Don't say you're OCD just because you're particular - 'Pure O' ruined my life

When you think about OCD, you might imagine someone with an immaculately tidy home. Maybe they have to have their books lined up on the shelf in a particular order.

While these might be rituals for someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, for people like Holly Moore, it was much more than that. She always felt herself to have some level of anxiety - not wanting to be too far from home or be out of her comfort zone.

But it wasn't until intrusive thoughts began to take over her every waking moment that she realised she couldn't go on the way she was any longer. In desperation, she called up a psychiatric hospital begging them to take her in as a live-in patient, as she believed she was 'going mad'.

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The 45-year-old, from Wilmslow, Cheshire, was suffering from a type of OCD - a common mental health condition where a person has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours - called Pure O, which stands for 'purely obsessional'.

Her condition, which she suffered with from 2005-2011, centred around 'terrifying' thoughts rather than behaviours or rituals - where a person can trawl over every life event, thought, or conversation ever had to prove or disprove them.

She argues during OCD Awareness Week (October 10-15), that despite it being common, OCD is still one of the most misunderstood mental disorders - often a throwaway term used to describe someone who is obsessed with cleaning or a perfectionist.

While she doesn't feel comfortable revealing what exactly went through her mind, Holly gives catastrophic and sinister examples of thoughts someone with Pure O can