7am 

It’s a relief when my alarm goes off. It’s the first of four alarms that I have set and despite spending 30 mins repeatedly checking the alarm clock function on my phone last night before I could go to bed, it feels like a miracle that it has actually worked. Despite my alarm having gone off as planned over and over again, the fear the night before is always present. Fear that I’ll sleep in, I’ll be late for work, I’ll let people down, I’ll cost people time and money.  

9am 

I attempt to leave the house in order to get to a rehearsal on time, but I am stuck in the kitchen. I am staring at the gas rings trying to convince myself they are not alight. I touch each knob eight times moving from left to right, then back in the opposite direction. I take several photographs of the hob to assure myself later that day that it is indeed off. However, I don’t trust my eyes. I have to start the check again. I count to eight in my head as I touch each of the four knobs. 

I repeat this ritual with the back door handle, the kitchen tap, the fridge door, the bathroom taps, the candles, the front door. A feeling of pressure, frustration and anxiety builds in my chest, forcing me to repeat the cycle of rituals until I feel ‘satisfied’. Sometimes, it threatens to burst out of my body like an exploding gas canister, until finally I feel I have performed the behaviours enough times to steady my nerves.

9.40am 

Now, I am running late. My anxiety about being late fuels my compulsive checking, which in turn makes my anxiety worse. I have to think of an excuse about why I will be late. If I tell the truth, they will think I am (at best) odd or (at worse) unreliable and unemployable. If I make up a lie, then I worry that the thing I have lied about could actually come into fruition by me even uttering it, and I would shoulder responsibility for a potentially hazardous future event.  It is like living an underwhelmingly scandalous double life – on the one hand, I feel pathetic and ridiculous while on the other, I feel I am betraying those around me. I have lost count of the times I have invented a sudden need to use the bathroom after shaking someone’s hand at a meeting, too embarrassed to admit I must wash my hands of some imagined infection.

10am 

I decide to rent an electric bike to get to rehearsals faster, but once I find one, I convince myself the person who had previously rented the bike has left bacteria on the handles. I feel the panic rising again. Perhaps they didn’t wash their hands after using the toilet? Perhaps they have a contagious disease? Perhaps there is an invisible nerve agent left on the handlebars from the attempted murder of a spy? I am even later now… and even more anxious.  

10.30am 

I arrive at the rehearsal space and swiftly realise I haven’t worn a long-sleeved top underneath my coat, which I have left by the entrance. I think about everyone who has touched the door handle in the last 24 hours (tens? hundreds?) and the fact that I don’t have a jumper to stretch down over my hands and pull open the door to avoid touching the surface.

What if someone is infectious and has touched the handle?

Then I will get sick. I can’t get sick.

Could I wipe it with an antibacterial wipe?

What if someone sees?

Could I open the door with my foot, so the handle only makes contact with my shoe.

That would look weird…

Someone approaches. I pretend to message on my phone until another person passes by and opens the door – at which point I sneak in behind them as the door closes. I’m filled with shame. 

2pm 

Lunch. Someone remarks on how delicious their juice drink is and offers me a taste. I don’t want to share the same drink as I fear they could have the beginnings of a stomach virus that has not yet shown its symptoms but could easily pass to me through our shared saliva. I decline and immediately cast myself as rude and antisocial. I am convinced no-one will sit with me at lunch again.

5pm 

I make my way home, mentally exhausted. Over-analysing the ways in which I could have contracted an illness, and the ways in which I could have offended another person. 

“I’m jealous of everyone who can just get on with life – this is what a week with OCD is like”