Finding Beauty in Order

The mixed candies in the glass bowl were a source of stirring anxiety for me. I should have been focused on what the good doctor was saying to me, but it was so hard to concentrate; the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and brown shellac glinting in the light of the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

           As if they had a mind of their own, my hands moved independently, fingers plucking the individual colors from the bowl and arranging them in symmetrical lines along the coffee table. It wasn’t until I’d finished my task that I realized the letter “m” on each iced surface did not align with the candy above or below it. After fixing the issue, I toyed with the idea of rearranging the colors in rainbow order, creating new, varied lines, but decided it was better the way I had it originally, after creating the first two rows this way. I replaced them as they had been, careful to keep the “m” straight once more.

Then came my next dilemma.

There were more reds than any of the other colors and fewer blues than every other color. Still, compared to the other concerns, this one had a simple solution.

My tongue and throat thoroughly coated in a thin, chocolatey layer, I nodded appreciatively at the finished product. Only at this time did the thought enter my mind that the office had been eerily quiet for some time now.

I looked up sheepishly, knowing my face burned red hot. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

Dr. Sarah Dean smiled kindly; pen poised over her clipboard. “Well, that answers my next question.”

           Having not heard a word up until that point, my mind raced over the possibilities of what she was implying. “Which was?” I relented hopelessly after coming up with nothing.

Clipping her pen to the board and setting it aside, Dr. Dean scooted to the edge of her leather chair, hands steepled in her lap. “To say you have obsessive-compulsive disorder tells me very little about what’s going on. OCD is a broad topic, with multiple manifestations. To better help you understand and handle your behavior, I need to know the type or types of OCD you deal with on a day-to-day basis, and how it presents itself in your life specifically.” She took a breath, pushing up her cat-eye glasses with one pink and white dappled nail. “From what you just displayed, it seems you deal with order and symmetry-based OCD at least in part. In short, this is where one feels the intense urge to arrange objects, sometimes repetitively, until they believe them to be just right, typically by color, size, or type. Does this sound like you, Mildred?”

I cringed, both at her accurate description and the use of my full name. “Please, call me Millie.” At her questioning look, I felt the need to clarify. “Nothing incurs anxiety in a child like the name ‘Mildred.’ Kids in school had a hay day with that.” An awkward chuckle escaped my throat.

“That does sound like me though. The uh, organizing things bit. It’s actually what got me caught,” I explained.

Dr. Dean retrieved her clipboard and began to take notes once more. “Caught, you say?”

“Yes. My friends were the ones who recommended you, you see. I think they’d always suspected something was wrong, what with me always being late to our meetings; the fact that I always went back home before the rest of them, with some lame excuse, though really, I was checking that my oven was off, doors were locked… You know.” I swallowed, clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides, the leather couch rubbing into my knuckles. “But it wasn’t until last week that I think they really pieced it together. We were at Hannah’s house…”

Hannah’s house wafted with a mixture of fruity, earthy, and creamy aromas. The floors had been swept, much to my pleasant surprise, and the table had been set with plates, cloth napkins, and fondue forks. All in all, my friend had put in more effort than I’d seen from her in a long time. With her husband and kids out of town for the weekend, I could only imagine this was a way for the woman to divert her attention, caring for her friends as she would her family in their stead. She had, after all, always been a busybody, your typical mom-friend.

Corey, the only man present from our small band of remaining high school connections, commented on the smell, his stomach growling audibly. His wife, Stella, laughed and elbowed him playfully, causing the rest of us to laugh in response. The two had been this way since our Junior year, high school sweethearts to a T.

Hannah set herself to pulling the food from the refrigerator, Corey jumping in to help as the two proceeded to finish setting the table, the fondue pot in the center the finishing touch. The fading light from the sunset pouring in through the breakfast nook’s bay windows warmed the room pleasantly.

For once, I’d made it on time to one of our meetings, starting my “leaving the house” ritual an hour earlier than normal. To my shock, I’d only needed to check the doors three times, and turn on and off the lights eight times, rather than my average twelve. It was important that it was an even number, though, I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. Stopping earlier than four was a big no-no, and if I ended on an odd number, I had to begin anew. I just knew that something bad would happen if I didn’t follow those simple rules.

We were bidden to sit at the kitchen table, and so we went to take our seats. My eyes ran over the symmetry of the table, and I heaved an internal sigh of relief. Everything seemed to be in its proper place, or what I’d deemed its proper place anyhow.

