Last year, Alex Sergent trapped himself in his room for nearly a week. “I crawled into a little ball and hid myself away from the world,” the 39-year-old says. “I was questioning everything over and over in my life, talking to myself. I neglected to shower and I wasn’t sleeping - because my mind wouldn’t stop. I was physically shaking. It was hell.”
Alex had suffered from undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder since he was 20 when he was in his first year at university. Like many, he had managed his mental illness in his 20s by distracting himself with a busy social life, hobbies, sport and work. But after a devastating four-year period in which he lost his mum, his dad and his sister, his OCD went into overdrive and triggered the onset of what he describes as an “existential crisis”.
“I had tried to combat the grief by throwing myself into work and putting on a ‘brave’ act, but when my work became stressful last year, it all caught up with me and I was left with the thoughts in my head, which completely paralysed my life.”
In November 2022, after three months of struggling every day, Alex started hurting himself. “I knew I’d crossed a line and something went off in my head,” he says. “I was punching my legs out of anger that I couldn’t escape my thoughts. I needed help.”
Fortunately, Alex had the support of his wife, a psychotherapist, who took him to the GP where he was assessed, then referred to weekly therapy sessions and prescribed medication for OCD. He is now in recovery, but doesn’t shy away from his experience - instead, he’s using it to rebuild his life. “I never want to go back to that time again,” Alex says. “I wasn’t suicidal, but I can see how that would happen if you didn’t have the support I did.”
It’s estimated that about 12 in every 1000 people in the UK are affected by OCD.
Yet it’s predicted that the real numbers of sufferers are even higher due to undiagnosed cases and a lot of confusion about the condition. In an upcoming Netflix documentary about David Beckham’s personal life, the 48-year-old star talks about his “tiring” OCD, which sees him spending hours cleaning the house after his family has gone to bed.
Although problems can present themselves at any age, symptoms generally first appear in late adolescence for men and the early 20s for women.
According to the mental health charity Mind, OCD is about obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are unwelcome thoughts, images, urges, worries or doubts that repeatedly appear in your mind. Some of the most common obsessions are checking doors are locked, irons are switched off or fears of contamination. Other people feel an excessive responsibility for preventing harm and another group have unacceptable intrusive thoughts about sex, violence or religion, while others are focused on order and repeating actions. All of these can bring on severe anxiety or “mental discomfort”.
The compulsion part happens when the anxiety drives you to carry out repetitive actions to reduce the feelings of fear or worry. So excessive hand washing occurs to repress the fear of germs, and tidying up and having a strong sense of order can help people avoid feeling overwhelmed.
David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and Nightingale Hospital and visiting professor at King’s College London, explains: “A very annoying phrase to the OCD community is to claim ‘I’m a bit OCD’, but OCD is not a character trait. It is a nasty, distressing, harmful condition. Being precise, tidy, ordered, or even ‘a bit of a perfectionist’ are (depending on your point of view) useful or annoying character traits; they do not amount to OCD.”
In the early days of his OCD, Alex was a compulsive note-maker and checker. “It was a to-do list to the extreme. The thoughts were never-ending and I was obsessed with attention to detail. The checking got worse when I had a smartphone and I could input notes and calendar entries. I was locked in this torturous, repetitive cycle of incessant thoughts. I felt like I was losing my mind.”
OCD is not a character trait. It is a nasty, distressing, harmful condition.
Evidence indicates boys are more prone to developing OCD at a young age. Veale says: “The earliest age recorded in literature is four or five. This strongly suggests that there’s a more biological element to it - a predisposition through genetics and chemicals in the brain. But there’s not enough research to prove it’s simply a neurological illness. There are usually other problems such as depression, anxiety, autistic spectrum disorder or an eating disorder.”
Aron Bennett, 37, is a former OCD sufferer who used to wash his hands up to 30 times a day as a 10-year-old. Despite family therapy in his childhood, he found his mental health problems morphed into “pure OCD”, where thoughts are obsessive with no external compulsions. In his first year at university, ruminations of inappropriate sexual intrusion bombarded Aron’s life.
