i am neurotic.

I cannot stand to watch characters in movies get humiliated. If I am on my own and watching something I have seen before I fast forward through the bad parts. If I am around others, I have to leave for a “bathroom break.”

Every time I see a UPS truck I have to say (or mouth) the words “ups truck.”  “Ups” is one word, not separated into letters.  But if I see one on the road and then see it again and suspect it’s the same one, I won’t do it.

When I’m scrolling through a page with lots of images, I get overwhelmed and have to scroll all the way to the bottom, and then slowly work my way up. For some reason that way is easier than top to bottom.

When I pause something on tv and someone’s face is on the screen, I have to make sure that they are wearing an attractive facial expression. If their face is all scrunched up or their eyes or closed or something, I have to play, pause, play, pause until they look nice.

I avoid looking into mirrors. I fear someone will be standing behind me or they will have taken the place of my reflection. A quick glance before I go out in public is all the mirror sees of me.

I tend to feel that people in magazine pictures can see me or know what I’m doing.  While knowing it’s foolish, I still have to cover them up if I’m doing anything private, gross, embarrassing and/or am going to sleep.

I can’t eat mushrooms because they look like they have eyelashes.

When I am flying somewhere, I have to see a person on the ground before the plane lands. I get a wave of anxiety a little before landing that some cataclysmic event wiped out all the people on earth while my plane was in the air. So I have to get a window seat to make sure I can see some person down below.

When a bit bored in traffic on the freeway, I look at car tail lights. Then, somehow I associate a sound and facial expression for the shape of the light. Like a Ford F150, 1998 would be “block-block-BLOCK!” and a long face. A 2005 Chevy Impala is tit-TIT—-TIT-tit. And somehow, I am consistent on what I see, and how I perceive the lights to sound over time.

Whenever someone I care about is leaving, I have to watch them until I can’s see them at all anymore.  I feel like I’ll never see them again if I don’t.