20: 'OCD and intrusive thoughts are ruining my life'

heretics. | andrew gold

Andrew Gold

Personal Journals, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.4 • 968 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James McMahon is a music journalist and former editor of Kerrang music magazine who also had several prominent roles at NME – which is also a very big music magazine. He’s very talented and does all sorts of things, from illustration and animal portraits to a paranormal email magazine called Spoook and interviews with the likes of Green Day, U2 and 50 Cent. He’s also written for Vice, The Guardian and the Big Issue among other prestigious titles. (Follow the podcast on twitter.com/andrewgold_ok or instagram.com/andrewgold_ok or facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold) But today, we’re going to talk about his struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It’s something I struggled with myself as a teenager and haven’t really spoken about. I wouldn’t want to now say I have OCD any more than the average person; I’m sure all of you have some aspects of obsessive compulsion – but the disorder part is where James comes in. I came across his other project, the OCD Chronicles, in which he interviews all sorts of people with different kinds of OCD, which affects everybody slightly differently. His latest interview was with Mara Wilson, the child star you might know from Matilda or Mrs. Doubtfire. I put forward the theory to James that learning to be Matilda – a young girl who can control things with her mind – might have been a catalyst for her disorder. But I think both James and Mara can see that it’s a little more complicated than that. In any case, we talk about how it has affected James, and get on to parts you maybe didn’t expect from OCD, including intrusive thoughts – and there are some surprising and difficult ones that have plagued James for some time. If you think that you, or your loved ones might be suffering with this debilitating disorder, I’ve put links to OCD UK and OCD Action in the episode description, so do get in touch with them. Check out James’ OCD Chronicles on https://www.jamesjammcmahon.com or follow him on Twitter via @jamesjammcmahon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We interrupt programming to bring you this breaking news.
0:05.8	Joan, prolific diamond thief will be released on Sunday.
0:09.6	People are advised to go home, lock the doors, and tune in to I-V1.
0:15.0	Joan is known to use disguises and has many aliases.
0:19.0	She may appear as a mother, lover, liar, or a thief.
0:24.0	Joan, start Sunday at 9 on IT1 and ITX.
0:29.0	There's a friend of mine, well, it was a friend of mine who passed away. I didn't really see in the lead up to his passing because I was obsessed that he thought crazy things about me, terrible things about me and and they weren't true, they were my head.
0:44.0	Sorry to hear that, that's... Oh, it's fine. You should like segue like the Benny Hill music into this
0:48.0	point just to sort of bring some levity to all this.
0:55.0	Today's a bit of a personal one for me. I'm going to be talking to, well, I've already spoken to him and recorded it actually,
0:59.0	but James McMahon, the music journalist and former editor of Kerrang Music magazine who also had
1:05.2	several prominent roles at NME which is also a very big music magazine he's very
1:09.6	talented and does all sorts of things from illustration and animal portraits to a
1:14.8	paranormal email magazine called Spook and interviews with the likes of Green Day
1:20.0	you 2 and 50 cent those are just the most famous or some of the most famous ones.
1:25.7	He's also written for Vice, the Guardian and the big issue among other prestigious titles.
1:30.8	But today we're going to talk about his struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
1:36.0	It's something that I struggled with myself as a teenager and haven't really spoken that much publicly about.
1:42.0	I wouldn't want to say now that I have OCD any more than the average person.
1:47.0	I'm sure all of you have some aspects of the obsessive compulsion, but it's the disorder part where people like James come in as he goes on to say himself.
1:59.0	So I came across his other projects, he's got enough projects, doesn't he? The OCD Chronicles, in which he
2:04.7	interviews all sorts of people with different kinds of OCD, which affects
	...

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