Microprocessing
What It’s Like Using the Internet When You Have OCD
’When I’m not on [Twitter]… I have literal heart palpitations’
In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today, to give you a better tomorrow.
This week’s column contains frank discussions of mental illness and stigma against those with mental illness. If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder or another mental disorder and need support, you can contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness at 800-950-NAMI or via text at 741741. United Kingdom residents can call OCD Action at 0845 390 6232. Canadians can find contact information for local support here.
Morgan was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) 20 years ago. While a combination of medication and therapy has kept it mostly under control, she says, it still comes back occasionally in an incredibly frustrating manner.
“There have been flare-ups that have slowed me down because I had to type a sentence, erase it, and type it until it was ‘safe,’” she says.
What Morgan is experiencing is an emerging manifestation of OCD: When symptoms express not in the…