Still, my eyes caught on something. Avidly, I searched for the source, my gaze landing on a portrait of a lake that hung on the wall by the table. Was it just me, or was the painting tilted just a bit… to the left?

I couldn’t help it. My feet changed course and I adjusted the picture, tilting it right, then left again, and then right until it was perfectly center.

“Oh, the kids are always knocking those around,” Hannah said, by way of explanation, as she saw what I’d been doing. “They play tag and hide and seek with no regard for my décor.” She giggled and then sighed, obviously missing her family. “But no need to do that now, Millie. I’ll straighten them out later. Come and eat while everything’s warm.”

My body at war with itself, I spent a long minute pulling myself towards the table as my eyes scoured the walls, finding other crooked ornamentation. The others, already seated by now, watched me curiously until I joined them.

My day, having started off so surprisingly well, was turning South rapidly. Here in front of me now were the dippers for the fondue. But rather than having the varying fruits, vegetables, and pieces of bread separated as one would typically find at a restaurant, Hannah had combined bowls of each at the four corners of the table. Bits of breadcrumbs clung to the outsides of the fruit, moistened by the fridge air, tiny broccoli florets mingled with baby carrots and hot dog slices.

As the others licked their lips and retrieved their fondue forks, I pulled the bowl between Corey and me closer, separating the bite-sized snacks into their own groupings on my plate.

Having been reaching for the bowl already, Corey recoiled slightly as I claimed it for myself, eventually shrugging and reaching instead to share with his wife, Stella.

The itching under my skin ebbed as the last piece of rye went into place, the bowl completely emptied now. The cheese in the fondue pot was nearly half gone already as I went for my first bite.

I made it precisely four bites into the meal before the itching began afresh. The paintings and pendants that hung just around the corner screamed for help. I knew Hannah wouldn’t bother. In her mind, it was only a matter of time before the children knocked them askew, so why fix what wasn’t broken? Therein lay the problem, it was a broken system.

I couldn’t stand it any longer.

Standing, I excused myself to the bathroom. I made a show of making my way there, and the door clicked shut and locked audibly behind me. The routine started there.

A mermaid portrait over the toilet was the first adjustment, with the teal shower curtain the next to be shaken and straightened out. The plan then was to quietly exit the bathroom, adjusting things as I made my way back to the table unnoticed.

I stopped at the light switch, flicking it first off, then on again, then off again. But I hadn’t counted it when I’d come in initially, so that was only three. You couldn’t stop on three. I flicked it twice more, eyes widening in horror as I realized I would have to leave the light in the “on” position to end on an even number.

By the time I’d reached forty, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and my finger was beginning to ache, put under enough pressure from the same ritual at home.

Fighting every instinct, I flicked it once more and willed my other hand to pull open the door. Bile rose in my throat, my eyes swimming and stomach threatening to expel those four bites of fondue I’d managed to choke down.

The door opened, revealing my three friends, who stood in the hallway, regarding me with growing concern. Something about the scene was enough to put me over the edge, and I reeled around, blissfully making it to the toilet before I exploded.

“I passed out after that, I guess. When I came to, I was on Hannah’s couch. They all had come to check on me after I was gone for so long, and they saw the lights going on and off, on and off…” I trailed off, sure the doctor could piece the rest together for herself.

“So then,” Dr. Dean had listened patiently to my story and was ready to make her observations, “from what I’m hearing, you also suffer from a form of checking obsession; checking your doors, windows, oven, and that everything is safe and as it rightly should be, correct?”

I nodded, throat a bit dry. I wondered what the woman was leading up to. Whether she’d declare me a hopeless case, or recommend me to a ward, something I’d worried about since this all had begun, and the leading reason I had told no one of my anxiety until now.

“Would you say that your symptoms have increased in severity over the past few years?” She asked. I nodded, and she pressed on. “And then, I have to ask,” she pulled her glasses off her nose, and they came to dangle over her chest, the ends held suspended by a beaded chain around her neck, “do you ever have a desire to hurt yourself? Injure yourself in any way?”

The answer to that was simple enough. I shook my head vehemently. “No, never. Though, I have thought -when I was especially anxious, or depressed about the routine- that it would simply be easier to just curl up on my bed, not move for a day.” I chuckled, feeling tension seeping in further, taking hold of my extremities and my mind.

Sarah clicked her pen once, twice, thinking. I held my breath, worried she would do it once more and leave it at three, but the third never came, and I saw that she was watching me expectantly. Luckily, she saved me from speaking, taking the initiative herself.

