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Coronation Street - Gemma


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Coronation Street is currently running a story about Gemma experiencing mental health problems following the birth of quads.  She is currently experiencing intense, intrusive thoughts about harming her babies.  This hasn't been described as OCD but as possible Post Natal Depression & anxiety caused by exhaustion.  She isn't, as yet, demonstrating any sign of compulsions.  Anxiety, PND, OCD can often be made up of a package of all the various symptoms.  Whatever the initial factors are, the very incidence of even having had these type of thoughts can progress into it becoming a disorder and result in people carrying out compulsions in the vain attempt to control things.

So far they are doing a very good job.  The actress who plays Gemma is doing a marvelous job at portraying what it's like to experience such intrusions.  So far she has been taken to the GP who has explained how common these type of thoughts are. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.  Gemma's character has largely been a comedic role but the actress is really portraying  how it feels to suddenly experience these thoughts.  Really good portrayal and far better ar demonstrating the reality than we saw with Craig.  Whatever "label" is finally put on her illness it will still do a great deal to educate others about how common it is to experience these type of dark & frightening thoughts.

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1 hour ago, Caramoole said:

So far they are doing a very good job.

I am 2 months behind.  If it is an OCD storyline I hope they treat it better this time. If you remember with the Craig storyline they did a great job in the build up to the story, then once the story was over OCD became the butt of jokes, I think I counted 4 in one evening of Corrie episodes.

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So far, so good.  She really encapsulates the fear, the horror at her thoughts, the fear of disclosing them to anyone.  As I say, they haven't labelled it as OCD....rather "Unwanted, intrusive, dark thoughts of harm" as a result of PND/exhaustion.....and no mention or evidence of compulsions but either way, the very mention of the type of thoughts will help educate others.  Before they mentioned PND I said to my Husband "She's got OCD" even he seemed shocked that someone could think about pushing a buggy in front of a bus or letting it go at the top of a hill.  There are other elements that are definitely PND, like leaving the pram on a bus but often there's a mixture of things.  Maybe it's post natal OCD or they mightn't be that clued up on that one.  I've been impressed with how she's played it, especially given her character.  Similarly with her Mum who they're showing a whole other side to

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Although I was disappointed with Craig's storyline and how it fizzled out with no further mention, I'm glad they've started to cover different aspects of OCD and mental health issues. Whereas Craig's was counting and checking or else something bad would happen, Gemma's is intrusive thoughts which I related to more.

When Dr Gaddas told her that its more common than she would think I got a bit emotional and remembered when I was first told that!

I agree that the actress is doing a fantastic job at portraying it. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally caught up on Corrie, well until last week's episodes.  They captured the intrusive thoughts really well, but in the end diagnosed as depression?  Typical Corrie in the end the story seems to have stopped at that point unless they plan to come back to it.

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