KS2 / KS3 PSHE: OCD and depression - Annabel’s Story

Uh I was really happy, uh I was really energetic, I used to like climbing on things and playing with friends.

I got on well at school, I was clever.

I like always had one best friend, and then - but I got on well with quite a lot of others.

Um my step dad left, and that was really hard coz he was like my dad.

I moved half way through year 5, I used to change school, and I don’t do well with change, and then I didn’t fit in, I got a bit bullied when I first started and stuff.

I used to end up sitting by myself. It was like, we had like a wood section in our school, it was like a hut in the middle of the woods, and I used to sit in there alone.

It made me feel lonely and quite upset sometimes. You feel like, what did I do wrong, why don’t they like me.

I got a tic, it’s like a movement, or…it was like a noise with my nose. Like…(sniffles)… Like that. It sounded like I was like congested, but I wasn’t. It was just my tic.

And then sometimes I get more than one at the same time, when I’m really stressed.

I get like a twitchy eye, and a head. It made me feel strange compared to everyone else, coz I used to think like everyone’s gonna notice, they’re gonna ask me questions, and I didn’t want to explain it to them. Coz I felt embarrassed, coz no one else at my school had one.

You feel like you have to do certain things, like, either a certain amount of times, or, just, you have to do it.
Because otherwise something bad would happen, to you, or your family, or something will go wrong in the class, or something like that.

My book shelf has to be arranged, like I arrange it all the time, my teddies have to be lined up in a specific order, and if someone knocks them over, I have to knock them all over. And then rearrange it all again.
Because otherwise, it just like… frazzles me.

When I’m at school, I have to run my hand against the wall as I’m walking.
And then in the classroom as I walk past the desk, I’ll tap the desk, so that nothing goes wrong in the classroom and I don’t make a mistake or anything.

I have a really bad list making problem. I make a list, if I make one mistake, I write the list again, and then I have to write it out again and again and again, until it’s perfect.

Er when I was tapping they used say ‘Stop tapping, it’s annoying.'
And I used to say sorry, but I couldn’t stop tapping, and then they used to like pull a face at me or something, I think they thought I was weird or that I was annoying.

When you’re in the moment, it feels like, you need to it otherwise something bad will happen, but when you look back at it, you think, maybe something bad wouldn’t have happened.

It was quite a slow process for me, it just gradually got worse and worse over like 3 years, I was feeling particularly stressed,… and erm… then, and… that’s when I started feeling a bit down… And like I wasn’t good enough.

I make everyone leave me, like my dad, my stepdad, some old friends didn’t speak to me once I left, it’s all my fault that everyone leaves and that maybe I would be better off not here. Like, I should be better off, dead.

And then I just hit rock bottom for about six weeks, and I didn’t tell anyone.

At CAMHS they said that I have OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and severe depression.
And then I got someone, a therapist at CAMHS, and it was weekly at first.

That’s helped me quite a lot, it helped like, talking about how you were feeling.
And it was quite nice to get a diagnosis because it made you realise why you were feeling that way, and how many other people have that same diagnosis, and that you’re not alone.