Insanity doesn't just run in my family - it practically gallops

It took me until I was about 25 until I realised that I might not be normal.

Yes I know, define 'normal' you may say, after all, everyone is different; we all have our quirks. But mine have been something that seemed to run in a pattern. And then it was diagnosed. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Remembering back, my mother probably had OCD (amongst many other mental problems which I won't go into here). I remember we had a (rather nasty) smoked glass topped coffee table - well... it was the seventies.. One of my 'chores' was to take the glass off the table and clean it both sides with vinegar and brown paper.

Four times a day.

That is one of her many oddities that I didn't really thing of as odd at the time; I thought my mother was just fastidious.

I know now, that it's actually more difficult for other people to cope with. To be honest, I'm surprised The Bloke hasn't either run for the hills or murdered me for what I can be like.

Now I'm not TOO bad a girlfriend. I'm not the jealous type, I believe we don't 'own' each other and encourage him to do loads of stuff without me, whatever it takes to ensure he is as happy as he would be if he was alone - if that makes sense to you... I'm his friend, his lover, his cook (I like cooking so not a hardship) and things are good but...

I do have OCD.

Examples: When we were dating and I was living in an apartment in London he would arrange to come over at say... 7pm. Now if he turned up late - all was fine. It gave me more time to get my life organised. If I say 7pm I mean 7pm. Chances are I'll be ready myself at 6.59pm. But if he knocked on the door at ten minutes to? ooooh dear. I remember one night he sat on the couch perplexed as I ranted that he'd 'ruined my night'. How mental? Yes, he had spoiled my mood entirely because I 'wasn't ready' Maybe I hadn't had time to run the duster round, maybe my hair was still wet, it doesn't matter. Something upset me and it wasn't rational.

The daft thing is - is when I'm saying all this to him, I am also shouting "Yes I CAN hear myself and how ridiculous this is, but I can't help it, I'm a mess and I can't explain it".

Yeah *sigh* I know you're all feeling very sorry for him now, but 90% of the time I am totally rational. But if OCD is affected it doesn't matter how rational you are. If someone throws me; is early or changes plans suddenly, it freaks me out.

1.I have to sit at the end of a bench in a bar with friends - I can't sit in the middle because I feel I can't escape (why would I want to?).

2.I literally comb the fringes of the rug in the living room and flinch if someone steps on it and musses it up.

3.I have to sleep on the side of a bed by the door. I just have to or I'll die. Probably.

4.On a Friday I have to have a mental plan of what we're doing at the weekend. It must bug the hell out of him. I wish I could be spontaneous.

5.I have to go back and check I've locked the house every damn time I get halfway down the street. Every time.

6.If we're going out for dinner in town, I have to get to the bar half an hour earlier than everyone else to get my 'mind ready' for the evening. Or my night is 'ruined' in my head.

When I was living in above mentioned flat, I had a male friend pop round who happens to be a physiologist. He sat on the couch and I sat on the floor facing him with the coffee table between us. Picture the scene. On the coffee table was a (rather beautiful) red square glass dish.

Which was placed at an angle.

Every few minutes when I wasn't looking, he moved it so it was straight. Apparently (he laughingly told me afterwards) I put it back at an angle every time a couple of seconds later.. without even knowing I was doing it.

He then asked me what was my favourite fruit. Oh um... peaches probably. "Tinned or fresh" he then asked to which my reply was tinned. He then asked why and I said "oh because the pieces are all cut up neatly in slices and..... oh"

As I've got older I can control it more. The Bloke hardly suffers as I bite my tongue most of the time. And he thinks the whole thing is cute (thank god). Personally it drives me bananas.

I know that OCD is an increase in activity in a neuronal circuit running from the frontal cortex to the cingulate gyrus, striatum, globus pallidus, thalamus and back to the frontal cortex. Surgery can fix it but I am used to my ways now. And its not guaranteed enough for me to want goddamn brain surgery.

I'm aware that OCD comes in many forms like people who wash their hands fifty times a day; mine is different. But when I watched the Jack Nicholson movie As Good As It Gets - I understood far more than I wanted. Unfortunately my brothers and sisters all suffer from this, so we can only assume its genetic.

