Obsessed: A Memoir of My Life With OCD

Allison Britz was a high-achieving 15-year-old sophomore at Samuelson High School in a small southern town. She carried a nearly perfect GPA, ran cross-country, took honors classes, and had been nominated for her school's Young Artists Program, a school arts honor. Her best friend, Sara, managed their social standing, and Allison had a crush on Sam, a basketball player. At home, her parents were supportive: Her mother was a former army captain turned corporate vice president, and her father, a former army officer, affectionately called her "big girl."

One Thursday night, exhausted from studying and cross-country practice, Allison fell asleep reading Lord of the Flies and had a vivid nightmare in which a doctor diagnosed her with terminal brain cancer. She watched herself deteriorate through chemotherapy, hair loss, and death while her parents grieved. She woke sobbing, convinced the dream was a premonition. When her alarm played a song whose chorus repeated "it's all in my head," she interpreted the lyrics as coded confirmation that something was wrong with her brain.

At school the next day, Allison stepped on a sidewalk crack and was seized by the childhood rhyme "step on a crack, break your mother's back," which warped into a new certainty: Cracks cause brain cancer. When she lifted her foot, the panic vanished, producing the corollary belief that avoiding cracks could cure cancer. She began tiptoeing and hopping across campus. A new rule soon appeared: Each journey required a specific "safe" number of steps. She started counting aloud, attracting stares. Sara texted that Sam had asked whether something was wrong with Allison "mentally."

Allison discovered she could "barter" food to compensate for mistakes, trading away a lunch item each time she stepped on a crack until she had eaten almost nothing for days. Her body weakened, and she collapsed during cross-country practice. When her friend Jenny bought her a cookie and begged her to eat, Allison exploded, screaming in the crowded cafeteria before fleeing in tears. She began hiding behind the cafeteria at lunch.

About two weeks after the nightmare, a violent voice erupted in Allison's mind when she reached for her hair dryer, screaming commands and banning the device forever. She identified this voice as her "monster" and "savior" and pledged obedience. Rapid-fire labeling followed: Everyday objects were instantly declared cancerous. Pretzels, bananas, blue pens, her cell phone, and her cross-country uniform joined a growing danger list. Sara stopped waiting for her after class, and Allison screamed at Jenny in the hallway, severing another friendship. She began walking to all classes alone.

Her academics collapsed. A 10-page paper on Les Misérables, worth 25 percent of her English grade, came due, but stepping on a sock had triggered a ritual that forced her to sacrifice all Les Mis reading. Her computer, desk, and nearly all writing implements were banned. She wrote the paper by hand on the floor with a single unsharpened pencil and received a C-minus, her worst grade ever.

Her hygiene and daily life disintegrated. Bedsheets, towels, her hairbrush, makeup, and toothbrush were declared cancerous. She arrived at school disheveled, carrying a tower of books, rotting food, and loose papers. Her closet clothes revolted with visions of her parents' deaths, forcing her to scavenge old clothes from drawers. During a driver's education course, her instructor's religious language triggered a new conviction: The intrusive thoughts came not from a monster but from God, and she was his chosen vessel. She read the Bible obsessively and developed an elaborate prayer ritual.

During exam week, the voice banned her calculator, the color green, and passing her chemistry final, insisting that if she passed, her mother would die. Allison intentionally filled in the answer sheet in a zigzag pattern. During the precalculus exam, forbidden from studying, she stared at a blank test and began crying. She feigned food poisoning and was allowed to retake the exam in January with a full letter grade deducted.

Over Christmas break, her father confronted her about her behaviors. The morning she was supposed to retake the precalculus exam, her last safe pajamas were declared cancerous. Naked and surrounded by danger, she grabbed the landline and called her mother at work, sobbing that she had nothing to wear. Her mother calmly made a doctor's appointment, emailed the school, and promised to come home. Allison spent the day curled on the carpet.

At her physician's office, Allison weighed 95 pounds, down from 115. The exam was normal, but the doctor produced a referral to Dr. Jennifer Adams, a psychiatrist, that Allison's mother had arranged in advance. In Dr. Adams's waiting room, Allison found a pamphlet on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition marked by persistent, unwanted thoughts and repetitive anxiety-driven behaviors. The description matched her experience. At her second appointment, she smuggled the pamphlet in and held it out: "I think I have this." Dr. Adams confirmed the diagnosis and recommended SSRI medication, a class of antidepressant drugs, combined with therapy. Allison refused medication, certain it would cause brain cancer, and was referred to Dr. Virginia Nelson, a psychologist specializing in childhood OCD.

In a family session, Allison's father described the ordeal as "kind of like watching our daughter disappear." Left alone with Dr. Nelson, Allison talked freely for the first time, describing every ritual, fear, and rule. Dr. Nelson assigned homework: a chart listing every trigger, obsession, compulsion, and anxiety rating. Allison filled three pages, the most Dr. Nelson had ever seen in one patient her age. They sorted the entries into categories, and Allison chose to target school-related obsessions first and hygiene second.

Dr. Nelson introduced Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), a therapy in which the patient confronts a feared trigger without performing the usual compulsions, allowing anxiety to peak and naturally subside. In their first session, Dr. Nelson held up a sharpened pencil. Allison's anxiety peaked at 9 out of 10 but dropped to 3 within two minutes. She repeated the exercise at home and school, arriving at her next session with a pencil behind her ear. She took notes in class for the first time in months, and other fears began collapsing on their own. Dr. Nelson arranged Section 504 accommodations, a federal provision for students with disabilities, granting Allison extended testing time.

Dr. Nelson assigned Allison to go shopping with her mother. At the mall, Allison tried on clothes and bought a white linen blazer, and her mother tearfully asked to be allowed to help. Allison returned to school in new clothes. When a shirt flared with danger one evening, she waited out the anxiety using techniques Dr. Nelson had taught her. Dr. Nelson told her that OCD tends to be lifelong but manageable. Allison resolved to fight forward as a new version of herself.

In chemistry class, Jenny defended Allison when a teacher publicly criticized her absences and weight loss. With Dr. Nelson's guidance, Allison gave Jenny a marked-up OCD pamphlet in the hallway, saying, "I have OCD." Jenny connected the descriptions to Allison's behaviors and replied, "Thanks for telling me." Allison reflected that she had a friend again, one who knew the truth.

In a closing note, Britz writes that her OCD continued throughout high school but that Dr. Nelson helped her manage it. She rejoined the cross-country team and was named captain her senior year. She graduated with honors, attended Wake Forest University, earned a BA and an MA, began a career in marketing, and married her college sweetheart. While OCD will always be part of her life, she writes, asking for and accepting help from loved ones, friends, and physicians made her the person she became.