About Orchard OCD

In this week's blog, Hussain shares his OCD story:For years, I didn’t know I had OCD.I just thought something was deeply wrong with me.My mind produced thoughts I was terrified of—violent, disturbing, blasphemous thoughts that went completely against who I was. They felt intrusive, unwanted, and cruel. The worst part wasn’t the thoughts themselves, but what OCD told me those thoughts meant.It said they revealed my true character.It said I was dangerous.It said I was one mistake away from ruining everything.So I tried to control my mind.I monitored every thought.I checked my intentions constantly.I replayed moments in my head, searching for certainty that I hadn’t done something wrong.I didn’t realize I was feeding OCD the entire time.When Fear Followed Me Everywhere One of the most exhausting themes OCD attached itself to was the fear of harming someone.If I drove over a bump in the road, my heart would drop. My mind instantly told me I had hit someone. I would replay the drive over and over, scan my memory, check my emotions, even look for reassurance in my surroundings. No amount of logic helped. OCD always found another “what if.”There were days I felt trapped inside my own head, unable to trust my senses, my memory, or myself.At other times, OCD targeted my faith.I experienced religious scrupulosity that made me afraid of my own thoughts during prayer. I felt intense guilt for things I never chose to think. I tried to suppress thoughts, neutralize them, or punish myself mentally for having them.It was exhausting. And incredibly lonely.From the outside, I looked normal.Inside, I was constantly at war.The Shift That Changed EverythingThings didn’t change because I found the “right” reassurance or finally proved my fears wrong.They changed when I began to understand OCD.I learned that intrusive thoughts are not intentions.That anxiety is not evidence.That OCD survives on checking, reassurance, and mental rituals.The hardest lesson was this: I didn’t need certainty to move forward.I slowly learned to stop engaging with the thoughts. To let them exist without arguing, analyzing, or fixing them. At first, this felt terrifying—like giving up control. But over time, something surprising happened.The thoughts lost their power.Not because they disappeared, but because I stopped treating them as meaningful.Why I Share My Story I share my story because I know how convincing OCD can be when you’re in it.I know how real the fear feels.I know how much shame can come with thoughts you’d never choose.And I know how hard it is to explain OCD to someone who hasn’t lived it.That’s why I created The Struggling Warrior — a space where OCD is talked about honestly, without sugarcoating or stereotypes. On my website, I share personal stories, educational articles, and recovery-focused tools built from both lived experience and evidence-based therapy approaches.Writing became a way for me to make sense of what I went through—and to help others feel less alone. You can find more of my work, resources, and ongoing projects at https://thestrugglingwarrior.com/ If You’re Reading This and Struggling If OCD has convinced you that your thoughts define you, please hear this:They don’t.OCD attacks what you care about most.It thrives on doubt, guilt, and fear.And it can make even the strongest person feel broken.You are not broken.Recovery isn’t about becoming your old self again. It’s about learning how to live fully—even with uncertainty—and realizing you were never the problem in the first place.If my story helps even one person feel understood, then sharing it is worth it.

We are happy to introduce you all to our new member of staff, Ana Maria! Ana Maria has just started working for Orchard OCD as Fundraising and Communications Officer. She will liaise with partners, donors, and collaborators, and help disseminate Orchard's work, so that more people can access ground-breaking research. In this week’s blog, we learn more about Ana Maria and the work she will be doing for Orchard OCD. Hello, Ana Maria! How are you feeling about starting work at Orchard OCD? Hi, everyone! I am beyond excited to start working at Orchard OCD! I have known Orchard for many years, and their work is unparalleled. Orchard comprises everything that I love and care most about, which is people's wellbeing, patient co-production, and research. It has all the features and support offered by charities whilst pushing the boundaries of OCD research in a rigorous scientific way. I cannot wait to be a part of the team! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? As you can probably tell by the long name, I am Brazilian and have moved to the UK in 2017 to pursue a PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Professor Trevor Robbins, a world renowned OCD researcher. It was during my PhD that I truly understood what it meant to live with OCD, as, despite having a bachelor's and a master's degree in Psychology, no academic work taught me as much as interacting with people with OCD. My research focused on understanding the factors that contribute to the difficulties in stopping obsessions and compulsions through neuroimaging (electroencephalography) and on evaluating a new intervention for OCD, which led me to work with Professor Naomi Fineberg, my current postdoctoral supervisor at the University of Hertfordshire. What are you working on to start things off at Orchard? I have started with full energy and, thanks to Margherita's help, am having the best training! I am working on disseminating Orchard's work through social media and webinars, which will bring the latest in OCD research! We are hoping to increase fundraising targets to be able to conduct cutting-edge studies, so I am focusing on research grants and collaborations. Please contact me if you have any suggestions! What are your hobbies outside of work? I do love a good book under the blankets and watching period pieces, although I have a particular soft spot for West End musicals too! I love practising sports and have trained karate since I was 5 years old. Nowadays I have been testing myself on cricket (British influence) and tennis, but my regular exercise is running and gym. I have two cats and enjoy spending time playing with them. Welcome, Ana Maria! Got any fundraising, communication, or research ideas? Please email Ana Maria at anamaria@orchardocd.org to start a conversation.

