Have you ever decided you are obsessed with a professional sport after seeing it on Undercover Boss and then went and bought $400 in merch the first day?
Either your reaction to that was a neuro-normal, “What the hell is she talking about” or mentally ill “No, but…”
One of the fun symptoms of BPD and BP is hyper fixation. You will suddenly have this fixation on a topic and you will take it to an absolute extreme. It’s normal with us but it doesn’t stop others from asking ‘what the hell’? It even has us asking the same thing after it passes and we are left with all our new over-priced merchandise that you don’t care about anymore.
For me, these episodes hit when I’m at my lowest low or my highest highs. I’m either searching for something to get me out of the hell hole I’ve found myself in or I’m looking to keep myself at this high point. Spoiler alert… it doesn’t work. OR I’m looking to solve the problem in my life and it’s absolutely consumed me.
Either way, it feels great while I’m there, it stops me from feeling too much. If it’s a positive obsession, it keeps me from feeling anything negative, if it’s obsessing on how I’m going to fix something negative in my life, then it stops me from feeling powerless, if I can just solve it, it’ll go away. Most of the time, it’s not something that can be solved but it feels better to try.
Here are 5 times I hyper-fixated on something that I can certainly laugh about now:
· NASCAR: That’s right, NASCAR. Why? Because I watched them on Undercover Boss during a deep depression and it brought me the slightest joy. That same day I turned it on and watched my first race, which yes I’ll admit is actually entertaining. I picked the prettiest car and it ended up being the infamous Kyle Busch. I don’t watch it anymore and I’m trying to sell my overprice pit jacket, but I still enjoy seeing how he’s doing each season and I follow his beautiful wife on social. I adore his little family & their story, but the actual NASCAR part fell by the wayside very shortly after the $400 purchase of goods.
· Broncos: I grew up with a single mom who didn’t watch football and no one else ever introduced me to it until I met Mike. However, I had a friend obsessed with the Colts, so my family needed to cheer for a team too! Since my Grandma lives in Denver, I decided we were Broncos fans and bought $300 in jerseys so we could look cute all wearing them together. Want to guess how often that happened? Zero times. I think I wore mine once for a jersey day at work but that was it. Outside of that we never wore them. They sure looked cute in our closet though!
· Disney: We all have a love for Disney, how couldn’t you?! However, my mental health suffered very badly while we dealt with John’s ex-wife. She was absolutely awful and I was so young I couldn’t handle it. After another one of her stunts, I decided we were really going to show we were the better home by having $900 in Disney Blu-ray DVDs. (We were always the better home & got custody for a reason, but go figure, it wasn’t the DVDs.) We went to Best Buy, and I just started throwing DVDs into the cart, every single one I wanted went in. AFTER my employee discount it was $900, and I 18-month-no-interest-financed that. John and I still laugh about it.
· A Direct Sales Makeup Company: I can laugh at this one somewhat but not totally because this one caused a lot of damage. Everything from emotional, to family, to financial. I was in a horrible spot and talked into using my emergency credit card to buy $10,000 in makeup. They said I’d sell it, they said it was the way to make money. I was 19 and didn’t know better. This drug out for another 2 years and $20,000. I took a toll on my marriage and my self-esteem. I wasn’t able to do anything but dig myself into debt.
· House Plants: This one is more recent, I decided I wanted to get a few plants, so a friend at the time shared her knowledge and plants with me. I decided I loved them and within a few months, we had 40 houseplants. Mike wasn’t even sure what to do or say other than ‘maybe we have enough’ and ‘I really don’t think we need any more plants.’ Eventually, it got to ‘ seriously, please no more’ and I decided it was time to chill. Luckily, this one has stuck, and I love my plants. They keep me focused on something and they do take some time of mine. My plants bring me happiness.
· Now don’t run away when I tell you this, but I became obsessed with… water cremations: I came across a place in Colorado that does them and it led me to learn more about them. It’s basically boiling a body until there is nothing left but brittle bones that are then crushed and given to the family in an urn. It's significantly better for the environment and a cleaner process. Something that is now in my & Mike’s wills. I wanted to open my own crematorium and was absolutely obsessed for weeks. I wrote a business plan and steps to getting the law changed here in South Dakota. I luckily didn’t lose anything but time. It’s just a weird one.
This list is comprised of a wide variety of my obsessions from ones that cause no damage but are comical to ones that caused a ton of damage and are harder to laugh at. So how do you not let these obsessions become toxic?
· First off, don’t spend a dime! Take a second and breathe. Give yourself a waiting period before you go and drop money on something you couldn’t have cared less about yesterday but now want to know everything about.
· Don’t put it on blast! I always felt a level of embarrassment when I told everyone how much I love this new thing or all these big plans I have, that would then go away within a few weeks. Take a hot second before you start telling everyone and their aunt that you’ve found this new love for NASCAR and showing off your new tacky jacket.
· Evaluate WHY you like it. What is it that made you decide that you suddenly like it? Was it just because of the show you found it on or out of spite? Or is there something that truly captured you?
· After this let it sit for two weeks. Two weeks seems to be my happy spot for deciding if I’m truly into something or just getting myself into a temporary obsession. Find your happy spot and stick to it!
It’s all so much easier said than done, but this is where your coping skills come into place in preventing yourself from doing things that are going to harm you mentally or financially.
Whether this reaches someone who struggles with mini-obsessions or someone who doesn’t understand someone with those mini-obsessions, I hope it helps. They are easy to laugh at, afterward, after you’ve recovered financially. However, at the time it was not funny. It’s not funny when you can’t pay a bill because you bought jerseys for a game you NEVER watch!
You got this!
Much Love,
M
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