Write a sentence. Delete it. Write a sentence. Delete it. Why isn’t it good enough? What am I missing? Maybe I need a break – go downstairs, get a drink. Turn the light off, check the door’s locked. Check it again. Sit down to try and write again, delete it. Try again. 

The constant cycle that occupied my mind, every second of every day. 

I have had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) my whole life, even if I refused to admit it. I had to have two of all my stationery, had to always check I locked the door twice, had to submit my academic work at an even time. I can trace habits and routines from my OCD into every aspect of my life since I was a little girl. 

I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to hide and ignore my compulsive routines, especially when I went into higher education, naively thinking and praying that one day my OCD would go away on its own. 

My OCD becomes a reality: Conceal it, don’t feel it, don’t let it show 

I was raised on Disney movies. I adored losing myself into the fairy tales and magic of a hundred worlds and characters. However, they always felt like make-believe and entirely separate from my life – I didn’t live in a castle or befriend a beast. Yet, the first time I watched Frozen with my little sister, my life was altered forever. Whilst spoken in an entirely different context, hearing a Disney character say to ‘Conceal it, don’t feel it, don’t let it show’ led for me to reflect on my own concealment of my mental struggles. Here was a fantastical character supressing and ignoring parts of themselves they were ashamed of, just as I was. 

This was the first moment I became aware of the extent that I was hiding my true self. I would love to say that this was my turning point, when I opened up and let down my guard, but that would not come until a decade later. 

I had not heard of anyone around me suffering or recovering from OCD and whenever the topic was raised, it was always met with mockery or dismissal; ‘weird’, ‘quirky’ and ‘insane’ were the three synonyms that I heard throughout my childhood in relation to anyone exhibiting traits of this mental illness. I knew that I had OCD from the time I went to secondary school, but out of a fear of bullying, I taught myself to supress any compulsive thoughts and deal with them in private. 

At least once a day I would excuse myself to the bathroom to repeat a list of phrases in my head, or count on my fingers as a means of trying to control my thoughts. This carried on daily throughout my education until one day that I ‘let it show’. As I sat in a chemistry lesson, sleep deprived from a night battling my inner worries and compulsions, my teacher watched as I subconsciously repeated an experiment twice. Having not even registered my own actions, I was not prepared to be asked ‘Why did you repeat that? It’s like you have OCD’. 

My entire world shattered. 

This was the first time anyone in my life had associated me with the three letters that had plagued my mind for years. Sitting on my hands to stop them shaking, I laughed off the comment and tried to carry on with the rest of my day, terrified of having to admit to anyone how correct the question was. 

My Undergraduate Degree: Withdrawal 

It was not until my Undergraduate that my OCD shifted for the worse. The repetitive phrases and routine door checks felt like nothing in comparison to the suffocating academic OCD that began to take shape in my head. I developed new compulsions; reading every academic article twice, mimicking how other people made notes, using the same fonts and page layouts, supressing any part of my personality that I feared would make me stand out and be different. 

I hated everything I produced, constantly terrified of being told that I had failed. 

Every sentence I tried to write was wrong. 

Every idea I had was foolish. 

I had always been my own worst critic, but being thrust into an intense academic environment piqued my own self-hatred. I left every single seminar and lecture to go to the bathroom to try and remember to breathe and to calm myself down. Whilst it may have worked momentarily, it was not a long-term solution. As the terms carried on, this was beginning to happen twice a lecture, then three times and so on. It reached the point in my final semester that I used to not attend lectures, not because I was hungover or too tired, but because I felt that I couldn’t breathe or think due to the pressure of trying to fit in and supress my worries. 

I look back to photos of myself at 18, 19 and I don’t even recognise who I am looking at. Pale, empty-eyed and forcing a smile, pretending that I wasn’t drowning in my own thoughts. ‘I’m fine’ I would say, ‘Just tired’ or ‘I’ve just got a lot of work on’. It became habitual to dismiss and ignore every feeling that I felt. 

And then Covid struck. 

Coping during the Pandemic

Covid-19 was the worst thing that could have happened for my OCD. 

As I’m sure many people can empathise with, being forced to sit day in day out with your own mental demons takes a toll. Entirely isolated from the world, it left a lot of time to lose myself within my own compulsive thoughts. 

I thought my head could not be any fuller, until I developed extreme health anxiety and new compulsions surrounding staying clean. 

Write a sentence. Delete it. Write a sentence. Delete it. Wash my hands. Wipe my desk. Panic. Write another sentence. Try again. 

That was my daily thought process. I watched others around me enjoy the separation from the world, with more time to watch films and relax whilst my mind was self-destructing. If I wasn’t worrying about if I had caught Covid, I was writing and rewriting essays until the last minute, with a mind-set that any time wasted would result in a poor mark that was my own fault. I rewrote one essay 18 times, believing that the more hours I put in, the better I would feel upon submitting it. 

I cried myself to sleep after nearly every submission, asking myself questions over and over again: “Did I put the correct student number? Did I go over the world limit? Did I answer the question correctly?”

I used to check my submitted documents every day until they were graded. It did not matter that I had never made a mistake when I submitted; the fear of it happening consumed me. 

