Obsessed

by Allison Britz

  Dr. Nelson looks at me in silence, but I cannot read her expression. “Okay . . .” She extends the word as she lets out a breath. “Well, with ERP we take baby steps. To start, I will hold a pencil and ask you to stare at it. You can blink, of course, but do your best to stay focused on the pencil.” She turns back to her easel, uncaps a blue marker, and draws a diagonal line down the page. “You must try your best not to pray, not to hold your breath, not to do anything that you usually might do to ease your anxiety.

  “You’re going to feel very uncomfortable, especially at the beginning.” She gestures at the top of the slanted line. “But, as time passes, your level of anxiety will slowly decrease”—she traces her finger down the line—“until you eventually feel yourself calming down.” She writes Pencils, Allison, Part 1 across the top of the sheet of paper. “It may take a few minutes, particularly these first few times, but it only gets easier with practice. If you need a break, if it’s too much, just tell me and we can stop immediately.”

  I feel like I am being prepared to undergo some sort of major surgery. If I need a break? Is it going to be that bad?

  “How does all of this sound? Do you think it’s a good plan?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I respond, knowing its my only real option. I shift in my seat and pick at my bandaged fingers. Last night, against my will, my mom spent about an hour over the bathroom sink “doctoring” my hands. I have always had the horrible habit of picking at my cuticles and fingernails, in both good times and bad. Lately, however, this distasteful habit has turned into a violent crime. I have methodically torn, gnawed, and picked my fingers into bleeding nubs. With a look of nausea, my mother slowly covered each oozing wound in antibacterial gel and wrapped them in gauze. Eight of my ten fingers are immobilized under thick, mummified casts. I’m just glad she hasn’t seen my toes.

  “Here is what’s going to happen: In a few moments, I am going to take out a pencil.” She continues despite the small noise that slips from my mouth. “As soon as we begin, I will ask for you to rate your anxiety on a scale from one to ten, ten being extreme panic while one is perfect calm.” She turns and labels the top of the diagonal line with a 10 and its bottom point with a 1. “Every thirty seconds or so, I will ask for your anxiety rating, and we will track your progress on this line. Once you reach a rating of three or four, we will take a break, talk it over, and try again.” She rummages deep within one of her desk drawers and looks up at me. “Ready?”

  CHAPTER 23

  The overhead fluorescent light beams off the edge of the sharpened lead. The pencil’s six long inches stretch their yellow across my vision, culminating in a nefarious, unused pink eraser. It is brand-new, shiny, sharpened to a point. I can almost smell the cancerous lead. There is a thin cloud of disease spiraling out of its tip like the smoke from a cigarette. My ears fill with the sound of pencils scribbling. Thousands, millions of pencils being dragged across paper. I feel my head land against my hand as I lean for support against the beige arm of the chair. I see the pencil in Dr. Nelson’s grip being used to fill out my death certificate. Time of death: 3:45 p.m., cause: terminal brain cancer. The pencil draws a picture of my mother’s sleek white sedan crushed into a tree, my dad’s lifeless body on the kitchen floor, a wail of sadness lofting above a tombstone. I am lost in the scribbling, the images, the . . .

  “Okay, what’s your rating?” I hear Dr. Nelson, I register that she is speaking, but there is no room in my mind for her. “Allison,” she says a bit louder, “Allison, come on. On a scale of one to ten, how are you feeling?”

  I groan loudly. “A nine at least. Definitely a nine.” Leaning against the chair, I press my face hard into my hand. I mash my eyes inward, applying pressure until bright colors span across the blackness. My brain is screaming, the scratch of a thousand deadly pencils blocking out all other noises. A searing pain in my head signals a new tumor, my final destiny.

  “Okay, you’re doing great, but I need you to open your eyes and look at me.” I raise my head from my hand but stay hidden behind tightly closed lids. My head leans to the left with the weight of my developing cancer. “Close but not quite. Look up here, Allison. Open your eyes.”

  The room appears through a tiny slit made smaller by a line of eyelashes. A flash of yellow against a background of beige. Dr. Nelson clears her throat, and I force myself to unclench my face.

