When I was about seven years old, I started to notice I was having this insatiable desire to keep things even.

While bored in class, I would trace the letters in the title of the worksheet we were working on. I had to trace each letter perfectly with my pencil or finger (whichever I started with), finish tracing the whole title, then trace every letter that was typed on the page. When I was a little older I also found that when I would make myself eggs for breakfast, I would have to make sure that the remaining eggs lay symmetrically in the carton no matter how many eggs I took out of the carton. 

Those were the small things. Next thing I knew, I felt I had to touch things evenly. It didn’t matter if it was the cinder blocks in a row on a wall or the VHS cassettes in their storage place, I had to touch them all evenly.

The worst of it happened while walking in public. I would stare straight down at the sidewalk and notice where my feet would fall between the lines of the blocks in the sidewalk and I had to make sure that my strides were even. Inevitably, sometimes the blocks were uneven, or there would be something I would have to walk around, forcing me to take either an awkwardly large step or an odd series of baby steps with a specific foot to ensure that I eventually counterbalanced the anomaly within my stride.

Needless to say, with the many imperfections of sidewalks this happened a lot, and it made walking on sidewalks a nightmare. I was still a young child and would walk beside my parents, so I couldn’t really decide to just walk on the side of the road. Even if I did, my brain would have found some way to monitor my steps.

Luckily, I managed to speak up about this annoying oddity in my life. Certainly this couldn't be “normal” human behavior, and it was driving me bonkers. When I spoke with my mother, she suspected that it was a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). She knew that it was something that some people dealt with and that it came in many different forms. Knowing that it had a name and that I wasn’t entirely alone made me feel less embarrassed about having it, but it certainly didn’t ease the torture of living with it.

After several years, somewhere around ten or eleven years of age, I became very stressed about my OCD behaviors. I would find myself enraged with them. Why did I have these odd compulsions and why did I actually follow through with them? I thought about it a lot.

Finally, while in class (social studies, if I recall correctly), I caught myself tracing the title of a textbook with my finger. My OCD kicked in and I felt the urge to complete the whole thing. I traced all the way up to the penultimate letter, then stopped.

I stared at the final letter feeling the need to complete the pattern I had started. My brain was screaming at me. It honestly felt that if I did not complete it, the world would end.

I put my hands on the desk and looked away from the book; even more panic ensued. I kept at it and would not give in to the craving. I waited for the world to blow up… and it didn’t.

Although I still felt anxious, I had one of those odd feelings of relief that make you want to laugh out loud awkwardly. I waited about twenty minutes and started tracing again, this time on purpose. Once again, I stopped right before the final letter and quit. Panic again, but slightly less. I knew then that the world would not end and that the emotion would subside once I let myself get focused on something else, like the teacher, and I’d soon forget about it.

I began putting this practice to the test in the other aspects of my life where these OCD behaviors had reigned. I would intentionally leave the eggs in oddball designs just to upset myself. I would step on the cracks in the sidewalk and then look up and focus my eyes on anything other than the ground beneath me. With each victory, my OCD behaviors weakened until they disappeared altogether.

I know I am very fortunate, and that there are plenty of others with it who suffer from OCD far worse than me. I hope, though, that by sharing this, I may be able to help someone take a stand against their compulsions. To weaken them or fully get past them.

To be honest, every once in a while, I feel the urge for symmetry-- usually when I'm cooking eggs. It is a weak urge, but I know that if I give into it, the urge could strengthen again. I know that I need to remind myself to keep my brain in check at times, which means you may find an odd pattern of eggs in the carton in my fridge. Ultimately, that is a small price for mental liberty.

What struggles have you overcome through being persistent and focused?
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