Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition characterised by symptoms like obsessive intrusive thoughts, repetitive behaviours, and compulsions. It is a multifaceted disorder that has affected the lives of many people, yet it continues to be heavily misrepresented.
Years ago, the phrase, “I’m so OCD”, was popular. People casually threw it into conversations to suggest they were neat or orderly. And while some people with OCD experience compulsions around cleanliness and organisation, that phrase trivialised the experiences of people whose symptoms have nothing to do with being neat. It also shaped how others perceive the disorder. So now, when someone with a diagnosis opens up, there’s a real chance they won’t be understood.
In this article, five Nigerian women open up about living with OCD symptoms and how it has shaped their lives.
1. “It’s like an annoying itch that just won’t go away” — Amina*, 21
All my life, my OCD has always been right here by my side. It’s like an annoying itch that just won’t go away. Between the ages of 6 and 12, I had a nightly ritual where I prayed for everyone I knew because my mind convinced me that if I didn’t, they would all die tragically.
At 13, it manifested through an obsession with washing dishes. In my final term in JSS 3, I got an illness that almost brought me to death’s door, and even though the home nurse had injected me with enough medications to knock me out for hours, I still dragged myself to the kitchen to take care of the dishes because my mind couldn’t stop obsessing over it.
I am turning 22 in a few months, and the obsession with washing dishes has not stopped. In fact, it has grown because now it’s not only the dishes I obsess over, but the entire kitchen. No one at home ever bothers about the state of the kitchen because they know that by the next morning, everything will be clean. I don’t even clean the other rooms in the house.
At 16, everything fell apart. Not only did I start dealing with intrusive thoughts that made me want to bury my face in my pillows and scream, but I also developed a new nightly ritual that involves me locking and relocking the entrance doors of the house until I feel satisfied. It was because of this that I unofficially became the house vigilante.
The intrusive thoughts come in two forms: violent or sexual. Once, during a conversation with a friend, my mind kept showing me a graphic image of me harming her. I’m sure I weirded her out when I told her.
The sexual thoughts usually involved family members, which scared me the most. In my teens, I was mean to my brother because joking around with him triggered intrusive sexual thoughts that terrified me to my core. I knew I would never act on them, but I still hated myself. These days, those thoughts hardly come, and I am very glad about that.
At 19, OCD began to manifest through counting. I count everything. If someone texts ‘heyyyy’, I count the ‘y’s, and if they are too many, I just delete the message because I’ll keep counting over and over again. If I’m watching a film and a character has too many buttons on their outfit, I rewind until I know the exact number. No one likes to watch anything with me because of this. And since I find it difficult to open up, I don’t bother explaining. Even if I tried, how do I explain OCD to people who don’t believe mental illnesses exist?
I know it gets worse because I’ve left it untreated. I’ve been diagnosed, but I haven’t explored treatment or medication. One day, I will. And I hope that when I finally commit to treating it, I’ll be free from its shackles.
2. “It has put me in very interesting romantic situations” — Adedoyin*, 22
My symptoms show up in my relationships and my excessive fear of being immoral or morally contaminated, but I believe the latter manifests more. I have a compulsion to do good, or only do right, for fear that doing otherwise will harm others. Honestly, it feels like I carry the weight of the world. I never want to hurt anyone, intentionally or by accident.
The other day, I had a cough, and when my friend asked to use my spoon, I let her. A few hours later, she started coughing, and I immediately felt responsible. I wanted to buy her medicine so I could right her system. The entire situation made me want to dig a hole and sit down inside. My rumination was centred around “I have caused harm. I should make sure I never do this again. Why was I not more careful? What if she had a weak immune system, and I’ve somehow made it worse?” and it made me want to vomit. It later turned out that she was coughing because of the palm oil I’d been heating. It was a humbling turn of events.
My OCD affects every relationship in my life. It has put me in very interesting romantic situations where I downplay my own hurt so the other person doesn’t feel bad.
Currently, I am not treating my OCD. I’ve met several therapists who practice Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and although they explained things well, my brain simply refused to listen. It started to feel like therapy was a waste of time because I already knew the methods, but knowing didn’t stop the compulsions.
