'My OCD is so bad I spend seven hours taking a shower' says South Yorkshire woman
South Yorkshire woman describes debilitating OCD
A woman's OCD is so bad she spends seven hours taking a shower.
It has also caused her to have intrusive thoughts about attacking her family members with a kitchen knife.
Victoria Korlewala, aged 20, first began to have symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental health condition characterised by intrusive thoughts and compulsions at age 13, when she became obsessed by the idea that she smelled bad.
She then became convinced that she was a "bad person", and was unable to look at a kitchen knife without a graphic image of her using it to stab someone forming in her head.
Victoria, from Doncaster, says her OCD is now so debilitating that it takes her up to seven hours to have a shower, as she is convinced her body is contaminated or dirty.
She is only able to go to the toilet once every two days, as her handwashing routine takes so long, and is hoping to have a catheter fitted to alleviate the pain of having to hold in her wee for so long.
For the last two years she has only left the house for hospital appointments.
Victoria, who is hoping to go to university to study biomedical sciences when her symptoms improve, said: "Every time I'd go into the kitchen, I'd see an image of myself attacking my family with a kitchen knife.
"I had to completely avoid looking at the knives.
"I knew I would never do something like that, but the OCD made it seem so real, and as though it was about to happen.
"My showers take up to seven hours, and I can't go to the bathroom regularly as my handwashing routine takes up to 11 hours."
When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, Victoria's symptoms began to ease, as she was no longer around people in school, so she wasn't worried that her classmates were talking about her.
However, in 2021, she started obsessively washing her hands, to the point where she would be late for school due to her handwashing routine.
Around this time, Victoria also began to experience morality OCD, where a person becomes convinced they are a bad person.
She then began to experience harm OCD, a subtype where sufferers experience intrusive thoughts about causing harm to themselves or others.
Every time Victoria would walk into the kitchen and see a kitchen knife, her brain would show her a violent image of herself attacking someone with it.
She went to the doctors, and was diagnosed with OCD in July 2021.
"When I was diagnosed, I felt happy that I wasn't going crazy," she said.
Victoria is currently on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to try and help manage her condition.
In six month's time, Victoria is set to start inpatient Exposure and Response Prevention therapy (ERP), which helps sufferers to face anxiety-inducing situations whilst resisting compulsions, at Springfield Hospital in Tooting, London, which she hopes will alleviate her symptoms.
Victoria shares insights into how her symptoms affect her daily life on her TikTok channel @victoriaocd to raise awareness that OCD isn’t just about “organising or cleaning”.