I eventually had a breakdown and was brought to McLean Hospital, and up to the point of that hospitalization, people misunderstood, misdiagnosed. "I'd had a number of therapists growing up.
Unfortunately, with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the thoughts take on kind of a life of own, and you begin to wonder: 'What do these mean? How can I make them go away?' "įletcher Wortmann was diagnosed with a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder after his sophomore year in college. Your mind will just sort of settle on something really distressing and upsetting, and. "I think everyone experiences these kind of things. misunderstood aspects of OCD," Wortmann tells NPR's Neal Conan, "is that many people believe that it has to involve visible physical compulsion, such as hand-washing or counting or organizing things."Īfter his sophomore year in college, Wortmann was diagnosed with purely obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder - also called "pure O" - where the compulsive behaviors are entirely internal, intrusive thoughts. In his memoir Triggered, Wortmann examines the origins of his anxieties and how he came to be overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts. Though he wouldn't be diagnosed until many years later, in retrospect Wortmann realizes the episode marked his "first full-blown bout" with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Over and over, he replayed an imagined apocalypse. He spent hours laying plans for how he and his family would survive. In third grade, he became consumed with the idea that every nonwater substance on the planet would soon freeze. How?įrom a young age, Fletcher Wortmann spent countless hours absorbed by his obsessions. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Triggered Subtitle A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Author Fletcher Wortmann