Remember when you found out that COVID-19 would be more than a two-week ordeal and people started asking you questions like, “How are we going to cope with this scary time? How are we going to get used to seeing the world outside as dangerous? How are we expected to avoid approaching strangers and act like it is normal?” When my friends and I are asked questions like these, we reply with a sigh: “This has been my normal since long before the pandemic.” Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, we are neurologically unreliable at distinguishing what is safe from what is life-threatening. From my friend who is afraid to go outside – in case he sees a “disgusting” bird – to another who has struggled with a career in fashion – she views certain patterns on clothing as “bad luck” – to another who has avoided new restaurants – he is “deathly afraid” of getting food poisoning – you would think my crew is a non-spontaneous bunch. You would be wrong; these same people are fine with riding rollercoasters, driving fast cars, and swimming with sharks! OCD is a misunderstood beast. Contrary to what the media will tell you, a person is not “a bit OCD” when they appreciate order, cleanliness, or perfection. OCD is a disorder you either have or do not have that consists of unwanted obsessions or thoughts, feelings, images, or urges that “get more stuck” than the average person's, because patients misjudge how much their thoughts influence their and others' lives. These obsessions cover a wide range of themes – from a need for neatness, to fears that they are secretly pedophiles, a violent person, or going to Hell. What they worry is true is really the exact opposite of their values. This is how the disorder creates crippling fear. If your biggest fear were replayed on a loop daily, would your brain not get desperate trying to stop it? That is where compulsions come in. OCD tells patients that, to relieve anxiety, they must do mental or physical actions in certain ways. Since I was little, I remember feeling the need to blow a kiss to my bedroom ceiling before I left the house without knowing why. I just knew that if I did not, I would get bad luck, die, or anything in between. The catch with compulsions, other than making people the targets of bullying, is that doing them only temporarily relieves anxiety and makes the symptoms worse by confirming to their brains that the obsessions were correct to fear. It often takes years of expensive therapy to break every weird habit. Why was I trapped as a homebody before COVID-19? My OCD, specifically its perfectionism, contamination, and harm themes, got so severe at the beginning of 2020 that I had to leave college on medical leave, for the second time, and return home. I was so scared of the world that I only left my house for psychiatric evaluations. I barely kept myself alive because I was not able to eat or get through the day without having at least two multi-hour panic attacks. A good night's sleep meant that I did not wake up crying from a nightmare that I had drowned in an elevator filled with blood. During those first four months, I could count the things I was not afraid of on one hand. What got me through that seemingly impossible period to get to where I am now, the best my symptoms have ever been, other than Exposure Response Prevention therapy (accepting the potential consequences of obsessions and facing fears by not doing compulsions), was the connections I formed with my friends. Granted, they are much harder to cultivate in these physically distant times. So, imagine what it does to an OCD sufferer, who relies on day trips and nights out to distract from the spiral of distressing thoughts, when it becomes physically impossible to maintain those same healthy coping skills. The answer: more time alone with their thoughts leads to the return of past behaviors and new symptoms enabled by a world saying that it is “understandable” to be scared. I had to get craftier, literally, with my distraction techniques: I got back into making jewelry for my Etsy, Jazzories; writing mental-health-related poetry for my Instagram followers; and starting a makeshift Zoom support group for my fellow OCD warriors. You could say that self-expression led to the connections that have kept me alive in a climate of death. I believe those connections mean something: myself is worth expressing. This lesson is confirmed by the comments I get from people saying they relate to my story. What is the story those of us with OCD want shared? We ask that you understand us, not pity us, because we will win despite this biological bad draw. Understanding of OCD leads to faster diagnoses (the IOCDF states that on average, OCD patients get diagnosed 14-17 years after symptoms first appear) and better, more affordable treatment. Lastly, next time someone calls themselves OCD as a quirky adjective instead of a serious disorder, please educate them with an infectious smile!

