Matching parts

In terms of my appearance, I'm as low maintenance as it gets. I don't bother with make-up or manicures, don't have my hair dyed, and have no interest in clothes or shoes.

Unfortunately, there's no escaping a degree of essential body maintenance, which my need for symmetry can make 10 times more time-consuming than it should be.

One such job is cutting and filing my nails. My OCD sets me one goal, which is that exactly the same amount of white should be left visible on each nail. The easiest way to accomplish this, is to aim for a white edge about a millimetre wide. 

Image courtesy of Praisaeng/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Except, all too often, I get carried away and one nail ends up with no edge at all, which means I have to file them all down to nothing to match. This carries the risk of intruding into the area where the nail attaches to the skin. Before I know it, I'm sawing into my flesh, half my fingertips are bleeding, and I can't hold anything properly for the next three days. Opposable thumbs are no use whatsoever, when they throb with pain every time you pick something up.

An even harder job is getting my eyebrows the same shape. Arguably, eyebrow topiary is veering out of essential maintenance into pampering, but I'm at risk of developing a monobrow without some pruning. I've already been called 'sir' half a dozen times in the last year - I assume because tall + short hair = man - and don't want to be mistaken for Noel Gallagher.

This task has been taking me longer and longer in recent years, the time increasing exponentially with the diminishment of my near sight. For a while, I managed by kneeling next to the window, for the best light, and using a mirror with the greatest magnification available. Finally, though, I had to admit defeat and resort to the services of a beautician.

Control of my eyebrows' symmetry was now in the hands of a stranger: a daunting prospect, made worse by the fact that she was proposing to thread them and I had no idea what that entailed. I lay back, closed my eyes, and tried not to panic, while peculiar twanging noises emanated from my brow area. The threading alone wasn't enough, though. I felt her tweezing and then heard the snip of scissors - from the amount of activity, I must have been pretty close to a career as a Noel Gallagher lookalike.

At this point, I was worrying less about whether my eyebrows would match, and more about whether I would have any left at all: although that look would, at least, have had the merit of unequivocal symmetry.

Finally, she invited me to sit up and inspect her handiwork. Wonder of wonders, my eyebrows were perfect. Somehow, even the fact that one is slightly higher than the other was less obvious.

So, it seems symmetry can be achieved, and all it costs is £8...and giving up just a bit of that control I'm so wedded to.

Resistance is not futile

When I first went for occupational therapy, back in the mid-90s, I didn't know what was wrong with me - possibly my doctor wasn't sure either. Nor did I know anything about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which is the recognised treatment for OCD. 

As a result, I'm unsure whether my therapist, Dan*, used CBT in my treatment: he certainly didn't name it as such. However, a key element of CBT is exposure and response prevention (ERP), and he did encourage me to do that.

Essentially, ERP entails exposing yourself to your fears until your anxiety subsides on its own, rather than falling back on your usual compulsions to reduce that anxiety - which forms the 'response prevention' part of the process.

The main cause of anxiety for me is a lack of order and symmetry in my environment. Exposure doesn't, though, mean creating a mess in the normal sense of the word. As I need to have objects around me positioned very precisely, it can suffice simply to push something half an inch out of place. 

Image courtesy of:
sattva/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It's usually necessary to build up the length of exposure over a period of time; to try to resist responding as long as you can, and gradually increase this period of resistance.

In encouraging me to engage in ERP, Dan provided one reassuring piece of advice: if I really couldn't tolerate the 'mess', I could always put things straight when I reached my limit of endurance. This suggestion was, no doubt, intended to help me lengthen my exposures.

I'm sure he also meant for this carrot - of being able to cave in to my compulsions - to be a temporary prop. Unfortunately, I've never managed to relinquish the idea that I can fall back on my OCD when the going gets tough.

I'm sure that I'll be fighting - or managing - my condition for the rest of my life, and will have constant slides up and down the scale of compulsive behaviours. However, there is a subtle, but crucial, difference, between acknowledging occasional remission as part and parcel of OCD, and using it as an acceptable excuse to give up the fight.

