Nachos

1. A few questions

Are you sure you locked the door? Is that blood there on the floor? 

Why’s that person looking pale? How many hands have touched my mail? 

I wonder why my friend just frowned. Does she not want me around? 

Do I have to eat that pie? Should have I just told them why 

I had to leave that crowded place? Or couldn’t kiss my daughter’s face?  

How long’s too long to wash my hands? How many handshakes can I stand?  

Should I stay here at my desk, trapped in scenes of gore and sex?

Should I try to walk it off? Could I ever tell my boss?  

Why suddenly do I feel dizzy? Is it that I’m just too busy?  

Hormones? Am I stressed, or sick? Do I need to get out quick?  

What if I faint, puke or scream? What if that doorknob’s not clean?  

Why am I seeing blood again? Am I officially insane?

2. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale* 

Fear of cheating? Insect spray?

Washing many times a day?

Avoid[ing] throwing things away?

Worrying, “What if I’m gay?”

Checking locks without delay?

Sticky substance: honey? [Clay?]

Thoughts that never go away:

Cancer? Black cats?  Knives, you say…?

3. The basic principles of transcranial magnetic stimulation for OCD** 

Heterogeneity of neuroanatomy –

OCD is in the community:

Dysregulation of cortical activity,

Behaviours to reduce anxiety, 

Broad mix of obsessions and severity.

Magnet[s] induce neural electric[ity],

Titrated from the minimum intensity. 

Precise modulation of cortical activity

Increases useful connectivity, 

With the possibility of metaplasticity.

4. Today

I dream about how one day, I’ll reach out and open the door of a restaurant, a friend’s house, any door. I’ll travel anywhere, even places where the guidebooks say the water’s not safe to drink.

I’ll stop planning for illnesses that never happen; realise it’s been a while since I was last blinded by violent fictions.

But not today.

Today I wash my hands, double-check the locks, and walk down the street avoiding suspicious stains. 

I sit down with my friends, ignore the battle of self-versus-self, focus on my newly-reinforced neural circuits, and before I can change my mind, 

I start eating nachos, not with my usual socially-awkward fork from a snap-lock bag but 

WITH MY OWN BARE FINGERS

and it’s just as delicious as I hoped it would be.