Path Illogical: A Memoir of NYC and OCD

Nathan has solid faith in his ability to make it as a performer upon beginning life as an NYU acting student, but he starts to see he’s the only New Yorker walking down Broadway who is repeatedly turning his head over his shoulder to smother his intolerable anxiety.

As New York City soaks Nathan in, his symptoms intensify and garner him a diagnosis of OCD. Nathan finds New York City to be more ferocious than magnanimous, more exhausting than transporting. Nathan falls deeper under the command of his repetitive thoughts that guide him to believe that how he hangs his bath towel or where he places his phone on his desk will determine whether he has a productive or obscenely poor day. 

After three years of increasing self-isolation, Nathan is relegated to a puppeted version of himself who shakes out an invisible type of dust from his clothing for hours every day so he does not destroy the sidewalk outside and can make friends in his final year of college. 

Nathan is accepted to the inpatient treatment program, the OCD Institute, at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. At McLean, Nathan learns that it may just be courage and community that can start to obliterate his symptoms and place him on a path toward a healthier lifestyle.