  “It’s been thirty seconds. You are doing so well. Where are you now?”

  “Uhhh . . .” I can’t think—the scratching, the writing, the buzzing. “Um, I guess an eight. I mean”—my eyes are open, my shoulders have dropped slightly—“I don’t know. A seven?” The clock sounds out the seconds against the silence of the room. I feel my lungs inflate fully for the first time, and the muscles in my neck relax with the exhale.

  “Okay, good, good, you are through the hardest part. Just keep looking at it. Very good.” Dr. Nelson makes a small mark a little way down the line on the easel. The dark border around my vision slowly fades, and I’m now holding my head up without the support of my hand. My heart is still pounding, but as I draw my eyes across the length of the pencil, the knots in my shoulders and abdomen loosen. My windpipe relaxes, the air no longer catching in my throat.

  “Okay. We are at one minute now. How are you?”

  I can feel the anxiety dripping off me, but what started as a downpour has turned now to a steady trickle. “I’m a five,” I mutter.

  “Okay, keep it up!” Dr. Nelson dances slightly in front of her easel as she makes a mark halfway down the diagonal line. “You’re doing great!” With an extended groan, I focus my eyes on the pencil wobbling in her hand. Staring at its yellow paint, I realize it is no longer emanating the evil and death that it was just a minute before. As if someone has turned down its danger volume, it seems to have lost most of its power. I know deep within me that pencils can kill me, but right now, as I stare at it across the carpet, it feels remarkably harmless.

  “What’s your rating? We’re at two minutes.”

  “I think a three or a four. . . .” My voice trails off, still pondering the pencil’s drastic transition.

  “Great. Well done, you made it! How was that?”

  “I’m not sure?” I look at my bandaged fingers, surprised by the experience. Dr. Nelson was right. “It was terrible at the beginning, but after about a minute I definitely noticed a difference. I started to feel less scared and less stressed just on my own, even though you were still holding the pencil and nothing had changed.”

  “Yes, exactly. Over time, as we keep exposing you to pencils in situations like this, you will see that your reactions begin to improve. Instead of beginning at a nine, in a few days a pencil will only get you to a six, then maybe just a four.” She redraws the individual marks she drew on the line, noting at what time I reported each one. “If you continue to expose yourself to your triggers, eventually they lose their power. The more you resist them, the weaker they become.” She continues as she rips the top sheet off the easel and draws another diagonal line on the clean sheet below. “Fighting OCD is like boxing. Each time you go against a thought, it’s a punch to its strength. Each time you listen to your OCD, its biceps get bigger and it becomes a more powerful opponent. It’s a war of attrition—you just have to keep fighting.”

  I nod at her with an enthusiasm I have not felt for months. Angels sing in the background. A rainbow appears across a mountainscape. I was just in the same room as a pencil, stared it down in its beady little eyes, and lived to tell the story. Just an hour before, I wouldn’t have thought it possible.

  “So, you ready for another round?”

  I extend my head toward her, forgetting my glimmer of happiness. “What! Again? We just got done!”

  She chuckles at me. “This is a marathon, Allison. Maybe even an Ironman. We will do this over and over and over again until you no longer feel anxious when you see a pencil. Then, instead of me holding the pencil, we will have it sitting on your leg. Once you’re okay wit
h that, you will hold it and eventually write with it.”

  “You want me . . . to hold a pencil?”

  “Well, yes, that is the overall goal, right? For you to be able to write, do your homework, get back to the student and person you used to be. Unless I’m mistaken?”

  Sheepishly, I nod in agreement.

  “I’ll tell you what. Let’s call it a day on ERP. We will revisit it again next appointment, so just come ready for that.” Dr. Nelson sits down in her chair across from me. “Does this all make sense, Allison? Do you feel like you understand how we will fight your OCD?”

  “Yeah, I get it. I guess after pencils, we do this with something else?” My voice is hesitant as I realize the implications of this process.

