| 1:19a |
#26 no 100
It must have been around the same time when the two events occurred.
First, my mom was divorcing my dad, and this influenced her monstrously. I mean literally - she came home from a fortune teller or some other snake oil saleswoman one day, swept all the books from a shelf in anger and told us she is going to be a monster for a while now. It continued while we were moving out of our family home and in the new place, her getting progressively more violent. One night, I was staring her down disdainfully, when she snapped, pulling my hair and dragging me around, the phone flying off the windowsill with me from where I was sitting. I promised myself then, rushing away, slamming the door behind me and crying, that I will never, ever hurt a child like she kept hurting me. I would kill myself if I even felt like I might.
Second, walking by the cobbled street from school to granny, I read in a book about teenagers that around 5 (10?) percent of people turn out to be gay. With my luck, I thought quicker than I could actually realize how important doing so is going to be, that is definitely going to be me. Next thought: they would shun me from the family. And then: they would treat me even more cruel at school. Where would I go? This could not happen. This was NOT happening. I was going to make sure beyond any reasonable doubt that it isn't. And so, I started checking against it.
Rose Cartwright in her memoir "Pure" about suffering from pure OCD, talks about the inadequacy of treatment for people like her. Turns out, it would take about 8 years from the moment people experience their first intrusive thoughts to accessing appropriate treatment.
I first felt safe enough talking about it last year, aged 30, about 15 years after the nightmare braid my life was going to twist into emerged. I realized what I'd done with my body and mind by all the checking only last month. It might take me a moment to find a competent therapist to work with, and hopefully, eventually get rid of my pure O. I am agreement with Rose here, that whoever called this thing pure must have been a fucking psychopath. |