Page 17 of To Hell With It
‘You start exactly where you are – you tell him you have an obsessive compulsive disorder that gets worse when you’re tired or anxious, that you’re having therapy for it and that it doesn’t define you.’
‘But it does define me,’ I said, defeated.
‘Only if you let it,’ Mairéad said again. It was one of her favourite sayings. ‘What I’m getting at, is that nothing is going to happen, even if you saidI love youand turned around and walked out of the room after saying it once, a penis right there in the forefront of your mind. You don’t have to say it more than once. You don’t have to say it at all.’ She paused and it felt like forever. ‘The penis is just in your head,’ she added. ‘It’s not real, we’ve established that.’
Mairéad looked at her watch. I liked the fact she still wore one like me. Most people don’t bother anymore. It’s all gadgets and devices that don’t tell them the actual time but instead tell them everything else like their heart rate or how unfit they are, or when to have their tea.
‘OK, we’ve got five minutes, tell me how your last food shop went?’ She dragged me from my thoughts again. ‘Did you manage to do what we talked about?’
What Mairéad meant was had I managed to do the shop and get home without using hand sanitiser, and I had. I had got all the way home without putting any on because I’d accidentally left it at home – which never happens by the way but the whole Jack thing had really flustered me (you see, it was already messing everything up) – but I didn’t tell Mairéad that. I didn’t go back in and buy any either because someone had sneezed on my way out (I’d heard it behind me as I walked out of the shop) so there was no way I was walking back through that. I sprayed my hands with my trusty Dettol spray instead.
‘Yes,’ I said and I hoped she’d leave it there, but of course she bloody didn’t.
‘That’s great!’ She beamed. ‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘Anxious.’
‘What else?’
‘Dirty.’
‘At what point did you stop feeling dirty?’
‘When I had a shower afterwards.’
‘You showered?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I felt clean.’
‘Did you wipe the shopping?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘I see,’ she said, but I don’t think she bought it. ‘The thing is, we need to try and move forwards not backwards. I understand you will have relapses but in order to have relapses you need to stop doing something first.’
‘I did, I didn’t use sanitiser. That’s massive for me, with the contamination from the steering wheel, the handbrake, the seats.’
‘Can I ask you something, Pearl?’
I knew Mairéad meant business when she used my name.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you wipe the inside of your car afterwards?’
‘No.’
It was the truth.
‘Did you spray it?’
Damn Mairéad, she never let anything drop. I let out a long sigh.
‘Yes.’
