This is not a voice in my mind. It is mine, not someone else.
My memories at that time are merely fragments. I remembered the tall trees along the road, standing huge and strong in columns and at the same I remembered the scent of my jacket on how I snuggled it because the breeze was cold while we drove along the road to the institution. Thinking about the institution, I’m having vague memories of a red ball with a big star printed on it, those long corridors with rainbows painted on it, the papers and broken crayons that are scattered on the floor, an open book on a page where the big fish have swallowed Jonas, and a couple of white rooms and that White room.
Then I hear my mom’s voice, “Are you okay? You will be okay.” While my innocent five-year-old eyes wandered along the halls.
I have no idea or way of explaining the exact moments I split.
There was just a simple before: innocence and exploring. And a complex after: anger, uncontrol, emotions, fear, and a new voice in my mind. Not mine, someone else.
“You’re okay.”
I felt obscure, like I was floating at the same time like falling and I could see myself, my bones, and my body separating where I was. In front of me, like a mirage but I wasn’t afraid and I wasn’t in pain.
But at that moment, nothing mattered. It’s just me and my little hands tracing the crayon lines on the walls — crayon lines that I make every time I walk along the corridors as I wondered what was at the end of these walls.
The Red Ball and the Disorder
In October 2005, I remembered wandering around the halls of a local toy store full of different kinds of toys. My mama told me to pick what I liked so I won’t be sad anymore. Hours passed, but my hands were still empty. My mama asked me why, “Wala kabang nagustuhan?” I was about to nod, but my eyes caught the doll held by a child, and I immediately told my mama that I wanted it, but unfortunately, it was the last one in that toy store.
I don’t remember all the details of what happened next, but I only remember the face of my mama sobbing and hugging me. They told me that was their first time seeing me have atypical tantrums. After that, I found myself walking in that white room along the corridors with rainbows painted on it while my mama held my right hand and asked me, “Are you okay? You will be okay,”.
I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at the age of 5; it is a disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts and/or behaviors that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.
OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder doesn’t just affect adults but can also affect children as early as 5–6 years old. However there are many similarities between adults and children with OCD, but there are also significant differences.
Compared to adults, children with OCD frequently have less understanding of their obsessions and are less able to recognize the absurdity of their thoughts. This can make accurate diagnosis challenging, especially when combined with low and/or developing language competence.
Obsessions and compulsions in children may differ from those in adults.
● Parents’ deaths are a common subject of specific obsessions in OCD children.
● While teenagers may suffer a higher incidence of sexually oriented obsessions, children’s obsessions seldom focus on sexual themes.
● Children with OCD are most likely to hoard more rather than adults.
● Children with OCD are highly at risk of having tic disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Also, OCD symptoms can be categorized as obsession and Compulsion. Obsession is the repeated thoughts, ideas, and images that are unwanted, distressing, and can cause anxiety. While Compulsion is what the child feels or urges to do repeatedly. In my case, one of the symptoms is the stress of having color blindness.
At that moment, I was too young to understand what OCD was and that I was diagnosed with it. Instead of suffering from the challenges and viewing the world with fear, my five-year-old self chose to explore that white room that had become her second home and playground for almost eight years.
Dr. Olsen — has long hair for a man, always wears glasses, and wears printed animal neckties. He is my assigned Psychiatrist for children. He gave me this red ball with a big star on my first day. He apologized for thinking I was a boy, so he prepared a ball instead. Dr. Olsen instructed me to always carry the ball whenever I do my sessions with him or whenever I’m around the institution. He told me that the ball was my companion, it will provide reassurance and comfort whenever I feel lost and afraid. At first, secretly, I was not too fond of the ball because I felt uncomfortable with its presence. But one afternoon, I finished my session early, and Dr. Olsen brought me to another white room — a playground or leisure room. I felt very anxious because no one wanted to play with me until I saw this bright red thing on my side — it was my ball. Until then, I always appreciated its presence and made my sessions productive. Then I became addicted to walking in the corridors as I stayed there for a long time.
Rainbow Corridors
Some of you may find it weird if I told you that I have this obsession with walking in corridors. I know it’s boring and there is nothing much to do, just walking. But there’s something else on this particular corridor of mine; I called it the Rainbow Corridor because it has rainbows painted on it like waves on the ocean — so calm, so alluring, and so mysterious.
Whenever both of my tiny feet stepped on it, I felt like entering a new world, not mine, but I thought I belonged and was at home. For some reason I treated the walls of these corridors as my canvas, marking my existence on it with a purple crayon which I always secretly took away with me whenever I went out of the white room.
But the real reason why I love walking on the rainbow corridors is that magic happened to me there. I was born with a total color deficiency called Achromatopsia, where I can only see things with black, white, or gray vision. They thought it was normal for babies, but as I turn one, it is something we don’t call normal. The sunlight on the corridors was vivid; I remembered telling everyone that the sunlight is magic because it’s swirling around the columns, sparkling like glitters. Then one day, magic happened to me — my vision got crazy! I remember screaming at the top of my lungs because I couldn’t contain the excitement I felt with the colors I was seeing for the first time, and my last memory of it was the institution staff running toward me with faces that looked like horror. Unfortunately, my vision didn’t develop completely. They called it luck, but it didn’t stop me from believing because, at that moment, I thought magic had happened to me, so I developed this obsession with walking on those corridors — hoping to see the magic again.
