I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD until I was an adult, but once the diagnosis was made, a lot of things in my life came into sharper focus. The problem was that I didn’t have any of the “fun, quirky” OCD symptoms. I have a lot rituals, which mostly just look weird to outsiders. I suffer from excoriation (a compulsion to pick at my skin), which is not pretty. The main symptom of my OCD is completely invisible, though: intrusive thoughts. I have an assortment of intrusive thoughts, but one that you’ll inevitably hear about if you spend much time with me is my Top 10 Worst Deaths list.
I’ve been maintaining this list of terrible deaths for the better part of 40 years. Essentially, since I read an encyclopedia entry about Floyd Collins, and was introduced to the concept of dying in a small place. The advent of the internet has really improved the quality of my list, because it delivers up to me true and truly terrible ways to die. Now, keep in mind, there’s nothing objective about this list. Rather than being the most horrific deaths imaginable, it’s a carefully curated list that reflects only my intrusive thoughts about dying in enclosed spaces. Am I claustrophobic? Yes, a bit, but not in a way that makes it impossible for me to ride an elevator, for example. Rather, I think about dying while trapped in a small, confined space, roughly 100 times a day.
My worst death list doesn’t contain any of the traditional torture methods. Nor does it represent the most gruesome deaths. My list is mostly all about caves, building collapses, people trapped in chimneys. Oh and submarines. At the very top of the list is the story of Peter Verhulsel of South Africa, who became lost while diving in a cave. As he ran out of oxygen, he managed to find a small cavern with a beach and an air pocket. There, he waited for rescue. Without oxygen in his tanks, no idea where he was, and no way to communicate with the outside world, all he could do was wait in the cold and the dark. Assuming he had drowned, his friends searched for his body for over a month. When at last he was found, the coroner concluded that after approximately three weeks in that little cavern, he starved to death.
No surprise, this is the source of my “interest” in the submersible, Titan, which went missing during a dive on the wreck of Titanic. I use the word interest fairly loosely, because it’s not as though my brain gives me the option of not thinking about the submersible and the fate of its crew. Like Schrödinger’s cat, they are alive and dead until we know for sure, but my brain is already obsessing over the worst possible outcomes. I don’t want to think about it, or about the people inside, just as I didn’t want to think about the crew of K-141 Kursk, or the children in Thailand who spent almost three weeks trapped in the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave system, before thankfully being rescued. I just don’t have a choice. It’s called an intrusive thought for a reason.
I don’t know what the odds are that the submersible will ever be found, but I am compelled to wait for the news. After all, from the perspective of the list, explosive decompression wouldn’t even be in the top 1000. That sounds quick enough to be almost painless and devoid of time to think. Staring down your final hours trapped in a little carbon fiber tube with four other people? That would make the top 10. Let’s hope for a happy ending and an unchanged list.