While this story is inspired by real-life experiences, it is a work of fiction. It details the story of a girl, Sarah, and a boy, Evan, who meet under unusual circumstances: intensive outpatient therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Although brief, the story shares the progression of their relationship, while also exploring Sarah’s thoughts and compulsions and her journey to recovery.
My friend’s mother owns the clinic I ended up choosing. It was a program for my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I made the calls myself to get into this place. I was wearing a pair of jeans with small tears on the bottom and an off-white turtleneck. I wanted to look nice. You never know who you might meet, I thought.
I didn’t want to tell my parents what I was going through – that felt entirely embarrassing to me; them knowing that I had to knock the trim of the door five times before I went to bed, while my fingernails slammed against the paint, but then instantly worried the paint went into my fingernails so I had to wash my hands, not touch anything and do the whole thing over again. This time, making sure I didn’t slam my pointer finger too hard on the door trim that paint chips would get under my fingernails, soak into my skin, cause lead poisoning, and then death.
Or to tell them that I couldn’t stop picking my eyebrows and how last summer I spent a whole night picking every last strand off, relishing on the rush that would follow after I pulled a thick hair out, until my eyes started to rip with water and redness rose on the skin above my eyes where my eyebrows were supposed to lie.
Or to tell them that I think everything will kill me and then I will never get to experience all the wonderful things in life. Especially never falling in love.
So, yes, I called myself into this program because I knew things needed to change – just no one needed to know about it. It’s not that I wasn’t close with my family. I was just ashamed and scared that my parents would think differently of me, so keeping it hush hush seemed to be the best option. Later, when I started to get better, I ended up telling my parents that I was struggling and in this program to get better.
My dad said to me while sitting on our home sofa, “Something I admire about you is how you always advocate for yourself. It will take you very far in life.”
After some brief paperwork at the front desk, I walked through the hallway to the room: splattered paint and abstract artwork filled the tan-colored walls. I wanted to run my fingers across the wall like I used to do in elementary school, but I didn’t want to risk it.
I opened the door – the coldness of the metal reached through my cotton sleeve, and I entered the room. I was late. Everyone gawked at me. I glanced at the people sitting in cushioned chairs, all in a circle. A girl’s pink UGGs rested on an ottoman. Another boy who looked much older than me, but actually only ended up being 21, had tattoos that covered his legs and across his arms – one was a black-ink drawing of a wheelchair with a grouping of balloons attached that he later told me was an emblem for his brother.
A person in the middle was standing, which occluded my view of a boy with long curly hair. I looked into his eyes, and he looked into mine for a second – long enough for me to see his charcoal eyes with specks of black circling his pupil. I slouched my shoulders slightly and bent my head toward the ground as I walked to find an open spot. My new peers were still reciting their morning instructions and updating the group of 15 on how their days were. The only open seat was next to the boy I locked eyes with. I scooted my body next to him and slid into the chair.
Turns out his name was Evan. His hair was long enough to reach down to the body of the chair. It seemed like it hadn’t been attended to in a long time: dust particles fit perfectly in the crevices of his frizzy curls, and knots swarmed his thick, dirty blonde hair. His teeth bucked out onto his dry and cracked lips. He shifted stiffly in his seat, and his hands seemed to be mechanically placed on his lap. His burgundy shirt had a slight stain on the bottom right corner with a rip on the bottom left that looked like it had arisen from some recent mishap: the strings still flailing around in the small hole, lingering and about to pull apart from each other. Black Nike joggers covered his legs, so no skin would be exposed. Large pimples displayed across his forehead and along the upper part of his mouth.
He turned to face me, “Hi, I’m Evan.”
“Hi, I’m Sarah.” I reached out to shake his hand, but he shook his head. My cheeks burned as I gently placed my hand back into my lap. I looked the other way to the therapists as they began to introduce me.
“Hello, everyone. We have someone new starting with us today.” She turned to look at me. Her hair was dark, short and choppy and a pearl necklace rang around her neck. Gabriella was her name, and later, she saved me. “Sarah, do you want to introduce yourself?” she asked kindly and gently.
My eyes did little saccades, and I cracked my neck before I began to speak. I first looked down at my cuticles, band aids covered half of my fingers and the ones that didn’t have bandages were about to need them when I pulled the last pieces of skin. Blood oozed from my body, leaving a raw pink coloring around my short nails.
“Hi, everyone. … umm…I’m Sarah,” I said. I couldn’t look at them.
I turned to Gabriella for help. She mouthed, Go on.
“I’m 19 and I’m from Oak Park. … I’m not sure what else to say,” My head scrunched into my neck. “This past week I went to Chicago to visit my grandparents and my papa made shrimp dejon. … And that’s all I’ve got.”
Gabriella smiled at me and everyone’s initial stares turned into faces of endearment and encouragement.
The room was bland. Tan-colored walls like the hallways, but no artwork, only large whiteboards with dry-erase markings of psychology concepts like radical acceptance and riding the wave. The room had small windows with blinds, where the light was obstructed. Cabinets with bins of fidgets that clicked and clanked, but I was too scared to touch them.
There wasn’t anything noteworthy the rest of the first day. I was inundated with information, papers and binders. A few people in the group shared how their journey was almost over at the program and how it changed their life. They shared how transformational this program had been for them and how much more manageable their OCD was. I couldn’t help but hope that the way they appeared would be how I would end up feeling.
***
The next day I walked into the door – luckily it was already propped open so I didn’t have to tug on my shirt sleeve to cover my hand while opening it – and Evan lifted his head to meet my eyes. I smiled and took the seat next to him.
Gabriella pulled up a chair to talk about the first exposure I wanted to do.
