[MUSIC PLAYING] I only recognise now symptoms in myself from when I was younger. It was only when I was around 14 or 15 that I started to recognise, oh, actually, maybe those things I did when I was seven or eight were symptoms of OCD. Maybe they were the early signs of OCD. So I do have quite strong memories of being around seven or eight years old and having to do certain rituals around the house to make myself feel better. So the first one that I really remember was, whenever the microwave was on in the kitchen, I had to do a certain jumping ritual and tapping chairs in a certain order and get back to the microwave before it finished. And there wasn't necessarily a thought or a fear behind that, but there was just this feeling of not rightness. Like, if I don't do this, I just feel really uncomfortable. And once I've done it once, it kind of just became a thing that I had to do every time, or else I would feel just something wasn't right inside me. And these rituals kind progressed and progressed and got more and more. And at the time, it wasn't necessarily that they were causing me huge amounts of anxiety, but it just really didn't feel right if I didn't do them. And that would later obviously progress into something which became, OK, if I don't do this, I'm going to feel really anxious and I feel like something awful is going to happen. [MUSIC PLAYING] It's not like a voice. It's not like you're hearing something. But it is like yourself just going, what if? So we all get intrusive thoughts. Everybody kind of has strange random thoughts hundreds of times a day. But for someone with OCD, that thought will get stuck, and it won't go away, and you'll worry about the meaning of it. So everybody might get a thought like, oh, if I kick one leg, I should kick the other leg, or else something bad's going to happen, and it just kind of comes in your head and goes back out. Whereas for me, that thought got stuck, and it kind of played on my mind, and it was like, OK, but what if I caused a car crash? What if someone dies and I could have saved it by doing this tiny little ritual? And that "what-if," that doubt fuels those behaviours. And you're like, OK, well, I may as well just do these rituals because it takes me a few minutes and then that person is safe. And even though I know that's absolutely ridiculous because I can't control the world, that just makes me feel better and it's just worth doing. [MUSIC PLAYING] When you have these behaviours that you feel are abnormal or a little bit strange or a bit embarrassing, you can become very, very good at hiding them. And OCD is often nicknamed "the secret illness" for that specific reason. I became very good at hiding things, and if anyone ever sort of picked up on it and was like, why have you done that, I'd be like, oh, it's just a little habit, or like, kids have idiosyncrasies. All children have habits. And I wasn't necessarily displaying any signs of anxiety or distress. I was an incredibly happy child. All of my school reports and stuff say how happy I was. And I think outwardly, that's how it would seem. And I when I was that young, I was really happy. So there was no need-- there was no cause for concern for my parents. [MUSIC PLAYING] I remember one time I developed an obsessive twitch and an obsessive cough, which I would just do all the time. And I remember a girl in my dance class picking up on it and saying to my sister, why does your sister do that? She's a bit weird. And I was like, OK, people have noticed, so I have to do it in private. So I would go to the bathroom to do this obsessive cough or this twitching behaviour. So I recognised that these things weren't normal, but I didn't necessarily think they were a problem. I just thought maybe everybody does these things, but they're just good at hiding them. So I became really good at hiding them. [MUSIC PLAYING] As I got older, the rituals did become more time-consuming. The anxiety became stronger. If I didn't do the rituals, the anxiety became stronger, and the intrusive thoughts became more frequent. The obsessions became more frequent. And that's what we know happens with OCD. The more you give in to it, and the more you feed that intrusive thought by doing a ritual, the stronger that they will become. And they did start to morph. So I would say around 15, 16, they did start to turn into compulsive washing, cleaning sort of contamination-related behaviours. But it's still very much had this thing about safety, about keeping people safe, about stopping bad things from happening, whether it was a fall out at school or someone dying. The things that I did, I felt like they kept people safe. [MUSIC PLAYING] A lot of people with OCD will say is that they feel responsible for the world. I felt like I was responsible for everything. And even though that's so silly and I knew that wasn't the case-- I know that I can't control bad things from happening. But I really felt that responsibility on my shoulders. And I think pretty much everyone with OCD will tell you that it feels