OCDizzle

Hypothetical scenario: you have a wild thought. A crazy, absurd, intrusive thought, the kind we genuinely all get from time to time. Maybe you’re talking to your teacher at school, at 62-year-old English teacher wearing a pashmina with owls all over it, basically someone adorable but someone you’re probably not into. And suddenly, while they’re talking, the mental image of lunging in to snog them races in and out of your brain. Then, say your brain doesn’t let you dismiss it as a ridiculous thought in the way that most would. Say you felt like you didn’t have what you would call the morally perfect reaction; you weren’t hit with a level of disgust as quickly and greatly as you think you should be. “What if that means I really do want to do this?” “What does that make me?”

Disclaimer: Intrusive thoughts can be much scarier than just snogging old people. They can be violent, graphic, unnerving, and are always totally at odds with your moral values. For this reason, we refer to OCD as ego-dystonic.

Make no mistake of thinking these doubts are actually genuine, intellectual, logical conclusions. You know you absolutely wouldn’t act upon any of the thoughts your brain decided to momentarily infect itself with, but the supposed ‘doubt’ is the illness. It is, some scientists argue, the inability to turn off the ‘worry-loop’, the over-protective instinct that your brain has, to stop any harm coming to you, or others. The invented doubt pokes a big fat finger at the side of your brain and says HEY, THIS POTENTIAL REALITY IS A BIG PROBLEM, WHAT CAN WE DO TO AVOID THIS? And then you think, well, yesterday, I didn’t do the thing I must make sure I do not ever do (which of course you never would anyway) and yesterday I remember I tucked the curtains behind the radiator (for whatever reason), maybe if I do that again today, multiple times to be sure, I won’t do the really bad thing. And boom, a compulsion is born! Your compul-son. And he is going to be a loud, screetchy baby.

While some diagnoses aren’t always necessary, those for OCD are, because it requires professional help. At the end of my assessment, the psychiatrist slapped her hands down on her clipboard and said, ‘I think you know what’s going on’, and I very flatly, eager-to-be-told-straight, replied, “is it OCD?” to which she said “yep”, with a smirk and a P that kind of popped out of her mouth. The tension was then diffused by us both bursting into a mutual giggle in a kind of, boy oh boy, kind of way, which quickly gave way to tears of relief, believe it or not. So many of my behaviours, which really reached their apex in the last two years, finally made sense, and now, with treatment, I think they might finally be over.

I suppose a big part of what I want to do by writing this is to give the mental picture of OCD an alternative incarnation. Because it’s not always someone quietly sneaking away from their desk at work and sweatily bursting into a bathroom, lunging for the tap to turn it on and off 5 times, and finally dropping their head in panting relief; aka being a constant anxious wreck from constantly trying to hide it from all your friends and colleagues. Its grip can be at total odds with your personality. The healthy parts of your life can be a very normal, dare I say cool, person. Cameron Diaz has OCD, Charlize Theron has OCD, Amanda Seyfried has OCD, Julianne Moore has OCD, Four fucking boss women. Justin Timberlake has OCD, one exceptionally average man.

Apart from the anxiety and overall quality of life that compulsions and ruminations can affect, the worst OCD can get, in my silly little opinion, is when it wangles its way into real events. Perhaps something that is coming up that is really important, or something upsetting that happened with a friend that meant so much to you. Regarding the former, when the illness wins and an opportunity is forced to succumb to its tyrannical reign, it's as if you just want to find something or someone to plead to and say please don't let my OCD take this again. Regarding the latter, when grieving interpersonal relationships, this time the thought may not be particularly intrusive, but OCD rumination patterns bandy the sad situation round in your brain, hijacking your grief and prolonging it. Eventually you get over it, but OCD can make this take longer, and crucially, at the time, make it so much harder for you to just take a deep breath and let it be.

I left dance school because of an intrusive thought rumination concerning the school. I didn’t even realise but a compulsion can be one decision you make that can be life altering, to protect something, someone or yourself. And when you’re through the worst of it, and your logic is able to emerge from the cellar hatch under which it’s been trapped and banging against for months, and you can finally see that you were just having an OCD spin and it wasn’t true, things are ruined. And you have to work out how to crack on in a different way, and grieve whatever it was you lost. OR, try and celebrate a different path. I don’t know if that’s relatable to anyone that might have OCD reading this or just my cute little rendition of the illness. But hats off to anyone dealing with any of it, generally. Because intrusive thoughts can be terrifying, repetitive compulsions can be all-consuming, and it takes a fucking lot of bravery to get through- especially if for a long time you went undiagnosed. And that’s a really nice thing to remember. If you are presently dealing with it, you are strong as hell.

One coping mechanism I found helpful is the two brains analogy. If you’re not yet recovered, sometimes it’s nice to have your brain, and then your OCD brain. If the two brains are combined for you and it's more helpful for you to try to love your OCD brain, props to you that’s probably healthier. I, on the other hand, think FUCK THAT and prefer to disassociate most of my identity from it, OCD isn’t a personality after all. Me, and then MyBrain™ are just unfriendly business rivals from different production companies. MyBrain™ is constantly trying to steal airtime and clients from Me, and Me just has to deal with it.

OCD is the gremlin that sits on the back of the sufferer. And luckily the RSPCA does not cover evil gremlins so when you recover, feel free to stamp on it as hard as you want to, in a pair of stilettos, preferably, and then stump your cigarette out right on its gremlin forehead. And if you really want to go for the cringe movie moment, next to the red circle burn you’ve made on its forehead with your cig, that very much resembles an ‘O’, write the letters ‘C D’ in lipstick. Then blow it a kiss and slink off into the night. Obviously you might need to be at some kind of Gatsby themed party to enable any of these details to happen, but luckily it’s taking place inside your head anyway so shouldn’t be too hard. Stay tantalising and erotique everyone. Remember, we’re here to make OCD s e x y. Mwah xxxx