L C E N

Fourth grade.

While Mrs. Bost asked us to form a line by the door, I took an extra minute shuffling the pencil sharpener in my desk and counted to seven while pushing my notebook against the inside of my 24’’ by 18’’ desk. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

“[Name]?”

I looked up to her thin, pale, and frowning lips, frustrated eyes glancing down at my short frame.

I didn’t know what to say. I could only glance down shamefully. A few other students looked my way in confusion. Mrs. Bost continued to stare and wait for me.

Should I move? I want to stay and finish counting. I need to finish checking. Why am I the only one who’s being called?

Out of options and shifting awkwardly under the glances, I slowly scooted behind the last person in line. I felt exposed and defenseless. Helpless even. My bones itching, my skin dry, red creeping up my throat and forcing me silent—I didn’t get to finish. But I stayed quiet. Seventh grade.

Attempting to find a table for remote learning, I scoured for anything that might serve as a small desk around the house at the beginning of the pandemic. When my dad suggested two small C-shaped side-tables to form my workspace, I agreed.

Placing the two tables beside each other, I desperately tried to even the legs and the spacing between them. Moving one table by an inch, the carpet sunk down, but the other table still remained uneven. Move one by an inch, then move the other. Move one by an inch, then move the other. Wait seven seconds.

Again. And again.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Repeat. I’m not finished. I can’t be finished. Let me make this right for my own good.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Yet it never “fit” together. Uneven, sort of aligned at best. Finally, after 30 minutes, my sweaty hands stopped clenching the black, metal legs and scooting them slowly across the fluffy, white carpet. My knees had squiggly carpet marks and the skin raw, a testament to my battle with the tables. I rubbed my hands and knees, frustrated by the time spent on this mission.

I just wasted so much time. I’m an idiot, a lazy person, Why am I like this?. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Worthless.

It felt like someone sucked the air out of me, my throat tightening and pale hands violently shaking. Frozen in this discomfort and light-headedness.

Forcing my body up, I left the room bitterly and didn’t look back. I stayed quiet.

Eighth grade.

The feelings came back like constant thunder, punching the walls and ravaging the space of my mind. Every day, every hour.

The break between, ephemeral.

I would speedily tap a key on the laptop keyboard, obsessing over the number of times the noise hit my ears. If I hit the “0” key instead of the “+” key, I would bounce my finger over the correct key again and again, listening to the clacking and clicking.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Again. I must finish listening to the clattering of the plastic. Why? I don’t know. But I have to do it anyway.

Again.

Gripping the edge of the table, fingers tense, I waited another seven seconds, drowning in the annoyance I felt over the lack of satisfaction from holding down the key.

I don’t know. It’s not enough. But I wish it was.

The clicking and clacking continued. I stayed silent.

Ninth grade.

It was more than just keys clacking. Rereading the names of folders as I organized my emails. Letter by letter, syllable by syllable. My eyes would water slightly, unblinking, obsessing over the words and phrases, bits and pieces of a puzzle that was strangling me.

I swept my sleeve over my desk three times, then four, “cleaning” the grayish-blue chair another four times. That was eleven times. Good. Great.

Then three again. Then four. Then four again.

Day after day, these rituals repeated over and over. And I believed they were supposed to aid me in living a more organized and “correct” life.

Until one day, I stopped believing that.

“Are you okay? Do you need someone to talk to?” my teacher whispered, as if it was a secret only for me, a chance for me.

Am I okay? Is this okay?

“Ye… no.”

No. This isn’t okay. I’m not okay. I need help. I need to breathe.

So I stopped staying quiet.

OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Three words encompassing more than five long years of silent struggling.

Maybe it was the fact that there was a name for it, or that my behaviors, the counting, and the entrenchment of me in my thoughts weren’t some indistinguishable form of a monster coming to get me.

Instead, my body seemed to try and make me feel “comfortable” by repeating certain actions, if only temporarily, but all it left was constant but invisible surges of pain. A misunderstanding my own mind makes, akin to an allergic reaction.

Maybe I can breathe. Maybe I’m going to be okay. But right now, I’m not okay.

Grappling with a diagnosis. Saying something because I can’t stay silent anymore.

I have a condition, one that makes every day of my life a heavy trudge, drenches my skin in a sheet of sweat, makes me grab my own skin into patches of red.

But I can be okay. I can get help. I’m no longer drowning in a space of confusion as to what and why I’m doing all of this.

“I have OCD. And I’m going to be okay.”