title: Social performance and secret ritual: battling against obsessive-compulsive disorder.
abstract: This autoethnography offers an account of my experience with mental illness and provides an analysis of the performative aspects of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is a genetic disorder triggered by environmental stressors involving a chemical imbalance in the brain. The resulting biologically altered state leaves individuals to steer themselves among and between "appropriate" performance and secret rituals. Analyzing my own communication practices through a performance lens highlights the importance of image management for people struggling with disability. In telling my own story, this article provides readers an in-depth look at OCD as a traumatic brain disorder whose sufferers rely on communicative performance to maintain their public and private identities, and as a disease that impedes social life for its sufferers. Implications of this account for those struggling with mental disability and for practitioners aiming to help them are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Communication Studies Department, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, California 90840, USA. cbrooks1@csulb.edu
authors.forename: Catherine Francis
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Brooks
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural / Q000379:methods; D001325:Autobiographies as Topic; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008603:Mental Health; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology*; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012933:Social Identification; D013315:Stress, Psychological