OCD sufferer looks for new help
AN obsessive compulsive disorder sufferer is today looking for help to form a support group in Ipswich.
AN obsessive compulsive disorder sufferer is today looking for help to form a support group in Ipswich.
Paul Maguire, 45, wants to make sure people with OCD can talk to fellow sufferers to help them deal with the condition.
The town's previous support group disbanded earlier this year because there was no one to run it and a lack of funding.
Now Mr Maguire, of Dombey Road, Ipswich, hopes to set up a new group and is looking for financial help as well as people to join him.
He said: “People do want the group to start up again and I said I would see what I could do.
“I'm in the process of getting some advice and hopefully some financial help.
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“It would be a self-help group where people could talk to other people with OCD, which makes a big difference.”
Mr Maguire, a dad-of-three, said he had suffered from the disorder since he was 13, but was only diagnosed about eight years ago.
He added: “I used to suffer with washing of hands constantly. I couldn't walk past cemeteries and church yards and I had a thing about cracks in pavements.
“I was very unsettled and fidgety and it affected my relationships. I thought I was going insane.
“Since I was diagnosed it has got a lot better. I could now not only go past a cemetery, but walk right through it.
“I hope we can help other people too and I think it is really important we get the group running.”
To support Mr Maguire call 01473 212536 or e-mail paul_maguire7@ntlworld.com.
Should there be more support for people with OCD? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk .
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a serious anxiety-related condition
It affects as many as three in a hundred people
To some degree OCD-type symptoms are probably experienced at one time or another by most people, especially in times of stress
In general OCD sufferers experience repetitive, intrusive and unwelcome thoughts, images, impulses and doubts which they find hard to ignore
Common obsessions include contamination and germs, causing harm to oneself or to others, upsetting thoughts, the ordering or arrangement of objects and worries about throwing things away
Sufferers try to fight these thoughts with mental or physical rituals which involve repeatedly performing actions such as washing, cleaning, checking, counting, hoarding or partaking in endless rumination
SOURCE: OCD UK
