Don't Forget

​Jerry Mciver was leading a normal life, everything was kept in order and he had no major issues mentally but then one day he left his house in a hurry for work. He forgot to turn the stove off which was cooking his oatmeal. At work he received a phone call from the fire department that there had been a fire at his house. Initially he thought that it was arson or a malfunction of the furnace but the fire department said it was caused by the gas burner being left on. The fire marshal told Jerry that only one room had been destroyed and the rest of the house was still in tact.

​After six months of living in a hotel Jerry's fire damaged house was repaired and he was able to move back in. But upon moving back in to his house he didn't feel the same. He was nervous and anxious and he didn't know why. He would constantly look at the stove to make sure that it was off even though he had not touched it. Several times he thought about turning it on to warm up some soup, but he was too scared to turn it on fearing he might not turn it off. But his worries did not stop there as he refrained from using any type of appliances that had heat. 

His superstitions continued to become more and more obsessive as he created lists to check things before he left his house for work and before he went to bed. These superstitious rituals each took more than an hour to complete. Soon he was arriving to work later and later. He also could not sleep as he would lay down and his mind was racing and he would get up a  minimum of a dozen times during the night to check things. Then one night he broke down and decided that it was time to get professional help, so he went to see a psychologist.

After a month of bi-weekly sessions Jerry was slowly getting better. The therapist would come to his house and they would use the stove, other appliances and shut them off after their use and not double or triple check them. They would then leave the house and come back a couple of hours later and to see if everything was okay. Jerry was feeling confident about his certainty again.

The therapist told Jerry that it was now time to go on his own and go back to living a normal life and Jerry did just that feeling normal and in total control of his mind and senses. 

He went to sleep that night without checking anything and got up feeling his old self. He made his oatmeal on the stove for the first time in two years and got ready for work using all of the appliances that he had been avoiding for the longest time. He left the house for work without double checking anything. As he drove out of the residential area he heard an explosion coming from the direction of his house. He didn't look back and kept driving to work.