OCD Love Story

by Corey Ann Haydu

  Dr. Pat said I was lucky that Kurt, that guy who dumped me, was keeping the whole thing totally private. She said I was lucky I went to an all girls’ school where I couldn’t get myself into any real trouble on a regular basis.

  I don’t think my obsession with Austin is quite as “lucky.”

  People are starting to know, I think. Someone’s told Dr. Pat everything, I think. “Someone” might be Beck, I think.

  Because today Dr. Pat says it’s time for me to open up to the group about the things my compulsions have driven me to do.

  It pisses me off more than usual because I am supposed to be enjoying my extralong, private-school-size vacation and this is starting to feel like the exact opposite of a holiday. Kim and Lacey and girls like them are in transit, right now, flying to Florida and Mexico with their families, and all I wanted was a morning off from my illness to lie in bed and think about Beck’s arms and count the places he’s touched me.

  But.

  I’m still in a love and sex haze from my time outside with Beck, so maybe she’s right and maybe it’s the perfect day to get this over with. Beck’s not in group. Beck has not called me. Neither has Lisha. I texted her to tell her on Saturday about being with Beck on the mountain, hoping it would smooth things over, but all she said was Omg. Scandal. I wish we were in school so that she’d have to see me and talk to me, but no such luck. And so far there’s been no follow-up phone call or Pancake House date. We’re speaking, I guess, so that’s good. But just barely.

  Between no Beck and no Lisha, it seems everything’s come to a screeching halt, and I’m letting it crash and burn. Just like that. The silence in the car Saturday afternoon as Beck drove me home had the blissful decadence of sleeping until noon or eating in bed. It was that comfortable, that delicious. I was so certain in what we had on the mountain and fell asleep the moment I got home

  Except: The silence from the car has continued for a few days, and now the silence doesn’t feel so sleepy and comfortable and worn in anymore. I’m squirming in it.

  If I’m going to speak, it’s got to be now, in the safety of his absence. Okay. Caution to the wind or whatever. If Beck’s going to get better, I’m going to need to get better too, and according to Dr. Pat, the only way to do that is to be honest.

  Historically speaking, I’m all about the honesty, right? So this shouldn’t be too hard.

  “I get sort of overly invested in certain people,” I say to start. I focus on Jenny, who is sporting a turban today. “One of my compulsions is weird . . . it’s these people—just strangers mostly—I get scared they’ll get hurt or disappear and that if I don’t do a certain ritual of checking up on them then a terrible thing will happen.” Nods all around. Rudy, Jenny, and Fawn do similar stuff: They check on locked doors and weather reports and the cleanliness of their hands. I just check on people.

  “You know when you’re a kid and you do those Magic Eye things? You stare at something and see just a big mess, but then you look for a little longer, and a clear, unrelated image pops into view? Those things always really disoriented me. Because that must mean something, right? It’s this hidden message and we’re all using it for our enjoyment but . . . no. It’s not like that. It’s more like ink blots? That psychiatrists in old movies have?” I heave out a sigh. Explaining the logic of something I know is crazy to a room full of people I know are crazy is singularly exhausting.

  Dr. Pat nods at me to keep going and I shift my focus mostly to Fawn since she’s the most harmless person here. She keeps adjusting her chair to line it up with some invisible blueprint we can’t see. But otherwise she’s simply listening and looking sad. She has an always-sad kind of face though, so I don’t take it personally.

  “The inkblots. You see something in them. It pops out at you. And it’s something bigger than it was. The fact that I’d see a cloud and Fawn would see a . . . a . . . puppy . . . it matters, right? Anyway, I guess I feel like the whole world is like that for me.”

  “Prep school asshole,” Rudy says. I don’t know what that means because I didn’t say anything about prep school. And though I upgraded my outfit from Saturday’s hiking ensemble, I’m still pretty innocuous in old jeans and a blazer my mom used to wear in the eighties. I have on bright yellow hoop earrings and sweater boots.

  “Rudy, we can talk about your feelings later. But Bea is allowed to express herself however she’s comfortable,” Dr. Pat says with what I think has got to be an internal eye roll.

