I’ve developed something of a fascination with having pretty hands. In moments of boredom, I often find myself inspecting my fingers and making sure my cuticles aren’t unruly. Despite my best efforts, though, this is a thankless task. Like Sisyphus and his boulder, I fear I will be unable to achieve the perfectly manicured hands of my dreams.
My fixation with my hands goes beyond simple aesthetics—it stems from my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a mental health disorder that the DSM-5 characterizes as,” Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive, unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress.”
For some people—myself included—the disorder manifests with an obsession around germs or getting sick. As a result, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time scrubbing my hands raw in an effort to feel clean. The winter I was 15, I vividly remember picking up my pen to write notes in English class and feeling fissions open up across every knuckle. The pain danced across my hands, which had been Featured Fitness Health