My Journey with OCD: Daring To HopeI’m a 27-year-old musician from North London. My journey with OCD has been an incredibly confusing and multifaceted one, shaped significantly by what could be called ROCD. My ROCD extends beyond romantic relationships, affecting my connections with friends, music, art, geographical places, memories, and even emotions themselves.The earliest memory I have of OCD dates back to when I was around 8 or 9. At age 11, I had what I now know are clear signs of OCD, with comorbidity of symptoms of anxiety and depression, and when I think back to those times, they seem impossibly emotionally bleak. Although these symptoms reduced around 13-15, they resurfaced with a vengeance during my first romantic relationship at 16. The isolation, fear of madness, unexplainable turmoil, confusion, and repulsion at my own mind is something that I will never forget. Within six weeks, I had gone from being in the most confident period of my life, to having suicidal thoughts.In 2014, a year into that relationship, I really was reaching a breaking point, and was starting to fear that I couldn’t survive the onslaught of horrendous thoughts much longer. In desperation, I dared to search online for "fear of being a paedophile", half-wondering if GCHQ were monitoring me as I searched. I was stunned – there were thousands of results about OCD. Reading the symptoms list on the OCD-UK website felt like someone had written a book about me. As many of us OCDers know though, realising that you are not alone, is absolutely life-changing – but it does not solve the disordered thinking.The relationship ended shortly after that discovery – we were both troubled teenagers – but my mental health issues persisted. After moving out to university and being in a generally turbulent mental state in London for 1.5 years, I talked to a university counsellor, who urged me to immediately seek help. I was surprised by that – I’d never taken my problems seriously. My perception of what constituted a legitimate mental health problem had been unintentionally skewed by having psychiatrist parents who met in a high secure psychiatric hospital, bless them. As doctors, I might add, not patients.And so began many years of talking therapy. It provided really valuable insights into my past, and connecting those times to what I was currently feeling – but it didn’t directly address my OCD, or give me the tools to deal with it as it was happening. In 2019, after OCD decided to try and crash and burn my brain again, I really stepped up my recovery efforts. Apart from listening to countless hours of the OCD Stories podcast (Stu I love you), and reading as much as I could about my disorder, I had a brief course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in 2019 and subsequent therapy with NOCD in 2021. Both of these therapies offered further insights, but nothing seemed to really be sticking.When I found myself in an unending moody, depressive, and incredibly angry depressive fog in the summer of 2021, I felt like my brain had to be reset, so I began taking Sertraline. It has helped alleviate my depressive symptoms and facilitate the work I had done in therapy – and also makes me less unbearable to live with (much to my partner’s relief!). However, if you are thinking of taking anti-depressants, please research thoroughly. I researched a LOT before taking Sertraline, and I had done a lot of other therapeutic work prior to taking it. There are no magic bullets that I know of yet, but there is definitely a pre- and post-Sertraline me.Something that remains unchanged through all of this is the automatic, knee-jerk perception I have of my OCD. It has always felt like a foreign body, an alien invader intruding on my life, like a monster from an absurd bad dream. Conversely, when I'm feeling really low without much conscious OCD activity, everything around me seems to slow down into what I call ‘dead-end pain’. I can feel the intense urge to binge eat and can get very angry and difficult to be around. And yet, as horrible as this is, it doesn't feel foreign. For some reason, my brain accepts it, perhaps because it is less ‘bizarre’, and society would probably understand that feeling and the overt causation for it more than OCD.  Put it this way, if you say to someone that you are really sad because your dog died, you would anticipate that they could understand that right? But if you told them that you’re in utter turmoil because of your hyper-fixation on a specific component of your best friend’s voice, or something equally bizarre, it might be pretty difficult to trust that someone would understand. So, accepting OCD is a long and challenging journey.At 27, I am currently receiving proper OCD treatment at a high-quality treatment centre for the first time. Learning about Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has proven challenging and helpful so far. Additionally, I am increasingly interested in the potential of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, as a treatment for OCD. Inspired by Rose Cartwright’s "The Maps We Carry" and keen to learn more about Professor David Nutt’s research on psychedelics, I am cautiously optimistic about the future of treatment for this disorder.My journey with OCD is ongoing. Despite all these hardships and my tendency towards turbulent emotional states, I have experienced times of incredible happiness in my life and continue to have hope every day. I want to live a life with the ability to feel connected to people, be a decent person, and to find pride and profound emotional meaning in my and other people’s creative work. It is not a coincidence that all three of these goals are the main targets for my OCD. The courage to love and experience joy is a very underestimated strength.“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen