Maybe the way to handle some neuroses is to channel them. I was thinking that this morning as I passed a woman wearing a gorgeous patterned skirt. I smiled at her and then my OCD brain kicked into gear and mentally tidied it. Same thing happens when I see stripes. I want to scoop them up and tie them together. But perhaps that excess stress and energy  could be used for good. Instead of alphabeticising soups, I could save the whales. Sort out the recession. Or at a pinch, help a friend sort out some boxes. Our brains are amazing things. ... Read More

Just back from an exhibition entitled ‘Compulsive, Obsessive, Repetitive’. Mountains of sugar-cubes, shaped like a castle.  A city of towering till-rolls (pictured). Walls covered with the same salmon-skin tiles.  Hours and hours of painstaking, boring and repetitive work. Viewed up close, it looks haphazard, senseless.  Yet from a distance, it begins to make sense. One scrap of paper on its own is litter.  But hundreds of pieces, hung together just so – and you’re looking at something else – something ... Read More

Imagine feeling so dirty that you spent up to 20 hours a day in the shower, obsessively scrubbing until the water ran red. This was a typical day for Samatha Hancox, a 40 year-old woman who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive  Disorder and died last May.  Her story is in the papers because her parents were on trial for manslaughter, but were cleared of charges after she was found to have died of dehydration and skin infection. Samantha’s condition was triggered at the age of 10 when her grandmother died.  By age 14 she had to leave school ... Read More

When thinking about mental health problems it helps to think of ourselves all on the same spectrum. So, for instance, you might think of self-harm as ‘really weird’.  Maybe it’s a way of thinking and acting that seems completely alien to you.  But as we’ve talked about before, isn’t ‘I’m an idiot!’ self-talk a kind of self-harm? And what about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?  Is that just for nut-bars, or might there be a teensy bit of OCD in you too? I think the gap between ... Read More