Sonder: Youth Mental Health Stories of Struggle & Strength | Page 33

Obsessive
By Lilli
I have OCD.
I was diagnosed when I was nine years old
I was in the 3rd grade but I had just dropped out
because my teacher and my class sucked and nobody understood why I was
functioning at such a low level when I was supposedly a pretty smart kid.
That was at about the time that my bones started poking out from under my skin and
my face lost its color and I only ate in small portions three times a day.
I lost a lot of weight -- fifteen pounds, which was a lot for someone my age and, yeah, I
guess you would assume that I had an eating disorder.
At least, that’s what people on the streets probably thought
as I limped down the sidewalk, head drooped down, longing for my next meal,
but my anxiety tugging at my shoulders and telling me “No. Don’t. You’ll get too full.”
It sounds stupid, right? A fear of overeating? Yeah. I felt pretty stupid.
Getting over that didn’t happen overnight
because treatment for OCD is pain in the butt,
not to mention tiring, especially when you’re a 52-pound nine year old trying to make
her way through 3rd grade,
At that time I was going in for treatment multiple times a week for up to three
hours at a time.
I remember wondering, fretting, over what the other kids would think if they knew
how I was spending my afternoons.
But I wasn’t an “obsessive hand washer”
I didn’t have to jerk my head to the side multiple times a minute or do anything in
threes. I wasn’t always clean and spotless and sanitized.
And you know what else? It wasn’t charming.
The thing about OCD is that if you have it, even if you get over a particular fear, it’s
going to try to find its way back into your life and it will usually manifest into
a different fear.
I started taking my temperature multiple times a day, freaking out when it was above
average, which it always is because my body temp runs high,
but OCD and logical thinking do not exactly go hand in hand.
My parents hid my thermometer but I started doing other things to ease my anxiety.
I didn’t sit back in my chair because if I did, the seat would become warm from my
body heat, and I would touch it and get too anxious.
I started avoiding touching other people, in fear that their skin would be cooler than
mine and to prove that I had a fever.
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