"Featuring a reading group guide"--Cover.

"Emily Colas--young, intelligent, well-educated wife and mother of two--had a secret that was getting in the way of certain activities. Like touching people. Socializing. Getting a job. Eating out. Like leaving the house. Soon there was no interval in Colas' life when she was not just checking. This raw, darkly comic series of astonishing vignettes is Emily Colas' achingly honest chronicle of her twisted journey through the obsessive-compulsive disorder that came to dominate her world. In the beginning it was germs and food. By the time she faced the fact that she was really 'losing it, ' Colas had become a slave to her own 'hobbies'--from daily hair cutting to incessant inspections of her children's clothing for bloodstains. A shocking, hilarious, and enormously appealing account of a young woman struggling to gain control of her life, this is Emily Colas' exposé of a soul tormented, but balanced by a buoyance of spirit and a piercing sense of humor that may be her saving grace"-- Provided by publisher.