In the waiting room, with my glorious mother who had zoomed up the M3, cup of morning tea still in hand to be with me, I realised I had to get help to widen my world again. I think what I put myself through earlier this year for my hypothetical child proves that there will be enough love to conquer whatever the future holds.īack then, I recognised that my world had become very small, until – unable to eat, sleep or teach – I found myself explaining, through cascading tears, to three different GPs on three consecutive days that I didn’t want to kill myself, I was just only 99% and not 100% sure that I wouldn’t, they unknowingly did the worst thing they could – sent me to A&E “to be safe”. Recent research shows no evidence that my particular medication has any association with birth defects but I don’t need to reassure myself because I accept the risk, like the other millions of risks a mother-to-be accepts.
After becoming obsessed about not putting my yet-to-be-conceived child in any danger, I have learned the hard way that I don’t have a choice. The pregnancy v medication thing is tricky. Three months clean, it hit me like a slap in the face, forcing me to finally face the truth: I can’t do it on my own. I spent a painstaking year either side of my wedding, shaving off invisible parts of the tablets, overanalysing the doctor’s advice to “taper down slowly”. My fiance, having never experienced an “episode” before, supported me in withdrawing and, having had eight pretty symptom-free years, I was optimistic. This crisis occurred as a consequence of, among other things, coming off my medication to start a family. I know that taking medication is the right thing for me, and will help me to be an amazing mum What had started as normal intrusive thought, that most people have had (what if I jumped in front of this train?), grew into a gnawing obsession, a thirst for absolute certainty that could never be quenched. I would walk miles along edges of dual carriageways to avoid car travel, navigate 15 buses instead of the train and complete many obscure rituals in private to stay safe. Months earlier, I had been so intent on preventing myself from harm, I had spent Christmas avoiding any sort of travel at all. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) had reared its ugly head again, robbed me of my judgment and I was now on the road to curing it – through exposure therapy with my therapist such as the above. I wasn’t suicidal: quite the opposite I was petrified about the possibility of suicide and the quest for certainty, the impossible task of eliminating every inch of doubt that I could be capable of such an act, had made me very poorly indeed. A day earlier, I had stood on a railway platform, inching closer and closer to the edge as the trains blasted past.
That’s a knotty question, with genetics, life events and personality among the factors thought to contribute to the development.A couple of months ago, I found myself standing perilously high on a shopping centre balcony. “That adds up to over 1 million people in the UK,” the latter reports.Īmong people who have spoken out about having OCD are Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and the American goalkeeper Tim Howard. A US study suggests 1.2% of US adults have OCD in a 12-month period, while the Royal College of Psychiatrists states that about one in 50 people have OCD at some point in their lives, with men and women equally affected. The answer varies a bit from source to source. The rituals can include avoiding particular scenarios, or making repeated checks on a situation. The UK’s Royal College of Psychiatrists says the thoughts can include being contaminated by germs or contracting diseases, upsetting mental pictures or fears of having harmed someone. It is a mental health condition in which people often have obsessive, typically distressing, thoughts as well as compulsions or rituals. OCD is not simply about liking things to be neat – the condition can have a serious impact on individuals and their quality of life.
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