Memory and OCPD

How looking back on what mattered help me in the present?

There have been a lot of days where my mind can't let go of one thing. Maybe its getting a certain tea for later, or cleaning that dusty corner, or perfecting a decoration on my wall. It could be something productive, like finishing a paper perfectly. The thoughts around that obsession start from when I get up until either it gets resolved, or I fall asleep again.

But when I look back on my days, I don't remember the tea I got, or the purse I just had to have, or how perfect that dusty corner was. The obsessions that, in the moment, seems all consuming, fade with memory.

How it is possible that the emotion around something others may see as inconsequential is raw and deep to me, right then? As focused on that obsession as I may be, still it pales in the larger scheme of my life. The purse I was so sure I just must have didn't matter as much as the movie I took it too. The dusty corner that just had to be clean didn't matter to the people I had over. And worry I felt all day around the meal wasn't what I remembered about the candlelight dinner a year later.

I want to keep that perspective in those moments when I am driven to obsessive behavior. Will I really remember this little detail that I am so fixated on in this moment a year later? How about a week? Or even tomorrow?

Memories are made of moments, full of actions, people and experiences. Feelings of anxiety can only really exist in the present, and time is always moving forward. It helps to remember that today's obsession might be only a pale shadow tomorrow.