OC Me

by Kristin Albright

  A flashback played in my mind of our small group sitting around the table in Mrs. Millen’s office. I asked a question that led Amber to identify why she felt so compelled to reach perfection on her Spanish project when she had otherwise done fairly well abandoning her perfectionist standards. Gabe chided me playfully, “You should become a counselor.” At the time I didn’t even pause, but now his words echoed in my ears.

  It was so obvious in some ways; I’ve always been a good listener. Kat jokingly called me her shrink on numerous occasions. I knew I would find the course work interesting because I’d done well in psychology and sociology. I would get to work with kids, but it wouldn’t have to be in large groups. My heart beat faster as the idea settled within me. It fit me so well I could hardly contain my excitement. I rushed over to where James was perched with his sketchbook. I didn’t even wait for him to look up, “James - I know! I know what I want to do!” I exclaimed.

  “Do with what?” he asked only half paying attention.

  “In school! What I want to do for a job.”

  Laying his sketchpad down into his lap, he looked up, “Really? What?”

  I carefully sat down on a rock next to him as I explained. “It’s so obvious; I can’t believe I didn’t come up with it before. I want to be a counselor. I want to work with youth. I want to do the kind of things that Mrs. Millen does.”

  “I think that would suit you,” he said softly, nodding his head in approval. He leaned in and kissed me.

  “I think it would too,” I said honestly.

  “I guess you can start that letter now!” he encouraged.

  “In a little bit,” I promised. I wanted to think about it first, imagine my potential future. I curled up close to him as he sketched. I’d watched him draw and paint for months now, and I knew it wasn’t just natural talent. It was his deep focus that took everything to the next level, and the end result always filled me with awe; there was no doubt in my mind that he was headed in the right direction.

  Despite my new-found contentment and the solidarity that I was enjoying while watching James sketch, I was happy to see Kat and Nolan reappear before us. The wind cut straight through my sweater, and I was ready for the warmth of Kat’s car. As we descended down the trail, the scenery faded to the background as the words that I needed to write scrolled across my mind.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

  ~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

  Dear Scholarship Review Committee,

  I wish I could say that writing this was easy. That I’ve known all along why I want to go to school, what exactly I want to study, and why the world would be a better place if I did the aforementioned things. The truth of the matter is that I don’t think I knew any of those things before this past semester.

  My aunt died in early January. She was in a bad car accident and cranial swelling left her brain dead. For whatever reason, the stress of her injury led to the surfacing of my anxiety disorder. Suddenly, everywhere I went I was surrounded in anxiety, fear, and panic. My fears revolved around driving and germs. I was constantly checking to make sure that I didn’t hurt anyone or anything. I acted on my compulsions to check to make sure things were okay, and when I was questioned about my peculiar behavior, I told lots of little white lies. I knew what I was doing was irrational, but I couldn’t help it.

  I didn’t tell my dad; I didn’t tell my friends; I didn’t tell anyone. I was stuck in my head, and it seemed like there was no way out. Despite my best efforts to hide, someone (I still don’t know who) noticed. I was called into the school’s guidance office and found an extraordinary resource within the busy hub of our school. Through Mrs. Millen, our school psychologist, I learned I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It took me months to wrap my head around the diagnosis, what it meant in my particular case, and how to differentiate my real thoughts from my “fear thoughts.”

  Today when I get these thoughts, I’m able - for the most part - to identify them; and I’m working on techniques to diffuse my anxiety. I have recently communicated my disorder with my dad and close friends. I am no longer hiding. I no longer cry while trying to explain myself. I have come to accept myself for who I am.

  Without Mrs. Millen and her expertise, I might still be in a constant state of panic. I may have dropped out of school to avoid all the stimuli. Maybe I would’ve decided that college was too much for me. It’s possible that without her careful guidance and support that I would have permanently ruined my friendships.

  I don’t think that having an anxiety disorder makes me any more worthy of a scholarship than I was before. However, I feel it has made me work harder to understand myself and the world around me, understanding I lacked before. Today that understanding has allowed me to say with complete confidence that I now know what it is that I need to do with my life. While I’ve always been interested in the human mind and I’ve taken every psychology and sociology course that my school has offered, I never entertained the idea of entering the field as a profession. In my self-study it has become clear to me that I need to work with people. I thrive on interaction with others. When I hit rock bottom, Mrs. Millen never gave up on me. I want to be someone’s support: to help them rise above their problems the way Mrs. Millen has helped me.

  With or without this scholarship, I will go on to study psychology with the goal of counseling youth. I feel that I’d be able to relate to my clients well and provide some hope that they too can rise above their anxiety, their depression, or whatever their adversity may be. I’ve gone from being totally lost to being completely confident that I will be just fine. For a period of time, all I could focus on was the unfairness of “losing” my senior year to my mind. I now know that this loss of balance couldn’t have come at a better time because of the resources that were available to me here. I will be forever grateful.

