Just Checking: Scenes From the Life of an Obsessive-Compulsive

By Emily Colas

Book Overview

As my friend the heroin addict says, "You're only as sick as your secrets."
Emily Colas -- young, intelligent, well-educated wife and mother of two -- had a secret that was getting in the way of certain activities. Like touching people. Having a normal relationship with her husband. Socializing. Getting a job. Eating out. Like leaving the house. Soon there was no interval in her life when she was not
just checking
This raw, darkly comic series of astonishing vignettes is Emily Colas' achingly honest chronicle of her twisted journey through the obsessive-compulsive disorder that came to dominate her world. In the beginning it was germs and food. By the time she faced the fact that she was really "losing it," Colas had become a slave to her own "hobbies" -- from the daily hair cutting to incessant inspections of her children's clothing for bloodstains.
A shocking, hilarious, enormously appealing account of a young woman struggling to gain control of her life, this is Emily Colas' expos? of a soul tormented, but balanced by a buoyance of spirit and a piercing sense of humor that may be her saving grace.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671024388
• ISBN13: 9780671024383
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Interesting examples for psych course

I use this book when I teach my Psy101 course (phobias, OCD and hypochondriasis- I read a few blurbs to illustrate to the class these topics). I always have at least 2 students a semester buy this book because they find her story so interesting. I recommend this for anyone who teachs psychology!

one of the smartest books I have ever read...

This is absolutely one of the sharpest, smartest, most honest pieces of writing that I have ever read. Emily Colas is extraordinarily talented and I will eagerly look forward to her next endevour. I am convinced that Colas could tackle any topic with only stellar results. She has the heart of an angel and the wit and style of a superstar. Congatulations, Emily!

A heartbreaking, terrific read.

Emily's dry humor allows the reader to finish this appalling and heartrending account of OCD without getting too depressed over the author's bizarre behavior. One is left simply amazed that her husband stuck around for as long as he did. Even Emily's picture on the book jacket transmits a sense that profound psychological distress lies just underneath her quite comely exterior. The reader can only hope the author has been permitted, through therapy, a more serene existence.

incredible, revealing work

With the help of medication Emily Colas has managed to sit down and knock out a book that takes you inside the head of an obsessive compulsive. It's not cute, it's not quirky, it's not charmingly eccentric or any of the other adjectives common TV portrayals of this illness would lead you to believe. It is a living hell that confines Colas to her house and severes her links from society with extreme fear and a mind bent on extrapolating threat from every detail of life. Spots on the sidewalk? Must be disease carrying blood. But through shoes? Well, they soles of them are worn thin in some places...Dinner date with an attractive guy presents a dilemma: switch your poisoned plate fo his while he's in the kitch fetching salt? But then you might get fingered for his murder. Eat it yourself and die? And Colas ends up marrying this guy, who ends up being part of a household where rituals include buying six toothbrushes for colas and then helping her inspect the outer and inner wrapping for air-tightness. Tasting her food at restaurants to be sure there are no ground up hypodermic needles in there...naturally, in spite of "in sickness and in health" it gets to be too much. So Colas hides her fears from her husband for awhile, successfully, until she gives it away one day when she nears the TV to change the volume just as the character starts to vomit blood, and Colas can't contain her terror that the TV screen character may have exposed her to some disease...Cola's writes with candor and lack of self pity. She dispassionately flays the mind of an OCD, and she does so in a spare, no-frills style that includes everything you need to know and no more. It's riveting and horrifying at the same time, and Colas has done a great service towards the understanding of mental illness.

A hysterically funny, dark, moving OCD memoir

Emily Colas is an amazing writer. I loved JUST CHECKING and read it in one sitting. Colas reminds me of David Sedaris--her humor is biting, her perceptions keen, and the events she recounts are eminently memorable. This isn't a book only for obsessive-compulsives--it's for everyone who recognizes that type of behavior in themselves. From AS GOOD AS IT GETS to Howard Stern, to our own personal obsessions about gas leaks or catching a disease from a public phone, this book is about a topic to which we can all relate.