“Yuck.”
“And after I touched it, my therapist prevented me from washing my hands.”
“Yuck yuck.”
“Three times a week for three months until I could stand the idea of germs on my hands.”
“Yuck yuck yuck,” I said. And then my mother and I were silent again for a while.
Suddenly something occurred to me. “But my quirks change,” I said. “I’d have to be constantly exposed and prevented from doing all kinds of stuff.”
“Most people with OCD have shifting rituals,” said Sam, handing a card to my mother, who looked as if she needed it herself. “My therapist.”
“ ‘Susan Leonardi,’ ” she read, as if English was not her first language. “Great,” she said weakly. “Thank you. Now, I think I’m going to lie down for a while.”
“I’ve got to go,” said Sam, standing up and shaking my mother’s limp hand. “It was nice meeting you.”
“And you too, Sam,” said my mother. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t,” he said, smiling a wide, toothy smile. And then he turned his kind expression and sapphire eyes on me.
Embarrassed, I jumped up and tried to think of something to say.
Helping me, he asked, “Walk me out?”
“I’ll walk you out,” I said, and then just stood there as if my shoes were nailed to the carpet until he held the door open for me.
On the front porch Sam stopped and turned around and looked at me too closely for my comfort. Although he was three feet away, I suddenly felt too near him and vaguely nauseated.
“Do you remember what you were like before the tyrants moved into your head?” he asked.
“I remember.”
“You can get there again,” he said earnestly.
“I hope so,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself.
As I turned and walked through my front door, I felt Sam watching me.
“Let me know how your therapy goes, okay?” he called.
“Thanks,” I said fumbling with the doorknob. “For … for being so much … thanks.”
“Hey, watch that doorknob,” he joked. “I’m going to be watching you.”
I blushed, resisted the doorknob with all my might, and walked inside, wondering if Sam was flirting with me and praying that I could get over my quirks.
Twenty minutes later, after pacing back and forth nervously, I went back to the doorknob. I made a perfect circle with my fingers. I touched the doorknob. I was almost certain that I was not strong enough to face my fears.
“One. Two. Three …”
19
Behavior Therapy
“Tell me how you’d describe your problem, Tara,” Susan Leonardi began gently. I looked at both my parents for help, but they were at more of a loss than I was. I examined Susan Leonardi for a long moment before speaking.
She was a small woman with red hair and freckles. She looked like a cheerleader for crazy people. I imagined her jumping up and down in a short skirt and yelling, “Two, four, six, eight … you can overcome your fate!” Instead, she just calmly sipped raspberry tea on an orange floral couch and gave off earth mother vibes.
“I have … tyrants living in my head. They’ve been there since I was ten. They make me think thoughts and do things that I don’t know why I do. They are crazy. But I have to do what they want. And I look crazy.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been in pain for so long, Tara,” Susan said gently. Then, without pity but with sympathy, she turned to my parents. “I’m sorry you’ve had to stand by helplessly and watch your sweet little girl be tormented by her thoughts.”
A rush of emotion ran through my parents and me like an electrical impulse.
“We’ve been to see people,” my father said softly. “Internists. Psychiatrists. Psychologists. We didn’t completely bury our heads in the sand.”
Susan turned back to me. “I’ll bet you didn’t describe it to them the way you’ve described it to me. Am I right, Tara?”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “Until my dad’s friend came over and introduced me to Sam … I didn’t feel like I had the words to describe it. It would have sounded so stupid, so unbelievable.”
As my parents and I sat taking this all in, Susan smiled lightly and poured my mother some more raspberry tea. “Sam is a great kid. He worked very hard.” Susan put her cup down and leaned forward. “Obsessive-compulsive disorders are neurological conditions, a biological disease, caused by a malfunction of some sort in the brain’s circuitry.”
My parents and I all muttered the word “disease” as if it were poison on our tongues.
“So for sure,” said my mother, “it’s not a psychological disorder?”
“What she means is, ’Please tell us that my daughter has an open brain door and isn’t crazy!’ ” I said. But I said it nicely, because by then I believed that Susan Leonardi could cheer me on to the finish line, where my own thoughts were waiting for me.
“Of course, the observable aspects make it easy to see how OCD could be mistaken for a psychological disorder.”
“She acts pretty crazy,” said my father, and then looked ashamed of himself.
“I’m sure she does,” said Susan, smiling. “Imagine how you’d act if you were trapped in an endless loop of repetitive obsessive thoughts accompanied by an anxiety so powerful you’d do anything … perform any compulsive act … just to make it go away.”
We were all silent. In horror. In recognition.
“What causes it?” asked my father nervously.
“We don’t know.”
“That’s comforting,” said my dad grimly.
“Maybe genetics. Maybe chemicals in the brain. Maybe stress, trauma or other injury. Although the behavior has been around as long as man, the research is new.”
