Open and Shut

The year is 2015. And I am very concerned.

I am at the Adolescent Rehabilitation Clinic in Greenfield, Massachusetts. And I have just used the microwave.

Open. Close. Open. Close. Open. Close.

Eventually, the microwave beeps - and shuts off. I’ve literally broken a microwave; at this point, this is a record for my OCD. How many times until it closes, just right?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which time people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions).*

“Abby, there are clients outside. Let’s get going.”

I look down at my phone, at the texts I’ll have to re-read until I’ve read them all precisely ten times; ten is just right. (To think: I could have been pressing the buttons on my phone this whole time instead. It’s mine to break.)

All these adolescents who need help with their mental illnesses, and here we are, with no working microwave. How will Will heat up his hot cocoa? The most severe schizophrenic case in the clinic, and his own counselor has to have her own excuses? It’s all so ridiculous.**

But that’s my job. I need to figure this out.

(We’re going to need a new microwave.)

OCD is just an open and shut condition.

*Our friends at www.psychiatry.org; and I’m sure, the DSM V.

**This is neither truth nor lie; it is purely speculation on behalf of the author.