You Down With O.C.D.? Yeah, You Know Me.

I just finished a fantastic book; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This is a story of a 15 year old Autistic boy named Christopher. Christopher is walking alone one night and sees his neighbour’s dog, Wellington, dead on her lawn with a garden fork through his abdomen. Wellington looked so sad that Christopher decided it was his duty to find his murderer, and bring him to justice. Being a mathematical wizard, he uses his simple logic and problem solving skills to search for the murderer.

This whole story is told from Christopher’s perspective (from the mind of a fifteen year old autistic boy), so it is not like typical writing, because if it was typical writing, it would not be like the way Christopher thinks, and so it would be a lie. And we are told that lying is wrong. But adults tell lies all the time anyway, like when they say “she was the apple of my eye” because there are not apple’s in our eyes, so there could be no “apple of my eye”. That is an example of a lie that adults tell. A lie is not a simile or a metaphor, because those are different. (And that is an example of how this story is told).

I found this characteristic of the book very interesting, because he explained all of his thoughts and logic in a way that seemed so clear. He talked about all the stupid things that people do, and how most adults made no sense. This got me thinking about how all of us have our own compulsions, and how we think ours are very defendable, but others are just plum neurotic.

Examples:

A: I Time Distances... almost all of them. It takes me six minutes to walk to the subway station from my house. Its 19 minutes to the gym and 21 minutes to work. 3 minutes by foot to The Halfaneeses’ home. Cell Phone Boy was 17 minutes away, but since he moved, and I’m not sure the time to his new place, as I’ve not walked it yet. Eaton Center = 22 min. Gay Village = 8.5 minutes. The list goes on.

At the subway station, I know where I need to stand and wait for my train so that I get out exactly where the exit is at my destination stop. My destinations: Bay station = 5 minutes on train; Royal York Station = 25 minutes. Islington Station = 26 minutes. Now if I get on the train at work (Bay Station) it takes 20 to get to Royal York. Also, the times have recently gone up, because it used to take me only 24 to get from home to Royal York, and 25 minutes to Islington, but five weeks ago, the trains got a bit slower, and now it takes extra time. Not sure why they got slower, but if fucked me up for the first few days.

B: I Alphabetize Everything That Is Of Equal Size: CD’s, DVD’s, VHS tapes, spice jars. And I’m talking anal alphabetical. Not just half-assed, baby, it’s alphabetized like a dictionary or phonebook. And (if need be) within the alphabet, everything is chronological, i.e.: within all the Madonna CD’s, I have her newest to oldest.

The Boyfriend ‘alphabetizes’ his CD’s, but he just has all ‘A’ together, all ‘B’ together and so on. I will be making quick change of that when we start unpacking next week.

C: Clothes Are Colour Coordinated In The Closet. But there’s more to it than just that. It starts with Black long sleeve button-up, then Black long sleeve cotton, then Mostly Black but with stripes (and they’re sorted by thickness, colour and direction of stripe), then I move into Darkest Gray to Lighter Grey, then Brown, Yellow (which is here because it is visually closest to light brown), Red (including Violet and Orange), Green, Blue, then finally White. All colours are sorted by buttoned / button-less, colour lightness, and stripes as described in the Black Shirt sentence. T-shirts get their own rod in the closet.

Now, this is all pretty tame, I think. I used to be really bad. Once I put everything where it ought to be, I would be uncomfortable if anyone moved it.

The sofa pillows on the couch HAD to be ‘Zipper-edge-down-with-zipper-pull-tab-closest-to-the-center-of-the-couch’; one pillow on each end of the sofa and loveseat. I was acceptable to put two or more pillows behind you when you were sitting, but upon leaving the living room I would have to move them back to their proper place. And God help you if I walked into the room when the pillows were askew and no one was in the room.

If someone put dishes in the dishwasher ‘wrong’ (by wrong I mean any way that was not my usual), I would take everything out and reorganize the entire appliance.

The Philanthropist once changed the order on my stack of coasters (they were different colours) when I was out of the room for 45 seconds, and I noticed it as soon as I walked back into the room.

I could tell if a roommate or a house sitter had moved furniture, even slightly.

I even got uneasy when my gym would move around the equipment.

But a year on Zoloft, and a few counselling sessions later, I’m right as rain. That is, provided you don’t mess with my alphabet. Then, I’ll have your head.