Living with OCD: Distressed, 'manic'. I thought I was going to die
Three pumps of shampoo. Three squeezes for my son. Three is my OCD. And at it's worst, my brain convinced me that everyone around me thought I'm a pedophile.
My favourite number has always been three.
In my mind, three is a waltz moving in circles, graceful and hypnotic. It plays brightly in a major key, hauntingly beautiful in minor. It's a deep midnight blue fading into royal purple, like an acrylic painting of the setting sun.
In a numerical sequence, it dances between odd and even, fitting whatever my brain decides it needs that day. If three pumps of shampoo doesn't feel right, six is an even number and I still get to count the pumps in threes.
Three has always been Georgie's favourite number.
RNZ
When my jaw clenches and my teeth grind, the rhythm becomes a song I can match to my mood. Counting the beats keeps me grounded, focused, alive in the moment.
Everything feels better in sets of three.
It's the number of squeezes I give my son to say I love you. It's how many times I repeat "geddit?" after telling a lame joke.
But three is also a prison.
It's the number of times I have to check the appliances before I can convince my brain not to play the visceral mental video of coming home to my dogs’ burned bodies and the charred remains of my life. Three checks isn't enough though. Six checks maybe? Nine? The cycle repeats until I force myself to leave. The anxiety remains with me.
It's the number of times I have to blink in a row to wipe away the thoughts that aren't mine. The images of violence, death, destruction, all at my hands. It doesn't work, so I blink again. Still doesn't work. Blink again. I feel every emotion like I'm there. I'm not blinking hard enough. I get caught in a loop of crying, blinking and begging my subconscious to stop.
It's the number of times I check that the phone's been hung up or that no one's making too much eye contact, afraid that somehow people can access my innermost thoughts and see the evil inside.
For me, three is OCD.
It's a thief disguised as logic, and it quietly lives inside of as many as one in every hundred New Zealanders.
Access to effective treatment for OCD is limited.
In 2024, Otago University looked at every adult in New Zealand who’d received specialist public mental-health care with an OCD diagnosis.
Just over 5500 people. A fraction of those actually living with it.
Most of us never make it as far as specialist help. And access isn't equal. The rates of Pākehā receiving care was about twenty-five per ten thousand people. The rates for Pacific and Asian New Zealanders? Less than six per ten thousand.
OCD hides not only in plain sight but in the cracks of a system built on inequity.
For those of us who make it through, almost all are carrying something else alongside it. Depression, anxiety, trauma, exhaustion. OCD rarely comes alone.
For many of us, it's the constant flood of intrusive thoughts, distressing, unwanted mental images that attack who we are at our core.
I have no control over when they come, or what they show me.
Walking through an airport, my anxiety spikes, convinced the drug dogs will find the keys of cocaine I've hidden in my luggage.
The video in my head plays, my arrest, my family finding out, losing my career, my friends, the police searching my home, sometimes finding child sexual abuse material on my computer. I see my trial, me begging for anyone to see I'm innocent.
I have no drugs. There's not a universe in which any of that could be true. But by the time I board the plane, I'm fighting back tears. I can't stop the reel from looping. All I can do is beg my brain to see reason. To breathe. To count.
In 2022, I burned out completely. I no longer had the mental energy to fight it.
After a series of medication reviews with different doctors, an antidepressant was accidentally missed from my prescription. Over the next eight months, I grew more and more depressed while my doctors grew more and more confused about what was happening.
How do you ask for help when the images and thoughts in your head don't match who you are at your core? "Hey, so every time I walk past a playground, my brain convinces me that everyone around me thinks I'm a pedophile."
I desperately needed a place where I could feel safe enough to unmask completely. Where I could be as mentally unwell as I was at that time and know I was safe from myself. That place simply didn't exist.
Eventually, I was admitted as an inpatient to a public mental health facility, where my OCD intrusive thoughts and autistic burnout were misdiagnosed as mania and borderline personality disorder.
Rock bottom had come after an argument with a family member. They were never in danger, I'm not violent despite what OCD wants me to believe, but for the first time I recognised I was a danger to myself.
A scrapbook of images flashed on repeat:
Me, dead. My family, devastated. My funeral, sad.
Then it would change.
Me, dead. My family, furious. My funeral, empty.
And again, crueller still.
Me, dead. Missed by no one. Never found.
"The more I went unheard, the more distressed I became, and the more 'manic' I appeared. I thought I was going to die."
RNZ
I could no longer distinguish between the thoughts that were mine and the ones that weren't.
"Good, pedophile...die."
That was the voice my brain played on loop. I'd dissociate, slipping into a distorted world where everyone could see right through me, and hated what they saw.
I'd realise I was trapped in my own mind, recognise the spiral, but still be powerless to stop it or make it end. My days were spent in bed, doom scrolling and sleeping to avoid being alone with my thoughts. I saved all my energy for parenting before and after school, and for masking at work.
My mask was made of concrete, and my arms were tired from holding it in place.
I'd lost 60 kilos and was rapidly losing the will to keep going.
When you're that unwell, having your voice heard becomes almost impossible. The more I went unheard, the more distressed I became, and the more "manic" I appeared. I thought I was going to die.
After a month in hospital, I spent some time in a community respite house before being sent home with a misdiagnosis of possible BPD, minimal change and no real plan in place. After one or two outpatient appointments, I was discharged, no longer eligible for any funded psychiatric support.
What I've shared barely scratches the surface. The truth is, OCD runs far deeper and darker than I've ever felt comfortable putting into words. It makes me do and say things I don’t want to, just to quiet it down for a moment. But it never stays quiet for long.
The thoughts are always there. They never go away. The right medication has made it easier to differentiate between it's voice and mine, but I live with a lingering fear that the volume will change and my voice will once again be drowned out by OCD.
My favourite number has always been three. Three keeps me safe while it keeps me trapped. It's both the rhythm and the restraint. And while I can't always quiet the thoughts, I can keep talking about them, because shame thrives in silence and I refuse to live in shame.
Further Help & Support (New Zealand)
OCD New Zealand
Information, resources, and guidance on finding OCD-trained therapists in Aotearoa.
Website: ocd.org.nz
Email: ocd.org.nz@gmail.com
Fixate – NZ OCD Support Group
Peer-led support for people with OCD and their whānau.
mentalhealth.org.nz/groups/group/fixate-ocd-support-group
Just a Thought – OCD Support Guide
A free, evidence-based guide for families supporting someone with OCD.
hosted.justathought.co.nz/…/WhanauOCDSupportGuide.pdf
1737 – Need to Talk?
Free call or text 1737 any time to speak with a trained counsellor.
Lifeline
0800 543 354 or text HELP (4357)
Anxiety NZ Helpline
0800 ANXIETY (269 4389)
Find a Qualified Therapist (NZ)
– NZ College of Clinical Psychologists directory
– NZ Psychological Society directory
Both list clinicians experienced in CBT, ERP, and ACT for OCD.
Just a Thought – Free Online CBT Course
Evidence-based self-help program for anxiety and related conditions.
justathought.co.nz
