FaceTiming her mum while on a date to check her bedroom door is closed, spending two hours in the shower, driving around roundabouts numerous times, and watching the same video on her phone for 14 hours – these are just some of the “rituals” Emily Newcombe performs as someone with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
The 32-year-old, from Barnsley, says she believes she has suffered from the condition since childhood, but was only officially diagnosed with OCD two years ago.
Following that diagnosis, she says she now wants to raise awareness of the condition and the challenges it poses on a daily basis so people better understand the problems she and others like her face.
Newcombe says that one of her earliest memories is of a Christmas Day as a young girl, during which she spent hours in her bedroom straightening her duvet and dolls.
When a family member impatiently threw off the duvet she says she became “hysterical” for the rest of the day.
Newcombe recalls that in later years, friends at school found it “strange” when she spent her lunchtime lining up planners and bags in a symmetrical line.
Meanwhile, relationships with partners broke down when the “masking” – hiding the disorder – became too much.
“I kept it from them. I remember going on dates and lining up drinks at a bar when they went to the toilet and not being able to physically sit down at a table without straightening it,” she says.
“I think it was shame really. An embarrassment. I didn’t really want them to know I was suffering,” she says.