In the yearbook from my senior year of high school, my classmates voted me most likely to develop obsessive-compulsive disorder in the future.
Wow, guys, what a good call but HOW DID YOU KNOW? 😂😂😂😂
Apparently, even to a bunch of adolescent boys it was obvious that this was the path I was headed on. I actually remember my mom reading that comment out loud, straight off the page right after I’d brought my yearbook home. The two of us kind of chuckled awkwardly to one another. My mom did her best not to rub it in or put me on the spot, but I do remember the knowing in her laugh, like “Yep, sounds about right.”
Anyway, the joke’s on my classmates because I probably had OCD already, so there!
(I don’t think the term “OCD” was in popular use back in 1990 when I graduated — at least among kids our age? — otherwise my friends would surely have used it.)
As far as “disorders” go, mine is fairly mild and only moderately intrusive — certainly not on the level of Jack Nicholson’s character in the 1997 film As Good As It Gets — but it’s hard to gauge when you’ve been living within a kind of mental filter for so long. I guess what I’m saying is that, as I get older I find that certain behavioral tics get worse — more solidified if I don’t attend to them — but also simultaneously easier to manage (as long as I attend to them). Hmm…
I go ahead and disclose one of my most prominent OCD behaviors in the video above. I’ve never been formally diagnosed, but when you watch the video I think you’ll understand why I’m confident that the term applies in my case.
How much does what I describe chime with your own experience? And what do you think response patterns like OCD can reveal to us about navigating the world? I’d love to know!
<3 SRK
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