The Checklist

Doing anything that isn’t school is a struggle. So much of my energy is spent fighting my Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to not be working on schoolwork all the time, that I have no mental energy left to do the daily necessities in order to live. Things like eating, drinking, and chores get pushed aside, my OCD getting in the way of making healthy habits.

My mom came up with a solution, ideally temporary, to help me develop a healthy daily routine. She created a checklist of things I had to do in order to go to school. The tasks with the asterisk have to be done daily, and I also need to accumulate a certain number of checkmarks weekly in order to go to school. Ideally I will learn to value the importance of the tasks on the list and to start becoming invested in making sure I am doing them daily.

The daily tasks are completed, but some of the optional ones still provide some challenges. However, with the motivation of wanting to go to school, I have the incentive to work on improving my habits. I have hope that by summer I will be able to function in a healthy way without school.