So there I was, sitting in my seat, feeling very uncomfortable. I remember doing this peculiar thing with my eyes. I’d start by looking at the teacher in the front of the classroom, but then my sight would stray to one side of the classroom. Immediately I would have to look at the opposite wall and look at the back wall of the classroom. I didn’t understand why I was doing it. I only understood that I had to do it. Anytime my sight went to one particular side of the room, I’d have to repeat the procedure to “even things out”. If I gave one particular area too much attention and things would feel unbalanced. I knew at the time that what I was doing wasn’t exactly normal, so I tried to hide these actions. I didn’t want someone thinking I was weird or anything.
Sixth grade trudged on. Every now and then I would catch myself doing something that wasn’t exactly normal. Walking down the hall, I would accidentally brush my left hand against my left leg. Suddenly things were unbalanced again. I would have to brush the right leg with my right hand so everything was okay again. Watching TV, I would do a similar balancing act with my eyes again. First, look at the eyes, then the nose, then the mouth. But this made things feel unbalanced again, so I would to the same thing in the opposite order. When talking to people, I had to resist the urge to do the same thing. Once again, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was weird.
This peculiar behavior showed up in other ways too, always because of this strange “unbalanced” feeling that needed to be corrected, or else I'd feel uncomfortable and anxious. My behavior of balancing things became more complex. For example, if I tapped one finger, I would need to tap each finger in a row in the same way. Then do it backwards. Then do every other finger, and so on. It was torture, and I couldn’t understand what was going on with me. I obviously couldn’t mention this to anyone. Maybe I was crazy.
In 10th grade I began taking a correspondence writing course. One of the course books was a compilation of articles and stories. I was reading some of them when I came upon an article called “Captive in Her Own Mind”. The title intrigued me, and reading it, I started learning what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was. In the article, I came upon a description of one girl’s symptoms that shocked me. When the author of the article described the symptoms of the disorder and the anxiety associated with it, I felt a sudden sense of de-ja-vu. “This must have been what I had in sixth grade,” I thought. Then I realized, “No. This is what I still have.”
After learning what to call my strange behavior, I felt I had a deep dark secret. I did not want this craziness to control my life. Slowly I started to teach myself to control it. Whenever I got the impulse to do something to balance things out, I resisted the urge. Sometimes that anxiety would pop up again, but I began to squash these annoying tendencies.
Even though I learned some control, every now and then I find the OCD popping up again. If I tap one foot twice, the other foot will have to be tapped as well. Realizing what I’ve done, I can usually stop at that point. I’m trying to completely get rid of this irksome disorder and the excessive anxiety it causes. I’m still not able to fully destroy some behaviors. In sixth grade I picked at my lip a lot because I often had chapped lips. Later on I became a nail biter. After that, I became a finger biter. I truly cannot help this anymore. Whenever someone sees my thumb (which suffers from a combination of this disorder and a scar that doesn’t want to heal) I try to hide it. I’m so embarrassed by this disorder, and I wish I could fully stop these obsessive balancing habits, but I haven’t been able to just yet.
Now that we’ve reached the end of this blog, you may be wondering what was so progressive about describing what OCD is like. I wanted you to know what it feels like to have a disorder that you can’t control. Seeing from another perspective is important and teaches us much about others while teaching about ourselves.
I should probably thank Edible Woman for me getting this out of my system. If I hadn’t read her blog series “The Making of an Edible Woman” where she describes her past battle with anorexia, I may not have had the guts to write this. I know, OCD isn’t nearly as bad as anorexia, but it’s still a problem and something I don’t discuss. I talked about it once, with my dad. I tried to tell him that I thought I had OCD but I don’t think he believed me. Whether he thought I was being a hypochondriac or joking around, I’m not sure. Maybe after this blog entry, this whole problem could clear up and I’ll be a better person because of it.
Hey, a person could hope.
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