Obsessive Crumb Disorder
Written by Casey Douglass
This piece was
written for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) awareness week 2015.
I hope it is a way for non-sufferers to get an idea of how easy it is
for anyone to slip into OCD.
You are walking home
through the forest, following the path you always do. You are tired;
it's been a long day. A deer shoots across your path making you
flinch in surprise, your heart racing. Silly deer! you think
to yourself. You walk on, the twilight of sunset casting strange
shadows on the leaf-strewn ground. What if I'm lost and I don't
know it? No, that's
just silly! I walk home this way every day! A
feeling of unease grows inside you as you walk on, going left past
the knobbly tree, or should it have been right? You live with these
thoughts all the way home.
The
next day you have a day off work but decide to go for a walk and to
take a picnic to eat in the forest. You like the forest, it's lovely
this time of year! No sooner have you crossed into its leafy embrace
when you remember your fears of the day before. Being quite bright,
you stand and try to work things out. Okay, I know it was a
silly thought but I still feel like crap. Maybe..maybe I could use
some bread from my sandwiches to mark my path home. I won't be long
enough for the birds to eat them so yes! That's what I'll do!
You pull a smidgen of bread from your sandwich and, thinking to
thwart the breeze, press it into the crack in the bark of a nearby
tree. Feeling a little happier, you go on your way, leaving bread in
all the right places. You still feel anxious, anxious enough not to
fancy eating much of your second sandwich when you stop at the meadow
in the middle. This upsets you, you hardly ever are off your food.
As
you head back home, another thought crashes into your mind. How
do I know I'm following MY bread trail? What? As if there would be
more than once person doing that at the same time! What if someone
left a trail and they never found it? You might find their trail and
meet the same end they did! You
see a crumb in a tree and walk up to it. Check the bread.
You lift your uneaten sandwich
and compare the colour of the crumbs. Looks the same but
still, someone might have just bought the same bread as you! Your
heart is pounding. Maybe check how the bread feels? You
roll a crumb from the tree between one thumb and forefinger while you
do the same for one from your sandwich in the others. Does
it feel the same? Yes I think so. I'm not sure though. I'll find
another tree and try another crumb, just to be sure!
Day turns to night, warm turns to cold and light turns to dark. You
do get home in the end, but any thought of entering the forest again
fills you with such dread that you think you might never go in
there again. You sob a little. You don't feel well, and what is that
rattling coming from the washing machine? Does it always do that?
You'd better check, just in case.
This story was
written to illustrate how easily fatigue, shock (the deer) and a
random thought that becomes hard to shake can give birth to an entire
head full of catastrophe and fear. Just a day in the life of an OCD
sufferer. Think before you take it too lightly, it's not a life style
choice, it's a mental prison sentence. Visit here for more info on OCD: OCD UK.
