Parce qu'il y a certaines habitudes qui deviennent vitales. Aussi futiles soient elles, elles deviennent des points de repères, des choses sur lesquelles on se base pour avancer. Faire sonner trois fois son réveil le matin avant de se lever. Avoir une marque de café favorite. Être assis toujours à la même place à table. Lacer sa chaussure gauche avant la droite. Des gestes qui se transforment en rituels et si ça foire un jour plus rien ne va et on se sent perdu.

He had no idea how wonderful he was. How his hands were so beautiful she could hardly look at them. How his truest smile was crooked and lifted higher on the left side than the right, which made her feel like he might understand her better, her hemiplegic face that was all crooked half smiles, too. But it couldn't be denied. He was also slightly crazy. Maybe more than slightly.

(In response to a picture critic.)

I'm actually a very joyful person. But being a genius with a photographic memory mixed with a strong case of OCD makes for a difficult picture sometimes.

By [anticipatory anxiety] I mean that the patient reacts to an event with a fearful expectation of its recurrence. However, fear tends to make happen precisely that which one fears, and so does anticipatory anxiety. Thus a vicious circle is established. A symptom evokes a phobia and the phobia provokes the symptom. The recurrence of the symptom then reinforces the phobia. The patient is caught in a cocoon. […] [Obsessive-compulsives] fear the potential effects or the potential cause of the strange thoughts. The phobic pattern of flight from fear is paralleled by the obsessive-compulsive pattern. Obsessive-compulsive neurotics also display fear. But theirs is not 'fear of fear' but rather fear of themselves, and their response is to fight against obsessions and compulsions. But the more the patients fight, the stronger their symptoms become. In other words, alongside the circle formation built up by anticipatory anxiety in phobic cases, there is another feedback mechanism which we encounter in the obsessive-compulsive neurotic. Pressure induces counter-pressure, and counter-pressure, in turn, increases pressure. If one succeeds in making the patient stop fighting his obsessions and compulsions -- and this may well be accomplished by paradoxical intention -- these symptoms soon diminish and finally atrophy.

I do not have OCD OCD OCD.

The problem was never my mind; it was a heart that could never hold all that it felt.