Ohhh I was young, for as long as I can remember really. But I think I noticed I was a little different when I started school. How old are you in kindergarten? 4? 5? I was away from home during the day. At the time, my mother worked from home and my father worked for a bakery right next door to our house. What would I do if something bad happened to them and I wasn’t there to protect them?? What if there was a fire? An earthquake? What if my mom fell down the stairs? It was this crushing dread like something terrible was going to happen. I have a vivid memory of sitting in school, these thoughts would creep in, and I’d start crying at my desk. My poor elementary school teachers, this little 5 year old, constantly approaching them in tears because their mom might get hurt if she is at school and not home to protect her family.

I landed in the nurse’s office a lot because I mean, this was back in the early 90’s. No one really knew what to do! And the teachers had a class full of other kids they needed to care for! I started doing things to stop the bad stuff. I didn’t know it at the time of course, but I was creating rituals and behaviors to try and prevent those bad things (whatever they may be) from happening. I needed to do something, I needed to find a way to protect everyone at any cost, I needed control. All of my stuffed animals had to be lined up perfectly and facing a certain way each night before bed or else something terrible would happen to my parents. I don’t know what and I don’t know when, but if they weren’t lined up JUST right, a switch would flip somewhere out in the universe and something bad would be set in motion and it would be all my fault. My parents scheduled an appointment with a therapist but I think I only went once? I don’t think they had any idea what to do. I vaguely remember the leather office chair, and it was a snowy night. But I never remember going again. My behaviors just sort of got swept under the rug after that. It became a “Oh, that’s just Jen being Jen” situation. It was a foreign situation to all involved. My parents wanted to help, just didn’t know how. Getting a little emotional thinking back, this was all going on in the mind of a 5 year old!

I was un upper elementary school, maybe 7 years old? When the mysterious “bad things” I was trying to prevent became specific. I saw an episode of Full House and someone comes down with appendicitis and has to be rushed to the hospital. It was that moment I realized medical emergencies can happen to anyone, any time, anywhere. And it just launched my fears into the stratosphere. Suddenly I was counting the number of steps I took, trying not to land on a number that correlated with someone’s age or birthday, because they could have a medical emergency and I’d have caused it! Gifts I had gotten from family and friends I’d have to touch a certain way each night or they’d get appendicitis.

It very soon just started to spiral to the point where I was counting, touching, tapping, stepping, configuring things nearly all day every day. It was affecting school, it was affecting my relationships, my mood. All because I was just trying to keep everyone safe! Couldn’t everyone understand that??