Leigh Winters

Pancakes

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is built on two things: Shame. And Doubt. I made pancakes as a kid and kept adding more milk and flour, screw the recipe. Shame and doubt are the milk and flour. I am the recipe. There are never any (edible) pancakes. After I started fooling around with my boyfriend, I tried to make pancakes and I couldn’t. I lay awake at night feeling the Virgin Mary’s eyes on me, the condemning words. Slut. Slut. Slut. I knew then that I was pregnant.

If OCD is all about doubt then why did I feel things, still feel things, with such certainty? “We’ve never even had sex. You’ve sucked my dick, like once,” said my boyfriend, baffled. Because he didn’t understand pancakes. Or OCD. Or me. And I couldn’t explain it to him. And I was too embarrassed to explain it to my therapist. And my parents were off limits. I was trapped by the confines of my own mind, and not for the first time. It was a vicious cycle. Age of onset for OCD varies but it hit me hard around age 11. Eleven is where I mark my before and after.

Finally, I badgered my boyfriend into taking me to the pharmacy. We split up and canvassed the store for pregnancy tests. I found the tampons, then the condoms. I blushed. I was waiting for sex. We were waiting for sex. Not for marriage but for maturity. And as long as I was still giving in to the demands of my OCD I knew I wasn’t ready. Finally we found the pregnancy tests. I lurked by the condoms while my boyfriend bought a test. I knew he was resenting me—for his worry, for the judgement of the pharmacist. I knew he was frustrated. I was frustrated. Why could I simply not get well?

He returned to me with the (now purchased) pregnancy test. Flour, meet milk. I took it into the handicapped stall and squatted to pee on the stick. I had to wait two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds of too long. I was convinced it would be positive and my college plans would be ruined before they began. I didn’t attempt to talk myself out of my fear because I knew it would be for naught. I was pregnant and that was irrevocably true.

Of course it wasn’t true (that would have been the Immaculate Conception Part 2). The test stared back at me. Mockingly negative. I emerged from the Girls Bathroom to my boyfriend running his hands through his hair. I shook my head. “Negative” He hugged me. Just two dumb kids who didn’t understand how biology worked? Or was OCD a conjurer, a magician, making us see things? Making me see things? And as long as I could see false pregnancy, guilt for a simple teenage rite of passage… imagine all the things I couldn’t see? imagine all the things I couldn't see, couldn't look at, places i couldn't let my mind go. Better to keep making pancakes, however inedible. To return to the familiar of milk and flour.