3. “To me, OCD is simply controlling” — Kemisola*, 21
My OCD shows up through my obsession with washing my hands repeatedly. This is quite exhausting because anytime I come into contact with a surface that other people have touched, I immediately feel uncomfortable, and my mind would obsess over the possible germs until I finally get the chance to wash my hands. It has gotten so bad that I’ve had to deal with my hands peeling just from washing them so much.
It also shows up in how I arrange my belongings. They must be in a particular way; nothing must disrupt that arrangement, or else my mind would descend into chaos. This, in particular, affects my relationship with the people I live with. Despite knowing that people are different, I still expect them to arrange their belongings the way I would. To me, OCD is simply controlling. This constant obsession with keeping my things in symmetrical order, because I won’t rest if they aren’t, feels controlling.
I also check things repeatedly. I can get out of a car, lock it, and still walk back several times because my mind keeps ringing “What if you didn’t lock it well?” In cases like these, I am well aware that my mind is making me obsess over something I shouldn’t even be obsessing over, and yet, I keep checking until my mind stops ringing.
I haven’t gotten any treatment for my OCD, because I’m not very comfortable with opening up about it to people. There is this fear that they might never be able to comprehend it properly.
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4. “The thought of sending out pancakes that weren’t good enough gave me anxiety attacks” — Hauwa*, 23
My symptoms manifested through vegetables, but at the time, I didn’t know it was OCD.
In university, I started a pancake business, but I had a major problem. I wasn’t willing to send out any orders that weren’t perfect by my standards. It had to be in a perfect shape, a perfect box, and a perfect taste. Another major issue I faced was that I didn’t particularly care for pancakes, so I wasn’t sure what a perfect pancake should taste like.
The thought of sending out pancakes that weren’t good enough gave me anxiety attacks. To feel more in control, I decided to switch to something I could eat and taste. I moved from pancakes to rice dishes like fried rice, asun rice, and jollof rice. The fried rice ended up becoming a problem because of its vegetables. It started with ensuring the vegetables were cut to the same size. After that, it evolved into not letting anyone, but me, cut the vegetables, waking up at 2 am to cut vegetables for hours to make sure they were all equal, and calling my customers to ask if the vegetables were cut okay.
During that period, I refused to buy food or even eat outside. One day, I went to a friend’s place, and she had made fried rice. When she gave me a plate, I realised that the vegetables were cut randomly, and I felt my stomach drop. I started sweating nonstop, and I couldn’t focus. I was not proud of it, I took the rice to her room and cut the vegetables on my plate before I was finally able to eat. On that day, I stayed over at her house, but I was restless all night. I couldn’t sleep because all my mind kept obsessing over the rest of the rice in the pot. For some reason that was unknown to me, I kept thinking that if I didn’t cut the vegetables to an equal size, something would go wrong. Each time I tried to sleep, I’d have an anxiety attack over that, so, frustrated, I went to the kitchen and cut the vegetables. I literally picked everything out of the pot and cut it.
Eventually, I had to let my friends know what was going on, and one day, we all sat down to discuss it. It was then we realised that the stress of the business and my existing anxiety disorder probably triggered it, and I needed to stop the business. Stopping really helped me. Distancing myself from cooking and the business actually saved me from myself.
5. “No one is safe in my head, including my loved ones” — Damilola*, 23
Living with OCD scares me. It’s not just the compulsive urge to fix a random woman’s braids on a bus and I ruminate for hours if I don’t do it.
The intrusive, harmful thoughts are the worst. I remember one time in university when I glanced at my roommate watching a K-drama. She was lying on her bed, and I could only see her back, and in just that brief second, the thought that crossed my mind was “What if I just stab her with a pen?” You have to understand that these thoughts just come out of nowhere, and no one is safe in my head, including my loved ones.
While I’ve been trying my best to ensure I keep my intrusive thoughts in check, some compulsions still take over on a random day, and I find it hard to control them. Some of them include passing exactly through the middle of a beaded curtain or cleaning every single chair I’ve previously cleaned because my mind has convinced me that bad things would happen to people I love if I don’t.
For me, living with OCD can get mentally and emotionally exhausting, and when it comes to managing it, I usually just engage in a lot of mindfulness practices that I learned while growing up in my deeply spiritual family.
If you or someone you love is struggling with OCD, please ensure to reach out to qualified mental-health services like NDIDI!, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI), GraceHill Hospital, and Tranquil and Quest Nigeria.
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