The Life Of Bryony - “I was so ashamed that these thoughts would even occur to me”: Kimberley Nixon on OCD

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Welcome to Life of Bryony, where we dive into life’s messier moments. GUEST: KIMBERLEY NIXON: This week, I’m joined by Kimberley Nixon, who shares her deeply personal and raw journey through postnatal obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) after the birth of her son. Kimberley opens up about the terrifying intrusive thoughts, the overwhelming sense of responsibility, and how her experience of postnatal OCD has shaped her as a mother. Her honesty sheds light on a condition many suffer from but few speak about. This episode is a powerful reminder that even in the darkest times, there is hope for recovery and support. LINKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS:  The reel I was talking about in the intro - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAOLXcpoWLS/  This was the sports bra brand I was talking about (not an ad!) - Elomi Also, love this app (not an ad either!) - https://insighttimer.com/en-gb  GET IN TOUCH: 🗣️ If you want to get in touch, I’m only a text or a voice note away! Send your message to 07796657512, starting with LOB. 💬 WhatsApp Shortcut - https://wa.me/447796657512 📧 Or email me at [e-mail]. Don’t forget to share this podcast with someone who you think might benefit from it!  Bryony xx FOR MORE INFORMATION AND SUPPORT: We discuss suicide and postnatal OCD in this episode. If you’re struggling, you’re not alone. Here are some UK-based resources for confidential support: 📞 OCD Action: Visit ocdaction.org.uk for information, support, and peer groups for people living with OCD. 📞 Mind: Call 0300 123 3393 or visit mind.org.uk for information on mental health support. 📞 Samaritans: Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org for free, 24-hour support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Life of Bryony, a podcast where we explore the messier parts of life. We like to keep it real and absolutely shame-free around here. Now, this week it is OCD Awareness Week. This week it is OCD Awareness Week. An obsessive compulsive disorder is an issue extremely close to my heart, although I kind of wish it wasn't, because I've suffered from it since I was about 11 years old. Today I'm chatting with actor Kimberly Nixon about her experience with postnatal OCD and the realities of living and coping with intrusive thoughts. This little voice started of, what if you're the danger?

What if you keep seeing horrible things because you want those horrible things? I thought I'd gone mad. I thought I'd literally lost my mind. Kimberley Nixon coming up on The Life of Bryony. Now, if you follow me on instagram you'll know that i have a habit of um running around london in only my bra and pants it's a kind of thing of showing people that exercise is for everyone i am a size 18 to 20 exercise is really transformative for the way it makes me feel. And I do it for that rather than the way it makes me look. And I like to kind of show people how brilliant exercise is for your mental health as well as your physical health. And anyway, the other week I did a 10k, the Vitality

10k in London in my underwear. And it was really funny because it didn't really attract that much attention. Like I think, you know, in London London we're used to seeing some kind of really weird sites anyway uh I did a reel for Instagram in the back of the Uber home and I I'm not gonna lie I I'm not very good at making reels so it was cobbled together in about three minutes right so this is not a professional outfit at all but I put it up and sort of got on with my life and it has gone very very viral like I have never made a reel that has had that many views so I think at the last count it was two million views and if you've got like a blue tick on Instagram it tells you some really like frightening details so that it told me this morning that it had been watched for a total of 360 days six hours 47 minutes and 48 seconds so this like one minute reel has

basically been watched for the equivalent of a year I think if you hear creaking in the background it's because my husband has decided that now is the right moment to clean the house. Wonderful. Anyway, so it went really viral and weeks on, I am still opening up my Instagram and seeing comments on it. Now, I want to make clear that most of the comments, like 90% of the comments are really supportive and lovely, because I don't want to put people off exercise and make people think that everyone's out there judging people because they're just not but i did want to kind of i am i'm quite amazed i suppose this happens once things get watched a certain amount of times as you start to attract the people that aren't your tribe like they start to make comments and oh my god it's amazing to see how people, they have so much to say on unedited, unfiltered women's bodies. And there were the obvious comments from men that I'm not going to bother

giving any more energy to because life's too fucking short, right? But what I found more interesting was the comments, a lot of them from women, actually, which were like, they were giving me what they thought was very kind advice about things like chafing, you know, like, oh, that looks like it might chafe. And I was like, I've got that under control, by the way, for everyone who asks Bodyglide or Megababe, they're brilliant, right? But then there were lots of people that were like, oh, love, you need to get a more supportive sports bra like i'm like are you my boobs are you my boobs because i am like let's not beat around the bush here so my boobs are like a 36 38 double j so they're reasonably fucking humongous

