How I Developed and Overcame My OCD Behaviors

I had compulsive behavior that controlled my life in very intrusive ways. It all started when I was in school.

Schedule

When I was in school, elementary, middle and high school, I developed severe OCD-like compulsions. From time to time they resurface in my adult life.

As far as I remember, the first occurrence stemmed from a trauma in first grade. At the time, we used to live in the city of Romans. I went to kindergarten in the city. By sheer luck, and the good intuition of my grandfather, my parents managed to find a piece of land to build a house on in the neighboring village of Mours. Romans is roughly a city of 30,000 inhabitants with a lot of schools, and Mours is quite small, with 2,000 inhabitants and a single school.

I remember the construction of this house. There was a bit of family drama as it was located very near my grand parents house, my grand father would snoop in on the construction site giving advice and directions. My grand father was really a Renaissance man, architect, mason, welder, anything you can think of. I remember vividly his house garage with a giant workbench. My mom particularly wanted to be very independent. It created a bit of friction between them. My grand father did land his caravan (that he built himself of course) that was installed on the land and we would sleep over there from time to time.

I am trying to make you picture the transition from our average city to a small village, from an appartment to a relatively big piece of land with a house being built on. My mother did not want me to do first grade in the small village during the transition, so I was going to Romans every day at École Pouchelon. She was at the time working at a school (she is a teacher) very close to my first grade school. She would later go to work at the village School for the rest of her career (she was the director and she was awesome). In-between my mom’s workplace and my first grade school was my uncle and cousin home. My cousin and I are just a month apart. So we shared a lot of classes and school together, including the first grade. Sharing the same class, my mom going to work, would drop me at my uncle’s place, and I would breakfast with them. The deal was for my uncle to drive us to the school when he was going to work.

You can feel the drama incoming. As a forenote, I love my uncle. He has the best academic record of the family (with me), was a chess champion in his youth and was the president of the French Chess Federation for some times. When at their home, he used to have a little cluster of computers that were just running chess simulations. It is really the passion of his life. But he is a dreamer, and schedules do not apply to dreamers.

Studying

We were consistently late to school, nearly every day. I am speaking late in the sense that no kids were left outside during recess. Everyone was already in class, seated. It was extremely uncomfortable to walk into empty corridors, knock on the door and be greeted by the teacher, particularly for me, who is not very outgoing and very shy. Having the spotlight put on me, plus on a difficult year (transition from kindergarten to something more academically focused) was tough. On top, the teacher was extremely old school, would yell, would intimidate. I was becoming completely mute. I remember very vividly, we all had a small slate to write stuff on. When the teacher would ask a question to the class, everyone would write the answer on a slate and show it to the teacher at the same time (I only did this in first grade so I don’t know if it is something generally done). My marker would not work one day. The teacher would ask me why I wrote nothing. And I could tell her the response but not why I wrote nothing. Again, she was scaring me. So she would send me to another room, connected to the main class by a door. And this cycle would repeat, not writing the response. Looking back, she clearly wanted me to tell her my marker was not working anymore. But I was just too scared.

This cycle of humiliation continued for the year. I was failing school, I had no friends either. I was not bullied, but being bad and being picked on by the teacher was not a recipe for popularity. My cousin had his own friends and didn’t seem phased by much of our lateness. I also remember another kid arriving late regularly and being scolded by the teacher. Surprisingly, the teacher was not as harsh with us when we arrived late as she was with this kid. I think it is because she knew my mom. My mom was well known and respected in the business and also pretty fierce. Nevertheless, I was completely bombing. It took me so long to learn how to read; it was a bit ridiculous. My mom never lost faith and was telling my teacher in their parent / teacher reunion it will take the time it will take and she was not worried. It is very funny to me.

Over time, I developed a deep fear of not waking up and being late. To this day I am not very flexible and usually very stressed about schedules. Since the first grade and for a long time, before falling asleep, I would have to look at my alarm. My alarm was a small clock with a little button to activate the alarm. I would need to look at it intensively, to be sure the hour set was the good one and the button set on. I would put my hand on the light button while looking at the alarm. I would shut down the light. Trying to burn the picture of the alarm on my retina so I could be sure it was on. And I could do that for easily 15 minutes or more. On/Off the light while starring at the alarm dial, again and again and again. It was consuming. On top of it all, I did not want to go to school and would fake illness. But really something sticking out of this story is this irrational behaviour rooted in fear.

So how did I got out of this cycle? First of all school in France is pretty strict. You start at 8am, you have to be there on the dot. And so through all those grades the stress was real and I am sure it is relatable. But I had this little problem on top which was poisoning my life. At some time to get over it, you have to let it go. You have to violence yourself into trust. Once is enough. One switch-off is fine; see what happens. Applying this philosophy, little by little, it completely disappeared.

I am in this picture

Mouche

I developed other OCD-like behaviors. I will tell the story of one more very quick because it is kinda funny. In middle school, I had a funny friend. Mostly a clown that was always doing the show even in class, because sadly he was certainly under a lot of pain for a variety of reasons. But he came up with a funny gimmick. He would say “mouche” (it means fly in French) randomly at the end of sentences. Imagine him answering a question from the teacher and say mouche at the end. Like a single sentence with a strong intonation. It is hard to explain but believe me when I say it was very funny. This made its way into my brain in a very weird way. I would start to say mouche, out of context and impulsively when I was stressed or uncomfortable. It would starts to happen so much and only in some period of my life. It resurfaced for example when I was working at Ubisoft, as an adult. I did not need to be in a conversation, I would just witness something and say mouche out loud. It would completely bypass my brain and thinking; it would just come out of my mouth. I can tell you, people would look at me extremely puzzled. My family was used to it, at work they would be used to it but in random situations with strangers it was something. I guess I am lucky the word chosen for this “reflex” was not offensive and makes no sense in any situation. I thought it was completely dead because I did not say it for a very long time (10 years). But not so long ago, I started to date again a woman from my past lives and I started saying it again. And it was as before, I could not control it, it would come out on its own, beyond my control. I had told this lady back in the day the significance of it (you have to after telling it multiple times) and of course it was not a good sign for our relationship but that’s another story.

Afterword

As I said, I am still inflexible and rigid, but I get better with age. Those experiences also gave me a will to survive and prevail. My next years of school were excellent, and I was at the top of my class for most of the rest of my schooling. You cannot imagine the surprise of my mother when she learnt I was an excellent student in second grade, when I barely passed the first grade. It was all about the teacher, and the environmental conditions (arriving late, adding stress). Nevertheless, trauma remains in some ways. I guess this is what builds character. There is no version of me that exists without it, but it is funny to think about what if without this defining experience.