  “I feel like Bea is a show-off, and I hate girls that go to Greenough, and I’m not in therapy to get some lecture on inkblots and their deeper meanings.” Dr. Pat gives Rudy another glare since the first one obviously wasn’t enough. He continues. “I’m just saying it’s rude to talk down to us, you know? Sorry we can’t all afford fancy private schools or whatever.”

  “There’s a real danger to judging someone based on their external circumstances. As I think we all know,” Dr. Pat says. I hate when she uses “we” when she really means “you crazies.”

  “That’s really all I had to say anyway, Rudy, so chill,” I say. I think it’s the first time I’ve spoken directly to him. He stares back. The gruesome scars on his face seem almost purposeful in moments like this. Like he’s using them to be aggressive and intimidating. It works. “So, yeah,” I conclude. The awkward silence is totally begging for a fight, but I can’t muster up much attitude. “Chill out.”

  “How about you explain what you mean about the inkblots and how they are like life?” Dr. Pat says. I’d hoped we could let go of the inkblots, but I can’t think of another great way to explain.

  “The people I get . . . obsessed with. They pop out from everyday life. And I don’t know why, but it’s, like, I see a hundred people a day and then one day, bam, I’ll see some guy and there’s more to him. He’s not just an inkblot, he’s a cloud or a puppy or whatever, and then I know that the way he pops out at me must mean I am connected to him in some way and then I absolutely have to check on him over and over.”

  “But it’s always guys?” Jenny says. “You always are getting obsessed with random strange guys?”

  And that, of course, is when Beck walks in.

  Vulnerable isn’t the word for it. This is something else. Exposed.

  “I guess it’s been only guys, yeah,” I say. Beck’s in clean gym clothes but he looks worn out and winded, like he’s coming from some epic workout, which he probably has.

  “I lost track of time,” he says with his face down. Dr. Pat’s mouth stays in a straight line and she nods but doesn’t tell him it’s okay and doesn’t admonish him either. I can’t find a way out of finishing this conversation now that he’s here. I’ve waded so far into the crappy shark-infested waters that I can’t make my way back out.

  “So you’re a stalker,” Rudy says.

  “Excuse me—have you seen yourself?” I say. It’s not any sort of planned assault on Rudy. But once I open the door just that little bit, I lose all control. Because he’s sitting there with scabs on his face and his arms crossed and making tick tick tick noises every time he hears words that begin with the letters B or P, but he has a look on his face like I’m the really crazy one. “I mean, honestly, look in the fucking mirror. Yes, okay? I get a little fixated on stuff. It’s a fucking OCD group. What did you expect? But don’t throw words around like . . . like . . . ‘stalker,’ and then expect me not to describe you as an ugly weirdo.”

  Dr. Pat is squirming. That’s new. It sort of takes my breath away: the humanity of the person I’ve come to think of as unable to be moved in any way. She buries her face in her notebook like she has to hide whatever feelings are most certainly leaping across the edges of her lips, the wrinkles in her forehead, the crinkle of a nose, or the roll of her eyes.

  “Bea . . . ,” Beck says, mostly under his breath. He looks almost guilty, like he did this.

  Dr. Pat breaks in before I have a chance to say anything else terrible. “Well. So. Though I’d urge everyone to get
away from words like ‘ugly’ and ‘weird,’ I also think Bea is doing some important work here.” There is no protocol for this particular moment. It’s written all over her face. Dr. Pat is going rogue. She clears her throat. Squirms again. We are all rapt. “So Bea, Rudy, I appreciate you getting in touch with your feelings and I applaud that. And it requires honesty to work on our compulsions together. Excuse me. Your compulsions. Everyone’s compulsions. You know, can we take a bathroom break?”

  I have undone the one stable person in the room.

  And it hits me, the way Rudy has been looking at me, the way they are all looking at me now, the way realization and understanding is dawning on Beck’s beautiful face, the reason I haven’t wanted to talk about seeing Jeff attack a guard, my little legal issues with Kurt, or my interest in Austin . . . it’s me. I’m the crazy one.

