A MIND AT WAR (Official Documentary 2025)
[Music] With OCD, what happens is it interjects on the things that you value the most. It makes you live that reality of the life you don’t want to live. [Music] Now, anything in life worth having isn’t going to be a quick fix. And OCD recovery really teaches you that. Hi, my name’s Elliot Play. I’m a coach for OCD Recovery and I’ve been coaching for around about a year now. So, I remember when OCD first latched on for me. I was about 18 years old and I was running around a football pitch during quite a difficult time in my life. So, I broke up with my girlfriend. I left college. Wasn’t feeling too good. I was feeling quite down, quite depressed. And all of a sudden, I had the intrusive thought, what if I find men attractive? because you haven’t dated for a while, Elliot, does that mean that you’re not attracted to women anymore? Does that mean you’re gay? And all of a sudden, it felt like my whole world had just switched in a moment. As that happened, as that took place, all I could really think about was, how do I get out get out of that? And I was suddenly embroiled in this cycle of double-checking that I was straight. So, sexual orientation OCD, or in my case, homosexual OCD, is a fear of not being the sexual orientation that you thought you was. It’s not so much you’re a closeted gay person or it’s an identity crisis. No, there’s a fear there that is driving that cycle. And then because of that and because of the realness factor and how OCD mimics that, you perform lots of compulsions and avoidance behaviors just to get that just right feeling about how you were before OCD settings. So I had so many compulsions with sexual orientation fears. So firstly watching adult content online, not only to double check that I found the opposite sex attractive, but also to double check that I didn’t find the same sex attractive. Then I had so many other ones as well, right? So, I would take gay tests online to double check that I didn’t fall into that category. You know, double-checking that I liked women. Um, I’d wear dark clothes to come across as more masculine and not come across as eccentric. I wouldn’t listen to gay music from gay artists because I thought if I listen to that, that means I’m gay. I remember I’d try and talk with a very deep voice just to try and sound more masculine. I would record my voice over and over again on tape just to double check that it was deep enough. I also avoided dating for a long period of time, right? because I felt so uncertain because it felt like I was living a lie. I thought that I needed to get that right answer before I could go out and date again. And it was almost like waiting for this train that was never going to arrive. Had so many avoidance behaviors, right? So I remember I’d be out and about in public and I’d very much look at the ground like that because I was too scared to look at men in the environment around me. What if I took the risk there and found a man attractive? I couldn’t take that risk when I was so stuck in the cycle. So I would just look at the ground even when having conversations with other people. I would just literally look at the floor and you know they must have just thought I’m being really rude here. So the gym was a hugely triggering exposure for me with HOCCD. As you can imagine, you’re surrounded by lots of men in the gym who are working out, who are exercising. And what I do was I would avoid going to the gym for periods on end. And if I did go to the gym, what I would do was I would just stay in the corner of the gym and just be so dialed into what I was doing. You know, how do I feel in my body? Am I looking the right amount of time? Should I look? Should I not look? That was one of the most difficult moments I had. You know, something that I really love doing, going to the gym, exercising, was just being sabotaged by OCD. And one of the great pleasures that I had in life, you know, feeling fit, going to the gym, working out. That was also taken away from me. And bit by bit, I had to really expose myself to getting back to the gym even when it felt wrong, even when I felt scary, even when it felt um like I couldn’t, just really forcing myself to do that. Yeah. My whole life was a compulsion and avoidance. I think that it’s it’s you know I could be be sat here forever to tell you about all the compulsions and avoidance I had. [Music] Yeah. And go for it. [Music] Right. Here we are then. Here we go. I think looking back I mean you’ve got a brother and a sister as well. So um we had quite a busy family life. Yeah. and this kind of thing hit and we weren’t really too sure what it was at the time because we didn’t really talk about it very much and it was just that not knowing what was going on. Um, and I think when we finally got to start talking about it, it was difficult for for me and your mom to understand Yeah. exactly what it was. And I think the the general knee-jerk reaction for most parents is to say, “Oh, get over it and just get on with your life.” But yeah, obviously after a while we realized it was a lot deeper than that. Yeah. As a as a parent, you want to try and do the best for your kids all the time. Yeah. And we just we just simply didn’t know what to do. Yeah. And that was when that sort of guilt and shame came in for me, I think, because I almost felt like a burden on on the family because I couldn’t really work out what was going going on in my head itself. Every time I was out with you, I’d be in a restaurant, for example, with HOCCD. The fear of rejection is so high. All I’d be doing was I’d be sat in the restaurant and I’d be scanning the environment thinking, “Oh, does my family think that I’m gay if they see me looking at someone?” There was just so many different things where um I just thought I had no hope. Like I I just thought how am I ever going to get out of this? I don’t I don’t think we realized it was quite as bad as it as you you’re describing it now. So um hearing your story, I mean that was all 10 years ago. So um you know 10 years time flies, but um knowing knowing now what you were going through. Yeah. Um I guess it makes me feel even more inadequate cuz I didn’t fully understand what it was what it was like. Clearly, I knew there was something wrong. Yeah. But we just didn’t fully understand the the daily torture that you were going through. Yeah. And that’s kind of that’s really really quite sad to hear. Yeah. So, yeah, I just pushed myself through that. I had to. I had no other option, you know, almost forcing yourself to do those things even when you do feel like the way that you do. I just worry about the resources for parents who’ve got kids that are developing the same sort of symptoms that you had, not knowing what they should do. And that’s that’s scary. You know, Dad, we hear things about other people, friends and family. We hear that they’ve got people struggling with mental health and OCD. They’re just not at work and they’re just shut in their room. And when you tell me those things, it makes me sad because I think, you know, there is a life out there for them if they just take that first step and try and push through that discomfort as hard as it is cuz it is very tough. You’ve always been someone who kind of immerses yourself in a subject. Yeah. So, we were joking earlier about dinosaurs, for example. So, you just know everything about all the dinosaurs there are. Yeah. And I think with with OCD because because you were suffering with it, you kind of immersed yourself to try and find something that was going to help you. Yeah. And you you did that and you you when we have conversations, you talk stuff and I’m thinking, wow, how the hell do you know all this stuff? But the interesting thing for me is that you’ve been through the whole process um and you’ve tried a few different jobs and now you’ve got a job trying to help other people who are in the same position as you. So you’ve you’ve been through the mill and you’re trying to put something back. Yeah, absolutely. And that makes me really proud actually. So um that’s a really good thing. So the key lessons that I’ve learned on the recovery journey is persistence and practice and perseverance. Now anything in life worth having isn’t going to be a quick fix. And OCD recovery really teaches you that. OCD is a very resilient disorder. It isn’t one of the most debilitating mental health disorders in the world for no reason. It deserves respect. It deserves consistency. It deserves work. And if you don’t put the work in, then OCD is going to make time for you instead of you making time for it. Robert Bray and OCD recovery absolutely changed my life. That lived experience and relatability is crucial for the OCD sufferer. Time and time again, I looked for a quick fix. I did hypnotherapy. I did CBT therapy. The other person just hadn’t walked my path. They hadn’t been in my shoes. It’s so great to be able to wake up, you know, not feeling anxious and just to have the full day ahead of me and knowing that I can, you know, enjoy the day even with those challenges and hardships, but it’s just knowing that I’ve been in the the most darkest place and that I’m not in that place anymore. And being here just feels so liberating and so freedom and especially with being able to help other people with OCD now. It’s so it’s so great. I can’t even explain it.
Elliott goes through his OCD recovery journey with HOCD / Sexual Orientation OCD. He reflects on how badly he was stuck in a constant state of anxiety and numerous compulsions he couldn’t get rid of. He is also joined by his dad in a conversation how they navigated Elliott’s journey as a family.
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1 Comment
So inspiring