Page 1 of To Hell With It

Prologue

It all started on a Saturday morning.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a naked arse. Jack’s naked arse. And I literally felt myself jump out of my own body. Like that feeling you get when you’re falling asleep and your whole body jerks. I froze then as it hit me that I had brought him home, into my house, into my bed.

I looked down at my own body and felt a gigantic wave of relief that I at least still had my pants and bra on, even if they were mismatched. But I had absolutely no idea if we’d had sex.

I scanned his tanned skin, which made mine look even paler, and glanced around my bedroom. I could see my salmon-pink jumper on my chair, my jeans draped neatly on top of it, and it dawned on me then that I might have done my rituals with him right there. That he might have seen it all?

Jack stirred and rolled onto his back and it snapped me out of my thoughts. I had no idea how I would get from the bed to my clothes, but I knew I couldn’t stay as I was, in my mismatched underwear with so much pale skin on show.

I moved one leg first, slowly, so that it hung out of the bed and then turned my body on its side until I could slide out, literally onto the floor, and crawl over to my chair on my hands and knees. If he’d woken up at that point, I honestly think I would have died.

I tugged my jeans off the chair and caught them before they hit the wooden floor, followed by my salmon-pink jumper. I pulled them on quickly and wondered how the hell I would escape – I couldn’t exactly leave my own house with him still in it.

I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like shit and there wasn’t enough time to do anything about it. I ruffled my hair as much as I could to untangle the mass of curls on top of my head, but I still looked the same way I always looked in the morning – like a scarecrow.

I crept towards my door and pulled it closed gently behind me. I’d make him tea – I don’t drink coffee – and wait for him to come downstairs. But then I felt the rise in my own chest as the realisation hit me. I’d worried so much about how Jack would leave that I’d completely forgotten my biggest challenge: to get myself down the stairs first. I could feel the sweat that had started to form on my forehead as I stood at the top of the stairs. I could hear the bed creak as Jack started to stir once again. I placed one foot in front of the other, then took a deep breath, and began to count.

‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, penis, ten…

I know what you’re thinking – what’s the deal with the stairs and penis?Who is this woman?

Pleased to meet you, my name is Pearl.

ChapterOne

So some stuff about me you should probably know before I go on:

Pearl O’Reilly, twenty-seven (nearly twenty-eight), born and raised in a little village called Drangan, County Tipperary (I’m still here). I live in my grandmother’s house (she died) and work in the village shop (O’Callaghan’s), and my days begin simply enough.

Two pieces of wholemeal toast for breakfast, with margarine and peanut butter, and I like a cup of tea to go with it.

Pretty standard, eh? Most people probably have the same thing every day for breakfast, right? The only thing is, I have to have my breakfast after I’ve counted the fourteen stairs, getting down them all before I’ve thought of something totally inappropriate and crude. If a thought does come into my head before I can get down the stairs, I have to start all over again.

I basically have to beat my own thoughts, which is pretty impossible at the best of times, but if I don’t, I will die on my way to work, or something catastrophic will happen to a family member. Or both. That is just a fact and I am not willing to test it out.

So for me, breakfast is a life or death situation and takes around forty minutes from the top of the stairs to the kitchen table, on a good day. On a bad day, I can be there for well over an hour.

It is all part of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – and possibly ADHD, but that has yet to be confirmed because the waiting list is so long. Everyone’s got that nowadays haven’t they? Like a trend, only it isn’t cool. It’s a complete pain in the arse.

I hide it well, unless you were to observe me over a period of time, then you’d notice that what I use to wipe my cutlery (at anyone’s house other than mine) is not a serviette, it is an antibacterial wipe I have brought with me. There are a pack of them in my bag, along with a tube of antibacterial gel and surgical gloves for particularly bad days. You would also see me spray the bottom of my shoes with one of those aerosol Dettol sprays (it’s the best one) every time I get into my car. It looks like I am trying to gas myself.

I wear the same clothes every day – when I am at home, joggers and a T-shirt, with my salmon-pink jumper. When I am at work, I tidy myself up a bit: jeans and my salmon-pink polo neck. What can I say? I like salmon pink.

I have a therapist, Mairéad. Her name means pearl in Gaelic, which can’t be a coincidence. At first I thought it was a sign that she could heal me, that she could rid me of my obsessions. But two years later I am pretty sure I am incurable.

If someone sneezes near me, around me, next to me or the other side of the room from me, I am done in. I am messed up for the rest of the day and can’t think about anything else other than which part of my body it had landed on, until I have a shower and wash my hair.

Oh, and I hate small spaces, like really hate them – as in, I’d have a massive panic attack if I ever got trapped somewhere lacking space. And heights – I do not like heights one bit. Unless it is up a tree, I like trees. They make me feel safe.

Usually, I replace my intrusive thoughts with something else, Mairéad taught me that technique – to say a word or thing that I liked out loud or in my head. My word is trees.Trees, trees, trees.

Bless Mairéad, she tries her best. She really believes I can be cured, but she means well and her challenges give me something else to focus on.

I have a checklist system, one of Mairéad’s top tips – a little notebook, pocket-sized, that I keep with me at all times so I can tick-off when I’ve done something, so that I don’t go back and check it again. It worked well for a while, but doing it has become obsessive compulsive behaviour in itself and I’ll check my checks until my brain hurts.

Mairéad told me that everyone has intrusive thoughts and that the only difference between someone with OCD and someone without it, was that the person with OCD can’t let the thought go. But I wasn’t sure I believed Mairéad because when I asked her if she thought of her boss’s penis all the time, she couldn’t look me in the eye.

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