My mother burst out laughing and startled all of us. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m picturing cavemen and-women experiencing problems getting in and out of cave openings because they don’t have any doorknobs to kiss.” My mother’s humor, her saving grace, crept back into her eyes. We all relaxed a little.
“I haven’t been very … understanding about this,” she admitted, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Obsessive-compulsive behavior is very difficult for families to cope with. In fact, nothing that we know of drives families crazier faster.”
“Amen.” And that was from my mother. My father put his arm around her. Susan squeezed my hand.
“Are you ready to begin the hardest work of your life?”
I nodded.
“Four years is a long time. Especially for a fourteen-year-old. The therapy is not going to be easy,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The longer a person has been a slave to an OCD,the harder it is to make him or herself risk freedom. I’ve seen people who have been suffering from OCD for twenty years. They’re so used to their OCD that they don’t really want to recover. Life would be too scary without it.”
“Twenty years?” my mother sounded as if she was ready to cry. “People have this for twenty years?”
Despite my personal doubts, I felt an overwhelming urge to reassure my mother. “I’ll do it, Mom,” I said with a shaky voice. “I will.”
My mother didn’t look convinced. “What about medication?”
“No, please, I don’t want medication,” I interrupted. “You know I’m afraid to even take vitamins.”
Susan Leonardi nodded. “This is a pretty common reaction from many OCD sufferers,” she explained. “Why don’t we move ahead with behavior therapy. If that proves inadequate on its own, then we’ll consider medication. How’s that?”
That night Sam called to give me his support. “So, now what do you think? Do you still think you’ve got the courage to face your fears?”
“I guess,” I said stupidly.
“I hope so. Because if you don’t, they’ll just get bigger … and bigger … and bigger.”
This was h
is idea of support? “Sam,” I said quietly. “I have to hang up now.”
“I scared you?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “Deal with it.”
20
The Game Plan
I dealt with it by making a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish:
stop the doorknob ritual
stop praying
stop thinking of the terrible things that could happen to my family
speak on a stage
stop counting
stop arranging my food …
“This is a lot to work on,” Susan said. “Are you up for it? Do you have what it takes to fight the tyrant and win?” I knew she was going to be a cheerleader.
“You’re not going to make me stand up and run in place, are you?” I said lamely.
“No. You’ve been running in place,” she said evenly.
“Good point,” I mumbled.
“I want you to move on,” she said gently.
“How?”
Susan took my hand. “Every day, three times a day, I want you to confront your fears by imagining your parents hurt, injured or dead.”
“What!”
“… for five minutes a day. I want you to feel the horror. Experience your pain … your fear and your loss …”
“Oh, God!”
“Then,” Susan continued, “do nothing. Don’t pray, don’t kiss doorknobs, don’t count. Can you do that, Tara?”
I was so nervous that I began to count the slats in her blinds.
“Are you counting?” she said.
“Are you a mind reader?” I asked.
“Sort of. Now, come on. Let’s give it a try together.”
“Do I have to say it out loud?”
“Are you afraid to say it out loud?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m afraid so, honey. Come on.”
I shut my eyes. I was sweating already.
“I don’t like behavior therapy,” I said.
“Do you like kissing doorknobs? Do you like being a slave?”
“My parents are lying dead in a funeral parlor. “They …”
“Go on …”
I opened my eyes, and tears fell out of them. “This can’t be easy for people who don’t have OCD!” I screamed.
“It isn’t. But it’s a lot harder for you. And if you don’t do it, everything will be a lot harder for you, for the rest of your life.”
“They died in a car accident. They are missing most of their heads but I know them anyway. Nothing will ever be the same again. I don’t know what will happen next. I’m afraid. My mother is wearing a blue dress that she bought a few weeks ago. My father is wearing his St. Patrick’s Day outfit. I don’t know why. It isn’t St. Patrick’s Day. I hate St. Patrick. No, I don’t. I’m sorry I said that; God forgive me. I just want to know why he could drive the snakes out of Ireland but not save my dad. I’m sick. I don’t know how I can go on feeling this sad. I want to reverse this. I don’t want this to be true. I can’t have this be true.”
I opened my eyes. “I don’t like this game!” I screamed.
“It isn’t a game, Tara. It’s a fight. A fight to regain your free will.”
“What’s free will? Huh? What?” I started crying really hard. It was as if a dam had opened. I cried for so long that my eyes swelled shut. Saliva dripped out of my mouth. I didn’t care what I looked like. I didn’t want to do the behavior therapy. I just wanted to keep crying forever. Until all my bad feelings came out.
Susan waited patiently and occasionally handed me Kleenex. When I calmed down a little she spoke.
“You aren’t praying, are you?”
“No!” I screamed at her.
“Are you counting?”
“I hate you!” I crumpled into a ball on the floor. I really hated this woman. I began praying.
“No!” she yelled at me. “No counting. No praying.”
“I hate you!” I screamed again.
“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s not important.”
“I saw a report on the news about domestic violence,” I hissed. “I understand now. I get it. Why battered wives go back to men who batter them!” I screamed.