But typically, like allergies, bi-polar and other minor ailments - it seems to be 'fashionable' for people to have them. Don't they realise what it's really like if you actually do? To all those other sufferers of the same? I feel for you. Now I must go and comb that rug...

How did the scarecrow know he didn't have a brain?

Something I recently became aware of is rather disturbing. I discovered that I actually look at my brain as a person in its (his) own right. The sensible one? The collaborator, maybe..... my 'Id'.

It's actually like having a friend. A really close friend that absolutely no one knows but you.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this but..... well..... we have these 'chats' all the time. Over the years it's just been called 'talking to yourself', which in essence is what it is. But my brain answers me. It sometimes disagrees with me. And we argue... Like long term lovers.

And I find myself telling it things it must already know.

It was there...

It asks me how my day was. Am I seeing anyone? Should I take a holiday etc? and I ANSWER IT.

Now before you call the taxi to cart me off to the lunatic asylum, be fair... at least I don't talk to it out loud. Well, not when I'm out anyway.... Seriously, I have no doubt of its ascendancy and I mentally bow in its shadow because without the help and support of him I would be as sharp as a sack full of wet mice. He's grown with me like a trusty wart and feeds me the information that I need to know, as I've got older.

In fact, four weeks into gestation my brain cells started sorting themselves out. I'm 37 and I can't sort out breakfast in the mornings. Go figure. I'm not the smart one. HE is. It's okay - we can talk about the squishy one.... He's asleep I think...

But He puts forward these..... lets say..... 'opportunities' to me. I swear to you, this is no lie - it's a tad embarrassing but it's important to say - I was on a train the other day and my brain suggested I grabbed this woman's breast. Just like that - out of the blue. I was bloody horrified. And of course I didn't but.... where in holy hell did that come from? Because 'I 'wouldn't think it. Because ‘I’ wouldn't want to do it. And then didn't, which proves the theory. Q.E.D.

It's almost like a test every so often. I might be standing on a train platform and my brain drawls, "hey, if you just jumped or fell now." Ohmigod my brain is trying to kill me.

One of the good points about Mr Brain (why is it a man? I have no idea) is the fact that it makes me laugh. It must do. I can't do it alone. I can't tickle myself. Because scientists are so busy studying the negative problems with the brain like depression, there's hardly any information about why or how the brain can make you laugh. People don't have it 'diagnosed'- it’s not a clinical problem, so how can they learn about it? I mean, have you ever done to your doctor because you were laughing too much? Thinking about it - sitting in a doctors waiting room for more than an hour and I assure you, the laughing fit would have packed its bags and gone to Mozambique.

What should really be worrying me of course is the whole "schizophrenic" thing.Some years ago one of my sisters was being tested for this, as she started hearing – not voices – but music – in her head at night. Really loud singing followed by a couple arguing. How odd. The doctors never discovered what it was but assuming depression or stress.

Well, let me make it a bit less worrying. Its not 'voices' per se, for me. There aren’t loads of them. They don't have accents. It's just the one. It's Him...... in fact He's just woken up because He's just this minute told me to tell you this:"Auditory verbal hallucinations, the 'voices in your head' that schizophrenics often hear, are usually male". Thanks for that brain. That helps a bundle.

Molly's Story

Molly yawned as the sunlight filtered thought the thin curtains. Immediately a smile crept over her face. "A sunny day in Ireland? Grand!" she thought with a huge yawn. She shifted her night-gowned body to get into a sitting position, twisting the fleece material further as she sat up and rubbed her face with her liver spotted hands. The movement woke up her beloved, Joe, who mumbled something she couldn't understand and proceeded to snore gently. In a moment Molly was out of bed and nosing out of the window. She couldn't help herself; she wanted to see if anything was happening in the lovely street in Rush, Co. Dublin where she'd lived with her husband for the past fifty four years.

