OCD Made Me Think I Was a Monster

Every day, mother-of-three Sarah imagines her perfectly healthy young children are going to die in a car crash or fall fatally ill.

Distressing images thunder into her head uninvited, whirling around and around until she feels like she is drowning in them.

"I get severely depressed because no one wants to think of their children dying," she says, of the intrusive thoughts that routinely shatter the joys of family life.

"It's something [most people] won't think of. Whereas I think it every single day because my brain won't let me think of anything else."

The 34-year-old, from Redditch, Worcestershire, is one of about 750,000 people in the UK who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD.

It is ranked by the World Health Organization as one of the top 10 most debilitating illnesses and can form such a grip on an individual that it controls their entire life.

The overwhelming public perception of OCD is that it is an obsession with cleaning, tidying and symmetry, a fastidiousness seen in characters like Monica Geller from Friends.

But the reality is far more complex, with sufferers experiencing obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviour they have no control over.

Obsessive, intrusive thoughts can paralyse sufferers with anxiety, fear, disgust or shame - and many will not realise the images they are experiencing in their head are due to OCD.

Compulsions are the repetitive acts that can be mental or physical that the individual feels compelled to do to temporarily relieve the stress of obsessions.

This is partly why Sarah decided to homeschool her children - by knowing she could see them all the time, the images of them being fatally injured or catching a terrible disease were diminished somewhat.

The intrusive thoughts of OCD, often called Pure-O or Pure OCD, are sometimes so insidious and about taboo subjects that sufferers do not admit to experiencing them.

But five people living with the condition spoke to the BBC about their ordeals, which left them feeling like they were going mad or like monsters.

All say awareness is vital so that those who may not realise they have OCD can go and seek help.

- Author: Eleanor Lawson, BBC

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