In a galaxy far, far away ...

This is the prologue.

OK, so I'm a thirty-year-old nondescript kind of guy, working in an investment bank. All investment banks are, of course, completely evil and completely deserve the rough time they are currently experiencing in the turbulent financial markets. Apart from mine, of course. We're lovely.

All is not well. My personal life shows several signs of going completely bonkers (and has done for some time) and I, not wanting to end up in a padded-cell, decide enough is enough and resign. Quite what my plans were I can't say; I'd love that to mean that I'd got an alternative career lined-up as James Bond (would have to kill you if I told you, possibly inflicting death with an ingenious gadget) but alas, all it really meant was that desperation had reached the shoot-now-ask-questions-later point, and minor complications like jobs and money and all that could wait until later.

I explained to my lovely, lovely employers that I was on a one-way train to a nervous breakdown. The ticket was probably blue. A kind of duck-egg blue. Yes, definitely blue.

They adopted a suitably caring facial expression. Perhaps, they said, it would be good to see a shrink. And, oh, you don't have any sharp objects anywhere near you, do you?

The psychiatrist was an epiphany moment.

"You've got OCD."
"Errr, no I haven't."
"Yes you have."
"Pretty sure I haven't, Doctor."
"Pretty sure you have, actually. And I'm the qualified psychiatrist and you're just a mental."
NB - the conversation did not actually happen this way.

For those who have not spent the entire night reading everything the web has to offer on OCD, it means Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and is characterised by a compulsion (cleaning is the most frequently quoted example) driven by an obsession (so compulsive cleaning is often driven by an obsessive fear of germs). The sufferer is well aware of the totally irrational nature of the OCD, which is partly what makes it so unpleasant. Frankly, an obsessive need to clean the kitchen would be quite useful in my flat, since I tend to stand in the doorway, stare at it listlessly and then think, "maybe tomorrow". In fact all of my symptoms are around inaction, so I feel I got a rather raw deal on the symptoms front: not picking-up the phone / answering mail / ignoring the real world / not maintaining contact with, well, anyone, really. Of course, all those people who are left house-bound by their OCD may disagree.

Apparently, quitting my job would be the worst thing for me and would have seen me decline. Which was nice to know since, at the time, declining felt like walking off the balcony. It also added an extra incentive to withdrawing my resignation.

"So, you're withdrawing your resignation?"
"Yes."
"Thing is, we were kind of thinking the team did need to get a bit smaller."
"Oh."
"And it came at a handy time."
"It's just that I'll die if you don't."
"That's kind of pressuring."
"Yeah, you and me both."
NB - not this conversation either.

And that's me. In a nut-shell. Back at work, all my bosses thinking I'm a flake (as in unreliable, not the wonderfully chocolate kind, I'm pretty sure their sanity is at a higher level than mine and therefore they do not have delusions of me as a chocolate bar) and trying to repair the personal life I've somehow devastated. Fun!