  My grades and extra-curricular activities speak for themselves. The time I’ve spent volunteering in the tutoring lab has added up to hundreds of service hours. The awards I’ve earned in my art courses and certificates of attendance and student of the month standings are all there. I’m asking you to look at all of my qualifications today and see that your financial resources would be well spent on a student who has consistently performed to the highest of her capabilities and who knows from the bottom of her being what her calling in life is to be.

  Sincerely,

  Amy Lockhart

  I signed it carefully and set it on my desk for later review. It was done.

  Spring break ended quicker than it started, and suddenly we were back in class. For the first time in my school career, I didn’t look forward to Fridays; the weeks slipped by and deadlines approached faster than I could prepare for them. As each day of the week disappeared, I silently cursed the fact that we didn’t have thirty-four hours in a day. Several of my classes offered the option to take a test for college credit. Those tests weighed heavily on my mind and on my back; the thick test-prep manuals wedged between my textbooks caused the final demise of my backpack’s zipper.

  For my final art project, I chose to keep it simple. People were my strong suit. The proportions of faces and the symmetry of eyes drove many of my classmates to the brink of insanity, but I enjoyed them. I decided to paint a photo of Kat and myself from the last day of kindergarten. I was crying inconsolably and complaining to my mom that Kat was going away for the summer and that I wouldn’t get to see my new best friend everyday. So she brought her camera to school and took the picture so I could “see” Kat whenever I wanted. The events of the past few months really put the importance of our friendship into perspective. Kat has been predictably supportive of everything I’ve ever done, and this was my happy painting - my painting to say thanks. It was the two of us perched on the concrete steps outside of our kindergarten classroom. I sported pigtails with pink ribbons knotted crookedly around them and if you looked closely, flushed cheeks from crying. Kat’s tenn
is shoes were untied, but her arm was around my back and mine around hers.

  James was being secretive about his final art project. In his words, I got my secret painting, and now he was getting his. He spoke with Mrs. Ropert who had agreed that he could use his final assignment to paint his last piece for his scholarship portfolio. He spent hours upon hours tucked in his second story bedroom painting away. At first he was okay with me being perched on the window seat reading and studying, but after I prodded too much about his subject matter, I was banned from his room. His mom and I had some good laughs over the matter as I sat in their dining room doing my calculus while he worked upstairs.

  I spent at least two evenings a week at their house. At first I felt like I was intruding; but Sandra - James’ mom - insisted that she enjoyed having another woman in the house and took several opportunities to emphasize that we would be heading off on our own soon enough and that these nights were good to get to know each other.

  James told me one night as he drove me home how much his mom liked me. “My mom always wanted a daughter – they couldn’t get pregnant again after I was born. This is fun for her.”

  “You’ve had this conversation?” I asked both surprised and flattered.

  “Not this exact conversation, but let’s just say she likes you. She likes that I have a girlfriend. She likes that you guys can visit even when I’m not in the room. She likes that you’re a good student. And she appreciates that you understand my love for my paints. Relax, please.” And with that, he kissed me on the tip of my nose and shooed me inside my house.

  Knowing that Sandra liked having me around eased my mind. I pitched in with dinner on a regular basis and absorbed some of her cooking techniques. I was thrilled to learn how to make rue for thickening soup and impressed that proper knife technique sped up my prep work so much. Sandra was a fabulous cook, and spending those hours in the kitchen with her made me long for my own mom. It made me re-think so many questions that I buried over the years. I wondered why it was that my mom couldn’t bring herself to stay with us any longer. Why did she have to move so far away? Why didn’t she visit? Why was she fine being so far from me, when I wasn’t fine being so far from her? The stereotypical gender roles in James’ family were comforting in that they reminded me of a happy past, but it was also a constant reminder of what I didn’t have. The Phelps family was happy, their floors were clean, the yard was raked, homemade food on the table and unlike any of my other friend’s families, they actually sat down to eat together almost every night.

  James would emerge from his room with paint all over the sides of his hands to join us when dinner was ready; and after we ate, the routine varied. Sometimes he would go back up to paint, and other days he would join me at the table and do his other homework. Somewhere around ten-o-clock we packed up, and he would drive me home. The loneliness of evenings when dad had late deliveries was lifted, and in some ways, I feared the end of the school year. No matter what, James was going off to the Art Institute in the fall. If I got the scholarship, I would go to State which was just down the bus route from the Art Institute. If I didn’t get the scholarship, I would be hanging around here, going to the community college for a couple years and saving up my pennies for the transfer.

  Inwardly, I worried that if I had to stay here that James would meet someone else. Or that we would grow apart. Or that any number of relationship-ending scenarios would occur. Yet we carried on as if the year wasn’t ending and as if my unknown location was a conundrum that didn’t exist. We were happy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A rear-view mirror is a useful tool, but it only allows you to look in one direction.

  ~ Mrs. Millen

  I was half paying attention to my calculus teacher when she made some comment about scholarships that math majors would be eligible for. With the scholarship banquet only a month away, the deadlines for applications, if not already passed, were rapidly approaching.

