You Don't have to be "Crazy" to Have a Mental Disorder

"I don't **** with you!"

The man next to me's music is blaring from his headphones, making it impossible for me to not hear it, no matter how much I try to block out the profanities and beat. It's as if his widely-spread legs impeding my personal space weren't enough to make me uncomfortable. My body feels too big to fit in this space, and I can’t help think what others think about this. In my mind, I know that no one on this train cares what I look like or act like, as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with them, but I can’t help the nagging in my mind that tells me everything I do is wrong: anxiety.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

The woman in front of me impatiently taps her foot, sighing at her phone. Her purse sits on the seat next to her, making her personal bubble almost inaccessible. She has no relation to me and I shouldn’t be concerned with her at all, but the tapping of her foot might as well be her banging on my head the way that it affects me. The beat isn’t steady and sometimes pauses abruptly. In my head, it should be steady, in counts of four. That’s the OCD in me talking.

When I was younger, I would walk to the bus stop, sometimes nearly missing the bus, because I needed to count my steps. A normal sidewalk block would account for two steps, but some of the bigger ones took four steps. It was always an even number. I’ve always had an obsession with even numbers, but everyone thought it was no big deal. Everything I did had to be an even number; my steps, my breaths, even the amount of time my food was in the microwave had to be even or else I’d be uncomfortable. As I got older, uncomfortable wasn’t the right word for it. The word became anxious, and this nervousness manifested in other ways as well, in a fear of germs as one example. Finally, I decided this was something that I needed to share with my therapist. My mother was convinced I was fine, but my panic attacks suggested otherwise. After a session explaining myself, I remember my therapist’s words: “This sounds like a serious case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” My heart seemed to skip a beat for a moment, I was finally being heard out.

"I know the train can go faster than this," a little girl in a blue jumper scoffs as the L loudly turns a corner, screeching unbearably for a moment.

Her voice, along with others’ protruding conversations infect my mind on this overly crowded train. Everyone is living their lives, and I feel like I can’t. I still have a few stops to go, and my heart rate is climbing. I think about things I’ve learned to deal with these feelings, when my body and mind feel out of control. I reign myself in, doing breathing exercises and examining the details in my the train ride to ground myself. It barely works in this moment, as I feel claustrophobic. I try to fill my mind with the breathing repetitions of ‘in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8’, as I’ve been advised before, but it feels ineffective.

Scwsh.

A book's page turns loudly, and I want to scream. Every noise around me consumes my thoughts, filling my head until it feels as if it's about to explode. I then realize I'm breathing too shallow and shakily, my face is going numb. There are too many people around me, I need to get out.

"Doors are opening."

I rush out of the train, people looking at me like I’m crazy. Despite the humid feeling of Thirteenth Street Station, I take gasping breaths and feel free, feeling returning to my face and my breathing stabilizing. Then I notice the side-eye glances to me of those in the station. I sit down for a moment just to think before going back to my travel. My whole life seems like a series of being judged, be it for my size, my habits and repetitions, or for my nervousness about life in general. Panic attacks have become a part of my life, the feeling of dread filling me to the point where I can’t breathe.

I think about my school life. Growing up, focusing was hard when there was so much around me to provoke unease, the constant sneers and threats throughout elementary school not helping my anxiety. People never seem to notice, is what I’ve learned. People looked at me and saw a quirky child who liked even numbers and didn’t focus well. Now they see a young woman who takes on every club and activity she can. In both scenarios, people don’t see the struggle, the constant battle with my mind to convince myself that I’m sane. They don’t see the tears late at night over what people think, or how high or low my grades are. They see the outward appearance or a young lady that holds herself together well, not the broken pieces held together with what I can only describe as metaphorical duct tape.

At this point in life, I’ve finally found somewhere accepting, somewhere that I feel comfortable opening up about my issues without having to worry about being hurt. I’ve learned how to provide myself with distracts that help more than hurt, to keep myself busy rather than make pain a distraction from anxiety.

So finally, I get up from this bench at Thirteenth and get on my way, facing another day.