Blogs

When we launched our new logo last year, we did so to highlight the fact that the D in OCD the D means 'disorder'. For OCD Awareness Week Patrick, the host of the blog morethanmydiagnoses created this great piece about that 'third letter'.

Morethanmydiagnoses is an honest and frank record of mental illness and recovery.

A little while ago @BeccaACairns recorded this video blog about her OCD experiences with sexual obsessional fears. She has experienced various types of OCD since early childhood but that this aspect of OCD has felt the most destructive to her in terms of her identity and more defining life choices like starting a family.

Becca wanted to share this video for OCD Awareness Week, saying “I just wish people spoke about it more but I understand that it's taken me 29 years! We need to talk about it - to dissolve it of its power and end the stigma.”

Click the read more link to view the video blog.

We are delighted to share this fantastic short video by @LittlestLady_, the Blogger, survivor and mental health & abuse advocate. This film is both heartbreaking and heart-warming at the same time, but is fabulously inspiring, this is the story of one little lady.

This week is OCD Awareness Week, and each day we will be publishing a different account of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Extract taken from the book Pulling the Trigger: OCD, Anxiety, Panic Attacks and Related Depression written by Adam Shaw of The Shaw Mind Foundatuion.

I had battled severe OCD all my life, OCD plays a big role in all of my earliest childhood memories. Like most OCD sufferers I had learnt to hide it, avoid it, invent rituals to try and negotiate with it so it would leave me alone. I craved a normal mind and a normal life, and I thought I had just about achieved that in my early twenties when my OCD seemed to have calmed down and had therefore enrolled at Oxford Air Training school to train as a commercial airline pilot. Life was beginning to seem normal and as we headed off to Arizona, USA for part of our flight training, I was finally beginning to feel content for the first time in my life.  

In a life dominated by OCD and anxiety I’ve noticed that when things are really going my way and I feel there is nothing getting in my way of reaching my goals, suddenly something kicks in and my mental health issues begin to really knock me back. And so it did in Arizona. One day I passed through reception at the airport, and as I did so I noticed the young receptionist at the desk, a girl I’d seen occasionally before.

‘I’m going to strangle her,’ I thought.

It came right out of the blue, and no sooner had it done so than it lodged in my brain, gripped tight and wouldn’t let go. The thought horrified me and my anxiety went sky high.

Blog written for and first published on BAM Magazine for OCD Awareness Week by Abby Williams (forum name Saffie), October 2015. Republished by OCD-UK with kind permission of Abby and BAM magazine.

OCD – The Monster Under The Bed
By Abby Williams

AS OCD Awareness Week draws to a close today [Saturday October 17], UK charities such as OCD-UK are rallying to highlight the disorder that affects around 2.3% of the world’s population.

Rated within the top ten of the world’s most debilitating illnesses by the World Health Organisation (WHO), startling statistics show that less than 10% of those affected are receiving appropriate treatment. Even more worrying are the persistent public perceptions of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which minimalise its severity and alienate sufferers.

“I’m so OCD!” is a phrase we commonly hear from people who like to categorise their tinned foods in a certain way or insist on keeping a clean house, and television shows such as ‘Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners’ depict a cringe-worthy distortion of the illness. The key difference between these examples and really dealing with OCD is that if you enjoy these compulsions, it certainly isn’t OCD.

Last week was OCD Awareness Week, and OCD-UK were proud to be proactive in our work to generate media interest. In the end over the last 10-days OCD was featured across national newspapers, local and national radio and TV too. In fact according to our calculations the work we helped generate had the potential to reach 14.3 million people last week. Claire shares her experiences of being involved.

Blog written by 'Claire', October 2015.

My OCD Awareness Week

I consider myself very lucky to be involved with OCD-UK. I've had OCD since before I knew it was even a thing, and since I stumbled across the support forum in 2011, I've felt part of a community who understands. We just 'get' it. We don't have to explain anything.

Having said that, I hadn't taken part in Awareness Week until this year. Initially I was still nervous about speaking out in public. I'd suffered in silence for the best part of 25 years, so opening up about it didn't come naturally to me.

If my OCD recovery journey has taught me anything though, it's that the reality of a situation is generally a lot less terrifying than the worry I invest in it! For this reason now, if I'm asked to do something in the name of OCD awareness, I generally say "yeah ok!" I know that I'll be supported by the OCD-UK team. Don't get me wrong, after the "yeah, ok!" often comes the "what have I just agreed to?!" but it's good for me to challenge myself in this way.