Best-selling author reveals battle with OCD
Your brain struggles to accept what the eye can see
After suffering with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for 20 years, best-selling author and journalist Bryony Gordon joins Lorraine to open up about her illness and discuss her new book, Mad Girl.
Mad Girl chronicles Gordon's journey from first showing signs of OCD at age 12, to being diagnosed at 17, to finally receiving the correct treatment for her illness at 34.
A journalist since the age of 19, it was only last year that Gordon wrote about her OCD for the first time. In the book, Gordon documents her personal struggles, including her battle with addiction and an eating disorder, and she stresses the importance of getting the right help.
OCD is an often-debilitating condition that causes sufferers to have intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that they try to calm with certain rituals (compulsions)
Most sufferers are actually aware that their fears and behaviour are irrational but feel unable to control them due to the overwhelming anxiety and perceived fear of harm coming to loved ones
OCD is thought to affect 12 in every 1000 people
It's estimated 741,504 people are living with OCD at any one time in the UK
World Health Organisation (WHO) ranks OCD in the top ten of the most disabling illnesses of any kind, in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life
Facts taken from OCD-UK website
NB: Mad Girl is out now