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On OCD

Jason Adam Katzenstein's account of his struggle with OCD ("Everything Is an Emergency") is brave and touching, and has many memorable scenes:

*JAK worries intensely that, having finished his business in a laundromat, he will inflict an overheated dryer on an unsuspecting victim. So he stays by the dryer and repeatedly checks the inside, until he is 100-percent certain that its cool-down is adequate.
*JAK cannot toss a penny on the sidewalk, because he believes a child will ingest the penny and die.
*Therapy involves forcing oneself to touch one's sneaker, then one's face--and to take note of how Act-Three spontaneous combustion does NOT occur.
*A panic attack can happen on a stalled L train--"We plan to remain here in this tunnel for the next eight to nine hours"--but a panic attack can also happen in a much "safer" setting, e.g. when you're alone in bed.
*Being a friend of someone with OCD may mean feeling useless....standing by a locked door and saying, "I love you and I want to help....I'll wash all the doorknobs for you...."

The problem with the mental-illness-memoir genre (a genre I know well) is that it's hard not to feel skeptical of cures. Remember Styron sort of announced himself cured at the end of "Darkness Visible"--but history told another story. My impression is that illness just ebbs and flows, and you can gain greater awareness of your situation, and that greater awareness (plus some refined coping skills) is maybe all you can ask for.

So, though Katzenstein seems to want this story to follow a recovery arc, I'm unsatisfied by the ending. In general, the childhood scenes are the most vivid. (Isn't this often the case in memoir?)

In any event, how refreshing it is to see someone boldly describing his own craziness, for all the world! And there are sketches! And jokes! I recommend this book.
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