The Color Of His Flag

During mid-term exams, when I was trying to study, images came into my mind that I was going to get AIDS by sitting on the toilet in my house.  I knew that was not possible, as I knew all the facts of AIDS for years from doing research, but this thought would not leave my mind.  I was banging my head with my hands.  My grandfather saw this, and he told me to calm down.  I guess he was used to this since something was definitely wrong with his daughter.  I’m sure he had to deal with that.  I still focused on the work the best I can.  This was torture, plain torture.  My mind played games on me.  Of course, someone who didn’t have the problem would say that I was making my mind play games on myself.  But that wasn’t the case.  I was helpless at this.  When gym came around and I had to run the 1 mile track, there was a big problem.  As I ran for that rotting Irish bastard of a teacher, I would hear the word lethal injection in my mind.  I would see a needle going in a leg.  The closer I came to the end of the run, the more the agony came to me.  Lethal injection flew in my head, and the needle was going into a hairy leg.  I assumed it was mine when I was 32 years old.  I could not even enjoy music anymore.  Before I put a CD or video in the player, I had to wash my hands.  Not regular soap either.  I had to use Palmolive soap detergent, and dry my hands with paper towels.  I could not use regular soap or towels because other people already touched them.  Even when I did this, I had to be very gentle with the CD.  Eventually, I was so obsessed of being perfect with it, I refused to listen to music or watch movies all together.  I even told my mother I had to go to the clinic she went to, which was a psychiatric clinic.  She’s been going there for years.