dead_felon | Jan. 31, 2022, 5:54 p.m.
I know it's not Friday, but as the 21st century poet Drake wrote "Better late than never, but never late is better." I've struggled with mental health issues my entire life. Mostly anxiety, depression, and I have struggled with OCD as long as I can remember.
When I was a kid I was stuck with a sharp pencil and the tip broke the skin. The smartest kid in my class told me I might get lead poisoning. Being an ignorant little kid, I had to ask what lead poisoning was. He explained to me "Pencils have lead in them. If you're stabbed with a pencil, or if you eat lead, or if you don't wash your hands after touching lead, then you can get lead poisoning and die." Oh shit!
I didn't know that pencils are made with graphite. I really didn't even know what lead was. I couldn't just google it. It didn't matter though. This kid was smart and made good grades. He was knowledgeable about everything and he saved my life from lead poisoning! He's a hero! Up until I learned about lead poisoning, my biggest fears were quicksand and hot lava (not that cold lava bullshit). This added a third fear to my list.
I went through most of my youth with a horrible misunderstanding of lead and how lead poisoning works. This was the 80's. I couldn't just google something. If I wanted to research something, I needed to go to the library and open up some Encyclopedias. So you know that wasn't happening.
A few years later my parents got into doing stained glass. An entire section of our house now had stained glass supplies and projects laying out everywhere. If you aren't familiar with stained glass, the metal part between the glass is lead and it's soldered in place with lead solder. There was lead EVERYWHERE! We were surely going to die.
I watched my parents work on their projects and not wash their hands. I think I voiced my concerns that they should wash up, but I guess they didn't have a plethora of knowledge about lead poisoning like I did. I washed my hands all the time to prevent me from getting lead poisoning. Anytime I touched the project table or touched the lead, I washed my hands before I could poison myself. Someone needed to stay healthy to take care of the poisoned people.
It got worse though. I would watch my parents not wash their hands and then they would touch a door handle or the refrigerator handle and I would make note. Those are now contaminated with lead!!! So then I had to begin washing my hands even more to prevent the poisoning. I couldn't control it. I...HAD...TO...WASH...MY...HANDS! If I tried to skip washing, I would start to panic and then wash again.
I had ZERO control. I ended up washing my hands so much that my knuckles split open. They would bleed, then heal, then split again and bleed. It got to the point where my knuckles were thick scar tissue with big cracks that would split open and bleed. Even though I was in physical pain and knew why, I couldn't stop washing my hands.
That was my first experience with obsessive compulsive disorder. It certainly wouldn't be my last. You have to understand what it feels like. It's worse than an addiction. You are basically at the mercy of your own mind and your mind is an asshole. If I suffered this much over a fear of lead poisoning, how do you think I'm handling the pandemic?
Everything I went through was all due to a fear put into my head by the smartest kid in my class. If I was suffering from depression at the time, I probably wouldn't have cared about lead poisoning or dying. I've spent years working on circuit boards, soldering with lead based solder and inhaling the fumes without a care in the world. If lead poisoning is going to take me out, then it did me a favor. I've never experienced even mild lead poisoning. Part of me is disappointed because it seemed like such a rational fear at the time.
I guess the moral of the story is that even the smartest people you know can be wrong about stuff. Luckily we all have the internet in our pocket now, so it's much easier to fact check what people tell you.
Tags: lead poisoning ocd hand washing stained glass back in the day
