Leaving the OCD Circus. Kirsten Pagacz
the faster I could cover them, the better.
I didn't like the dark brown hairs showing up on my lady area either; they made me feel more wrong. My dad liked to talk to me about my vagina and about me becoming a woman. He said he'd throw a party for me when I got my period; this way everyone would know I was a woman. I was very uzmfortable when he talked to me like that.
Sergeant offered me a place where my boobs didn't exist anymore; where my dad couldn't frighten me with his talks, drugs, and loud music; a place where I was not left alone in the house waiting for my mom to come home from work, where I was no longer Kirsten Weirdsten.
Temporary Euphoria
The summer I was twelve, I underwent a metamorphosis. I heard my brother and his friends talking about chicks being “foxy,” and I was certain that this was my new bull's-eye. Achieving foxy would bring me the peace I had been working to achieve with Sergeant for the past several years. If I could get foxy, I would be accepted and happy and would no longer feel like a walking bruise.
I started wearing tighter, more revealing clothes, lots of makeup, and big 1980s hair. I experimented with the frosty blue Maybelline eyeliner that I saw models in the magazines wearing.
I started hanging out with the young wolves in the alley. There would often be a gang of them slouching against garbage cans, staring at their dirty gray sneakers, kicking rocks, smoking cigarettes in their army jackets, or sitting on the broken pavement in front of a garage, not necessarily their own. Let's just say none of these kids had school spirit or were particularly popular, but I thought they were cool, living on the fringe and not caring much about anything.
We wolves (because now I was one of them) would smoke bowls of pot that looked like tiny branches, golden or red hairs, clumps of dirt, and seeds that would crackle and snap when they were lit. We would smoke a few puffs, cough violently, and keep passing the joint around, our eyes glassing over and turning pink. No one seemed to give a fuck, and to me this felt pretty good. Smoking pot gave me some relief and letup from Sergeant. Plus, I loved the sensation of floating and laughing at silly things. Sergeant was barking out orders more and more these days, and I wanted to silence him. The pot delivered.
We wolves had something else in common: we all had time on our hands. We didn't have places to be, like the dinner table, and we didn't have anyone looking for us. When I was high, even though I never felt totally right, I didn't feel as wrong either.
However, one time while stoned, my braces were bothering me so much that I couldn't stand them in my mouth a second longer. The hard wires in the back were poking inside my soft, fleshy cheek. I couldn't stop thinking about them, obsessing about them and the pain they caused. Sergeant helped me to come to this conclusion and presented a winning end goal: “comfort.” I decided that I had to take them off myself with a variety of tools I found at my friend's house. It's embarrassing to say this now, but one of the tools that worked especially well was a pair of toe-nail clippers. I hope I washed them before I gave myself dental surgery! I know, gross. However, they were the perfect tool for hunkering down and pulling out the wire. After I pulled out the wires the best that I could, I picked off the metal boxes glued to my teeth. My determination to get them off was greater than the pain I felt taking them off. In a driven panic, I almost got rid of every piece. The orthodontist was in shock the next time he saw me. I'm sure my mom didn't like the bill, either!
When eighth grade started, I had such a bad attitude that all seven of my teachers called a conference with my mother and said, “What happened to your daughter?!” It seemed as though nobody knew.
Not only had my personality done a 180, but we'd also moved closer to the high school I'd soon be attending because my mom had found a good deal on a condo. That well-traveled and well-known land of my old neighborhood had now evaporated into the distant past “when I was a kid.” I was becoming a teenager, and that meant no more kid stuff. No more climbing trees with Victoria and talking to caterpillars. No more days of walking out the front door without any makeup on.
OCD LIKE A BRUSH FIRE
Artist: Doug Pagacz
High School (Checker Maximus!) OCD: 1980–1984
Then came the first day of high school. I was out the door and on my way there, to this school that was so big it looked and felt like an airport. I was about to spend the next four years of my life there. I was a bundle of nerves when I heard Sergeant say, “Are you sure you locked the door?”
“Oh my God, I didn't. What a stupid idiot I am!” I raced home.
The door was locked. I jiggled the knob again and again and said out loud, “The door is locked, the door is locked,” hoping that saying it would make it stick so I didn't have to be questioned again.
But no sooner had I gotten a step away than Sergeant asked again, “Are you sure it's locked? How do you really know? You have made many mistakes before; you make them constantly. You should really check it one more time. The safety of your family is at stake here! [There's that emotional buy-in.] A man with a sharp knife could hide inside your condo, and the first family member to walk in . . . SLASH! And it would be your fault. Do you want to come home to a BLOOD BATH and a LOVED ONE with a SLASHED THROAT?”
I sure didn't want that; I believed every word Sergeant said to me, even though sometimes what he said went beyond my logical mind. The more I tried to resist him, the more violent his visuals became, like a slide show of blood and horror. I didn't know what else to do but comply.
I checked and relocked the door more than fifty times before I was free to go.
Finally, I was on my way to school. I was wearing my new Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that I had to zip up with a clothes hanger because they were so tight and so foxy. I remember touching my barrette several times in a certain way, making sure it was perfectly straight in my hair. Sergeant had already reminded me that if my barrette looked lopsided and sloppy, it would be a very poor reflection of me.
I needed to be sharp, with it, together, and perfect, so I straightened it again. Then I smoked several cigarettes to get some relief from the anxiety of the newness up ahead and of Sergeant breathing down my neck.
When I got to the entrance, I saw some faces I recognized from grade school. What I would've really liked to do was run up to them and yell, “Can you fuckin' believe how big this place is?” But I knew that would be childish. Excitement is for children.
I couldn't stop judging myself. If Sergeant wasn't doing it, I could fill in like a champ.
I saw a pack of perfect girls together. They apparently didn't have a bad case of “heredity” like I did, with short legs and heavy thighs. My mom always reminded me of this, and I carried it forward. One girl seemed so perfect and untouchable. She seemed to be perched like a beautiful red bird at the top of a tall pine tree, looking down, like a queen looks down at her court. Life looked so easy for her. I knew—at least right then, anyway—I wasn't worthy of her greatness. As I walked by her, pieces of me seemed to be falling off.
For me, high school was no Normal Rockwell painting. No long weekends at the football games, bake sales for special causes, or homecoming floats. I was not playing on the tennis team or working hard on the yearbook council. I spent a great deal of time in my head. What I was working hard at was trying to present a “normal front” to everybody I encountered—and keeping my relationship with Sergeant a secret.
I have heard people say that they loved high school. Clearly, they lived on a different planet than I did. For me, it went by agonizingly slow, and my