Jordan Brookes, Rachel Fairburn and Catherine Bohart on OCD in comedy

Catherine Bohart

When Catherine Bohart was 10 her cousins came to stay: "I drew round everything in my room with a pencil so I would know if anything had moved." 

A decade later, Bohart found herself encircled entirely into the vicious cycle of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. "The symptoms became more severe at university, but not with me necessarily knowing what they were. I was depressed at the time too – when you spend an awful lot of time doing things to keep everything under control, it's always going to be futile. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect."

In her debut show Immaculate, she's talking about her experience of OCD head-on: "I think it's misunderstood in popular culture where it's largely boiled down to washing your hands. People also say, 'I'm a little bit OCD'. And, you tell them it's an all-consuming disorder; the very nature of it means you can't be a 'little bit' whatsoever. The other thing people think is that you like doing the compulsive things: 'Catherine just loves being clean!' But, when you do something with OCD, it's through a massive fear of what might happen if you don't."

However, despite these day-to-day misunderstandings, Bohart feels the interest in OCD usually comes from the right place: "I do think people want to understand it though – I don't think the misunderstanding comes from a will of ignorance."

Bohart gradually loosened OCD's grip with the help of a great doctor, medication and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), though one unusual part of her treatment plan has been comedy. "Since I started comedy my OCD has actually got much better – or at least more manageable, that would be the right word. I'm not saying this is for everyone but with the type of OCD I have – where there are worries and fears about failure and embarrassment – the beauty of discovering a space where shame and embarrassment are used to be funny has been a complete revelation. I have another place in my brain I can go. It's weird, going on stage does this thing where it just allows you to step out of a bad day and you have to be in the moment. For me, it's quite freeing."

Rachel Fairburn

Rachel Fairburn's show The Wolf at the Door is about coming back from mistakes, the breakdown of her friendship group and how women can become isolated in a way men don't because of the different ways we judge male and female behaviour. As she prepares, she's finding some aspects of her experience of OCD helpful, but off stage rather than on it. "Having had OCD for so long, I do see the positive side as well. I'm meticulous in my work and with the Fringe coming up I'll have a little morning routine. I will stick to that like it's my ritual." 

In other words, it isn't the outward behaviour that bothers Fairburn as much as "the other crap that you have to deal with it."

When Fairburn was a kid a relatable fear became an all-encompassing dread. "I was brought up by a combination of parents and grandparents... and there was a time I realised they won't be around forever. It was a definite thing for me. I was aware of losing that security, and once I realised, it became a real preoccupation. I would constantly worry about it."

She recalls certain behaviours which put her unquiet mind momentarily at ease: "I was always straightening door handles, or touching things twice, or putting things in piles. If I was given food – chips, obviously – I'd make sure I'd swap it around until there was an even amount. And then, when I was a teenager, and I still do this to this day, I add up car number plates. I'll pass a car and if it adds up to an even number then it feels like things will be okay."

She adds: "It's a bit of a rubbish system because if it's an odd number I just look for another car!"

As this shows, Fairburn is under no illusion that there is an actual cause and effect between her number plate system and life events, but her brain is set in a mode that makes it feel that way. The sense of foreboding is there, whatever, and it becomes exhausting. "You're trying to control things with things that aren't going to have any effect. It's tedious."

Fairburn occasionally finds the symptoms walk on stage with her, ready to pounce on any doubt. "It doesn't make everything go away. I'll be there in a gig for example, and I'll be having a lovely time, but then in part of my mind I'll be thinking: 'Why are they laughing?' I'll convince myself, in the moment, that they're not laughing at me, and maybe there is something going on behind me and they're laughing at that. Then that's the only thought I have in my head."

At these times, she has to rally herself: "I just have to think: I have to get through this gig."

Jordan Brookes

Jordan Brookes' form of OCD is less well known, featuring none of the outward rituals or behaviours that become misunderstood in the popular imagination as 'washing your hands'. The feelings of doubt, foreboding and guilt instead latch themselves onto specific and distressing thoughts.

"I don't know whether you've had a dream where you've accidentally killed someone," he says, "and you're feeling this guilt, and you're worried that the police are coming for you, and you have to deal with the consequences. That feeling of guilt is what you carry around, but having done nothing. You do feel like you're in a nightmare, it's like having a constant argument with yourself, and the moment that you are left alone, that's the moment your brain will go there – it's tiring."

The kind of dark thoughts we all have from time to time, but can dismiss in an instant, follow those with this variant of OCD around like a toxic cloud. Considered 'purely-obsessive', when OCD manifests in this way it is sometimes referred to as Pure-O.

In his 2017 award-nominated show Body of Work, Brookes told a "warm, cosy story" about his grandmother, in which a fleeting thought that entered his 11-year-old head, when she touched his knee, took over his adolescence, and at exactly when his identity was so impressionable. "It makes you very doubtful, he says, "because nobody knows really who they are. Maybe I am this thing: maybe I want to sleep with my nan and touch dogs inappropriately, or whatever. It completely fucks you. You live in a constant state of uncertainty."

And, as with Bohart and Fairburn, reasoning alone does little to quell the torment. As Brookes says: "Your brain finds new waves of convincing you that it's true, this is real, and it's fascinating how resourceful your brain can be in presenting an argument to undermine you, to pull the rug from underneath you."

Jordan Brookes, photo by Anneliese Nappa

The eventual shift from one locked thought pattern to another, sometimes after many years, does allow those with the condition to see it's the brain's mechanism propelling the obsession, rather than the nature of the dark thought that says anything about who they are. But the help this provides is relative: "It is reassuring when it does change. But, it doesn't make it any less real, that's what can be so distressing about it."

One of the many remarkable aspects of Brookes' 2017 show was that it concentrated on making these thoughts relatable, allowing the audience into his mind. "At times I feel like I was diagnosing half the audience with a mental disorder," he says. "I think we risk stigmatising mental health when we put a label on it. We make it this thing where people think 'it doesn't apply to me because I don't tick all of those boxes' and that's not the point. I want to take away the label, that's why I didn't mention it at the top of the show and made sure it was about the experience of, and describing, obsessive thoughts."

That's not to say a diagnosis, that label, and treatment are not helpful. It's just about making the description more of a bridge than a barrier towards understanding. And sharing his experiences is beneficial to Brookes too. "I definitely feel that it's improved over the years and that's a combination of being on the right medication and living my life better. And better understanding it, being able to talk to people about it."

This year, Brookes brings Bleed to Pleasance Courtyard and is leaving his condition off stage: "People feel that free speech is being compromised," he says, "and I think there is something that fascinates me about that and the ludicrously narcissistic denial of another person's right to say that they are upset about something. That forms the basis of the show."

The intensity of the Fringe helps him not to engage with his thoughts too. "It's the month in my life where I go into Peter Pan mode and forget my troubles."

Catherine Bohart: Immaculate, Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker Two), 1-26 Aug (not 14), 4.15pm, £6-10.50
Rachel Fairburn: The Wolf at the Door, Underbelly Bristo Square (Dexter), 1-27 Aug (not 13), 9.30pm, £6.50-11
Jordan Brookes: Bleed, Pleasance Courtyard (Beside), 1-26 Aug (not 14), 8.30pm, £7-13