Just a Touch of OCD

by Terry Riccardi

            One card in the row on the table was crooked. When I unthinkingly moved it so it was perfectly aligned with the others, my friend laughed.

            “You just had to move that card. Don’t worry, we all have a touch of OCD.”

            OCD? Her comment made me realize that yes, it did bother me if a game piece was not exactly in its correct place on the board. It got me thinking: why did I have this need to have everything in proper order?

            As a child, I had worn coke-bottle glasses. Without them, everything was a blur. Once I took off my glasses at night, I only felt safe in bed. There, I wouldn’t bump into or trip over things, or get hurt on sharp edges.

            Every evening, I arranged all my clothing and shoes in a certain order. That way, I wouldn’t have to depend totally on sight to find what I wanted to wear the next day. My mother would sometimes rearrange my shoes while I was sleeping, trying to break what to her was a puzzling hang-up of mine. She didn’t understand, and I couldn’t explain, that I was simply trying to control my world to the extent that I could.

            As a teenager, I was thrilled when my pioneering optometrist uncle created contact lenses strong enough to give me normal vision. What a pleasure, such a freedom, to see the world without heavy glasses! But when I took the lenses out at night, my nose still almost touched the light switch when I turned the light out before getting into bed. And I continued to set things out in order that I planned to use the next day.

            With my two small circles of plastic, I moved to Queens. Everything had its proper place in my new apartment–furniture, clothing, books. Once everything was arranged in a certain order, my OCD went to sleep.

            I regularly deposited my small paychecks at my bank, and all was well. Until the day I came in to withdraw some money and the teller said, “You’ll have to see the manager.”

            Uh oh, that didn’t sound good.

            The next thing I knew, I was sitting in front of the manager’s desk, my rising panic almost blocking out what he was saying. “Someone cleaned out your account, so you cannot withdraw any money from it. Until our investigation is completed, the account is frozen.”  

            My chair was all that prevented me from hitting the floor. I didn’t know how to handle such a situation. My OCD roared back to life as panicked scenarios flooded my mind. I pleaded, “I need my money! How will I live? I’ll be broke!”  

            The only thing I could control was holding back my tears until I was outside.

            My world was a blur again. I couldn’t see how, or when, this mess would end. I spent that afternoon making sure everything in my home was exactly where it belonged. As I did so, I worried about all the things I wasn’t able to do, and how long I wouldn’t be able to do them.

            Eventually, my access to the account was restored. But I was furious at the bank. How had they let a stranger take all my money? Why was I being punished? That feeling of help-lessness, a situation beyond my control, remained an ugly memory for years.

            Years later, my ophthalmologist reawakened that awful sensation, even though I’d left the bank long ago. As I stared at an eye chart, where I couldn’t even see the large E on top, I asked him what my numbers were. I expected him to say something like 20/600 or worse. Instead, he snorted. “You don’t have numbers; you’re legally blind.”

            No one had ever told me that before. It felt devastating to hear it said so scornfully. But now that I knew, my compulsive drive to always create order and know where to find things began to make a lot of sense.

            And I was not totally helpless to change the situation, as I had been at the bank; I had some control over my next step. This doctor was top of his field; he could perform the surgery that would free me at last from glasses and contact lenses. So I made the choice to have the operation, despite his woeful lack of bedside manner.

            Now I can see myself clearly in the mirror and my nose doesn’t hit the light switch just before going to bed. I no longer feel the need to pick out and arrange my clothing for the next day. So I am grateful that though there will always be, in life, things I can’t predict or control, there are also many times I can make choices. So, I still enjoy putting some things in order. I smiled at my friend as I straightened out another crooked game piece.  

BIO

When not creating dark tales, Terry Riccardi can be found trying to bowl a perfect game, teaching retired teachers, and searching for lost jigsaw puzzles. Her work has appeared in Delmarva Review, Newtown Literary, Blood Moon Rising, and elsewhere.