Kathleen Hale Kathleen HaleAdvertisement - Continue Reading BelowThis article originally appeared in the online magazine

My obsession with animals preexisted any trauma in my life. As a five-year-old I wrote a fully illustrated book titled Tigger Maskkir about circus animals that revolt and eat the clowns. My teachers thought I was becoming deranged but my mom explained that it had been going on since before the divorce. I interviewed neighbors about their dogs. I put my teddy bears and stuffed lions to bed every night under blankets of washcloths—I couldn't fall asleep until they were safely arranged like Tetris pieces on the floor, covering every inch of carpet. I once stood for an hour with my face against the glass at Sea World, trying to make meaningful eye contact with a manatee.
More From ELLEMy ritualistic obsessions are no longer limited to animals (currently, they include Diane Sawyer, The Slender Man stabbings, and eating bacon every day for lunch). I never look for things to grab me. They just do, and once they do, the obsessions usually continue until I'm so sick of them—or of myself for enacting them—that suddenly, and with a sense of great relief, I'm repulsed.
On other occasions, it's as if I can't stop. Like on my 18th birthday.
The night was raucously fun—I must have stolen the karaoke microphone 11 times—but as dawn broke, my friend asked if I could please stop singing Limp Bizkit. She needed to sleep.
"Believe me, I'd love to, but I physically cannot." I was tired, too. I'd sung "Faith" twice, but five was my number and I was halfway there.
And sometimes I worry that telling the story I'm about to tell you is a compulsion, like counting. Giving testimony under oath was supposed to bring closure. But here I am, so sick of my own voice. The urge persists.
*"Playing possum" means "pretending to be dead." The idiomatic phrase stems from behavioral traits of the Virginia opossum, which is famous for feigning death when vulnerable. —Ann Bailey Dunn, "Playing Possum." Wonderful West Virginia
This instinct can be counterproductive: for instance, opossums scavenging for roadkill may 'play possum' in response to the threat posed by oncoming traffic, and consequently end up as roadkill themselves. —"Virginia Opossum." Mass Audubon
*It was my first day of college. After unpacking, my mother and I went to the Habitat for Humanity sale and bought a broken futon for 20 dollars. We carried it back across the quad, up a few flights of stairs and into my new common room. And then my back started hurting. Flustered by the fact of our impending separation, my equally obsessive mother became fixated on the idea of getting me a massage. A fan of free massages, I traipsed alongside her through Harvard Square, looking for options.
Every place was booked except for a store called About Hair, which offered haircuts and massages in addition to selling antiques. The store was so stuffed with secondhand items that some of them were arranged outside. A dark-haired, sullen-looking girl around my age was keeping an eye on them.
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