When I was a kid, a classmate slipped me a chain letter in 4th or 5th grade. It said that if I didn’t copy it five times and keep the chain going by giving it to five friends, something terrible would happen to me or my loved ones.
Never give a chain letter to a girl with OCD. My friend, Tom, thinks OCD is lining up everything perfectly or something bad will happen. What he doesn’t understand is that the OCD brain will imagine every bad thing that could happen in every possible situation. Crossing the street? You’ll be hit by a bus, truck or airplane falling from the sky. Sleeping late? You’ll miss your test, the bus, or the Publisher’s Clearinghouse guy with a check for a million dollars.
Not doing the chain letter meant it would be my fault when a meteor hit my grandparents’ house.
You laugh, but living in a ten-year-old body and not being diagnosed meant that I had to copy that letter five times before I left for school. I’d put it off, asked my mom about it (she was no help) and now the clock was ticking on a doomsday scenario.
Years later, I realized how dumb chain letters were. They preyed on your fear, and I had a lot of fear. It took me a long time, but once I said, “Screw it. Let’s see what bad thing will happen,” things changed. When nothing happened, I was liberated from the chain letter forever.
Friends would send things in the mail, like “send your favorite recipe to the person on the bottom of the list and add your name to the top. In a few weeks, you’ll have 40 new recipes.” I did that out of respect for the friends who sent it, but never got any in the mail.
Nobody hands out or mails paper chain letters anymore, but they still exist as posts on my Facebook feed. “Do you believe in me, a cancer survivor? If you do, share this post. If you don’t share, I know you don’t support me.”
I look at these veiled threats as electronic versions of chain letters. “Tell how we met and share. If you share, you’re giving me a virtual hug. If you don’t, you’re not.”
Anything that starts as, “I’ll know who my real friends are” is an electronic chain letter.
I was never diagnosed as having OCD. Poor families just tell their kids to buck up and stop worrying. We were poor. I had back and knee problems my entire childhood because no one figured out that I had flat feet.
But I digress.
My point is that your chain letter ends here. If you send me anything remotely looking like one, I will not clog up Facebook with your demands for me to share. I won’t share. Nothing bad will happen that wouldn’t happen anyway.
I still love you, but please, just stop.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 