“Okay, Sarah, what are you thinking?” Her pearl necklace had been swapped for a silver heart-shaped locket. I wondered what picture she had inside.
“Um, maybe something with scents?” One of my obsessive thoughts was that if I inhaled perfume, room mists, or anything with a fragrance, it was going to soak into my brain and slowly cause cancer and lead to my death.
I told Gabriella I didn’t want to do it. I tapped the table and slammed my fingertips against the wood. I lifted my head to Gabriella.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“I know it’s hard, but how do you want to live your life?” she said.
Gabriella left, and I hesitantly reached into my red canvas bag. I took out a bottle of Warm Vanilla Sugar perfume from Bath & Body Works and went to the back of the room. The bottle of perfume was in a tall plastic cylinder, which irked me. I took the plastic cover off and pressed down on the metal pump, and the mist took over the room. Fake vanilla molecules wafted through my nostrils, and the pungent sweetness punched my head. Pressure built up in my brain and slammed the back of my skull. Dizziness took over, and I felt like my head was going to implode. I was sure I was going to die right then and there, and then everything would be over. At least all of my fears and worries would die with me.
I went back to my seat, put the perfume bottle in my bag, and drooped down in my chair as I tried to “ride the wave” and allow the pressure to circulate through my head. Evan leaned back in his chair, with his hands on his head and elbows flared out. I wanted to grab his chair as it continually rocked back, but I knew he wouldn’t like that. Every time he got up and then sat back down, he would squeeze into his seat and shift up multiple times to make sure his clothes laid just the right way on his body. I never really understood this. He was like no one I had ever come across.
Later that day, after everyone else left, I saw him out and he asked me if I wanted to come to the program early the next morning to fish in the little pond near the building. He told me that he fishes every morning. I was confused why he wanted me to come, but I said yes.
I walked to my car that hadn’t been washed in months. Got in, opened the glove compartment where the hand sanitizer was, put it on, then sanitized the latch, started the ignition and drove away.
I imagined Evan and I together on my couch: my legs laid on top of his thighs while I curled my toes. His elbows lay gently on my shins as he flipped through the pages of a book I made about my family ancestry.
A red light approached, and I slammed on the brake pedal. I sighed.
The next morning I parked my car next to his white Honda Civic. He took his fishing rod and container of bait out and just as he saw me approaching, he shuffled back to open his car door to grab me a rod too. He had a smile that seemed soft.
We walked together to the marshy pond, remaining a few feet from each other. His curly hair was held by a rubber band into a ponytail and it swayed from the wind. Frizzy pieces were left out of the rubber band, leaving his hair in slight disarray. Mist from the pond landed on Evan’s face, and he jumped from the sensation. He meticulously grabbed the fishing hook – his hand touching only a certain spot. He slowly stepped into the mud, punctilious with each step. Birds landed on the tree branches next to the pond, and pigeons walked near us, clearly making Evan uncomfortable. He opened his container of worms, squished it on the hook, and lowered his fishing line into the water, but I held mine back as I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
I turned to face him and his eyes immediately lay on mine, “So, I’m not sure if this is too personal and you don’t have to share if you don’t want to, but why are you here?” I said. He chuckled. “Well, I’m really fucked up. No one knows how I ended up like this. But basically, I can’t touch anything. No one can touch me.”
“But I’ve seen you touch things! You’re touching the fishing pole.”
He pushed his hair away with his forearm. “I can challenge my OCD as much as I want, but it makes me suicidal. I was in an inpatient program a few years ago, and I wouldn’t eat because I was scared the food was contaminated.”
“Yeah. I haven’t hugged my parents in years. I don’t even remember the last time I touched them. I haven’t gotten a haircut since 8th grade because I can’t let anything touch my face or my shoulders. Those are my clean, no touch zones. There are only a few things I can wear that make me feel as safe as I can feel.” He looked down at his shoes: black crocs with no Jibbitz on them and slices of mud covering the top.
“I’m just a lost cause,” he sighed.
I leaned my head as my lip quivered. “No you are not. Don’t say that.”
Silence washed over us.
He finally said, “I haven’t been doing well here. I’m leaving to go back to inpatient again. It can be any day now. They will call me once there is an open spot for me.” It was a place in northern Wisconsin, where the snow stuck to the sidewalks and climbing vines looked like snakes latching onto the bricks of the buildings.
“Oh,” I said. I wished so badly I could just reach out my arms and hug him and tell him that everything would be okay. But, obviously, I didn’t do that.
***
A week later was his last day before he went back to inpatient treatment. We walked out together to the parking lot. I leaned against my car and he stood in front of me, a little closer than usual. We looked at each other the same way we did when we first met. Our eyes connected differently though, like we knew this was the last time we would see each other. I saw the pain in his eyes. I saw how badly he wanted to get better. But I also saw his hopelessness. I imagined he saw how sad I was for him to go. I envisioned myself reaching out and touching a piece of his messy hair and tucking it behind his ear.
“I have something for you,” I said.
“What do you mean, Sarah?”
“One second. I need to grab it from my car.” He put his hands in his pockets and wiped something off his face with his right shoulder.
A few days earlier, I was going through my late grandma’s basement. She used to own an antique store and she had boxes and boxes of figurines, china, woven placemats and old paintings. There was a silver antique of a man fishing, and I thought Evan would like it.
I reached for the figurine in my car. I handed it to him, making sure our hands didn’t touch. He said thank you and his eyes emphasized his appreciation.
As he started to walk away, I said, “Please know you are not a lost cause. You are a good person and good people are never lost causes. I truly hope our paths cross again someday.” He smiled a hopeless smile and then walked away.
If this story resonates with you, help is available …
Written by: Abby Shapiro, a 20-year-old college student who is passionate about writing and mental health.