{Trapped in the Loop} A Vent

Instructions

It starts as a feeling. Not a thought, not a fear, just a feeling. Like my skin is too tight, like it’s stretched over me wrong. Like I’ve been dipped in something filthy, something I can’t scrub off no matter how hard I try. It coils in my chest, burning, unbearable. And I know, I know, the only way to stop it is to do the thing. Wash my hands. Fix what feels off. Avoid that seat, that shirt, that floor. Make it right. If I don’t, the feeling will never leave. And that’s worse than anything. I don’t remember exactly when it started. Maybe around 2019, maybe 2020. The world was already unraveling, but my world was unraveling in a way no one else seemed to see. At first, it was small. Washing my hands a little more than usual. Adjusting things on my desk until they felt right. But then it became something else. I couldn’t sit in certain places depending on what I was wearing. I had to do things over and over again until the tension in my body eased just a little. My mind never screamed, 'if I don’t do this, something bad will happen.' It wasn’t about that. It was about surviving this horrible, suffocating discomfort that made my whole body feel wrong. And it didn’t stop. At school, I can function. Mostly. But home? Home is a battlefield. My family is drowning in my compulsions, and I am the one dragging them down. Every argument, every slammed door, every time they look at me like I am impossible to love, it is my fault. If I were normal, if I could just stop, everything would be fine. But I couldn’t. I *can’t.* My parents hate it. I can see it in their eyes when I slip, when I do something that doesn’t make sense to them. My sister thinks I’m psycho. My friends, most of them, don’t think it’s a big deal. Except one. She calls me insane, too. Joking, maybe, but it doesn’t feel like a joke when I already feel like I’m drowning. The only person who has ever really *seen* me, even for a second, is my therapist. But I’ve only gone a handful of times. And the worst part? The absolute *worst* part? People who think OCD is just about cleaning or needing things to be perfect. The ones who say, “Oh, I’m so OCD too, I just *have* to organize my books by color.” Or, “My mom says I have OCD because I love keeping my room neat.” Like...bro. Do you stay up all night sobbing because your brain won’t let you rest? Do you fight with your family until you feel like they’ll never look at you the same way again? Do you break yourself apart, over and over, because some invisible force is pulling the strings and you *have* to obey? No? Then shut up. I don’t know if this ever ends. I don’t think it does. Maybe I’ll get better at fighting it, maybe I won’t. But right now, it feels like a never-ending cycle, like a loop I can’t break. And honestly? I don’t even know who I’d be without it.