Wilson has no idea he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or what that even really is. At no point does he walk into any sort of office and have someone tell him there’s something wrong with him. He recognizes that how he thinks is unusual, but chalks it up to being just another flaw in his personhood that needs to be stamped out. Everyone has their quirks is what he tells himself.
As a child, his symptoms went unnoticed, or were at best brushed off as him being an overly-anxious child that worried about anything. It didn’t help that his mother had no diagnosis for OCD herself and in turn inflicted her own neuroticism upon the household. A younger Wilson was perhaps a bit superstitious, avoiding cracks on sidewalks and ladders and only stepping on the black tiles of their kitchen floor. Silly, he knew it, but it eased his mind. It all got worse as he reached adolescence, and then again throughout his twenties. Being an independent adult gave him more to worry about and a lack of treatment or awareness didn’t help.
The first obsessions he became aware of were somatic. Blinking, breathing, the weight of his eyelids. Being aware of his own body to the point of detriment, and neverending cycles of trying to “fix” the sensations. An early sign was also his concern with numbers, order, and “rightness” that seemed arbitrary to others. Harm obsessions, and all the violent intrusive thoughts that come with, were also pervasive to his young mind. Thoughts of hurting himself, people he loved, strangers, anyone he could imagine were equal parts unavoidable and distressing. These thoughts were never voiced out of fear of judgement, and a fear of speaking them into existence. Wilson doesn’t drive until his thirties due to how stressed he is by the idea of it ending poorly. His sexual orientation and relationship obsessions play off of each other in a real foul way, where he feels unsure in his identity and therefore feels as though he’s betraying any given partner. Worst of all is his obsession with morality, and what it means to be a “good” person. His idea of what makes a good, productive member of society is completely warped and leads him to carry on in life with extreme expectations for himself. Naturally, being a morally correct and extremely normal man was at odds with his faggotry and this stresses him out to no end.
Wilson’s compulsions come in any form he can force them into. Clicking his pen twelve times then twelve times again then twelve more for good measure. Replaying a memory until he forgets why he even thought about it to begin with. Picking at his skin and pulling his hair out, and doing it again til it scars. Reciting numbers in a pattern, or counting everything he can see in his field of vision. Blinking fifteen times in a row. Forcing thoughts, replacing the bad ones with what he knows are fake positive ones. Fixing his tie to be looser, then tighter, then looser again. Walking back to his apartment from his bus stop to make sure he locked the door and missing the bus, again.
