Devil in the details
by Jennifer Traig

Growing up, Jennifer Traig knew perfectly well that she was weird -nobody else seemed compelled to touch furniture or wash their hands for half an hour at a stretch. She simply couldn't resist, or else she might find herself stabbing her mother or watching her entire family die.

Doctors can now trace obsessive-compulsive disorders to a chemical imbalance in the brain, but at the time her behavior was a mystery. While appearing alternately as common compulsions like washing, checking, counting, hoarding and hair-pulling, Traig's OCD found a unusual outlet: religion. Once introduced to the intricate Jewish rituals of food and body purification, she resolved to follow them beyond the letter, convinced that if she did not, she would end up in hell.

Traig kept kosher so strictly that she developed anorexia. She threw away everything she owned that had been bought on the Sabbath. When she was exposed to anyone or anything that might be impure, she had to wash her entire body to cleanse herself while thinking the right kind of thoughts the entire time. Traig was often able to hide her symptoms and live a normal life of school and friends, but she was exhausted and unhealthy, terrified that any day something was going to break.

Today, OCD is still a poorly understood disease. The media often portrays its tics and fantasies as comedy, unaware of the very real torment these impulses give their sufferers. Even understanding friends and family like Traig's can grow weary with irritation, wondering why their loved one can't "just stop."

As Traig reveals, it is much more complicated than that. Her wryly candid memoir is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand this difficult and demanding disorder.

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