-Claire Gellard launched the project as well as directed the short film 'Locked'.
-Behind a Mind uses film, animation and expert talks to deliver and present awareness and understanding of OCD.
The link to watch a video of Claire (an OCD sufferer as well as an OCD-UK trustee) explaining how OCD effects her life, is below:
http://www.ocduk.org/behind-a-mind
This video shows Claire's experienced with the illness, OCD. At the beginning of the video she repeats words like 'pushing' when describing her actions when making sure the fridge is closed and she repeats the word 'pulling' over and over again when describing her checking that the windows are closed when she's on the phone to her dad.
All throughout this project I've found that repetition has played a big roll in every aspect of OCD that I've looked into. I will definitely be letting repetition influence my choice of final piece representation.
Ger face when she's talking about having to ring her dad every morning shows how tired she is of the illness taking over her life, how time consuming it is and how ashamed and disappointed that she has to rely on speaking to her dad on the phone every morning just to be able to leave then house.
Claire highlights that everyone has doubts about for example, having turned the hob off or having locked the door after leaving the home yet the doubts in people with OCD "spiral" and "snowball" until the person goes from thinking they've said something to thinking they've said something different to doing something else and suddenly everything becomes one big question, everything becomes one big doubt.
She goes on to explain that she has to perform rituals because she has unwanted, intrusive thoughts, the rituals are the compulsions she has to act out for the thoughts to go away or become easier enough to deal with.
It is explained how the illness and the person suffering from the illness are two different things, even though someone may suffer from OCD it doesn't mean they are OCD, they still have their own personality, OCD isn't their personality.
The thoughts with OCD are so powerful that you start to believe them. When Claire locks the door she can see that she's locked it but she doesn't believe it, she doesn't trust her own eyes. She deals with the doubt of not trusting the actions she's just performed by taking photos every morning before she leaves the flat of the things she's done like a photo of the locked door or of the closed window.
This gave me a strong visual idea of how to take my project forward, I'm interested in using the idea of OCD sufferers taking a photo of the door they've just locked etc as a form of medication, or to temporarily put their mind at rest. I've emailed OCD-UK to express my enthusiasm with this particular finding and have asked that my email be directed to Claire Gellard and have asked whether or not it would be possible if she would send me the images that she feels as though she has to take each morning for her to comfortably get on with her day. Once I sent the email I quickly realised that I should have stated a time limit in which I would like her to send me the photos within as now she might not know how many days of photos to send me, hopefully I will get a response and be able to state this within the next email I send to her. I don't quite know yet what I would do with the photos and if I don't receive Claire's images then I could have a go at putting myself into the shoes of an OCD sufferer and taking the photos myself of the things I come across that would unsettle my mind if it wasn't for the photographic proof of the image. This video and the photo idea has given my the incentive to research into therapys and medication to OCD as well as just documenting the causes and effects. The email I sent to her is shown below.
____________________________________
Mon 28/04/2014 13:07
To OCD-UK,
This email is directed at Claire Gellard, the management committee trustee.
I'm Toni Hopley, I'm a photography student at the University of Salford and I'm currently in my third and last year completing my Final Major Project. I've always been passionate and interested in OCD and the effects it has upon the lives surrounding it because I myself have shared some experiences with the illness. I chose to do my Final Major Project on OCD to try and raise awareness because of my strong interest and personal knowledge on the subject.
I was incredibly moved by Claire's speech concerning the psychology of OCD used in the Behind a Mind project to raise awareness. I was intrigued when she said that even though she's looking at the locked door or a turned off switch etc, she still doesn't believe it's turned off or locked so to deal with the doubt she would take a photo of it. I wanted to ask how effective this is to putting her mind at ease and how long the relief lasts? Since I'm doing a photography project on OCD, this really struck out as a visually interesting way to take my project forward and I was wondering whether Claire would be able to email me the images she takes each day of the everyday things she comes across that she feels she needs to take a photo of to help her OCD.
I would also like to ask if I could place a link to the video on my university blog for research purposes and I'd like to express my inspired attitude towards the OCD poems being submitted by people who have experiences with OCD, to raise awareness on the illness.
I would be incredibly grateful if I were to hear back from you, and I thank you for taking the time to read this!
Sincerely,
Toni
____________________________________
After looking at the video presented on the OCD-UK page I was directed to the official Behind a Mind web page where more videos were located.
http://behindamind.com/obsessive-compulsive-disorder/
Earlier in the project I expressed my interest for the science behind the potential reasons for the occurrence of OCD through the representation of brain scans. I watched a video on the Behind a Mind website that introduced the same ideas but in more detail. The information I gathered from the video was surrounding 3 parts of the brain, the Prefrontal Cortex, The Basil Ganglia and the Thalamus.
The Prefrontal Cortex is the part of the brain that is linked to decision making, impulsive control and to such feelings such as guilt, acting inappropriately and cleanliness.
The Basil Ganglia is found deep in the centre of the brain and filters in the information coming in from areas such as the Prefrontal Cortex and is also thought to manage repetitive behaviours. It could be the case that in people with OCD the Basil Ganglia doesn't filter the important messages as well as it should and allows many unnecessary signals to be sent to the Thalamus which is located at the top of the brain stem. As the Basil Ganglian hasn't filtered the thoughts efficiently the Thalamus becomes hyperactive and the signals is sends back to the Prefrontal Cortex are very strong. When the Prefrontal Cortex receives these signals it reacts by increasing impulsive behaviour and anxiety, this may explain why people with OCD may feel the need to perform illogical and repetitive rituals. However, the problem could come from the white matter that inter connects these areas. Other research indicates there could be an imbalance of a chemical in patients with OCD, it's a neurotransmitter called Serotonin. Medication can be used to restore levels of Serotonin which can relieve symptoms. Other neurotransmitters such as dopamine and glutamate may also be involved.