The isolation enabled my OCD to worsen behind closed doors. Once my bedroom door was shut, nobody saw the worst parts of myself. The compulsions that were not ‘logical’, the habits I couldn’t break, the routines that felt necessary to allow me to breathe. If I kept them hidden, then nobody could judge me and I wouldn’t have to admit those three little letters that had followed me my whole life. 

Starting a PhD

I knew from a young age that I wanted to create a career in higher academia and when I was offered the chance to do a PhD it felt like my biggest dream had come true. I had the internal battle of whether to say ‘yes’ and complete my Doctorate, knowing the OCD that would accompany it, or say ‘no’ and never try. I opted for the former, once again naively hoping that with enough time it would go away by itself. I had four years’; surely by then I would no longer feel the same compulsions? 

In my mind, a PhD was a chance for independent research and self-discipline, so the frequent supervisory meetings and check-ins came as a large shock to the system. I felt under a microscope like never before. This was an area I chose and fought to write and research in, and yet, I was still terrified of finding my own academic voice. I tried to emulate other academics’ writing styles, or not write too controversially, in the hopes that I would not stand out. I dreaded supervisory meetings, knowing that my writing would be pulled apart and I would punish myself for every flaw they found with my work. 

Every part of my OCD worsened: I was barely writing my thesis, then panicking even more for the lack of work that I had actually done. My OCD about my health meant that I found it hard to even sit still and try to write. Days would pass by where all I had done was cry and hide myself away, punishing myself for how I felt. I realised that if nothing changed, I would not end up completing the PhD and I would never get to finish or publish in the area of research that I am so passionate about. 

Something had to change. 

What if?

I started therapy for my anxiety in 2023 and it took me around 4 sessions to even say the word OCD, let alone open up to the extent of the illness that I felt. 

It isn’t until I started unpacking all of my thoughts that I realised how many symptoms of OCD I had maintained and exercised in my life without even consciously knowing. I am aware how odd that may sound, but so many of these thoughts had been ingrained into my brain for over 20 years. It explained why everything I did was in groups of two, why I got dressed in a specific order, why change scared me so much and how I used to refuse to try new foods. 

Therapy was the first time that somebody had asked me if I understood that OCD was not a negative thing, but a mental illness that many people suffer from and can recover from. We discussed how my OCD was intertwined with my academic voice and experience, and how I felt limited in academia by this illness I was silently fighting. 

Whilst I have never struggled with public speaking, I had refrained from discussing my thesis research in an academic setting. One day I got an email from my supervisor asking me to come and present at the University on a part of my project. The fear of saying yes nearly suffocated me. I told my therapist and she asked me ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’. She didn’t say this to belittle my feelings, but as a genuine question of what why I was so terrified. I began listing; ‘What if I speak too fast, what if it isn’t interesting, what if I have to count on my fingers, what if’ and she stopped me there. 

“What if’ is the most powerful collection of words’ she said to me, ‘and if you let it, you will spend your whole life limited by two words’. I knew deep down I wanted to talk about my research and put myself out there to begin establishing myself in my field, but I had felt so consumed by my OCD and the thoughts of ‘what if’ that it had never before felt possible. 

I bit the bullet and I said yes. 

I was sick just before my presentation and I had to sit on my hands to stop them shaking. But I did it. Whilst my OCD didn’t magically disappear, that was the first time I felt I was standing up to it and challenging it. 

Conclusion 

Whilst I don’t feel I have completely overcome my OCD, that event was nearly a year ago and I have worked tirelessly to fight it every day. I have said yes to more research events, I have been controversial in my writing and academically argued for the things I believe in, despite it making me stand out. 

I still like the music volume at an even number. I still check the door is locked twice. However, I don’t rewrite everything multiple times. The fear of failure feels more manageable with every supervision meeting and I finally feel on a journey to not only admitting, but challenging my OCD. 

Write a sentence. Maybe delete it. Write a new sentence. Write the next sentence. 

That is my new routine. 

I haven’t fully disclosed my experiences with OCD to anyone before, and as cathartic as it feels to finally write it all, I have never felt more vulnerable. It is amazing the power that three letters can have on your life and your view on yourself. Whilst I have a long way to go before I feel I have fully conquered this mental illness, I finally feel that I can and will complete this PhD, creating a thesis full of my own thoughts, making my own mark on the world. 

None of this would be possible without taking that initial step and saying two crucial phrases: ‘I have OCD’ and ‘I need help’. I spent the majority of my life isolating myself and hiding my OCD for fear that I was ‘abnormal’. As soon as I raised this to my therapist she told me that nobody is ‘normal’. Everybody has parts of themselves that they love and parts that they wish to work on. OCD was mine. It was not something to ridicule or belittle, but acknowledge as a part of my mental health that I was determined to work on. 

I am not defined by my OCD but it is a part of me and my journey, and one that I will no longer conceal. 

Isabelle Berrow is a second year PhD student studying Feminist Greek Mythical Literature. She is an avid bookworm, and teaches English, alongside Law. Outside of work, Isabelle enjoys board games and puzzles, and loves to bake. 

This blog is kindly sponsored by G-Research.