It's germ season

How are you celebrating?

I’m not allowed to say I have OCD because I’ve never been officially diagnosed with OCD. I have no idea how to get diagnosed with OCD or ADHD, and I have never succeeded in my attempts to find the right person to do so, which gives me a clue to the diagnosis of the latter.

With that, I’m here to share an old chart and a new chart. The old one is about germs. The new one? Also germs. It’s germ season, and listen, I don’t want to pick up what you’re putting down. I don’t want your RSV, your “seasonal allergy,” your “not covid.” Whatever that cough is, I do not want it. The snot superhighway on your toddler’s upper lip? I lovingly decline.

I got the bivalent vaccine yesterday so maybe I’m just extra sensitive to feeling like garbage, but I’ve always had an irrational fear of some germs—my dog can lick pee and then lick my face, which is fine somehow. It might be a recessive gene, or a comorbidity of my family’s Catholic Latin American superstitiousness, or the fact that my aunt eats bread with a fork, but my fear of germs is one of the things I really wish I could get over. Still, even if I succeed one day, I’ll never be okay with your suitcase on my bed.

Here’s the first chart, which you can find in Am I Overthinking This? (my book!) which Wired included in “Amazing Gifts You'll Want to Keep for Yourself.” There’s also a journal if you need some space for overthinking.

And here’s the new one in two forms. Let me know which one you like better and I’ll make it better. Or not, because sometimes the messy version is better than the final (FINAL_noreally-finalfinal.jpg). Sometimes it’s better to accept the mess.

GERMS_V1:

GERMS_V2:

I already see a flaw in the first one: I drew a sleeve, and any germ-avoidant person would use that sleeve to touch the germy thing.

So, am I alone in this, or does anyone else have this kind of germ avoidance brain fart? I’d love to know you weird germ rituals, so that I can feel a little less alone about having two pairs of the same exact shoes: one for inside one for out, obviously.

Good luck this season. May you not get the bad thing that everyone is getting, and may you not drive your loved ones crazy attempting to avoid it. <3