Bad Math, Part 1

a story + an AMA for OCD Awareness Week

This week is OCD Awareness Week. Here is a list of events—many virtual!—that the International OCD Foundation is coordinating. I also had some poems featured in the OCD Art Gallery (see slides 3 and 4). 

Today I’m sharing the first part of a more memoir-esque story that highlights my experience growing up with undiagnosed OCD (#OCDTruths). You might read and relate to my experience or think, that just sounds like normal high achiever test anxiety or getting-into-college pressure. If my story resonates, that does not mean you have OCD necessarily (although you might want to look into it); this is simply one snapshot of how OCD showed up in my life. I’ve included an Ask Me Anything (AMA) form at the bottom of this post for you to share any questions you may have about my experience with OCD. 

On to the storytelling! 

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Bad Math, Part 1

"You open it," I fling the envelope across the table at my mom as if the College Board return address had burned me.

Bile rises up in the back of my throat. I drop the rest of the mail pile and crumple to the floor.

"Never mind, I don't want to know," I snap from my now prone position between the knotted chair legs as I begin to trace the flower design of the rug. Try as I might, I cannot focus on the loops of the petals, the swoops of the stems beneath the pad of my pointer finger. I can only see the stark classroom where I certainly failed the AP Calculus test two months earlier.

I am there: #2 pencil in hand, the hair on my just shaved legs rising up to greet the cool of the over air-conditioned classroom. Despite the cold, sweat makes my thighs stick to the plastic seats, and each minor adjustment to keep my butt cheeks from falling asleep results in a sickening thwick as my legs unpeel from the chair. I make a mental note to go back to tracking my calories, upping my workouts. Surely, skinny legs would not make this disgusting noise.

The multiple choice section was all about pacing. The six full length practice exams I’d taken informed me I had just enough time to keep moving through. I fought the urge to double or triple check my answers.

I followed the formula: cover the possible answers with my left hand, calculate my own on the supplied scratch paper, check for a match and fill the bubble, quell the growing doubts that my answer only appeared in the options as a decoy, a common mistake.

Fool, fool, fool.

Star the answer to return if time remains.

Move on. Move on. Move on.

The first questions in the free response section were easier than expected. I took great pains to make my scratch paper legible. Always show your work. Don't jump to conclusions. Treat everything like a binomial equation--FOIL--first outside inside last. Balance the equation. Show your work. Check your work, but don't take too long. Spend too long and it's irresponsible. Move too quickly, reckless fool.

Fool, fool, fool.

By the last question, my stomach growls and I’ve surrendered to the numb ache in my bottom.

What I’d been dreading all along: a three-dimensional graphing question. I fight the urge to throw up.

I could fake it for X and Y. That fucking Z-axis would be the death of me. Sometimes I could get the answer right in our daily homework questions, but I couldn’t explain why.

I can't trust anything I can't explain.

Here is where the memory breaks down. I've run it back so many times I don't know if it's true or not. The story I told my mom by the time I made the hour drive of defeat back home was that I'd been so clueless on that last question that I'd just drawn a picture of a cat, a last ditch connect-the-dots of feline misery.

That can’t be true. I must have tried something. Made a parabola or approached infinity with my pencil marks. I wouldn’t have given up.

Is it possible I got it right? A flitter of hope rises in my chest only to be wiped out with a wave of shame. Of course I failed. The passed practice tests, the ease of the multiple choice questions, the first couple free responses, my overall A in the class. Meaningless! Meaningless! All those successes there to taunt me. They meant nothing if I balked when the moment mattered. I'll have to take math in college. Everything is a waste. Would they revoke my scholarship? Maybe they’d unaccept me. The dream of late nights in the dorm giggling with girls who shared my values of purity and integrity would never come true. Those guitar playing Christian surfer boys vanished, poof.

I didn't deserve it anyway.

The sound of paper tearing rips me back into the moment, the flower rug, the immediate impending doom. My mom is fingering the corner of the scorecard that decides my future.

"Aly, Aly, do you want to know your scores?" my mom asks. She holds the proof of my failure in her hands and she has the audacity to smile. 

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Yep, I’m leaving it there. Tune in next Sunday for Part 2. I’d love to know what you thought, and if you could relate to my test panic and assuming the worst.

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Ask Me Anything OCD 

I would love to answer your questions about my OCD journey. Ask your questions anonymously using this Google Form or share in the Comment Section below. 

1. What questions do you have about OCD, treatment, diagnosis, misconceptions, etc.? 

2. What have you been surprised to learn about OCD from me? 

3. What do you want to know more about?

Did you know I compiled a list of my favorite OCD resources? Check it out here.

Have a great week!

Aly