When I first heard Olivia’s new record, I was read to filth. Her albums always seem to arrive exactly when I need them, and this one was no exception. You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love captured something I hadn’t been able to articulate about my own brain. 

Listening to it, I kept recognizing patterns that felt eerily similar to relationship OCD. I’ve recently been diagnosed with the illness myself.

For some people, uncertainty isn’t negative, it can even make things more exciting. However, OCD wants a verdict. Uncertainty becomes an obsession. It’s not just about, who has my boyfriend been with? It’s also what does she have that I don’t? Why am I so obsessed with her? “Used to play a game in my head when I’d date a guy. Tally up the girls that he fucked ’til I start to cry.”

Relationships are gasoline for an OCD brain. They bring a lot of fuel to a fire that you didn’t know you were building. Changes in tone, facial expressions, every notification, slowly snowball into: Are they right for me? Are they cheating on me? Are they lying to me? Do I love them as much as they love me? Am I capable of love? 

I think the obsessive qualities that end up ruining the relationship don’t stop at the person you’re dating. It extends to everyone they’ve ever been connected to. Compulsions aren’t love, even though it feels like they are. 

It was interesting that this album came out during pride month. I, like, Olivia am fascinated by girls. I find so much inspiration in them— Olivia talks a lot about feminine adoration in her interviews. Whether or not that’s what she intended, I recognized something deeply familiar. 

Femininity was demonized in my house. We weren’t allowed to be girly. My mom saw femininity as evil, a temptress or a seductress and she didn’t want that for her children. I think when you’re deprived of something for so long, especially something that you love naturally, you kind of become obsessed with people who have it. That’s how I felt about girly-girls. 

I didn’t just envy feminine girls. I envied how freely they inhabited something I’d been taught to fear. Over the years it spiraled into a loop. Why am I so obsessed with her? Do I want to be her, or do I want to be with her? Is this a crush? Or just the trauma of being suppressed for so long? What if I’ve always liked girls and just didn’t know? What if I’m making it up? What if I never figure it out and I never know? 

At this point the attraction itself has kind of left the conversation. The girl becomes irrelevant. The relationship becomes irrelevant. What remains is the obsession: Who am I? Who do I love? Am I lying to myself? Will I ever know? The object of my affection changes, but the ritual stays the same.

And ‘the cure’, and ‘what’s wrong with me’, these songs point to the devastating fact that even though she’s the most in love she’s ever been, it still isn’t right. It still feels like an itchy sweater. I don’t know what Olivia meant when she wrote those songs. Maybe she’s writing about OCD. Maybe she’s writing about sexuality. Maybe she’s writing about something entirely different. What I know is that I saw myself in them.

I still don’t have the answers to all my questions. But I think learning to live with OCD is healing enough to realize I might not actually need one.