ALED:I believe we've got someone calling through now, let's go to line one. Line one. Hello, what's your name?
JOE:Hello, my name is Joe.
ALED:Hello Joe, what's on your mind?
JOE:I'm calling up to talk about OCD.
ALED:Describe OCD.
JOE:Well OCD is when you have obsessive thoughts, and they lead to compulsive behaviour. They make you do things and those things start to disorder your life. That's what OCD is. There was a bully, and whatever OCD told me to do I had to do it in that way.
ALED:So how did it start? What kind of things did you start doing?
JOE:When I was about eight, nine years old, we were given very frightening drugs talks at school. And I remember going home and being terrified of solvents. I had these worries about the solvents in paint or on varnish on the tables, so I had to then wash my hands lots. But it became a big problem. If I touched anything which I thought could have something poisonous, or could in some way could contaminate me, I'd have to immediately go and wash my hands.
ALED:So Joe, paint a picture for us of what you went through when you went through one of these things.
JOE:I remember being given a sort of origami thing from another student, and they had drawn on it. I was afraid that some of the inks would get into my fingers, and I was in a lesson so I couldn't go and wash my hands. And I just became so incredibly anxious about the fact that I had touched this thing. I completely shut down and I couldn't function.
ALED:Were there any other symptoms that started from this?
The age of 11 or 12, there was quite a big shift into different types of obsessive thoughts and behaviour. I had a sort of a religious background so I think that because I was very worried about offending God, and I'd try not to have the thought that I wanted a family member to die unless I tapped an object five times. And if you try not to think simple thoughts or thoughts that are about harm coming to people you care about, then those thoughts can truthfully come in. So it was about poisoning and the tapping, it was like two waves.
ALED:So Joe, you're saying if you had a bad thought, then you tapping something would, what, stop that?
JOE:Yeah, well for example when I left the classroom I would have to tap every surface on the desk in a sort of specific sequence. Which for a lot of the time, the sequence was 5, then 7, then 5, then 10. Then 5, then 7, then 5. So I'd strum like that for 5 and then 5, 6, 7, 5, 5, 10, 5, 5, 6, 7, 5. It worked out that I would have to tap the desk 440 times before I left the classroom. If I wasn't sure about exactly how well I'd tapped it, I'd have to start the ritual again. So the 440 for one desk is very much a minimum count, but I was doing it all the time, this was like more than a full time job for me. And even in my dreams, in my dreams I'd have OCD.
ALED:What did your family say about what you were going through?
JOE:It was very difficult with them because I wouldn't engage with it at all. The only thing worse than having OCD, was the idea of telling people about these things. If they asked me why I did it, I would just deny that I did it at all and just wouldn't have-- I'd just refuse to have a conversation about it. The most important thing was always, do the sequence properly, that was more important than upsetting my parents.
ALED:So did you-- presumably you saw someone about it? How did that come about, and who was it you saw?
JOE:Doing all those rituals right was at the cost of having friendships and doing things that really I wanted to do. I compromised so much that I realised that I had to do something about it, and I agreed to go to therapy. Treatment was a lot of work, but it's so worth it and I'm so glad that I underwent to those treatments. When I was first diagnosed, that was just such a revelation for me because I assumed that it was just me going mad, and that I was the only one that was like this. Knowing that this is a common illness gave me hope.
ALED:Do you remember any moments that might suggest you were getting through it and there might be light at the end of the tunnel?
JOE:One of the challenges was to throw rubbish away without doing the tapping rituals on the rubbish. But I'd have to completely go against my fears, and I remember throwing some bottles away into the recycling bin, and I didn't tap it. In the past I would have taken the bottle out and made sure that I'd done the ritual properly. Even though I still had a long way to go, I think then I realised that things were going to get better.
ALED:So how are you now then? Is it something you can be cured of or is it something you've got to manage?
JOE:I don't think the word cured is appropriate, but I think that point is that OCD used to have control over me, and now I have control over the OCD, and it never stops me from doing the things that I want to do. So I think if you mean cured in that sense, then yeah I have control over my OCD, so it doesn't stop me from doing what I want to do.
ALED:So Joe, thank you very much for your call, hopefully a lot of people who are listening to this, that might be able to identify with what you're saying, will know what to do, and hopefully you've helped a lot of people. Thanks a lot.
JOE:Thanks a lot, great to speak to you.
ALED:And you, bye.
A teenage boy called Joe is interviewed by BBC radio presenter Aled Haydn Jones.
He describes his experiences of obsessive compulsive disorder and how he has dealt with it.
The radio show is fictional, but the caller and his experiences are real.
Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, teacher viewing is recommended before watching with your students.
This clip is from the series Coping.
Teacher Notes
Students could create an awareness poster in groups, explaining to the general public what obsessive compulsive disorder is and what forms it could take.
The poster should also highlight what sort of help a person should try to seek if they think they have this disorder and where this help can be obtained.
Curriculum Notes
This clip is relevant for teaching Modern Studies and PSHE and Citizenship, in particular for Healthy Lifestyles and Mental and Emotional Health, at GCSE and National 4/5 level (Scotland).
