I lost five hours of my life watching this marathon on my DVR today.  I seriously sat, and watched, and couldn’t tear myself away from the television, while my house just fell apart.  I felt a little guilty when the last episode focused on hoarding and my house was in the beginnings of looking just like that, but not enough to shut it off and actually start cleaning.  If you haven’t seen this show it’s all about OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), and it follows two patients each episode as they go through therapy trying to conquer the various forms that OCD manifests itself in them.   I think I must have completely missed the first season since I only caught six episodes, and the web site had a whole slew of ones I haven’t seen yet.  I foresee more housework procrastination in my immediate future.

So, I probably shouldn’t have started by watching the Agoraphobic Matt, since his disease was the one I identified with most, and seriously flipped me the heck out.   The hoarders were among the most shocking, but since I’ve known quite a few hoarders in my own life they just didn’t seem as “crazy” to me as say, the lady who obsessively cleans her teeth.  As someone who regularly avoids the dentist, I just couldn’t relate.  I had to fast forward through two of the stories because I just couldn’t watch.  The girl who tries to pick all the dirt out of her pores, and the girl who pulls out the hair from the top of her head.  I have issues with watching people self destruct in (what I deem to be) painful ways.  I was super interested to watch ”ritual” Ryan who was also showcased on MTV a while back(on True Life).  It was interesting to see how he’s grown over the last few years, and I was so happy to see that he married the girl he was dating when we last saw him.  I love when people with serious mental illnesses have really supportive love ones in their lives.

If you haven’t had a chance to check this one out, I highly recommend it.  I especially love how it doesn’t try and glorify the mental illness, or make it any more shocking then it already is.  The show is just a really real account of the challenges with living with OCD and the different treatment methods involved.

obsessed is in reruns on A&E

(I also linked the web site if you’d like to watch it there)