Nothing good about OCD
Awedding venue in Wales has been forced to apologise after advertising for staff who are “slightly OCD”. By “slightly OCD”, Fairyhill, near Swansea, presumably meant perfectionists who are highly organised and dislike germs — I assume they weren’t looking for employees with a mental illness so debilitating that they sometimes find themselves unable to leave the house.
It seems so po-faced to get upset about an innocent advert placed by a sweet little country house hotel. Should Fairyhill be flamed for doing something people do in conversations umpteen times a day?
How many times have you heard someone describe themselves as “a little bit OCD” about, say, their sock drawer?
The problem, of course, is by classing obsessive compulsive disorder as a kind of positive personality trait, we undermine those for whom it is a serious illness. For those people — myself included — there is nothing positive about a condition that at best makes you wash your hands until they crack and bleed, and at worst makes you think you are a serial-killing paedophile.
Do you know why some with OCD are obsessively clean? Because the thought of germs makes them fear for their lives.
Do you know why some with OCD like order? Because a voice in their head has told them if they don’t place that pile of papers in line with that pile of books, their family will die.
OCD is described as a non-psychotic mental illness, but it is the closest I have ever come to having a seriously impaired relationship with reality.
I often describe it as your brain refusing to acknowledge what your eyes can see — be it that your hands are clean, that the oven is off or that a lump in the road is a speed bump and not a body.
OCD has many forms, one of the most common being Pure O — although this is rarely talked about, because it involves intrusive thoughts about sex and violence.
We have all, for example, had fleeting thoughts about what our boss might look like naked or what might happen if we accidentally dropped our friend’s baby on its head. But most of us rightfully dismiss these thoughts as the random workings of the brain.
Not someone with Pure O.
They will be so distressed by the thoughts they will obsess over them to the point they start to become convinced they are their thoughts.
Then there is Responsibility OCD, which sees sufferers worry irrationally about loved ones’ wellbeing. For a long time, I had to say a phrase again and again for fear if I didn’t, my brother would die.
Tidy and organised people do not have OCD, any more than multitaskers have schizophrenia. As anyone who has suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder knows, there are no good types — just the ones that cause people many years of misery and suffering.