Window

I sat facing the wall, trying not to touch my chair. My chair; I’d already tapped it with my right index finger, and now the left one was itching. Why? Why did I have this intense desire to tap the fucking chair? What was wrong in my head that I couldn’t resist it? I didn’t watch, but I felt myself caving, and a hopeless feeling descended upon me as I slowly leaned over and tapped the chair…

It had never been intentional; who in their right mind would want to start something like that? But the ideas that swirled through my young little brain were uncontrollable, and the world was such a big place. So full of things… Unfortunately many unpleasant things. Like disease. Oh disease, how do I know thee? Let me count the ways; mono, the plague, AIDS, meningitis, rabies, cholera, and the rest. All with their own unique set of symptoms and ways of transmitting. One must prepare for such things, mustn’t one? Prevention and detection became two of my major hobbies, until I couldn’t even touch a public doorknob for fear of death.

And what if I were to pass something on to a loved one? So no physical contact either. And what of E. coli? And salmonella? Continually checking meat, asking, somewhat embarrassed, if my hamburger looked pink to anyone else. Eating became a paranoid, anxious thing. Nausea was a constant.

Nights, I remember now, when I washed my hands ten, twenty, fifty times. Raw and chapped, I begged to be done. But if I touched a part of the tap that seemed dirty… Then back to the sink. What if I didn’t do it properly, the soap didn’t lather enough? Or the germs just above my wrist remained? So I washed up to the elbow. And my mother grew steadily more upset with me.

What had first been dubbed hypochondria had metamorphosed into something even uglier. I scraped those ten, eleven, even twelve year old hands as tears ran down my cheeks to sit unhappily in the corners of my mouth. Sleepovers, visits, every social event was shadowed by the hinting ideas that flowed through my tangled brain. And then, magically, my compulsions seemed to fade. I was happy; I had fallen in love for the very first time. School had been my mostly safe place; secure that I was surrounded by so many people I had controlled my demons. But now that comfort transferred into the rest of my life as well, the mere thought of my love made me carefree.

It was too bad my love was not reciprocated; still, the shallow pain of this first rejection was enough to still the monsters in my head. I was happy, then sad, then happy again. So much better than the deep depression that overwhelmed when I lost control.

As my world broadened my thoughts turned from diseases to catastrophic events. There were many of them too. Earthquake, tsunami, flood. And the one that kept me awake all night, the one that kept me paralysed with fear until, shaking, I would perform a small ritual to keep it at bay. The end of the world. Of everything. Of life, of music, of poetry and stories. Of all the little children, of happy things like puppies and candy. And the end of every single person I knew. It was too much to bear; my compulsions returned, but they were new and different, like a disease that goes underground to mutate so it defies all resistance.

These new things I was compelled to do made no sense; how could whispering a short sentence, such as “I love the world”, three times and walking so that both feet were exposed at least once while I said it possibly save the world if it was going to end? But rationalisation did not come into it. What if what I did actually had an effect? How could I possibly afford not to do it? I would have caused the death of all. And that couldn’t happen, so my rituals continued unimpeded. They got stronger, and weirder, and took up hours form my day.

Stress had a big part in it; when I was distracted, like at a birthday party, I could think of happy things, and act normal. But if a negative idea came into my head… I sometimes spent time locked in people’s bathrooms, muttering to myself till I deemed it safe to come out. Knowing I had done what was asked of me, to save us. Religiously, I did what I thought would help. Even though, in the rational part of my brain I knew it was crazy. But if I was crazy that would mean I wasn’t safe. Crazy people weren’t appreciated running around free.

My millions of worries clustered like tired old bats, clinging to me. I fell into depression more and more frequently. Up to this point. Here, where I sit trying not to count the telephone poles outside the window, try not to move so that I can only see an even amount, try not to center the view. Try not to touch my neck instinctively, try not to whisper to myself, try to simply live…