flipflop_diva

I’m twelve years old the first time it happens. Or that I notice it happens. Maybe it’s been going on for years. Or maybe this really is the beginning, coming out of nowhere to take over my mind and body.

I have rows and rows of nail polish sitting on my bathroom counter. I spend hours painstakingly painting my nails in all sorts of shades — hot pink, bright red, turquoise, lime, orange, yellow …

Each nail is perfectly done. But I find myself checking each one over and over throughout the day, staring at them, searching for imperfections. I check during class and during breakfast and while I’m watching tv and doing homework. My parents tell me to stop checking out my nails, but I can’t help it. I feel like I have to.

It gets worse when I do find chips in the perfect surface. I almost can’t stop looking at them. I know I shouldn’t, so I try to hide it and only do it when I’m alone, but sometimes my parents still catch me and scold me.

Later that summer, we go on vacation, take a snorkeling expedition. This one is a little fancy. They have a diver with a video camera who captures everyone swimming with the fish, and they give everyone a copy of the tape before we leave.

Halfway through the video, you see me, swimming underwater through the ocean. I’m looking down at my soft pink fingernails. My parents groan when they see this, tell me I’m so embarrassing. I feel ashamed, guilty, upset. I don’t know why I do this when I know I shouldn’t. I’m mad at myself.

•••

It will be years and years before I read an article on OCD. Not about the ones who have a compulsion for cleanliness or the ones who can’t leave the house until they’ve checked the oven a hundred times. Those stories I’ve heard before. But this article I read goes into more depth, talks about other ways that OCD can present itself — the ones who can’t throw things away, the ones who have little habits they can’t break.

I live in an apartment now, with a roommate. My bedroom is stuffed full of items. A pack rat, my parents would say. Piles of books I’ve bought but never read. Piles of newspapers I’ve brought home from work that I’ll never look at again but I can’t bear to part with. Containers filled with items that are supposed to go in scrapbooks, or so I tell myself.

Every little thing a potential memory that I can’t bear to let go of because what if I need it later? Or what if I forget the moment it represents?.

I read this article on OCD, and I look around my bedroom. The memory of that snorkeling expedition video floats through my head. Years later and I still feel shame thinking about it. But for the first time in my life, I wonder if maybe this way that I am isn’t just a case of bad habits.

•••

I never go to get officially diagnosed. I never tell anyone what I read either.

It’s not a full-blown case. It’s not preventing me from living life. It’s not Hoarders tv show level or the extreme cases you read about. The internet tells me it’s called having OCD tendencies. It makes everything make sense.

These days, I still count things, inspect things too much. I don’t paint my nails much anymore, so now it’s examining the rings on my fingers and the pillows on the couch (I don’t like it when my husband messes up the order he puts them in, so I carefully fix them every night after he goes to bed). Stains on my clothes are the worse — I feel an anxiety looking at them I can’t explain.

I also still have too much stuff. I’ve been trying to clean it out, but it’s hard. The piles of books (now also on my Kindle app) that I’ll probably never have time to read. The magazines I’ll never look at but can’t bear to throw away. The boxes of old mail that need to just be dumped, but what if there is something important in there? Most of this stuff is in the garage; there isn’t any room for the cars. I live with a constant fear that my husband will just throw it all out one day and something important will be gone.

Logically, I know he could throw it all out and life would go on and everything would be fine. But it’s hard to convince that little voice in my head that says I need it of that.

It happens with online stuff too. Too many emails in my inbox I can’t delete. Too many tabs I can’t close. Too many, too many, too many …

I try, though. I put aside time each day to try and delete emails I no longer need. At night I sort through boxes and pick out things for the trash, and feel a weird sense of pride each time the recycling bin fills up. Like I’m fighting back. Like I’m not letting it define me.

Even if it’s still a secret I keep from everyone around me.

Thank you for reading! This was written for Week 3 of the