T

he digital clock flashed 1:23, its red
austerity shouting at me.

“Mom, hurry up!”

It was competition day. I spent my morn-

ing gluing on fake eyelashes and my after-
noon rushing my mother. My dance team
was set to be backstage at 1:30, the venue a
15-minute drive away. I did the math.

“One, two, three, four, one, two, three,

four, one-two-three-four,” I heard her
chant from behind the shower curtain.

“MOM.”
“Onetwothreefour,
onetwothreefour

onetwothreefouronetwothreefour –”

“– and five, six, seven, eight!” and my

team stepped out on stage. I was still at
home, shouting at my mother.

Selfish, selfish, selfish, I scream. This day

isn’t about you, this isn’t about you! Every
electron inside me was combusting, a nega-
tive explosion toward my mother like I
never experienced before.

I was 12 then, the shortest girl in my

homeroom and nominated for Little Miss
Sunshine in West Middle’s yearbook. But I
harbored an internal hatred like no other —
one that I parasitically clung onto, one that
was rooted deeper than the oak in our back-
yard. I didn’t have middle school enemies — I
just had my mother.

My mother out-witted me in every argument. She was

thick-skinned, and my petty insults could never shake her.
But my greatest weapon remained three letters strung
together.

“You OCD. You’re such an OCD!”
It was the easiest way to shut her down about anything.

It was my go-to in every situation.

My mother is an accountant. Her profession is to order,

to check and to count and count and count. She counted at
the office, and then she came home and counted too. She
counted for leisure, voluntarily, involuntarily — automati-
cally, uncontrollably.

She worked her eight-hour job into a 16-hour one — seven

to 11 every single day. I knew her daily schedule consisted
of an hour in the office kitchenette, obsessively washing up
for breakfast; an hour in the bathroom scrubbing the toilet
and sink before she could use them; then an hour napping
in the stall to compensate for her exhaustive days – and a
little bit of work somewhere in there.

Some may call this dedication — perseverance, perhaps.

I just called it another attribute to her disease. She wasn’t
consumed by her work — just consumed by an illness.

Worst of all, she had always refused to get treatment.

She has had this disorder for as long as I can remember, yet
she has sat paralyzed with fear of taking action. Her idle-
ness was exactly why I vowed I would never, ever turn into
my mother. I wanted to be ambitious, proactive, a leader —
taking initiative wasn’t a problem for me. I could not possi-
bly comprehend how she could not incite change in her life.

I remember my 16th birthday, when my mom took off

work to spend the day in Boston with me. Before gelato
and shopping though, I was determined to drag my mother
to her first therapy appointment for treatment, even if she
would kick and scream. I spent the past month scavenging
the depths of the Internet for psychiatrists with availabili-
ties that weren’t two years in the future. I found 18 fully

scheduled doctors who couldn’t take a new patient — but
finally, I hit one opening.

In the waiting room, I flipped through magazines that

detailed the success stories of other mental health patients,
all pictured in candid laughter photos with their families. I
anxiously waited for an hour until my mother finally came
out — from the lobby bathroom. She didn’t need a doctor to
confirm her condition was too severe for healthy function-
ing — this missed appointment just added to the tally of
other missed events because of her condition.

As I grew older, I became her caretaker — her chauffeur,

her secretary, her usher — and I begrudged her the more
responsibility I had to take on. I was a teenager; I didn’t
want to be so mature. I didn’t want a mom who needed to
count on me.

***

It was my senior year of high school. I sat in my mother’s

car in our garage after my parents went to bed. It was quar-
ter past one, and my seat reclined a degree parallel to the
clock’s hand. I breathed in against the humming engine
pressing back. I breathed out — as the carbon dioxide
would soon no longer allow me to do. I smoothed out the
pristine white dress my mother bought me for graduation.
I unfolded my copy of the Boston Globe to pass the time,
the one with an article on dance that my mother suggested
I read that morning. My own mental condition shouted,
“Do it!”

I couldn’t do it.
I felt the stress of academics, the loom of college, the

weight of having to parent my own parent. I felt the neces-
sity to do everything and be perfect.

My mother felt the pressure of the clock, each tick push-

ing her forward in a disorder she did not understand. She
became the clock, counting second after second, until she
ticked, too. She felt the tug of time, tearing her away from
being a good parent. She felt and she felt and she felt, until
this condition numbed her daily routine, reducing each
moment to mindless counting.

She, too, understood the need to be perfect. I guess we

were not that different after all. Somewhere deep inside
my spite for her, there was also the deepest love. I spent so
much time resenting how much I had to take care of her
that I never quite realized how much my mother actually
took care of me as well. On top of her 16-hour occupation,
I was her other 24-hour job — a job where she had to teach
calculus and cheerlead at dance competitions and tell bed-
time stories and watch my adolescent soap opera.

It’s my mother’s birthday today. After over 10 years

of battling her obsessions and compulsions and denials,
she will finally receive regular treatment next week. She
has finally accepted that part of her is vulnerable — and
through this, she has encouraged me to make myself vul-
nerable through my words too.

Occasionally, I hear someone say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so

OCD about the neatness of my room.” “Prof., can you erase
that mark on the board there? The OCD in me is freaking
out.”

It takes every iota of restraint within me not to slap

these words in the face. Yet, in reflection, I used to slap
my mother with the same ones. In graduate school in the
States, my mother studied numbers. In college as an Eng-
lish major, I study words. It’s taken me a while, but I finally
understand the weight of language, of words, of letters.
They have power, and they can inflict pain.

My mother is not defined by her mental condition. There

is so much more depth to her than I could ever see before.
She graduated valedictorian at a university where she was
not native to the language. She taught me trigonometry in
eighth grade simply for the sake of knowledge. She fought
for me to keep dancing – she is so much more than her OCD.
She did not reproach me or resent me for venturing 750
miles away from home to pursue my education. My goals
have always been hers, and now hers have become mine.

For now, it’s an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I

believe with all my heart, that she will undeniably Over-
Come this Disease.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015 // The Statement

7B

ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND

Personal Statement: Growing up with an OCD mother

by Karen Hua, TV/New Media Editor