  I thought back to my merit scholarship letter, wondering if anyone had read it yet. Suddenly I wanted more than anything to re-read it. I couldn’t remember what was in it. What had I said? Was it convincing? Was it honest? Would I pick me? My heart pounded in my chest, slowly gathering speed like a freight train going down a mountain. Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that I had written something offensive. My chest tightened with the thought; my breathing shallow and labored. I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to picture my paper. Was it an obscenity? I tried to calm myself - I reminded myself that I hardly swear even when I talk; but when I squeezed my eyes shut, I could see my letter as clear as day, and I’d written “fuck you” to the scholarship committee. Why did I do that? Why would’ve I said that to them? Was I trying to sabotage my chances for the scholarship? Did I subconsciously not want it?

  My eyes started to fill with tears. I needed to get out of class before everyone noticed. Without pausing to even grab my binder, I raised my arm up to shield my face and rushed out of the room, stumbling over a backpack as I passed the last row. The halls were quiet. The floors were so scuffed from almost a year’s worth of tread, it was hard to believe they’d ever been shiny. Rows of lockers whirled in my blurred vision; their grey paint blending in with the cream of the walls.

  I couldn’t believe I had done something so disrespectful - something so stupid. No matter what the scholarship committee thought of my accolades or my self-realization, they would realize undoubtedly that I was too unstable to go off to school. What if they phoned the guidance department and suggested I go in-patient somewhere – saying that obviously I was mentally disturbed. The loud clang of the bell made me start, and as students started to pour out of the classrooms, I darted into the nearest bathroom locking myself in the center stall. My knees wobbled uncontrollably, and a wave of nausea passed over me as my heart raced even faster. I braced myself against the graffiti covered stall as I waited for it to pass.

  Eventually my composure returned enough that I dared venture out into the hall. As I gathered myself, the thought that this panicked moment was OCD related crossed my mind. I’d never worried about what I’d written before. Could it be that while I was starting to feel better otherwise, my OCD was manifesting itself in new ways? I walked down to the office, praying that Mrs. Millen’s door would not be closed.

  As luck would have it her door was propped open, and while she looked surprised to see me so undone, she welcomed me into her office where I unloaded the events of the past hour. Patiently, she questioned the episode and expertly passed the tissues.

  “Amy,” she started, “Who did you have proof-read your letter for you?”

  “James and Kat,” I sniffed.

  “So you had two different people look over your letter. Neither of them said ‘Hey Amy there’s a swear word in here?’"

  “Right,” I paused, “But I didn’t print it right away; maybe I wrote it on a later edit.”

  “Amy. Is this the only thing you can think about right now? Is it all consuming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well I think it’s definitely safe to say this is another manifestation of your OCD. While you haven’t had this particular worry before, it’s not out of line with your other obsessions. You struggle with a lot of things that revolve around the safety of others. That safety is both physical – like with germs and driving, and emotional – like truth-telling. We sometimes call it being hyper-responsible.”

  As the panic started fade, I began to feel silly for being there, for even having the thought to begin with. Mrs. Millen was right; both James and Kat read the paper. No, I didn’t print it immediately, but why would I have changed anything? I cleared my throat.

  “Sometimes I think all I need is a little reassurance,” I said.

  “Amy, I’m not going to tell you not to seek reassurance, at this point in the process I think it’s pivotal to your healing. However, be careful not to become too reliant on other’s reassurance because it can quickly become another compulsion to confess things. In fact
, I think if we examine it closely, we would probably see that the need for reassurance is interconnected with your truth-telling compulsions.”

  I nodded; I felt comfortable with her assessment, if not a bit embarrassed. Part of me was awed that I could walk into her office having no idea what hit me, and in a matter of minutes have her retroactively diffuse the emotional bomb that had gone off. She issued a pass for me to go back to class and promised to send a note to my calculus teacher to excuse my earlier departure.

  I didn’t allow myself to re-read the letter. I really, really, really wanted to. However, knowing that the urge to do so was an OCD compulsion and that doing it would only make the OCD stronger, I resisted. Within a couple of days, the thought was tucked neatly on a shelf in my brain, no longer getting any of my energy.

  And that’s how it went. I wish I could say the letter was my last panicked episode, but it wasn’t. What made it better was knowing that the worries and sick gut-feelings were all OCD related and therefore “fear thoughts.” Mrs. Millen and I started working on cognitive behavior therapy in my sessions, and I pushed myself further and further each day. I made great improvements in not correcting minor untruths. In addition, I refused to allow myself to circle the block when I experienced driving anxiety, and I tried to back-off on the hand washing. The driving and washing were the hardest because they had the most potential for harming others. The amazing thing is that even though I had a long way to go, I was able to stop myself. Because of that, Mrs. Millen told me that she didn’t think I’d need medication, at least not right now. She also said that she thought my OCD would eventually go into a remission of sorts. Not that it would ever completely go away and not that it wouldn’t surge if I was under a lot of stress, but a life where it didn’t have to consume hours a day was fully possible, and the goal of that kept me pressing forward.