My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Its Elusive Madness
A mental illness that carries me to success and then to hell
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I came home and expected everything to be the same; after all, there was nothing to suggest anything had changed. But as I walked into my room, something was different. Or to more accurately represent how I felt, everything was different. In a state of shock, I glared at the arrangement of my room. Atoms of ants crawled out from my underneath my skin — until there were so many that you could call it a colony. Then — almost inexplicably — they morphed into a clustered cloud of darkness that spread throughout my bashful body like a black wildfire.
In reality, everything had only been misplaced a few inches from their correct place. My mom had been refurbishing the house, so she had understandably but obliviously moved things and put them back in the wrong place, forgetting — or disregarding — the fact that I have a mental illness that creates the sort of irrational rage not seen in people successfully integrated into society like myself.
As I faced my ominous kryptonite, without ever reaching my lips, violent screams left my mind, and so — to my luck — never materialized into disturbing waves that would have traveled into my neighbors’ ears. Even though no one else heard the screams, I did, so I manically paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, listening to the dreadful song of my voice on repeat. But then — all of a sudden — I stopped, took a sizable step back into my body, and watched as I — without conscious thought — decided to move everything back to their appropriate places. My legs hurriedly sprinted at my desk, slamming it into the corner of the room: only an inch from where my mom had left it, but with a witless force that created an immediate bruise. Without wasting a second to reflect on my pain, my right hand grabbed the power board from the desk and placed it onto the floor; the floor because that way it wouldn’t obstruct any work. I then watched my hands sort the Japanese cups I had used to organize my stationery meticulously. I arranged all the cups to be next to each other, sorting them based on priority with the most-used cup closest to the center of the desk for easy access. Everyday-use items were next. I hurriedly settled them with the same priority system except with extra flair: I considered size and color contrast too, with the biggest and highest contrasting items, preferably further from the center of the desk. With years spent creating the perfect setup, I had painstakingly planned all this.
As I sat on my brown leather recliner, a sense of relief infiltrated me but hastily fleeted as I realized: my recliner and bookshelf were misplaced. A glance informed me that they were only a few inches from their correct corners. Knowing I couldn’t do anything until they were in their proper places, I restlessly shoved the bookshelf. I looked to see if it was in the corner, but it wasn’t. So I pushed again, and again, and again. Books rained down from every shelf, except the shelf second from the top: I used it to store useful things like vitamins, medicine, and other everyday items. It was the perfect height to reach for when standing, which meant it was perfect for quick access. In the end, everything returned to their rightful places, and my setup was thus at peace.
I shakily walked to my mom’s room — still nervous from the crippling disorganization.
“What?” she asked, as she absentmindedly glared with a look that suggested obliviousness to the chaos she just put me through.
“When you move my things next time, can you please take a photo so you can move everything back to the right place?” I asked. “It makes me really uncomfortable when everything is misplaced.”
“Everything was in the right place.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
I explained in particular detail how everything had been slightly moved from their original location, as she disapprovingly stared with a look that suggested she didn’t want her crazy son anymore.
“Okay, I’ll make sure it’s right next time.”
I accepted the situation, knowing she would make the same mistake again — because she had for the many years before. It wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
No one could live up to the obsessive detail of my setup.
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is often associated with the paranoid: people who obsessively wash their hands, flick light switches, or other obscure patterns to make sure they’re safe. But sometimes it manifests in almost reasonable ways.
I come under the category of counters and arrangers: people who are obsessed with order and symmetry. Others in this category have superstitions about specific numbers, colors, or arrangements. But I have no false fairy tales playing in my mind. I just like things the way I set them up to be, and I can’t stand to have them any other way.
I was diagnosed with OCD when I was 15. I had explained my quirky habits to my therapist at the time, most notable of which would be that I ate my favorite half meat half cheese pizza by alternating between a meat slice and a cheese slice. I denied the diagnosis — almost as if it was an accusation. But the same pattern still lives with me today, though not in that delicious pizza, but in my reading, where I need to alternate between a fiction book and a non-fiction one. One could argue that this is a helpful habit for diverse reading.
Productivity is at the core of all of my compulsions. I tenaciously tinker with my environment until I find a setup I like. One of my more popular Medium articles is about my minimalistic iPhone. Some readers applaud the intensity to which I have taken my minimalism; others doubt that my phone is actually like that. It is like that, but not because I’m a genius productivity guru; because I can’t have it any other way.
I create these systems to fulfill the intricacies of my mental illness — if you can even call it a mental illness. Some people believe my problem isn’t a problem, but a gift. And in some ways, it is. If we’re talking about setups, I’m one of the most organized people I know. My room is so clean that when people walk in, they either think I’m a meticulous minimalist or a ghastly ghost. The same obsessiveness drives me to play with every word in my writing endlessly. It’s the reason I fell in love with the craft. Unlike other art forms like video or singing where you can’t control every pixel or sound, you can control every word in writing. Finding the perfect word is my OCD’s forte. Of course, I have learned when to stop writing, and maybe I now stop a little too early. But if I wanted to switch a full editing mode on for a book, it would be more than my pleasure. Every article I write doesn’t end because I want to stop editing, but because I know I need to, I know I can’t keep rewriting the same thing over and over and over.
I’ve hit a wall with how I feel about my OCD. I don’t want it to go away because it’s a fundamental part of my identity: I am the organization kid. Yet there are times when I wish I could calm down from the chaotic chaos that is — in reality — just my things moving a few inches from where I intended.
If the day comes where I can’t function anymore because I can’t find a setup that works for me, I’ll talk to a therapist. But for now, I’ll obsessively organize.
