OCD in TV and Movies

This is not only my first time blogging, it is my first time writing about the personal and private hell that has been my battle with OCD for the past sixteen years.  I have never written about OCD because it isn't a "positive, upbeat, made-me-a-better-person" kind of illness.  It is hard, it is a daily battle, and thought no one would ever want to read about something so hard to explain and depressing.  But now I am seeing more and more references to OCD in popular culture -- some accurate and some incredibly inaccurate, and so I decided to start writing about it.  My aim is more to inform about the reality of the illness versus the perception rather than just to inform.

so rather than jump right into the deeply personal stuff, I thought I'd make my first blog about how OCD is portrayed in TV and movies.  I'll start with the television show "Monk".  I only watched the first season of this show.  I stopped watching because I was frustrated with the way that they were portraying a very complex brain disorder that is OCD on that show.  Some aspects of the character Monk were correct and true to the experience of OCD, but the show added on many more quirks and characteristics in order to make the character more comical -- and less true.  The fact that the show makes Monk out to be a comical but love-able weirdo is not helping people understand the fact that OCD is just as real and as debilitating an illness as diabetes.  Without going into a detailed analysis of what is right and what is wrong about the show, I can say that the fact the Mr. Monk's compulsions are so obvious to the viewer is the very reason why he doesn't accurately portray someone suffering from OCD.  Most sufferers of OCD are very adept at hiding their obsessions and compulsions and they suffer the disorder in private, never letting on to those around them how difficult "normal" life is for them.

Next up, Jack Nicholson's portrayal of a man suffering from OCD in "As Good As It Gets".