like you're looking after the world, basically, by what you're doing. [MUSIC PLAYING] I don't really remember officially being diagnosed. It's not like you're kind of handed a piece of paper or someone says, oh, I think you've got OCD. Essentially, I went to see a child psychologist because my dad died when I just turned 16. And I went for counselling for grief. And I think it was during those counselling sessions that actually he picked up that there's something more going on here. It's not just that she's grieving because I became very hard, and I wouldn't cry, and I'd be very much like, nah, everything's fine. And I think my mum at the time was like, OK, this isn't typical behaviour for somebody who's just lost their dad, who's going through their GCSEs. So you should go see somebody. And the child psychologist picked up that, OK, I don't think you're in the right place here. I don't think counselling is really what you need. And I think he sent me back to my doctor. [MUSIC PLAYING] It turned for the worst when my dad died. I don't think it was because of that. Consciously, I don't think it was because of that. Subconsciously, I think there must be something in my head that thought, you didn't do enough to save him, or you didn't do enough rituals or something like that, because I could see the hospital where he was from my bedroom window. And when he was in hospital, I used to do a lot of rituals around keeping him safe, all these kissing behaviours, and strange behaviours to try and keep him safe. And I think subconsciously, my OCD must have latched onto that because it did-- once I turned 16, once he did pass away, things did seem to get progressively worse. And maybe it was the stress of the situation or me not handling it particularly well. But things did start to go downhill from then, but I wasn't willing to accept help. [MUSIC PLAYING] I remember being put on a waiting list and waiting for a very long time, and things got a lot worse in that time. I think it was 18 months from being discharged from the child psychologist to getting what was then cognitive behavioural therapy and my doctor's surgery. But I was never kind of given a clear, this is what OCD is. These are the tools you can use. At that time, I don't remember ever having anything like that. [MUSIC PLAYING] With cognitive behavioural therapy for OCD, there is an element to it called Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP. And it's essentially exposing yourself to the things that you're scared of and not reacting or learning to react differently. So say, for example, I was scared of touching a remote because I thought it was contaminated, and x, y, and z would happen. You would be encouraged to hold that in your hand and to not do the compulsive behaviour, so not do the washing ritual or whatever that ritual might be. So if I had an intrusive thought about someone dying in a car crash, you would be encouraged to not do the ritual that would make that thought go away. And instead, you might be encouraged to do something like, I hope they die in a car crash, or say something which would really bring on your anxiety. And that's incredibly hard to do. That's the hardest thing in the world. If you think that your actions are going to cause something bad to happen, to do the absolute opposite of that, it's incredibly difficult. And I just don't think I was willing to engage in it at that time. [MUSIC PLAYING] Moved away from home, and I was living in student halls. And that's where OCD really started to take over my life at that point. It had taken over my life before, but it hadn't stopped me from doing anything. I was still able to go out and do what I wanted to do. And when I got to university, everything kind of just crashed. I had a great time, and I loved it in parts, but it was also the worst years of my life in terms of how my OCD was and how it made me feel. [MUSIC PLAYING] Changing my clothes four or five times a day. I was washing my bed sheets every day. I was doing three or four loads of washing a day, and I was in the shower for hours. I was using a couple of packs of baby wipes a day. I could use a bar of soap in one shower. I could use a bottle of shower gel easily within one shower. I was just getting through so much stuff. I was throwing clothes away because I thought they were too dirty for the washing machine. And these were things that I had just-- I'd sat on a bus seat, and then my entire outfit would go in the bin because I would just think that bus seat was so dirty. It would smell so bad that I can't possibly put these clothes in the wash with anything else. And it just became completely all-consuming. [MUSIC PLAYING] I developed what I know now is a very, very common OCD compulsion, which is reassurance seeking. So people I was living with at the time-- and one particular friend I was living with at the time became my absolute safety blanket, and I pretty much couldn't do anything without him giving me reassurance. And that's a compulsive behaviour because I was asking