right and i'm just going to give you so i I pulled out one comment, which was kind of indicative of quite a lot of the comments. And it was love your confidence and your attitude. But, and I hate that there's a but, please get a more supportive sports bra. Kiss, kiss. Now, that doesn't have to be a but. You could just say love your confidence and your attitude, full stop, and leave the sports bra thing in your head. But then I looked at these comments and I thought, this is why I do what I do because we are so unused to seeing unfiltered unedited women's bodies that we don't actually know what they look like in the wild like here's

the thing if you have boobs over a certain size that have not been surgically enhanced, by which I mean they're just naturally that big, they will move when the rest of your body moves. Okay. And that's just physics. Right. And unless I bind my boobs down with like several rolls of masking tape, they're going to move. And by the way, you may think, well,

then bind them down because lots of people do. And I'm like, no, because that's just fucking painful. Like there are bras out there and there are people I know who will wear two bras just to make sure their boobs don't bounce offensively to people running around. Now, listen, here's the thing is that if I do that, I can't breathe properly and it hurts. And I find not being able to breathe properly quite an impediment to running, which I love. So I'm like, fuck it. I'm wearing this wonderful alone me sports bra. This is not an ad. This is just what I pay my hard earned money on. They're really good for larger boobs, if you're listening and wondering where I

get them from. And I wear it and I don't really care that my boobs bop, bop, bop up and down. It doesn't bother me. My back's fine. And yeah. And anyway, when I move my body, my boobs are part of my body and they will move with it you know i just wanted to make that clear on behalf of all other larger ladies out there who are like who find themselves at any point having their bodies explained to them by other people it's a wild experience but it also got me thinking on a more kind of wide point about unsolicited advice. People who give you answers to questions you haven't asked. And someone said to me, well, unsolicited advice is really just criticism dressed up in polite clothes. Do you know what I mean? And that it's in a way, it's a way of dimming someone else's

light. It's like, you've done this good thing. However, can I just give you this bit of advice to slightly bring you down? And that always says more about the person handing out the unsolicited advice than it does about you. And I just wanted to leave that there with you if you have been, because I find myself in all sorts of areas of life being given unsolicited advice. And I feel like, oh, why has that bothered me? They're trying to be kind. And actually, yes, maybe they are. But they're also trying to sort of establish their superiority, I think often. I always remember I went on this.

I was very lucky a few years ago to go on this like exercise retreat thing. It was just a really fun week of moving your body and eating delicious food in the sun. And there was this woman on this retreat and she spent the whole time criticizing my squats. Your squat, that's not how you need to do this your squat needs to be deeper i wanted to drop kick her out of the way this is and i'm not advocating violence obviously this was and i remember saying to this other woman oh my god lady muck over there is driving me up the fucking wall and she said to me briarney see it as doing service and i said. And she said to me, Bryony, see it as doing service. And I said, what? And she said, listen, people like that are always going to want to have someone to patronise. And you just happen to be the person this week who she is able to patronise. You're doing her

a favour in a way, because without you, she'd have to pick on someone else. Just see it as being of service. And I thought that is just such a wonderful way to transform those experiences that we have with people, you know, because I think we all encounter them every day. I just wanted to leave that with you and hope that maybe it helps you if you encounter an arsehole today. You'll know my guest today, actor Kimberly Nixon, from her roles in films such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, which was a noughties favourite of mine,

and Wild Child, also a noughties favourite of of mine she also starred in the channel 4 comedy drama fresh me as josie and appeared in the bbc period drama cranford now kimberly has been incredibly open about her journey with postnatal ocd which she first revealed in 2022 we had such a great chat. Her honesty and vulnerability in sharing her experience with intrusive thoughts and the challenges of motherhood is really inspiring. But I also just wanted to acknowledge how brave Kimberley has been to do this and how difficult I know it has been. There's been a lot of anxiety in the run up to this episode coming out because obviously we're talking about really exposing things so I just wanted to kind of thank Kimberly for that because she has done her own kind of OCD therapy work in the last couple of weeks as she's waited for this podcast to come

out and I think and she's seen it as something she needs to do and she wants to do because she wants to help other people and so I just wanted to say a massive thanks to her for that. A gentle warning there are references to suicidal ideation in today's episode. Although myself and Kimberley have lived experience of OCD we are not experts. As always there are some great links in the show notes to help you if you're struggling. For now, I hope you enjoy my chat with Kimberley Nixon. Can I call you Kim? You can call me Kim. Okay, cool. Okay.

No. No. That's too far. No, KK. No, no. You have really kindly agreed to come in here to talk to me about postnatal obsessive compulsive disorder, which you revealed on social media in 2022. Yes, I did reveal it. I wanted to talk about OCD. So I wanted to kind of get into it because if I had a pound for every time someone said to me, oh, I've got a bit of OCD, should see my sock drawer we wouldn't be sitting here we would be off in the Bahamas yes I don't know how this is for you but for me

I've had obsessive compulsive disorder since I was 11 and I don't have a sock drawer I have a floor drawer my husband calls it a floor dress and he jokingly says I wish you had the good type of OCD yes but of course there is no good type of OCD it's. But of course, there is no good type of OCD. It's a disorder. But we all know, you know, OCD has become sort of code for someone who's very organized. Yeah, pernickety and just so. And you like things, you know, beautifully color coded. Yeah. And all arranged in order of height.

