Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I'm going to tell my story in the hope others will do the same. 

Throughout university I was a free spirit, without a care in the world. I wouldn’t think twice of getting glam and heading out ‘on the Toon’ and making friends everywhere my dancing shoes took me.  

One day in my early 20s something inside me switched. It began with the niggling thought of ‘what if?’ What if I upset someone? What if I left the oven on? That annoying ‘what if’ escalated into the most controlling force I've ever experienced. That ‘what if…’, I would begin to learn, is a mental health condition called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). 

You’ve heard of it, right? Of course you have! The saying ‘oh, they are a bit OCD’ is used constantly in everyday conversation. I must admit, I had been guilty of saying it before I realised what it truly was to feel it. OCD isn’t just an urge to arrange things into a specific pattern, it’s  a controlling, frightening and isolating feeling which completely changed me forever.  

Gone were the days I could leave the house in a flash wearing my dancing shoes! Now I needed to tap my leg 20 times while checking the oven was off, touch my shoulder against the fridge so I could feel it as I walked away (an indication I checked the oven of course!), take hundreds of pictures of my flat on my phone as ‘evidence’. Out with my friends I would pretend to eat, but hide food under a napkin thinking ‘what if it’s contaminated?’. My weight plummeted, my personality disappeared and I was petrified of everything. 

The OCD escalated so much that I could no longer touch food to eat it and I therefore took the step to talk to my GP. The GP instantly recognised the symptoms and offered medication to help me.Although I was grateful, I still felt completely lost and confused as to how my life could have changed so much without a trigger.

Luckily, I had amazing charities like OCD Action, incredible friends and family, a super star boss and  access to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). That's when I started on my path to recovery. 

I'm now in my 30s confident and excited for the future. I will always have OCD but it's managed. Instead of wandering down a negative path of thought with my ‘what if’, I'm now dancing down a positive path of possibility, opportunity and hope.