The Academy: OCD Style

Broken Pieces

(By mlinkystark, with my own edits)

The uncooked spaghetti littered the floor. The pieces were every which way. Each piece a different length, staring at me as if it was my fault that it was not perfect. I made a move towards it, wanting to fix it and make it pure, but my mothers cold voice stopped me.

"Don't. I told you not to move." 

I stood in place, my mini broom already in hand, wanting to look away from the mess or at least clean it up but being unable to. I tried to think of other things, how normal people don't have to clean up a mess the second it happens. That people don't have to make sure things are exactly parallel. I think of how abnormal I am and how I wish I could make that different. My mom stares at me. She does this to me so often that I should be used to it, but instead the need to clean everything just seems to grow inside of me. I don't know why I am this way, only that it is a crime that must be punished. My mom takes it upon herself to be the judge and executioner of my problem. 

We had been standing there for twenty minutes, just looking at the noodles that had been purposefully scattered on the floor and stepped on. The agony of my mind was reeling from this forced suppression of the instincts that pushed me to correct the imperfect. Finally, I could take it no longer. Stooping to my knees, I raced to sweep up all that I could in the least amount of time possible. My mother was screaming at me to put the mini broom down, but it was dimmed by the beating of my own heart and the voices that had told me to pick everything up right away.I'm not crazy and the voices aren't actually real voices, but more of this overwhelming feeling that I must take care of the imperfections now. It overwhelms my mind until I can think of nothing but the defections. Every muscle in me seems to clamp down, and I can do nothing until it is cleaned up. That feeling is just easier for me to explain as a voice, since it sometimes feels like a monster is living inside of me instead of it just being my own mind tormenting me.

After I have finally righted the mess, I grab a sponge and scrub the floor clean. But now I can't just clean that one spot but the entire kitchen floor. The buzzing in my soul won't stop until everything is clean again. My mom has stopped yelling at me, and now just watches me with disgust as I make the white kitchen floor spotless. After an hour, the tiny kitchen finally looks right again. I sigh in relief, my soul finally feeling calm again. Nothing is better than seeing something immaculate. 

My relief withers up as I remember what my mother does to me when I can't complete her "little challenges." I look up at her and see hatred and a tad bit of happiness in her eyes. She is happy that I have failed. Sometimes she makes me sit on a wobbly stool for hours, the wobble painful but not unbearable. Sometimes I have to kneel half on and half off carpet, so that when I finally get off hours later, the marks on my knees are not the same. It fades quickly, but the torture of seeing my own skin not equal is... well, torture. But the worst and most recent is when she takes out the blade, and that is exactly what she does now. 

"You know what to do," her voice grates, causing immediate tears to spring to my eyes. 

This is always the worst. I lay down, my back on the cool floor. She roughly shoves up my shirt, and there sees another display of my failure. 

"I knew that you would fix it, you little bitch. You just couldn't allow yourself to be anything less then perfect like the vain little slut you are. Now I'll give you another line to teach you your lesson. See how long you can last before you have to 'fix it'".  She spits this as she drags the razor diagonally on my left side. 

I can feel the blood pool over the wound. I would have to clean the dried, red stain later. The pain is horrendous, but not as bad as it will be when I look in the mirror and see how nonparallel it is. She has done this several times before. She would make a mark on the left side, and I would eventually see it. I would look in the mirror and see that it was not matched on my other side, that my right side was too unmarred compared to my left, and I would have to fix it. The monster in me would not let my own skin be imperfect. So, I would draw an exact replica of the mark my mother had. Only when I was symmetrical once again would I be able to breath right again. The pain hurt, but the relief of being right again was worth it. As my mother left me on the floor, I wondered how long I could go this time before "correcting it." Sometimes I last weeks, but the last one I fixed only hours after getting it. The key is not to look, not to see the imperfection, but it is hard not to look when I already know it's there mocking me. I could sometimes do it, but on the last one I could not stop myself. It just shows once again what a failure I am.