1 min read
A year ago, Molly Lambert could struggle to leave the house. Anxiety kept her awake at night, public speaking felt almost unthinkable and her own thoughts had become something she feared.
Today, the 23-year-old has spoken about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) on television and podcasts, met MPs in parliament and helped create community groups for people living with the condition.
Growing up in Cheam, south London, Lambert was an anxious child who worried about being kidnapped and experienced graphic mental images she could not explain. When her dad once asked her to write down what was frightening her, she was too scared to write “kidnapping”, fearing that putting the word on paper might somehow make it happen. She wrote “burglary” instead, then spiralled over whether lying about it meant something bad would happen.
It is the earliest experience she now recognises as OCD, although neither she nor her family understood it at the time.
