.

Perfectly.

In order.

On time.

It’s Not Just Routine. It’s Ritual.

The compulsions aren’t always loud. Sometimes they show up in quiet decisions — like today, when I told myself I’d get gas tomorrow, like usual, at half a tank.

But when I pulled out of the lot, I felt this pull toward the gas station. A force. A whisper. A weight that said:

“If you don’t stop now, something will go wrong.”

So I stopped.

Not because it was logical.

Not because I needed to.

But because I felt like if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be okay.

And even though I was already up early, already prepared, already doing “enough,” my mind doesn’t care. It doesn’t measure effort — it measures control. And when it feels like I’ve lost control, it punishes me in silence.

Living in the Gray

This… gray space — of feeling things so intensely, needing control, needing to feel safe, but knowing it doesn’t quite qualify for a clinical label — it’s a lonely place to live in.

Like my asexuality, like the way I process the world — it’s a spectrum. Not everyone in the gray is heard. People like me, like us, we’re often overlooked because we’re “not broken enough” to be helped and “not well enough” to be fine.

We’re not living scar-free. But we’re not failures either.

We’re just trying to stay afloat. To breathe. To give ourselves a chance.

Not Impulse — But Survival

This isn’t impulse. I’ve kept my blog streak going for over 36 consecutive days within the last three months. That’s not an accident. That’s not chance.

But even that came from compulsion.

What started as curiosity — can I publish daily? — became I need to keep this up or I’ve failed.

Even rest is not safe from this voice.

Sometimes I sit down just to breathe. Just to give my legs a break. But I still feel it — something breathing down my neck, whispering:

“You’re not doing enough. You’re not good enough. You’re wasting time. You’re failing again.”

Sometimes I don’t eat.

I struggle to sleep.

Not because I’m lazy — but because my body doesn’t feel permitted to rest until I’ve done enough.

Even though the finish line keeps moving.

A Harsh Kind of Comfort

Still — and this is the part I hate admitting — the routine does give me something.

Even when it hurts to keep up. Even when I’m running on fumes and cursing the alarm at 2:15 AM. Even when my back aches from work or my writing feels like it’s running dry. There’s comfort in the ritual. Not joy. Not peace. But order.

When the rest of the world feels unpredictable, when my body’s tired and my mind’s spinning, the routine is the one thing that stays the same. It doesn’t care how I feel. It doesn’t ask if I’m okay. It just says: this is what we do.

There’s a kind of safety in that — in not having to think, in just going through the motions. It keeps the chaos outside the gates, at least for a while. And when everything else feels like it’s slipping, sticking to the routine lets me believe — even just barely — that I’m still in control.

But it’s a harsh kind of comfort. It costs me. It takes pieces.

And I know I can’t live like this forever.

I just don’t know how to stop without everything falling apart.

To the People in the Gray

If you’re someone like me — someone living in the gray space between coping and spiraling, between diagnosis and “normal,” between being fine and being far from it — I see you.

You are not imagining it.

You’re not making it up.

You’re not alone.

Your pain, your patterns, your rituals — even the ones that don’t make sense to anyone else — they have a story. They have a weight. And they matter.

A Gentle Ask

Have you ever experienced something similar to this?

• Feeling like you’re not enough, worthless, and pathetic when you’re doing everything you can to stay above water?
• That it feels like control without feeling grounded, but punished for needing a break?
• Learning to be kinder to ourselves?

If this resonated with you, or if you know someone who might need to hear this, I gently ask:

➡️ Like, share, and subscribe.

It helps more than you know — not just my writing, but the visibility of stories like this.

Subscribing grants you early access to behind the scenes thoughts, experiments, and my newsletter, Letters from the Void Newsletter straight into your inbox. And, you’ll also gain, as a thank you from me to you, Two Manifestos + A Gift (For Fellow Archivists), when you do join us, Fellow Archivists.

So that this space can reach others like us.

People who don’t have a clear label.

People living between extremes.

People with invisible bruises and structured coping mechanisms.

You deserve to be seen.

To be heard.

To be understood.

Even if you’re still figuring yourself out.

Author’s Reflection

It’s not easy being kinder, more patient, and willing to accept letting my grip on control loosen. I got out of bed later, left a few minutes after 0330, and my car is facing the other way instead of the usual.

The headaches remind me that I’m doing things wrong, but the voices that usually sweeps me down volatile territory have gotten a little quieter.

Maybe I’ll be able to be kinder, patient, and accepting myself through a different lens. The voices of doubt, insecurity, and compulsion will fight back, but guess what?

So will I.

Thanks for reading.

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Written with rawness and care,

The Stratagems Archive