The progression of a disease would be truly fascinating for the patient plagued with it, if it was not so utterly horrific. I imagine their being a map some God can throw down to me, where little red pinpoints mark events that led to, well,where I am mentally. The same way a doctor tracks a patients illness. Look, God would say, finger indicating a scenario in the prior year. Here's when you started losing your sanity. And this one is when you almost smashed in your fathers skull. And here's the one that made you realize you are nothi- Enough, I seethe, wringing my knuckles against my opposite palm; a meek attempt of calming down. Already the virus, the disease, the fucking condition is acting up again. Instead of counting how many times I do it, I should be counting times it doesn't bother me. My fingers twiddle desperately, as if some naive part thinks I can just unravel myself from this mess. I won't do it again. Cold turkey. I'll stop- But now, its creeping into my brain. Making me...feel things. Feel the invisible hands shoving against my back. Feel the cold breath against my skin. Feel the demons crawling inside my skull, infesting me, killing me inside out. No, not killing. Controlling. Brain dead, and yet, still alive. an empty shell to fill with whatever they desire. A puppet. That's what I know. That's all I know. The world is out to get me. One in every ten people I see are casting their spells out, manipulating their hands to send arrays of invisible chains out at me. Muttering their curses under their dead smirk; an attempt to make me a mindless drone. No longer me. I would never be me again. My heart thuds, panic clawing at my throat. And when it's not people, it's the spirits, hiding spells in my room, little flecks of lint or dust I inhale that will grow and grow like a parasite. Toys I adored so much as a child watching me, waiting to attack, to cast their magic. A brush of breath from the unseen monsters, that spread like a cage across my body, capturing me, mindless, forever. Constant terror. I know. I know hearing it sounds absurd. I know there is no logic. Why would a reasonable, somewhat intelligent girl like me believe in such dark magic. Or magic in general. I sound as if I'm some conspiracy speaker waving pamphlets in your face about how Beyonce is in with the president or the moon landing was fake. But, what if? What if I'm right. Why do I feel like there are things crawling all over me? Why does my vision go fuzzy every time I resist the ritual to ward out the spell, or to flinch away from the discomfort? There has to be a reason, and there's that chance, that miniscule chance, that my fears are true. Why does my brain begin squeezing as if two invisible demons are pressing it in, giddily playing the game of WHO CAN MAKE HER SCREAM FIRST? I always scream. My hands have ceased ringing, aware there is no stopping the tidal wave. Shit. Now I feel it crawling in my hair, little invisible bug legs tickling my scalp. I jerk my hand up, fingers raw, and pull at my hair. Now it's in my back. I push my shoulders behind me, an exaggerated pose of when my mother tells me to “sit up straight”. My bones crack. The brushing against my back fades as I hold the pose, unaware if my peers eyes are on me, and completely blank to the class lesson at hand. Because, while I got the feeling to go away, the thoughts came flooding in. You thought of that kid. That kid in the stairwell. Who always snaps. You thought of him while you were doing the back move and now you will become him. I completely believe it. And you may look at me as some idiot, some weak girl (I won't disagree... I am weak) but it's my thoughts. My thoughts are the disease, and there's absolutely no escaping them. I do the move again. The image of the boy floats to my mind. No, just stop. Please please please Stop. The move again, and again, and again, until a clammy sweat breaks out from my body. I imagine a happy memory, one I pretend the parasite has no control over. What a fun game that is; pretend. The picture of the boy-in-the-stairwell-who-I-will-become overpowers my memory. The move again. People are bound to notice. They'd be blind not to. The move again. I freeze, anticipating that random kid to still be etched into my mind, some deadly tattoo branded on by prison flames, but he has scurried away to the back of my brain. For now. A breath escapes, as I turn back to the history lesson, pretending nothing happened. Pretending I'm okay. Pretending I will never give in to the thoughts and rituals again. My hand slaps the back of my neck. What-the-fuck? Something has breathed on, or touched it. They have set their spell in. My head beings squeezing, two walls so tired of holding up against pressure they are moments away from crumbling. The clouds flicker from white to grey, and lightning strikes. I try to resist. I try. Pretend I thrust my shoulders backwards, and my never ending cycle continues.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It has shaped me like these hands have sculpted countless bars of soap into monstrous faces. I'm a soul condemned to suffering, and these hands are the instruments of my torture. I'm a mountain that has finally become a pebble in this old river of life. For every ritual there's a habit, and for every habit there's a ritual. The most sacred ritual involves my hands, a tap and a bar of soap. I've sacrificed true love, watching it flow over my hands, drip down my fingers and disappear down the drain. I've watched my smile become a symbol of deceit. I've seen myself dying a thousand deaths in the soap-speckled mirror above the basin. This bathroom is my shelter, my sanctuary, my temple of self-worship and self-destruction in which I'm a selfish god. It's both my blessing and my curse. OCD is all I've ever known, and it's all I've ever wanted to forget. I double-check doors to see if they're locked and I'm still not sure why. Perhaps it's a futile attempt to keep my inner obsessions and compulsions out. I turn the key in the keyhole and I somehow feel reassured that everything is as it should be. I want to live forever. I want to end it all. I want to be present and absent and nothing at all. Everything goes away but these obsessions and compulsions remain, attached to me like a second shadow. I've blamed my father. I've blamed my psychiatrist. I've blamed everyone except myself for this invisible cancer eating away at my soul. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. I love it. I hate it. I guess it's as much a part of me as this old river of life is a part of the dead sea. Sometimes I feel like drowning, and sometimes I feel the urge to come up for one last breath. Either way there's hope in hopelessness. There's always hope, or so I'd like to believe.