Devil in the Details Read Online Free Page B

good idea, but it was like scratching your left leg when your
right one itches; only the bookcase would do. Next came threats.
“You jump up one more time and you’ll be taking the rest of the
meal with your hands taped to that damn bookcase,” my parents
warned. “We’ll give you a straw and you can drink your Cheerios.” I
scowled, sulked, spun around some more. Didn’t they know this
wasn’t any fun for me, either? Didn’t they understand I didn’t want
to do these things? Couldn’t they see?
    Maybe it’s best they didn’t. Had I been diagnosed, I could have
been treated with high colonics and Valium, things that, though
fun, are really wasted on a child. OCD was just so poorly
understood at the time. It’s only in the last fifteen years that
there’s been a shift toward biology. Now we know OCD is a brain
disorder, related to Tourette’s syndrome, that originates in the
basal ganglia, the gray clump of cells in the center of the brain.
I imagine them as a rat-shaped cluster, its tail tickling my
nervous system. The analogy seems fitting given the rodentlike
characteristics of the disorder. OCD sufferers are like hamsters on
treadmills, all industrious activity with nothing to show for it.
If we were compelled to turn windmills or crank generators rather
than alphabetize the canned goods, we could solve the energy
crisis.
    Instead our major contribution to society is that, like rodents,
we are pests. No surprise that Freud named his famous
obsessive-compulsive subject the Rat Man. Unlike the Rat Man, I was
never plagued by obsessions of rats biting my backside (anal
sadism, indeed), but I did, in a sense, have rats on my mind. When
my OCD was flaring, it truly felt like a rodent had burrowed its
way into my brain, my basal ganglia like a scrabbling animal, each
movement of its tiny claws compelling me to do things against my
will. A flick here made me inspect the juice glasses; a flick
there, and I was sterilizing all the flatware.
    Basal ganglia injuries can bring the condition on almost
instantly. The rest of us have to work at it. It’s a thousand tiny
impulses, building on one another. First you decide it’s a good
idea to check the oatmeal bin for bugs. Next you’re going through
all the canisters, and before you know it, you’re wearing a hazmat
suit and examining the frosted flakes for ground-up glass. Each
action further enforces the obsessive-compulsive circuit. When the
disease is full-blown, sufferers are firmly entrenched in neural
loops that make them repeat thoughts and actions over and over. In
other words, your brain keeps getting back in line for the same
carnival ride it didn’t enjoy in the first place. You lose your
sunglasses, you throw up on your shirt, and two minutes later
you’re back on the Whizzer. Wheeeee.
    In spite of all this, obsessive-compulsives aren’t delusional.
OCD is not a psychosis. Sufferers never lose touch with reality.
Sure, we do crazy things, but we know they’re crazy. We
don’t want to do them at all, but we can’t help ourselves. I’ve
done plenty of things that truly were deluded – dyeing my
hair magenta, working at a summer camp, using a home
tooth-bleaching kit – but the difference is that I thought these
were good ideas at the time. I never thought it was a good idea to
disinfect my binders, but I had to do it anyway. Back on the
Whizzer we go.
    The ride is the same; so is the scenery. There can be no greater
proof of the uniformity of human hard wiring than the sameness of
obsessive-compulsives’ triggers. Cross-culturally and
trans-historically, we zero in on the exact same things: details
and doorknobs, electrical sockets, locks, light switches, blood,
bugs, and germs. AIDS is a recent favorite; with its overtones of
sex, blood, and contagion, it seems custom-made for the
obsessive-compulsive imagination. Surely these fears are evidence
of some evolutionary remnant, an instinct for self-preservation
gone haywire, but I can’t help