Beautiful compulsions

Two years ago, I was gifted a Tissot. 

It was a little after graduation and Aunt Leena, thoughtful as she was, offered to drive me down the jewelry shop. I was valedictorian. She wanted me to have the best grad present, and so I picked the sapphire glassed watch. 

“It was the perfect match for my eyes,” she had said. I thought so too. I thought she was the best aunt I could’ve asked for. I thought we got all the time in the world to make our own memories. But in honest truth, we didn’t. The little sapphire piece was snatched off me right before we made it home. We collided with that heavy commercial trailer that offensively took it all from me, - the sapphire watch, aunt Leena, everything.

 This is my beginning of nowhere. It’s the reason I can’t save myself from me anymore, it’s the reason I can’t stand the crowd in this train I’m commuting in. It’s the reason I can’t condone the scrawny looking guy who sits across from me.

breathe!  

I tell myself as I figured these signals getting at me.

It’s devastating when inner invisible barriers cage you up compulsively in an indeterminate world, unwilling to loosen its grip, and chokes life right out of your meager grasp. My head spins an awry irregular pattern, but I won’t let go. I hold my little unfirm grip at the hem of the navy colored blue shirt I put on, spewing shaky breaths and ready to pull in all elements to keep me sane in the world’s picture perfect gaze.

The air is claustrophobic and people keep climbing in from wherever into the coach. I think to get off, but I don’t. Instead, I stare at him, - the scrawny guy from across. I wish I didn’t. His eyes are amber, they are not gold. He’s got hair so low, and neat and dark. They are like slimy coal. He wears a sapphire wrist watch, it’s so loosely placed on his wrist, I fear it’ll become unbuckled and fall. It will fall and shatter to shreds on the floor of this train where no one literally minds. And then it’ll spill off contents along with every memory he holds from it too.

Breathe! I pep talk myself again

I want to fix it, this wrist watch that seems to be of little value to him, but I’m fighting hard to keep these compulsions at bay. I close my eyes and all I see is the glass shattering particles come up close to my lids. I see the moments before the accident with Aunt Leena. My nose twitch the way it does when its about to get really rough and my hand moves in a desperate underwater fashion

I hate that he doesn’t mind the watch, I hate it desperately because my Aunts death is the only other reason I cant stand this guy. Truth is, I’ve got an affirmed disorder seething right underneath my bones. I’ve got OCD. 

When doctor Condor had told my mum months ago that at sixteen, her only daughter with many years of supposedly sane reputation had got a mental misfiring, and that this causes excessive obsessions that leads to abrupt compulsions to fix things that are otherwise regular and mundane, she had teared up. Welling her eyes days after nights as she watches me compulsively work myself over at things I considered in-coordinate. She would go over long stretch researches ever so often, and every now and then greets me with her take on things; 

“It’s just genetics you know, this thing about OCD. You have nothing to worry about, no one has it bad in the family.” Because my mum is pretty orderly, but inherently not compulsive, I clearly don’t believe her myth, and I tell her so. We would go on and on over this, more to her convictions than mine.

“I think it’s just PTSD, it will subside with time, that crash had done something to you” 

I grimace because it is most difficult to think that, ill luck had gusted on my cranial neurons and they’ll never again recover from trauma.

 Genially, I like to think that I have all the while been pre-wired so, - Dopamine excesses, serotonin inconsistencies, environmental pull ups, all of the right things in the wrong places. - It gives me a sense of self affirmation and acceptance. I could do anything if I only thought that being this way has and will always be a part of my setting. It’s an on going process, and try as I might to put this all off from me, I’ll have to deal with it.

The thing about mental health is this; there’s no actual clear pointer to what makes you mentally unsuitable for the world. Speculatively, researchers have pointedly stated that misfiring of neurons or neurotransmitters, environmental misappropriation or genetics, are all reasonable causes to ill mental situations. There are no actual identifiers to the proper brain target and there’s still a lot to figure about the human brain..

Mum teaches me to always reach for my count of the rosary in my state of haywire restlessness, when this compulsions are beginning to get the better of me. It superstitiously keeps me still and I’m able to divert my attention to something, anything other than what I’ve been obsessing about. 

It’s exactly what I do now – I reach for the rosary count in my bag, but its nowhere. 

“No! I can’t lose this.” I thought. “it’s the closest thing to keep me from losing it.”

 I pull out the Kleenex, the sanitizer, the pen and the little note I have in here, fondling over the little things that never matters in a lady’s bag until situations happen when they do. But it is beyond reach. 

The noise in the train has become so rasp and uncoordinated. I look at everyone chatting over away in here like the world is alright, like they are sane and gifted at putting it all together.

