Jump to content

Telling workmates and employers about your OCD


Recommended Posts

As part of some awareness sessions i am going to be delivering to groups of Tutors and Learning Support Assistants at work, i am hoping to get some views from fellow sufferers on their experiences at work.

The main questions i have are:

  • Have you told your employer about your OCD?
  • Have you told your work colleagues?
  • How have they reacted?
  • Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether?
  • Are there parts of your condition you keep a secret?
  • Is your company supportive?

Also, did you inform your school/college/university when you were there and how was the experience?

From a personal point of view, OCD started to deeply affect me in my early 30s.

I informed the staff nurse whn i started with my current employer around this time. I let 2 close colleagues in on my 'secret' a few years later and informed my line manager about 4 years ago before starting my last CBT course.

The fundraising runs and rides i have carried out for OCD-UK have allowed me to share a brief amount of details of my condition with the 1500 staff at our work, but i have decided to take things a step further next month by hosting a couple of 90 minute awareness seminars to groups of about 30 teaching and support staff.

I have never recieved ANY bad reactions or feedback at work and feel confident that it's about time i stuck my head truly over the parapet.

Any help or information you can share will be warmly recieved.

Thanks

Steve

Link to comment
Guest sportlover

Steve - hope this helps. this is a big topic for me at the moment. I’m a very successful teacher in an outstanding school in the south east. Here are my brief answers

  • Have you told your employer about your OCD?... My initial boss knows but my overall employer knows I have had some anxiety issues.
  • Have you told your work colleagues?...I have told approx 5 work colleagues
  • How have they reacted?It angers me most of them don’t believe me as they think ocd is all about cleanliness or symmetry. No one has been bothered about it but at the same time no one really ever is concerned. No sympathy, however if im off for a physical issue people seem gerneally more comfortable
  • Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether?....Prefer not too , but there is a time and a place for everything i guess
  • Are there parts of your condition you keep a secret?...the exact content of the obsessions is futile trying to explain, its more beneficial to explain what ocd is and why it occurs .Even I don’t understand why I get obsessed with logically non sensical things. Then again ocd is not a logical problem but most people approach it from this perceptive and this is why they don’t 'get it'
  • Is your company supportive? Yes overall, however grossly mis-educated on anxiety and ocd
Link to comment

Hello,

This is interesting. My personal answers (not necessarily the correct ones ;-) ) are:

  • Have you told your employer about your OCD?

I think I never have, just because I have not seen the need to raise the topic.

  • Have you told your work colleagues?

I have told a few of them. But I think you should not tell the ugly medical term :-) from the beginning, say instead "I'm too perfectionist about...", "I'm a bit obsessive about...", "I am under-performing because I have a problem about..."

How have they reacted?

I think I have not had any problems because of saying that (another point would be problems about under-performing, punctuality, etc).

Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether?

No. But I do not hawk it either ;-)

Are there parts of your condition you keep a secret?

Well, there are always parts of everything that we keep as a secret.

  • Is your company supportive?
  • Sometimes and some people more than others. At least they do not make matters worse...
Edited by toc
Link to comment

Thanks guys, really helpful answers so far.

@ sportlover - Do you often hear other teachers or students use terms like 'i'm a bit OCD' incorrectly and do you put them right or bite your lip like i have usually done?

It's hearing this several times in a week recently that have convinced me to be more open with my issues.

I'm fairly thick skinned and it doesn't offend me, but the lack of understanding of the seriousness of the condition is very frustrating.

I also dread to think what effect some youngsters feel from hearing the condition trivialized and joked about openly when they are coming to terms with it internally.

Link to comment

I don't think I'd ever tell my employer or any work colleagues. I didn't tell my school or college, even though I had to leave college due to OCD. Also I've had to take time off work for mental health reasons but I've never admitted it.

