Playwright turns a crisis into a drama after battle with OCD

Jessica Fisher fell into the grips of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as teenager. She tells Sarah Freeman about her fight to conquer the condition and how it’s inspired her latest play.
Jessica Fisher who has written a play to shed light on OCDJessica Fisher who has written a play to shed light on OCD
Jessica Fisher who has written a play to shed light on OCD

If anything, she’d describe herself as messy. Very messy.

“When I tell people that I’ve got OCD, they assume that I’m fastidiously tidy and can’t bear mess. I guess it’s the one symptom most people know about, but nothing could be further from the truth.”

It’s one of the reasons why playwright Jessica was keen to throw a spotlight on the condition in her latest work. Ghost Town premieres at York Theatre Royal next week and like Jessica, central character Joe also suffers from OCD.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“He is plagued with really disturbing images and the fear he may have done something really awful. It’s one of the least common symptoms of OCD and not something I experienced, but I wanted to challenge the common perception that the condition is just about being incredibly tidy. It’s not. There is so much more to it and it can be incredibly debilitating.”

Jessica says the first sign that something wasn’t quite in her own life came not long after she moved out of home in Lincolnshire and started her first term at York University.

“A story started going round about of a spate of attacks in nightclubs where people had been stabbed with syringes,” says Jessica, who after graduating with a degree in English and related literature went onto do an MA at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

“I have no idea whether it was even true, I doubt it was, but it made me feel really anxious. One night I went clubbing and I got crushed in a bit of a stampede. After that everything began to spiral out of control.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

From that point on, Jessica says she began obsessively checking her clothes for spots of bloods and was unable to go to sleep until she had scrutinised every last item.

“It would take me two hours to get ready for bed - it just took over my life. I knew the way I was feeling wasn’t right, but no one seemed to be able to pinpoint exactly what the problem was and it did take a long time to get a diagnosis. I think things are better now. Back in the 1990s it wasn’t a condition that was much talked about. Now ‘being a bit OCD’ has passed into everyday language.”

Gradually the list of thing that made Jessica anxious got longer and longer until she was afraid even to touch the rubbish bin in her flat. While aware that if she couldn’t get a handle on the condition it was in danger of taking over her entire life, at first nothing seemed to work.

“Almost everybody experiences the type of thoughts that some with OCD has, whether that be wanting to double check the front door is locked or the gas is off. The difference is that most people can dismiss these thoughts. When you have OCD that’s impossible. Those thoughts are there when you wake up and they are there when you go to sleep.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“My GP was really supportive, but over the years I tried a number of treatments with varying degrees of success. Then about 18 months ago my OCD got significantly worse. There was a real danger of me being completely paralysed by anxiety, so in the end I decided to book an appointment with a private therapist.”

One of the first thing he did was point Jessica in the direction of a book written by David Veale and Rob Wilson. Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is essentially a self-help guide, but it also attempts to explain why and how people suffer from the condition.

Some experts believe that it may in part be genetic. Other studies suggest it is caused by an imbalance of serotonin or is linked to increased blood flow and activity in the brain. The discovery that there was no easy answer as to why she had joined the two or three per cent of the population with OCD might have compounded Jessica’s problems, but in fact she says it made life a whole lot easier.

“I’d always thought if I could just find out what causes OCD I would be able to make myself better, but after reading that book I realised that was never going to happen. I knew I had to accept that no one really knows. It might be down to chemical factors in the brain, others have suggested that it might be triggered by a traumatic event and there are some who believe that it might be genetic. I suspect it’s a probably a mixture of all those factors and many more.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Once I knew that I was never going to have an absolute reason, the only choice I had was to face my fears.

“They call the technique exposure and response prevention. Basically it means that I not only have to touch a bin, but I then have to overcome the really strong compulsion to immediately wash my hands. That’s incredibly hard, but I’m working on it and for the first time I feel that I’m in control of the OCD rather than the other way round.”

It was this renewed sense of optimism which has fed into Ghost Town, which Jessica has written in collaboration with York’s Pilot Theatre and the performance will coincide with National OCD Awareness Week later this month.

“Originally the play was about the London riots and what might have happened had they not been brought under control, but as we began to develop the piece it went off in another direction altogether. It focuses on two characters Joe and Megan and the longer I spent with them, the more I realised it was their relationship rather than what was going on around them which was important.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Then it suddenly hit me, that if Joe had OCD I could really explore the impact this condition has not just on the sufferer, but their family and friends. I just wanted to express what it feels like to be bombarded with negative and upsetting thoughts.

“Also when you tell someone you’ve got a condition like OCD you almost become defined by it. Like everyone else who has experienced OCD Joe isn’t a page from a textbook and there’s much more to him than his medical condition.

“Finally I feel able to stand back from my OCD and that’s a really wonderful place to be.”

Ghost Town, York Theatre Royal, February 12 to 19. 01904 623568, www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Cast, Doncaster, February 20 to 21. 01302 303959, www.castindoncaster.com