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Luckily, as a result of cognitive behavioral therapy, particularly Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), it's under control. I only struggle when I'm really stressed—usually when I'm under a lot of pressure at work or in my personal life. And believe me, the last thing you need when you're stressed out is to have to get out of bed five times in the middle of the night to touch a door seven times. Dr. Jim Bolton, a consultant psychiatrist, told me that "around a third of OCD cases are catalyzed by stress."When Mom was at her worst, I'd have to undress at the front door after school, my clothes taken off me and bagged in individual supermarket carrier bags.
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The best way to help families that are struggling with OCD, Dr. Davis believes, is through family-based clinical interventions. All the experts I spoke to agreed that there was a need for additional funding to help support the families, too—the children of people with OCD in particular. Sam Challis, a representative at Mind, told me that "there is a need for people with OCD who also have children to be given specialist help—for example, training in how to minimize aspects of their behavior so they don't pass compulsive traits onto their children."Unfortunately, against the backdrop of chronic UK government under-funding for NHS mental health treatment, the odds of getting specialist help within a reasonable timeframe are about as likely as seeing my mom hit the beach in a skimpy two-piece.We might make some headway, too, if we stop representing OCD in our culture as just needing to have all your pencils sharpened, or being really tidy. I can't lie: I do get fed up with people saying they're "so OCD" when they show off their gleaming white trainers, or explain why their vinyl collection must be alphabetized. Professor Nestadt agrees, saying, "No one [really] knew what OCD was until Hollywood starting representing OCD in films and on TV shows, but even now people don't really understand it."I do get fed up with people saying they're "so OCD" when they show off their gleaming white trainers, or explain why their vinyl collection just has to be alphabetized.
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