Most people, when they hear that I have OCD, assume that I am someone who organizes compulsively or that my apartment is as clean as an operating room. These people tend to be surprised when they hear that I’m a piler, my bookshelves are far from alphabetized, and I only remember which chores I need to do by looking at a chores app I put on my phone.
It was, therefore, very surprising to me when, on a recent trip to Florida, I first felt the need to compulsively clean.
I was visiting a friend, Nina (name changed for privacy), who I hadn’t seen since DragonCon. After five months without seeing each other - and especially since I’d hardly seen anyone since my beloved family dog passed away - I was thrilled to see a friend who spent so much time and effort to help me feel comfortable at DragonCon.
I was surprised when she picked me up in a messy car, since I stayed with her at DragonCon and her half of the room was very clean, but I figured that it’s a pretty common thing to have a messy car. However, I was horrified when we got back to her apartment building and she opened the door to the filthiest place I have ever been.
If you’ve ever seen the show “Hoarders” on A&E, you’d get a good idea of what I walked into. Floor-to-ceiling boxes spilled clothes and plastic containers and action figures on top of two couches coated in a thick layer of cat hair and crumbs. The TV had a film of filth, it was impossible to even get near the couches since the paths were too slim for a human to get by and I was unwilling to climb on the boxes, and more video games than a Gamestop poured out of collapsing shelves. Food streamed out of shelves in the kitchen onto the grimy stove, and was stacked so high in the fridge that it almost didn’t close. The second bedroom was so filled with boxes that there wasn’t even a way to reach in a hand and turn on a light - let alone walk in there - and the bathroom floor was crunchy with cat litter and various debris that turned the bottoms of my feet black when I tried to take a shower there later.
I’d been feeling stressed ever since I saw the place, but once I felt so filthy coming out of the shower, I finally broke down. I told my friend how hard of a time I was having in such a filthy environment, and we had an open and honest conversation where she told me how her own mental health concerns were preventing her from cleaning the endless amounts of nerd paraphernalia that I would have been so jealous of in any other circumstance.
Still, the fact remained that I was due to stay there for four nights and five days, and I wanted to attack the apartment with so much Clorox and Windex that it would smell like a hospital. I wanted to scrub the floors and the walls and collapse all the boxes and push a strong vacuum all over the place until it was sparkling clean.
I knew this was not something I could do, but I was still impressed that it took me to this point to feel my hands twitching at my sides with the urge to clean. I felt like, in some twisted way, I finally earned my OCD stripes, if the stereotype is to be believed. And I started to brainstorm if there was anything I could do, short of leaving immediately for the airport or a hotel, that would help me keep my friendship and any small level of comfort accessible to me in such an environment.
In the end, I talked with Nina about what I would need - a space with a door I could close, where I wouldn’t need to worry about cats crawling on me when I slept - and she agreed that I could sleep in her bed and she would sleep on the couches. I still didn’t feel like I could keep my suitcase open, eat anything that came out of her kitchen, or truly relax, but I was at least able to vocalize the way I wasn’t feeling safe and advocate for what I needed.
Most importantly, I listened to the voice of my therapist, D., who tells me to think of something I can control when I feel like my whole life is out of control. When my dog died, for example, she told me that I could control how I was going to handle my grief and remember him, and I ended up buying and filling out a remembrance journal.
In this case, I didn’t feel like I could leave before the day I’d planned to leave, but I was able to change my flight to make it about twelve hours earlier. Even that little change made me feel like I could control my surroundings somewhat, and I started to pull back from that edge of panic when I felt like my whole life was uncontrollable.
It’s a technique past therapists have discussed with me - negating my “all or nothing” thoughts by creating a contradiction. If I control one thing, after all, then it doesn’t mean that my entire life is out of control. It might be more than I would like, I told myself as I prepared to go out with Nina the following day, but soon I would be back in an environment I could control more.
Since I knew I was going to be there for the next several days, I did my best to get out of the apartment, whether that meant a walk outside or a very exciting trip to a local grocery store. I convinced Nina to go on a road trip since her car was cleaner than her apartment, and I took a tour of her aquarium workplace. Somehow, petting a shark felt easier than staying in her apartment!
There were other things I could control, too. I picked my own food, insisted on getting takeout instead of eating out in a state with far fewer COVID precautions, and texted my friends back home and my family. I watched too much TV, read nearly constantly, and played so many games that my fingers got sore. I even allowed myself to feed into some of my more obsessive tendencies when I spent two hours unpacking and repacking Nina’s amiibo figurines, tapping each one on my Nintendo Switch to get benefits in various games.
At the end of the trip, I can’t say I would ever visit Nina again if I was unable to stay in a hotel, but I was able to make it until the wonderful moment when I spread out the contents of my suitcase across the floor of my clean apartment, took out a bottle of Clorox wipes, and wiped everything - including the suitcase itself. I put in the laundry on the highest heat, took a long shower, and finally felt like myself for the first time in five days.
Although I’m pretty amused that it took me up to this point to indulge in such a common stereotype, I am also very proud that I was able to accommodate to far-less-than-ideal circumstances and pull myself back from the panic. As I continue to take steps towards normalcy after losing my dog, I hope I can keep fighting like this as I work toward the future I want for myself.
Ellie, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.