Escaping jaws of the OCD dragon
This week, six New Zealanders and their support people share their mental health journey and challenges in the podcast series Just Listen. The series has been made with support from the Mental Health Foundation, and Like Minds, Like Mine. Listen to the podcasts at nzherald.co.nz and read their stories each day in the Herald
Francesca Eldridge isn’t afraid of germs. But to an outsider, her excessive cleaning rituals at the height of her OCD could have been interpreted as someone who had an intense phobia of dirt.
The 39-year-old has lived most of her life with metaphysical contamination OCD, which she believes was triggered by childhood trauma. Her OCD (obsessivecompulsive disorder) wasn’t about a fear of germs or dirt, but that certain objects, people or spaces felt “contaminated”. The anxiety around those contaminated objects would then drive her to carry out the compulsions, which included lengthy cleaning rituals.
“It was never about germs or disease or dirt, it was a feeling of mental contamination,” says Eldridge. She says the compulsions are the visible part of OCD, but few people understand the distressing, intrusive thoughts that drive those compulsions.
At worst, Eldridge was housebound. She spent up to five hours a day on her compulsions, couldn’t sleep, suffered soap wounds from excessive cleaning, had acne, urge incontinence, digestive issues and aches and pains from the intense way she would clean the house.
Sometimes, if she couldn’t clean an object properly, or if it was damaged in the cleaning process, she had to bin it. “I’ve thrown away a few things in my life that I didn’t want to throw away, for that reason.”
OCD hit her marriage. She’s now separated from her thenhusband Glenn Pennycook, but he remains a supportive figure in her life. Eldridge remembers a key moment when she realised she had to take control of her health.
“He sat down on the couch and he started to cry. And I’d never seen him cry before. And I looked at him and I said, ‘You’re sick of being yelled at aren’t you?’ And he said, ‘ Yep’. And that was the moment when, I don’t think I verbalised it, but said I have to do something about this.”
Eventually, Eldridge overhauled her entire diet and lifestyle and found a supportive psychologist who understood her condition. Her dog Bailey
has also helped comfort her in times of need. She didn’t want to go on medication, so took a holistic view of her health and her symptoms declined.
Pennycook says there are things he would do differently if he found himself in a supporting role again. He says it’s important to understand the rituals a person with OCD may need to undertake are usually about cleansing, not cleaning.
He also advises against riding the same emotional roller coaster as the person with OCD. “You have to stay calm in that moment. You can’t start arguing back.”
He says it’s crucial not to fall into a permanent role of rescuer or caregiver, because that results in a power imbalance in the relationship.
Eldridge, who now works as a nutritionist in New Plymouth, says it can be hard to seek help as most people with OCD suffer intense shame. And it’s not helped by portrayals of it in movies, where it’s often played as a quirky trait rather than a debilitating illness.
It’s also a condition commonly made light of to describe a particular habit or preference, rather than mental health condition. She wants people to know how serious OCD can be, but also that it is possible to recover.
“OCD is like this vicious dragon and when you’re in the depths of it, it’s like you’re in the mouth of that dragon and it’s shaking you like a rag doll.
“And when I started working on my health, it was kind of like I just climbed out of the jaws of the dragon.”