Thinking about my earliest memories of OCD today…at best guess I was about 5, give or take a year. My parents would tuck me in at night and before they turned the light out and left the room, I started asking "Are there any murderers or robbers coming?" Every night. I had to- I felt compelled and I needed the reassurance so I could feel safe and sleep. I often wonder why it happened and where it came from. Was it biological and just kicked in? It's possible. My mum has some pretty chronic mental health problems. Was it triggered by something? The only things that may have been around that time was my brother and sister talking about a notorious bank robber that had been featured on Australia's Most Wanted…and my recollection of not being able to sleep one night, wandering out and curling up between Mum and Dad on the couch and catching a bit of a movie they were watching- which I still distinctly recall featured someone running or driving away from a guided missile or bullet of some kind…

Now I feel sad. My 5 year old self had these anxieties and worries. My biggest worry should have been what toy I wanted to play with. I don't know if it came before or after this all I began, but around the same time, I remember being scared that there was a monster under my bed like many children and was too scared to dangle my legs off the edge….but I also used to be convinced that the two big cupboard doors of my wardrobe became too huge imposing scary men in the shadows of my room when the lights went out…and there was a tree you could see from my sisters room, which in the moonlight, looked like a big scary face marked out in the spaces between the branches…

Out of years and years of memories, these things stand out to me. I still have some other memories of favourite toys and other such things, but I find it upsetting to think back and know now that the OCD had already begun and I had no way of dispelling it as a child so young. Considering the age it took hold I guess I could be lucky that I'm still functioning.

Sometimes I think, 'maybe there's a lesson for me in this, maybe there's a hidden gift…' But where is it? What is it? Or is that just something that makes me feel a little better about having this thing that takes so much of my life?