And, you know, for some people that is a subtype but to the extreme to the point where they can't leave the house it's not a positive it's not yeah it's not if you can just go ah that you know oh that looks nice great and then get on with your day some people literally cannot get on with their lives because of it but that's just one subset of OCD and when I became poorly after I had my son I didn't remotely link it to OCD because everything I knew about OCD I was the opposite of that like you said floor drobe. There are so many myths about obsessive compulsive disorder I think so it affects something like one percent of the population and I definitely like you I mean I had no idea that what I had was OCD when it first manifested for me it was this belief that I had AIDS back in the early 90s yeah didn't have AIDS

what I had was obsessive compulsive disorder I want to just talk quickly through what OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder features a pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions these obsessions lead you to do repetitive behaviors also called compulsions and these obsessions and compulsions get in the way of daily activities and cause a lot of distress so that's the sort of like how it's defined but the way i've always described it to people ocd is like your brain refusing to acknowledge what your eye can see so that like your hands are clean or the oven is off or that the bump in the road you've just gone over is a speed bump and not a child you don't believe reality no and you can see it

and people can't understand well you can see that the candle's off you can see that those hair straighteners are unplugged yeah but what if yeah and then the type of OCD that I think you also experienced and this is why nobody talks about this kind of OCD because you can't just like bring this up at a dinner party okay but so it's about thoughts so it's a subset known as pure O although there isn't actually officially a title but no it's not I don't think it's a clinical term it just it sort of became known as that when I think when certain professionals OCD specialists realize that your compulsions don't have to be physical they don't

have to be visible they're not visible and physical and so that was a big game changer for a lot of people because if your compulsions for your OCD are mental, you weren't always diagnosed with OCD. So that's kind of changed. We all have thousands of thoughts every day. We are not our thoughts. And we all have intrusive thoughts. Everyone has intrusive thoughts. When I go and give like speeches about OCD to rooms, I say this and I wait for them all to back out of the room. So I say like, we've all been to a party and someone has handed us their baby and then you think what if I just threw the baby

on the floor yeah or I always use the um you know you're driving down the motorway and you're kind of in that you know that semi kind of trance where you're just in a straight line on the m4 or something the thought flickers through your brain of if i just swerved and caused a huge pile up and that doesn't mean that you want to swerve and cause a huge pile up it doesn't mean that you want to hurt any people it's just a thought that flickers in and out and what happens with people with ocd so compare me to my husband he gets exactly the same intrusive thoughts mad things pop into it you know you're chopping some carrots and you're like what if I just stabbed my

hand whereas he just goes that's weird and lets it go and he doesn't think that it says anything about him whereas you become so distressed by the thought that you ruminate on it again and again and I have to stop it and fix it and neutralize it. And why did I think that? And what does it mean about me and my values? And do I want to stab myself in the hand? Do I want to stab someone else in the hand? And then you get into an OCD sort of spiral. And for me, I've always said that the best way to describe it,

because it is almost a physical feeling, even if you can't see it. When I'm having a real OCD episode, and especially when I was really poorly postnatally it feels disgusting physically in a way it feels like you're wearing someone else's skin and you can't quite bear it it's like that yeah sort of stomachy it's it's hot if you want to you almost like you want to unzip your own skin yes i want to crawl out yes you want to crawl out of it and you and you. And you can't rid yourself of the feeling. The other analogy is, you know, you've got a big smelly coat. You don't know who it belongs to.

And it's like 50 years old and it absolutely stinks. And someone found it in the bin and you're wearing it. You can't take it off. All you want to do is take that coat off so that you can feel like you again. all you want to do is take that coat off so that you can feel like you again you can feel things in the real world and and relate to the world that in the way that you were before but now I can't remember a time that I wasn't wearing this coat so that and the coat's sort of contaminating it's all contaminated and then and then what happens is you don't want to contaminate anybody else so you withdraw when I was becoming unwell,

you know, I had my son in October 2020, slap bang in the middle of the pandemic, had a terrible birth. Then I had to stay in hospital for the best part of a week. My husband couldn't come in and see me. Wow. We were kind of locked in rooms, basically,

unless you knock the door for a wee. And I became really unwell and I didn't have anyone who knew me. I I think I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened and I'm not saying that things would have been hugely different but I think if my husband had come in the next day for normal visiting hours he would have gone there's something wrong here he was an IVF baby so he was really really wanted we tried for five years and we finally did IVF and we did it in February 2020. And it worked and I got pregnant and I was the first time I'd ever been pregnant. And then it progressed.

