After All, You Feel Alone Because You Are: Writing As Compulsion
“Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle. Although I have felt compelled to write things down since I was five years old, I doubt that my daughter ever will, for she is a singularly blessed and accepting child, delighted with life exactly as life presents itself to her, unafraid to go to sleep and unafraid to wake up. Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.”
This is from Joan Didion’s essay “On Keeping Notebooks,” which I read today while eating lunch outside of the cafe I live above. And while reading it I thought of the nature of OCD and the nature of writing, and I thought about that presentiment of loss, which indeed all writers feel, and the loneliness, and how the impulse to write always seems like a reaching, trying to replace a loss, or to arrive somewhere, to fill a bit of that loneliness. We write to discover ourselves, to connect with other people, to explore language, maybe because we don’t know what else to do with ourselves and we know suicide isn’t a good option, or we don’t want it to be an option, and so in this way we write to save ourselves, to record ourselves, to root ourselves — whatever the specific reason, always always writing is a reaching towards, a rearranging of words to understand something better, to make something feel more precise. It is a fumbling in the dark. It is a belief that there is something worth fumbling for. This insistent belief is the obsession, the act of writing itself the compulsion. This also might explain why writers often say they did not choose to be writers. To be a writer (or an artist) is involuntary, and indeed the definition of an obsession is an involuntary thought. An intruding thought. This is where the anxiety comes from.
“Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point,” writes Didion.
Of course at the same time writers are aware that the loneliness will never be filled. It is all an illusion. A momentary peace (the idea that any feeling is more than a moment is yet another illusion but that’s another post…) And yet this illusion, these moments of peace we arrive upon in our writing, this is what drives the impulse to write again and again and again.
It is not dissimilar to a drug addiction. And even less dissimilar to the OCD brain.
The OCD brain! Oh what a fucker. But compulsions work entirely the same way as Didion describes keeping a notebook — compulsions serve to fill a void, to ease an anxiety, to calm a fear, to get some place other than where we are because where we are just doesn’t feel right. It just doesn’t feel right. There is something to be reclaimed. And it doesn’t matter if the fear is rational or not, it doesn’t matter if everything actually is or isn’t okay, the same way it doesn’t matter if the loss Didion describes is “real” or not. Is there something to be reclaimed? And how could we ever know for sure? What matters is the feeling — the fear, the loss, the disorderliness, feels very real. Too real to ignore. And you rearrange and you rearrange and you rearrange. You write and you write and you write. You wash your hands and you wash your hands and you wash your hands. You check and you check and you check. Because you are just never sure. Until you reach what resembles peace, or at least enough of a resemblance of peace to stop the compulsion. Stop washing, stop checking, stop writing.
Until it is time to do it again, because it will always be time to do it again, because there will always be something to rearrange. There will always be something to fear and there will always be something that doesn’t feel right, there will always be something you feel you need to add. Or take away. Something to calculate. Something to reach for (now I’m not sure if I’m talking about writing or the OCD brain and have quickly decided it doesn’t matter).
The OCD brain moves quicker than I am able to articulate. And I’m often unable to articulate anything at all because by the time I say what I want to say it is no longer what I want to say. It is what I wanted to say, maybe. But already something is different. Already I have sprung forth into the next moment. The OCD brain is always out of breath.
And I wonder if the anxiety comes from an awareness of loss — an awareness that every moment is indeed only a moment, an awareness that as soon as you become aware of the moment it is already passing. In this way the OCD brain is never really inside of the moment but flapping like a wild bird against the outskirts of the moment. The OCD brain is a wallflower. An obsessive observer. For every one of your thoughts the OCD brain has already thought ten thoughts. And ten thoughts for each of those ten thoughts. The OCD brain is aware that each thought has holes in it, each thought is only a fragment of a fragment. The OCD brain is aware that for every word you say there are a thousand left unsaid. And it wants them all. It wants all the thoughts because it wants to arrive at SOMETHING. But what? There is nothing, after all. And after all the OCD brain knows this, too.
