Snapshot

I wash my arms over and over until I feel like maybe some of the germs have found their way to the bottom of the drain. If I tried to count the exact number of washes I’d most likely lose count and then my mind. I’ve rubbed the skin of my body so extensively that I can no longer feel the scratchy material of the sponge or keep a decent lather. My fingertips are pruney and wrinkled by the first stage of the cycle. At work I find myself clicking the pen in patterns of four, then another four, another, one more and maybe I will finally be able to refocus. And when the pen doesn’t click right, maybe it’s not loud enough, maybe it squeaked on the second set but not on the first—I have to do it again and again until the sets balance in a series of four. That could be 16, 32, 40, 48—as long as it’s sets of four maybe I can shake the nagging feeling of unease. Just talk it out, just write it out—that’s what a journal is for, they say. I’ve been trying that for 13 fucking years, when the hell does it start to feel better? I was maybe seven when the OCD rushed through my veins like heroin I was instantly addicted, not by choice, not by desire, maybe by genetics or weakness of mind? I remember the moment it took hold, as a child something my mother said sparked the hand washing fourteen times in a row. I think she saw it then and knew, maybe she knew what I had in store but being my mother didn’t want to be the one to condemn me. I searched subconsciously for distraction maybe that’s why I started writing in the first place. I tried to fill the void inside me that developed when I heard the words cancer and my mother. Practically from birth I knew of her illness—sometimes I wonder if that was the foundation on which OCD built itself home. Those were the years of the minor things: the counting, avoiding cracks in the pavement, the introduction of actions in batches of four. At fourteen, when my mother passed that’s when the OCD latched on—I became the host to a vicious monster that wanted to consume me. It became the more mental, more severe; it embedded itself into the corners of my brain, seeped into all the good parts that still made me happy—the parts I cherished and protected. They say traumatic events can be a trigger, I guess they’re right because from that day forward there was no turning back. It didn’t take long for the panic to reappear—same nasty creature but this time it had a name and came in fits of sobbing and bouts of hyperventilation. Are the walls closing in or is it just me? Do you hear that screaming? It’s coming from me, you say. I didn’t know. The simple act of washing my hands holds the power to alleviate the pressure pushing me down or it can cause me to burst into uncontrollably tears that spill loudly or soundlessly depending on the day, making me want to fall to the floor hugging myself rocking back and forth. The simple act of feeling emotions has the power to crumble me, I ignite with the fury of 40,000 bees in the center of my chest, I can’t control it. I can’t express it, there’s something wrong with how I process emotions. There’s an internal explosion. I try to put the pieces back together but I can’t make sense of them. It flusters and breaks. Magnifies and screams And if the tears come I’m almost happy because that means there’s a chance I will feel better. Add in my period, TMI I know, and I swear I’m clinically insane. Something happens that intensifies everything. I never feel lower, feel more worthless, more hopeless than I do once a month when my ovaries expel eggs and my body attempts to balance it out. The solutions buried in there somewhere I just know it. And in these rare moments when I bare myself to the world, when I speak with such honesty—I’m terrified. I open myself up to being misunderstood, to someone slapping a fragile sticker on my forehead. That may well be true but I carry that responsibility not you. If as you hear this you find yourself thinking I’m crazy I will tell you this—join the club. The hardest thing for me to understand is that I AM NOT CRAZY. I’m a little damaged, but who isn’t? There’s strength in enduring all the obsessions and compulsions—all the thoughts on constant replay in my head that I have still not yet mentioned. This is the dark part of me I’ve never shared with anyone but my sister. I’m showing glimpses—snapshots if you will to experiment. Does having people know— Does explaining my struggle make me feel any better? I still can’t tell. =Amanda= 9/5/13 around 8pm