Curate, connect, and discover
More a combination of OAQ, possibly RAQ and ANAQ...
Occasionally Asked Question, Rarely Asked Question and Almost Never Asked Question.
Rare/Occasional: Gnarynhar?
Well, my preferred handle of Thordis is usually taken. Most people then go for adding a number, but, I just don’t like that, I need something I can resonate to, and a number just doesn’t work for me. I have sometimes used AusThordis, but that feels like too much work.
And Gnarynhar is easier?!
Well, no. (It is one letter shorter though!) And it’s a couple of noises of frustration put together, slightly altered and put into letters, but it’s something I made myself, so the resonance I want is there. Usually shortened to Gnar or Gnary by others,,,, it is a bit of a mess to type, I know. The ‘G’ is, well sort of silent, it’s there to twist your mouth as you pronounce the ‘n’ to get the right sound. Nyarr-nn-haarr.
Not easy to spell, not easy to remember, not even my first choice. But it’s mine, and... at least it’s never taken.
Almost Never: Professional Crazy?
I am on a disability support pension, heck I qualified for it back when I was, frankly, better than I am right now. I reason it out thusly: I am crazy. I get money for being crazy. Therefore I am a professional crazy.
My psychiatrist has said I’m not crazy, and I’m not saying having OCD = being crazy. In the end, it’s how I choose to self identify. Read Mara Wilson's article on OCD on Cracked.com Point 2 is where this comes into play.
Looking back into my childhood before the OCD developed, I can see at least one thing I did and say “Yeah, that was OCD right there.” But beyond that, I was always that extra bit different from other kids my age. Hitting (and mostly finishing puberty in primary school rather than in high school like everyone else also contributed to some of my quirks.)
Also, I seem to approach some things differently than most people. I took psychology as an elective in high school, and when I left high school, in the adult ed classes I took as an alternative. I’d be saying something in class, and the teacher was always cutting me off, saying I was off topic.
As far as I was concerned I was on topic, she just never let me finish, so I could show what I was saying did tie into the discussion. I was just approaching things from such an oblique angle, no-one saw the connection I was trying to make.
Plus my social skills were never the best, and towards the end of primary school I was starting to isolate myself. Then in high school, well my friends all went to a different school, and I was left with a combination of people I knew from primary school and didn’t get along with, mixed with strangers that mostly wanted to pick on me. I didn’t have friends in high school, I had acquaintances that occasionally weren’t interested in making my life hell.
So what little social skills I had atrophied, and as I moved closer and closer to my current housebound state, they withered even further. I see myself not only as an introvert, but shy. And for many years I really was. My classmates in TAFE did not see things the same way. But that’s because if I do feel comfortable enough to start a conversation, I tend to verbally hold people down and talk at them until they run away or beg for mercy.
Social interaction is important, Terry Pratchett put it something like “people need to be bounced around by the Brownian motion of society”. I, barely even watch tv anymore.
Roping that tangent back to it’s origin of crazy. It’s also a shorthand I use with my family. Anything related back to my OCD, requests, restrictions, explanations, instead of a long, frustrating explanation they know they’ll never fully ‘get’, it’s easier to just say “It’s a crazy thing.” and move on.
Sometimes it’s more of a discussion, with them offering suggestions, most of the time, I’ve already considered what’s been brought up. Other times, they can add that little piece I’m missing.... for a problem that by all rights shouldn’t exist. -I feel ‘crazy’ is an apt term.
I start with a simple question, and I produce another stream-of-consciousness wall-of-text attack. At least I paragraph it? ....time to look up how to put this under a cut.