No, Really I Don’t. Do I?

I recently remarked to a co-worker that a funny slogan to put on a mug or a T-shirt would be:

I don’t have OCD.
I don’t have OCD.
I don’t have OCD.

Now, I know that probably isn’t as funny to people who struggle with OCD (or maybe it is, if they have a sense of humor). But the reason I thought about it was because I think I may have a touch of OCD. Nothing full-blown (at least not yet), but I find myself occasionally doing things an OCD person would do. For instance, I have to check all the outlets in my house before I leave to be sure nothing is left plugged in. Now, that sounds like I’m just being safety conscious, but I left out the part where I have to do it at least three times! I actually build about five minutes into my schedule to allow myself the three-time-plug-check. I do the same thing with candles, even after they’ve been blown out, sometimes I even find myself checking them (a tad obsessively) the next day.

The earliest recollection I have of my mini-OCD episodes was in the fourth grade. Our teacher would assign us seatwork (work to do in our seat after she was done teaching), and if we finished our work, we could leave it on a table in the back, and then go get a game to play quietly at our seat. Well, being the overachiever I was then, I would often finish my seatwork, put it on the table in the back, and go get my game. Then, I would double-check the table to be absolutely sure I hadn’t just imagined completing my work and actually had put it on my table. I’d go back to my desk, and then five minutes later, head back to the table to (once again) be sure I’d actually finished it. Finally my teacher, who said she eventually got exhausted just watching me trek back and forth, told me to just give my work to her and for-crying-out-loud-go-back-to-your-desk-and-just stay-there!

Since then, my kind-of OCD comes and goes in spurts. I have the same worries everyone else does – worry about leaving my hair rollers plugged in, a candle lit, a faucet turned on, etc. It’s just that sometimes worry overwhelms me. Most of the time it doesn’t. But I clearly remember one morning where I sat inside my car, in my garage, paralyzed with fear that I had left something plugged in and that my house would burn down while I was at work. I honestly debated calling in sick.

When I confessed this fear to my mom, she had (as mothers often do) a very sane and uncomplicated solution. She told me to do what I needed to do – check the plugs and candles – and then say to myself, I have done all I can humanly do to ensure the safety of my home. Lord, I leave the safety and protection of this house, which is your house, anyway, in your hands. She said that if I did that, I fulfilled my responsibility as a homeowner and as a believer. So that if I were ever to come home one day and my house were burned to the ground, I would know that God desired it to be so.

So, now when those OCD moments occur (and they still do every so often), I pray that prayer and find myself relaxing inside a little.

I told Mom I appreciated her advice and joked how I wished I’d been raised Amish so I wouldn’t have these worries. Her response? Horses can still knock over lanterns, you know.

Thanks, Mom. It’s nice to know the even the Amish aren’t safe. From fire. Or, I’m sure, from OCD episodes like mine.