Contrary to the believes of supposedly sane minded humans who think mental health is overrated, mental health is genuinely underrated, with depression and anxiety being the thresh of insanity. Everyone thinks they’re normal and playing the cards right, But the world sees it differently, awkwardly. We all try to fit into this chaotic world, but deep down there’s a deep sated need to be who you really want to be, not what the world needs to see. Then again what is termed normal is only speculative and societal. It is like this, compulsive disorders might not be technically normal for other guys out there, but in a pack of guys like me, this has got to be the-in-thing. (or technically not)

 I take in very deep long breaths again. It is then I notice the scrawny looking guy focusing his intent on me and my heart quips. My head burns with longing and I become panicky, ready to pull off through a cliff, if I could. The boy stares at me and gives a quick smile, a show to say, 

“hey look, I don’t know who you are, but I’m trying to hide my all too clear apprehension towards you”. 

He already thinks I’m nuts, and has got no idea what torture I’ve been through for his sheer negligence at life and its elements.

It is ridiculous because the sapphire crystal still hangs on his wrist like they’re waiting for perfect timing to crash down.

“Are you okay?” He says to me. His voice is not honey.

 In a split of seconds, I’m not sure what I think anymore because I quickly grasp at the watch. He surprisingly holds it back from me and I can’t help it. We drag on this for so long and in the moment I choose to give up, he seemingly chose to do the same. 

The watch crashes off from us both and we see it crack up before our eyes. We are in shock. We don’t speak.

* * * * *

My eyes are wet, it is exactly what I’ve been trying to avert.

The train becomes awfully quiet. There is an elderly woman just behind. She looks at us, disgusted, particularly at me.

“oloriburuku na ni”

She smirks dirtily and darts her eyes away as she continues chatting in Yoruba with the awkward looking, bulging eyed lady by her, who for whatever reason doesn’t stop to glare at me.

“What was that!” 

scrawny guy had finally recovered from his trance, speaking rather to himself than to me. He picks up the cracked wrist watch and shoots me a puzzled look. I take my gaze off the awkward looking lady.

“Are you some sort of kleptomaniac?” he continues

I’m not surprised he thinks so. I mean, I could be a little maniacal at this but definitely not a prefixed klepto.

In my quick attempted defense, I begin to speak so rapt, I don’t hear myself,

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just... I just thought that maybe you cherished that watch so well, but you didn’t think to handle it rightly. All I wanted was to help fix it so it doesn’t fall off and crash. i honestly didn’t want us struggling over this, I honestly didn’t want a sapphire glass cracking up again”

He stares at me for a long while, 

“And I’m to just believe that?”

“Not really.” I say, almost inaudibly, eyes fixed on the floor of the coach. “I’m sorry”

For a while he says nothing, and I don’t think to lift my gaze from the floor, my hands are still fidgety and then he finally says something,

“if you're having what I think youre having, then I think you’ve got to learn up some sort of control”

Its my turn to shoot him a puzzled look.

“And by that you mean?”

“Obsessions, compulsions, repetitive thoughts, the distressing need to carry out actions, the need to organize the mess the world throws at you. Yeah, all that. It’s okay with the watch, really, but is it okay with you?” he had way too much pity in his eyes towards me, I wonder why.

“Yeah,” I say, clearing up my voice to ensure I’m audible to myself at-least. “Yeah”

“Are you on meds?”

“Yeah, Prozac. And I take weekly sessions with a shrink. They are of much help, except when insomnia gets the better of me.”

I don’t know why I say all these to a complete stranger, maybe it’s an apologetic way of regret as to what I did. The need for validation. The fact that asides my shrink and my mum, someone doesn’t make this a noteworthy incident. Maybe it’s my need for air. I don’t know. This is all news to me. My head does a frigging-gripling summersault. Grateful for the exclusion.

I don’t say anything else and he continues

Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands. I take on Neuropsych, so I can fairly relate. By now, I think you should learn to have certain tricks up your sleeves to divert attention away from you obsessions when this episodes hit.”

“Hmm hmmm”

He chuckles. Amazed at my ineptitude at words. “it’s something you might want to try out. You’ll appreciate it, believe me.”

I laugh. I don’t tell him about the rosary, about the fact that a sufferer understands the shoes better than the onlooker.

“Is this your worst episode yet?”

“I’ve been a victim of worse,” I say, laughing out now. My nerves are much calmer “OCD will totally disgrace you”

“Yeah it will”. He’s laughing too. It is so throaty. His laughter is bliss

“Uh”, he looks down at me, “you might want to fix up that bag again”

“Sure, Thanks” I say, after much hesitation, suddenly back in reality, remembering that only minutes ago, I had fidgeted over every content of my bag. I fight the urge not to laugh again as I extend my hands to him, “I’m Tolu, and I’m definitely embarrassed by this episode.”

He takes it. Laughs.

“John, just John, and I totally forgive you for almost ruining a priceless sapphire.”  

"Almost? Actually I did. And, I didn’t think you considered it priceless"

"Actually you did. And I do consider it priceless" 

Chuckles.

"Can I fix that back again?" I say, pointing at the cracked watch he holds

"Sure, if it makes you better"

There’s an untoward laughter again as he hands me the wrist watch. The coach suddenly doesn’t feel so crowded anymore. His smile is like the moving scenery just outside my window, so apparent, and natural, and picturesque. In this instant, life is never more beautiful. My stare moves back to the priceless little ornament he gives to me. I hold it up, and little else matters.