Hi all, my name is Carina and I am 23 years old and from Dublin, Ireland living in London, UK. I have just self-published my book, Charcoal Grey, on Kindle. It's about my experiences with OCD, depression and anorexia, and my eventual recovery. I can't remember not having OCD, it was always there, although of course I didn't have a name for it at first. I obsessively washed my hands to the point where my skin was peeling off, I had to do lots of things four times, sometimes sixteen, sixty-four, 256, and I was obsessive about checking that things were switched off. Over the years I developed depression and anorexia as a result of my OCD. I attempted suicide seven times, and very nearly succeeded. I never thought I could get better.

When I was 19 I started taking medication, and the following year I began cognitive behavioural therapy. It changed my life. Eventually, with lots of tweaking of the fluoxetine dosage and a few intense courses of CBT, I was free of OCD, depression and anorexia. Two days ago, I published a book on Kindle about my experiences. I want others to know that there is hope, that no matter how bad things are you can get better. If someone had told me four years ago that I would make a full recovery, that I would be happy, I would have laughed in their face - but it happened. I also want to help relatives and friends of sufferers understand what their loved ones are going through. It must be impossible to understand OCD without experiencing it, and I know my parents, sister and friends were totally lost when trying to understand it, and it hurt them that they couldn't empathise, that they didn't know what to say.

Below is an excerpt from my book (available at amazon.com/dp/B00P21WB4U ):



Chapter 4

Dublin, Ireland

January 1998

“But Tommy was trying to cheat, he had an ace hidden up his sleeve. He pretended to drop one of his cards under the table, but when he reached down to pick it up, he saw something he wasn’t prepared for. He saw that their mysterious new poker player had not legs, but hooves. He gasped, for he realised now that he was playing poker with the devil, and slowly, he came back up above the table and sat back down in his seat.”

I shuddered in fear in my bed, and listened as Daddy continued the story. Sarah was seated on the end of my bed, also listening.

“The devil, for he could see what the men were thinking, rose up from his seat and drew his cloak around him. ‘You would try to cheat the devil?’ he roared, ‘you think you can cheat me?’ The three men were now quivering in fear, and began to plead with the devil, to ask him to spare them. ‘I will spare no-one,’ roared the devil. And the next day, a man going for a walk in the mountains saw that the Hellfire Club was all burnt out. He went in to investigate, and found the bodies of the three men.”

Daddy grinned as he finished the story.

“Where was that?” I asked.

“Just over at the top of Three Rock,” he said. He lifted me up and took me to the window, where he pulled back the curtain.

“See?” he said, “That mountain there. If you look really hard, you can see the Hellfire Club, that’s the exact same building.”

I said nothing as he put me back to bed. He departed with Sarah, turning off my light as he went. It was ten o’clock at night. Sarah and I were still on our Christmas holidays, and thus our respective bedtimes had been extended.

I tried to get to sleep but the devil was outside my window, on the other side of the curtains. He would think I had cheated playing poker, even though I did not know how to play poker, and he would come in and burn down the house. We would all die, and it would all be my fault.

Crying and screaming, I ran to my parents’ room and got into the bed in between them. I was safe here, surely the devil could not get past Daddy. In any case, Daddy was so much larger than me that the devil would not be able to see me between him and Mammy. He would not find his poker cheat.

When I had stopped crying, Daddy put me back to bed, and sat in my room until I went to sleep. When I awoke in the morning and realised he was not there, I ran once again into my parents’ room. Daddy was gone to work, and only Mammy was there. I was reassured to see her, reassured that it was daylight again, for I did not think the devil could strike during the day. I stuck close by my mother all through that day.

“It was just a story,” Daddy told me when I questioned him further about the devil’s excursion into the Dublin mountains that evening. “It didn’t really happen.”

“Then why did you say it did? Why did you lie?”

“I was only telling you a story!” He sighed, and resolved to tell me a nice story with a happy ending tonight. He would read one of Enid Blyton’s Noddy books to me. “The one with the post-box?” I asked. “The one with the post-box,” he agreed.

That night, Noddy dressed as a post-box was outside my window, with Big Ears floating beside him. They were in no way sinister, and therefore I was able to sleep soundly.

* * *

Now it was summer, and we were staying in Monaghan. My similarly-aged cousins Hugh, Cormac and I shared a room, Cormac and Hugh sharing a the top bunk of the bed and I on my own down the bottom. Daddy, once again, was telling a story.

“And so because the man had disobeyed the King of the Fairies, all of the fairies from the fairy fort came out that night and went to the man’s house. And they spirited away the man’s wife, and she was never seen again.”

The story was finished. Wide-eyed, I asked if she really had never been seen again at all, and Daddy confirmed that she had not. Hugh opened the curtains and pointed to the fairy fort only two fields away.

“Maybe they’re living there, the same fairies!” he laughed.

Daddy turned out the light and left us to go to sleep. I could not go to sleep, if I did, the fairies would come and spirit me away. Had I unknowingly disobeyed the King of the Fairies at some point? I could not say for sure.

After I heard the old grandfather clock strike midnight outside the bedroom door, I decided that I could not wait any longer or else the fairies would get me, and they would get Hugh and Cormac too and it would all be my fault. I rushed out of the room, right, left, right, left, down to the room where my parents were sleeping. Crying, I opened the door and went in. Once again, they allowed me to get into the bed with them, and when I had finally calmed down, Daddy put me back to bed. He stayed, again, until I had fallen asleep.

When I awoke it was daylight. Everything was okay. The fairies would not come and get me, nor would they come and get anyone else.

Hi Carina,

Thanks for posting your chapter. My name is Brooks Kohler http://www.brookskohler.com/, and like yourself I'm a writer and self-published author. I like to promote your book on my website http://www.laptiast.com/ Laptiast is the company name I publish my books under, but I also promote authors through social media that I find interesting. It doesn't cost anything, and I won't publish your material or bind you to a contract. It's just a way for independent authors to get word out and link up. However, I don't promote just anybody, but you're story intrigues me. Think about it. If you're okay with it, let me know. By the way, I'm in the States.

Best,
Brooks

Brooks127 wrote:Hi Carina,

Thanks for posting your chapter. My name is Brooks Kohler http://www.brookskohler.com/, and like yourself I'm a writer and self-published author. I like to promote your book on my website http://www.laptiast.com/ Laptiast is the company name I publish my books under, but I also promote authors through social media that I find interesting. It doesn't cost anything, and I won't publish your material or bind you to a contract. It's just a way for independent authors to get word out and link up. However, I don't promote just anybody, but you're story intrigues me. Think about it. If you're okay with it, let me know. By the way, I'm in the States.

Best,
Brooks

Brooks, that would be amazing! Thank you so much.

No problem, Carina. Glad to do it. I'll work on getting your book on the site. Do you have a website I could link to? Also, could you email me the book cover to the following email address info[@]laptiast.com This is the email address of my promotion site. Make sure to remove the brackets [] before emailing.

Thanks,
--Brooks

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