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For once, she broke the silence. “You know, when you first brought this up, I lay it out for you. I explained about harm OCD and pedophilia OCD as well as the others, and I didn’t ask you to specify what was going on. I knew by the distress on your face it had to be one of the big, bad, ones.” She paused and frowned. “I wonder now if that was a mistake. Hiding it is not serving you.”
“How does saying it out loud help?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t it?”
I maintained my silence.
“Let me ask you this. Of all the other types of OCD you’ve had, all the symptoms you’ve overcome, how many of those did you bring out into the light?”
I sighed. “All of them.”
“You want me to tell you that you’re a safe person. You want me to tell you that you’re trustworthy.” She shrugged. “You are safe. You are trustworthy. It doesn’t matter that I believe it. You gotta believe it.”
Ezinne caught me up on some of the happenings around the house, and I visited with the girls before I left. They gifted me with a delicate linked bracelet they made with Bex. I put it on immediately, noting the tiny gemstones that caught the light, while they caught me up on the rest of their news. One had decided to start working part-time with Ruby and Vander, and a couple others jumped at the chance to attend to craft fair with me on Sunday.
It was the last one. By the end of July, I typically had so many commissions that it did not make sense to continue into August. This year I had more than usual. I would have thought with Willa and Junie pulling back I’d have more time to work, but I had less. The drive to be with Lucky and Brayleigh ate up all the extra time.
I headed home with full intentions of working on my portrait commissions. Halfway there, it occurred to me that I could not be the only OCD sufferer with obsessions related to sex, harm, aggression, or pedophilia. Surely, somewhere in the world wide web, someone had shared how their thoughts looked and sounded.
If I could compare my thoughts to theirs, if I could prove to myself that those disturbing thoughts I had were indeed OCD and not some deviant desire that I needed to repress, I could dismiss those thoughts in the same way I dismissed the other types of OCD thoughts. They would no longer interfere.
What does your OCD sound like?
Who is the voice of your OCD?
What does OCD look like for you?
How do you know it’s OCD?
Is your OCD an accusatory voice?
Is OCD your voice or someone else’s?
Is your OCD you arguing with yourself, or does it talk to you as if it’s someone else?
After six hours of searching, my bleary eyes could take no more and I headed to bed.
I found nothing to reassure myself.
I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t talking.
Chapter Thirty-Three - White Noise
Lucky
“We’re upstairs! Come on up!”
Minty’s light step sounded on the stairs followed by her tap on the door.
“Come in, baby. Brayleigh is in the tub.”
“I’ll just wait downstairs?”
“Come talk to me while she plays. This will take a while.”
Minty stepped tentatively around the doorframe. Her eyes bounced around the bathroom, then snapped back to Brayleigh and she laughed, the tension easing out of her frame.
Brayleigh grinned. “Hi, Sparky!”
