Tattooed, Tested, and Touring: On Loving My Mother and Naming the Monster That Took Her

Today would have been my mom’s 60th birthday. Her name was Christine Larch, but she went by Tina. I was named after her, which feels poetic and complicated all at once, like most things in my life. Life truly can be many things at the same time.

I am a mental health advocate because I grew up as the child of someone with debilitating OCD. Not the kind people joke about. Not the kind TV makes palatable. Not “quirky” or “organized” or “I just like things clean.”

This was OCD that controlled her life and by extension, controlled my grandparents and me. Our home ran on routines and rituals we all had to follow just to survive the day. My mom was diagnosed when she was a child. She saw doctors early, which mattered, and the treatment was immersive in those loud thoughts. I know this because my Pap fixated on it later in life, stories about moving a trash can from one side of a room to another, over and over again, as if repeating it might make it available again. That maybe she would try to work on fighting the compulsions again.

When my mom got pregnant with me, she had to stop taking the medication that helped keep her compulsions manageable. She never returned to medication after that.

I say this carefully, but honestly: I often say I shouldn’t have been allowed to be born. My advocacy for bodily autonomy is deeply rooted here, as is my long-standing feeling of being a burden, the belief that my existence tipped the scales in a life that was already overwhelmed.

I know my grandparents loved me. I know my parents loved me, and still do. My father loves me deeply, and I’m grateful to have a relationship with him today. I also know how painful these truths can be for him. He, too, was impacted by the OCD that shaped my childhood. I just also know that my existence let that monster (OCD) take back control. It made her life harder. It made my grandparent's lives harder. I will always remember the times where my yiayia was just so mentally and emotionally exhausted. I will never take their sacrifices for granted.

Growing up was hard in ways I didn’t have language for. If we didn’t do a procedure correctly, my house became a war zone. My grandparents were threatened. I was used as leverage, a pawn to make sure things were done “right.” I didn’t know this wasn’t normal until I was older. I thought everyone had to shower before touching things in their home.

That everyone had to clean their belongings and then shower again before doing homework.

That talking to your mom through a hallway was normal because you weren’t allowed downstairs, it was a “safe zone,” protected from being “dirty.”

This was my entire childhood.

It took my first sleepover to realize that other families didn’t live like this. I was angry in my youth. Angry well into early adulthood. Trauma doesn’t always look like sadness, sometimes it looks like rage, defensiveness, sharp edges you don’t know how to put down. I carried that for a long time.

The last conversation I had with my mom, she asked for forgiveness. I couldn’t give it to her and said I need more time. The trauma was too loud. Too fresh. Too close to the surface. The next day, I got the call that she had passed away. We didn't have more time.

That moment lives with me. It probably always will.

It’s been twelve years now, and I’ve learned a lot since then. I went on a journey to understand OCD at its deepest levels, not just what it does to the person who has it, but what it does to the people orbiting it. The families. The children.

My mom did her best. That doesn’t erase what happened, but it matters.

I am not here to say she was a bad person. She wasn’t. OCD is a monster, a boogeyman under the bed that keeps taking. It is never satisfied. No matter how much you give it, it wants more. I am a firm believer that my mom died at the hands of her OCD. It won in the end.

And still, she was kind. She cared. She showed up for her community.

She volunteered with the Jaycees and the Kiwanis Club. She made real efforts to make a difference despite the internal battle she fought every single day. She had loyal friendships. She was a friend, a daughter, sister, mother. I often compartmentalize this. The mother who came to my karate belt tests, my plays, key club events, and all the other nonsense I did was great. She showed up. She supported my dreams. She supported her friends. She loved hard. She is the person I miss today. She is the person I wish I had in my corner, today.

We had good memories. We traveled. We went on trips where, honestly, she was pretty “normal.” There were moments of joy and laughter and connection. There were Kiwanis conventions and long car rides and shared experiences that mattered. Even then, OCD was there, quietly dictating rules. Trash cans I wasn’t allowed to touch. Suitcases where dirty clothes became complicated. Invisible boundaries no one else could see.

Both things are true. We can contain multitudes as people. We can feel multiple things about something. It is okay to have complicated feelings. It is okay to have many feelings.

My mom was loving, and my childhood was traumatic.

She tried, and it wasn’t always enough.

She mattered, and so did the damage.

I carry her with me, her name, her memory, her fight and I carry the responsibility of telling the truth about mental illness without sugarcoating it. I use my story, and the trauma that came with it, to advocate for better care, better support, and more honest conversations.

Not every story has a clean ending. Not every wound closes neatly. But today, on her birthday, I can say this: I see her fully now not just as my mother, but as a human being who fought a monster and lost.

And I will keep telling the truth. For her. And for the kids who grow up thinking this is normal until they finally realize it doesn’t have to be.