Emily is running for OCD Action

Thanks for visiting! I’m running my first marathon and would like to use the opportunity to support OCD Action. The charity works for a society where people with OCD are understood and respected, not ashamed to seek help, and able to access appropriate and timely treatment and information.

I developed OCD in adolescence and still experience some aspects of it every day. OCD affects 1-2% of the population and is relatively unknown and misunderstood. On average it takes a person 12 years to seek and get access to effective treatment. 

OCD is known as the ‘doubting disease’. Pervasive doubt and needing to feel ‘sure’ or ‘right’ have been limiting for me but can completely consume lives and crush potential, to the extent of keeping some people housebound.

Running offers the opposite of that. It takes you out into the world to experience different places, seasons and weather; become a hard-working, forward-moving body and not just an exasperating mind; see unexpected progress through small steps; learn to trust and believe in yourself; get a neurochemical mood-boost; and feel part of a community.

Marathon training, though, also lends itself to obsession and perfectionism. Feeling compelled to strive towards standards you know to be misguided and impossible is hard: no amount of research, preparation, recording, memorising, analysis, evaluation, checking, consulting and reassurance-seeking is ever enough. Trying to let go and lighten up is even harder. But I’ve been so lucky to have had generous family, friends, colleagues, therapists, trainers and others, without whose patience and encouragement life could be much more difficult, and marathon-running inconceivable. 

If I haven’t already milked your goodwill dry, please consider donating to OCD Action and giving some purpose to all this rumination about pacing strategies and the optimum moment to eat a banana... I’d like to help people, families and carers who don’t have the support they need; people who want a better future, including the OCD Youth Network, which I wish had existed when I was young, undiagnosed and struggling; people whose mental knot-tying prevents them from lacing up their trainers and heading to the park, a little act which has meant so much to me. 

Thank you so much!

You can learn more about OCD and the charity at www.ocdaction.org.uk. Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast, totally secure and all that.