Rosie (undergraduate) Breaking The OCD Cycle: Intrusive Thoughts, Therapy, And Everyday Life

A tidy desk isn’t the story. Rosie, a third-year biochemistry student, opens up about the reality of OCD: intrusive thoughts that hit like alarms, compulsions that promise relief and steal time, and the slow, deliberate work of exposure therapy that teaches the brain to stop demanding rituals. We pull apart the myths and look at what day-to-day life actually feels like when your mind whispers “what if” at the worst possible times.<br><br>You’ll hear how driving became a minefield of doubt, how health anxiety fed a late-night Google loop, and why reassurance—whether from friends, managers, or search results—can quietly make OCD stronger. Rosie shares practical tools from therapy: naming the intrusive voice to reduce its authority, exposure and response prevention for contamination fears, and the discipline of not checking even when anxiety peaks. We also dig into system barriers that delay formal diagnosis, the cost of being misunderstood at work or uni, and the importance of language-why “I have OCD” matters, and why “I’m so OCD” jokes lands so badly.  There’s no sugar-coating, and there’s no hopelessness either. Instead, we talk strategy: how to manage flare-ups, design a career that respects mental health limits, and reclaim study hours from rumination. If you care about mental health, neurodiversity, or supporting someone who lives with OCD, this conversation offers clear takeaways, humane insight, and resources like OCD Action to keep learning. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with one thing you learned—your notes help others find these stories.

Transcript

Setting The Aim: Authentic Voices

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Okay. Okay, hello, and good afternoon. Oh well, it's afternoon here. I don't know what it is for you guys. Um, this is another one of our firetide conversations I'm having with people who uh are in academia, whether students or not, who identify as being neurodiverse in some way. My aim is to hear their personal experiences and to hear what their journey has been. This being the case, the terminology or the wording will be their own and based on their experience and will be describing their own journey. They may not be the terminology or expressions of those listening, but that's not important. What is important is that we hear authentic voices in a way that those speaking feel comfortable. I want to learn, and I want us all to learn from their experiences. So, hello Rosie.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hello, so my name's Rosie, I'm a third-year biochemistry student at Newcastle, and I have obsessive compulsive disorder, which is known as OCD to many. A little bit about me is that in the meantime, when I'm not studying, I really enjoy running and going to music, festivals, and concerts and find a lot of therapeutic use through this too. I would describe my neurodiversity as a mental health neurodiversity, and it affects my brain in ways such as reasoning and logical thinking. It can come with intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and compulsions to relieve the intrusive thoughts, which many wouldn't think. A lot of people seem to think it's having things in a certain way, certain order, being tidy, when in fact my rooms are tipped half the time. For me, it could be reliving memories over and over again to check that I've never said anything bad or never done anything wrong. So, like driving lessons, for example, I would be driving along, and then my brain would just go, What if you've hit someone and you don't remember? And so that's an intrusive thought that you would then be like, I need to go back and check so many times until your brain finds comfort. But what a lot of people don't know is that cycle of intrusive thought compulsion to fix it feeds the OCD. So it just makes it worse and worse because then you're constantly checking. Um, and another one, which is quite controversial in comparison to the degree I'm doing, is fear of contamination of germs. So hand washing can be a real issue, sort of in the lab. So blood for me is a big issue where I can think, oh my goodness, like I'm gonna get some disease from the blood. Um, and then I have to wash my hands so many times until that thoughts gone. So it's quite a difficult one.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, um, I'm gonna be entirely honest and upfront about this, and um I know nothing really about OCD, and to be honest, the kind of uh checking the light switch five times or making sure things are lined up on your desk, that would be my naivety. So I'm really excited to learn about what what it actually means in practice. Um so the the the driving thing, could you explain that again? Because I was kind of thinking about the previous comments before you got to that, and I yeah.

