No, you're not "a bit OCD"
Mental health has been a huge topic in recent years, with great strides being made to reduce the stigma. So why is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder still stuck in the past, with public understanding still so low? Catherine Lewis delves into the topic that sits close to her heart.
When hearing the term “OCD”, many people’s minds immediately think “neat freak”. People who love cleaning, or having organised bookshelves, and are just generally tidy and orderly.
That’s what I used to think, until I was learning about it in A-Level Psychology. Obsessive, anxious thoughts, followed by an overwhelming urge to carry out a compulsive behaviour...things were all too familiar.
That day, I returned home with the big question. “Mum, did I have OCD when I was little?”. Very nonchalantly, she confirmed my suspicions, and my mind was blown. Suddenly, I was able to piece everything together, and my confusion surrounding my behaviour from when I was younger finally made sense.
At the age of eight, for a few years, I was home-schooled. I enjoyed it, but the isolation meant I had little to no comparison of my behaviour to that of other children. I was completely unaware of the dangerous behaviours that I had been developing.
OCD for me came in the form of agonisingly repetitive checks and rituals. I couldn’t leave the house or go to bed without checking every single power outlet was switched off, or there’d be a house fire and it’d be all my fault. It came in the form of painful, cracked skin, as I couldn’t stop washing and scrubbing at my hands over and over again, in the fear I was contaminated with germs.
It became a life where everything took five times longer than it needed to, where nothing was simple anymore. My brain was being taken over with scary, irrational thoughts that infiltrated more of my mind every day. I was constantly lathering myself with stronger and stronger moisturisers, in hopes of combating the dry skin that blanketed my hands and wrists, when the real problem resided in my head.
I spoke to Sophia Hobbs, a journalism student who also suffered from OCD when she was younger. She said, “It literally felt like I was a puppet, and I was being told to do things. I think that’s why I got to the point of breaking down to my doctor, because I literally said to him, ‘I feel like I’m not in control of my own mind. I feel like there’s something in my head shouting at me saying, ‘do these things’, and I can’t say no’. It felt like I was being controlled.”
In recent years, there’s been a huge push to talk more about mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. However, OCD still seems to be viewed so differently, with general misunderstandings running rampant.
“OCD hasn’t reached that point yet.” agreed Julia Farrell, an ex psychology researcher and councillor. When asked why this might be the case, she said she believes it may simply be because people can’t understand the seemingly strange behaviours, or compulsions, that people with OCD are forced to carry out.
“I think people can understand that we all have worrying times, and the worst thoughts come into our heads, but I don’t think, I really don’t think, that people can understand that compulsive behaviour. And when you talk to someone with OCD, they realise that [their compulsive behaviour] sounds ludicrous, they do realise that it doesn’t make sense... So if they realise, it’s no wonder that other people can’t understand it.”
Arguably the most frustrating thing about OCD is that you know your compulsions are stupid. You can logically think through the situation. How can a fire start from this power outlet if nothing is even plugged in? What’s the worst case scenario for me not washing my hands, a cold? Yet, the anxiety caused by the obsession just doesn’t fade until you carry out the task.
“Obviously now when I look back, it is bizarre, but I don’t look at it and think ‘you’re crazy’ because I look at it and I think ‘no, it came from a place of being really scared’.” explained Sophia, reflecting on her past compulsions.
“I think that anyone, if they’re so scared of something, they would do the most to avoid it, so that was just my way of coping with it.”
She believes that the stigma surrounding the condition might also contribute to the lack of conversation around the subject. “I think the whole reason a lot of people don’t know anything about it is because I would never tell people.”
She explained that she’d hide her condition from her friends because she was worried about the reaction she might get if they didn’t understand it.
“Yeah, I would never [show it], I’d be so embarrassed if they saw… We’d all be chatting, and I’d just be on my phone looking like I’m texting, but I’m actually on Google searching every sign of a tumour.”
“When I was talking to my friend that I live with, I told her a few of the things I used to do. I didn’t even go into that much detail and her reaction was like ‘oh my god’. It wasn’t like a ‘oh yeah that’s OCD’ it was like a ‘Jesus’. It wasn’t like it was normal.”
As with anything, a lack of knowledge leads to misconceptions, and in OCD’s case, this is largely perpetuated by stereotypes we see in the media. Examples such as Monica from Friends, or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory are characters that have been given the label of “OCD”, but fail to fully grasp what the condition really is, often choosing to exaggerate certain characteristics for the sake of comedy.
An emphasis on being clean and tidy is arguably the biggest misconception, which has led to the development of phrases such as “I’m a bit OCD” being used in everyday life when referring to being tidy or orderly, or “that’s bothering my OCD” when making reference to something being untidy or imperfect, which is almost certainly doing more harm than good.
“I think it detracts from what it actually is, it’s a bit like if someone says they’ve got flu when they’ve got a cold.” Julia explained. “People aren’t going to get the understanding and support that they might need if they really have got OCD.”
Sophia also believes that the perpetuation of the “clean and tidy” stereotype is damaging for real people who suffer from the condition. “They [might] get branded with something more absurd, just because ‘if it’s not a problem with cleaning, it’s you doing something else, that’s not OCD, that’s just you, full stop crazy’, which isn’t fair.”
“I think if I was to say to somebody everything that I’ve just told you, their first reaction would not be ‘you’ve got OCD’.” she explained. “When the doctor first said to my mum, ‘it’s OCD’, her first reaction was ‘but her room’s a mess, I really doubt that’.”
My personal misunderstanding of OCD meant that all those years, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had no explanation that I could attach to the awful feelings I felt, and the things I was being forced to do by my own brain.
Sophia had similar experiences before she was diagnosed by her doctor. “He was trying to say to me ‘no, this is normal, don’t worry, you’re not crazy’, and I was trying to prove to him that I am!”
“I was like ‘nonono you don’t understand, I literally touch things and I do all this’, and he was like ‘yeah, because you’ve got a form of OCD, that’s why you’re doing that’, and I was like ‘oh really?’. Because when I thought of OCD, I didn’t think of it like that. It wasn’t till I got home and started looking into it, and I was like ‘yeah this is exactly what I do.’”
Looking back, it was due to my damaged skin that further steps were almost taken for me. I went to the doctors with my mum to get it looked at, and when we explained how it’d gotten so bad, they mentioned referring me to a therapist. I was very confused about what that had to do with my skin, and honestly thought nothing of it besides it being a very strange suggestion, but my mum brushed it off, told them it’d be fine, and that there was nothing to worry about.
When I asked her after finding out the truth, she admitted that she was worried that knowing about it would make me worse. She did her best to help at the time; a big turning point for my improvement was thanks to her makeshift exposure therapy. One day, she took a sweet and dropped it on the floor, and told me I needed to eat it, all while reassuring me that nothing would happen to me. I refused and cried for what felt like ages before I forced myself to do it. We’ve always had a very close bond, and it was probably only because of that that I could make myself do it for her. Although that wasn’t the “cure”, future situations didn’t bother me quite as much.
It’s now been over ten years since I was at the height of my OCD. My little routines and patchy skin are constant reminders of what used to be, but I’m in a far better place. I’m not OCD free, it comes in peaks and troughs, but even when I’m having a bad day now, it could never compare to how it used to affect me.
At the end of the day, OCD may be a frustrating, sometimes scary condition, but people are managing, often so well that others wouldn’t even know there was something wrong. Some people might be five minutes late to a lecture because they needed to get a coffee. I’m five minutes late because I couldn’t stop re-checking the light switches today. We’re all human, and we just need a little more understanding.
