The Anxiety Test
After several sessions with my psychiatrist in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Dr. Romero decided administer a test to gauge the level of my anxiety. The object of the test was to probe my innermost feelings relating to anxiety. Because Dr. Romero tends to be somewhat Freudian-like, she deemed it was necessary to to find out what events etc., could have triggered the onset of OCD, or rather the anxiety leading to it. I got where she was coming from.

She started asking me what events had made me very angry. Truthfully, I don’t remember which event I decided to describe to her. I believe it dealt with someone who had ordered me out of the house due to a short lived but terrible argument. The feelings I had were very memorable, more so than the actual words that had been exchanged. Dr. Romero asked me to describe the anger I felt. When I proceeded to do so, she immediately said that I was intellectualizing, and asked me how I felt. I tried again but my answer was not the one she wanted.

She then asked if I had to describe the anger in color, what color would it be. I immediately said black. That was good.

Frankly, this little test was beginning to bother me. I found myself looking for an answer that would please the shrink and thought the whole thing irrelevant. She wanted me to go places that I did not want to go to. For one thing, I didn’t want to commit violence against this person who had hurt me so deeply.

I got the impression that Dr. Romero seemed to think that that is what my unconscious wanted to do. My ego or superego did not want to do that, and was holding me back in expressing my true feelings.

After a while I met her half way. I said that I wanted to slap the person or push them. Actually a small push would have sufficed. Truth be told, I didn’t even want to do that, but like I said, I was meeting her half way.

Now you the reader must be thinking why didn’t I stick to my guns and say no, no I really don’t want to do anything physical. I believe that in the end I did want to please her somehow because she was so insistent.

Should I have done that pleasing? Probably not, but sometimes you just give in.