I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world. I love you most in the world.
Ten times. Every night. It wasn’t just a ritual—it was a lifeline. I had to say it to my Mama, or something terrible would happen. Everyone I loved would die. I’d get hit by a car the next day. I’d walk out the door in the morning, kiss Mama goodbye like always, and come home to police officers waiting on the porch, telling me she was gone. I was nine years old.
At the time, I didn’t question it. It was an unbreakable rule: ten times, no less, or disaster would strike. I remember lying on my bed, heart pounding, going over the words again and again until my throat ached. If I missed even a syllable, if it didn’t sound quite right, I’d start over. From the first “I love you most in the world,” and again, and again.
The relief when I finally got it right—the tenth “I love you most in the world” whispered perfectly—was fleeting. Maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour if I was lucky, before the dread crept back in. What if it wasn’t enough?
At the time, I didn’t know there was a name for this kind of thing. All I knew was that this terrible feeling had wormed its way into my mind, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it.
Even now, I’m not entirely sure what it was. Was it OCD? Anxiety? I never got it diagnosed. For years, I just lived with it, a constant shadow that hung over me.
Before all this, before the rituals and the paranoia, I was just a little girl living in Taiwan. I remember the colors of the market stalls and haggling for prices, the warm, sticky air, the sound of scooters buzzing through narrow streets. I remember my family’s laughter, the chatter of neighbors, and he sense of belonging that came so naturally back then. I lived in Shanghai, too. The towering skyscrapers and bustling malls, intense but homey, pushing and shoving everywhere to get anywhere.
Then we moved to the United States. I was five and a half.
The world I knew disappeared overnight. Suddenly, I was surrounded by unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar words, unfamiliar everything. I didn’t understand my teachers or my classmates. I didn’t know the rules of this strange, new place.
At school, I didn’t talk. Not for weeks. My teachers must have thought I was shy, but it wasn’t that. It was fear. Every word felt heavy, impossible to push out. I was terrified of getting something wrong, of saying the wrong thing, and having everyone laugh at me.
I still remember one morning, standing with my classmates to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The words were too much, and I tried to juggle it all, aiming to catch one, just one, but it slipped through my fingers and landed on the ground. It splattered.
That fear stayed with me. It seeped into every interaction, every moment of my day. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my friends’ parents or look teachers in the eye. My hands were always cold and clammy, my heart always racing. I felt like I was constantly swallowing a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away.
I didn’t just feel out of place—I felt invisible.
And then came the rituals. I’m not really sure what else to call it. It’s something I did the same, repeatedly, at the same time, multiple times in a row.
I don’t know exactly when they started, but I remember the first time I said, “I love you most in the world,” ten times before bed. I remember the way it soothed the storm in my mind, if only for a little while. It became a habit, then a compulsion.
But it wasn’t enough. Soon, I started adding other little rituals. Counting my steps as I walked to school. Holding my breath for forty-five seconds. Turning the light switch on and off until it felt just right.
Every ritual was a shield against the unknown. Against the what-ifs. Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif–
It was exhausting.
My parents didn’t really know, but it was clear something was off.
I did my best to hide it. I smiled when I needed to, laughed when it was expected. But inside, I was trapped in this constant loop, afraid of the smallest mistake, afraid of missing one tiny detail.
It wasn’t just the rituals. It was the feeling that everything I did mattered, and if I didn’t do it right, it would bring catastrophe. That’s how my mind worked—it was always searching for something to control, something to hold onto. I needed to feel safe, even if that safety was an illusion.
But then I was eleven, and we had moved again, this time to a new school. Things started to change.
For the first time in years, I had the opportunity to start fresh, to leave behind the version of me that was consumed by fear and compulsions.
I don’t know what clicked. Maybe it was the new school, or maybe it was just time. Maybe, in some way, my brain had just had enough. But one day, I realized I wasn’t as scared anymore.
I stopped worrying so much about what other people thought. I stopped fearing that something terrible would happen if I didn’t do things perfectly. I still remember the first time I went to class and didn’t obsess over whether my shoes were tied just right or if I had said “hi” correctly. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest.
And for the first time in years, I felt free.
It wasn’t all at once, though. It took time. The anxiety still crept up on me in quiet moments, like when I was sitting alone in class or when I was talking to a new person. I still had that feeling in my stomach, that knot of fear. But it wasn’t as overwhelming as before. I didn’t feel like I was drowning in it.
I’d realized that the world wasn’t as fragile as I’d believed. People didn’t vanish if I didn’t repeat something ten times. My friends didn’t hate me if I messed up. The world kept turning, no matter how much I feared it would stop.
By the time I was in middle school, I had made a real breakthrough. I spoke up more in class. I made real friends. And I stopped repeating things out loud at night and flickering light switches.
Even though the rituals stopped, even though the fear wasn’t constant, the anxiety still lingered in the background. It wasn’t something I could just forget about. Some days it was there, like a shadow at the edge of my mind, and I could almost feel it clawing at me, trying to pull me back into the old habit.
This isn’t something I talk about much. Even my family didn’t understand, and I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want them to look at me differently, so I kept it to myself, locked away in the quiet corners of my mind.
But now, sitting here, writing this, I realize that I don’t have to keep it a secret anymore. I don’t have to hide it away, pretending like it never happened. Because maybe, just maybe, someone else out there is going through the same thing. Maybe there’s a little girl, sitting in her room, scared of what might happen if she doesn’t say the right thing, or do the right thing. Maybe she needs to hear that she’s not alone, that it’s okay to be scared, and it’s okay to ask for help.
And so, here I am, telling you my story.
If it can help one little girl, one person, by fear of the unknown, of the what-ifs, then I’ll do anything.