A few years ago, I made a phone call that changed my life.
Her name is Megan, and she is the most beautiful soul. She was a senior in high school, and I was calling her with a question about her application to my university. As we talked– quite vulnerably for two people in their first conversation– I felt like I was talking to my senior-year self.
I heard OCD in her words and between her words.
I said, “Megan, can I tell you a little about me?” and I shared about my own experiences with OCD. I remember her voice saying, “That … sounds like me.”
At the end of the conversation, I said, “Now, the second we hang up, you are probably going to second-guess everything you said and worry that you misled me. Don’t. You didn’t.”
She said, in a voice of awe– the kind you get when you know someone really sees you– “I was already starting to go there. You really do get it!”
“I really do!” I said.
We had such a great talk that night, the first of many great talks. Megan now goes the university where I work, and it’s my joy to watch her thrive in her majors and on the theatre stage, to see her with her friends, see her growth as the most lovely young lady.
Everything about Megan is delightful. And it is tremendously meaningful for me to have the conversations with her that I so desperately needed someone to have with me as a college student. Psychoanalyze that all you want. 
My past self is healing through my friendship with this girl. I really adore her.
All that to say, she wrote this poem, and I wanted to share it with you!
It’s called OCD, an enemy,
With a gamut of tricks leading to slavery.
I just want someone to rescue me.
But there’s the catch,
Before I’m free I just have to fetch,
Or tell my mom, or say sorry to them,
Then I can kiss OCD goodbye again.
So I feel good and life is nice,
Until I trip, meet another vice,
Do another wrong or think something appalling,
OCD grabs tight to make me start stalling.
Cause the longer I wait, the more I engage,
The tighter he grips, the fiercer his rage.
Life in a corner is life in a cage,
Give in to OCD, live on his stage,
His wage, that never pays
But makes promises every day.
No one gets it, it’s all inside,
But it spills out ’cause he hates to hide.
But he loves the shadows where no one understands,
Where a girl is fighting him with trembling hands.
No part of life is completely free,
When controlled by OCD.
It’s not the funny quirk you think,
It’s not how many times you wash in the sink.
It’s deep and real and crafty and mean
It makes reality not what it seems.
It twists, distorts and sucks all life,
To present as an OCD sacrifice.
Never satiated, never appeased,
Never leaving a victim in peace.
Until,
she stops fighting, stops listening,
Never meets the eyes wickedly glistening,
Refuses to obey, stops cowering to his will,
Though at first it hurts, she works still.
And every fight she doesn’t pick,
With the enemy and his crafty tricks,
The weaker he grows, the less he attacks,
The more his shadow retreats back.
For those who are longing to be free,
Don’t play the game with OCD.
He wants you blinded never to see,
He wants nothing good for you or me.
Don’t play his game, don’t answer his jokes,
And soon his wagon will lose its spokes.
And you’ll be free from OCD.
No longer under bondage in slavery.
