I can affect fate.

I guess to some degree we all think we can. From actors wishing their co-stars “break a leg” or children wishing on a star, to the casual wearing of a lucky pair of socks or the occasional avoidance of walking under a ladder – we all sometimes do little illogical and superstitious things to make our lives a little better.

But what if you couldn’t stop and the little became a lot?

That’s how I feel, from the moment I wake, till the moment I fall asleep, every day. Every action I take is twisted by the belief that if it’s not done in a certain way then bad luck will come knocking on my door and the doors of my loved ones.

The real joke is that I’m not even superstitious.

I’m really not. I’m a realist and I know what I’m doing makes no sense. I know that the complicated collection of mental and physical rituals I’ve developed over time can’t change the course of random events. All the touching of certain items in certain orders while visualizing certain names and numbers brings no certainty of future happiness. I know all this. So why can’t I stop?

This is where it gets difficult. There is no way of putting it that doesn’t sound ridiculous.

It’s kind of like I’ve got my very own TV director and I’m the leading role in his warped little soap opera of my life. He’s always there, silently showing me how I should act each scene, take after take. I know that I could do the scene better by myself, that his direction is always nonsensical and often damaging to my idea of the storyline. But he’s always telling me, without words, just how much brighter my future (and the futures of all my co-stars) will be in the show if I just do it his way, and that if I don’t, well, the producers always take the director’s side don’t they?

I appreciate that this may be an awkward analogy for anyone who’s never experienced OCD first-hand, and I certainly don’t expect my experience to be mirrored by all others who have. What I do believe, however, is that we can all powerfully benefit by getting to grips with our own versions of this insidious illness, using whatever tools of expression we can.

I guess in the end my fate may be that I never truly rid myself of my director, but over the years I’ve learnt how to make each scene more and more my own.

It’s certainly a great help to read a site like this and see that there are others on similar sets, reading from similar scripts, but expressing themselves in very different ways and shining like stars because of it.