Vanessa Salemi

Obsessed with Obsession

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It’s a blooming curiosity; a deadly flower that plants itself in the back of your head, continuously flourishing, and overfilling the room as it grows bigger. The roots stem directly into your veins and you feel it raging through your body. It is the puppeteer. Words often began to vomit out of your mouth because a voice, which sounds an awful lot like your own, tells you to say everything that is on your mind. No matter who you hurt. Because the consequences of ignoring your compulsions is worse than you blurting out that you hate your sister’s hair or your friend’s outfit is unpleasant to the eye. Nothing can truly be as hostile as living in your own head, with no control over the chorus of impulsivity that spews from your lips. And when the paranoia starts to set in and the edge of reality blurs, you have to make sure to ask your friend to repeat what she had just said…again and again…because you didn’t hear it the first time. Or the second time. Or the third. It has always been imperative that you can validate a conversation, word for word, because that means it actually happened. OCD is a gun and you are the loaded bullet. It is impossible to stray from the shot being taken and you land where it wants to you to land, the consequences too often be damned.