Content warnings

OCD. Intrusive images. Self harm. Eye injury. Sex. Violence. Incest. Disaster. Car accident. War.

People think OCD is hand washing and checking, counting and rubbing. That it’s all about cute quirks and endearing eccentricities. The compulsions.

What bothered Helen most were the images.

Flash. Her lips pressed around her dad’s dick.

Flash. Her hand on the knife gutting her mother’s belly like a walleye.

Flash. Her neighbor’s mutilated body smashed in front of that car speeding down the road.

Flash. Flash. Flash. Every time a new horror, a new anxiety to tear up her guts and make her want to scream until she squinted it away.

The counting worked for a while, so did the praying, but in the end, it was the knife that… stuck.

Every time Helen would have a vision of something horrible, she would take her long, thin penknife and jam it into her eyeball, twist, and pluck. Then, while she was still breathing and not yet vomiting, she’d stab the bloody knife into her other eyeball, twist, and pluck, leaving the two offensive orbs to be squished beneath the sole of her shoe like steamed grapes.

Then the pain would wash out everything. No sound. No images. No other sensations.

For a few pure moments of blissful agony—before her eyes grew back, aching, and she would have to begin anew.

The first time she’d stabbed herself in the eyes, she’d just wanted the visions to stop, whether that was by extricating her eyeballs or driving the knife so far into her brain that she expired.

Then she’d realized that they grew back within minutes.

Now the pain was a tool in her toolbox, a ritual stronger than the counting and the prayer and the snapping of rubber bands on her wrist. When she couldn’t stand the flashes any more, she always had her penknife, ready to do the job.

She was twiddling it in her pocket as usual as she walked down Michigan Ave, a sheer gauntlet for flashes. Red light. Flash. Car coming through and creaming that woman and kid. Deep breath, come on, Helen, just like they taught you. She was paying so little attention, she didn’t notice the light change; someone bumped into her getting onto the crosswalk. Flash. Her falling onto the street, him falling atop her, attacking her with a butcher knife. Cute guy coming across the crosswalk. Flash. Her tied up, his dick up her ass.

Breathe, breathe. It was a lot of people, a lot of stimulation, but she had done it before. She didn’t have to sacrifice her eyes yet. She just had to get to the restaurant where she was meeting her mother and father. Holding her penknife tightly—just in case—she turned down Adams to the red awning of Russian Tea Time, a fancy place owned by a Ukrainian family, with the best piroschkie she’d ever eaten.

Good, this was good. She was doing well.

The door. Flash. Russian bombs obliterating Ukranian bodies. Flash. No no no no no. Wash it away, cleanse it away. “I’m meeting an older couple, I think they’re already seated?” she said, looking profoundly normal, or perhaps not, she couldn’t rightly tell any more.

The host smiled. Flash. The host sticking his fingers up her cunt.

No. Cleanse it away. Reverse it.

There, at last, the booth with Mom and Dad. They smiled at her. Mom cocked her head. “Helen, honey, you look a little tired. Have you been sleeping?”

Flash. Her mouth on her dad’s lips. Flash. Her fingers gouging out her mother’s heart. Flash. Her parents dead, in their coffins, and she is alone, alone, al—

She took the penknife and said, “I’m sorry, I have to,” and turned around and stabbed it into her right eye, stab, twist, pop, then the left the same, savoring the exquisite pain. Behind her her parents shrieked and reached for her but it was too late, she was an efficient butcher, and the eyeballs smacked to the floor where she could stomp them to jelly.

Awash in agony, her eye sockets bloody and gored, she sat down at the table.

“Anyone thinking about the borscht?”

The dinner went predictably poorly after that. Her mother wouldn’t stop crying, and her father wouldn’t stop knifing his hands through the air, saying things like, “You must stop this! It’s not natural!” and “What happened to my daughter?”

Right around the salad course, her eyeballs grew back, which she thought would be comforting to them, and it was just then that her mother fainted and her father, helping her up, said, “We’re leaving. Get yourself sorted out,” and helped shunt her away out of the door, leaving Helen alone with a samovar of black tea and a plate of chopped carrot salad.

Flash. Her face being slammed into the chopped carrot salad, the scalding samovar poured over her head until her skin sloughed off.

Her fresh eyes still newly ached. It was time to go.

“Check please!” she called.

The waiter came up with the check binder and before he set it on the table, he took a butter knife from the table, turned it around, and stabbed it into his own throat. It was dull and just bruised at first but while Helen watched, he persistently grated and slashed and stabbed out a masticated bloody opening over his Adam’s apple.

“Help!” Helen called. “Help, help!”

But everyone looked at her as though she were insane, and when she looked back, the waiter was holding the check book and the knife dripping blood and he asked, his trachea defiled and gritty,

“Would you like a box for that?”

Shrieking, Helen pushed around him and ran out of the revolving door onto Adams Street, taking a right turn onto Michigan Avenue. It was a lovely evening, still light out, and there were people everywhere, cars everywhere. She was waiting to cross to the other side when a little girl ran out into the street and a car, not seeing her, smashed into her small body. The body was dragged under the carriage and the car kept speeding along, leaving a bloody mess of a lump behind on the pavement.

“Help!” Helen screamed. “She needs help! Someone call 911.”

But as she watched, no one saw, or noticed, or cared, and the little girl creaked upwards to her feet and, mangled and broken, began a strange, dance-like procession across the crosswalk to her mother, who patted her on the head and took her hand.

Helen rubbed her temples, she was spinning now, bumping into people who told her “Watch it!” and called her names in various languages. What was happening to her? Why was she seeing the flashes made real? Why was she the only one seeing them?