I know what you mean; I hear teenagers using the term OCD wrongly and trivialising it all the time. In fact it's annoyed me so much that I've finally started to 'stand up' for OCD and challenge people, (I still don't admit that I've got it but maybe I will one day).

Link to comment

Ok hear are my answers, compulsiv:

Have you told your employer about your OCD?

Yes, I had my therapist write to my employer, my employer had me assessed by their occupational health doctor. As a result I was considered disabled under the Equality Act 2010, and reasonable adjustments were made to my workload to make allowances for the OCD.

Have you told your work colleagues?

Yes. last OCD Awareness Week I arranged with the firm's Disability Awareness Group for a piece on my OCD to be placed on our intranet home page, and our intranet forum . I am reproducing the bulk of that article below here:

"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a mental disability that affects around 1% of the population, and involves unwanted, irrational, distressing thoughts - with or without time-consuming compulsive behaviours created by the sufferer to try and make things right and remove the resulting anxiety. It is exhausting and debilitating for the sufferer, and causes extreme concern and feelings of helplessness to their loved ones and fellow workers.

There is large-scale evidence of genetic origin (in my case it’s within my father’s line) and typically it involves a breakdown in neurotransmitter communication within parts of the brain which results in thoughts –which should form, pass through conscience and then resolve and disappear - becoming stuck in conscious thinking ; it’s like the breaking down of an automatic transmission, causing neuropsychiatric illness.

The current accepted treatment for OCD is a combination of medication, to reduce anxiety lift depression and aid the sufferer’s ability to commit to the therapy; cognitive behavioural therapy including exposure and response prevention; and, where the problem lies more with distressing, intrusive thoughts and less with compulsive behaviour, the acceptance that the thoughts are of OCD origin, and not owned by, desired by, or say anything about the sufferer.

So who do you know with OCD? Well, me for a start – I wrote the piece for the Knowledge Exchange to play my part, and that of the Disability Diversity Group, in extending awareness of this distressing condition, and also in the hope that people will be inspired to learn more about how sufferers and their families can be helped, and perhaps may wish to assist in a practical way.
It is also an avowed intent of the Disability Diversity Group to help and assist those with disabilities within our workforce.

You see very little therapy resource is available from the NHS – the funding just isn’t there, or waiting lists are very long – so charities like “ No Panic” and OCD-UK are many people’s main link to some guidance and advice, support groups, and a shop to purchase self-help therapy materials.

PLEASE take a look at our posting on the Knowledge Exchange, and view the OCD-UK website and awareness week content, and please if you can help in some way, that would be marvellous.

If after viewing the information you feel that you, or a family member or a friend, have symptoms that you recognise as OCD-driven, then please seek help; many sufferers from OCD feel too embarrassed to reveal their troubles, but that is never the right course of action, and taking steps to face up to the problem and get help is necessary and essential. I can’t argue with my DNA, I was borne with it, but what I (and my sister who is also a sufferer) have done is tackled OCD face on and not allowed it to prevent us from leading fulfilling and useful professional and personal lives".

How have they reacted?

Terrrifically. I received positive responses from around the world to the above posting (we are a global company).Even today, I was explaining my OCD to two female friends from work, and they were astounded by it, and very supportive.

Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether?

No. to me that helps OCD, not fights it.


Are there parts of your condition you keep a secret?

No.

Is your company supportive?

Yes, they take disability in the workforce seriously, and OCD if it impacts on our daily lives sufficiently, is deemed a disability under the Equailty Act 2010, and employers are required to make reasonable adjustments to the employee's working practices to aid them cope with the OCD in the workplace.

Also, did you inform your school/college/university when you were there and how was the experience?

I didn't suffer from OCD that far ago!!!

Thanks for raising the topic.

Roy

Edited by taurean
Link to comment
Guest Jamesp

I told my boss and he didnt understand. When I needed 2 days off for my ocd he swore and said "what the hell am I gonna do" not good!