Intrusive Thoughts And Driving Fears

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So it comes in the form of intrusive thoughts where it this thought will just pop into your head and it can seem like the scariest thing ever. So I had two years worth of driving lessons just after lockdown when my OCD started to really show itself. And I could just be driving along with my instructor, talking to him, minding my own business, driving, and then straight away my brain hits me with like, oh my god, what if you've just killed someone on the road? Even if no one was even there. Um, and it can be really scary because then it can start, it links a lot with anxiety and sort of panic attacks for me, where I'd be thinking, Oh my goodness, I'd start sweating, and thinking, what if I have I want to go back?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

What would you do in that situation? Is it kind of stopping and having a look, or is that not enough?

Compulsions, Checking, And Breaking The Cycle

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So that the stopping and having a look is the thing that would actually make the OCD worse because it's compulsion. You're giving into it, going, okay, I'll go and check. But then five minutes later it'll want to go check again, and ten minutes later it'll want to go check again just to make sure that everything's fine. And the way I've sort of learned through therapy to not do that is to just go, my brain's being stupid, and you have to not give in to what it's telling you to do, because otherwise that just feeds the whole cycle of intrusive thought compulsion, intrusive thought compulsion. So it's the same with like hand washing and contamination. It's like, what if you've touched germs, hand wash? What if that germs aren't gone still, hand wash again? And then yeah, that ended up similarly. I gave myself really bad dermatitis because I just couldn't stop like washing my hands.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So, um, so it's not giving in to yourself, in effect.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

You need that thing that helps break the cycle.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

That's self-discipline, self-control to say, no, I'm not going to let myself be so hard.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

For example, one of my managers at work once said to me, Well, just Google it and you'll know the answer and you'll know that you're fine. And I was like, That's the worst thing I can possibly do because I'll keep Googling more and more. So a lot of the things I found, sort of especially earlier this year, is it kind of fed in with health anxiety. So if I had like a little lump on my skin, I'd be like Googling, going, What is this lump on my hand? and then Googling more and Googling more. And it was getting up to like two or three hours a day spent on Google, which obviously then feeds into studying. I'm wasting time Googling because I can't get away from this thought, and the studying isn't distracting enough for my brain to pull away from it. So it's very tight.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Um I don't I don't I don't think so. I don't know if it believes it, but distraction methods or something.

Health Anxiety And The Google Spiral

SPEAKER_00 5:50

The best thing, sort of, that I was taught in therapy is, and I'm still in therapy now for my OCD, which has helped a huge amount, is the first thing can be give you intrusive thoughts a name. So you'd be like, go away. Like Boris, for example, mine was because it appeared in lockdown. So I'd be like, go away, Boris. Like that's nice, but I've got stuff to do. And realistically, you just have to try and resist urges. Um, the gold standard sort of therapy for OCD is exposure therapy, but with a lot of intrusive thoughts, that can be quite difficult. So I'll never forget being in lockdown and receiving therapy for OCD then. And I've sat on the phone with the therapist for 10 minutes saying my intrusive thought out loud for 10 minutes until the anxiety calmed.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So that then part of the therapy or what yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

So it's exposing you to your intrusive thought so that your body desensitizes itself to the anxiety caused by it. And that's what you kind of have to do. You kind of have to just go, that's nice, brain, but I don't want to pay that any attention right now. But obviously, that's easier said than done sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yes, yeah, yeah, totally. So um obviously you're having the therapy and um you're getting support, so you've got a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I went through sort of, I've never actually been formally diagnosed by a psychiatrist, which is what I'd need to do to have this formal, like sort of written record of it. But every therapist I've seen through sort of college and up here while I've been at uni has like said this is OCD, and it's on all my sort of records that this is OCD. Um, but there's such a barrier to actually getting a psychiatric, like formal written diagnosis because a lot of doctors I think just deem it as anxiety or paying to see a psychiatrist would be really expensive, which I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

So you've only got the knowledge but not the badge.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, yeah, that's how I describe it.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

So, um, so what what the what are the barriers? The barriers ignorance by certain medical practitioners, or I'd say that's a big one.

