26/03/2020
HUFFPOST - PERSONAL (Online)
This Is What It’s Like To Have OCD During The Coronavirus Pandemic
“In the same way that people with underlying medical conditions are more susceptible to ... the coronavirus, so too will people with poor mental health struggle to cope.”
While I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, I’m not a compulsive hand-washer.
In fact, I’ve been quite militant at ensuring people don’t stereotype OCD as the hand-washing, lining-things-up-neatly, perfectionist’s disease.
I do have some slightly heightened fears around germs and contamination but they’re by no means debilitating. My own personal brand of OCD is more concerned with other “risks.” For me, I feel both constantly anxious about something “bad” happening to my family as well as deeply responsible for that. Over the years, this has translated to a variety of compulsions from attempting to travel everywhere my parents did to ritualistic daily prayers or counting under my breath.
That said, as news coverage of the coronavirus began to escalate, within a few days of the media starting to really push the “wash your hands” message, I noticed that while my husband’s hands still resembled those of a normal person, mine were red, raw and cracking. They stung when I applied hand sanitizer and little cuts were appearing all along the knuckles.
