Mental Health & Making Decisions & Life's Milestones.

Getting an identification card is basically one of life's milestones. And I still have yet to actually get one of / for myself.

"You need to get your ID."

"You need to get your ID."

"You need to get your ID."

Yes, I know! I need to get my ID! But maybe you just don't understand! And maybe this just seems like a stupid little predicament, but ... the main thing that is keeping me from doing so is ... the fact that I keep on fixating because of my natural hair colour! I know how that must seem to some people. Maybe that seems like a trivial issue, and maybe it seems like I'm making mental health issues look trivial, but let me finish ... okay? Because this is a valid thing for me.

Where mental health is concerned, even simple stuff can become complicated things sometimes. There was a girl who was dealing with such deep depression (and possibly some other stuff, too? Such as anxiety?) that she didn't even brush her hair for a while, and it got so matted that she went to a salon and told them to just shave it all off, but the stylist helped the girl for over 13 hours to fix her damaged hair, and it helped the girl out so much. Maybe it even did some good and some healing for her soul, too.

My natural hair colour is basically both blonde and brown. I'm not completely comfortable with my hair being called "blonde" (and I haven't gone by that in a pretty long time), though, but I don't want to feel like I'm lying if I call it "brown" (which is basically where the scrupulosity comes in, because I really do not want to lie! Even if I'm not intending to lie, I don't want to feel like I'm prevaricating or like I'm being misleading!), but I do kind of feel like it's the both of them (even though I'd prefer to be called "a brunette" rather than "a blonde").

When I was born, it was pretty dark, but it probably mostly looked pretty dark (almost black-ish?) because of the fact that my Mom had fixed up my hair with some water (I guess?), but my natural hair colour(s) varied when I was a child. It went from dark blonde / light brown to being "bleached by the sun" (like, nearly a platinum blonde mixed with some medium colouring and / or a strawberry blonde) and back to dark blonde / light brown. (Maybe it's like a light golden brown [blonde-ish brown / blonette / bronde]. A picture that I saw online of "light golden brown" hair seems to kind of match my hair).

It kind of looks like a light brown with blonde undertones (and maybe some reddish undertones, too?) at this point, basically. But I really don't want to feel like I'm lying if I put down "brown", and I don't think that I'll be comfortable if I put down "blonde", so why can't I just put the both of them down?! Or (maybe even better yet) why can't I just not put a hair colour down?! Why do I have to stress out about my natural hair colour just to get an ID?!

And I kind of need to get an ID to get some general health insurance, and I kind of need to get some general health insurance to some get some general health treatment.

Ugh.

Why didn't I just get it when I was trying to get it when I was 18 years old?! (Well, there were some things that came up, I guess. Such as: I needed to bring my official birth certificate with me to the DMV, etc. Ugh. Damn it.)

I'll probably just try to go with both "blonde" and "brown" at the same time.

If I had gotten it when I had pink hair, I probably could have just put down "other". (Some people that are out there are just so against using the term "other", but it's kind od just an umbrella term. Maybe some of us should try to feel a little bit more thankful for it? Hmmm? *Sigh.* Being an "other" doesn't necessarily have to be such a bad thing.)

My parents are planning for me to go to the DMV next week, and I kind of don't want to do it because of this (which is where the avoidance steps in, I guess). What am I supposed to do? (That's kind of a rhetorical question, so no answers from other people are really necessary right now.)

I already posted something about this thing on Facebook, and I just ended up with "light brown" bring the main thing. (And maybe that was a form of reassurance-seeking, which is one reason that some people think that psychotherapy [talk therapy] probably isn't as helpful for OCD as ERP is supposed to be.)

Also, I did just recently dye the rest of my hair (but not my roots, obviously) with Surya Brasil's "light brown" henna hair dye (it doesn't really completely match my natural hair colour, though), so it wouldn't really be a lie to go with "brown", but I feel like I shouldn't really leave out "blonde". (I guess that I just want to be "exact" about this? Like, I don't want to leave out any important-ish information?)

Again, why can't I just choose the both of them? Ugh, por qué no los dos? Just put "BLN / BRN" on my ID, please. Hahaha.

I get that some people might think that this might seem like a trivialization of things like OCD and anxiety (etc.), but I feel like this just shows the realness of them and how they can even go as far as to affect decisions like this.

*Mental health can become debilitating.*

So, I guess that maybe the main thing is that I do recognize how mental health stuff can and does affect things like this for me.

Maybe this will, at the least, give some people some insight into how certain thought processes might be for people that fixate like this. (Ick. My thought processes are my own! "Stay out of my head!" Hehehe. Waaah.)

One of the things about "opening up" like this when you're generally more of a private person is that sometimes you might consider the fact that some people might not been realize that you're really generally a private person, but - since this is my weblog - it's not necessarily the same thing as talking about all of this stuff in person, but - then again - you can probably be a little bit more selective about who you tell it to in person as compared to how selective you can be about who will read it when you post it online.

And, of course, I do take into account that some people might think that some of these things are trivial and / or that some of these things trivialize mental health disorders, but that would be their opinion(s), then. (And it's not really my intention to make these things look stupid. Hopefully, some people will be able to relate to some of this stuff.)

I just know that I basically feel like these things are valid things for me.

Maybe that stuff can be a topic for a whole other time.

On a final note, if you think that I'm talking about mental health stuff too much (or if you think that that's "fishy"), then please realize that this is something that pretty much affects a big portion of my life, and please realize that it also affects a big portion of some other people's lives, too. Of course, there are more things other than just fixating about not wanting to lie, wanting to be "exact", reassurance-seeking, avoidance, scrupulosity, etc., but do you really think that I'm going to want to jump right into the deeper stuff right away (when I haven't really been writing about it for a super duper long time so far / just yet)? Hmmm. Well, I guess that that answer would probably vary for some people. Some people might talk about the deeper stuff right away, and sime people might not talk about the deeper stuff right away. But maybe I will do so ... eventually ... or maybe not.


~ SOME RESOURCES. ~

- The International OCD Foundation. -

- "The OCD Workbook" by Bruce M. Hyman, Ph.D. & Cherry Pedrick, RN. -

- "The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills Workbook" by Matthew Mckay, Ph.D. & Jeffrey C. Wood, Psy.D. & Jeffrey Brantley, MD. -

- The Burns Depression Checklist(s). -

- The OCD Otter (on Tumblr.com). -