My Brother, OCD and Me

Peter’s hands are red raw and in some places, bleeding. It was like he had his hands sitting out in the hottest of suns, purposefully wanting them to blister and burn. In the middle of the night, the taps turn on and off, over and over again, and with that you know it’s Peter washing his sore hands vigorously. The amount of times he would wash his hands a day were boundless, painstakingly thinking the same obsessive thoughts. For Peter, washing his hands isn’t something you do after using the toilet, or before cooking – to him; it is a ritual, an addiction and a compulsion.

My brother, Peter Minogue is 21 years old, and has suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) since the beginning of his adolescence.  “It started when I was about 13, I was in the lunch queue at school with one of my friends and I remember him telling me that all gay people had AIDs. So I was terrified that I had AIDs at the time, so I used to try and avoid contact with people and spreading my germs – it was all about contamination, so I would wash my hands over and over again.”

Peter kept his homosexuality to himself until he was 18, choosing to come out to his friends and us - his family - before he set off to university in Reading. For many years Peter believed that all gay people had AIDs just because he didn’t have anyone to speak to that would tell him it was rubbish. “I remember once, my hands were bleeding from washing them so much, and someone walked past me at school, and some of the blood from my hands went on them. I just remember panicking and thinking ‘oh my god, I’ve just given that guy AIDs.’ It never left my head, I came home and I just shook, it was horrible.”

At around this time in his life, Peter would use around 7 bottles of body/hand wash a week, open door handles with his feet, as well as never holding a door open for anyone. He would rather just run through it as fast as he could and avoid all contact – some people simply thought he was rude. With 1.2% of the population suffering with OCD and with it considered the fourth most common mental illness to affect people in the western world, not everyone can understand or even recognise it.

“A lot of people would just say ‘stop thinking that, it’s stupid’ or ‘stop washing your hands’ and it’s just not like that, if it was, I would stop.”  As a family, we didn’t know how to deal with Peter’s OCD, which often left him in bouts of deep depression, locking himself in his room for days. I remember clearly, lying in my bed one evening, wanting to go and check on him, but almost fearful to do so in case he had done the unthinkable – kill himself.

OCD can affect people in different ways, from obsessing over checking things, contamination, hoarding or intrusive thoughts. “It’s annoying when people confuse OCD with habit. Going back to check you’ve locked your car door once isn’t OCD – OCD plagues your mind, it brings so much anxiety with it.”

Peter’s OCD had manifested over time and as well as being obsessed with contamination, he also suffers from a form of OCD called Pure O. Pure O does not feature compulsive manifestations – like hand washing – instead, the anxiety-fuelled obsessions only take place in the mind. “I might have a horrible thought about someone getting hurt – like seeing someone on the street, and imagining them being run over - and it’s almost like I am responsible for them in a way. So the compulsions can come into it…for example, if I don’t wash my hands that guy will get run over at some point, even though the two things are completely unrelated. You feel like you’ve got some weird power, and I may as well wash them just to be on the safe side.”

For Peter, a certain stigma still surrounds mental health issues, causing many people to be too afraid to speak up about their own, or even unsure whether they have one or not. It’s easy to tell if you have a broken arm. It hurts and your arm doesn’t work properly, so you put a cast on it. But without proper education, how are we supposed to know if we have a broken head? Programmes such as Channel 4’s Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners doesn’t exactly tread lightly or even understand the disease. “They’re just treated like freaks – like a lot of people with a mental disorder. People don’t understand mental disorders. The only time they do is if they’re unlucky enough to be in this situation themselves. Friends might say ‘man up’, and because of that you try and hold things in – but it makes it so much worse.”

Britain’s Biggest Hoarders, or other voyeuristic reality TV shows like The Undateables or Embarrassing Bodies, are the latest in TV entertainment. But whilst they entertain, they often don’t recognise the deeper issues – that these people need help. “I don’t think it should be allowed, it’s horrible, it feels like everyone is just pointing and laughing at them,” Peter believes. Instead they are strewn across our televisions like animals in a zoo.

As a family, we often struggled to understand many aspects of Peter’s mental health. I used to laugh when Peter refused to handle raw chicken, or go round the house for the millionth time checking all our plug switches were turned off and even obsessing over the fact he would die in a plane crash. But over time, like Peter, I felt myself picking up OCDs. It was true when Peter said people often don’t understand mental illness until they’re unlucky enough to have it themselves. In the end, Peter was the first person I went to when I was struggling with depression.

For my mum, she became tired with buying so many toilet rolls or putting an expensive hand wash in the downstairs toilet specifically for guests, but Peter emptied it on the same day she bought it. Similarly, there wasn’t any education for my parents on mental health – instead they were just frustrated. To them, Peter should have just flicked a switch and got better again. “When someone in my family would shout at me for something, it would just make me stressed, and I would wash my hands even more. But then at the same time, you’re so involved in yourself, and kind of selfish in a way, that you aren’t even thinking about that stuff, you’re just thinking those horrible thoughts all the time,” Peter said.

After a while it became clear to Peter, and to us as a family, that professional help was needed. It was here where he began to open up and deal with his issues head on. “Once I started to see a psychologist, she really helped me, like when I used to believe all gay people had AIDs, she helped me get over that and obviously realise it was all wrong.” Peter had what is called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which is believed to help 3 out of 4 people with OCD. As well as having someone to talk to, Peter began to take antidepressants, which he continues to take now, “I wouldn’t even know if they’re placebos or not, but because they’re supposed to help me, I believe they help me, and they really do.”

Peter chose to go to the University of Reading to study a degree in psychology, after getting so much help from a psychologist himself, he wanted to benefit others in the same way. “Seeing a psychologist helps you understand things differently, when I was younger I would have all these thoughts and I would interpret them in a different way. Talking to a professional just helps you to rationalise and get rid of the misinterpreted thoughts you used to have, like explaining some of the bad thoughts I might have had. You’re just scared and nervous and it gets worse – but seeing a psychologist helps. She helped understand that my ‘bad’ thoughts – like when I imagined someone being run over - meant I was actually a caring person for not wanting it to happen.” Peter has now completed his degree and is about to embark on a Masters Degree in Clinical Aspects of Psychology. Although he will always battle with his OCD and mental illness, the boy who would lock himself in his room, scrubbing his hands until they were red raw is no more.