Paper and Crayons
I’ve become fond of drawing since my vision developed, and I still secretly took crayons whenever I went out of the white room after my session with Dr. Olsen. I always request a timeout to insert some time for me to draw because I always do that. They noticed that I’ve become more calm and quiet every time my request was granted, so they used it as a pathway for my coping strategies.
But it was a trial and error experience; I remembered that there was one time that I repeatedly drew a circle because I felt that I couldn’t make it right. At that moment, I was not aware that I had panic attacks; I remembered feeling tired and angry at the same time as I ignored the papers being torn apart due to the tears falling on my cheeks. As time passed, my eyes became swollen enough to cover my vision, my cheeks became red as tomatoes, and my mouth and hands grew numb until I couldn’t draw another circle anymore. It wasn’t the moments that I want to remember, but I just felt something inside me while typing it on my laptop, it was a very, very bad memory, but I have to, for awareness that it could happen, it happens, it happens on a six years old child.
The other White Room (the playground)
As I stayed for a long time in this institution, I realized that it was not only the white room I knew, but there were also other white rooms around, and one of them was my favorite room and where I met the two most wonderful people. Then there was Carlos — always wearing his favorite duck hat, he plays piano, he’s a little bit loud, especially when it’s time to go home, and he likes hugging everyone. Carlos was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, when he was seven years old, it is a condition that affects human behavior, including problems concentrating and acting on impulse. He liked to sit in every chair in the other white room, and I remember crying when he tried to sit on my usual spot in the room. Still, Carlos is very curious about everything, like how the sun was so bright, why worms are not afraid of the rain, and why the staff always wear the same shirt every day. There were a few of his questions that he repeatedly asked every time we met, which sometimes annoyed me because he repeated them repeatedly, but I now realize why he keeps asking me questions, not to forget. To not forget the simple things and not be occupied and swallowed with the things bigger than us.
Then lastly, Ate Chelsea — she was older than us, like older-older, had long silky hair and pretty big eyes, acts like a lady and always smiles, but her eyes are sad. She always helps me to calm down whenever I have sudden tantrums, and she also allows me to pick the right colors whenever I do drawing, but most of the time, she’s different. I don’t remember her disorder, but when I was 10, she died. Right now, it is undeniable why she died, but I keep blocking myself from thinking about it. Ate Chelsea was the most caring and calm person I’ve met, and I can’t say anything wrong about her.
“ When I die, I want to resurrect to a star. Cause even Stars die yet, they stay there Beautiful and Proud, and shall Forget you not.”
-Ate Chelsea
Beyond the White Room
I will never forget the chills I always felt when I stepped into this room. The aroma of vanilla and cinnamon will welcome you once you open the door. The rug below the door says welcome. The big ben clock on the right corner gave me creeps — the wooden style furniture. And the ceiling looks like what Micheal Da Vinci painted on it. Then the long silhouette of a man sitting in the middle that you can’t even see his eyes due to the thick eyeglasses he wore.
Whenever I entered that room, I sat in the right chair before him so he could see me. We always started with a hello and him asking me how’s my day and how I spent it. It’s always like that. As a five-year-old child, at that moment, I always felt uneasy and uncomfortable because my mom told me it should be something I would enjoy and I would be okay, but it wasn’t.
In every session, there are several activities that I have to finish, but mostly I spend my time wandering the rainbow corridors and the other white room. As the months and years passed, I got used to it every day after school and every Saturday. That institution became my 2nd home; the children there became my brothers and sisters.
Sometimes I wondered as a child why my classmates in my school didn’t go to the institution after class. And why does my teacher always give special treatment when it comes to me? Why I’m not allowed to play with other children outside our house, but is it okay to play with children in the institution?
My mama will always say that I’m just special. They will always say that they want me to be safe. Indeed, I am just a child, but I can tell that time that they are lying. My grandfather told me I’m gifted because I can understand everything around me, even at a young age, and he’s not wrong. I wished I was not because how would a 5-years-old child know that she’s not okay even if she felt okay? How can she handle the real pain if everyone in the room knows she’s already in pain? Is it the pain caused by my disorder, or is it the pain caused by the people around her thinking she’s not normal?
“You’re okay.”
There’s a voice in my mind. Not mine, someone else. I used to ignore this voice, thinking it was just a void — a disturbance.
“You’re okay.”
But at some point, something must have come from nothing, but nothing doesn’t mean the absence of anything. We have to open the obviously; we have to be okay. Being not okay is normal. And I’m normal.
“I’m okay.”
This is not a voice in my mind. It is mine, not someone else.
But at that moment, nothing matters. I’m just a child. It’s just my little hands and me tracing the crayon lines on the walls at that moment. Crayon lines that I make every time I walk along the corridors. As I wondered what was at the end of these walls.