“Alright Millie, I tell you what. As you said, it sounds as though you suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your brain uses a neurotransmitter called serotonin to communicate between parts. In cases like yours, serotonin levels are improperly regulated, or supported, and cause communication issues between sections of the brain. There are, of course, medications and things that would help lower your anxiety and replace the serotonin you seem to be lacking, helping you also with gaining control somewhat. However, I hate to slap a temporary band-aid on something, without giving you any sort of leg up on the obsessions and compulsions beforehand.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “I prefer to start with something called Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP.”

“What we do is start small, just here in the office. The “Exposure” part of ERP refers to exposing you to different stimuli that normally introduce anxiety for you, while the “Response Prevention” refers to you actively making a conscious commitment to confront it and resist the compulsion that follows. I won’t lie and say it’s easy, but over time, if you continue with the treatment, you’ll find your anxiety levels drop. This is called habituation and essentially is you, retraining your brain to handle scenarios differently. You’ll eventually get a better handle on your obsessions and compulsions and be able to practice this outside of your appointments also, without guidance from me.”

As she spoke, I felt less tense than I had before. She wasn’t sending me to a special unit or labeling me as crazy. What she was suggesting DID sound hard, but it also sounded more pleasant than a lifetime of pills, if that was the alternative.

“Now, obviously,” she answered, as though having read my mind, “should you require more than that, we’ll tack on medications or chocolate as needed.” She winked. “Chocolate is my preferred serotonin booster and is a good at-home remedy for anyone suffering from a bout of depression.”

I laughed lightly. “I think I can handle chocolate.”

“For the remainder of our time today, however,” Dr. Dean checked her wristwatch before regarding me closely, “I’d like to discuss the more positive aspects of your OCD.”

“Positive aspects?” I sputtered, caught off-guard by what I deemed as a complete shift. “What could possibly be positive about having OCD?”

“You tell me.” Dr. Dean’s lips pursed in barely concealed amusement. “Many people find that their OCD, while often considered a curse, can be a blessing as well. In fact, many studies have concluded that those with OCD are more creative, with higher attention to detail, they are more cautious, empathetic towards others, and are more driven towards accomplishing their goals. Can you think of any situation in which these apply to you?”

As though a slideshow had come to life in my mind’s eye, I saw flashes of memories, remembering other times with my friends, less recent, where they’d looked to me as a sort of team leader.

Corralling my friends into surrendering their PowerPoint pieces on time so that I could turn our combined work into something submittable to the teacher. Helping Corey come up with an idea for his science fair project better than the cliché baking soda volcano. Catching mistakes that even Stella’s wedding coordinator, Mirabelle, had missed, such as the cake being made in entirely the wrong color, luckily in enough time that the error was rightfully corrected before guests came to collect a slice. Hannah, breaking down after having her second child, crying as I held and comforted her, worried that she simply couldn’t possibly handle everything at one time -something I could relate to very well-.

I looked up at the doctor, blinking dumbly.

“I take it from your expression that you can indeed think of some examples.” She finished, not unkindly. “You are a beautiful woman, Mildred Brown. Uh-uh,” she held up a hand to stall my programmed protest. “Your name is part of your identity and is as you make it to be. If you prefer ‘Millie,’ so be it. But let that be your decision, and not one someone else made for you. Your identity from here on out is yours to command and craft as you will, with my job being only to provide the tools you need to get by. You will decide how to use them. But know that your ‘disability’ is also, as I said, a blessing. A part of you that you can harness, control, and bend to your will, even becoming a more powerful, strong, young woman than you are now.”

I listened in stunned silence. I had never thought of it the way she suggested, but it made a kind of sense. I certainly preferred her image of me to the sense of self I’d crafted up until then, someone too broken down by her lack of self-control, too saddened by her lot in life to give any sort of pushback.

Instead, I was someone more sensitive to others’ problems. Someone driven to accomplish great things. Someone who could better channel their creativity.

“I’m strong,” I repeated, more to test the word on my tongue than anything. It felt good.

“You are. And while you may never shake your OCD entirely, you can remind it whose brain it belongs to, and rein it in when the ugly of it tries to seize control.”

Water welled in my eyes as I thought of a future where I didn’t need to spend two hours leaving the house. Of one where vacation was possible because I wouldn’t be too worried I’d left the wash running at home.

“I want that. When do we begin?” I swiped at my eyes, swallowing the lump in my throat away.

Dr. Dean set her clipboard down and leaned forwards, plucking an orange chocolate from the middle of my neatly arranged lines. Popping it into her mouth, the corner of her mouth tweaked up lightly. “We already have.”