Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking: A Life Lived Obsessively

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The stuff on OCD in this book, particularly throughout the first chapter, is probably the most brutally relatable and accurate account of it that I’ve ever read. I did struggle with whether or not I like the form, having never read an essay format memoir (as opposed to a chronological memoir). Fascinating, especially in a world which wants us neurodivergent women to have only one of two types of experiences. I enjoy memoir type reads and this book posed as an interesting look into the mind of a successful young adult with ADHD and ASD, and her experiences with her intrusive and compulsive thoughts throughout life. Would I sometimes like to soften my sensory processing issues, wear anything other than cotton without having a screaming fit?

What that means changes day to day, depending on what her brain latches onto: fixations with certain topics, intrusive violent thoughts, looping phrases. In fact, the book shines most when it’s brilliantly ungraceful – when it briefly jars against the conventional wellness narrative to dig into childhood diary entries, old poems, media analysis, children’s books.Amongst them is the way the matrix of obsession, compulsion and intrusion represents an exaggeration of conventional anxieties.

References to social media trends, language and, I apologise in advance, *discourse* gives me the same feeling as a film which references wokeness or, worse, covid.I was, sort of, enjoying this at the beginning as I felt like bits of me were scattered here and there. There is not much that could be considered widely applicable, even to those with the same conditions, as the author is telling specific anecdotes and exploring her own feelings rather than speaking in generalities.

As a Los Angeles native, it was enlightening to see how Marianne wrote about my home with fresh eyes and made me appreciate it and question it in new ways.

I have so much respect for author being able to open herself up in such a way and I think that this book will be so helpful for so many people because it can show them they are not alone and are deserving of help. I liked the fact that she doesn't only explain how her OCD diagnosis (and her autism, but the essays focus more on the obsessive compulsive thoughts) affects her, she also shares her obsessions, lovingly writing about her favourite rides and her favourite parts of LA, her regular trips to California. As someone who grew up in the same generation with the same interests as Marianne, I felt a real kinship with her throughout the book - from the pop culture references to incidental things that happened during her childhood growing up in a small English town. She covers topics like TV, film, digital culture, neurodiversity, wellness and alternative music, for outlets including The Cut, the New York Times , Courier , Vulture , i-D , Guardian and more.

The rest of the book mostly annoyed me, because there’s this frustrating dichotomy between the person the author describes herself to be at first, and the person who constantly does stuff that the first version of herself would, surely, find extremely difficult if not impossible.

But the implicit cultural understanding of OCD as “quirk” has made it unworthy of literary treatment: insufficiently disturbing for trauma plots, and too specific to be a metaphor that parses out the modern condition. It’s a distinction that feels unnecessary, since the bulk of the essays follow a similar narrative arc: an obsession plagues the author; it sets her on a fractured, sometimes frustrated mode to healing; by the final paragraph, a mix of exposure therapy and self-realisation means the obsession is largely resolved.