Parking my car is a long process. The wheels must be lined up parallel to the third pavement slab in. The back wheel must rest in the correct dent in the drive. Radio 1 must be tuned in. All personal belongings are to be removed– bar Dylan the Donkey who must lie in the correct position. The handbrake is checked. Twice. And a four door clockwise circle is completed each time the car is passed, ending with the driver door.
Welcome to the wonderful world of OCD.
OCD is like being a hamster on one of those running wheels. You know that you’re not really getting anywhere but getting off feels near on impossible. The only difference – and this does make some assumptions and ignores the benefits of exercise – is that you’re acutely aware that you’re a hamster running in a wheel.
It’s incredibly frustrating. It’s horrible to realise that you’re engaged in something so futile. That the future, in a ghoulish parody of groundhog day, simply holds more of the same futility.
Deviating from the prescribed route would be fatal.
Staying on it would be equally fatal.
