OCD Love Story

Torture: knowing something makes no sense, but doing it anyways.

...The human mind is a complicated place...We hold on to things, images, words, ideas, histories that we don't even know we're holding on to.

It's like, I'm scared and there're a lot of ugly things, but I'd rather be shipwrecked on this lovely island than safe in a sad, gray cell.

I guess I wonder what it would be like, to be living their live instead of mine.

Carrying all of these thoughts is downright heavy.

Feelings are like blankets, covering you up so you can't see clearly, or like mazes you can too easily get lost inside. I am terrified of getting lost.

I try Dr. Pat's breathing exercises but they're not working because my entire mind is focused on keeping myself glued to the couch. I don't want to move any closer to the bathroom just in case. But I hate myself for the thought. I know it's not right or normal. I know I'm not simply some cute quirky girl like Beck says, and every moment I can't get off the couch is a moment that makes me one level crazier. That heavy, pre-crying feeling floods my sinuses and I drop my head from the weight of it. Cover my face with my hands long enough to get out a cry or two. Because there is nothing, nothing worse than not being able to undo the crazy thoughts. I ask them to leave, but they won't. I try to ignore them, but the only thing that works is giving in to them. Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway.

I think of everything and I'm pretty sure if I could use my organizational skills for something else, like wildlife survival kits or preparing people for nuclear warfare, I'd be a millionaire. Or at the very least actually a useful human being.

Therapists. Always asking the same questions over and over in slightly different ways. They are, like, the Ultimate Thesauruses.

It feels like giving up. It feels like falling into bed after an all-night rave. It feels that right. It's surrender. It's that thing I have been searching for.

If I didn't know better, I'd think I suffer from some sort of Tourette's-autism hybrid, but Dr. Pat insists I can control the impulse to say whatever pops into my head. That it's, like, a defensive mechanism, not a biological imperative. Therapists think everything is a defense mechanism. Just my thinking that in my head, right now, is a defense mechanism.

That's the thing about anxiety: It's a real time suck.

How could you live somewhere so icy cold and imposing, so clearly in conflict with the rest of the city, the rest of the human population, and stay in love? As far as I can tell, love takes place in townhouses and cozy cottages and cramped studio apartments and rundown guest houses. This place might as well be an office building or a spaceship.

Torture: knowing something makes no sense, doing it anyway.

Then I’m thinking about shipwrecks on Caribbean islands, which I’m sure never happen. But I think about them anyway, as if they could. There’s this horrible situation, and about a million very real things that could happen, and you’re not exactly happy to be shipwrecked and you’ve got a lot of problems to solve and shit to work out. But you’re on this island, and in the middle of building your hut and hunting for fish and, like, doing basic first aid on your injured friend, you take a break and lie in the sand and look at the way the palm trees swing a little in the warm wind. And the sound of the ocean hitting the shore is lovely, and you’re in maybe the most beautiful place you’ve ever been. So in the same moment you’re terrified and amazed at the sobering reality of the world around you and the purity of the beauty. Would you trade in that moment? Would you risk being shipwrecked, to be able to see the most beautiful section of the human world? I guess that’s just a long way of saying I’m happy to be here.