So maybe I am different…

I don’t think I fully understood what intrusive thoughts were. I have odd thoughts all the time, but I kind of assumed they were normal.

Well… okay. A small part of me did wonder.

My mind goes off on little tangents constantly, and where we end up is anyone’s guess.

So I thought next time I have one, I’ll run it by my partner and see what he thinks.

We’re watching TV and my knee starts aching.

In my defense, I’m eight weeks out of cancer treatment, so I’m thinking my immunity is low. (To be fully transparent, I probably would’ve had this thought anyway.)

So I’m thinking: what if there’s an infection in my knee?

Next thought: what if I have to get it amputated?

(It escalates fast.)

Next thought: weigh yourself first, so after surgery you’ll know what your new normal weight is… minus the leg.

Next thought: exercise will be hard. A prosthesis will be uncomfortable until you get used to it.

All of this happened in about 30 seconds. And if I hadn’t interrupted myself so I could tell my partner, the internal dialogue would’ve kept going.

So I relayed it all to him, and he just stared at me.

I said, “Do you think these are intrusive thoughts?”

“Ah yeah,” he said.

I honestly thought I was just quirky and that intrusive thoughts were more of a violent nature.

Okay, yes, amputation was involved… but I wasn’t planning on doing it myself. 💁🏻‍♀️

Now I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m not normal.

(I mean, what is normal anyway?)

There are probably other things that could point to some kind of diagnosis too… maybe on a few spectrums.

But then I think… it doesn’t really matter. I’m 59 years old. It’s too late to be fixing that kind of problem. It’s set in now. Ingrained.

So I’ll just continue on inside my weird, familiar mind.

At least it’s never boring.