And apart from horrible morning sickness, I just felt great. So the pregnancy was like? Pregnancy was like, you know, your normal pregnancy stuff. You know, you get uncomfortable and you get whatever. But I just couldn't wait to meet this person that I knew was not missing from our lives because we'd made the you know we'd had talked about what if IVF never works what if we never have any children or we we were like we're good with each other that's cool that's gonna be okay that's gonna be a different life but it's gonna be a great a great life but then when I was pregnant it was like he's here this mix of the two

of us and we couldn't wait to meet him and the day before he was born I went on like a five mile walk with the dog and I was just like I felt like I could lift a car up I felt so mentally physically I don't know spiritually um strong I felt really strong and then the next day when he was born literally they lifted him up and I saw him and I had a moment of oh my god that's my baby my my baby it's not someone else's baby that I'm always holding other people's babies but that's my baby and he's here and he's in the world and he's making a noise and he looks gross and yeah and the birth was not was the birth uh it was a c-section um but i um a planned c-section or sort of yes i began bleeding out basically and then i i needed uh two blood transfusions so as i was holding the baby i sort of said take the baby take the baby

and i and i passed out um and then i was on blood transfusions and then the baby was taken to he was having breathing difficulties and things so we were separated and they said to my husband pick who you're going with and you can't go in between them and you can't go back to the other because of covid yeah because of covid so I said go go with the baby and just text me and so I was alone so we'd had so I started bleeding out then I just remember this plummet this crash in such like almost like you know when a computer crashes and no one knows why that's what it felt like inside literally inside me something crashed then we had the medical emergency and then next thing I'm in a little room by myself hooked up to a blood transfusion and my husband and my baby are gone

and I have no idea what's happening. But I just absolutely convinced myself. I kept seeing it in my head that someone was going to kind of, oh, we're really, really sorry, but he didn't make it. And I just thought I was absolutely convinced of that. So I just kept staring at the door, hooked up to the blood transfusion, waiting for that, waiting for someone to kind of... Waiting to be told that... To pop their head around

um you know obviously everything was absolutely fine and we did have to stay in for a few days but he's you know he's a really beautiful gorgeous healthy perfect three and a half year old now so he's all good but from that point I spiraled down and down and down and when we went home and then Wales was put into what they were calling I think a, a fire break or I don't know, one of those COVID lockdowns. And we couldn't see anybody. And I had never had a baby before. So I thought, I knew about baby blues, but I was like, is this baby blues? Because this is dark.

So in what way did it feel dark? I was just convinced that I was going to do something wrong that I couldn't do this that now we were home and it was just us and the responsibility of that and you'd think all of this would have occurred to me in the years of us trying to have a baby but suddenly he was here and I was just terrified I was absolutely terrified so. So when people are like, you know, did you have postnatal depression? And as if you were very sort of sad. I wasn't sad. I was terrified.

I was physically vigilant. I was convinced that if I close my eyes, even just to get five seconds of sort of actual shut eye, if I open my eyes again, he was going to be blue in his cot. So, oh, well, I won't sleep then my baby's in the next me crib thing you know level with the bed and I should be sleeping I'm exhausted we were a few weeks in now and I'm bolt upright I'm stiff as a board I'm tense I'm shaking and I'm just staring at the baby to make sure that his chest is rising and falling. And so that carried on for a few weeks. And then when we realized that maybe this isn't baby blues because maybe it should have lifted. My world just became very dark.

I can't really explain. It was like it was like the lights went out. It was like there was no hope or joy or I couldn't really take in all the lovely things that I can take in now. So all the cute baby stuff, you know, the first smile and stuff, I didn't enjoy any of it because I was so terrified that it would all get taken away. Because it's really interesting you saying because you think it's all going to get taken away. Yeah. That really resonates with me as having suffered OCD. It's that fear that you can't ever quite relax because something terrible is going to happen at any moment. And I remember when I had my daughter, there was that same obsession with watching her breathe. But then

I had this fear because I would sit by her cot. had this fear that what if what if I'd strangled her and then also the fear about and this is the thing that people don't talk about and I understand why people don't talk about but what we really need to talk about because it happens was the horrible intrusive thoughts I might have done something terrible to her while changing her nappy this is when it started to kick in that's when that stuff started happening and then the fear that like the authorities are going to take away so at first it was just like incredibly dark what's going on i might there's no joy i can't connect to anything this isn't me i know but i can't really vocalize it in any way I'm so tired I'm

I'm scared I don't know what's going on and when I kept trying to neutralize everything like anything that could happen to him like I would see it so vividly in my mind you know I'd be I'd be changing him and he'd roll off onto the kitchen tiles and splat you know I could I could hear his almost his skull cracking and I could see it. So I kept seeing like a horrible future five seconds into the future all the time. And it was always terrible. So I did all these things, you know, put pillows on the floor. And if he ever cried, I gave me myself this weird rule that I had 10 seconds to get to him.

