Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive Obsessive x4

My nan died. Lots of people’s nans do that. All nans. All people, even.

They slip gently away, leaving chaos behind - death is such a heathen.

I knew it was coming, I saw it arrive, and I watched as it carried her away.

The end of her life was the beginning of something. That’s how it started. On that day.

Everybody grieves differently, that’s normal. But my 14-year-old grief got possessive.

I was only a teenager when it seeped through my skin - and then I become obsessive.

OCD they call it, which riles me up - couldn’t they have abbreviated it to 4 letters, not 3?

We need structure, method, aligned and primed. We need rhythm and rightness to feel free.

It was all wrong. A mess. A terminal stress. For ten whole years, it inhabited my head.

An obsessive-compulsive disaster, yet it was my master - and it left me wanting to be dead.

Ironically, though that is. Because OCD is just a quiz, pasted to the forefront of your brain.

Questioning exactly how your loved ones might die - if you don’t tap this light switch again.

And again. And again. Sixteen times, in four lots of four. That was the pattern I followed.

Tapping my eyelids. Leaning against the glass shower door. It took all my power. Left me hollowed.

I couldn’t even write. Not from left to right. Backwards, letter by letter, my words would appear.

Bottom corner only, I wasn’t allowed to touch the lines. Or else, to those I loved, bad things would lurk near.

My mental health was unhealthy, my OCD very un-stealthy, it tainted all that I knew.

It started from death and existed to prevent any more, but it was killing me all the way through.

Thing is, it’s kind of sad. Endearingly, but still bad. These thoughts, all irrational and grey.

They’re here for good reason - so they think, at least. They just want to make sure your loved ones are okay.

It’s all rhyme, irrational reason. Like your mind’s committing treason. As you tap-tap away and stand by.

Half your brain knows it’s wrong, the other half is strung along, and you think you’ll have OCD until you die.

That’s it. That’s how it started. That’s how it was. That’s how I used to foresee forever.

But the start isn’t important, nor the decade thereafter: it’s the ending that’s brought us here, together.

A day some time ago, in a moment like any other, I shook my head and then righted it again.

I patiently asked it to leave, heard it out, helped it pack - and then I actually picked up a pen.

Wrote on the top line. From left to right. Any word that I wanted to say, got said.

I could think freely once more, do things in threes, not four - write about anything. I wrote about OCD instead.

It’s a disorder because it creates chaos. A mess of confusion. An entropic scream into both of your ears.

But when the dust settles in your brain, you can see again, and life is louder than your previous fears.

Life said, “look how you’ve grown! And all the love you’ve been shown! Look at all the little things you can now do!”

“The habits you’ve rewired. The gratitude you’ve acquired. Your obsession for living each moment, all the way through.”

Intrusive thoughts that were once so chokingly dull, might have actually been silver, not grey.

A silver lining to this thing that lived in my skull - a line I could write on. What a novelty, eh?

How it started was one thing: a girl who missed her nan so much that it actually fried her brain.

How it ended is another: a girl who missed her nan, missed her life. So decided to finally start living again.