  Beck and Fawn leap up for the bathroom break. Dr. Pat doesn’t tell them to sit and work through the anxiety without compulsively washing. She just heads out the door and before it closes behind her I see her shaking a cigarette from a packet and my insides crash.

  Then it’s just me, Jenny, and Rudy in the room. They’re both crossing their legs and turning their bodies distinctly away from me, because that’s what you do when you are alone with someone bat-shit crazy. Rudy looks pissed, but he’s not yelling or leaving the room, which surprises me.

  After a few minutes Beck and Fawn make their way back into the heavy, heavy silence and Beck sits next to me. I’d be falling just that tiniest bit more for him if my mind weren’t racing with terrible thoughts right now. If I cared about him I’d tell him to get the hell away from me because I am the most toxic person I know. I’m the crazy one, I’m the crazy one, my brain realizes over and over.

  “You have your knife?” I ask Rudy. “The Swiss Army key chain thing? Do you have it?”

  “Bea?” Beck says. He can’t put his hands on me, so he puts one on the back of my chair, and I’d like to lean into it, to have that one moment of private intimacy, but I don’t deserve the smoothing-out calm it would give me.

  “It’s just a question,” I say. “He’s the one carrying a knife around.” I cross my arms over my chest like I used to do when I was two and not getting my way. I just want to know the lay of the land right now. I need to know there’s nothing in this room that I could accidentally hurt someone with. I need to know that even if I’m going as crazy as the inside of my head feels, I’m at least not going to turn into a serial killer too.

  “I stopped carrying it. Dr. Pat asked me to leave it at home. For your sake. And I did. It seemed like you needed some help,” Rudy says. For the first time ever, he’s not sneering or growling. He’s being kind, because I’m so unstable.

  Anxiety Man sits on my chest. I should be relieved Rudy doesn’t have his knife, but instead I’m worried that someone else has something I could use. My mind and stomach spin in perfect panicked unison and the things I’m realizing about how terrible and destructive and cruel I actually am are making it all even spinnier, dizzier.

  When Dr. Pat gets back, it’s to a room of chilly downturned faces and the sounds of obsession: Rudy’s ticking, Beck’s tapping, Jenny rubbing her hands against her jeans to keep them busy enough to not pull her hair. Fawn’s chair screeches back and forth against the cheap finish of the floor as she tries to find the perfect position.

  I’m dead quiet. My compulsions don’t involve noises or movements, they just involve ruining people’s lives.

  Dr. Pat smells like the cigarette she just smoked, and for the first time I notice the telltale smoker’s wrinkles starting to take root around her mouth.

  “I have something to say,” Beck says at last. It’s funny hearing his voice hit the room. He hasn’t spoken much in group, I guess, because the way the low, wrecked tones of his voice fill the space sound new to me. “I was late because I worked out for seven hours today. Seven. I got asked to leave before I could get to eight. They said I was making people ‘uncomfortable.’ I have to find a new gym. I keep getting a little better, and then getting worse.” He says it all facing me: eyes right on mine. He’s saving me from being the craziest maybe. But he’s accusing me too. He’s letting me know in front of everyone that I’m making him worse, not better.

  It’s not a surprise, but a little bit of me shatters anyway.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say.

  And for the second time this week, I leave him, stranded.

  THIS TIME THE DRIVE TO austin’s isn’t helping my anxiety at all.

  No shock there. Whatever just happened in group has only cemented my certainty that I am dangerous and violent and not to be trusted. And also, scarily destructive to other people’s lives. I mean, just look at all the trouble I’ve caused. Just look what my thoughts and actions and words have done to everyone else. This whole OCD thing seems like a crock. What if Dr. Pat is wrong? What if I’m not suffering from obsessions and compulsions and anxieties? What if I am exactly as dangerous as I think we all have the potential to be? I’ve been working all this time to deal with my OCD, but I’m terrified that my problem is much, much worse.

  Going to Austin’s is a terrible idea. I’m probably getting crazier, but I’m definitely getting stupider.