And if I didn't get to him within 10 seconds, I think I'd read somewhere that, you know, they'll start having like abandonment issues and they'll you know and all that kind of stuff. It was a night it was a night miss and when I'd done everything that I possibly could to protect him from external things this little voice started of what if you're the danger what if you're something that you didn't even know you were what if you keep seeing horrible things because you want those horrible things I mean that is the go-to phrase with OCD what what if what if what if yeah that's the dirty coat yeah that's the really dirty coat yeah the horrible like I've just listening to you I feel like it's so difficult to explain because I'm sure there are people listening right now who it'll be like the relief

of hearing other people talk about it yeah but like for me my whole life was that I had that fear so like this is why people don't talk about this type of OCD because I think my brain tells me I might be a serial killing paedophile yes I don't quite have the same ring to it as you should see my sock draw you know and you know but this is so dark this type of OCD and so so common I was so sorry I don't want to get upset like I was so ashamed I was so ashamed of myself that I need that these ideas these thoughts these concepts that they would even occur to me that I just went down this rabbit hole what does this mean oh my god maybe I'm maybe the birth is awoken something that I didn't even know myself and I can't tell anybody because they're going to take the baby away and

you know I think my one saving grace is that I was incredibly honest with my husband and I know I get a lot of messages from people who maybe don't have that kind of relationship with my husband and I know I get a lot of messages from people who maybe don't have that kind of relationship with their partner and they truly are alone and I I can't imagine it because even though he's going it's fine Kim it's not you know you're just you're just a new mum and you're risk assessing and you're you know you're hormonal and you're tired and you're you're worried something's gonna happen that's perfectly normal and I was like no but people don't worry about this stuff happening but I think it was the unrelenting constancy of it it did not stop I was living in like two worlds so there was the real world that was going on and I learned after about a year I learned to be able

to sort of have a conversation with someone while that was just going on like I learned to be able to function with it yeah but you know it was just non-stop I couldn't sleep I couldn't shower I couldn't do anything and I was absolutely terrified to go near the baby because I was just too scared what was screaming in my head was give the baby to your husband and leave leave the room leave the house leave leave leave the country because that way you know the baby is safe from you but then on the other hand you desperately love your baby just the cognitive dissonance of it isn't it and you want to like we in Wales obviously we'd say cut but you want to cut your baby and snuggle and do all those things and and it was like I remember my husband once said it's like your um it's like your hard drive has been corrupted because it was like I wanted to do I wanted to snuggle with my baby and

give him little kisses and and do you know and tickle his belly and all those sorts of things but this voice of why do you want to do those things what's the motive behind it yeah yeah um do you you know does he need changing or are you changing him on purpose you know and it was just yeah oh god it's so so changing and bathing just became horrendous but at first it was putting him in his little baby bath and these are the things that i thought you know one day when i have a little baby I'm gonna get to do the bath times with the with the toys and the bubbles and then story time a beautiful soft towel yeah it's gonna be a big fluffy towel and it's gonna be just gorgeous and beautiful and instagrammy and it's gonna be you know and instead it was me

terrified that he first he would slip under the water and I would just not do anything I would just watch because I what if that happened what if I do something and then I've sort of blanked it out in horror yeah like almost like my brain's gone into a shot so I need to check I was memory reviewing the last few minutes all day long so I would be simultaneously seeing a horrible future but constantly checking the very very recent two minute ago past to make sure okay he's all changed and back in his onesie and everything and that's great what did I do did anything happen that could have been was anything a mistake did I accidentally do this or touch that or what oh god you know and it was just constant very much at this point I had no idea this was OCD yeah I thought I'd gone mad I thought I'd literally lost

my mind because the last day of being pregnant I was so great and happy and looking forward to it and now I'm this shell so it was a switch of a thing it was a switch and something has happened and it almost felt magical like have i been cursed like i don't even really be i don't believe in that stuff but it was like it was so instant and so like a 180 when i first experienced ocd as i know it i only 11, but I remember going to bed one night and I'd gone to the Smash It's Porners party. And I was like so happy because I'd seen Take That or something. Yeah.

Robbie Williams. And I remember I went to bed and I had this dream about a woman having an incurable disease and I woke up and I was absolutely convinced that I was dying of AIDS yes and at the time it was this very shameful campaign yeah of don't die of ignorance around HIV and AIDS and it was a looking back a very stigmatizing campaign for especially for gay people. But I was an 11 year old girl who had like I'd never even kissed a boy or there was no there was no rational reason. No, no. But I had for years I had no idea that what that was was actually obsessive compulsive disorder. Did it all just fall into place?

