IN MY MIND: 'Pure' Representation of My OCD

So, last night I finally got around to watching Pure on Netflix, after it being on my radar since it was first on two years ago. It's a show about a young Scottish woman named Marnie who has just finished University with an English degree she has no idea how to use and a mental illness she is only just beginning to understand. Me ten years ago could not possibly relate...

Marnie discovers she has OCD, but denies it at first because 'she's not tidy' and 'doesn't wash her hands too much'. Like, these are conversations I literally had with friends, doctors and therapists! Happening on a TV show! Marnie's OCD doesn't manifest in the stereotypical ways because despite what the media shows, there is no stereotypical ways for OCD to manifest! Like me, Marnie struggles with what is sometimes called 'Pure O' - part of the double meaning of the show's title.

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and most people focus exclusively on the 'C' - the compulsions. These are more visible than the 'O' - the obsessive thoughts. You can see a person switch lights on and off a number of times divisible by 5, you can't see the obsessive intrusive thought that is driving them to do that. Compulsions in people with OCD usually manifest as a way to 'deal with' or 'control' these unwanted thoughts. If you obsess over making a family member ill, you may compulsively wash your hands. If you obsess over forgetting something important and letting someone down, you might compulsively order or tidy your possessions. If you obsess over you or a loved one being killed in a car crash, you might compulsively check if the numbers on car registration plates add up to be prime numbers or divisible by 8 because that makes them 'lucky'.

That last one was one of mine by the way.

What Marnie - and I - discover is that these compulsions can be abstract, arbitrary, destructive, off-putting and intermittent, but they do not help. We also both turned to heavy drinking to 'help', with Marnie's words in one episode - 'The only way to know how I feel in my body is to feel nothing in my mind' - echoing almost exactly something I said to a psychiatrist years ago. Marnie's obsessive thoughts are almost entirely sexual in nature - the other ironic part of the title's double meaning. She can't help but imagine friends, strangers and even family members in extreme sexual situations and this naturally causes her great distress. My obsessive thoughts are usually incredibly violent, either involving myself, friends, family members or total strangers as victims or perpetrators of accidents or assaults and this obviously causes me great distress. These are thoughts that we would never act upon and don't represent our morals or desires, but we cannot help but think them.

While my compulsions have always been few and far between, the thoughts are always there. At its worst it was 24/7, seeping into my dreams and seriously affecting my ability to live anywhere near a normal life. Three main things have helped me with this: years of therapy to develop coping strategies beyond compulsive behaviours, anti-anxiety medication to level out my distress, and an evolving support network of friends and family who understand at least part of what's going on in my head and make accommodations for me.

So, yeah... I liked it. The actors are all great, the main characters are likeable and it's funny. Maybe most importantly to me, though, it's a really spot-on bit of representation for something that I very rarely - if ever - see portrayed well onscreen. A reminder that I am far from alone in this and even if - as Marnie is frustrated to discover - there is no getting 100% 'better', there is always hope, positivity and progress.