If we had known what to look for, it would have been obvious that I have OCD since I was about two years old. In nursery school, we had these uniforms: smock, Mary Jane shoes, and socks with a lace trim. Those socks live in my fucking nightmares. They had to be folded down over themselves, because I guess that’s what you do with lacy socks, and I spent many, many mornings having what I would later recognize as panic attacks because I couldn’t get them folded down just right. Even now, 20 years later, just thinking about it makes my chest constrict from some deep sensation of unsafety far beyond any rational explanation.
Since my diagnosis around age 11, I have engaged in the lifelong work of learning when to bend my OCD to the world and when to accept that I’m just going to have to do things differently than most people. I have heard hundreds of times that the education system is fundamentally not structured for people like me. I was never able to reconcile this with my conception of myself—I was an exceptional student and a very fast learner from nursery school all the way through high school, even when I was at my absolute worst in terms of mental health.
When I started to falter in college, I blamed myself entirely. I sat at my computer with dread gnawing on my hands and stomach at the thought of writing papers. I asked for extensions; later, I took withdrawals and incompletes in classes I should have done well in. I knew that my OCD was the likely cause, but I couldn’t wrap my head around why I was failing in areas in which I’d previously succeeded.
That disconnect between the American education system and mentally ill students crossed my mind, of course, but I couldn’t accept it—I’d done so well in this system for almost two decades. Why was I failing now? It couldn’t be a problem with the school system. It had to be a problem with me: some sudden lack of drive or dedication or a fundamental laziness that had taken hold for no reason I could discern.
In autumn quarter of my third year, I enrolled in the English department’s study abroad program in London. We took three courses, each lasting three weeks, one right after the other. Alongside our professor-of-the-month, we also had a graduate student advisor to help us with living abroad and instruct us through a research project. Her name was Heather.
By week three of that first course, I was a total mess. The stress of studying abroad and all the new obsessive-compulsions that had come with it, alongside the usual stress from academic pressures, meant that I had completely dropped the ball on studying for the final. I texted Heather in a panic shortly after the final had finished, and she came right to campus to talk me through my breakdown.
At that point, I didn’t even care about the grade—I just wanted my professor to understand that it wasn’t his fault that I had done so poorly, nor did it arise from any lack of interest on my part. I told Heather as much, and she listened with such sympathy, giving me space to feel before moving on to solutions. As we talked through next steps, she told me, like I’d heard a hundred times before, that the standard system of education in America, with its grades and deadlines, was not made for neurodivergent people and that it lets us down far too often.
It must have been because it came from someone I respected and admired so much, because, after that, I began to accept the idea that my academic floundering wasn’t my fault. If someone like Heather, who seemed to never say anything without having a clear and logical argument to back it up, not only supported that idea but identified me as an example of it, maybe it was true.
Students are given extensions and schedule flexibility to seek care and go through treatment for physical illnesses—why not for mental ones? My need for extra time on assignments is not a lack of discipline; it’s an allowance for the extra time I have to spend fighting off my compulsions, time that my peers are able to dedicate to writing. And, as hard as I might try, there is no amount of “powering through” that will make my fundamentally different brain work like everybody else’s.
I do not want “special treatment,” nor is that what I’m asking for. The fact of the matter is that my ability to deliver, say, a literary analysis by a specified date has very little to do with my competence in the material or in writing. And I know for a fact that I can do it. I just need the time allowance—not to procrastinate but to fight these very real battles, to ensure that I have enough time to go to therapy and to work through my anxieties without physically hurting myself.
In my last year of college, I have been much more honest with myself and with my professors about my requirements. I have learned that, for me, it is better to accept that I can only deliver 100 percent of myself to a handful of assignments and that tearing myself apart trying to get every paper to the same standard impresses no one. Despite internalized perfectionism, not everything you produce is going to be a home run—the real learning happens in the handful of times that you do hit it out of the park.
For the four years I’ve worked at the Maroon, I’ve been trying and failing to write a piece on my experience at UChicago as a person diagnosed with OCD. It seemed like every time I tried to write about it, I was just feeding the anxious thoughts that made this subject both so necessary and so difficult to write about. But last year, outgoing Managing Editor Michael McClure published a senior column reflecting on his experience being diagnosed with autism in college. McClure’s piece finally gave me a reason to write about my own neurodivergence: “At the very least, my output through this piece can be more input for the next person like me.” OCD is not something I alone struggle with—in my time at UChicago, I’ve met people like me for the first time in my life, and I’ve seen that “my disorder” is not just my disorder.
To those beginning or continuing college with OCD or a related disorder: college is completely different from anything you’ve experienced in your life so far, and you are going to react accordingly. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been functional—this may just be the time in your life where you will need more help than you ever have before. The one mistake I’ve seen many students make—and one that I made myself—is waiting until their third or fourth year to put the “college experience” on hold and get some help. If you are struggling, don’t try to power through “just one more year.” Take some time—days, weeks, even a whole quarter if that’s what you need—and start using the resources offered both inside and outside of UChicago Student Wellness. It’s not going to be quick or easy, but the time is going to pass anyway; invest in a better future for yourself.
And to those who do not struggle with OCD or something similar: I understand that it may be hard to believe that there are people out there who find themselves experiencing profound, almost primal fear at things that are really not that big of a deal. It doesn’t make sense to us either. I hope that this piece has done something to explain how this feels from the inside and that you will grant us the grace that you’d want for yourself in the same situation.
Katherine Weaver is a fourth-year in the College.
