Rebecca suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Her symptoms are marked by obsessive thoughts, repetitive behaviours and other ‘nonsensical’ rituals, something she has had to deal with since the age of 4.
Rebecca explained to Ryan what this entails.
"Compulsions are repetitive actions that are used to counteract obsessive thoughts, which are thoughts that enter your head at any given time" Rebecca explained.
"They don't discriminate. You could be in the middle of a funeral, or the middle of a class, and they could immediately tell you 'If you don't tap your nose three times your Mam's going to get cancer.'"
"The compulsion would be to tap your nose three times. Because in the world of magical thinking, in your OCD head, you believe that if you don't tap your nose three times your mother's going to get cancer, and tapping your nose is the only way to get the thought out of your head."
Rebecca explained that although it's illogical, there's an overvalued idea that it could be true. An example would be chain-mail, a message that's posted on social media asking people to share or else something bad could happen. There's a superstitious nature that although it's silly to believe, people do anyway.
Rebecca shared with Ryan one of the earliest instances of her OCD tendencies.
"One of the scenes in the book is where I'm in the playground and I use to have these urges to fall off the bars. It was just a little thing in my head picking away....I had very superstitious thoughts from a very young age."
Her mother noticed that she was knocking herself off the bars for no reason. "I had to make myself swing really high and I had to let go of the sides because there was something in my head telling me 'You have to make yourself fall off'."
As Rebecca said, these compulsions can happen in private and in public. Ryan asked how she's dealt with people who might become aware of her 'rituals'.
"I was slagged a little bit", she said.
"My school was amazing, and the people there...I wasn't even bullied. It was a thin layer of dismal pressure. It was just a little bit of point out and tapping their nose back at me. After somebody informed the teacher, I'm not sure who but I thank that person so much, it was quickly resolved and they actually apologised."
Ryan then asked why Rebecca chose to write a book about her condition?
"For many reasons. I didn't know it was going to be a book from the get go. But after a little while of writing the diary, I realised that I'm not going through this for no reason. I'm going to turn it into a book, into something.
"Basically, I wrote it to help other kids and talk to other kids about the disorder. When I had the disorder I couldn't really relate to anybody. I was trying to find anyone my age but couldn't. It sucks because you feel kind of like an outcast because you don't anybody with it."
Rebecca said that she's growing as a person and constantly on the mend. But if she relapses, the book will be a great tool she can use.
"I also wrote it so if I ever by any chance in the future I do relapse or get the thoughts back again, I'll be able to read it and see what it was like, and bring myself back to Earth", she said.
Listen to Rebecca Ryan's full interview with The Ryan Tubridy Show here:
