I liked episode 2 much better than last week's, probably because I found Chad much more relatable than the people from last week. I know that OCD comes in lots and lots of flavors, but it seems like Obsessed often features people with symptoms that butt up against other mental disorders. It's probably not unusual in the real world, but it muddies the treatment. Just my opinion, of course.Anyway, Chad's OCD was pretty straightforward: he felt he had to do rituals of various kinds to keep bad things from happening. I have always felt that no one with OCD was unique. No matter how weird your fear, someone else among the millions is going to have it, too. HOWEVER, Chad had an extreme fear of El Caminos. It is possible that he is actually unique here! By the end of the episode, he drove an El Camino over to his "contaminated" brother's house. Awesome!
I loved how supportive Chad's family was. They clearly didn't "get" his OCD at all, but they still loved him and were kind to him and so happy to see his progress.
Nicole, who was afraid that harm would come to her daughter if she let her out of her sight, also made good progress, although hers felt a little more tenuous.
This week I was only able to catch about half of The OCD Project, as the video on vh1.com is messed up. It's great to see Arine continue to make so much progress. I hope I can see next week's, which apparently does a brief followup with everyone.
Posts
Re: Obsessed (although I've never seen it myself...) How many people have "pure" OCD? Actually, I don't think I've ever met anyone with a "pure" acute mental illness of any kind. It's one of the reasons why, terrible as they are, mental illness is also endlessly fascinating. I don't think portraying people with only one defined illness would be an accurate portrayal of OCD or mental illness as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with you. Where I feel the show falters a bit is that sometimes they seem to be focusing on the treatment of the part that doesn't feel like OCD to me, and I can't quite relate to the process. Or they're trying to use ERP on something that not going to be helped that way. I still watch it, though!
ReplyDeleteHm, interesting. I should really try and watch it. I have a hard time watching shows related to OCD though-- it's just too emotional. But it's hard to critique the public portrayal of OCD without having done so.
ReplyDelete