Bryony Gordon: This week I suffered a horrible OCD episode that made me fear that I was a psychopath. This is how I dealt with it – after years of my intrusive thoughts numb with drugs and alcohol

The terrible thoughts in my head had been built for a while, but it was on Tuesday morning that they peaked.

My husband had left for work, my daughter for school and I was alone in the house when my brain started to wage the war against me.

What if I had done something terrible the night before with someone on the tube and it went out because I was secretly a psychopath? Had I accidentally sent my child to school with a water bottle full of bleach? Had I emailed a terrible, insulting message to her teacher and removed the items sent from my sent to hide the evidence?

On and on the intrusive thoughts, many of them came too terrible to repeat here.

Instinctively I crawled under the comforter, as if this could somehow be outside the head. But of course it wasn’t possible. A lifelong obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) taught me that I go wherever I go, take my head with me and I can never predict when it will throw this kind of thoughts at me.

For the first time I suffered from these most misunderstood mental disorders when I was a child and believed that I died of AIDS. I washed my hands until they bleed, was afraid of leaving the house, convinced that I could hurt my family by simply existing. Later I started singing sentences in my breath, hoping that this would keep them alive.

I had a series of so -called ‘happy’ words that I would tell myself again and again in an attempt to ‘neutralize’ the terrible thoughts that seemed undisputed in my head.

My brain came to me endlessly. What if I was a serial killing pedophile who somehow had forgotten their terrible crimes because they were so bad that their brains just couldn’t keep them there? I was the worst person in the world, an aberration, the OCS told me. My life was spent in an almost constant state of fear – the coercion that I developed to try to dampen the obsessions only made them much, much worse.

I threw on my running equipment, picked it out and – five kilometers later – noticed that I made a spontaneous video about this annoying small episode of OCD

No filters, no edits, only me, sweaty and tears and have to make contact with other people who know what it is like to have this terrible disease

If you have OCS, your basic feeling is fear and in one way or another you start to normalize it. You mask it to make other people comfortable. First I did this by numbing the fear with alcohol and drugs, but that in itself brings its own problems (alcoholism and addiction).

Since I became sober almost eight years ago, I was lucky to get a lot of therapy and now the gaps between episodes of OCS have become wider and wider, my nervous system no longer constantly attacks. I experience it every few years, unlike every few weeks.

But if it sneaks, I can feel just as defenseless as I was 12. As everyone with OCD knows people with real OCD, unlike those who use it as a byword to be a bit clean and organized-the disease exerts a vice-like grip on your brain, from which it can be impossible to escape. It can strike if I feel low and if I feel high: I have learned that I tend to punish myself if things go well.

But I also learned a few tricks in my time. I know I have to go outside, even if it is only short, and I know I have to call the disease. That is why I threw on my running equipment on Tuesday, explained it and – five kilometers later – I noticed that I made a spontaneous video about this annoying small episode of OCD.

Then I uploaded it to Instagram. No filters, no edits, only me, sweaty and tears and have to make contact with other people who know what it is like to have this terrible disease.

I also felt compelled to inject a reality into the endlessly shiny landscape of social media, where celebrities and influencers have co -opted for the week of mental health care (which is this week) to promote their different well -being products.

While I was still looking at a star about the importance of self -care for their mental health, I wanted to shout: “I know I have to take care of myself, but it is damn difficult if two -thirds of my own brain wish me dead!”

The reaction to my post was immediately and overwhelming. Hundreds of messages came in from people who had to feel less alone about the apparent madness of their brains. And as the day progressed and I read more and more of the species, brave messages in my inbox, I was reminded how much work still needs to be done when it comes to mental health … or, more specific, mental disorders.

I have been taking a campaign in this sector for more than ten years and have seen how we left about talking about the more life-reducing disease psychosis, eating disorders, serious depressive incidents-for discussing things such as feelings and self-care.

And although there is nothing wrong with discussing feelings or self -care, we must ensure that it is not at the expense of the more difficult circumstances, those who ruin life and cannot be cured by lighting a candle and walking a relaxing bath.

I am lucky. I can afford a private therapist. I have sources and support around me to keep my ‘high -functioning’, so that I can still run and write this column. But I know, from the messages I received this week, that there are enough people who do not have such luxury, who have no idea where to run if they try to navigate their way out of a crisis.

I know from reports this week that many distressed patients with mental health care are looking for urgent help, have to wait a maximum of three days at a time in A&E, viewed by guards, instead of nurses. I know that despite the promises of the government of investments, the mental health system in this country is more than the breaking point, where many of the people who work in it are who struggle to float.

And that is why I keep talking about the darkest pieces of my brain, long after it was no longer in fashion. Because a society that ignores the grim reality of mental disorders has no chance of being really healthy someday.

Kim puts Couture in court

Kim Kardashian, accompanied by Kris Jenner, leaves the courthouse in Paris

Forget the red carpet of Cannes-the place for style spots This week is the Paris Hof where Kim Kardashian has shown during the trial of ten people of robbing her in 2016. You have to admire her because she goes to the position with a vintage John Galliano Blazer dress, holy heels and obstacles of diamonds. Prove that the Kardashians even place the couture in the courtroom.

That message was a bad shape, Gary

Gary Lineker at the Action for Children Ultimate News Quiz in March this year

Gary Lineker is again in hot water, this time for the re-sharing of an Instagram post about Zionism with an anti-Semitic emoji.

He quickly removed the mail and apologized, but in the digital world, especially one in which you have 1.2 million followers, everything is seen. What is it about social media that robs so intelligent people of all common sense so much differently? As Lineker himself could say: bad form.

The latest social media rage is checking for a ‘millennial mole’ – a small colored place on your left forearm, to be precise. A creepy number of people born in the 80s and 90s apparently has the goal, although what it means that nobody knows. “What a load of waste!” I thought, before I looked down to see … Yes, a millennial mole.

Vinted is such a faff, Becky!

Rebekah Vardy enjoys some sun on the beach

Becky Vardy has caught the Vinted Bug and placed a lot of old swimwear and children’s clothing on the resale area. I also had a phase of cleaning up my cupboards and putting everything on Vinted, but it was short -lived. I could not deal with people who try to negotiate dresses from £ 5 to £ 4.50, or the endless trips to package delivery points in the middle of nowhere. I give it a few weeks for Vardy caves like me, and take the party to the charity store.