Triggered

Exploring the psychological landscape of OCD

by Fletcher Wortmann

Why Monk Stunk

I have no problem with jokes about OCD, but I do have a problem with entertainment that permits audiences to laugh at the disorder without showing them the terror and despair and shame and self-loathing that many OCD sufferers endure. Read More

Choosing a College When Mental Health Is an Issue

For those with a mental health disability, transitioning to college can lead to a spike in symptoms at the worst time imaginable. When choosing a college, there are programs and services to look for. Read More

“Girls” Gets OCD

It makes me wonder how many sufferers don’t ask for help with OCD intrusive thoughts (often sexual or violent) because they’re ashamed or confused. Read More

The Pains and Gains of Yoga for OCD

With Zumba, I had high school flashbacks of the annual spring musical and cross-country; it brought me back to the bleeding-lung exhaustion of the latter and humiliating, zombie-like choreography of the former. But I found it a useful way to confront my social anxiety and phobia of looking silly in public. Because I promise you - with Zumba, you will look silly in public. Read More

Dating With Anxiety

While it may not as seem romantic as catering to the every whim of your intended beloved, exposing yourself to increasingly more challenging (but still manageable) social situations is a much healthier way of building the confidence you need to find a date. Read More

OCD and Video Games

Video games can both offer relief from and aggravate Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Read More

Hope For OCD

I’m wary of clichés about illness and opportunity. Being trapped in your room by anxiety isn’t an opportunity—it’s a prison sentence. But at the same time, the therapeutic process didn’t just help me recover my mental health—it led me to a new and healthier way to live. Read More

Struggling with Scrupulosity

Can you imagine how OCD interacts with religion, where absolute proof is unobtainable, and belief and tradition must suffice? Where ritual is non-negotiable? Where the punishment for failure is existential, eternal? Read More

A Message to Creative Young People

Maybe the old myth about the tragic genius, wrestling with inner demons, doesn’t have to be true. You’re an artist, right? Perhaps you can write yourself a different story. Read More

I Have OCD; Now You Can Try It Too

How do you know that you won’t be killed by a falling meteor? How do you know that you shut off the toaster oven this morning? That one of the seething millions of bacteria on your hands will not kill you? That your friends don’t all secretly hate you? Do you have religion? Do you have the right religion? Are you sure? Read More

Try to Keep an Open Mind, Part 2

In this installment, we discuss the practice of meditating and why meditation doesn't have to be like eating your vegetables, as well as Andy Puddicombe's career in the circus, and the promise and perils of the information age. Read More

Try to Keep an Open Mind, Part 1

Do you ever feel as though your brain has a mind of its own? It seems as though, in a world where we control so little, we should at least be able to manage the contents of our own brains. Read More

Coming Out of the Asylum

Is it unreasonable to say that, sometimes, mental illness can make it really tough just to get through your day? The sad truth is that the disclosure of mental health problems is still taboo in this country, where we prize self-reliance and judge harshly those who appear to shirk their responsibilities. Read More

Full Exposure: The Sickening Treatment for OCD

ERP works when, guided by a trained therapist, the sufferer approaches the object of his or her fear without indulging in any compulsive ritual behaviors. These exposure exercises often involve doing things that would make anyone, even someone without an anxiety disorder, deeply uncomfortable. Read More

OCD: A Sufferer's Take on the “Doubting Disorder”

OCD is the pathological intolerance of risk, however minute, and the surrender to protective ritual, however unbearable. No matter how unlikely a feared consequence, if there exists even the fraction of a percent of a possibility that it could occur, the disorder is able to find purchase. Read More

Obsession: Not as Sexy as it Sounds

“Oh my god. I am so OCD.” I know you’ve been obsessed, so tell me: what’s your poison? What did it for you? Was it an unrequited crush? Some esoteric branch of knowledge you could never quite master? A mop-haired teen idol with the face and vocal range of a neutered kitten? An old grudge you know will never be put right? Trouble at work, at home, in bed, in church? Read More