It did. But I remember reading it was only when I was like a six sort of came on and then just fall into place it did but i remember reading it was only when i was like as it sort of came on and then just as quickly as it had come on so i had about three months where i would like wash my hands obsessively until they bled and i would hide my toothbrush under my pillow because i was worried that i was going to infect my family it got to point where i couldn't leave the house because i was worried if I didn't have it maybe I was going to get it like just from the invisible air but just as quickly as it came on it sort of went away I was about 11 12 and then it came back again when I was doing my a levels and this time it was intrusive thoughts what if I had a much younger brother what if I'd hurt my brother what if I had done something to a child on the way home from school and blanked it out

and totally forgotten about it. Yeah. It's only because there was a movie out at the time called As Good As It Gets. Yeah, yeah. And Jack Nicholson very much plays OCD for laughs. Yes. And he won an Oscar for it. You see, you've just said that, and that's the first time I've linked,

like that doesn't have anything to do with me. Yeah. Like the OCD represented in that film. Yeah, nothing. Yeah. No, because I remember he... There's nothing to do with me to do with me danced up the stairs at the Oscars I think he won an Oscar for it right and he and he skipped the cracks you know and it was a joke and I remember there was a piece in a newspaper about OCD and I think my mum sort of showed it to me

because she's obviously noticed some things yes and you know we play it for last but actually OCD is this very serious condition and these are the different subtypes of it and I remember reading it and it was like that's me yeah but then of course the thing you have with OCD is it goes but what if it isn't what if you're actually a master criminal yeah and you're using OCD as an excuse as a condition or illness in the world it's so meta that or illness in the world is so meta that it's so meta that it's like do you really have a kidney infection? Yeah yeah. Do you? Yeah. Or are you making yourself have a kidney infection or do you want to have a kidney infection or maybe you haven't got kidneys at all? Yeah I would imagine like the criminal like barristers prosecuting me saying you have made

this up. Oh I constantly do that. I'm constantly remembering things in case they come up in court. So what was the moment you know like you it was a long time that you were going through. It was a really long time and I got help straight away. I really did get help straight away. I was very kind of you know mental health savvy in that I knew myself you know I knew myself really really well and I asked for help straight away and it wasn't getting anywhere I was in fact it was making me worse because I felt like a freak I felt like I knew in the back of my head I was I was thinking right I know what's going on is really scary and I know all this is going on but you have to be honest with like medical professionals because that is the only way

you're going to get better which is true but the more honest I was the more I felt like a freak I felt like a this outlier I was talking to perinatal mental health people you know there's quite a niche group of possible patients and I was just getting this look all the time this sort of they had no idea what you were talking no idea what I was talking about at all which is definitely going to feed the OCD even terrified me it absolutely terrified me because I was just looking for you know there's a thing in OCD about reassurance you know I I'm really good at not asking for it now, but I realized my whole life that I've constantly,

constantly sought reassurance about things all the time. I need to check things all the time, that that's okay, isn't it? What did they mean by that? Is that okay? This is a really important thing for anyone listening. We'll get into this in the bonus episode, but the seeking reassurance is instinctively what you want to do for the relief no i haven't done that no i haven't said that no i know this hasn't happened asking people around you but it

actually makes it worse it makes the ocd more entrenched yes because there's this idea that you're i always think there's a kind of glitch in the brain that it's sending false messages that there is a danger that there is something to worry about and if you're seeking reassurance or you're trying to fix that me recovering from OCD has been about just letting the emergency flares go off in my brain and not react to them not suck not getting sucked down not getting sucked into what was so interesting uh listening to you talk about that experience in early motherhood where it started with what if someone else hurts him what if and as you see that when you start feeding it and giving it reassurance oh you just paint yourself into a corner and it goes it'll get darker and darker OCD will attach itself this is

the other thing that's really important to make clear yes it attaches itself to things that you hold dear and you hold close yes so about two years ago I got COVID and I took some night nurse and then I saw on the bottle that it was it had like a small amount of alcohol in it and then I took it again the next night anyway I became convinced that I'd relapsed on night nurse and it got to the stage where I couldn't pour myself a glass of water because I was worried there might be like some gin in it or something so I had to get my husband to do it for me yes seeking reassurance oh but that yes that's doing compulsions by proxy compulsions by proxy thank you but then within about two weeks I was back to ruminating over when I was drinking and my child was three years old. What if in that thing I did something terrible?

You know, like you go from Nought to Fred West in 60 seconds. That's such a good way. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's such a good way of putting it. And I wouldn't have been able to say, like, this is the other thing that is really important to talk about is that I would never be able to make jokes about these things. I wouldn't have been able to say words like paedophile or Fred West. And there might be people listening who are wincing and having to go off into compulsions to try and neutralise what they've just heard. I still find it very difficult.

