What it Feels Like to Have OCD: Part 1
My lashes creep open, slowly letting light into the blue, green, and red cones in the back of my eyes. The dreams I had during the night, or didn’t have, stay with me for a few more seconds, and I bask in the comfort of a quiet mind. Then, the thoughts begin.
‘Martell, not morten, mortice, not morten. Mortenezz, not morten. Never morten. Go martell, stupid morten. Morten, hell no, never, but martellis only, hell yes martellis.’
I can literally feel my brain turning it’s cogs, heating up the engine, going into overdrive. My head starts it’s usual slight aching, signaling the start of a constant dialogue in my head. I turn to my stuffed animals, my rabbit on my left side, it’s head snuggled in the crook of my arm. My fox is about a quarter down the bed, tucked under the sheet and comforter, and my labradoodle is turned on his head, almost toppling off the side.
‘Ooh, that was close’, I think, as I grab him and pull him back from the perilous clutches of the dirty floor. ‘I would’ve had to wash you again’, my mind says as I grab him and pull him close to my chest. I sit up in bed.
‘Morten, hell no never, but martellis only.’
I hold my labradoodle up to my eyes, and give him a good-morning kiss on the nose, set him down and give the same kiss to my fox. I pick up my bunny and give him a kiss on the nose as well.
‘Crap, that didn’t feel right. There was a thing that I felt in my mind when I did that. Have to do it again.’
‘Martenez, not morten. Martellis only, never morten. Morten hell no never, but martellis only. Morten hell no never, but martellis only. Morten hell no never, but martellis only. Morten hell no never, but martellis only’.
I pull my bunny in close again, giving him a quick kiss on the nose, and set him down.
I smile at them all- ‘No, that smile didn’t feel right’. I relax my lips and eyes, go back to neutral, then smile again. ‘Ok, that was fine’.
I pull back the covers of my sheets and reach my feet to the soft carpet below. I stand up, stretch a bit, crack my neck from side to side. I readjust my eyes, give my head time to recover from the blood rush I got standing up quickly. I pull up the covers on my bed, tucking my stuffed animals in for the day. I start to move to go into my living room. I look down. Watch my pant legs as I walk. Got to make sure the fabric doesn’t touch any of the sides. Of anything. I grab the flowy leg fabric and hold them tight, to make sure they don’t inadvertently touch the wall as I move past. I slide past my bedroom door, shuffling through the arch, glancing quickly up at my left shoulder to make sure my t-shirt fabric didn’t touch the wood frame as I went by.
‘Marten, not morten. Martenezz, not morten, never morten’
I continue to shuffle down the short hallway that opens up to my living room. More space. I allow my hands to let go of the fabric, and my pant legs balloon back to their original shape. I grab my empty glass on the table next to my couch, turn on the TV, and walk into my kitchen, taking very deliberate steps as I go. Can’t have any fabric touching the countertops.
‘I think I felt something on my arm as I went by that chair. Was it the wind, my imagination, or did my arm really just graze that chair?’
I stand there for a second. Contemplating, arguing with myself. I slightly go through the motion of what my body had just done. Recreating the scene, seeing if it could even be feasible that my bent elbow could have grazed the high barstool chair. I motion back and forth, going through it in my head.
‘Did it touch?! Did it?!’
No, I finally reconcile. It’s literally impossible for my elbow to have touched the chair. The heights are too different. There’s at least a 6 inch gap there. I go back to my path into the kitchen. Making sure my hip doesn’t hit the jutted out corner of the tabletop, I place the glass on the counter and turn to the fridge. I grasp the cool black handle, and yank open the door. Bending down I grab the water filter pitcher. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my hair strands falling to settle next to my cheek.
‘Uh oh. Did a strand touch the bbq sauce bottle sitting in the top rack of the fridge door?’ Slowly I turn my head just enough so my eyes can gauge the distance between the bottle of sauce and my slightly swaying hair.
‘I don’t think it touched’. I move my head slightly up and down, just enough so my stray hair strands gently float down like they did when I first crouched down to grab the water. I turn my eyes to the left, watching the hair fall, trying to spatially decide whether the hair could’ve touched it. Even slightly.
