Taunted by fears she had Aids and was a serial killer… writer opens up about 23-year battle with mental illness
Bryony Gordon was driven so crazy by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder she was convinced she had abused her child and murdered people
NOVELIST Bryony Gordon was driven so crazy by 23 years of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder she was convinced she had abused her child and murdered people.
She hadn’t, that was just the voices in her head. Here Bryony, 35, tells her story about her constant battle with mental illness.
WHEN I was 12, I woke up one morning with a voice in my head telling me I was dying of AIDS.
It made no sense — I had never had sex or a blood transfusion, my drug dependency was still at least a decade off . . . and yet there I was, convinced that I would be dead by Christmas.
I went into school that day and sat anxiously at the back of class with no idea what was happening to me.
I saw germs everywhere, and started to scrub my hands until they bled.
I had to wear gloves permanently for fear of being infected by some awful illness and stopped being able to touch or hug my family.
I couldn’t — I was too scared that I would make them ill too.
At 17, still alive but no less weird, my fears shifted. The voice in my head told me that as well as maybe having a terminal illness, I might be a serial killer.
I was the world’s worst human being. Except . . . I wasn’t. I was just ill . . . really, really ill
Everywhere I looked I saw danger — knives that I could stab someone with, bleach I could pour into my sister’s hot chocolate.
Or what if I had already killed someone and blanked it from my memory?
What if, I had abducted a homeless person on my way home from school and strangled them, before dumping their body?
I scoured the papers for murders I might have committed.
I ran past playgrounds fighting back the urge to vomit, because I was terrified that I might steal a child and molest it.
The questions the voice asked me were appalling and the things they suggested I had done made me feel sick — I was sure I wouldn’t hurt another human being and yet the voice in my head was telling me otherwise.
I cried myself to sleep at night.
I was the world’s worst human being. Except . . . I wasn’t. I was just ill . . . really, really ill.
I had (and still have) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I didn’t know that at the time.
It was only when my mother handed me a newspaper article about the condition that I began to learn about it.
It is a debilitating condition that causes sufferers to have intrusive thoughts (obsessions) that they try to calm with certain rituals (compulsions).
Saying phrases, for example, or repeatedly washing their hands.
Sufferers know that their actions are not rational, but feel powerless to stop them.
OCD takes many forms. Some people fear being contaminated, or that harm might come to those they love.
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Sufferers might become convinced they are gay because an image of their best friend pops into their head during sex, while others become anxious that they are child molesters because of inappropriate thoughts while surrounded by young people.
Everyone has these thoughts — it’s just that most people dismiss them, they realise they are just part of the brain’s randomness. But someone with OCD can’t.
Although their eyes can see that they are not a murderer, their brain refuses to acknowledge it.
It was a huge relief to learn what was wrong with me . . . but it was short-lived.
The GP dismissed me. He put me on anti-depressants and on a waiting list for therapy that never came.
I struggled on silently and did a good job of it, too.
I was so good at shutting up my mental illness that I got promoted to a columnist and started writing about my life as a single girl
Got on with trying to quieten the voices in my head — with alcohol, for example, and later, cocaine.
By the time I turned 20 I had a job at a national newspaper, but I was fighting demons.
My hair had fallen out and I had developed bulimia as a way to try and control my body.
I fell into an abusive relationship and started taking cocaine two, three, four nights a week.
It shut up the voices in my head, or at least until the next day when I would start the process all over again.
I spent my twenties pinging from rubbish relationship to rubbish relationship, having empty sex with people I didn’t care about.
I partied hard and worked hard. I had nothing else in my life.
I was so good at shutting up my mental illness that I got promoted to a columnist and started writing about my life as a single girl.
Shortly after my 30th birthday had passed in a chaotic blur of booze and drugs, my boss asked me if I wanted to go on an assignment to the Arctic Circle.
For once, the voice in my head did a positive thing — it told me to do it.
So off I went, and by the time I had happily gone to the loo off the back of the dinghy in front of seven men, I knew I had the strength to change the way I lived my life.
When I got back to London, I set about doing just that. I met a nice man who encouraged me to get help for my OCD.
I wanted to share my story in the hope that it would help others to share theirs
Within nine months I was pregnant and after our daughter Edie was born in 2013, we married.
Then the OCD came back worse than ever, asking me if I had abused my own child before blanking it out.
I couldn’t bear the thought that it was trying to ruin the thing most precious to me.
So I sat down and wrote about it in my column. I got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of responses from people saying ‘me too!’
I realised, for the first time, that feeling weird was really quite . . . well, normal.
That was integral to dealing with my OCD. And I wanted others to have that feeling as well.
So I set about writing a book about my experiences.
I wanted to share my story in the hope that it would help others to share theirs.
We need to talk about the stuff that goes on in our heads. Because only then will people sit up and listen.
Only then can we get the Government to stop ignoring us. And only then can we truly get better.
● Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon is out now from Headline, £14.99.
