OCD Action

Parvez Choudhry
Member

Hello All

I am interested to know how attitudes have changed over time towards people with OCD and people with anorexia nervosa. At one time OCD was not recognised as a medical condition with a physical basis in the brain, and sufferers were regarded as eccentric, strange, or even mad. Famous scientists and artists (such as Charles Darwin and Hans Christian Andersen) were probably given some slack because of their genius but many ordinary people with OCD must have suffered abuse, ridicule, and ostracism.

I would like to find out when the medical professional began to recognise OCD as a clinical condition requiring sympathetic treatment. When did OCD sufferers stop being labelled as insane and locked up in asylums? Who started documenting this disease and who discovered there is a common thread running through diverse symptoms such as contamination phobia, trichotillomania, and body dysmorphic disorder? Who pioneered research into how people with OCD have deficient levels of certain brain chemicals? Who coined the term obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Has the incidence of anorexia nervosa varied in history according to how society has faddishly changed its opinion about the ideal dimensions of the female figure? Are there any documented cases of anorexia nervosa in Victorian times (when corsettes were in vogue)?

I've been trying to find the answers to these questions by googling the internet but without success. Can anyone help please?

Many thanks in advance .... Parvez

Wed Dec 9 2009 17:11:12 #
Unregistered

Hi Parvez
I haven't done any research on this so this is just my thoughts on the matter. It is obvious that OCD has been around for a long time, quite possibly since the origins of mankind. However, I doubt that it was recognised as a clinical illness/disorder before the 20th century.
Remember it is only a century since the Suffragettes. Prior to the feminist movement I suspect males coped with their OCD by absorbing themselves obsessively in their occupation with the females consigned to a supportive role. Females with OCD would have been controlled by their husbands, burnt at the stake, died at a young age or been incarcerated for life apart from the very rich who could demand whatever they wanted to assuage the OCD. Those who managed to live a productive life with OCD are probably those who are the heroines of history such as Florence Nightingale. Maybe others went into convents where the regimented requirements of daily living and institutionalised life would have made it easier to cope.
I suspect my grandmother (father's side) had OCD - she was born in 1872 and had several spells in Shenley mental hospital but her problems were not recognised as OCD. I visited her in a nursing home as a teenager, she was 96 and had chronic Parkinson's disease and I have never forgotten watching her chasing a tiny morsel of custard round her bowl with her hands shaking terribly but she would not give up until she got it onto her spoon and ate it. My father also had OCD he was born in 1909 and again it was not recognised as a specific disorder, he was just regarded as intellectually brilliant to the point of eccentricity. He channelled his obsessions into his work as a solicitor, his knowledge of the law was faultless and anything he did at home had to be 100% perfect. When he had what I now realise was an OCD crisis after the second world war he went to a private nursing home for "rest and convalescence".
When I went into OCD crisis at the age of 23 in 1969 I was diagnosed with OCD and I was considered to be someone with a very specialised and interesting illness. "Sympathetic" treatment was not exactly what I remember from the 1960's and '70's. Certainly my physical needs were looked after but understanding of the disorder was very much in it's infancy. In the past 25 years or so far better understanding and treatments have emerged but I still believe there is a long way yet to go.
Bye for now, Joyce

Wed Dec 9 2009 19:02:37 #
Parvez Choudhry
Member

Hi Joyce

Thank you for your very interesting post. It would be fascinating to hear any more anecdotes you can remember of primitive attitudes towards mental illness, either by medics or lay people.

I am currently reading "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners" which was written by John Bunyan, the 17th century Christian preacher, in which he graphically describes his thoughts & feelings while going through what nowadays would be called an OCD crisis. He was frightened of being eternally damned (which personally I don't think is irrational in itself) but in his case his mind reacted irrationally as he desperately sought to find peace. Some of the things he describes remind me of my own thought processes in my battle with contamination. So far in the story (I've only just started the book) he hasn't divulged his fears to anyone else so I don't know how his contemporaries would have regarded him, but he himself seems oblivious of his inability to look at things objectively.

Thank you again, Joyce, for sharing your experiences of former times. Does anyone else have any memories to share?

Fri Dec 11 2009 16:00:18 #