OCD ≠ Clean Freak

The Idea

I wanted to do a piece on OCD, since I struggle with having it and struggle with being misunderstood for it.

OCD, for those who don't know, stands for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. But most people associate it with being a "clean freak" and for those of us that have OCD, it's hard to hear people making it sound like something you would want to have. But the definition of OCD might give a better idea about what it really is.

"Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder in which time people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions). The repetitive behaviors, such as hand washing, checking on things or cleaning, can significantly interfere with a person’s daily activities and social interactions" (Source).

OCD does NOT equal clean freak, even though Google's definition of OCD is, unfortunately, as follows:

"A personality disorder characterized by excessive orderliness, perfectionism, attention to details, and a need for control in relating to others."

That makes it seem so mild. The point to OCD is that we don't want to be this way. We have thoughts that interfere with our daily life and routines that are more like bad habits we want to break. And if we happen to break them, OH NO that's when everything goes to crap and the thoughts of bad things happening just will not go away. Have you ever suddenly remembered a really embarrassing moment from your past? Yeah, having OCD is like that, but constantly and not just embarrassing thoughts, but scary ones, too.

(I might do some sort of illustrated booklet in the future on the topic of how OCD is misunderstood, so watch out for that!)

A GIF of the piece! I was messing around in Photoshop and found that the colors change the background but hardly the figure, so I had a bit of fun. Hahah...

I had to shrink it down to size for the test, since I couldn't submit the GIF, anyways.

The thumbnail for this piece shows what I wanted to turn this piece into, but I both ran out of time and decided against the original idea, because what happened to the piece actually ended up working really well and showing exactly what I wanted to show.

The starting point of a ten-minute experimentation I did at home!

The toothbrushes cleaned surprisingly well for being run under tap water for maybe ten seconds.

The Process

I painted with toothpaste last year, and I decided to try using it again just for kicks. This time, with color!

Continuation of my ten-minute experimenting.

I mixed 1 drop of food dye in a glob of white Colgate toothpaste, mixing it up with the toothbrush and brushing it on to the page!

The colors turned out very vivid and bright, and they dried very quickly! It's actually a wonderful medium if you're in a hurry and need some good bright colors with fun textures.

This time, I tried going a bit less abstract just to see how it would go. You can vaguely see the landscape, right? Hahah...

Welcome to another episode of "Zéta doing weird art things on a Tuesday morning"!

I was having a ton of fun working with toothpaste again. My hands smells minty for the rest of the day, despite me washing my hands more than several times that day (thanks to my OCD, ugh).

This is what the toothpaste paint ended up looking like! It smells really nice.

If you can tell, I'm not the best at using an X-ACTO knife. I pulled this little piece out the day before the test and showed my teacher, telling here that "this is how I feel about the test right now" and a girl from across the room ran over to see it and immediately shouted, "THAT'S A MOOD!" Everyone was in agreement that this was how we were all feeling right about then.

I actually did not stick the figure on the piece for about a week, considering scrapping the piece altogether. But then I realized that the piece was working, just not the way I originally intended for it to work. The strokes I made with each color were repetitive and consistent. The use of toothpaste was originally just to use toothpaste again (going back to my underlying theme of using "old" techniques in new ways), but then it occurred to me that the toothpaste represents a routine. It represents something you have to do every day, twice a day, or suffer the consequences. It's a series of repetitive motions that create a routine. It represents OCD perfectly. And the fact that I used colored toothpaste is almost to argue the "clean" factor of it. Sure, toothpaste cleans teeth. But that's not the only thing there is to it. So I decided to put the figure on the piece and leave it the way it was.