Life in Rewind. Terry Murphy Weible

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СКАЧАТЬ detours to avoid round-abouts. But not only did these episodes inconvenience and frustrate him, they also, of course, proved trying to his passengers. Friends would often take the wheel and suggest that Ed, sitting in the front passenger seat, close his eyes while they executed turns. But it didn’t matter whether his eyes were open or closed, his body had its own sensors that would sound off in his brain, like a thousand sharp fingernails shrieking down a chalkboard. This was accompanied by the foreboding feeling that if he didn’t follow his mind’s directive, something terrible would happen: specifically, something bad might happen to someone he loved. It was the same foreboding feeling he’d first had when his older sister and aunts would try and push him and Deena to go out to do ‘fun stuff as their mother lay dying at home. His mind tried to adjust to the intuitive notion that he had to correct the situation with an opposite reaction, and the fear created by these peculiar, intrusive thoughts was relieved only when he followed an action that his body and mind ‘felt’ was correct.

      The only way to placate his torturous anxiety was to insist on being let out before they reached the roundabout so he could walk, meeting the car on the other side. His friends thought he was acting crazy, and ridiculed his behaviour. Ed was confused and embarrassed by his illogical behaviour, which in turn compounded the anxiety and escalated his cycle of obsessive thinking and compulsive reaction. As is often the case with OCD, the disorder was actually feeding on itself to grow stronger.

      While one might logically assume that the foothold that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was slowly and steadily gaining in Ed’s mind was triggered by the stress of his new athletic and intellectual pursuits, he doesn’t remember feeling particularly nervous about making a bid for Clemson. What he felt was the uncontrollable worry of something happening to, say, his father if he walked the wrong way or touched something incorrectly-if for example he touched his index finger to his middle finger, and then failed to retouch it the same way an even number of times. It was the guilt that he felt…the pressure of ‘what if’. What if something happened to his father in a rare moment when he was carefree, and not constantly worrying? If he wasn’t maintaining the rituals within rituals of touching and going the right way, he would be responsible for whatever unfortunate event might take place.

      But Ed dug deep within himself and pressed on to reach the goal of that great thing he was meant to do with his life. If he could just join his friend Rudy at Clemson, he knew everything would be OK…

      The guys at Ed’s gym comprised a group of mostly blue-collar workers, living in the rough-and-tumble world of construction. When Ed showed up at the gym immediately following his trip to South Carolina, telling everybody that he wholly aspired to play for Clemson-at quarterback, no less-the guys rolled their eyes, thinking him crazy for reasons completely unrelated to the OCD-which, at that point in time, hadn’t yet manifested itself during his workouts. The consensus among them was that Ed’s pursuit was a pipedream. They started to call Ed ‘Martin Luther King, the man with the dream’. But Phil Miller, owner of a construction company, a Georgetown graduate and former athlete, had compassion for the starry-eyed kid:

       Back then, Eddie wasn’t a standout athlete, but he was a standout person. While all the guys teased him, Ed stayed focused, relentless in his workout. Everyone watched as he loaded up ridiculous amounts of weights on the machine, doing endless repetitions, and doing so many squats every night that his muscles started splitting his trousers wide open. He would be the last one working out in the gym every night, telling everyone else, ‘Just one more set.’ He was determined to prove everybody wrong.

      Ed put himself in the zone. Drinking weight-gain shakes, taking supplements, religiously eating a pound of pasta every night and strictly following Coach Wade’s workout regimen: chest and legs on Mondays and Thursdays, shoulders, back and arms on Tuesdays and Fridays. He developed his own system of sprints, which he ran in the evenings at a secluded spot on the heights overlooking the water. He would throw a football roughly 20 metres out in front of him, sprint to it, pick it up, and throw it 20 more. He’d repeat this routine over and over for hours on end. Always in solitude.

      One day his gym buddy Phil volunteered to practise out in the car park of the gym after they’d finished their workouts. It was meant as a friendly gesture, but he was genuinely impressed by Ed’s arm. ‘He starts zinging the ball across the car park,’ recalls Phil, ‘and I was like, “Wow, this kid has some real talent. Especially for somebody who wasn’t a starter in high school.”’ Phil couldn’t really say whether his young friend would be successful in getting past the Clemson admissions process, let alone play for the Tigers, but given Ed’s enthusiasm he wouldn’t count him out.

      Within five months all of Ed’s training and discipline paid off as he packed on 45 pounds of sheer muscle, bringing his weight to a viable 13 stone 3 pounds. But rather than invoking the admiration of the doubters at the gym, the snide comments manifested themselves as earnest scrutiny. Ed became understandably defensive, and even expressed his willingness to submit himself to blood and urine tests to prove his progress was legitimate.

      Drug-related it wasn’t, but there are many who now believe that it may have been Ed’s underlying OCD and the nature of his relentless obsessions that helped to drive his progress.

      Regardless of the role Ed’s then-undiagnosed condition might have played in his seemingly ‘instant’ success, his drive to do the extraordinary took on an added dimension. Honouring his mother was of course a primary motivator, but being surrounded by sceptics placed a new value on the unconditional faith he believed Coach Wade had placed in him, and he resolved to do him proud.

      In January 1991, while still ineligible academically, Ed was ready to head back to Clemson. He needed to be in a positive atmosphere, where Rudy and all the guys could take in his progress. He wanted his adopted mentor, Coach Wade, to see for himself what Ed was capable of accomplishing. ‘Coach Wade had a way of making you believe in something great,’ remembers Ed, ‘and that you can conquer the world. He is all about mind, spirit and soul, and what defines you as a human being. He said he was preparing me for the biggest game: life.’

      Ed was now ready to take the next step towards his goal of becoming part of the Clemson family. Before he could head back there, though, he had to meet the academic requirements. He immediately enrolled in classes at the local community college.

      It was such a lofty goal that many friends and family members stood back and watched sceptically. There were a few, like Phil and like Ed’s sister Tami, who hoped that this was the beginning of something big for Ed. But the guys at the gym were still pretty relentless in their caustic remarks. Intellectually, Ed understood it was an implausible dream that was hard for people to understand, and turned the negativity into motivation to keep pushing himself harder.

      The truth is that Ed had never really wanted to play football. Art was his true passion, but his dad didn’t see this as a career choice-and whenever he brought it up he would remind Ed of the stigma of ‘the starving artist’. Added to this, Ed had to admit that he couldn’t ignore the feeling of importance and respect he gained simply by working out alongside the team when he was at Clemson. ‘I was still trying to find that great thing,’ remembers Ed. ‘I was doing the mental Google search for my future career and thought maybe this was it.’ But beneath the surface lay that chronic anxiety that felt like an annoying undercurrent of electricity in his brain, humming day and night. He couldn’t turn it off; it was like a severe case of tinnitus. More and more, he would find himself hesitating before he could move forward, needing to retrace his steps or read words forwards and backwards to try and correct the feeling of discomfort. The mental and physical ‘hiccups’, the hesitation that kept him from moving steadily forward, was something he could not shut down.

      All stress in Ed’s life, even that caused by something as ordinary as his friends leaving for university or his indecision about his future, led him straight into the painful memory of his mother’s death. Ed’s emotional foundation was broken. СКАЧАТЬ