But I'm proud to be who I am and tell people

Link to comment
Guest Diane99

Hi compulsivflyer

  • Have you told your employer about your OCD? After over 20 years of working for the same company, I told my (then) immediate boss. I got on really well with him, and respected him, and I knew he respected me. He was very very supportive. His boss also knew about my problems with ocd. Sometime after that I was absent due to ocd, and the Personnel section were involved so they then knew that I lived with ocd. No one else knew.
  • Have you told your work colleagues? No.
  • How have they reacted? Well as I say above, my boss was amazing. And his boss was great. I think that my boss appreciated that my work actually benefited a lot from some aspects of the ocd. He also respected me as an individual, and wanted to help me as best he could.
  • Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether? At work, I hid my daily battle with ocd for over 20 years, and I know that it took a huge toll on me. The strain of possibly being 'found out'. The strain of finding ways to keep it hidden. The strain of working without any support or adjustments to help me. But I hid the ocd because of the environment in which I worked; I still believe it would have been perceived as a weakness by many. My boss and his boss were not the norm imo.
  • Are there parts of your condition you keep a secret? Yes, there are some aspects that are too embarrassing or that I feel too ashamed about.
  • Is your company supportive? Possibly. I am really not sure.
  • did you inform your school/college/university when you were there and how was the experience? I went to college/uni more recently, after almost 30 years of work, so reasonably recent. I decided that I was going to be open about the ocd. I stated it as a 'disability' when I applied. The other students who became my friends knew that I lived with ocd. Everyone was supportive. And I did not have the additional strain of hiding something.
Link to comment

Have you told your employer about you OCD?

I have had no choice. My OCD was triggered by work and mainly only occurs whilst I'm there. I work as an engineer for the railway servicing and maintaining the trains and my OCD means I constantly have to recheck my work as I think I have missed things. Eventually I had to tell my employer there was a problem as I couldn't do my job anymore but it wasn't until after this I found out it was OCD. I have now had to tell my employer that is what the problem is.

Have you told your work colleagues?

I don't feel like I should have to hide this and I'm not ashamed of it so if anyone asks why I have been off then I tell them.

How have they reacted?

I have had mixed reactions. Some people are genuinely interested and if so I tell them more people other people don't want to talk about it so I don't go into detail. There will always be people who don't believe you or think its made up. With my checking problem I have often just been told to ignore it or tell myself I have done the task (why didn't I think of that!).

Do you prefer to hide your condition altogether?

No, you wouldn't hide a cold or a broken arm so why hide this.

Are there parts of your condition you keep secret?

Yes, I don't feel that everyone needs to know all the exact details of my OCD and the effects it has on me. I tell them about the conditions which they might see and those that will occur at work but not the extent that this condition has on me. I don't like talking about how low I have gotten at times because of the OCD.

Are your company supportive?

Yes and no. They are about to pay for private therapy for me but I feel that is only because their duty of care so far has been suspect and my union threatened them with a medical negligence claim as their occupational health doctor over ruled my own doctors decision to sign me off work pending a review from a psychiatrist as I was getting extremely low and he couldn't find anything that would help. The result of me going back was that my OCD and depression got worse.

Although my company are paying for this treatment they are putting a lot of pressure on me to come back and be fully up to speed quickly.

Link to comment

I'm also a teacher.

My line manager knows and I informed occupational health when I began the job. My boss is very supportive, ensures that I can cope with my workload and doesn't push me to take anything on even though I take anything I can as distraction!

My colleagues know because I'm very, very organised and not because of OCD. I educated them that OCD is not just order etc. Many of my colleagues have also suffered from forms of anxiety - very stressful job so very understanding.

Pupils also say 'I'm ocd' frequently, again, I educate as to what OCD actually is and not just an affinity for chocolate or only writing in blue ink.

I keep secrets, my husband knows I have OCD but I haven't told him the nature of it. My mum, sister and doctor are the only people that know.

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...