Learning How to Lose a Sock (PS, it's not about a sock)

I remember as a kid, my mom always used to call me “Miss Straight-and-Narrow” due to my need to strictly follow the rules. If we had to bring R10 to school, I would not settle for two R5s, if we had to wear a certain colour, no variations were allowed. My mom thought that it was stubbornness, meanwhile, she never understood the sheer anxiety that I experienced over potentially doing something wrong and did not understand the black-and-white nature in which I saw life concerning me.

This is a theme that has been ongoing in my life and while I have a rather grey outlook on life in general, I hold firm rules for myself. I must follow life’s blueprint to a t.? Because, you see, it’s not the “staying on the track” that is my consideration, but rather the inflated consequences that may follow, and that I make up in my head.

And this brings me to losing a sock.

Feeling this intrinsic need to have everything in control or done a certain way, I did not realise what sheer panic I would go into when a sock got lost while doing my laundry at university. My mind was spiralling, thinking that if I could allow myself to lose a sock, what else was slipping through the cracks, what other tasks am I forgetting?

I would lie to you if I said that losing a sock, or a Tupperware, or some jewellery does not bother me potentially disproportionally – to a lesser degree, though. Because maybe, just maybe it does not matter.

Did you lose a sock? Well done, you are human, it happens. But see, it is not always so easy. If you dig deeper, you might find that it's not about a sock. It is about the sense of control it gives you to have your sock population matched, worn and washed on repeat. It is about mental ease and the elimination of the big and bad consequences that loom when things are “out of control.”

Within this year, I was introduced to the OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) loop, which is a cycle of obsessive thoughts, anxiety, compulsive behaviour and temporary relief (Pedersen, 2020). I am not self-diagnosing with OCD, and I cannot say that this describes my experience one hundred percent, however, I can relate to the relationship between compulsive behaviour and temporary relief.

It relates to my belief of the catastrophizing consequences if an action is not done to what I deem “correct.” The feeling that my life would fall apart if I lost a sock or that I would face public humiliation if I brought two R5s. OCD is described to be constructed from anxiety and fear (Pedersen, 2022) and I think that these two words help to break down this beast into two bites of the familiar. Fear and anxiety, who has not felt that before?

My life changed when I started seeing negative feelings as the symptoms of something going on elsewhere in my life. Maybe it is not about the sock, maybe it is about something underlying (spoiler alert, it is!). My experience is perhaps more unusual than usual, perhaps socks are not one of the biggest sources of anxiety for most people, but I think that we all have scapegoats for their fear and anxiety.

For me, learning how to lose a sock is a simple and symbolic display of my striving to let go, to stop catastrophizing the feeling that everything is out of control. Maybe the threads that we deem to hold everything together are not the characteristic of everything fraying. And maybe we do not have to feel in control to feel safe.

Make peace with losing your socks.

Reference list:

Pedersen, T. 2022. What is An Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Cycle? Link: https://psychcentral.com/ocd/ocd-cycle [Accessed: 2 November 2023]