OCD was also part of the doctors concern, but it wasn't anything new to me. What seemed like an odd quirk to most people was normal to me, because I just assumed that the way I had to do things was just the right way. I made a list in my head of all the things that I had been told were caused by OCD. 1) The last few drops in every bottle of water could not be drunk, 2) I had to tap on the top of a bottle or can three times before taking a drink, 3) bent pages in a notebook had to be ripped out, 4) notebooks with pages ripped out could not be used, 5) one subject per notebook or sketchbook, 6) makeup and clothing had to be laid out in the order it was put on, 7) books had to be read in one sitting otherwise I had to start over, 8) books and papers had to be aligned straight, 9) clothing in drawers and closets had to be assorted by color, length, and alphabetical order by name of each color in descending length order, 10) showers had to be daily, 11) hair under my arms was completely unacceptable, 12) split ends meant an immediate trip to the hairdresser, 13) objects set on tables had to be aligned vertically and horizontally in 90 degree angles, 14) papers in binders had to be organized by date and subject including subcategories, 15) bend tabs could not be used, 16) I always had to finish the entire cup of coffee including the last few drops, 17) plates of food could not be left unfinished, 18) assignments had to be completed in one sitting or restarted, 19) two separate colors of ink on the same page was unacceptable, 20) writing must be neat and centered on the page or the assignment was to be restarted. I stopped at twenty, recognizing how long the list was, but that was another part of what I was told was OCD. I made lists and counted things, some would say obsessively, but I always knew the time, I counted the seconds and could even correct someone on the exact second despite the fact that they were wearing a wristwatch and I was not. The types of things that I counted ranged from time to the exact number of buttons that were on my shirt, which I always had to check three times to be sure that every last one was buttoned properly. Like I said, I don't see any of those things as something that would be a problem; I just like to do things the right way, my way.
Chase had always found amusement in the fact that I could always tell him the time, regardless of location or any other distracting variables. Despite the racing of my mind into thousands of different subjects, I somehow still kept my counting seconds at a constant, steady rate. I was supposed to be on medication for the OCD, but I always refused to take it. The medication seemed to cloud my mind, turning my thoughts from a sense of clarity into a foggy, incoherent mess. Simple tasks may have taken longer, but at least I had the comfort that accompanied the accomplishment of working the right way. I don't mean that others act in the wrong way, but it was the right way of doing things for me. Organization and clarity were two of the most important aspects in my life, being late to an event or forgetting to write the date in the top right corner of a paper were simply unheard of, at least it was in my mind, and both always led to a panic attack that nearly drained the life from my entire body.
I felt my mother's hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of my own head as she rubbed small circles on my back, singing a soft lullaby. A smile appeared on my face as the words left her lips in a soft melody that seemed to soothe my soul, wrapping me in a blanket of comfort formed from the words that lingered sweetly in the air. It was moments like this when the guilt rushed back. My mother had sacrificed so much to help me get better, yet here I was in the hospital again, telling the nurses that they had tried to kill me, seeing the pained expression on her face as I explained every detail of the event that I could possibly remember. Though I knew it wasn't the truth, I felt like a mere disappointment to my mother, a fragile shadow of what might have been if I wasn't so out of my mind. I had tried it all, therapists and psychiatrists, various doctors that wanted to help me but somehow failed in the midst of it all. Her hand was on my cheek now, slightly damp. Had I been crying? I never felt the tears pour over, which was an action that I had always managed to prevent, knowing that my mother needed for me to be strong for her, because she had always been so strong for me. I owed her at least that much. If I couldn't be better, then I could at least shield my mother from the worst parts of my pain, including Arie. In the words of a book I once read by John Green: "Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile."
