Moment of Crisis

What a bad weekend...

So I have OCD and from time to time it takes a toll on my mind.  This weekend was especially bad for me, and my family.  Most of the time, I rely on my OCD to calm me down, and I know how weird that sounds, but it works.

I grew up in a pretty chaotic house hold, and I never really had stability growing up.  This was my source of OCD, and it was a way for me to bring stability to my life.  I would organize my life in such a manner that I could maintain some control of how I was feeling and could cope with every day life.

I also have social anxiety, but that is more from not being able to deal with people.  My social anxiety is not extreme, I just know that I cannot be around people too long before needing to secluding myself to regroup.  It is like a fuel tank, I can only handle people for so long before I need to recharge that tank in order to be sociable again.  If I don't do this, I turn into a real ass hole and lash out over nothing. 

Which sucks because for my job I used to be just in the engineering department, and I did not need to use my people skills very much.  I would just spend most of my days staring at a screen looking at logs and Visio diagrams.  Now with my role as a manger I need to talk a lot more with people, which is taking more of a toll on my people tank.

Really bad days are when my OCD gets out of control, and my tank is low.  I have this internal list always running in my head.  It is full of things that need to get done from day to day to keep my life in balance.  I have been able to increase the timelines for a week out, but that is a list of things that I need to get done on a week by week basis to feel good about my life, to feel balanced.  Some of those things require me to interact with people.  When I get behind on that list of things needing to get done, and my tank is low, I really lose control and I just kind of break down.

Breaking down to the point all my focus turns to completing my list and I can't focus on anything else.  I NEED that list to get done.  My life falls apart without getting that list done.  It is painful.  It is painful to those close to me as I just push them away to be alone to recharge.  This weekend was one of those weekends.

Magic the Gathering is becoming too taxing on my list of things I need to get done.  From posting on this blog to trying to trade cards on CardSphere, to budgeting for new product to doing what I need to do with new product.  I am just getting too slammed with everything I do with MTG.  I realized this weekend that I am no longer having fun doing this, and my MTG Finance brain is taking over, which is causing me to min / max everything I do with my hobby.  This is supposed to be fun, not driving me crazy.

I honestly do not recall the last time I played.

With that being said, I have put feelers out to see if some sources wanted to buy my collection.  My wife is trying to talk me out of it, as she knows I need something to focus my OCD on, but really the collection is gaining too much control on my life.

I am not sure what is going to happen.  I might sell everything or I could just keep the collection but stop doing anything with it.  A nice middle ground would be to keep the collection, liquidate the extra stuff I do have, and then just pick up things I need.  That means no more box openings and just focus on buying the cards I need.  I would still pick up sealed product for the collection, but I would not actively try and do the MTG Finance thing.  All I know is that I need to back away from all the things I am trying to do with MTG, and just get back to loving the game.

So yeah, more to come.