  Dr. Pat asks us all the time to rate our anxiety on a level of one to ten. I’ve been at a solid seven-point-five for the last twenty-four hours and it’s not budging. Dr. Pat would say this is physically impossible, but I don’t buy it. I can feel every shiver on my skin, every breath not taken, every superspeedy beat of my heart. And it’s not diminishing as I drive. It’s only escalating. Moments after driving too close to a bicyclist and a jogger, I’m at an eight. By the time I have to get on the highway, it’s eight-point-five.

  I drive in the breakdown lane at twenty miles an hour. My hazard lights stay securely on, and I’m almost wishing for snow or rain so that I won’t stick out so ridiculously in the midst of the confident, speedy sports cars taking up the rest of the highway. No such luck. Outside is all blaring sun and smooth driving conditions, so I put on sunglasses and duck my head a little. I don’t want to be the person I am anymore.

  I have done this before.

  I guess I wasn’t totally honest when I said I started seeing Dr. Pat because of a breakup. I more started seeing Dr. Pat because of what happened after the breakup.

  Here’s what I was going to say in group today: After Kurt stopped returning my calls, I couldn’t let the whole thing go. It didn’t feel safe. Lisha got the brunt of it.

  “I think there’s more to it,” I’d said to Lisha when she let me cry about Kurt over ice cream. “I need to see him,” I said. And also:

  “I think he’s in trouble.”

  “I just need to check on him.”

  “I have a responsibility.”

  “I know it sounds weird, but I’m terrified that if I don’t check on him something terrible will happen and it will be my fault.”

  “Shouldn’t I trust my instincts? Even if my instincts are weird?”

  “I’m just going to check on him. Then I’ll know and it will be fine.”

  Lisha shook her head at all of it. But when I wanted to drive by Kurt’s place, she wanted to come along for the ride. And when I created a fake Facebook account to check what he was up to, she helped me make it look real. And when I started stopping by the gym to look for him, she wouldn’t stay the whole time that I was camping out there, but she’d come by with coffee and an hour or so to chat.

  It only became a problem when I started going to his house every day. Lisha stopped coming along, so I’d bring a pack of saltines and a notebook and I’d stay for as long as I could, taking notes of any movement inside or outside his house. I didn’t think they saw me. I thought my boring Volvo blended in enough with the pavement that I could just sit there for as long as I wanted, whenever I wanted. Sometimes in the mornings, before school. Sometimes in the middle of the night, after the Pancake House, when I was fueled by hot chocolate and maple syrup. I
noted every flap of the curtains, every flicker of the TV through the windows.

  It’s almost a zen kind of thing. Awareness. Being in the moment.

  Nothing else would make the horrible gut-eating feeling of expecting his demise go away. I had to check on him. Nothing else would stop the chest-tightening anxiety. I just needed to check. Just one more time. And then just one more. And then just one more after that.

  Until he reported me to the police.

  Crap.

  I’m not an idiot. I mean, I’m not in denial or something. I know I am drowning in the middle of the exact same situation right now. And I can’t make it stop.

  But Christ, it’s dangerous to think about these things when I’m in my death-machine Volvo. I wonder if pinching my thigh will distract me from the memory.

  Nope.

  I slow down even more. I turn my hazard lights off and on to keep guaranteeing they’re actually on. They must be on, I hear the click click click sound and see the light blinking on the dashboard, but it doesn’t matter. Now that it’s occurred to me that they could be broken, I have to get out and check.

  Then my phone’s ringing over and over again and it gets so distracting I have to get off the highway before making it all the way to Boston. That takes about fifteen minutes of careful maneuvering, and the whole time I’m trying to focus on the expanse of road and not the twinkling ringtone that won’t shut the hell up, because I can’t turn my phone to silent without taking my hands off the wheel.

  I’m pretty sure other people’s lives have this same level of casual chaos, but somehow they manage to plow through it.

  By the time I’ve finally pulled over into a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, I’m a shaking, sobbing mess. It’s not pretty, when all my different fears start to collide and snowball into one massive monster of anxiety.