The toothbrush handling would later become known as one of Elena’s ritualistic OCD behaviours (also called compulsions) \u2014 repetitive, time-consuming actions performed to temporarily reduce the anxiety of obsessive thoughts.<\/p>\n
For Elena, 18, often these obsessive thoughts revolve around a sense of impending doom or the feeling that “spiritual disaster” could follow if the compulsions are not performed correctly.<\/p>\n
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Elena says seeking help was a turning point in how she dealt with her OCD. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n
OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) affects about 3 per cent of Australians each year, but its nature is often misunderstood.<\/p>\n
Diagnosis can take on average nine years, says Lara Farrell, a clinical psychologist and the director for the Centre for Mental Health at Griffith University.<\/p>\n
The reasons are complex.<\/p>\n
People with OCD can be adept at hiding symptoms and often the condition appears alongside other anxiety disorders or depression.<\/p>\n
Teen’s OCD and austism diagnosis a lifechanging moment<\/a><\/p>\n Geordie spent two years unable to attend school as he dealt with undiagnosed OCD and autism. He said his diagnoses changed his life for the better.<\/p>\n A person with OCD can also avoid diagnosis due to stigma, Professor Farrell says.<\/p>\n “Often there’s an awful lot of embarrassment or shame around symptoms that are really distressing, obsessions that people feel really uncomfortable telling others that they might be experiencing,” she says.<\/p>\n For Elena, the disorder was triggered at 12 by the traumatic death of a duckling she was caring for.<\/p>\n Embarrassment and grief kept her from fully explaining her symptoms, which saw her condition initially misdiagnosed.<\/p>\n “I’ve got a lovely GP \u2026 I have a lot of trust in her, but still it was really difficult for me to talk about,” she says.<\/p>\n Elena struggled to tell anyone the full story, even her psychologist.<\/p>\n It was a You Can’t Ask That<\/a> episode on lived experience that eventually named what Elena had been feeling.<\/p>\n “It really helped me realise that there is actually a name for what I was going through and I’m not crazy.”<\/p>\n ‘I’m so OCD’: Debunking misconceptions<\/p>\n OCD is often the punchline to a joke about an overly clean or fussy person.<\/p>\n It is a reputation that dismisses the severity.<\/p>\n OCD is often downplayed as excessive cleanliness. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Jessica Hinchliffe)<\/p>\n “One of the greatest misconceptions is that a lot of people experience some OCD,” Professor Farrell says.<\/p>\n “A common term of phrase is, ‘That’s just my OCD,’ or, ‘I’m so OCD at times.’<\/p>\n “Clinical OCD is very different from \u2026 healthy rituals that people might engage in out of choice and preference or a drive for having things orderly or clean or tidy.”<\/p>\n “[OCD symptoms] disrupt a person’s day-to-day life and cause an enormous amount of struggle individually and amongst families.”<\/p>\n At Elena’s worst \u2014 when depression and OCD were feeding into each other \u2014 she would be up all night, tapping her feet on the stairs.<\/p>\n “It would be like 12:30\u20131 in the morning, my parents were asleep, and I’m still at the bottom of the steps,” she recalls.<\/p>\n “And I’m in tears doing it over and over and over again.”<\/p>\n Colour coordinating is another potentially limiting misconception of OCD. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Jessica Hinchliffe)<\/p>\n It was not something as simple as colour-coordinating pens.<\/p>\n “For me, in year seven, it was one of the worst things I’ve experienced in my whole life.”Improving detection across Australia<\/p>\n Professor Farrell believes better training could improve OCD detection across Australia.<\/p>\n Assessment needs to focus on normalising symptoms, she says.<\/p>\n From March 1, she will be part of a nationwide trial offering web-based training for parents treating OCD at home, with a focus on exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP).<\/p>\n Murder, sex, blasphemy: The true face of OCD<\/a><\/p>\n I was about to perform at the Sydney Opera House, but all I could think about was\u00a0the excruciating possibility that I might like the taste of human flesh. This is what OCD really feels like.<\/p>\n Exposure and response prevention therapy, where people with OCD are confronted with their fears in a safe environment, yields good outcomes and recovery for the majority of OCD patients, she says.<\/p>\n Despite this, a reputation persists that OCD is untreatable.<\/p>\n “We’re talking to families from all over the country and some of them have seen so many different psychologists,” Professor Farrell says.<\/p>\n “So many of them believe that this is a condition that their child will have forever.<\/p>\n “I think it is really important that we do a better job of conveying that OCD is a treatable condition.<\/p>\n “It’s really serious. It doesn’t just go away, but there are effective treatments that result in recovery.” Elena says therapy has helped her ignore some of her ritualistic behaviours. (ABC News: Leah White)<\/p>\n Elena credits the form of therapy for her own progress.<\/p>\n “It’s so much better now, not thinking a plane is going to crash because I didn’t do a little tap dance before bed,” she says.<\/p>\n It is something Elena wants people isolated by OCD to know.<\/p>\n “You’re not alone,” she says.<\/p>\n “And you don’t have to feel embarrassed or ashamed about it.”So, how well do you know OCD?Loading![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/9a72100c8684772033899c012947454b.jpeg\")
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