Why Talking About Mental Health Matters
"It probably makes you better at your job," a CEO of an innovative health-care company recently told me.
She wasn't talking about my Midwest work ethic (I'm from Missouri). Or my ambition (I've wanted to head up a magazine since starting as a copy editor at Redbook in '98). She was referring to my OCD. And she's far from the only person who has said something similar upon finding out that I have diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The implication was that because I have OCD, I must be extremely detailed, and being that detailed has helped me succeed as editor-in-chief of Women's Health magazine. I get that she meant this as a compliment, and it doesn't make me mad or hurt to hear such things. But it does baffle me. Because this is what my illness really looks like:
It makes me wash my hands 20 times daily.
It makes me re-play conversations in my head for days, even weeks.
It makes me ask and re-ask (and re-ask) my husband the same illogical question to reassure myself of the answer.
It makes me fear that if I don't repeat a mantra in my head over and over, some terrible thing will occur.
It makes me worry that any red mark on the wall, a piece of paper, a pizza box, really anything, is blood -- contaminated blood -- even when it's clearly anything but blood.
Now ask yourself this question: Why would the hallmarks of this illness make me better at my job? A 2009 Financial Times story put it so well:
The term 'OCD' has recently displaced 'anal' in contemporary sla...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
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