A Few Thoughts on the OCD Actor

This is an addendum to some concepts I mentioned on the checklist here, but that isn't essential reading.

I sometimes think that worst thing about being OCD has nothing to do with the inconvenience of the rituals, or even the sometimes physically painful anxiety.  It's feeling so alone.

You walk through life with what you will always feel are utterly valid concerns, and you'll constantly turn around to find that other people just don't understand.


I stand at the sink in a public bathroom, sometimes.  For me, washing my hands isn't just an important element of personal hygiene, it's also extremely soothing.  With nobody watching me and nowhere important to be, I'll stay there for three to five minutes.

Understandably, a lot of people pass me by when I'm like this.  They rinse their fingertips with water, or put soap on their hands and never make a bubble.  They turn off the water, they take a towel.  They throw it away and leave.

They feel completely clean and safe.  

The hell of it is, they're probably right. 

I've watched enough people's hygiene practices to know that hardly anyone actually gives a thought to the recommended thirty seconds of good scrubbing.  Nothing bad probably happens to these people, I know that.

And yet... the thought of cutting my hand-washing short makes me almost physically ill.

I accept this.  Most of the time, it doesn't bother me.

But sometimes, working a show, it does.

You develop a kinship with the other actors over the course of the show, and that's as it should be.  As I've already said, I don't think there's a profession in this world that demands more teamwork than putting on a play.  Thinking of the sheer amount of people you need to depend upon to even begin the process, let alone finish it successfully, is absolutely staggering.

By the end of a show, the cast will be a little bit like family- and it hurts in a way that can't always be articulated to know that there are things your family will never understand.

The other actors tell stories about the things that they've done.  They go through the normal motions of life.  In an average night of rehearsal, I will see other actors do a hundred things I could never bring myself to do.

It makes me wonder what it's like to live without that fear, but I'll never really know.

Sometimes, when we start performing, I have a really good night.  You'll hear a lot of actors use the term, and when you do a show you'll see what they mean.  No matter how good an actor someone is, they always have nights that go better than others- nights where the show just worked better than it ever had before.

When I say I had a good night, I mean that while I was on stage nothing went through my head that wasn't my character's thought.  I had no impulse or worry or reaction that didn't come completely from my character.

It happens pretty rarely.  I think it happens pretty rarely to anybody.

I live for those moments.  That might say something slightly scary about me, but I'm not ashamed of it.