That Other "O" Word

A potato succumbs to gravity and tumbles out of a ceramic bowl, falling onto the blade of a knife and causing the (freshly sharpened) point to arch across the kitchen and embed itself in a person’s chest.

The driver in the car ahead, having spent the night working overtime, dozes for half a second, sending their car into a leaning telephone pole, shattering the wood and dropping the active electrical wires into the people waiting for a bus.

Two cats playing chase through the living room veer into climbing an oak and glass bookcase in the corner, tipping the weight just far enough to unstable the shelves and send them toppling forward, crushing both felines.

Sound like the plots of a Final Destination movie, don’t they? (Maybe they actually are scenes. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one of the flicks.) A series of seemingly innocent and inexplicable events culminating in a gore-fest to tantalize horror fans.

Except this isn’t Hollywood drama.

This is what it’s like when your brain becomes enchanted with the “O” part of OCD. Obsessive thoughts of injury and death set on a continuous loop through your thoughts. Disaster after disaster writ large until all you can think of is horror-come-to-life. And the most you can do is scream, “STOP!” at the top of your mental lungs, praying to divert your brain onto something else.

On a good day, I spend four hours a day watching these images play out against my mind’s eye. They feed into my anxiety, supplying any number of new fears to dwell on and panic over. Can’t leave anything plugged in because a freak power surge might lead to a spark and burn the house down. Have to push and pull on every piece of furniture so a random earthquake (try to remember I live in Virgínia) doesn’t send them collapsing on top of everyone. Assume that every other driver on the road is impaired and out to take as many people out with them in the process. (Okay, so that thought might be one worth hanging onto.) Consider the choking possibilities of every pet toy in the store until you’ve convinced yourself that the Pet Industry is in league with the Veterinary Profession to drive injury. (Remember, this is on a good day!)

On a bad day, I barely get to take a breath without imagining inhaling lethal toxins. I close up and shut down because looking at, reading, or hearing anything sets off a new wave of dismembered body parts, gallons of blood, and unearthly screams. The best I can hope for is retreating to a tiny corner in the back of my mind, hands over my ears, eyes squeezed shut, trying to hum a show tune or cartoon theme song.

None of this—good or bad—can show on my face, though.

The outside world might get a glimpse of anxiolytic mumbling, but that’s easily ruled out as a panic spiral; something known to pass. Eventually. My frantic rearranging of the furniture is an odd form of nesting designed to placate my nervous system. It has nothing to do with the gore splashed around the inside of my brain. My clenched hands signal nothing more than a complete lack of trust in the driver. They aren’t a sign that I’m looking anywhere but outside where any number of dangerous objects threaten to end an existence. Everything I do reveal is easily dismissed or recategorized to something much more mundane.

Because the world would never look at me the same if they knew I saw it melting and oozing into a radioactive puddle.

“You’re a sociopath.”

“You need serious therapy.”

“What the ever-loving hell is wrong with you?”

No one’s said those things to me (not yet). Save me. Every time the images throng in, I question my sanity, upbringing, and moral compass. I wonder what I did to invite this unending loop of violence into my deepest thoughts. And I suggest the world would be better off without me in it, lest those casual images turn into realities.

It never occurred to me to acknowledge that my horror indicated a solid ground. Or to remind myself that I have never once in my life caused intentional harm or violence, regardless of provocation. All I could see was the worst of humanity writ large upon my daily existence.

Then Janine sent me the Y-BOCS to complete (among three other forms on autism). She’d asked me to answer as honestly—and without complex thought—as possible. One thing I’ve always prided myself on was following instructions. The form sat on my desk for days before I felt confident enough to answer the questions. By the last page, my hands started shaking. Not so much because I knew I needed to scan the form and return it to a relative stranger for analysis (and judgement?), but because I had to confront the truth to myself.

How often did I find myself visualizing horrible acts?

Did I struggle with thoughts I couldn’t stop myself from contemplating?

Was I afraid of my own brain?

When I scored too high, Janine let me know I’d need to schedule another interview to dive deeper into my suspected OCD. And those questions were harder. Maybe I didn’t know her, would never meet her in person, but I had to look at her (or, to be fair, around her) and admit that I was a wretched human being. I spent more time looking down at the desk, twisting my fingers around each other, and having to repeat myself because my voice dropped into the whisper range than I did in any of my autism interviews. The form had cracked open the door of confrontation, but now I was through it and having to face an audience.

“Have you ever told anyone about these thoughts?”

Her question felt like an accusation, like a prelude to a psychological commitment. I couldn’t even spit out a word by that point, simply sat in silence before I gave her a tiny shake of my head.

“Talking about your fears is the only way to confront them,” she said. Then, in a soft voice, she added, “You must feel so alone.”

Sympathy—maybe even a touch of empathy?—wasn’t what I expected. Where was the undisguised horror? The blatant disgust? Why wasn’t she rushing to end the interview and divest herself of someone so despicable? I hadn’t prepared myself for quiet understanding; as much as a “normal” person can understand what it’s like to drown in blood all day.

Given all the signs, I still blinked in shock at the diagnosis of severe OCD.

I didn’t wash my hands obsessively . Numbers (aside from my persistent need to spell words in pairs of letters) didn’t dominate my life. My purse wasn’t filled with plastic cutlery to prevent me from contacting (potentially) unwashed utensils in public. I didn’t see a single stereotype of OCD in my daily life.

The “Obsession” was designed for people who scalded their hands, wore out door locks, or broke their ankles avoiding cracks on the sidewalk. No one meant for it to describe people who couldn’t stop cycling gruesome accidents through their heads. Right?

I re-read John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down. The book had touched a part of me the first time, but I needed to find an answer. Did Aza have overwhelming thoughts that borderlined horror for a young adult audience? Had she begged herself to stop the intrusion of unwanted images? (Spoiler: Yes, to both questions)

A mainstream individual wouldn’t see the gritty details. Another person battling OCD would find every tiny speck.

My mind—ignoring all desire for the opposite—hijacked my thoughts. Throughout the day, whenever it could find a crack to squirm through, it delivered horror intended to freeze and flee. It was beyond my control (more or less). And while I certainly didn’t want to accept it, the obsessive thoughts didn’t make me a horrible person. Or less than a person. Nothing more than another facet of how the neurons wired themselves.

Janine (I didn’t trust my therapist enough to talk to him) walked me through breathing exercises to get through the worst onslaughts. Forcing the hyperventilation to slow and filling my head with a crude scribble of a square sounded ridiculous. Nor did it work in every instance—my fingertip tracing “ST” and “OP” on the surface of my thumb over and over and over. (Even Janine couldn’t say whether this habit leaned into the autistic or OCD bucket) It was a thin lifeline in a sucking swamp of despair, though.

Some days, the thoughts get the better of me. I can’t stop the panic from spilling out, a direct result of images thrust into my internal vision. Tim does his best to gently talk me out of the anxiety, but sometimes the most he can do is agree and move that chair away from the bookcase so the cats don’t accidentally bring it down on top of them. He’s quick to spot when my fingers start their spelling dance and ask what’s wrong.

Other days, I find a gram of strength and scream at myself to “STOP!” The rebellion is such a shock to my system, my brain has no choice but to fall silent.

And plan when it’ll make its next attack.