The sun was gleaming down on her new rosebush in the garden and it was with a happy grin she pulled on her dressing gown and quietly slid her feet into her slippers. She turned to head towards the kitchen and saw that Joe was now also awake. Cuppa tea darlin'? she said gently as he smiled tiredly at her. "Yeah, go on then, me love" he replied fondly as he did every morning. Ten minutes later Molly was back. She knew her husband liked his tea brewed properly. In a tea cup with a saucer with a spoon on the side (that he never used). "The Queen of England drinks tea like that", he always said. It amused Molly and she shuffled her old red slippered feet into the room with a happy smile. Joe was silent. He was sitting up now but his eyes were closed. Molly put the little tea tray down on the battered red leather chair that they tended to use as a bedside table and approached her husband. "Joe?" she whispered, shaking his thin, tobacco yellowed hand. "Joe.....darlin'?" she shook him frantically... "please.....?" Confusion clouded Molly's face as she sat with Joe. By the time she'd realised he was dead, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the tea balanced on the chair was cold. Molly sat perched on the edge of the bed, shaking her head slowly from side to side. The only thought in her head was one word. "No". It seemed to go on forever. "No, no, no, no,no........."

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Who knows how long she would have sat there if old Maggie Conner hadn't have chosen to knock on the door for her daily chat with her neighbour. From that moment on, Molly had no idea what was going on. She heard words. Saw faces. But it was like watching her old black and white telly - only even more blurred. Being an Irish Catholic family the burial was held quickly, indeed the next day, but Molly was unaware of this. She was there, wearing her best black frock, but the shock had driven deeply and poor Molly was not herself. Not at all.

Her family and friends flocked and the church in Rush was full of sad faces for the lovely Joe who had been born only three doors away from the very graveyard they put him to rest. Molly nodded politely at the faces behind the dark veils and wished she'd worn one herself to hide. She didn't cry. She didn't believe he was gone. She went home and put the kettle on. Two cups. Two saucers, two dainty little spoons.

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In a week, Molly remembered seeing a girl in the house. She wasn't quite sure who she was but was aware of the fair hair, the soft skin, the gentle Irish accent and felt a mixture of comfort and annoyance. Who was this young girl who seemed to have moved in with her and Joe? They'd been alone for years, since all the children had left. Her brow furrowed for a moment..."all the children HAD left hadn't they?"

Time passed as normal and Molly talked to Joe more and more. That girl kept coming in and disturbing their little chats in bed with plates of food. First big, hearty Irish dinners of stew, boxties, boiled potatoes. And only one plate. Was the stupid girl trying to starve them? Didn't she not know that she and Joe needed a plate each? Then as the food was ignored in defiance, a plate of sandwiches were produced, always with that gentle coaxing voice. "Why won't she just feck off?" Molly said angrily to Joe.

The years passed and Molly got used to the girl. She never could remember her name. She was just 'the girl'. Molly had begun to trust her a little and had let the young girl brush her hair, which she did every morning, singing softly as she worked, always ending with a kiss on the top of her head. And a cup of tea. Just the one, with sugar. What was the matter with her? Didn't she know Joe hated his tea flavoured with sugar? She loved sugar, had a sweet tooth since she was a girl, but not her Joe. She chattered away to him for a while before the girl came and gently led her to the bathroom for her nightly bath. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She woke up one morning feeling unusually alive. She turned to the empty side of the bed beside her and told Joe to get up! The sun was shining! She was smiling as her hair was brushed an hour later and told the girl that she and Joe needed a lie down with the curtains open so they could see the sun. Within ten minutes she was curled up warm against the worn pillows with her eyes closed; the sun warming her papery cheeks. She dozed briefly and in her dream, she saw Joe. He was wearing his brown suit that he hadn't worn for.....well....about twenty years! He was smiling at her and he looked lovely. He took her hand and held her tightly. "Molly.... my Molly... lets get the kettle on for a nice cuppa tea....my love". They walked off together as 'the girl' slept quietly. Curled up in the worn, red leather chair by the bed that her Granny & Grandpa had often used as a bedside table.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Molly Plunkett died in 1984 of natural causes. Finally happy with her Joe.

Merlina has the old, worn, red leather chair in her house to this day.