‘Phew. Not today. I really didn’t want to wash part of my hair this morning. I don’t have time for that’.
I continue with the motion I started before, slide the water pitcher out of the fridge, do a swift pirouette to reach my glass on the counter, and pour in the water. Carefully I pour, watching to make sure the droplets splashing up from the empty glass don’t touch the outer sides.
‘Looking good. No drips’.
A slight wrist flick to bring the pitcher up and away from the glass, making sure the pitcher doesn’t touch the now full glass.
‘Aaannnd, clear. Did it touch? I don’t think so, it looks good. I didn’t hear any clink. Come one Ash, it’s fine, it’s fine’.
I go through the same motions I did just seconds earlier, returning the pitcher to it’s icy home in the refrigerator.
I close the large door, and turn to go wash my hands at the sink. Can’t have any germs that could’ve accumulated on the fridge handle or water pitcher transfer from my hands to anything in the apartment.
Carefully I push the water faucet up with the back of my palm, starting a steady flow of water from the tap into the stainless steel basin below.
‘Not too hard, don’t want the drops of water to hit the sink then rebound and splash into my clean shirt or pants. The residue on the sink surface would then transfer over to my clothes through the water droplet, and I’d have to change shirts’.
‘Marten, not morten, martinez, not morten. Hell yes go Cody Ware, not morten, Marteen, not morteen. Marteen, not morteen. Never morteen. Always martinez.’
I reach over and place my open palm under the automatic soap dispenser, letting it sense my presence and commanding it to release the wonderful invention that is hand soap with aloe vera. Washing my hands so often leaves them dry, and the aloe vera helps. Somewhat.
Carefully, I push my hands together, rubbing in the white shimmery soap into both palms, forming a good strong lather. Wringing my hands together over and over, the soap bubbles increase and cover my clasped hands entirely. Little streams of water start to run down my fingers. Still I push and pull my hands together, fingers interlocking and releasing. I run them under the warm current of water, cleansing them of the soapy lather. Once they’re completely devoid of any bubbles, I reach my hand back under the dispenser and grab another glob of soap. I repeat this process two more times, barely avoiding a stray water drop that had bounced off the inside of the sink and ricocheted up towards my right forearm.
With my knuckles I reach towards the back of the faucet gently pushing down on the round crown, the place I only touch when my hands are clean, and never with the open side of my finger. The water comes to a stop.
I retract my hands back to my body, away from the sink, making sure the dripping water from my skin doesn’t hit the countertop and bounce towards my shirt.
I pick up the hem of my shirt and twist my damp hands inside it, drying them with the clean cotton I had slept in the night before. Once dry, I check my arms for any hair that might have clung to the wet arms from my shirt whilst drying. I pick up my glass of water from the counter, and shuffle back to my couch.
I place the glass down on the coaster beside my couch, and prepare to enter it’s soft embrace.
I stand just to the side of it, it’s bed of grey wrapped foam coming up to just below my kneecaps. I lift one foot and step up onto the couch.
‘Marten, not morten. Never morten. Hell yes martinez, never morten. Not morten, but marten. Marten, not morten. Never morten. Marten only. Morten-’
I lift my other leg up off the ground and put my whole weight onto the couch.
‘Crap, I was thinking ‘morten’ as I left the ground’.
I put my foot back on the ground.
‘Morten hell no, but martenezz only. Only Marten.’
Quickly I leap off the ground, hanging on to the ‘marten’ thought.
‘There, that works. That was good.’
I lay down and pull my bright red blanket over me, settling in to my favorite spot. My brain slows down, just a bit. My racing heart starts to take a pace lap, coming down in beats per minute. I reach for the remote and find a new episode of a sitcom I like, press play, and start escaping into the world of a casual, friendly, New York apartment.
‘Marten, not morten, martinez, not morten, never morten, always marten’.
I reach over, grab my iPad, and start catching up on emails that came into my inbox while I slept.
Dean of Students Office. I quickly browse over that.
‘Julia Roberts’ ‘Clever Housemaid’ Review: THR. Not interested in that movie, mark as read’.