“The intrusive thoughts made me feel so anxious, guilty and disturbed,” he says. “I felt morally bad all the time and couldn’t move forwards due to the debilitating anxiety. I might have inadvertently looked at someone’s crotch for a microsecond, which would trigger questions like, ‘Why did I look at their crotch? Does that mean I was perving on them? Or was it just a random rapid eye movement?’ Then I’d be googling saccadic eye movements and how to control them. The distress would go on all afternoon.”
Aron, who is a former trustee at OCD Action and a support group volunteer, says his diagnosis by his GP in his final year was pivotal. “When I confided in a female friend, she pointed out that my anxious reaction to the thoughts might be the problem, rather than the thoughts themselves. It was empowering to hear from the doctor that I had a recognised illness that I could get treatment for, rather than feel like I was morally ‘bad’.”
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a talking therapy used to treat OCD. It took Aron 12 years of CBT and a prescription of sertraline, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) anti-depressant medication to help him recover, as well as attending support groups.
Psychotherapist Somia Zaman, a BABCP-accredited cognitive behaviour therapist, says: “How we think impacts how we feel and then what we do. CBT treatment of OCD also helps people to learn about anxiety and the physiology of anxiety, which can help people learn how to be more in control of it.”
Controlling anxiety is key to stopping OCD from becoming a psychological burden. Alex describes the mental fatigue as like having “two brains” operating at once. “You have one brain dealing with present life and thoughts, and then another brain, which plays out OCD thoughts. That brain is loud, and the nagging is incessant. It takes all your energy, it’s exhausting. You’re doing everything you can to lay the OCD to rest and lose the overwhelming thoughts. You’re desperate to get the one brain back up and running, so you can live in the now and relax.”
That brain is loud, and the nagging is incessant.
As with many sufferers, Aron’s intrusive OCD actually forced him to change his career path in law to his current job as a technology specialist. And like Alex, an entertainment tech entrepreneur, it also interfered for a while with him having successful relationships, although Aron is currently in a long-term relationship and Alex has been married for eight years.
“I can still have intrusive thoughts in my relationship,” Aron says. “It’s usually about consent - whether to initiate intimacy in case that’s unwelcomed. That would make me feel like a bad person.”
That said, he’s now leading a very different life, helped by CBT and SSRI anti-depressants. Alex’s treatment for his 20-year OCD journey has been similar. However, in addition to the CBT and SSRI, he’s also adopted meditation practices and CBD when he feels OCD tendencies coming on. Although Alex does admit that he’s never had a formal diagnosis, partly to avoid the stigma. “It was a personal choice. I found it took too long, too much red tape and I had started a road to recovery,” he explains. “I understand why some need the diagnosis to help them understand things more clearly and access treatment, but it was my choice not to.”
Could the stigma around mental health mean many don’t get the right help? “I think a lot of men struggle with who they should be or how they should act in modern society - especially when it comes to emotions,” says Alex. “I can imagine this does have an impact on who seeks treatment or help for OCD. I am definitely here to raise awareness of this terrible condition as I would hate anyone to suffer the way I did.”
What to do if you think you’re suffering from OCD
- The first step is to see your GP.
- The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – the organisation that produces guidelines on best practice in healthcare – suggests that treatment for OCD should include therapy and medication.
- Talking therapies include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (focusing on thoughts and feelings), Exposure and Response Prevention (involves confronting your fears to solve the OCD) and Cognitive Therapy (looks at ways of changing negative feelings).
- You may also be offered medication by your GP alongside therapy. Typically anti-depressants are prescribed, but sometimes different medications are trialled to find the best fit.
- Try to build up a support network so you can talk about your OCD with people you trust. - Tips from mind.org.uk
Where to get help now
• Lifeline: Call 0800 543 354 or text 4357 (HELP) (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
• Youth services: (06) 3555 906
• Youthline: Call 0800 376 633 or text 234
• What’s Up: Call 0800 942 8787 (11am to 11pm) or webchat (11am to 10.30pm)
• Depression helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
• Helpline: Need to talk? Call or text 1737
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.