Obsessive compulsive disorder is one of those things that people often joke about.
Like, “You should see her desk at work; she’s totally OCD”. Or “I eat the same breakfast every day because I’m OCD.”
Actual OCD is very different. It can derail and even destroy your life. That’s very nearly what happened to 23-year-old old model Lily Bailey. Hers manifested as a voice in her head when she was a child. She became convinced that she did horrible things that people noticed; convinced she had killed someone with a thought, and she would spend hours compiling lists of her imagined wrongdoings each day.
When she was certain her parents had fallen asleep, the little girl would begin climbing up and down the stairs until her feet ached, or saying a sequence of letters over and over again, or tip toeing into her sister’s room to lay her ear against her sister’s chest to listen for her heartbeat.
Lily concealed it all from her parents, and her friends until she couldn’t anymore.
Lily wants to help others who have OCD, and to help those of us who don’t to better understand it.
