close in age. If I was particularly lucky that day, my best friend Victoria, who lived a few doors down in the same townhouse, could come out and play. Maybe we would have cartwheel competitions on our neighbor's front lawn, or we'd get Oana, a girl whose family came from Romania, to come out and play, too; this way, we'd have more judges and contestants for our cartwheel competitions. Or to scrounge together some change, we could return my mom's Tab soda bottles at the neighborhood grocery store that was a couple of blocks away. Then we'd buy red licorice for ourselves and start eating it in the alley on the walk back home.
Usually, there was a game of Kick the Can starting up somewhere, or we'd jump on our bikes and go exploring. We were really living all right, and we came home with dirty, grass-stained pants and sometimes a hole in the knee from a rough landing while doing bicycle ballet.
Today I am grateful for growing up in this neighborhood and all my memories of the great adventures that took place between the mulberry trees and the old oaks. Growing up there, on the south side of Oak Park, gave me a really solid base, a core of joy.
Even though Sergeant was bobbing in and out—that was how my OCD worked at this time—there were even stretches when Sergeant seemed to take most of the day off.
Photo: Victoria Moran/Illustration by the author
Schlage Opens the Way—1977: Eleven Years Old
Like an exploding firecracker, and just as exciting, the clock did its final yell for the day. School was out. Many kids went home to their mom or somebody waiting for them at their front door. When I got home, I was alone for a while. Sometimes our front door was wide open when I arrived home, which scared me. Other times, the door was locked, and I had to use the Schlage key that hung on the thick red yarn around my neck. The reason I knew Schlage was written on the key was that every day I held the key very close in front of my eyes and stared at that one mysterious word, Schlage, engraved into the golden metal.
“Stare at that word and not at the edges of the key. If you do see the edges, start over!” the Sergeant yelled at me.
Of course, I had to do what he said. Sergeant commanded me to stop completely, even stop breathing when I stared at his chosen word. I fell into a trance, like I'd been hypnotized. I had to dissolve myself and fall into the word, so I was the word and nothing else existed. I had to do this so that Sergeant would clear me to pass into the next second of my life. He decided when I got to go forward.
I also knew the words on the toilet and bathtub because I stared at them a lot: Foster. Only when I had a Pure Experience would Sergeant let up on me a bit. My body would get to feel right, all parts, but only briefly until the next task.
If the neighborhood kids weren't home from their school yet, I would probably spend some time indoors with my three Siamese cats. Sometimes my brother Brian, who's four years older than me, would be in the neighborhood somewhere goofing around with his friends. Sometimes I was included, but some days I was not. My other brother, Kent, who's ten years older than me, was probably at that electronics shop, fixing broken TVs. I'd seen this place that he went to, and I was particularly fond of the flickering red neon sign out front that created a moodiness, especially on a dark rainy night.
Sixth Grade Summer
By the summer after sixth grade, I had been obeying Sergeant for a few years. He did help me in many ways. When I was feeling lonely, he was there for me. He helped me do things the right way, and not the wrong way, which was very important. Mostly, I think, he was a good friend. He kept me occupied and away from boredom. He was my only ticket to calm. When I began to feel uncomfortable with people, myself, and my surroundings, he always showed up and was always on time with something for me to do.
I started “reporting” to the Sergeant on a regular basis. The more I performed for him, the more powerful he became.
Famed psychologist Robert Cialdini likes to call this phenomenon “directed deference.” If a doctor diagnoses you with an illness and prescribes a concoction of medications, you're unlikely to dispute him because he's the authority on the subject. According to Cialdini, we're susceptible to directed deference because we're conditioned to respect and follow the edicts of an authority figure. We've learned that defying an authority figure can lead to punishment, while compliance often leads to rewards.
—BEN PARR, CAPTIVOLOGY
On those rare times that I tried to defy him or, worse yet, disobey him and not do as he demanded, this resulted in my immediate punishment. I was instantly overcome with unbridled anxiety, nausea, and panic, my face flushed with rashes; my head pounded; and my heart raced. I learned early on that it was just easier to do all the tasks and achieve his approval and not have to deal with the alternative—those unbearable and overwhelming feelings of pure discomfort. The tasks just became a part of the mix of my daily life, what I had to do in an effort to maintain some kind of stability and—even bigger than that—my important contribution to universal order; there was almost a magical and transcendent quality about me doing things right.
Sergeant frequently gave me mandatory sporadic drills that involved repetition like tapping, staring, cleaning, swallowing, blinking, and now checking. In a weird way, these drills were almost soothing, like rocking in a chair. But now, there was more at stake and tied to the tasks than my overall comfort. He warned me about all the bad things that would happen and pointed out all the potential threats and doom that would come if I did not do what I was told to do! Sergeant had a direct route into my mind and would fill it with terrifying thoughts and images. It was as though he could project a stream of horrific movies in my head and use my creativity against me.
If I didn't perform and complete a task, he told me that I would be responsible for fires, deaths, and that was just the beginning. It's like we had an agreement: If I did everything right, the way he instructed, no matter how seemingly odd, then everything would be okay. I would temporarily feel right in myself, and this is what I intrinsically craved. Just to feel okay was a rare luxury, and Sergeant knew this.
On this day we were in the kitchen. “If you don't check the dials on the stove again, your cats will die!” My brain filled with lightning. I didn't want my cats to die! Sergeant had both my full attention and emotional buy-in. Of course, I would do anything to save my cats, my loving and furry friends, from death. I did what Sergeant told me to do in a brave attempt to stop the inevitable future suffering of those I loved.
I quickly learned that Sergeant was an authority figure and the epicenter for dishing out punishment and doling out rewards. He had a certain sort of power because he was coming from inside my own head sort of, which made him seem much more convincing.
It's clear that we pay attention to authority figures and direct our attention toward what they deem important out of either fear or respect, depending on the type of authority they wield.
—BEN PARR, CAPTIVOLOGY
“No, no, I checked the stove,” I tried to reassure Sergeant.
“How do you know that you really checked it? You might just think that you did, and you know your track record. You've done stupid things before. You make stupid mistakes all the time!”
“Okay, I'll check it again.”
“Your cats are going