‘Defense Secretary targets new militia group’
‘Crap. Triggering for some reason. Can I quickly click off the email... nope. Stuck in a spiral. Damnit’.
‘Not militia, but CIA, CIA, never militia. Stupid militia, go CIA. CIA only, never militia, only CIA.’
My brain speeds up. Reaching an “acceptable” phrase, I quickly delete the email.
‘No, that didn’t feel right. Dang-it!’
I go to my trash folder, retrieve the deleted message.
‘Never militia, only marten, never morten. Only martinez. Stupid militia, go CIA. Only CIA, never militia, go CIA. Never morten, only marten’.
Quickly I swipe to once again delete the message.
‘Ok, good, that was fine’.
I glance at my clock on the screen.
‘7:45. Got to get ready’.
I set my iPad back in it’s place on the table, remove my blanket from my lap, and stand up. Removing my pajama bottoms, I place them on the couch, clean, until I get back from school.
I walk into my bathroom, a bit more careless this time, as I’m getting ready for school it’s ok if my knee or arm accidentally touches the side of the wall. I’m just going to shower after I get home anyway, and I’m not going to touch anything in my apartment again until after school.
I stare into the mirror, tired green eyes staring back at me.
‘I like my green eyes. And my freckles. I don’t know why people try and cover their’s up’ I wonder. I open the side drawer of my cabinet sink, pulling out my liquid eyeliner and twisting open the tube. Uncapping it, I draw a meticulous thin line of black ink onto my upper eye rim. I do the same to my right eyelid, put the eyeliner back, and grab the mascara. I apply that too, followed by some concealer and blush.
I yank off my sleep shirt, pull on a bralette, and apply deodorant to my armpits. I pull my hair back into a ponytail, making sure the elastic is tightly wrapped round my dark brown hair, then reach for my toothbrush. I rinse it under the water, put some toothpaste on and shove it into my awaiting mouth. Turning it on, I start the motions.
‘Back and forth, back and forth. Up and down, up and down. Back and... that didn’t feel right. Back and... back and... back and...’
I move my brush in the same motion, back and again, until I decide it feels ok to move on.
Turning on the tap water, I rinse my brush, then spit. Grab a Dixie cup, fill it with water, then rinse out my mouth. I fill the cup again, and uncap my medicine bottle. Out come three Flouxetine capsules, 60mg all together, into my raised palm. I look down at the just off-white capsules, wonder at how it is these three little things, smaller than a nickel, help keep my OCD to a manageable level. I remember for a second how I was when I didn’t take them. Then quickly pivot my mind to other topics.
‘Too difficult to think about that time’.
I throw the capsules into the back of my throat, and take several gulps from the Dixie cup.
I wash my hands, going through the same procedure I did in the kitchen: gently turn on the water, place my hand under the soap supply, lather my hands together, rinse, lather again, rinse, lather, rinse.
I turn off the tap, dry my hands on the hand towel above my toilet, and slip on a fresh pair of pants, shirt, and socks. I put on my belt, coat, grab my credit cards and ID cards, my phone, keys, and watch. I go back into my bathroom, wash my hands again.
‘Can’t have the germs on my cards and belt touch my socks when I put on my shoes’.
I dry my hands on the hand towel, carefully, making sure the cuffs of my “dirty” jacket don’t touch it. I flick off the lights in my apartment, and make my way to the floor mat by my door where all my shoes are stored. This is the point of no return. Everything on the other side of the mat is “dirty”, and once I step over there, there’s no going back into my clean cocoon.
Carefully I place my sock covered foot into my red canvas shoes. With my clean hand, I guide the heel into the already tied shoe, encasing the clean sock in the clean confines of the inside fabric. All the while, the shoe doesn’t leave the mat. Doesn’t move past the line. One foot in the shoe, over the point of no return, one foot back in my kitchen. Like a flamingo raising it’s leg, I place my other foot into my shoe, again guiding it in with my clean hand.
I stand up straight. Over the line. My breathing eases. I undo the lock and open my apartment door, immediately being hit by a rush of cold November air. I sigh, breathing in the fresh scent of fall. Closing and locking the door behind me, I step out to start my day
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