An Open Letter to Michael Jenike, Executive Director of the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation

Background: Every year, I get a letter from the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation asking me for money. I wrote this last year but never sent it.

Dear Dr. Jenike,


Thank you for your letter soliciting money for the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation. Unfortunately, I will not be able to afford any donation to the Foundation
this year. It’s especially hard now that I’ve spent money paying for psychological treatment, even though, according to your letter, it may not actually be effective for the disease that I have. (Believe me: you’re right! I feel like crap!)

Here’s my suggestion, Dr. Jenike. Why not ask people WITHOUT OCD for donations? You could hold an OCD Walk. People are much more likely to give money for causes that are
associated with walking. You could ask people WITHOUT OCD to fill up a sheet with sponsors pledging, say, $.05 a mile. Then, if they raise a certain amount of money, you give them a T-shirt. People love, love, love T-shirts. In fact, I just did a walk for lupus. I raised more than $200. Do I give a shit about lupus? Not really,
Dr. J. I wanted the T-shirt. After the walk, you give out Little Debbie cakes and little boxes of juice. People practically shit themselves for this stuff. I’ve seen it. It was at the lupus walk.

Your letter also says that there is a staggering amount of research that needs to be done before you will find effective treatments for everyone with OCD. Why would I want to give my money so that you can find treatments 50 or 60 years from now, when I’ll be dead, or just old? What I’m saying, Mike, is if you’re not
going to find a way to help me (and the way you guys are dragging your feet, you’re not about to find effective treatment anytime soon), what do I get for it? I say, start with T-shirt. You know, the whole walk thing. After that, maybe a tote bag. I may suffer from a debilitating mental illness, but it would be nice to
suffer from that illness while sporting a neat-looking tote-no-messenger bag. People on the train will be all,
“Sorry, I was just noticing your bag. Where’d you get it?” And I’ll be all, “The OCF sent it to me. I was thinking of selling it on ebay but it’s actually pretty nice!” That’s how you spread the word, Mike. One messenger bag at a time.

So what do we have? We have the walk. We have the t-shirt. We have the messenger bag. These are all gold ideas, Mike. But you know what? I don’t think it matters. You have trouble raising money for OCD because it’s a little less known than the glamour disorders like schizophrenia and Munchausen's by proxy. And not enough people suffer from it for anyone to care. Too many people like Monk just the way he is.

What I’m really trying to say, saying, Mike, is fuck you, fuck OCD, fuck the OCF, and take me off your goddamn mailing list.