OCD Subtypes: 3 Women on Living With Lesser-Known Variations on the Condition

glamour.com:

“” is an ongoing series in which we deep dive into a variety of health conditions that disproportionally affect women. Here, a spotlight on three different OCD subtypes that present very differently than the more typical—and sometimes cliche—symptoms we so often see associated with the condition.For as long as Lisa had been alive, she’d thought about death.

The 38-year-old Connecticut mom of three recalls one of her earliest childhood memories: sitting in the nurse’s office, convinced the distant sirens outside her classroom meant something terrible had happened to her mother. “I think it was a weekly occurrence,” she tells Glamour. “I don’t even think they’d use back then.

They just said, ‘Yeah, she keeps coming back here — we don’t know why. Is everything okay at home?’”The thing is, everything was okay at home.

Lisa was surrounded by a tight-knit family, . But none of that mattered because their lives were in her hands. And if she “messed up,” they’d die.