COLUMN: An admirer hears a secret

From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00 From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00She is young, graceful and quite frankly, beautiful. When she walks into a room, she makes heads turn and causes even the most reserved of men to stumble in their steps. With just a word, she can make the whole world seem clearer, give it meaning and form where once there was none. Just last year, I found myself back in contact with her. She was more radiant and beautiful than ever. To no surprise, all of my barely pubescent feelings came rushing back. She even laughed as the gaping hole in my face made an attempt, to no avail, at producing meaningful strings of sound. It was wonderful -- she just gave a giggle and embraced me with a hug for the ages. I love her -- always have, always will. She still has it: the radiance, the elegance, the beauty, the charm. She recently revealed to me that she also has something else. Lurking in the back of her mind, she has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, is a brain disease that afflicts 1 to 2 percent of America's population. For all those who majored in something other than math, that's upwards of five million red-blooded Americans. By that logic, 200-400 of today's Penn undergraduate and graduate students should, at some point in their lives, be afflicted with this disease. Mark Summers, the lovable host of my childhood favorite Double Dare, has OCD. Radio shock-jock Howard Stern reportedly suffered from the disease for years. I call it a disease only because that is exactly what it is: a neurological imbalance that is characterized by uncontrollable obsessions. The anxiety caused by these obsessions can only be relieved by a set of calculated rituals called compulsions. The toll on the individual is much more profound than, say, frequent handwashing induced by a fear of germs -- OCD takes complete dominance over day-to-day life. Knowing that, what could I say to her? As tears streamed down her sweet face, I could not help but feel sorry for her. I had so many questions, but once again the only sound I could produce was silence. And in silence I remained. In between her sobs her voice interrupted this quiet moment, "I'm so, so sorry." Sorry for what? Sorry for crying? Sorry for impinging on my personal space? No, I was quite used to her monologues. Listening to her sweet soliloquies is what I enjoyed, and what I did best. Did she not realize that? Right on cue, as always, she answered the unposed questions in my mind: "I -- I'm so sorry for ruining everything." And for perhaps the first time in my life, I got it. I finally understood that she knew all along -- she must have. She knew how infallible she had always been in my eyes. And then we spoke. We cried, we laughed, we talked for what must have been hours. She was still a step ahead of me with the replies, but I was trying my best to keep pace. I learned that day of a caring doctor and a slew of comforting shoulders that were helping her daily in battling this disease. It angers me that many people still have a problem labeling such a disorder as a "disease." Even with today's advanced science, people still hold on to ancient notions of what it means to have a disease. There is still a notion that "disease" can only be used in the context of an imbalance of the body. Heaven forbid we use such a term to describe mental illness. The idea that there are uncontrollable parts of the mind touches upon people's worst and deepest-lying fears. We do not want to believe that our thoughts, and ultimately our personalities, can be governed by the random firings of neurons -- especially when those are neurons "gone bad." She suffers from this disease but is not a victim. She is no less perfect, just perhaps a tad more mortal. She goes about her daily life without so much as a stumble in her step, and is still constantly followed by an entourage of onlookers and admirers. And I'll be among them, but perhaps with an admiration of a different kind.