Losing My Innocence: A Prologue

I was seven years old when first charged with the responsibility of protecting my family from impending doom. My petite frame bore the continual weight of preventing our three-bedroom cape from burning to the ground. Crouched on the floor, nightly, I stretched my torso to reach my hands toward the electric baseboard heaters, moving under, behind, and between furniture, scraping at the rug to gather lint and any other particulate that would surely ignite into flames while we slept, if not removed. 

I carefully scanned for tiny, troublesome specs with my body in a twisted child’s pose and face pressed against the carpet’s short pile fibers. Then, making my way through the house, I followed the perimeter of each room to inspect other baseboard heaters for possible danger. More than a bedtime routine, this was my duty to keep us safe. At times, I’d forget to check the heaters. Upon realization, and I always realized my mistake at some point in the night, I would shoot from bed in a panic. My heart beat so hard and fast that the cotton nightgown bounced on my chest. With a surge of fear, I launched myself downstairs through a haze of frustrated exhaustion to check the perimeter of any accessible room. 

This was not my first obsessive thought or compulsion. Although, I cannot recall precisely when the safety latch disengaged, flooding my amygdala with alarm. What I remember is a desperate struggle to cope with uncertainty. From my perspective, the world was unsafe, and my family was at risk. I experienced life on overdrive in a constant state of fight or flight. As a result, I did what I could to fix the outcomes and maintain a sense of control.

My parents and siblings watched me engage in such routines, and while I didn’t try to hide my actions, I felt the absence of their reactions. I understood my behavior as necessary; they perceived it as voluntary. I felt hostage to the urge; they thought I would grow out of it. I could not ask for help; they didn’t know I needed it.

Always a fearful child, I was scared of sirens, my nana’s junky car, strangers, raccoons, and needles. This ever-growing list still appeared within developmental norms. At some point, the pitch of my anxiety changed, laced with heightened intensity and frequency. I worried that the tub would overflow, and the water would reach the ceiling causing me to drown. My bed was no longer a place of rest. Each night, I battled incessant morbid thoughts of being buried alive and suffocating in a coffin.

Shame prevented me from sharing my thoughts. Instead, I reported these to my parents as stomach aches. With a kiss on the forehead, I was promptly sent back to bed, where I waited for sleep to rescue me from my overactive mind. 

The earliest ritual stemmed from a prevailing ominous feeling. My mind convinced me that something terrible would happen if I don’t do this. To which I refused to get out of the tub without dipping my bottom successively, three taps, into the water. At the time, my mom saw this as peculiar but not worth denying, so this ritual met my compulsive needs without interference. 

In my climb through adolescence, the if-then contingency grew specific to suggest, someone I love might be hurt, sickened, or die if I don’t do this. And a new ritual emerged to manage this worry. Every time I tore paper towels or toilet paper from a perforated edge, the corners had to be perfectly square. If the corners did not meet this criterion, I would continue to tear pieces until I met the self-prescribed measure. Occasionally, I was relieved when it happened on the first or second try. Other times, I frantically tore through an entire roll of toilet paper for this cause. 

Over time, I became increasingly overwhelmed, trapped by my private, rule-bound grasp for control. While I recognized these routines as irrational, I continued to feel a tremendous burden and responsibility to follow through. 

As an adult, I sought therapy and developed coping techniques that allowed me to reduce the multitude of rituals. Finally, only a solo act remained–a prayer-based ritual. 

Growing up as practicing Catholics, we attended church every Sunday, a dreaded chore. Still, I found some comfort in considering messages of love and protection. From here, I developed my longest ongoing compulsion in a self-authored prayer. It protected anyone I named. I used it prolifically to assert control whenever separated from a loved one, even on short trips to the grocery store. In these words, I called upon God and St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel. To this day, I won’t wholly reveal this routine, as I still use it at times, and exposure may revoke its power to diminish my anxiety. 

Despite therapy and success with reducing compulsive behavior, my obsessive thoughts and anxiety were not budging. I had spent my entire life worrying about what might happen. My mind, a perpetual choose your adventure novel, only I always had to opt for the lesser of two evils. 

Given my propensity for drafting the worst-case scenario, it is shocking that I never considered myself at risk of pregnancy loss or infertility. Somehow, my original reproductive story remained intact. The certainty of growing a life inside of me, untouched by “what ifs.” Actuality disoriented me such that I could not trust anyone or anything, least myself. 

There were no real conversations about this trauma’s depth, no mental health counselor on my medical team. Just bereavement stunted by a recurring theme often prefaced with two words that I have come to despise: AT LEAST. “At least it was early in your first trimester. At least you know you can get pregnant. At least you have good health insurance. At least you didn’t need a D & C. At least you’re still young.” Comparison has no place in the grieving process.

Left with that one ritual, I clung to God in prayer, my earlier journal entries fraught with pleas to heaven. But no ritual is powerful enough to bear the weight of the layered losses of miscarriage and infertility. Eventually, I found that no amount of repetition would protect me from the darkness, isolation, and echoes in the resulting chasm.

I could not ask for help; they didn’t know I needed it.

I spent my entire life worrying about what might happen, using thoughts and rituals as a form of protection and control. If I worry about it, I can prevent it from happening. 

All the while, I neglected to worry about the consequence that would be most profound in carving my world’s internal and external landscapes. A landscape that I am still learning to navigate, even after adopting my daughter.