14 May Conservative grandee Sir Charles Walker opens up about his mental health struggles
CONSERVATIVE Party grandee Sir Charles Walker has opened up about coping with OCD in an interview with Camilla Tominey on GB News.
The MP for Broxbourne said: “So, I obsess over things. When it’s particularly active, I do a lot of counting, a lot of hand washing, a lot of bargaining, you make pacts with with yourself. So you have to do X, Y and Z because if you don’t, something awful will happen.
“I mentioned it in the chamber. I personally regard it as a gift. I know for many, it is a terrible demon that creates huge upset and pain, but I’ve always said it’s made me more empathetic and understanding, having to sort of wrestle with it.
He said he first noticed he had it at the age of 13 saying: “I had no idea what it was. And really, I don’t think I properly worked out what it was until I became a Member of Parliament.
“Somebody sent me a book on OCD, and I think I recall I thought, ‘oh my God, I’ve been found out’, they’ve spotted me on the benches with a tick or something, you get these nervous tics.
“That’s sort of when I realised what it was. I mean, my family have known I’ve had it for years going in and out of rooms 20 times turning off lights with switches, washing hands, so on and so forth.
“There are times when it’s particularly active and times when it’s not so. And times when you change, and when there’s big change in your life, it becomes very active. So, for example, when I became a Member of Parliament, it sort of went into sort of overdrive, and now it’s in a calmer phase.”
Sir Charles added: “I have a mild form of OCD, but there are some people where it is absolutely life changing.
“They might have to blink 1,000 times and they lose count at 998 or something and have to start again and then there are people with OCD who end up in in mental health wards because they require significant interventions, and I have enormous sympathy for them.
“Luckily there are treatments that one can undertake, that can ease people’s symptoms, how it manifests itself, but for people at the extreme end, it is absolutely life changing. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
He also spoke out at abuse MPs receive: “I think a lot of my colleagues are subjected to unbearable and indifferent, indefensible levels of abuse by people.
“Most of our constituents are lovely, warm people, whatever their politics, but there is a nasty underbelly in most constituencies of quite thuggish, aggressive people who feel that they can get away with saying what they like and threatening what they like.
“And actually, that is going to deter further good people from entering politics.”
