This website is an excellent resource for anyone interested in learning more about OCD in all it’s forms.
For anyone upset by Channel Four’s recent portrayal of OCD in the questionable series OCD Cleaners, this is a precious opportunity to redress the balance and put your side of the story.
By contacting the production team (by phone or email if your prefer) you are in no way committing to take part in any future progamme. You can remain anonymous and will be dealt with sensitively.
This is a quick post to redress the balance somewhat in the defence of this medication. After writing about the disturbing side effects I experienced after withdrawing from citalopram, I have received many comments from others who have experienced serious problems.
Although I would think very carefully about using citalopram again, at the time of prescription, it played a crucial part in my recovery and I will always be grateful for that.
My life has been blighted by OCD and severe anxiety since childhood , culminating in untenable panic attacks, suicidal compulsions and a complete breakdown. At a point where I believed I would never again be able to participate in a normal life with my family, citalopram successfully controlled my OCD and gave me hope for the future.
Everyone has a choice whether to resort to medication or not and many are quite rightly cautious. However, from my own experience I would recommend anybody who finds themselves in desperate circumstances to at least consider medication as a short term addition to any longer term therapy. For me, the side-effects, though unpleasant and frightening, were a fair price to pay for my ultimate moves towards recovery and hopes for a healthy future.
My son, in his early 20s, has recently lost a male friend to suicide. Coming soon after two similar incidents affecting those close to me, it has highlighted the prevalence of suicide among young men in the UK. Although I don’t know the exact statistics, it appears to be one of the main causes of death for men in this age group.
I cannot speak for them but it does seem likely that an unwillingness or inability to confide, is a contributory factor in these situations. This was born out by my own son on being faced with the trauma of his own friend’s death. By his own admission it took a great force of will just to tell me about it because, in his own words, ‘I probably ought to tell someone’ but he baulked at the idea of discussing his loss with his closest friends, even though they had also suffered the loss of this young man.
I have heard it said that isolation is often at the root of suicide. Isolation takes many forms and young men who cannot shared their feelings are immediately removing themselves from the understanding and support of others.
It is heartbreaking to think of anyone being so lonely and defeated but it seems particularly poignant in the case of these young people at the peak of their potential and barely starting out on the road of life.
C.A.L.M, a charity set up in the UK to support young men at risk from suicide, has recently opened a confidentially helpline.
Read an interview with Jane Powell, the Director of C.A.L.M
So many of us dread death – some to the point of obsession. This heartfelt interview with children’s illustrator, Maurice Sendak in the year before he died, provides comfort and hope to even the most fearful. His new relationship with the world around him – he calls it falling in love – provides a template for living that speaks to all of us, regardless of age or religious conviction.
I am not sure how well-known the ‘Willard Suitcases’ are in the USA. I first heard of them in a recent article in a UK newspaper and found their story to be a fascinating one. In 1995, several hundred, well-preserved suitcases were found in the attic of an abandoned 19th Century lunatic asylum , Willard, in upstate New York. Each suitcase would have been packed and brought into the asylum with the admitted patient. As residents were never discharged from Willard, these suitcases remained in the attic long after their deaths, only coming to light when the asylum was to be demolished.
Photographer Jon Crispin has embarked on a journey to photograph the contents of some of these suitcases. He talks about his aspirations for the project here.
Far from being an insensitive intrusion into the private affairs of those no longer here to defend themselves, Crispin is only too aware of the stories behind the objects. He explains,
‘I never got over the idea that there were people here without their consent, largely because they were having problems that today we would be able to treat – grief , obsessiveness, Asperger’s – I’m not a ghost hunter, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of people in that space. Each case was a life lived.’
Read Crispin’s blog about his Willard Suitcases photographs and other projects
For many people with anxiety disorders, depressive illnesses and other mental health issues, the reliability of personal memory is a serious issue. A tendency to dwell on past mistakes, abusive experiences or lost opportunities can be all too easy for those of us inclined to such thoughts.
In a recent essay, well known neurologist and writer, Oliver Sacks explains how unreliable these recollections can be. He proposes that our memories are actually constantly redefined over time by human interaction and the influence of the wider world around us.
Rather than seeing this as a negative idea he makes a strong case for this collaboration as essential for the particular creativity and flexibility of the human mind. He argues that it is only by relinquishing the true source of our memories we are free “to see and hear with other eyes and ears, to enter into other minds, to assimilate the art and science and religion of the whole culture, to enter into and contribute to the common mind, the general commonwealth of knowledge.”
