Actress Tuppence Middleton has spoken about her experience of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) in an interview with Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on This Morning today.
Tuppence, 38, who played Lucy in the Downton Abbey movies, talked about how she developed the disorder when she was 12 years old. She revealed that she suffers from a fear of illness and vomiting, which affects her life more now that she is a mother of a daughter, who was born in 2022.
“For me, OCD always felt like this crawling, sinister presence”, Tuppence said, explaining why her book on the subject is called Scorpions. “The idea of scorpions crawling around in my head was something that always struck a chord. It started after I had a prolonged illness as a child, I had chronic fatigue syndrome and I was constantly nauseous, I lost a lot of weight, I was very tired, I couldn’t get out of bed. That lasted for a few months and when I finally recovered, I started to get symptoms of OCD”.
Tuppence explained her OCD manifested as counting rituals and checking things such as door handles, but her main symptom was worrying about getting sick, and experiencing emetophobia, the fear of vomiting. While she confirmed that she has learned different techniques to manage this, she also revealed it has affected her life as a mum.
“That was a really difficult thing and I think people with OCD often don’t even get pregnant because they are worried about morning sickness or they are worried about what happens when they have children and those children pick up bugs as they inevitably do”, she explained. “I think a lot of preparation is involved. You have this distraction]of a child] which requires a lot of your focus, so in that respect sometimes it can distract me from routines and rituals that I have set up, which can be a great thing”.
“On the other hand, there is this huge anxiety about going to a soft play, or going to nursery and picking up bugs and I have these kits which are ready in case she gets ill, and I have a very understanding partner. It’s a lot about preparing for these things”.
Tuppence is currently appearing in the West End theatre production of The Years, alongside actresses Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee, Anjili Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner. She made her screen debut in the TV series Bones, and has since appeared on the small screen in Friday Night Dinner, Sirens, Black Mirror, Sense8 and Caught.
Her films include The Imitation Game, Fisherman’s Friends, Mank and the two Downton Abbey movies, in which she plays Branson’s new love interest (and now wife) Lucy. She will also appear in the upcoming third Downton Abbey movie, due to be released in September this year.
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Source: Mirror
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