Therapy Tools: Naming Thoughts And Exposure

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So when it first obviously came around in lockdown, I think I've had OCD my whole life, but I just think it's been more prevalent since lockdown. Um, I remember ringing the GP saying how much I was like really struggling, especially my mum and dad were like, we don't know what's happening to her because I've never been like this before. And their advice was that I'd got supportive people around me and that a lot of people were waiting to be seen at that point. So therefore, there's nothing they could do. Uh after that, I got put on a waiting list to see child mental health services, and they went through everything to do with anxiety, even though that's not really tailored towards OCD. It helps a bit, but it's not like gonna get to the root cause of it. And then I ended up in secondary services at home, mental health services, and she's the woman there that I saw was wonderful, and she sort of started me on exposure therapy. Uh, she was the one I sat on the phone with, like speaking my intrusive thoughts out loud. And another one that she helped me with was exposure therapy of germs because obviously lockdown came. Um, we'd live with my mum, dad, grandma, and granddad. So they were vulnerable, so I literally couldn't leave the house. Um, and so I had this big fear of germs, like I was getting through a bottle of hand sanitizer a day at college. Uh, so my hands were like reading.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

That was so sore.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

They were awful. Like I used to have to soak them in paraffin wax and sleep with gloves on just to get some relief from like the pain. Um, so she there made me go into a doctor's surgery, touch the door handles, the screen to check in, not wash my hands, touch food, then she touched my food, and then I had to eat it. And that was like exposure to tell myself that even though I've touched things that could have germs on, I'm not going to get poorly.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

That must have been so hard to do though. Because everything you were screaming out, no, don't do this.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Everything's like, you need to wash your hands, you need to wash hands, you need to wash them. But it's and I'm still in therapy for like sort of germ-related things now. I have to do that now with raw chicken. So raw chicken was a big thing of mine. So I've done a lot of exposure therapy of taking chicken, sitting with it in my hands, then not washing my hands but sanitizing them, and then touching things that I'd like my phone, food, and things like that. And it's not raw chicken. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

It's I noticed that my mum even says for someone without OCD, that's really good.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

For anybody, I should imagine, yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, let alone sort of me thinking I'm gonna get severely ill. Um, and it's known as a habituation period, my therapist calls it, where sort of you've got this period where your brain can learn that if it isn't gonna get poorly, you can do it again and again and again. So it has really helped, but it's really the work.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Okay, yeah. That's all right then. So long as it works, if it didn't work, that would be now that'd be a very bad story. Yeah. Okay, um, so is the plan to get diagnosis? Would that make any difference to you? Yeah, you do.

Diagnosis Barriers And System Gaps

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I think I'd like to, um, just for sort of future help, like sort of going into the workforce, yeah, um, as well. And I think it can interlink with a lot of other things. So it's noticed like on my records that I've got anxiety and OCD, but I just think having the formal written diagnosis would be a bigger relief.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So for you, as so as opposed to the whole kind of professional world where you can use it to say any of this for yourself as well, for that kind of level of yes, I know what's what's going on, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Because I think when it all came back in lockdown, I just thought I was going crazy. I was like, why is my brain telling me that, like for example, in lockdown, I was thinking that I'd got up in the night and killed someone. So that was really, really difficult because I'd be sort of checking the doors, checking that the doors were locked, and I was like asking my parents all the time, did I leave the house in the middle of the night? Like, is the mud at the end of my bed? Like all this because my brain would be like particular or just just someone, just anyone. It's it works in weird ways.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

It certainly does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

But especially sort of asking for reassurance. Again, that's another thing that feeds it because you're gaining that reassurance, but then your brain still goes, What if, what if this then?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

So so I guess the therapy would be not to ask for that reassurance.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, but I've done a lot of work on that. Done a lot of work on not singling, not asking for reassurance, sort of trying to sit with the thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. Goodness. Okay, so um that's that's I'm learning so much. This is this is all this is awesome. I hope other people have too. Can can you describe how it affects you in your day-to-day life that okay, you can have done this, but I mean nutshell ideas where other people would be surprised to hear that it affects you in that way.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