  “Right, exactly. After pencils, we will move on to the clothes in your closet, the shower, brushing your hair, whatever you decide you want to focus on. I think you will find, too, that we won’t need to do ERP on every single obsession on your list.” She gestures at the papers I have folded and crumpled onto themselves over the past few minutes. “Typically, as you begin to loosen the hold of some of your obsessions, others kind of die off on their own. Collateral damage from ERP. One day, you will wake up and realize you are no longer bothered by grass, for example.”

  I raise my eyebrow. “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Grass is terrifying. It’s so green.

  She smiles at me. “Just you wait a few months, Allison, darling, I think you will surprise yourself.” I can’t help but return her smile. “So, we are done for today, but I have a bit of homework for you. Nothing serious, but it will make a big difference for our next session.” I perk up at her mention of homework. A way to prove myself, a way to make Dr. Nelson proud. “Between now and Tuesday, I want you to stare at every pencil you encounter. Around the house, at your desk at home. When you go back to school, you’ll want to seek them out. Get as much exposure as possible. Don’t just look at it, really experience it. It will be uncomfortable, I’ll admit that, just like it was today. But, like I said, this is a war of attrition. Hard work is what will move us along. Your hard work.” She looks me directly in the eyes. “What do you think?”

  “Um, yeah, I can do that. Stare at pencils, got it.” I fidget with the tie on my pajama pants. Despite my effort to sound flippant, my insides are roiling. I feel a wave of nausea as I see myself in class surrounded by pencils, as I picture making eye contact with a yellow-painted No. 2 cancer stick.

  We move quietly back down the hallway toward my mother, who is typing fervently on her laptop. “Hey, Momzilla,” I call as I enter the light of the waiting room. “Time’s up!” She makes a small noise and continues to peck rapidly until she finishes what she’s doing. I fiddle with a collection of stickers and tattoos in a small basket on Dr. Nelson’s desk.

  “Hi, my turtledove.” A kiss lands on the side of my head as my mom approaches. “How was it?” She leans down to Dr. Nelson’s desk and quickly scribbles out a check. I ignore her question and act intently interested in selecting a sticker.

  “See ya Tuesday, Dr. Nelson!” I throw over my shoulder as I lean into the heavy door leading to the parking lot. I grip my arms and clench my jaw in preparation for the arctic wind to devour my thin, pathetic T-shirt.

  “See you soon, Allison. Don’t forget your homework!” I beam at her through the open door and give her two thumbs up. “Don’t you have a jacket, sweetie?”

  “Jacket? No, no jacket. Do not like jackets. It’s not that cold, anyway.”

  “Okay, well, we’re going to need to add that to the list, clearly.” Dr. Nelson looks openmouthed at my mom, who can only shrug. She is holding two different jackets for me to choose from, one fleece and one wool, if by some miracle I decide I want one. At this point, she has accepted that she cannot force me to wear a coat (or eat my dinner, or use my computer). Unlike Dr. Nelson, she knows what happens when she pushes me too far.

  “Did I hear Dr. Nelson say homework?” my mom asks as we slide into her car from the freezing air. “What kind of homework?”

  “Yeah, it’s nothing,” I say, turning to look out the window with my back toward her. “Just a thing between me and Dr. Nelson.”

  I watch the dead, sparse trees whiz by on our way down the highway. Despite the gray skies and threatening clouds, I feel a creeping edge of warmth that lifts the corner of my mouth into a hesitant smile.

  CHAPTER 24

  I feel better. I feel . . . I feel like this might be okay. Almost. These thoughts I’m having aren’t true. I mean, they are true. Very true. But not in a real-life kind of way. Something heavy inside me has shifted, and it’s like I can see again. It’s still a bleak winter’s day, but I might have found my way out of the blizzard.

  I think about Dr. Nelson constantly. Her thick socks and warm smile and brown chairs. The way she laughs, her boyish bony shoulders, the weird horse paintings that, I now see, aren’t that bad after all. I carry her around with me. Her face and smile sit on my shoulder, weighing down with a gentle pressure as I hop over cracks.

