But THIS wasn’t MY dream! Auntie had left her shop to me. I don’t know why. It wasn’t the sort of shop for me. My business plan was a top-end interior decoration shop, offering the best of international style, furnishings, liaison with other ‘top’ bath and kitchen suppliers. A complete service from carpets to curtains, floor to ceiling.
Not this – not a clothes shop. Selling dresses to women. Daft. The whole idea was stupid. But tempting maybe. An existing clientbase with, apparently, enormous goodwill at a fantastic location.
Time to assess, investigate, learn. Why throw away something that’s up and running because I wanted something of my own? I’d seen so many try and fail. This was a runner – and it was making a good profit.
So, to Craydon. The site was even better than I’d been told. The place was busy and buzzing. I wandered in to suss out the staff and ambience.
I’d been in there just a few minutes when one of them came up and asked ‘Do you need help? Are you looking for something special for yourself?”
What did she mean? ‘Something for myself’. I’m six foot 3; an ex-rugby player in my mid-thirties. I went all aggressive “I think not. ‘something for myself?! ….. In a woman’s dress shop!’. Do you say that to any man who comes in here. What if you said that to a man with his wife nearby.”
The lass, Betriz, all of mid-twenties, responded vigorously. “That’d be silly. No – I don’t say that to any typical man – but you were looking at the clothes differently than the typical accompanying husband. I’m sorry if I made a mistake.”
“A mistake, yes. But I was looking differently because I’m the new owner.
I'm not so sure the fetish interests are, in and of themselves, such a big problem; that is, if you had only those inclinations and NO OTHER ISSUES, you wouldn't be here looking for some help. The fetishes would just be a "float your boat" matter and little else. And, truth to tell, if you talk to anyone long enough, you'll find that just about EVERYONE has SOMETHING.
So the issues are really the incipient OCD and the very serious impact on your life owing to the obsessive thoughts, together with some basic health challenges arising from lack of sleep, restricted diet, etc. And of course all these things tend to feed on each other.
What you need at this moment is a kind of circuit breaker to disrupt whatever mental and emotional wheels seem to be spinning on their own power, so "you" can be back in the driver's seat. As is so often the case, a mental affliction is frequently found riding shotgun with high intelligence; as is obvious from your writing, you are blessed (or cursed) with great intelligence.
But in the end, your brain will be your best ally, because the brain is the only organ that can talk to, and think about, itself. And if you have a high functioning brain as you clearly do, you will come to the point where you can accept and trust your own good council.
For right now, though, you'll need some help from some other brain; most likely the one in the skull of a skilled psychiatrist with whom you will consult. My best guess is that an early treatment will involve drugs, and it may take some time before the right cocktail is found, for you. And of course talk therapy, where your brain gets involved in the process.
So what you need to do at this moment is to find the help, which I strongly recommend you do.