Reaction to Sedaris: "a plague of tics"

            “a plague of tics” by David Sedaris is a very interesting and personal story that looks into the life of someone with OCD. Because this is a true story about the author, it makes you feel more connected to the character being described; he is writing about himself, so it is easy for him to develop the character. While reading the story, you find out that his mother seems completely ignorant to his problem and compensates my drinking and smoking. And, because his family never got any medical or psychological help for their son, he was constantly faced with issues at school; his teachers always had to deal with his problems and his acting out as well as the teasing he received from his peers. I thought it was interesting, though, that he seemed to know that what he was doing wasn’t right, but he also knew or thought that he had to do it. “It wasn’t that I enjoyed pressing my nose against the scalding hood of a parked car-pleasure had nothing to do with it. A person had to do these things because nothing was worse than the anguish of not doing them,” (Sedaris, pg 9). By the end of this interesting story of the author, we find out that he takes up smoking to compensate for his “problem”. “Were I not smoking, I’d probably be on some sort of medication that would cost the same amount of money but deny me the accoutrements: the lighters I can thoughtlessly open and close, the ashtrays that provide me with a legitimate reason to leave my chair, and the cigarettes that calm me down while giving me something to do with my hands and mouth,” (Sedaris, pg 21).