OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is a mental disorder in which a person feels the need to perform certain routines (compulsions) repeatedly or has certain thoughts (obsessions) repeatedly. These activities become so necessary that it negatively affects a person’s daily life, often taking up a large amount of time and energy. Many people with OCD understand that their behaviors are illogical, even as they continue to feel compelled to engage in them. In The Immortalists, Varya suffers from OCD—she is obsessively clean and constantly modifies her behaviors to avoid any risk. She also describes compulsions like avoiding cracks on the sidewalk or blowing out all her birthday candles as quickly as possible in order to protect her siblings from potential danger.
OCD Quotes in The Immortalists
The The Immortalists quotes below are all either spoken by OCD or refer to OCD. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 31
Quotes
She no longer believed that Daniel died of a bullet meant for the pelvis but which entered his thigh, rupturing the femoral artery, so that all his blood was lost in less than ten minutes. His death did not point to the failure of the body. It pointed to the power of the human mind, an entirely different adversary—to the fact that thoughts have wings.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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OCD Term Timeline in The Immortalists
The timeline below shows where the term OCD appears in The Immortalists. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 31
At age 30, Varya was diagnosed with OCD. Years later, a different therapist asked what she was afraid of. She replied cancer, climate...
(full context)
