Writer Rose Bretécher was plagued by constant sexual thoughts. Some days, she was unable to think about anything else.
“It was thousands of times a day,” she told The Guardian. “I had mental images of people having sex… of random flashes of penises, tits, vaginas, the works.
“The more I tried to get them out of my head the worse they became.”
She felt like she was going mad.
Bretécher, it was later discovered, was suffering from what the World Health Organisation has listed as one of the 10 most debilitating illnesses.
People who live with the condition have a 40 per cent chance of experiencing depression at some point in their lives, an over 60 per cent chance of experiencing suicidal ideation, and 25 per cent will make an attempt on their own life.
Bretécher was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
LISTEN: Lily Bailey speaks to Mia Freedman about what it’s like to live with OCD on No Filter. Post continues below.
She did not have the impulse to wash her hands 100 times a day, or check if the door was locked 47 times at night. Her work desk wasn’t immaculate. If you’d met her, you’d have had no idea she was living with OCD.
Our representation of OCD in popular culture is overly simplified and reductive. The characterisation of the quirky OCD “neat freak” who is a die hard germaphobe, has infiltrated our cultural lexicon.
Top Comments
A friend of mine suffers severely from OCD - his two biggest issues are being convinced when driving at night that every bump in the road he has hit someone. He has to pull over and go back to check there is no one on the road. Some nights a five minute drive from the train station to home can take him narly an hour. He also has problems with his toileting at times, if he doesn't follow a routine, or forgets a step he has to repeat everything, to the point his partner has to watch him actually go through the process. It's no way to live.