“Well, then. You’d better use that and work harder,” Susan said.
I hated her, but she was right. I made another vow to fight harder for my freedom so that I wouldn’t find more tyrants in my life to control me. I must have made a thousand vows that day … and for a lot of days thereafter.
Needless to say, my first experience fighting the tyrants was daunting. And each time after that was just as hard. My parents helped by being in the room with me, but they didn’t do much more than Susan. I suffered through terrible thoughts that I thought of on purpose, and nobody helped me! I was in hell.
I couldn’t believe how hard it could be to break a habit that I hated. I went to Donna’s house for comfort. Her father was hunched over his beer. He didn’t even look at me. Her mother was baking and listening to old love songs. Donna couldn’t stand to look at them, so we went up to her room and closed the door.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said.
“What?”
“I did it with Chuck!”
“What?”
“It!”
“You mean …”
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“It was really sort of an accident.”
“An accident?” My head was spinning. I was trying to get over the rituals that I did to protect people I loved, and now my best friend just had sex by accident.
“We kinda got carried away. We were high.”
“You’re fourteen years old. Fourteen years old!”
“I know how old I am, Tara!”
“You’re way, way, way too young!”
“You thought I was too young to smoke too,” she said smugly, and lit a cigarette. I was so mad at her I wanted to beat her up. She blew a smoke ring at me. I did not put it on my finger. I slumped on the bed next to her and put my head in her lap. Then I thought of what she’d done and moved my head down to her knees.
“Did you use a condom?”
“No. But don’t worry,” she said.
“Maybe you should worry,” I said nervously. We sat in silence for a while and listened to her mom’s radio playing what sounded like a Madonna song.
“Want me to help you with your compulsive homework?”
“No,” I snapped. “I think you’ve got enough to worry about.”
“I’m not worried. Tell me what you do. I want to help you.”
I told her. All of it. She listened very carefully.
“I wanna try it,” she said, and closed her eyes. “Okay, I’m picturing my parents dead.” I watched her face to try to get a gauge of her pain. Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t speak. After about a minute she smiled and opened her eyes. “I can’t. I’m getting too much pleasure out of this.”
She did make me laugh. And I needed it.
Afterward, I made her come with me to the drugstore to buy condoms. “Don’t embarrass me,” she said as we walked into the store, “or I’m leaving.”
“Better embarrassed than dead,” I said seriously, and pointed to the various condom boxes.
“I don’t know how to buy this,” she whispered, and all the smug coolness had gone out of her voice.
“Can I help you girls?” asked the pharmacist.
“Urn … no, sir,” said Donna. “We’re just …”
“Yes. We’d like to buy a box of condoms,” I said.
His sixty-year-old face twitched in disapproval. Donna’s fourteen-year-old face twitched in embarrassment. I was unfazed. I didn’t care what it took, I was going to keep my friend from turning sex into suicide, or motherhood either. “Maybe you could recommend the best ones,” I said.
“How old are you girls?” he asked very sternly. It made me mad.
“Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to know how old
we are?”
“Because I want a note from your parents or I’m not selling birth-control devices to … ah … underage …”
“It’s not for birth control,” I said. “Not necessarily, that is.” Donna was putting her hand in front of her face. I was unstoppable. “Okay, it is for birth control. But, more important, it’s for protection. It’s for lifesaving. So it’s really to prevent death more than to prevent life.”
“No,” he said. “Not without a parent.”
“But we don’t have sex with our parents. We need the condoms to protect us when we have sex with boys.”
With that Donna ran out of the store as if she was on fire. I followed her, but I was still addressing the pharmacist over my shoulder. “You shouldn’t have done this, sir. I hope you can live with your decision.” And then I went over the top and screamed, “I hope she can live with your decision.”
I was unsuccessful in my efforts to get Donna into another drugstore after that incident. Oddly enough, I felt empowered. I had never acted so boldly … so even if I was still kissing doorknobs, I had fought my first bully. The behavior therapy was doing something for me.
Sam called that night and I told him all about my work with Susan and nothing about Donna. It was too embarrassing. And too personal.
21
My Civil War
In school we were studying the Civil War. Our country was torn apart and brothers were killing brothers. All because some people thought they had the right to own other people.
It occurred to me that my family and my life had been torn apart because of the tyrants in my head who wanted to own me. I knew that it was a huge stretch to compare my OCD with the Civil War, but I had become a different person and my grades and friendships had suffered because invisible tyrants made me a slave to their whims. And so, as odd as this thought was, it gave me strength. Which I needed.
Because no matter how passionate I was, or how strong I decided I would be, my behavior therapy was very, very hard. I lost a lot of battles. It had been months and I was still involved in a terrible thirty-three-step dance involving my lips, fingers and a doorknob. I also still counted cracks, prayed, tapped and reconfigured my food. Not all the time. But enough of the time to doubt that I’d ever win the war for my freedom. And on the good days, when I felt as if I was making progress—I was scared then too.
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