EXCLUSIVE: 'I randomly got OCD in my room one day- it was absolutely petrifying'

Lucy Shiel, a young woman from Kilkenny, has described what it's like living with OCD and how she suddenly developed the disorder one random day in 2019.

OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder, and Lucy has described it in her own words, even though she said it is difficult to understand it if you don't actually have the disorder yourself.

"I remember there was a time I didn't have it...and I just don't think I would have been able to wrap my head around it....so I'm trying to articulate it in a way that maybe people would understand.

"So OCD... the primary catalyst for anything OCD is you experience an intrusive thought....so by the name, as it suggests, intrusive, these thoughts appear in your brain, you don't consciously choose to think them. It's almost as if your brain is being hijacked by like, some sadist that wants to see you suffer, just throws your worst fears at you, and things like that," she said.

"So you will get this intrusive thought, and you'll panic....and you'll wonder, what does it mean about you that you have the thought? And you'll perform some type of compulsive behaviour that and that could be mental or physical. And it could be absolutely anything.

"The cliche, like cleaning and stuff is one example.... It's just the only one that gets attention so then with the compulsive thoughts the spiral just keeps going.....then you do the compulsion, you get temporary relief, but then you will fall back into the obsession because it's all about doubt.....you're chasing certainty that doesn't exist.

Lucy was 19 when she first experienced OCD and she was just home from college at the time.

"It came on in an instant actually......it was absolutely petrifying.....I thought I was experiencing a psychotic break....my brain just, it just felt like it just broke.

"I thought I was being possessed or something crazy.....I just, I've never been so afraid in my life.....I really thought I was absolutely just after reaching insanity...and I was perfectly fine five minutes prior...it was very, very sudden."

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Lucy said that she had come back from an exam that didn't go too well.

"I laid down, and then I just suddenly was experiencing all these intrusive thoughts, and this panic... this kind of terror...like this sense of impending doom, and all of these crazy thoughts...and that was the beginning of it".

Lucy, being a psychology student, was very much of the belief to go get help immediately.

"So I contacted the college counsellor and started counselling pretty much straight away....unfortunately, the kind of thoughts that I was experiencing, these kind of dark and distressing thoughts, it wasn't really something that people were able to give me an answer about, either him or any other, and I've seen a lot of therapists.

"So I was trying to figure out what was going on with me....what happened and, you know, how can I get rid of it, essentially.....nobody really knew and I was receiving a lot of kind of blank stares and a lot of oh it's
probably just anxiety.

"I was just kind of chasing my tail, getting nowhere....I got insomnia....I stopped eating...I couldn't see anybody... I dropped out of college, just all of those good things.

Lucy then spent the following four years seeking help for her OCD and trying to find the answers that she needed.

"I just reached a breaking point then at the end of 2022 I went to A&E and I was just like I don't have the energy to fight
this anymore.

"I started taking medication from that night which I never wanted to do but I just didn't have the energy to fight it anymore...it was just....every day was just too hard...it was just all consuming.... I couldn't live a normal life".

Lucy said that started medication helped her OCD a lot and things started to get a bit better for her at this time.

"It's been two or three years maybe since I'm on the medication and I haven't had an episode as dark as I would have had prior to the medication.....I know that it won't work for everybody....I was lucky it worked for me.

Lucy said she would say to people who would have written off medication, to just reconsider because it is a tool to help people struggling with the disorder

"I don't feel like I've lost who I am...and it's just for people to consider it and not write it off, I would say."

Lucy described her OCD at mostly being mental and she said that from the outside looking in it wouldn't have really looked like there was anything going on with her.

She said she would constantly be seeking reassurance, she would go online and search things up on 
Google or TikTok to see has anybody ever had this particular thought before.

"And I would try and see, is this normal or am I insane? But no matter what I read, I would always be like, oh, no, they didn't have it in the exact same way that I had it, so I am insane.

"I would do a lot of mental reviewing....so I would fight with the thought that's a compulsion....if you say to the thought no that's not true....that's a compulsion because you can't react to the thought....it only makes it grow....it only makes it stronger, its presence...

She said that another compulsion can also be oversharing about your trauma because you're hoping somebody will say, oh, that happened to me, and then you won't feel so isolated.

Lucy said that when she was at her worst she started to develop tics.

"So I would shake my head in response to a disturbing thought or maybe I would say no out loud....that didn't go well for me in public.....

Lucy said that she stopped searching for the reason why her OCD came about, instead she now advocates to help and educate people on the disorder on TikTok.

"Overall...I'm like 90% better and I'm doing well....but there are still things that if I get a bad thought that I really don't like... I still will shake my head in the car or I will still go to look something up online impulsively.

"There are still little behaviours that creep in if you kind of keep it unchecked and I would like to do some ERP, but it's basically impossible to find anybody in Ireland that does it or a therapist that understands OCD....so, that's been a challenge".

ERP is exposure response therapy and Lucy and other people that have reached out to her are yet to find this kind of therapy in Ireland.

"It would be the gold standard treatment for OCD....so, the exposure would be, you would say to the therapist, I'm having this thought about drowning my cat and my compulsion is I'm avoiding my cat because I'm afraid if I'm near my cat, I'll lose
control and drown my cat.

"So, the therapist would then basically guide you through getting rid of the compulsive behaviour....so, he might say okay so you have to spend five minutes sitting right beside your cat and you need to get a basin of water and put that on the ground and you need to sit there....It's kind of torturous because it's not going to be comfortable but the point of it is to train
yourself to detach from these thoughts and realise that they don't actually have control and that you're still in control even if they're really loud and really persistent".

Lucy's TikTok account has sparked conversation and has created a community who can come together and share their experiences, worries and thoughts around having OCD.

"I put up a video the other day.... it sparked a lot of people commenting their experiences.....It was about the misrepresentation of OCD....people were being like, oh my gosh, yeah, I've had this experience and that experience.....people have gone to their GP with, say, intrusive thoughts and their GP has sectioned them or has thrown anti-psychotic sentiments and said, you will act on your thoughts....you need to get this sorted immediately or they will say, sorry, we're not dealing
with that....we don't deal with mental health or they'll say it's just anxiety or they'll say you're just being dramatic.

"The list goes on....GPs are not, as a whole, very informed about OCD, but you have to go to them in order to be referred to a psychiatrist, so it's like a blockage".

A piece of advice Lucy has given to others with OCD is to advocate for yourself.

"Don't take no for an answer because to be honest, they don't know everything.....If there's something going on with you, you
know yourself best.

"So knowledge is power when it comes to OCD.....so the more people know about it, the more that they can actually get into a state of recovery....whether that be they want to go the meditation route or they just want to learn more about
it, they just need to do that".