An apparently contradictory proposal from Dan was that I might, sometimes, be happy to engage in my compulsions and, if so, not want to resist them. He told me, 'If you recognise what you're doing, and you're happy to spend your time, at that moment, on that activity, that's fine.'

It’s true that one distinguishing feature of OCD, compared to OCD-type behaviours, is the distress that it causes. If you’re not distressed, it’s not a problem – and not defined as OCD. I still don’t know whether it’s healthy, though, for someone diagnosed with OCD to succumb willingly to any compulsion, for any reason. It seems on a par with an alcoholic claiming one drink won’t do them any harm.

On the other hand, everyone has their own form of stress-relief: perhaps drinking or eating, shopping or exercise. The challenge with any of these is the same as for OCD: keeping them in check, so that they don’t take over, or ruin, your life.


*name changed

It's better to give than to receive

Many people don't like Christmas or birthdays, whether due to a dread of spending time with their so-called 'nearest and dearest', a dislike of being a year older, or fear of a surprise party.

I find these events a challenge for an entirely different reason: the presents. The problem is not that I have to buy them, but that I have to receive them.

I know; most people love getting presents. The issue for me, though, is how to fit these gifts into my immaculately ordered life. Each of my current belongings has a designated - very precise - place in my environment, and is integral to the long-established patterns that I've created around me. 

If I introduce a new item, I have to re-jig those patterns to accommodate it, which is hard to do, when I'm so used to them and so unsettled by change.

Image courtesy of:
tiveryluck/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Even if I do succeed in shuffling everything around to create a different, but equally acceptable arrangement, there is a mental adjustment to be made. It takes a long time for the new layout not to jar or trigger a feeling of discomfort. This discomfort is the same as I experience if I accidentally knock something out of place, or engage in an exposure and response prevention exercise.

As soon as I've opened any gifts, I make a display of them, devising a unique pattern for each, which provides a degree of integration into my world. My OCD permits these ad hoc displays because it views them as temporary, and because they don't disrupt my existing patterns.

In fact, I often leave these in my living room for months, rather than have to find new homes for the contents. Hidden in a gift bag under a table, I still have a few cards and presents from last Christmas, Valentine's Day and birthday, which I haven't yet managed to put away.

Over the years, I've devised a way of dealing with this dilemma. When preparing the present wish-lists we exchange in our family, I focus on:

1. Things that are replacements for worn-out items - one in, one out, pattern maintained.

2. Products that I regularly use, which are both easily stored - usually out of sight - and quickly consumed, so that they won't become permanent residents, such as wine, chocolate or my favourite face cream. 

3. Vouchers for 'experiences'. Events already tackled, or yet to come, this year are falconry, climbing the O2 and afternoon tea at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington. 

Vouchers are my favourite kind of present. After all, whether you have ordering OCD or not, isn't it better to live life and create great memories, than just accumulate material goods?

A problem shared

At the point at which I first sought help from my very understanding GP, I didn't know what was wrong with me. All I knew was that I was being driven to behave in a way that I didn't want to and that was having a detrimental effect on my life.

After I'd tearfully described the terrible year I'd had to my doctor, she responded, 'Well, no wonder you're in a pickle,' and referred me to an occupational therapist. 

Prior to this, I'd laboured under the misapprehension that occupational therapy was only used for people with physical injuries sustained through work (the 'occupational' bit). Occupational therapists, in fact, not only treat a wide range of physical injuries and disabilities, but also psychiatric conditions, and may elect to specialise in mental health.

I was uncomfortable about explaining my situation at work and covered my absences, for the appointments, with the vague term, 'medical treatment'. There is still stigma around mental health issues today, but an increasing openness. At the time I underwent that initial treatment, in the mid-90s, such issues were cocooned in silence. 

Image courtesy of: Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was nervous about the first session, being unsure what to expect. Therapy conjured up visions of people lying on couches pouring out their angst - mainly Woody Allen characters.

