How My Mental Health Conditions Make Me a Modern-Day Mary Poppins

The title sounds funny, but the back story involves years of torture for me.

Hello, I’m Jane and I have eight mental health disorders. A lot, I know, right? But each of them were diagnosed by mental health professionals in a small therapy room over the course of six years.

Well anyway, I’m the 21st century Mary Poppins. I have to carry everything with me. I’m serious: screwdrivers, first aid kit(s) and even an apple peeler. You name it, and I bet you I have it in my bag…  Now, hearing that statement, it sounds like I am either Mary Poppins herself or a girl’s BFF on a night out.

How I came to carry everything with me stems from different reasons related to my anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which bring on my “prep-er” type of behavior. I’ve been this way since childhood, feeling as if I had to be prepared for the worst to prevent the worst. This has always been exhausting because I can’t leave my house without my bag (that is the weight of a 9-month-old baby).

This causes so much distress because I shouldn’t live this way but feel like I have to. I can’t tell you why, but I do.

I’m that person — the prepared one, the thank-God-you-were-around one, the where-is-she-I-need-her one. I’m the one who makes other people’s lives easier while making mine harder.

I was asked the other day, “Is this your way of making friends?” I didn’t want to say, “No, it’s because if I don’t carry all this, I will die” or some other scenario my mind will create. I haven’t heard of other people with this problem as of yet, but if someone is in the same boat as me and wants to feel “normal” or understood, I hope you found comfort in my story.

I hope my future posts will help at least one person out.

You’re not alone.

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Photo via Facebook – Mary Poppins