Dating the OCD Way
By Guest Author Pamela Franklin

I was tired. It was past midnight, and I had just driven for an hour to get here. And I was so cold. I turned on the heater and watched as the windows of my white Toyota Turcel began to fog up.

”I have to do this tonight," I thought.

I waited, listening to the late-night disc jockey discuss her cliché-ridden philosophy on love and relationships. I wished she would shut up and play the classic rock that the station was supposed to be playing. Finally, exasperated, I turned the radio off.

My neck jerked quickly to the left. Actually, I jerked it myself, but I had to. Oh, forget it, it’s too hard to explain.

I couldn’t help jerking my neck again. Then again.

"Nerves," I thought. “The same old thing.”  I turned the blathering radio back on. The need to move my neck disappeared.

Finally, headlights came up the street. My heart raced. "This is it," I thought. "Here I go."

False alarm! The headlights passed by the house. My pulse descended to its normal pace. Fortunately, as I continued to wait, the DJ began playing classic rock. The click in my throat, of which I had been barely aware until now, stopped. I settled back against the seat and half-closed my forever-blinking eyes.

“I am not my eyes,” I reminded myself. “I am not my neck or my throat or my Tourette’s syndrome. I am Pam, a very loving, honest person. I’m so honest that I’m going to tell my boyfriend everything even at the risk of losing him. And I’m a brilliant young writer who will touch the sky some day, despite the Tourette’s. Because of the Tourette’s.”

My eyes stopped blinking.

After I had relaxed for forty-five minutes, I saw the correct pair of headlights come up the drive. The car’s clock read 1:30 a.m.

The garage door opened and the Pontiac Sunbird pulled into it. I took a deep breath and emerged from my own car. Very slowly.

He saw me immediately. His eyes widened in surprise to see that his new girlfriend had waited outside his house until 1:30 in the morning.

"Pam?" he said, furrowing his brow. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything’s fine," I said, "but I need to talk to you."

”Sure," he said. "Come in the house." As I approached the door, he licked his lips nervously.

I followed him inside. His schnauzer and little white "yippy" dog barked and danced excitedly at his feet as we entered. He took off his jacket and hung it up in the closet while I sat down on the couch. I wrung my hands and folded my arms together, shivering. But I was not cold; I was scared nearly to death.

First, he petted his excited dogs in order to calm them. Then he turned to me, his head tilting with curiosity. He sat down with me on the couch and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I have something I need to tell you, and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow, since I have my courage up now," I said. I knew that I was speaking too fast, but I couldn’t slow down.

He gazed at me so intensely that I shrank away from him. "Tell me," he said.

"I’m not exactly sure how to say this," I said, resisting the urge to run out the door. He sat there, silently waiting for me to continue.

"I – I have these disorders," I explained, "They’re called OCD and Tourette’s."

He looked puzzled.

“Oh, God!” I thought. “Now I have to explain them.”

"OCD is obsessive-compulsive disorder,” I said out loud. “Sometimes I get these thoughts in my mind that are kind-of unrealistic or that bother me.”

“Obsessions?”

“Yes. Like when I'm doing something like folding laundry. I’ll start thinking that I have to fold a dress or a skirt in a certain way or something bad will happen to me."

He raised his eyebrows, "What do you mean something bad will happen to you?"

“Well for instance, if I’m really excited about, say, going on vacation. Sometimes I’ll be ironing and then I’ll start telling myself that, if I don’t fold this dress just so, then something will happen so I can’t go on vacation."

He was silent for a moment. “Can't you just tell yourself it's not true?"

I sighed. "I wish it were that easy, but OCD is a chemical imbalance. It’s something I was born with. I mean, you wouldn’t tell a person with diabetes to ‘just get over it,’ would you? They have to take medication. It’s the same with OCD.”

“So, an obsession is a thought you can’t help having? Like some people can be obsessed with sex?”

“Actually, that’s not a good example because thinking about sex is usually fun. An obsession is something you’d rather not think about.”

“OK, so an obsession is a thought you can’t help having, and you don’t want to have it. What’s a compulsion?”

"A compulsion is whatever I actually do to stop my obsessive thoughts, or at least put them off for a while. For instance, one of the things I used to obsess about was tearing toilet paper perfectly along the ridges. If I didn't, I felt like something bad would happen. So I used to keep tearing the paper over and over until I thought it was just right.

“The compulsion was when I acted on the obsession and tore the toilet paper. My psychiatrist called it a ‘repetitive behavior’ but, to me, it just was important to keep doing it until I got it right."

“Does the same medication help you control your obsessions as your compulsions, or do you have to take two medications?"

"The same medication stops both of them."

"Does it completely stop them or just tone them down?"

"For the most part it stops them, but sometimes it's difficult. Like, if I get nervous, my symptoms sometimes get worse despite the medicine. The Tourette’s symptoms get worse with tension too.”

He nodded his head. "Tell me about the Tourette’s. Isn't that the disorder that makes people yell swear words at inopportune times?"

“Is there an opportune time for swearing?” I asked, smiling. He laughed.

"Well,” I said, “I have heard that some Tourette’s sufferers swear at the police or at other important people, and they can’t help it, but fortunately I don't. I have what I call a twitch collection. From the time I was little I used to collect various twitches such as jerking my head, cracking my jaw, and making various sounds. Maybe you’ve heard me make funny noises."

He looked at me steadily for a moment before answering. "Well, I guess I have heard you making some funny noises. I just didn’t pay much attention."

"Most people ignore it, but at times somebody will look at me odd."

Then it occurred to me that he looked relieved. I couldn’t believe it.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” he said. “In fact, it’s wonderful!”

My eyes popped wide open. "You think it’s wonderful that I have OCD and Tourette’s?"

"Yes, I do. I thought you were going to tell me you're pregnant."

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