Nicosia, Cyprus. Yiorgos Georghiou, 22, has written a memoir describing his experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder, including years of avoidance and distress linked to intrusive thoughts.
A personal account
In the prologue to I Was My Own Enemy, Georghiou writes that he is not a psychologist, clinician or researcher, but someone who has lived within what he describes as a cycle for most of his life.
“This book is about living inside a mind that refuses to rest,” he writes.
Georghiou, who has completed his second year studying Accountancy and Finance at the University of Leicester, began writing the book last November and finished it in June.
Living with avoidance
Speaking at his parents’ home in Nicosia, Georghiou pointed to a dining table he said he had been unable to sit at for three years.
He said he associated the table with a difficult period during his army service, when he returned home one day, sat there and experienced oppressive thoughts.
“My thoughts were making my reality,” he said, explaining that he could not touch or look at objects connected in his mind with painful memories.
Georghiou said he first sat at the table again two months ago, describing the moment as emotional for his family.
Making the condition visible
He said his family wanted to support him but could not fully understand what he was experiencing because they could not see it and he found it difficult to express it.
The memoir was published to explain more openly what he had been going through, which he identifies as OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Maria Ioannidou, a psychologist and Georghiou’s therapist, said the term OCD is often used casually, despite not necessarily reflecting the meaning of the condition.
