Motorcycling and An Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

By and large I believe that parents do the best they can for their children with what they’ve got no matter how rich or poor.

You know I often look at my age, deduct the age my father was when I was born, and then move the calendar back to him at my age now. – you follow that – for example Dad was almost 33 years old when I was born, and so 33 years ago he was the age I am now. Where and what happened in his life back then, and how did he handle it. Similarly jumping forward, when say I was 10 years old, he was 43, as I am now coming up 57 and I can look back when I was 43. I can think of him when he was that age and ask myself how he coped with the challenges confronting him (and me as a young lad) at the time.

In life we can look back and recognize our achievements and also challenges that confronted us, and we can move forward with the experience we have gained. They say you drive ahead in your life and don’t stare in the rear view mirror for if you do you lose track of where you are going, crash and ‘become lost’. Riding my motorbike I often check my mirrors because I don’t want anything to come up unexpectedly. This gives added meaning to my signature ‘Heads Up and Enjoy’. I always keep my head up and enjoy the ride, now. My own anxiety however at times has been brought about by false logic - there is no real threat in the mirror of life so I don’t go out looking for it. If and when something goes wrong worry about it then, not before it happens – it may never happen and if it does well you have more energy at hand than wasted energy burnt up worrying.

Over the many years I would stumble and fall emotionally when I looked back to those years from age ten onwards, and the decisions I made. There had been strong feelings of guilt when I looked back at those ‘decisions’. Now I look back at the ‘choices’ I made, sure we have all come to roads in our lives, but now I do not say to myself, ‘if only…’ or ‘I should have done….’ The tragic death of my younger brother in late October 2008 brought home to me the false logic in my thinking I had been applying up until about five years ago.

Our mother died in 2001 and by around 2003/04 I was gradually coming to terms with my ‘medical retirement’. I stopped working in 1999 – but that is another topic for later. The ongoing clinical management of my OCPD made me realize that ‘should’ was no longer in my dictionary and that is a good thing. When we say to ourselves ‘if only I did that then….’ This is the same as saying ‘I should’ve or I should have done …’ Of course thinking ‘if and shoulds’ this will bring in immediately feelings of guilt.

The reality of my brother’s death, when I was told how he died, is very personal. The point is however, there were no immediate feelings of guilt. Don’t get me wrong here - of course there was anguish and grief but I did not burden myself with ‘if only I had been there when we were younger as a real brother rather than being in the Navy or the here in New Zealand.’