I feel I must preface further writing by discussing my OCD, because in a way, as much as I deny it, it is a core concept to who I am and how I think. During a short stint of therapy last year, my therapist offered CBT as a solution to my OCD. I told her (I’m not often proud of things I say, but in this case, I make a notable exception), that my OCD was like vines on an old garden fence. If I removed the vines, what would be left? The wood is all rotten. My OCD thinking had become the matter, my way of thinking, and everything surrounding it was excess. My laws, morals, and life were defined by an OCD way of thinking. It’s probably a case of not having the money to pay, but either way, the discussion of CBT was dropped.

My brother had severe OCD when we were children. Anything perceived as ‘rude’ was a trigger for him, and he had to deflect to imaginary characters or concepts that we created. On one hand, I was a pillar of support, but on the other, I was a nasty younger brother that could manipulate those biological idiosyncrasies when I needed to. If we were in the company of my older cousin, a young bastard in the making, I would gang up and tease my brother to the point of nervous collapse, making his He-Man figures fuck each other on his nightstand for some strange sense of victory. If we were alone, I wanted to do everything in my power to calm my older brother for fear of general embarrasment. I can’t place myself into that brain anymore, and I would love to say that any support came from love, but in reality, I fear it came from being perceived as weird. That thinking has probably influenced my own manifestation of OCD. Hidden.

My own OCD is one of symmetry. A new quirk is butting my left elbow twice against fence posts, scaffold poles or brick walls, for example. Left conquers right in my mind, and although I might need to feel the sensation on both sides, left MUST be last. My OCD is largely invisible. Unlike my 8 year old brother (at the time) you might never know I suffer from it. I can hide it, masterfully, touch things, myself, objects in a way that can seem purposeful, but I am driven by this awful urge, this maggot in my brain that guides me beyond all moral and usual compass.

Numbers are hugely important to my OCD brain. I am so fearful of the number 13 that even typing it becomes a fear. (Now I type 45, 45, 45,45 to counteract that fear.) Multiples of this number also fill me with dread, and numbers as far as possible from these multiples are ‘magic’ – 45, for example, being in the middle of 39 and 52, is a safe haven for me. If I feel the need to touch something, let it be 45 times, as this just feels right, whole, and good. Multiples of 8 are lovely, 18 is beautiful, 72 is a friend, I also love 6 because it was a good birthday party that year. 2.5, for some strange reason, is a devil’s number that I would rather see the back of. If I do something to this quantity, hear someone use it in a sentence, or feel its presence (and it’s a surprisingly common occurence) then I HAVE to do something to counteract it. God, I cannot tell you how hard these numbers are to type.

So what is the fear? My dad currently has cancer. These numbers represent his death. They are everything bad that could happen, they make me feel shattered. Avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid. I’ll be dead, single, jobless, lost, mad. The economy fails, COVID comes back, (on a selfish level, I actually loved the period of quarantine if it hadn’t destroyed so many lives) I’ll miss a train, I’ll get hit by a train, I’ll die, she’ll die, fuck me, it’s overwhelming.

Every time I take a sip of a drink, I have to tilt the glass so I can see its base. I remember when this quirk started, some time in maybe 2018 when I was trying to buy a boat to live on with all my savings in the world and I knew I was being scammed out of my deposit. I went to the pub with my parents, and I invented this new ‘trick’ to resolve being scammed. I still ended up losing my money, some £2000 (a month’s cunting wages) and yet to this day, I still do the same glass trick every. single. time. I have a sip of anything. These little rituals become imbued in life. They are pointless, maybe, I know, but if I don’t do them I feel the crushing weight of everything, a monumental force.

And there are so many more that I’m still too scared to share. Things I have to do that are just silly, embarrassing, degrading, and lame. And reader, I’ll tell them to you as I get more comfortable, I promise, but I am just starting out, I’m tired after a delayed train home (it’s 2:30!!!) and I need to think more about how to tell this story.

But know this. By some metrics, I am mental, and you might be too. I’m so glad you’re still reading.

(I have used online tools to correct spelling and grammar. Fuck AI but thank fuck when it helps.)