Reviews

Matt Haig's honest and uplifting look at his own depression last year touched a nerve of many. This year, I think I'll put my best on Lily Bailey's personal journey through a lifetime of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as non-fiction's best mental health confession.

I've read very few fictional representations of OCD in the past (Into the Darkest Corner stands out in my memory), and certainly never with an adolescent at the heart of the story.

Lily Bailey hear describes with no holds barred her own experiences from childhood, her teenage years and into her adult life, the ups and downs of her illness. The most shocking aspect for me was how serious it could be for someone so young. To spend hours, day and night, mulling over, worrying over her day's wrongs and faults; to categorise and order; to berate herself for seemingly normal behaviours that she saw as shameful, disgraceful, immoral - I've never understood the darkest reaches of what OCD must do to a person.

'Because We Are Bad' charts Lily's earliest memories of the development of her OCD, through to its ravages at school and university, her decision to seek help, and eventual breakthroughs. Her relationship with her therapist is especially well-documented, though I would have loved to have read more on her parents' perspective, on what they thought was going on with their daughter, on what they saw happening.

It's Lily's story of course, and the author uses a voice that shows her as the first person, experiencing OCD, the present tense making it all the more shocking as we go through life with Lily, thinking and feeling what she does.

It will make every reader feel guilt, guilt that they've probably at some point said "oh, I'm a bit OCD about that", when they watch LIly wash her hands 50 times a day, panic about leaving fingerprints on a fridge, run for hours and hours to escape the lists and letters in her head.

Lily's OCD also has an unusual aspect - in childhood she refers to herself as 'we' - there is another voice and person inside her mind, almost a guilty conscience manifested in a second personality. This is quite frightening, she was only a child, but also very well-written as she refers to herself as a plural.

For a debut writer (who has worked as a journalist), this is stunning writing really. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to tell this story so dispassionately yet truthfully.

I would have liked to hear from Dr Finch, even in an afterword with a clinical synopsis of Lily's journey, to hear the medical side of an OCD story, to complement Lily's own words. There is more story to tell, I felt, and I wanted to know all of it.

You will find humour here, an intelligent and plucky woman to empathise with, and a story that will help dispel common myths and rumours about a truly all-consuming condition. I hope to read more from Ms Bailey (and Rocky) in the future.

With thanks to the author for the paper copy, provided for review purposes.