My trepidation only increased when I met my therapist - let's call him Dan - who appeared to be barely out of his teens. As soon as I heard his American accent, though, I was reassured. Our US cousins were accustomed to therapy and 'shrinks', even back then - whatever was wrong with me, I was sure it wouldn't faze Dan.

I was right. No matter what I presented to him by way of weird behaviour, he had encountered something yet more weird. On one occasion, I described my compulsion to pile my crockery with the pattern facing the same way; he told me that some people wouldn't use their crockery at all, to avoid any disruption to their ordered environment.

In spite of being reasonably comfortable with Dan, I still sometimes held back. 

He first put the name, obsessive-compulsive disorder, to my problem, and, for one homework, asked me to write up a list of my compulsions for us to discuss. I prepared the list - then promptly edited it. Seeing my activities itemised in black and white made me realise, a) just how many there were, and b) how ridiculous most of them seemed. 

A lack of honesty with your therapist is hardly conducive to a good relationship, or helpful to your recovery, but I still had a lot to learn about all that.

At least I'd made a start. And not on a dreaded couch, just an NHS plastic chair.

Cloud(s) nine

My late friend, Nicki (pictured right), was a talented artist, who loved to paint landscapes, clouds and trees. When one of her beloved cats died, she resolved to produce one cloud painting every week for a year, in her memory.

Photo: Jan Price

When Nicki herself died, after a long battle with cancer, she left me the unexpected legacy of nine of these foot-square canvasses. She had put this particular set up in her living room and I decided to hang them in mine in the same 3 by 3 configuration.

My OCD turned this into a major challenge.

Obviously, I couldn't settle for anything less than evenly spaced, and straight, rows and columns, so splashed out on a two-foot long spirit level. Armed with this, a hammer, nails, pencil, rubber, reusable tack and sheets of blank paper, I set to - already stressed by my flat being a 'mess' of tools and bubble-wrapped paintings.

There was another OCD hurdle to clear first, though. 

I planned to put the paintings above my coffee table and had to move it out of the way to reach the wall. If you're a regular reader, you'll know how difficult I find it to move things out of their usual position. Not only had I now added out-of-place furniture and ornaments to the chaos, but I faced the daunting task of putting them back correctly afterwards. 

Next, I had to decide on the general position of the paintings, which took nine sheets of paper, a wad of tack and several attempts. Key was that they should be centred to the coffee table...which was now on the other side of the room. I had to be guided, instead, by the marks its legs had left in the carpet. 

Then it was just a simple matter of deciding how far apart the pictures should be and measuring out accordingly from the centre one. Simple, except I had to calculate and recalculate this a dozen times - I didn't want to hammer nine nails into my pristine wall, only to have to move them and mutilate it even more.

Once I was sure of my sums, I began measuring up, down and sideways with the spirit level, marking the position of each nail in pencil. For every one, I checked, and re-checked, and checked again to ensure the bubble was dead centre in its tiny glass prison and that my measurements were accurate. No way were any pictures of mine going to be wonky or unevenly spaced. No siree.

At last, I was able to hang the frames. I put each one directly onto its nail, ensuring it was in the middle, to avoid the pictures tilting. Perfect.

I stepped back to admire my handiwork...and realised that the gaps between the pictures were all uneven. How on earth had that happened, after all my efforts?

I couldn't shift the paintings along the nails, to even up the gaps, as they'd just tip sideways, and, as my measuring seemed to be spot-on, I couldn't see how moving the actual nails would help, either. 

The only solution was to slide the frames along the nails and then use tack on each corner to keep them straight.

Photo: Peter Gettins Photography
Paintings: Nicki Price

Believe me, I can see the irony in trying to impose symmetry on paintings representing clouds, which produce an infinite variety of patterns, no two ever the same. 

Whenever I see a beautiful cloud formation, I think of Nicki. Tomorrow is the 4th anniversary of her death, so I'm hoping for a special sky to celebrate an extraordinary friend.

* * *

PS I sent this post to Nicki's mum and sister for their approval before publication. Her sister came back with the following crucial information: 'The canvasses are all slightly different sizes and some slightly misshapen. You'd never have succeeded with a spirit level alone!!' Now she tells me...