There is a very specific lie I tell myself almost every day, and it goes like this: “I’m about to start working.”
I am not about to start working.
What I am about to do is embark on a deeply unnecessary, wildly specific, and somehow completely essential ritual that must be completed before a single productive thought is allowed to exist in my brain. I do not simply sit down and begin. That would be unhinged behavior. That would imply I am in control of my own mind. I am not.
I am, instead, a creature of conditions.
Before I can focus, the environment must be correct. Not good. Not fine. Not workable. Correct. There is a difference, and my brain knows it with the intensity of a thousand suns. The chair must be adjusted, but not just height, also angle, the wheels need to be in alignment to rest my feet on. The hoodie must be the right hoodie, not too heavy, not too light, not the one that betrayed me last week by touching my neck weird. The blanket must exist nearby, but not necessarily on me, because the option of blanket is just as important as the blanket itself.
Lighting is a full negotiation. Overhead light is too aggressive, like being interrogated. Lamp light is better, but only if it is positioned at an angle that suggests productivity without demanding it and doesn't trigger a migraine. Natural light is ass and to be avoided at all costs. I will sit there adjusting brightness levels like I am calibrating a spaceship instead of answering emails.
And then there is the sound.
Silence has teeth. Absolute silence means I can hear everything, including my own thoughts, which is unacceptable. But noise is also dangerous, because the wrong noise will derail me instantly. So I need the correct sound. Not music that I like too much, because then I will just listen to the music. Not music that is too boring, because then I will notice how boring it is. It has to be the perfect middle ground of “this exists” without demanding my soul.
Looking for the exact playlist that will unlock my ability to function like a normal human being.
Sometimes it's lo-fi. Sometimes it's YouTube. Sometimes it's one song on repeat for reasons I can't explain to you or myself. If the wrong song plays at the wrong moment, the entire process resets. I do not make the rules. I suffer under them.
And then, once the chair is right, the hoodie is right, the blanket is spiritually aligned, the lighting has been negotiated, and the soundscape has been approved by whatever gremlin runs my nervous system, I sit there.
And I do not work.
Because now something else is wrong.
Maybe my desk is too cluttered. Not cluttered enough to be a problem, but cluttered enough to be a feeling. So now we clean. Not a full clean, just enough to convince my brain that we have achieved clarity. Move the cup. Adjust the notebook. Why is this pen here. Where did this come from. Who put this here. It was me. I put it there. Yesterday. But today it's unacceptable.
Then I sit down again.
I'm convinced that if I could just adjust the molecules in the room slightly to the left, everything would click into place and I would become a productivity god. Unfortunately, I don't control molecules yet, so I settle for adjusting my fan or my under-desk heater like I am negotiating with oxygen.
At no point in this process do I question whether this is reasonable behavior.
It's not reasonable behavior.
It is, however, required behavior.
Because here's the truth. I can't focus until I'm comfortable, but “comfortable” is not a static state. It's a moving target, a constantly shifting set of conditions that my brain insists must be met before it will allow me to do anything useful. It's less like preparing to work and more like trying to appease a very particular house spirit who will curse my productivity if I don't perform the rituals correctly.
And the worst part is, when it finally works, when everything clicks and I actually start working, it feels incredible. I am locked in. I am unstoppable. I am a force of nature. I will complete tasks with the speed and precision of someone who absolutely did not just spend forty-five minutes adjusting her environment like a tiny, anxious interior designer.
But folks don't see that part.
They don't see the nesting.
They don't see the endless micro-adjustments, the hoodie swap, the playlist spiral, the chair repositioning, the emotional support blanket that is present but not touching me because that would be too much. They just see the moment where I'm finally doing the thing and think, wow, she’s productive.
I am productive eventually.
But first, I must build the nest.
And honestly, at this point, I've accepted it. I'm not going to become the kind of person who sits down and immediately starts working. I'm the kind of person who prepares to sit down, prepares to prepare, adjusts the conditions, negotiates with the air, and then, maybe, if the stars align and the hoodie behaves, I will begin.
It is the ritual.
And I will be performing it again tomorrow. OCD isn't just quirky habits. It's a grueling set of rituals that demand to be met or else my brain convinces me that my entire world will screech to a halt if they aren't completed. And at my age I just complete them. Cause the fight doesn't get the job done and it certainly doesn't live up to the productivity output that's expected of me.