YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE •
The StruggleAnxiety

I photograph the stove every time I leave home

Dear Delyara, I take photographs of the stove before leaving the house. Four burners, all off. Oven dial, off. Sometimes I make a video moving from each knob to the clock so I cannot later convince myself the photograph was taken another day. It started after I once left a pan heating while answering a phone call. Nothing caught fire. I noticed within minutes. My mind has treated it as a permanent warning ever since. Yesterday, I reached work and realized the photograph was blurry. I drove twenty-five minutes home to check. Everything was off. My manager asked why I was late, and I lied about traffic. My husband says this is becoming serious. I know. He tried sending me his own photograph after checking the stove, but my brain said perhaps he missed something. Anxiety is clever that way. It turns reassurance into one more object to inspect. I am beginning to structure work, social plans, and even holidays around whether I trust the last image in my phone.

ANONYMOUS