If I had a dollar for every time I was tagged in the meme saying “Still uses pinky promises as a legitimate foundation of trust,” I would be a millionaire. Everyone who has spent time with me and my family has seen me and my dad lock pinkies before we say goodbye. Whether I’m going back to school and won’t be home for a few months, or I’m just going to a friend’s house for the night, a pinky promise is our version of a hug goodbye.
I had never thought anything of it until my friend asked me what it meant a few years ago. At first I was confused why she didn’t understand. It seemed like a pretty normal affectionate action between a father and his daughter. However, I couldn’t think of an answer at the time because I honestly didn’t know what it meant. I just knew it was something that we always did and it was something that was very important to me.
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I was forced to revisit this question about a year ago when I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Contrary to what most people think, this does not mean that I have a fear of germs and like to be organized. While those can absolutely be manifestations of OCD for some people, for me it means an incessant need to have a perfect, structured life.
I need schedules and familiarity to be comfortable in my surroundings. For this reason, any type of transition is extremely difficult for me. People think it’s crazy, but my anxiety is by far the most severe during the summer when I get home from school. The idea of three months of no structure has put me in a deep depression for as long as I can remember.
Where does the pinky promise fit into all of this? As I said, locking pinkies with my dad as a form of goodbye has been a tradition since I was little. One day in kindergarten, a boy in my class threw up. As an anxiety-ridden five-year-old, this was a major disruption in my otherwise structured day of coloring and learning the alphabet. My dad drove me to school the next day as he did everyday and I sobbed the entire way saying I didn’t want to go because I was afraid someone would throw up. After a while, my dad stuck out his pinky and said “I promise you no one will throw up today.” Somehow that got me out of the car and we continued it every day.
A few years later, my mom was late to pick me up after school. The irony was that she was late because she was talking to my school psychiatrist. However, at the time, I felt utterly abandoned at this sudden change in my normal schedule. After that day, the pinky promises before drop-off evolved into my dad promising that my mom would not be late to pick me up.
Fast forward a few more years to when I reached the developmental capacity to understand death and loss. I created this idea in my head that one of my family members was going to die while I was at school. As opposed to the first two fears, this one weighed extremely heavy on my developing psyche. The thought of losing someone I loved was the ultimate sign of disruption to the structure in my life. Thus, the morning pinky promises became the promise that no one would die during school.
Since then, the pinky promise has evolved into a universal symbol that everything would stay structured in my life. I remember days in middle school and even some in high school where something happened that prevented the morning pinky promise and as a result, I went to school and cried in the bathroom. I knew that I was being ridiculous, but that lack of comfort led me to believe that something was going to go wrong.
Today, my dad and I still pinky promise whenever we say goodbye. It’s quick and habitual, but it still gives me the comfort I need to know that my day will go as planned. Earlier this year, I got a tattoo on my back of two interlocking pinkies, one small and one big, symbolizing the pinky promise’s origin that day in Kindergarten. Hopefully by this point, it is clear why I take such offense to people casually claiming they have OCD when they like to keep things neat. I don’t intend to victimize myself because I am thankful for my OCD in many ways, but I do think that people often devalue the severity and intrusiveness of OCD. So for anyone who has seen my dad and me interlock pinkies when saying goodbye or has seen my tattoo and been confused, I hope this clears it up. Sometimes it’s the littlest things that provide the most comfort and support.