She had no choice. She had to resort to her old trick. Taking the penknife, she stabbed out first one eye and then the other, luxuriating in the glorious pain, and she stood there, basking in it, she was free, free from the flashes. She stood back against the wall out of the way, waiting for her eyes to regrow.

When they did, she blinked back tears and tentatively waded back into the fray. Good. This was fine. Everyone was acting as they normally should. The little mangled girl was gone. The cars weren’t slamming into people. The only blood on the street was hers.

She looked up at the sky, pinkening to a pretty peach, and saw the planes coming in towards the airport.

One of them suddenly dropped out of the air, racing for the ground, and she only knew where it landed by the violent explosion that nobody else took heed of.

Oh, this was bad, bad. Surely someone else had seen! She grabbed the arm of a woman near her. “Did you see that? Did you see the plane go down?”

The woman yanked her arm free. “And what of it?”

“So you saw? You did?”

“Go away, or I’ll call the cops.”

So Helen was forced to flee towards Jackson Street. She was running South now. Oh, was there a chance Dr. Strong would be in his office? He worked down here, somewhere. She needed to see him now. Dizzily standing at the corner, she called his office. The young receptionist, Lacey, answered for him.

“Dr. Strong psychiatrist’s office. How may I help you?”

“This is Helen Krakowski. Helen Krakowski. I need to see Dr. Strong immediately. Does he have an availability?”

“I’ll ask him.”

She put Helen on hold, muzak dulling her nerves, and finally came back, with, “You’re in luck, he had a cancellation for his 7pm. Can you come now?”

“Yes! I’ll be there now!”

Helen hailed the first taxi she found and directed it towards the 500 N Michigan office buildings, and kept her eyes shut the entire journey, using all of her no’s, her prayers, all her rituals to remain calm. Surely this was just some kind of break. Dr. Strong would know what to do. Dr. Strong would help her.

Hastily paying the cabby, who had boils growing all over the pate of his head—no, don’t look!—she rushed into the 500 N building and up the elevator to the 7th floor. Lacey was at reception, wearing a frothy white, lowcut top like she usually did, and as she caught sight of Helen, she said, “Ms. Krakowski, you look bothered. Are you doing alright today? Maybe I can help.”

Before Helen could shriek, “No!” Lacey palmed her breast out of the white top, leaned down, and suckled on the nipple, and Helen squinted her eyes shut and held tightly to her penknife, her savior, and said, “Is the doctor ready to see me?”

“Oh yes,” said Lacey, “go on back.”

Helen rushed back to Dr. Strong’s office, with its light blue walls, its calming aromatherapy, and its plants. Immediately, she felt calmer. This was fine. This was going to be alright now. Dr. Strong himself, in his shirtsleeves and suit pants, sat at his desk, watering a monstera.

He smiled balefully. “Welcome, Helen. Lacey said you sounded strange on the phone. Is everything alright?”

Helen hastily took her usual chair. “It’s worse, Dr. Strong, so much worse. I’ve started seeing more flashes, and now they’re happening right in front of me, as though they’re really real. I—I’m afraid I can’t even tell what’s real and what’s the disease any more.”

Dr. Strong raised a finger. “Remember, Helen, OCD is about your brain lying to you. The flashes of unwanted intrusive thoughts aren’t real. They aren’t going to happen in reality.”

“But they are happening!” she cried. “And no one’s believing me.”

To Dr. Strong’s credit, he did not call her out as hysterical, or cast doubt on her experience. He merely asked, “Are you taking your medications?”

“I’m taking my medications.”

“And are you stabbing your eyes out?”

“I’m stabbing my eyes out.”

“And still it’s not working?” Now he looked troubled when she shook her head. Standing, he came around the desk and began unbuttoning his pants.

“Well, we’ll just have to try something else,” he said.

Her cheeks burned and she frantically said, “What are you doing?” as he dropped his trousers to his knees and pulled his penis out of the flap of his boxers.

Helen knew that she wasn’t safe here either, and so she ran from the room, with Dr. Strong calling behind her, “This is what you wanted. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Lacey cried, “Don’t forget your copay!” as Helen ran out into the elevator lobby, pushing the button as fast as she could.

The anxiety, it had welled up so tightly within her she thought she was going to burst. She needed her fix. She needed to stab out her eyes. So while she waited for the elevator, she did, one at a time, hearing them bounce and suck to the tile floor where a janitor would swirl them up in the mop later.

The pain dulled her anxiety to a fine point, to the point of clarity.

She realized, the eyes weren’t enough any more! Now that the flashes were intruding on the real world, she had to be more diligent. Mustering up her courage, stiffening her body, she took the penknife and sliced a sliver of flesh off her forearm.

Ah, how it hurt! And the blood, that iron tang she could smell stinking off her. But when she cut again, this time stabbing into her thigh and twisting, it became clear: every cut, every mutilation took her farther and farther from the flashes.

“I can’t stop cutting, or they’ll come back,” she realized.

And so while Lacey and Dr. Strong watched from inside the psychiatrist’s office and called 911, Helen took her knife to her flesh, digging deep to slice curls of skin and fat from bone, sawing off fingers at the joint, slashing through her tongue until her mouth welled blood.

This time, this time, the pain would be enough to set her free.

Only this time, she knew she wouldn’t grow back.

Author’s note

This piece was inspired by my own, personal experience suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I wanted to reflect the abject terror brought on by the intrusive thoughts, how horrifying and disgusting and othering they can be. This is just one manifestation of OCD. Your mileage may vary.

C.J. Subko

C.J. Subko is a dreamer and a dabbler. Her short fiction publications include Small Wonders (November 2024), Red Line (From Beyond Press; Fall 2025); and The Deadlands (April 2025). She is a member of the HWA, SFWA, and Codex. Her novels are represented by Maria Brannan at Greyhound Literary Agency.