  I’m going to see her tomorrow. And it will all be okay then. Then I’ll have an hour to relax. An hour to be free. I want her to be proud of me. I want to have brilliant stories to tell her about how I stood toe-to-toe with my fears and punched them hard in the face. I want to! But pencils are so pencily and I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours decidedly avoiding the den, the only room in the house where I’m likely to encounter them. It’s almost dinnertime. My parents will be home soon. I need to do my Dr. Nelson homework. Now.

  My feet slide hard against each individual carpeted stair as I trudge toward the den. And homework. And cancer. And a smile from Dr. Nelson. And tumors.

  Walking into the room, I cling to the left wall to keep my body as far away as possible from the glowing desk, chair, and computer in the opposite corner. They’re surrounded by a radioactive cloud, like Chernobyl. I move toward the bookcase that is home to my pen and pencil holder and reflexively pin my eyes shut. Two steps later, I bang my left knee hard into a leather recliner and jerk forward. I hit the floor with a loud thump that echoes through the house and shakes the windows.

  I give a little grunt. It didn’t actually hurt, I just feel sorry for myself. Rising up from the floor, I forget my mission. Until I remember. Pencils. With my eyes intentionally pointed at the ceiling, I can sense a heat on my face. I know there is a pencil sitting in the wire holder on the bookshelf directly in front of me. But I can’t bring myself to look.

  I hear Dr. Nelson. We’re in her office, and she’s holding the pencil horizontally in front of her, the easel and giant notepad beside her. Look up here. Open your eyes. The beige carpet. The drawings on the wall. Look up here.

  And there is the pencil. Standing tall like a soldier beside a neon-pink highlighter in front of me. We make eye contact and I immediately know he’s evil. More so than any other pencil I’ve ever encountered. His yellow paint sears into my eyes. I feel it passing through my irises and straight into my brain, where it ends with a damp sizzle. My head is in the clamp again. The one that somehow squishes it together while ripping it apart. You’re doing so well—where are you now? Shut up, Dr. Nelson. You’re the reason I’m here. Burning my brain with cancer. The pencil is showing no sign of fatigue. I’m leaning forward, most of my weight on my palms against the carpet. Pencil, pencil, pencil. You’re doing so well—where are you now? I want to scream at her. Not words this time but something more carnal, like an animal. A growl. I’m a ten! Okay? A ten! It wasn’t like this in her office. It was bad but not this. Not frantic. Not out of control. I’m a ten. This is ten. Ten, ten, ten. Pencil, pencil, pencil. I feel my eyes ungluing and moving down the length of the wood to where it reads TICONDEROGA. In green letters. Green. Green. Green. For a moment I’m paralyzed, but then the feeling slowly morphs. My eyes dart back up to the tip. You sneaky rat. I glare at him. Was that a threat? Those green letters? I trace the wavy line where yellow body meets wooden tip. My intestines gurgle out loud as
they twist around themselves. You’re doing so well—where are you now? I’m an eight. And with this thought I feel my heart pump with adrenaline. I’m doing it. I’m doing ERP! And I’m at an eight. Keep staring. Only a minute longer. I hate you, pencil. And I won’t let you win.

  That’s when I know I’m a seven. I even find my eyes hovering, if just for a moment, over the evil lettering. I ain’t scared a-you, Mr. Pencil. Mr. Surprise Green Letters. My head hurts. But it’s not the lumpy tumor pain. It’s like I’ve been squinting too long into the distance, trying to read a billboard down the highway. The muscles in my cheeks, my brows, the ones behind my eyeballs, are screaming. I intentionally try to relax my face, forcing my cheeks down and rotating my jaw. And with this, and a long exhale, my shoulders and neck relax too. Seven, six, five. I don’t know how long it’s been, but my eyes are dry. When I blink, they burn against my eyelids. The pencil hasn’t moved, at least not that I’ve noticed, but it’s different now. Slouching, maybe. Defeated. Five, four. It’s just a pencil. Now that I look at it. I mean, I wouldn’t touch it or hold it—or, heaven forbid, use it—but looking at it, leaning toward it on the carpet, I can tell. Four, three, two. It’s just a pencil.