Writing Woes & Rigid Rituals: A Lifetime of OCD

photo by Tracy Deer-Mirek

By Cara Erdheim Kilgallen

I am a timid ten-year-old struggling to part with a piece of paper containing a sentence that is lacking in symmetry. Everything seems off—there are more words on one line than the next. My teacher tells me that time is up, but I resist. She practically pries the assignment from my firm grasp, me panicking, feeling an utter loss and lack of control.

As a lifelong sufferer of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), I have always had a com...