I have to hide all the knives in my house in fear that Ill stab my family to death – it’s a condition that impacts 1m

[An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows 'OCD left me with intrusive thoughts about attacking my mum with a knife', Image 2 shows 'OCD left me with intrusive thoughts about attacking my mum with a knife']

STARING at the knife lying on the kitchen table, Victoria Korlewala was hit with a sudden vision of herself attacking members of her family with it.

But the 20-year-old, from Doncaster has no ill will towards her family, and in fact harming them is the last thing she would ever do.

['OCD left me with intrusive thoughts about attacking my mum with a knife'] 4

['OCD left me with intrusive thoughts about attacking my mum with a knife'] 4

Her graphic visions are symptoms of harm OCD, a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where sufferers experience intrusive thoughts of harming themselves or loved ones.

The disturbing images mean she has to hide all of the knives in her house, and are just one of many symptoms of her debilitating mental health condition, which has left her unable to leave the house except for hospital appointments, for almost two years.

OCD is a severe anxiety disorder that affects 12 in every 1000 people with an estimated one million Brits suffering for it.

There are two aspects to OCD obsessions and the compulsions.

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Obsessions are thoughts, ideas and urges which feel impossible to ignore by sufferers and they can be very persistent.

Obsessions can cause a huge amount of anxiety, particularly if they are distressing thoughts about harm coming to someone you love.

On the other hand, compulsions are the ritual sufferers perform to rid themselves of the anxiety felt from the obsessive thoughts.

In fact, the World Health Organization once ranked obsessive compulsive disorder in the top 10 most disabling illnesses, in terms of lost income and diminished quality of life, something that is true of Victoria.

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Victoria, who is hoping to go to university to study biomedical sciences when her symptoms improve, says: “Every time I’d go into the kitchen, I’d see an image of myself attacking my family with a kitchen knife.

“I had to completely avoid looking at the knives.

“I knew I would never do something like that, but the OCD made it seem so real, and as though it was about to happen.

“My showers take up to seven hours, and I can’t go to the bathroom regularly as my handwashing routine takes up to 11 hours.”

Victoria first experienced OCD symptoms in autumn 2019, when she was 13-years-old.

She remembers a classmate in the hallway at school saying something to her that she didn’t quite catch.

“I asked him what he said, and he replied, ‘Oh it doesn’t matter’, so then I started to spiral and became convinced he’d said I smelled bad”, she said.

She would scrub herself five times during every shower, would constantly watch YouTube videos about hygiene and would ask her friends over and over again if she stank.

“I was so distressed. I was constantly worried people were talking about me, and would also be smelling myself,” she said.

She Googled her symptoms and discovered olfactory reference syndrome, a psychiatric disorder in which a person is convinced they smell, and which is often characterised as a subtype of OCD.

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, Victoria’s symptoms began to ease, as she was no longer around people in school, so she wasn’t worried that her classmates were talking about her.

However, in 2021, she started obsessively washing her hands, to the point where she would be late for school due to her handwashing routine.

Around this time, Victoria also began to experience morality OCD, where a person becomes convinced they are a bad person.

“I was praying with my mum, and she touched my hand and it tickled so I laughed,” she said.

“Afterwards I became convinced that I was a bad person for laughing during a prayer.”

Victoria began obsessively researching whether she was a bad person, and every time she watched a sad video on TikTok, would become convinced that she was laughing at it.

“I started to constantly frown to prevent this from happening, and I ended up with a permanent frown line,” she said.

She then began to experience harm OCD, a subtype where sufferers experience intrusive thoughts about causing harm to themselves or others.

Every time Victoria would walk into the kitchen and see a kitchen knife, her brain would show her a violent image of herself attacking someone with it.

At the time, she had no idea that these symptoms were linked to OCD, but after she began obsessively shaking her head from side to side, to get rid of the intrusive thoughts, she realised they were linked.

She went to the doctors, and was diagnosed with OCD in July 2021.

“When I was diagnosed, I felt happy that I wasn’t going crazy,” she said.

In August 2021, Victoria started taking sertraline, which helped to keep her symptoms at bay for a few years.

However, in 2024, the stress of taking her A levels led Victoria to start having dizzy spells, headaches and forgetting how to spell.

The stress of being ill then triggered an OCD relapse, and she began to experience severe symptoms of contamination OCD, which is characterised by intrusive thoughts about illness and germs, and obsessive washing.

She began showering up to seven hours a day, and only uses the toilet once every two days, as her handwashing routine takes up to 11 hours.

“I dread having to do it, it’s so painful as I have to clean under my nails,” she said.

“I can’t leave the house except for medical appointments.

“Yesterday I had an appointment at 1pm, and I had to get up at 5am so I could use the bathroom before I left.”

She has even put soap in her eyes and bleach on her skin to try and clean herself and hasn’t had been able to leave the house regularly since December 2024.

She also struggles to cook food, due her handwashing routine, so lives off takeaways and microwave meals.

Victoria is currently on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to try and help manage her condition, and is hoping to have a catheter put in, so that she can urinate without having to do her bathroom routine.

In six month’s time, Victoria is set to start inpatient exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), which helps sufferers to face anxiety-inducing situations whilst resisting compulsions, at Springfield Hospital in Tooting, London, which she hopes will alleviate her symptoms.

Victoria shares insights into how her symptoms affect her daily life on her TikTok channel @victoriaocd to raise awareness that OCD isnt just about organising or cleaning.