I find it very difficult. One of my ERP exposure response prevention, which we'll come to, is the kind of the gold standard treatment for OCD. Seems counterproductive, but it and I for a very long time thought it didn't work, but it really does work. But would just be standing in a room by myself saying it out loud. Saying the word paedophile. Saying the word paedophile, saying the word murder, saying the word pedophile saying the word murder stabbing yeah rape yeah um well how are you feeling right now saying like really really stressed take a deep breath but i kind of want i could never have done this if you hadn't have had the erp yeah because the

thought is oh my god where is that coming from does that mean? It's the worst thing you can be. It's the worst thing you could do. And it's focused on the thing that you love the most. And it is the cruelest condition because of that. Because it literally... It attaches itself to the most important thing. Yeah. And over the space of like two years, it broke my heart because I loved him so deeply, but I couldn't.

I was so scared to love him deeply. And and that's what it does. And the more the OCD realizes that you love something, that you want to protect something, the more it latches on to it so i want to get on to talking about um erp and cbt because there will be people listening who a lot of light bulbs might be going off but i also just want to talk a bit about that understanding because one of the things that has helped me most is to realize that this is like many mental illnesses this is your brain trying to protect you but it's kind of gone a bit it's gone a bit haywire yeah so I think it's really important to understand that it always

attacks things that you hold dear so that's why it picked up on my sobriety it's why it picked up on my sobriety. It's why it picked up on my child. It's why when I was 11, it was, it picked up on AIDS, which was the big panic of the day. And you infecting your family, which is the thing you love the most. Yeah. I remember when I was pregnant, and this is one I, women get in touch with me about quite a lot. I became convinced that the child wasn't my husband's right and I became almost like I think sometimes people with OCD would make very good like forensic detectives you know because I would I was going through the nights where we possibly could have conceived our daughter and checking who was I out with on those nights and i was asking for male friends

if we had had sex and i'd forgotten it can you like that is nuts no but i'll tell you what's more nuts than that i can i can i've got top trumps on that okay go on we did ivf yeah and i became convinced that there'd been a mix-up of course and that because i'd always heard or seen that whenever people had babies the baby tended to look like the dad before it looks like the mum yeah as a sort of there's that idea of the kind of primal so that the dad sticks around and knows you know so caveman he knows that that's his offspring kind of thing and my son looks so much like me and not at all like my husband and I was like that's really unusual that's really unusual I've read up that that's unusual so that means something

obviously we did IVF so I was like I definitely didn't cheat on you I definitely didn't cheat on you and even if I did I don't know I didn't it's fine so there must have been a mix-up in the lab so I was googling and I literally came downstairs one day and I said there's a deal on it's £99 for a paternity test so we can get it do a paternity test and then send it off and my husband went are you being serious and I was like well no I said look I know you're gonna love him anyway so there's no problem there so I mean we could probably just sue the clinic to be honest so so actually it wasn't like oh I think you're gonna leave or I think you're not gonna say it was like oh no i know you're gonna be a great dad to him even though he's not yours but we should just know we should find out for definite

because that would be because you're constantly seeking reassurance and facts and chasing it and chasing it and chasing it and he was like we did ivf i was like yeah but what if what if what if what if let's talk about erp and cbt yes and so if you are listening to this and you think that you may have obsessive compulsive disorder obviously you want to get yourself to a doctor but it's what kind of people are often worried about what therapy to get or who they need to speak to. CBT, which stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, is broadly speaking what you will be offered if you present with OCD. Which is what I was offered. But there's a very specific type of CBT. Sorry, there's a lot of acronyms going on here.

No, I know. There's a very specific type of CBT, which is exposure response prevention, which is ERP. Yes. Which is, as you said earlier, it's where you will be exposed to the very thing that you fear most. Yes. And the idea being that the more you're exposed to it without giving in to the compulsions. Yes. The more able you will be able to deal with it and the less it will bother you

as time goes on i mean it's i mean it's not this but it's you've got a fear of spiders and you hold a spider and you hold that spider until you can get your body to not react and i mean it's not that you don't so don't go to erp thinking they're just gonna put a spider in your hand like it's not it's not that especially when it's more mental yeah hand. Like it's not, it's not that. And then you will be cured of OCD. Yeah, you're cured. I mean, it's a constantly evolving thing. You know, for a really long time, you want to just give me a tablet and I'll take the tablet and I'll go back to who I was before. Even though who I was before had OCD.

But to me, it was like, no, there was a before and there was an after and it was very black and white thinking is a whole other thing other yes it's a whole other thing with OCD it's when things are either this or that you know there's no there's nothing in between no so my thing now is with especially with ERP is trying to live in the gray and be comfortable with it you know um with uncertainty with uncertainty because what OCD when people have OCD they crave certainty please tell me I'm not a murderer please tell me I'm not a paedophile but it's really hard when I'm a therapist saying to me you have to live with the thought that maybe you are yes and I was like what no I can't do that I can't I can't I literally can't and and um you know after a certain of time, I actually can't live with this. So I don't think I will be able to much longer.

