Jack Pridmore
I suffer from the much misunderstood 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'. It had affected my life so much that I knew I needed things to change. So in April, I joined five other young people aged 17-23, all of whom suffer from OCD, to set off for Seattle, USA, for a treatment camp in the vast and beautiful mountains of Washington State.
Having never met, we were thrust together at dinner the evening before our flight. Nerves and anticipation were understandably rife as we shared stories of the harsh realities of our condition and bonded over common experiences.
We were due to undertake a treatment known as Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy (ERP), which challenged us to 'face our fears'. As someone suffering strongly with contamination OCD, which limits what I can touch, eat and drink, it results in an obsessive need to wash my hands, body and possessions. I knew my 'exposures' would centre around germs; I'd have to touch things that I have an unrelenting fear of contacting, putting myself out of my comfort zone, into the unknown and exposing myself emotionally and physically to a hell of a lot of things that I have an obsessive fear about harming me and those around me.
Others in the group suffered from different (and sometimes very similar) forms of OCD and the treatment was tailored to each need. We would face up to the fear and then aim to prevent our regular response or ‘rituals’, as they are known. So I would need to touch things and then not wash my hands and try and wait until the panic, terror, impending doom feeling and the other negative feelings would subside, or lessen. I was retraining my body to deal with these issues.
The trip and treatment, designed to bring us into accepting the unknown, really made us have to do just that. We split our time between our shared lodge, scaling a high ropes course and literally facing fears head on: hiking the incredible Seattle Mountain Cascades, avoiding spiders, snakes, bears, illness, injury and fear in the truly great outdoors and even sleeping mostly unprotected under the stars every night.
OCD is a lifelong battle, but I managed to meet five incredible people to fight this with. I learnt so much about my condition; I gained some huge life lessons, built confidence, scared myself on a nearly hourly basis and at the end of the trip came back a better person than when I left. I'll never be able to eloquently do justice to this overwhelming and truly 'once-in-a-lifetime' experience I had, but I’m now taking my first big steps into standing up to my OCD and saying 'enough is enough'.
