The cat had gotten out. An important phone call had come just as I was leaving. My mom needed me to wait for the refrigerator repairman. Forgot my books, left my curling iron on, forgot my lunch—you get the idea. Lying to the hall pass lady was just one of the thousands of lies I told throughout my “Sergeant Cover-Up” days.
I became a crafty liar and a damn good actress. Sometimes I would cut class and go back to my house and start over with the cord checking, especially if I couldn't tolerate seeing Sergeant hold up my mom's melting face in front of me, sort of like cue cards of what would happen if I didn't do my drills. This was incredibly motivating. While I was there with my cords, Sergeant might add something like straightening couch cushions and throw pillows.
Perfectionism is exhausting.
—MADELEINE L'ENGLE
The great painter Salvador Dali is quoted as saying, “Have no fear of perfection. You will never reach it.”
Cleaning Time
Then I started forcing myself to clean. I would clean and scrub down the refrigerator and the vegetable and fruit crisper compartments over and over again. I would convince myself that tiny pieces of green lettuce were stuck in between the shelves and behind the crisper where I could not reach. All that I could think about and see were tiny and stuck pieces of lettuce, and that was making my cleaning job a failure. Sergeant would show me a visual flash card of the stuck lettuce and it said, “FAILED!” The lettuce would be another fine example of my deep imperfection and negligence.
My cleaning might have made the house look great, but on the inside it was hell.
Dating Time
Once a very popular guy a year older than me asked me to go to a movie with him. I don't even remember what it was. I sat frozen through the whole movie, staring straight ahead as though seeing through and beyond the screen. I was in my little trance, doing what was now a daily caloric intake drill: One strawberry Pop Tart equals 200 calories, a glass of milk is 120. I added up everything to see where I was that day. When I completed that day, I went back and did the same thing for the day before.
A couple of times during the movie, I sort of mumbled my number of calories out loud. When he said, “What?” I replied as normally as I could, “Oh nothing.” We were completely not sharing the same experience.
To make matters worse, before he drove me home, he pulled the car over and parked on a street in north Oak Park that was dimly lit with lampposts. This I knew instinctively was our time to make out. I really didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that this was the time to be foxy. I had seen that when people in movies make out, sometimes the girl writhes around all seductive-like and moaning. Just like everything else, I tended to overdo it. I was like an unbridled bucking bronco kicking around in a yellow station wagon.
That boy never asked me out again, and this was just more proof of my imperfection.
Crank It Up a Notch
In the animal kingdom, especially with dogs, a fixation is an indication of an unbalanced mind and an unbalanced mind is a sign of weakness. Dogs attack weakness if they sense weakness.
—CESAR MILLAN, THE DOG WHISPERER
For a very brief time I went out with another popular boy in my high school. This guy, I really fell for. His aloof attitude, shiny jet-black Elvis hair and overall good looks made me feel like I needed to work even harder for his approval. Well, he lost interest in me, and I got dumped. He moved on quickly and easily. Of course, girls tend to obsess about these things more than boys do, but I absolutely could not move on. I became stuck in the thick tar of rejection. This boy not wanting me was an indisputable sign of my imperfection, right? If I didn't fix this, it would set the stage for my entire life! My world with Sergeant was black and white, no in between.
Leave it to Sergeant to swoop in with new taunts. The more I obsessed about being dropped like a sack of potatoes, the louder Sergeant got: “If you were smarter, more exotic, more interesting and beautiful, he would want you. But you are just not any of those things. I can't blame him. You have bad heredity, and that mixed with your ongoing stupidity is so undesirable.” I didn't merely have to suffer the excruciating insecurities of being a teenaged girl; I had to endure Sergeant, too. It was all too much.
I can practically hear you saying, “Enough. I don't want to hear about Sergeant anymore.” Believe me, I don't want to spend too much time on him either, best buddy. Just bear with me, though.
The plot thickens: The guy who broke up with me had a chum, and they were frequently seen together. A high school frick and frack situation.
I think the way these two boys interlocked with Sergeant is worth talking about. Precisely because I was a victim to Sergeant, first and foremost, I was that much more of an easy target to other mental bullies. Maybe you've been there, too.
Sergeant explained it like this: “The only way you'll know you really count in this world is if your unrequited love comes back and takes an interest in you. That's the only way!” There was no other alternative.
And I foolishly anointed these two as the authorities on my self-worth—or lack of it. They strutted around school and Oak Park as if they were in an exclusive club that only they knew about. And, of course, I saw their rejection as another clear reflection of my imperfection. Somehow I made getting acceptance from them everything, and they, both extremely intelligent cats, knew it.
What do young boys do when they know they have something to poke at that will react? They poke at it. Me? Unfortunately, I let them live in my head rent-free! I allowed them to avoid me, ignore me, laugh in my direction like I was a big joke, tell secrets when I was around, and openly reject me.
How I wish now that I could have said, “You two are assholes! I'm not a fucking punch line!” and called it a day. But I couldn't do that. I sucked in their collective rejection of me, and Sergeant drove it home.
It always felt that if I could just try a little harder or do things a little better, everything would be okay.
My closest girlfriend at the time knew what was going on and tried to help. With her help, she knew I could get the boy to take me back. She, I, and (secretly to me only) Sergeant were on a mission.
We would talk about improving our appearance just to “feel better.” She'd say things like, “How about some blonde highlights? That'll make you feel better.” Or we would focus on updating our clothes. “Let's go to Madigan's at North Riverside and get some new outfits. Don't you want to look cute tomorrow?” While we were there, “Let's get some long fake nails put on; those are sexy.” In addition, we both thought losing some weight would make us look “more happening,” so we went on a diet. I actually wrote a letter to myself saying that I could lose weight but not get carried away (this was an example of a good worry coming from my healthy self!). I signed it at the bottom and dated it like a contract. I don't remember if my girlfriend signed it or not, but I am fairly certain I communicated it to her.
Getting thin, now this was the target in the middle of the bull's-eye for a girl with OCD (still unbeknownst to me). I started out allowing myself a thousand calories a day and then over time got that number down very low. Scary low. Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I continued to plot new strategies for me to become
