October is OCD Awareness Month. Awareness around OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and its many different categories is important to break down the stigma surrounding OCD. As someone newly diagnosed myself, the different parts of your life that OCD decides to attach to are tiring and unexpected.

For October, I wanted to highlight some books I’ve read that either touch on or focus on OCD that help bring awareness to the disorder in a realistic way: 

Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought by Lily Bailey – memoir

This memoir is RAW. Because We Are Bad is Bailey’s retelling of her experiences with OCD while growing up that leads her to eventually be hospitalized. This memoir details the ways OCD can attach and how it can feel outside of yourself, and I love Bailey’s writing mechanisms to “other” her OCD and how that ends up coming through in her relationship with her disorder. This book is a quick read, but details a lifetime of suffering with OCD.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin – dark comedy

The only fiction book on this list, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead has a focus on the obsessive-compulsive-style of rumination and severe anxiety that comes with it. Gilda, the atheist lesbian main character, suffers from debilitating health and death anxiety and lies her way to become a receptionist at a church. Throughout the story, key themes such as existential dread, intrusive thoughts, and compulsive avoidance lace the narrative. Though it is fiction, Austin writes Gilda’s story so accurately to what one could experience in reality.

Obsessive Intrusive Magical Thinking by Marianne Eloise – memoir/essays

This collection of essays perfectly lays out the different ways OCD can attach to your day-to-day life. Eloise uses this collection to focus on her intrusive thoughts and fixations, which to the average person may seem strange, but to the person with an OCD brain, makes them feel seen. Using her journalistic tone, Eloise is able to detail how OCD affects her daily life and helps the reader see that as well.

Comment below if there are any other OCD reads that you think are perfect to end OCD Awareness Month with!

Image taken from Amazon UK.