'My OCD meant I took two hours to shower'

FaceTiming her mum while on a date to check her bedroom door is closed, spending two hours in the shower, driving around roundabouts numerous times, and watching the same video on her phone for 14 hours - these are just some of the "rituals" Emily Newcombe performs as someone with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

The 32-year-old, from Barnsley, says she believes she has suffered from the condition since childhood, but was only officially diagnosed with OCD two years ago.

Following that diagnosis, she says she now wants to raise awareness of the condition and the challenges it poses on a daily basis so people better understand the problems she and others like her face.

Newcombe says that one of her earliest memories is of a Christmas Day as a young girl, during which she spent hours in her bedroom straightening her duvet and dolls.

When a family member impatiently threw off the duvet she says she became "hysterical" for the rest of the day.

Newcombe recalls that in later years, friends at school found it "strange" when she spent her lunchtime lining up planners and bags in a symmetrical line.

Meanwhile, relationships with partners broke down when the "masking" - hiding the disorder - became too much.

"I kept it from them. I remember going on dates and lining up drinks at a bar when they went to the toilet and not being able to physically sit down at a table without straightening it," she says.

"I think it was shame really. An embarrassment. I didn't really want them to know I was suffering," she says.

According to the charity OCD Action, OCD is a "clinically recognised disorder" which affects about 1-2% of the population and is both "debilitating and paralysing".

The charity says that one of the greatest challenges people with OCD face is "the need to fight both the all-pervasive stigma of mental health disorders and the widely held belief that OCD is a mild or even 'quirky' problem that is nothing more than hand-washing".

"People might use the phrase 'a bit OCD' without understanding the onerous nature of this severe condition and its impact," the charity adds.

Newcombe says she was able to effectively mask her OCD to such an extent that she travelled around the UK working in promotions and at events.

However, she says: "There were times when I couldn't get to work on time because I couldn't leave the house.

"I had to walk in certain ways, in steps of three and five, and then I had a thing about locking the house, putting my seatbelt on 19 times and even driving round roundabouts a few times until it felt right."

Newcombe says that in the most extreme moments she would take up to five hours to leave the house and even developed a "funny gait" when walking.

Her mother, Catherine, says security guards would follow her daughter around the supermarket because of the "suspicious way" she walked backwards and forwards, "glancing either side".

Newcombe's mum says her daughter's condition has had a huge impact on the family.

"When she was very little, we just didn't realise. We thought she was a perfectionist," she says.

"It was in her 20s when she was courting and Emily would FaceTime me and she literally wanted me to show her pictures on FaceTime of her bedroom door closed.

"I thought, hang on, this is not right. She's out with her partner, she's supposed to be enjoying a meal and I'm getting constant phone calls throughout the evening and she wants reassurance her bedroom door is closed."

Newcombe says that while some people with OCD catastrophise what might happen if they do not complete specific tasks, her condition is different.

• OCD information and support from BBC Action Line

"Mine is a feeling that if I don't do this, it's not that I'll die or my family will, but that the world will change in its dimensions," she explains.

In 2024, Newcombe was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for three months.

"I ended up not self-caring and not being able to shower and toilet properly," she says.

"I ended up taking two hours to shower; not being able to switch the tap off; pulling my trousers up and down several times; and then I ended up peeing in buckets."

Newcombe's mother describes the last two years as "horrendous".

"It's been a battle - you have no choice but to keep going," she says.

"But to see your daughter struck down with such a cruel and crippling illness, and for us to watch Emily doing rituals that are so time consuming, taking hours and hours up of her life, it's mentally exhausting."

Newcombe says she has had to stop working as she could not arrive on time, and she still struggles with a specific ritual on her phone.

"I search for 'how to to measure a door' and click through pressing certain buttons, and I have to press the back button and forward button to feel right in my brain," she explains.

"It can take 14 hours, sometimes. A bird will fly past the window and I'll have to start again."

Her mother says the "ritual", which her daughter insists on carrying out standing up, is now having a physical impact on her.

"Some days we watch her spending hours on her feet and her lower legs, feet and ankles have been so swollen, blown up with fluid, because she's putting that much pressure on them standing there."

Newcombe has been receiving treatment locally for her condition, including cognitive behavioural therapy.

She and her family now hope to raise funds for treatment at a specialist anxiety disorders residential unit in London.

Meanwhile, Newcombe says she hopes that by explaining more about the nature of the condition, people will be more sensitive to the problems it poses.

"I just want to say we are not alone and it takes courage and compassion to battle it," she says.

"So, don't make fun of it and just be mindful that these things do exist and they take a lot of hours up in people's days."

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