And that's how bad it got, where I just completely planned it out. Because it was like, oh, my God, for the first time, a kind of way out appeared to me. And it obviously wasn't a way out. In my mind, it was like, like, if you're talking about killing yourself, or you're talking about like suicidal thoughts and things like that I mean I don't think you can be like inundated with intrusive thoughts that you ruminate on of that kind of taboo caliber like taboo nature and of that intensity without going into suicidal ideation because and I can't tell you how much I wasn't a candidate for that you know I was in a strong relationship we were so wanting a baby we had the baby he was great he was perfect everything

should have been great and suddenly I find myself think but in in a really logical methodical way going okay well I'll do it on a Sunday because that's nice at the end of the week and and then it's the first on Monday so my husband and my son can start the month off fresh that would be great it just absolutely sort of manic thinking but it just kind of made sense to me at the time and and obviously you know I didn't and I'm very glad that I didn't and I got better and I was able to to look back on it I realized that it was OCD or the idea came up when when I was too scared to google my symptoms because if I thought if I google my symptoms some alarm in a government building is going to go off and the police are

going to come and the police are going to come here and at one point I was like I'm going to go to the police I'm going to go to the police and I'm going to tell and my husband what are you going to say to them I'll say that I'm having horrible thoughts. Right. What do you expect them to do? What are they going to do? You know, I might be a danger. It was kind of like a sort of, you know, pre-crime. It was your minority report.

You know, he was like, it's not my thing. Like a preemptive. What are you going to say? I'm having these thoughts and they're going to be right. Right. Do you want to do any of that stuff that you're thinking about? Well, no. That's what I know. I did. I was like, I want to just in my pajamas, do you want to do any of that stuff that you're thinking about? Well, no, that's what I know.

I did. I was like, I want to just in my pajamas walk into a police station and go, yeah, let's just stop this. Pretend. I definitely had those feelings. I was I wrote about that was the first time I wrote about it. And my daughter was about one. And I was like, if I just write about this now in my column, either people will come back to me because I've never heard anyone talk to me about OCD in that form and they'll be like no I have that too and I'll be like right I'm not I'm not mad or I am mad but I'm not bad right yeah or the police will just come and take

me away and then it's done yes I mean I have that now with this in that although I'm much better and I know and it's fine but part of me is like people are going to listen to this and they're going to think a certain way about you. They're going to think maybe they will think that you're a bad person or maybe they, you know, but I have to. But in a way, isn't that a form of exposure? Yes, that's exactly. That is a form of exposure because, you know, ideally I'd like for us to delete this and for it to never have happened.

But it did happen and it is happening. this and it for it to never have happened but it did happen and it is happening I wanted to kind of finish this main episode really by asking you well a by thanking you for being so honest because it really does help people and it helped me you know the more that we can see other people who kind of look like us voicing these crazy thoughts it's like i look at you and i'm like well she's obviously not a pedophile and then thank you and then it's like the penny drops it's like oh you know like it really does bad parents don't worry about being bad parents you're doing it because you're risk assessing you're making sure everything's okay and for some people people like us with OCD that's gonna turn into something for

people like my husband it's a crappy few weeks and then you move on you know for people without without that kind of rumination that OCD brain but it's so common to have intrusive thoughts in early parenthood for men and women, for mums and dads. And I'm angry that we're not told that and that we're made to feel alone and shameful and like bad people. We're not bad people. On that note, thank you so much, Kimberley Nexon. Put it all out there. A massive thank you to Kimberley for such a candid and heartfelt conversation today.

I think what Kimberley's journey shows is similar to mine, is that the moment that you share this experience with others and you find your tribe, you're on the route to recovery it doesn't cure you but oh my god shame dies when you expose it to the light now i don't like to leave you without a recommendation and this week i thought i'd offer you one if you are listening and you are experiencing mental illness in any way or intrusive thoughts and just a crowded brain i wanted to recommend to you this amazing app that i use quite religiously it's called insight timer now it's free it's a meditation app and if the idea of meditating fills you with fear as it always has me

i find personally that meditating when i'm in a crisis, a mental health crisis, is like, it's like asking someone in a lead suit to go for a swim. It is not helpful. And I've had a kind of long and complex relationship with meditation. But the one thing that has helped me more than anything else is this app called Insight Timer, because they are meditations and they give you time in them but they're more like talks from people that know what they're talking about who know a lot about intrusive thoughts and managing them and there's just such a wealth of stuff on there and I love it and if you haven't jotted that down all the information is in the show notes. I'm back on Friday with a bonus edition of Life of Briony

where Kimberley and I will be answering some of your OCD-related questions. See you Friday.