constantly, does this smell? Is this clean? Is this dirty? Should I do this? He was helping me to shower, all of these sorts of things that I just couldn't do without his help. And although at the time, to that person, it seems like they're doing the best possible thing because they're relieving your anxiety, all it was doing was making me become absolutely 100% reliant on him, and I just no longer trusted my own judgement. [MUSIC PLAYING] But it did get to the point where I was really suicidal, and I was really depressed. And I kind of wasn't-- I wasn't bothered anymore. I got to the point of being like, I'm not really living anyway, so it's not really worth living. And I remember having this horrible thought, which now I feel really embarrassed about. But I remember thinking, I will have any other illness in the world apart from this. Just give me any illness. I can cope with anything. Make me homeless, make me whatever, because I just can't cope with OCD anymore. And that's a really awful thing to be thinking because obviously, I'm fortunate in a way. In lots of ways, I'm very fortunate. [MUSIC PLAYING] The turning point for me was seeing the impact that it had on other people. I'd kind of given up on myself completely. But my friend at the time who was looking after me basically said, I'm going to drop out of uni and quit my job to look after you because I can't do all of these three things. It's too much. And every time he left the house, I was like threatening my life and all sorts of things because I needed help so much. And seeing the impact that that had, seeing the impact it had on my mum at home because she felt helpless because she wasn't around, she couldn't help, so she became really unwell with feeling depressed and things as well. And I think seeing that impact on other people kind of made me think, OK, well, I don't want help for myself, but maybe I could get some help for other people. I don't want to ruin their lives, so maybe I'll go and get some help for other people. And that's when I self-referred to the first lot of therapy that I actually properly engaged in myself. [MUSIC PLAYING] We just worked on loads and loads of exposure tasks. I had to go home, and I had to just constantly do therapy, keep a record of the therapy that I was doing, monitor how my anxiety went up and down. And what you start to learn in CBT is that you do these things which are so incredibly anxiety-provoking, and they feel like the worst thing in the world. But your anxiety does come down on its own eventually. You don't need the compulsive behaviour. And as bad as it feels when you're doing this exposure task, your anxiety will come down. And when you start to see that happening, when you start to see the success with that, you're like, OK, maybe I don't need the compulsive behaviour. And the more like successes you get, the more it kind of fuels you on to be like, I can do more. I can push myself harder. And I was so determined when I went to see her that, yeah, it worked, and it worked really well. [MUSIC PLAYING] I think if I had spoken to somebody who'd had CBT when I was younger who could have told me this works, then I would have put in a lot more effort. I think the problem for me was is that when I first went for therapy, I didn't know anybody with OCD. I didn't know anyone who'd done CBT. I didn't know what the success was of it. And I was being told by a psychologist, this will work. But that's not what you need to hear when you're a 16 or 17 year old. I needed to hear it from someone who was my own age, who could come in and say, this works. It's going to be really hard, and it's going to be really, really difficult, but go for it because it's so worth it. I think if I'd heard that, I would have been able to better engage with therapy. And I didn't have that. And there's a lot more resources out there now for younger people, which is great, but there still needs to be a lot more because people need to know that it does work. It's not easy. You don't want someone telling you that, yeah, it's really easy therapy, and you'll go in and it'll be absolutely fine. I want someone to tell me it's hard, but it's so worth it. No matter how hard therapy is, it's a lot easier than living with OCD, so it's worth doing. [MUSIC PLAYING] The graph for getting better for OCD is very much like this. And it's not going to be easy, and it's not going to be a smooth journey. And that can be really difficult to accept and be like, OK, but why isn't there a quick fix? There isn't a quick fix. It's a really complicated illness. It's a really horrible thing to live with. But I think it's just making people aware that there are a lot of options. There is a lot of therapy. Finding the right therapy can be difficult, but there are charities and places that can help with that. And there is a lot of support available for yourself and for your friends, family, and loved ones. So I think it's just knowing where to look for that and just asking for that help and being OK to ask for that help. [MUSIC PLAYING]