Tag: OCD

The Mask by Anonymous

ADMIN

I am a flawed, ambitious, and entirely ordinary human who wears a mask daily at work. 

I put the mask on as I get into my car to drive to work or social engagements, and I take it off as I walk through the front door of my home. It is not a deliberate costume that I don and remove, akin to a Jane Austen period drama. Instead, it is a learned psychological survival mechanism that I have been employing for as long as I can remember, to the extent that I have lost track of when it is on, its appearance, or its functionality. It has become an integral part of my being. 

I am neurodivergent, I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and I have a life-limiting, incurable autoimmune illness. Very few people know this because I wear a mask of a neurotypical, mentally and physically healthy person. 

And it’s exhausting. 

The mask saps my energy, my spirit, my cognitive processing ability. 

Unlike the notion of “I need a nap,” which may seem relatively manageable, the exhaustion experienced when one has depleted all cognitive space to engage in conversations with one’s spouse and child at the end of the day feels more profound. In this blog I’ll talk about my experiences living with these illnesses and their impact on my life and career to date.

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Doing a PhD with OCD by Isabelle Berrow 

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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. 

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Learning to Accept Your Own Mental Illness by Lucy Arkinstall

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For as long as I can remember I have always been a worrier; however, when I left the family home in the summer of 2012 to go to university, I do not think anybody (including myself) realised quite how difficult it would be. I suddenly went from being surrounded by a large support network whom I had shared all my worries with to being alone and bottling-up all my thoughts. This, alongside a doubt about whether I was good enough to be at university, led me to obsessively throw myself into my studies, an obsession which soon became out of control. Family members became increasingly concerned and eventually convinced me to reach out for help from the University Wellbeing Service.

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The Gremlin and the Superpower: How OCD has Shaped my Academic Journey by Simon Fox

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 It wasn’t until a friend died that I suddenly realised time was precious. Through the grief, a transformative experience occurred within me. In my mid-thirties, I flung myself back into education at undergraduate level to pursue a new career in healthcare. I relished every opportunity and for the first time in my life, I felt that I had direction. More than that, I had a purpose. 

However, I was acutely aware that there was still something missing. I knew that deep within me, there was a piece of the jigsaw in my psyche that didn’t quite make sense. The more I looked for it, the more it would hide, like trying to remember a dream when you wake. There were vivid flashes, but it quickly slipped away. That was until my undergraduate final examinations. 

If you had asked me then, I would have said everything was fine. My grades were great, I had made friends on my course, and yes, that purpose in life that had been missing before was now burning brightly. That was when things began to happen that I couldn’t explain. There were missed instructions for assignments, despite my diligent attention. Conversations began to play on a constant loop in my mind. I would show up for seminars early and I couldn’t understand why no one else was quite as eager as me. Yet, I was going to the gym more than ever and I was on the verge of an exciting new career. How could anything be wrong with me?

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