After learning the biology of the illness and what parts of the brain are potentially to blame I then watched the video of a parent describing her experiences through living with her son who was a sufferer of OCD.
-The video is a speech from Yolanda, the mum of a young boy called Josh who showed signs of OCD at just ten years of age.
-Yolanda talks about coming to terms with her sons diagnosis, the effect OCD had upon Josh, their family, their friends and basically everyone who had a relationship whether big or small with Josh.
-She goes on to talk about Josh's successful road to recovery.
In the video Yolanda started by stating that OCD can effect anyone at all, it seems that nothing can contribute to making a person more or less likely to suffer from it, to me this means the illness is like a monster that can creep up on you at any unexpected time.
Yolanda describes her son's caring traits by stating that he doesn't just feel sympathetic towards people in need, he puts himself in their shoes. I found this interesting because this is what I do in terms of trying to experience life in someone else's view when I do each of my projects, in this particular case I've been putting myself in the lives of people with OCD as best as I can.
Yolanda and her partner noticed that Josh was a quirky and strange toddler and they often described him as obsessive but at this point, it wasn't a worry nor was there a link in their minds about him having OCD or any other condition, this is interesting because it suggests he may have been showing signs of the illness at a very early age and as time went on the symptoms got worse and worse. One day Josh began to confess things to his parents that he may or may not have even done, he was saying what if I did this, what if I did that and he had the urge to tell them everything. Since the urge to tell his mother everything got too much for her to take, Yolanda wrote out a contract on a napkin for him to sign to say he would no longer repeat particular things to her, after he signed it he stopped doing it. I would like to look into whether or not there is any logic behind the idea of signing a contract to stop OCD or any other mental illness.
Josh was physically with the family but mentally he wasn't there, they were living with a shell. There were no more smiles or hugs, especially to his mother, he would not smile or hug her. Before diagnosis Josh's intrusive thoughts were so intense that his family were scared that he'd never get better.
When Josh was 10 years old her wrote little poems to express his thoughts and feelings about OCD, it helped him get all his feelings out onto paper.
OCD is no longer a big part of Josh's life yet he said that is's often trying to creep back in. This shows me that OCD is constantly there and it takes a strong mind to fight it and keep it at bay, it shows how hard someone has to work to escape it and how hard they have to work to maintain it.
I then looked at the widely popular and rated short film 'Locked'.
-Locked is a short film based on OCD experiences by Claire Gellard.
-The film won an award at the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival.
-The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival creates thought surrounding mental health and gets people talking about it.
-A short description of the film was quoted on the website: "The subject of OCD has rarely been touched on in cinema, but Claire Gellard's Locked offers a moving study of an older man who finds himself affected by obsessive compulsive disorder. When his own son comes to visit, the man struggles to conceal his affliction, until the stress becomes too much for him. Gellard’s well-produced and acted film captures the experience of OCD is a simple but effective manner, opening up a difficult subject without sentimentality or contrivance."
-OCD-UK Chief Executive, Ashely Fulwood says that 'Locked' is one of the best OCD films to have captured the true feelings behind someone suffering from OCD. "I don't think I have ever seen an OCD film, even big budget Hollywood films, that actually captures the intense feeling of what it is like to suffer with OCD like Claire did with her direction, and the fantastic performances by the two actors in Locked."
This short film follows the morning of an elderly man who has OCD. The film captures his actions and feelings towards the illness though disturbing acts and facial expressions. The distressing scenes show to what extent the illness has taken over the mans life. Close up filming and speed are used to create an uncomfortable feeling when watching the film, this gets across to the viewer how uncomfortable and unpleasant the illness is to have. I took some screen shots of the parts that really bothered me and made me realise how much of an awful, debilitating and time consuming illness OCD actually is.
The screen shot above is of a scene at the start where the man is in the bath after getting out of bed. The camera is uncomfortably close to the man's body throughout this section of the film. The man is scrubbing himself with soap lots of times, the scrubbing actions he uses get stronger and faster each time until his arms look red, sore and scratched which is what is shows in the screen shot below.
It's unfortunate to think that this illness would effect someone so badly that it could result in injury. The film captures the sense of pain through the silence, relaxation and sense of freedom after the man has finally stopped scrubbing him, it suggests even though he's now in physical pain, he's relieved that the mental pain of having to scrub to remove all potential contamination is finally over.
The image above is a screen shot from another part of the film that I found upsetting and disturbing. The man had just spat out after brushing his teeth over and over again until his gums bled. Like the previous scene where the man was in the bath scrubbing himself with soap, the cleaning action in this scene was shown by being very close up filming and sped up actions as time passed by, creating a sense of panic, rushing and frustration.
The film carries on to introduce another character, his son. The son seems to have no idea of his fathers illness until he starts to see him do things that seemed strange to him like check the fridge was closed multiple times or make sure the cooker was turned off even though nobody had used it throughout the film. When the son catches his dad checking that the fridge was properly closed, the man noticed this and his face seemed to fill with embarrassment, shame and disappointment; I found this upsetting to watch.
I got some ideas for some visuals from watching this film. I like how the close up filming and rapid speed creates the sense of panic and frustration of OCD itself as well as giving the viewer an uncomfortable view upon what is happening so I'd like to experiment with capturing these feelings in my own images, I'm going to capture movement through the subject in my images being slightly blurred and I'll also use the close up technique to create an uncomfortable atmosphere. I'd like to experiment with film too, I will make some short clips of repetitive actions showing the hatred a person suffering from OCD has for the illness.
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