So a lot of things can be I know that I've mentioned about sort of a lot of time being taken up by Googling and reassurance seeking and things like that. Like I was saying, I can spend hours of my day sitting with one thought, being like, How can I prove this thought wrong? And then that takes away time for me to revise, time for me to get assignments done. Um, it does also affect me in sort of what you'd probably class as the typical ways of making myself late because I'm checking that candles are blown out, ovens are off, doors are locked.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So that's all there too.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

That kind of the kind of it is, it's in the background. Yeah. And I think to the average person, if you were to just sit and watch me like at uni, like at a desk doing work, they'd have no idea that my brain's actually going, what if this, what if that, what if I've done this and I'm actually it really affects my concentration. Yeah. And it can also affect sort of relationships with friends and family that don't understand, that just think she's on a barrel, she's not being logical. But it's so difficult to try and prove to them what is going on inside because your brain's not working like their brain works, and therefore it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

So this this is something that's coming up a lot actually when I talk to people is um the level of uh energy use and exhaustion that's above and beyond what other people experience if they're not neurodiverse.

Contamination Fears And Real-World Exposures

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I feel like I cannot remember last time my brain was just at like peace, basically. It's like constantly on it's just muddled with thoughts, like 24-7. It's like even when I go to bed on a night, I could be literally about to shut my eyes and it'll go, What about this? Like, what about this intrusive thought? And then you're like sat up for hours because you're thinking, Oh my goodness, like something bad's gonna happen to me because I've had this thought come into my head. Yeah, so yeah, it can be tiring to say the least.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, yeah. So what would you like to bet to understand about it?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

I think I'd like to understand why this happens because my therapist has said to me like it's not necessarily a genetic thing, like is it that anxiety and depression can be but is like OCD technically can be taught behaviour, it's like what I've seen as a child when I'm younger. Um, and I'd just like to understand why why me, I think, why has this happened to me? No one like that I know, and how have I ended up with this sort of atypical way of thinking?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Okay. As a biologist as well, that must bug you as well, that understanding the biology behind it.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, a hundred percent, especially when sort of professionals can say, Oh, it's not necessarily genetic, and I'm like, there must be something because like I've had a lovely childhood and a lovely upbringing and a lovely family, so I'm like, why? Why has this happened?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah, because I think um recently I've started to understand that um for autism and ADHD and for dyslexia, they're kind of starting to understand brain pathways which are operating differently. But I'm not sure if that's the case with OCD, whether they've kind of got that understanding. So, yeah. Okay, I think okay, I'm I'm I'm putting my own thoughts into what I expect the answers to be here because for me that this this question is quite obvious in terms of dyslexia, but what what's a pet peeve?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

I think my number one has to be when people go, I'm so OCD.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Oh, that's what I thought it would be.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, I'm so OCD. Or for example, when you come to Christmas time, some sort of marketing things love to say OCD, obsessive Christmas disorder. Oh, they don't, do they?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah, that's honestly it grinds my gears because I'm like, you've no idea. And a lot to do, one thing I saw in the news recently, um, and it's a lot to do with the sort of controversialness of people saying that the government are controlling everything now, was in London, people had put posters up on lampposts saying, Are you having scary thoughts? The police will be watching this, and sort of trying to mock and say, like, everything you think is controlled now. But I'm like, for someone with OCD that gets thoughts of like, oh, what if I've done this to someone? What if like I'm gonna go to prison for the rest of my life when I've done nothing wrong can be really damaging. Because especially as well, sort of being up here and working while I'm at uni, there's been a lot of ignorance from sort of management where they know and understand my story of OCD, but will stand in front of me and go, I'm so OCD, or oh, you'll love this job because it's for organizing and sorting things out at work. I'm thinking you've no idea.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

That's knowing that you are you is it you would you say you are OCD or you have OCD or I'd say I have OCD. Okay. You have OCD.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

That's the way that I'd love people to understand and see it. It's like I have OCD, I'm not, I am not OCD.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, because it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's it matters a lot that kind of terminology for because for me I am dyslexic. It's kind of who I am, it's kind of part of who I am. Uh but um I think people who are autistic have different um ways of saying it, and I think it's one that's one of those classic examples of when we should ask. I think I think we don't do enough asking.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I agree 100%.

Daily Impact At Uni And Relationships

SPEAKER_01 18:26

So um which is why I'm doing this, which gives me the opportunity and the permission to ask. So yes, I can totally understand that because um it's it's a common parlance, isn't it? I've someone lines their pencils up in the right line. You say, Oh, that's so easy O C D, isn't it? And it's yeah, it just belittles everything that you experience. It kind of says it kind of I said before, it kind of sitcoms the situation as opposed to understanding the truth.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Everyone with this idea that all it is is tidiness and organized again, like it reinforces that, and people have no idea that intrusive thoughts can be such a big thing, I think, with OCD.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

That driving thing must be so hard. And that's just one like not living into it, not not being able to do what your brain wants you to do is yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

And I think as well, one thing I always say now is so I applied for medicine originally at uni and didn't quite get the grades, so that's why I was like, right, biochemistry. But I always say now, if I would have done medicine, I think I would have found that so hard to cope. Because I think the way that my brain would have gone down was what if I've just killed a patient? What if I've just known?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Oh my word, yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

And I think it'd be a case of, oh my goodness, like the world's gonna end, even though I've done nothing wrong.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

So it's kind of it feels limiting in that sense as well of career options and all sorts, because like I don't think I could ever even go into any lab based roles with blood or human tissue. I've had to say the same about my dissertation because I Then be going home for hours like scrubby masking. So it's quite a restricting thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

It is. Yeah. And potentially the most ignorant question of them all. Uh I don't know if I should know the answer to this. Do you see it ending? I'm and you use the word cure or it's something that I will have to probably live with.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

This is you now.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

This is yeah. This is you okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

It's just finding ways of coping and managing and what to do when it flares up, and I'm in a really fortunate position that the person I go to therapy with has given me like the best coping mechanisms possible, and he's really made things like a lot better for me at uni and in my day-to-day life, really. I think unless I would have had that access to therapy, I would have really struggled.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Okay. And potentially I'm outdoing myself here. Potentially, even more naive question. Do you think it do you think it's do you think it's given anything to you?

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Um like in a positive sense.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I think the only thing I can think of is I've got a heightened sense, like heightened awareness of danger. So I think that's what my brain always seems to it prepares me for the worst in every situation possible because the big thing is it I catastrophize a lot. So to me, sort of everything's worst-case scenario. So then if the worst case scenario happens, it's all okay because that's not happened to me. Okay, so I think that's the only sense I've ever felt like it's helped.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Fair enough. Cheers. Thank you. I uh thank you for your honesty. I really appreciate all this. Um okay. So have you got any advice or insights that you'd like to share? Although you've you've already done loads, so if you've done that, that's fine.

Why Me: Causes, Biology, And Unknowns

SPEAKER_00 21:57

But so I think like my biggest sort of insight that I'd say to other people with OCD and the way like that I'd offer advice or help is sort of trying to know that that OCD cycle like can be broken. So I also alongside this, like I also volunteer with OCD Action, which is the charity, the main charity that has a lot of resources about OCD.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Um, and they released like a handbook that basically has like not tips but kind of tips and advice, and it's got little doodles on that show like the cycle, and it's basically like just resist the urge. That's the number one like piece of advice. You've just got to try and sit with it.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Is that is that available online?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

If you can send me the links and we could put it on when we put this out, then um people can actually access us there.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

That they're trying really hard to sort of break the stigma, I think, around sort of like we said, the tidiness, the cleanliness, they're trying to make more people aware that it's not that, and that pe things people could just be doing in the day-to-day lives could be triggering other people with OCD.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

So, yeah. Yeah, people need to be a bit more understanding and sensitive and um and ask more questions rather than assuming answers.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Okay. Nothing else you want to add? You think you just had plenty, so I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

I think I've got everything out majoritively, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

That's great, cheers. Thanks, Rosie. I really appreciate you sharing sharing all this with us.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

No problem, thank you.