I think freedom and hell come from the same place. To have OCD is to be free in a way others aren’t, because you are not bound to thoughts the way others bound to thoughts. You have all the thoughts. You have a universe of thoughts to choose from and inside each thought you will surely find more thoughts. It is doors leading to other doors for an infinite number of miles. But what about doors?! Who the fuck wants to go through an infinite number of doors only to arrive at more doors? And so in this way to have an OCD brain is also to be in hell, because you are bound to the universe of thoughts. You are bound to a plethora of thoughts to choose from, and the pressure to choose the right thought is suffocating. You are aware that you will die and you are aware that you could never possibly choose all the right thoughts in all the right order before you die. You are aware that simply by trying you will have already failed. But you try anyway because what if? You will try anyway because what else is there to do?
The OCD brain loves what if. The OCD brain loves possibility. It feeds on it. It is a greedy brain. Nothing is ever enough. And nothing is ever impossible.
And should it be? (<< — ha, an OCD question (?))
I guess a more answerable question might be how all of this can manifest in a person.
First off I would say it manifests as depression. I don’t know how anyone can have OCD and not have depression (I take that back — OCD is treatable — not curable — but treatable, so, I guess it’s possible to have it and be a relatively stable person). Also indecision. I have a very hard time making decisions because by the time I’ve made up my mind my mind has most likely already changed.
It’s interesting that people tend to associate OCD with orderliness. In my experience it is, in fact, the opposite. It is a desire for orderliness, cleanliness, a desire to make things just right, to have some sort of control, but a desire so strong it is uprooted by the anxiety of knowing nothing will ever be exactly right, and so the whole brain gets flipped entirely on its head. I am anything but orderly. I am always trying to be more orderly. I will probably never be orderly. The closest to being orderly I will ever be is accepting this fact about myself (I think).
Obviously if your mind is always changing so are your feelings, so for me OCD also manifests as extreme daily mood swings. So much that when I originally went to therapy it was because I was convinced I had ultra-ultra-rapid-cycling bipolar (II). (I guess this is a real thing but they keep telling me no no you don’t have bipolar. so. okay).
This, then, also makes me wonder about borderline personality disorder, something else I’ve thought I’ve had, or had traits of (and really we all have traits of personality disorders to one extent or another, since a disorder is simply a personality type so extreme that it interferes with daily functioning). Borderline personality disorder is, at baseline, very raw emotional nerve endings/extreme emotional dysregulation. And since emotions are largely linked to the thoughts we are thinking, if you have OCD you are often having a lot of thoughts all at one time and often the thoughts contradict each other and so it makes sense that you are an emotional hurricane. At least that’s how I feel. OCD is definitely a distinct mental illness (so are bipolar and personality disorders, etc), but I’ve always found the overlap incredibly fascinating.
Also self-doubt, duh. I honestly never know what the fuck I’m doing (and why do I feel like I need to know?!)
Except for those moments when I do know! Because sometimes I do know. So was I lying when I said I didn’t know? How could we know?! Does it matter if I was lying? Wouldn’t I know if I was lying? You see there is never a resting place — with OCD there is never an end, there is never only one answer. There is really never an answer at all. And if there is no answer there is no meaning, and if there is no meaning, there is, after all, nothing.
After all you feel alone because you are.
And so you write.
Sarah Certa was born in Germany in 1987. Her first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from University of Hell Press in spring 2015. She is the author of two chapbooks and her poems and prose have been featured in Narrative Magazine, B O D Y, Empath Lit, Paper Darts, Connotation Press, H_NGM_N, and many other journals. She would like for you to have the link to her tumblr: sarahcerta.tumblr.com, as well as the link to her blog, where she details her experiences with OCD, anorexia, depression, rape, abuse, and other not-so-fun stories: sarahxcerta.wordpress.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @sarahxcerta.
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Featured image — Robert S. Donovan
