I was visited by obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

By Charles Walker

PUBLISHED: 22:51, 16 June 2012 | UPDATED: 22:51, 16 June 2012

I am delighted to say that I have been a practising fruitcake for 31 years. It was in 1981 at St John’s Wood Tube station – I remember it vividly – that I was visited by obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

Over the intervening years it has played a fairly significant part in my life. On occasions it is manageable and sometimes it becomes quite difficult. It takes one to some quite dark places.

I operate to the rule of four,  so I have to do everything in evens. I have to wash my hands four times and I have to go in and out of a room four times.

My wife and children often say I resemble an extra from Riverdance as I bounce in and out of a room, switching lights off four times.

Woe betide me if I switch off a light five times because then I have to do it another three times. Counting becomes very important.

I leave crisp and biscuit packets around the house because if I go near a bin, my word, I have to wash my hands on numerous occasions.

There has to be an upside to  a mental-health problem. I thought mine would be that I would not get colds because, apparently, if you wash your hands a lot, you don’t get them.

But I wash my hands hundreds of times a day and I get extremely cheesed off when I end up with a heavy cold.

OCD is like internal Tourette’s: sometimes it is benign and often it can be malevolent. It is like someone inside one’s head just banging away.

One is constantly striking deals with oneself. Sometimes these are quite ridiculous and on occasions they can be rather depressing and serious.

I have been pretty healthy for five years but just when you let your guard down this aggressive friend comes and smacks you right in the face.

I was on holiday recently and I took a beautiful photograph  of my son carrying a fishing rod. My love of fishing is well known.

There was my son carrying the rod, I was glowing with pride and then the voice started: ‘If you don’t get rid of that  photograph, your child will die.’

You fight those voices for a couple or three hours and you know that you really should not give in to them because they should not be there and it isn’t going to happen, but in the end, you are not going to risk your child, so one gives into the voices and then feels pretty miserable about life.

But there are amusing times, as well. I do not feel particularly sorry for myself, because my skirmish with mental health is minor.

There are people who live with appalling mental- health problems day in, day out, which is why, when I became an MP, I regarded it as a wonderful opportunity to try to help them.

I hope that I have an insight into some of their pain and agony and the battles that they go through on a daily basis. Many people are frightened and feel excluded.

My first year and a half in Parliament was absolutely appalling. It was very, very difficult.

My constituents thought that I was a jolly fellow – that is how I came across – but I remember sitting in my office going through my post.

A book arrived with a letter saying, ‘Managing your OCD’. I thought: ‘Oh my word, someone has spotted me on television. I’m done for. They’ve sent me a book and I’ll be outed in the newspapers – “Walker’s a loony”. My constituents will turn their backs on me, my association will throw its hands in the air and my children will be chased through the playground.’

I sat in cold terror for ten minutes, wondering how I would navigate my way through this.

I then picked up the letter and realised that it was a circular that had gone to all 650 MPs, so I took great comfort from the fact that probably 50 others were having the same emotions as me.

We can talk about medical solutions to mental-health problems and, of course, medicine has a part to play.

In reality, however, society has the biggest part to play. This is society’s problem and we need to step back from our own prejudices, park them and embrace people with mental- health problems.

You get only one chance at life. You get about 80 years-ish. If you have severe mental- health problems, you get about 65.

Can you imagine going through your whole life feeling miserable, excluded, discriminated against, with little hope? I cannot.

I have a wonderful vocation, a loving family and a comfortable lifestyle, so I know, even when things are bad, they will get better, but a lot of people are not in that position and we need to reach out to them.

Media reporting has improved and we do not often see headlines such as ‘Bonkers Bruno’, which appeared when the boxer Frank Bruno had problems, which was totally indefensible.

The media are beginning to get on board, not least because there are many people in the media who suffer from mental-health problems.

Who are these people out there? They are doctors, nurses, teachers and soldiers; they are all around us. Why would my constituents think any differently of me now than they did ten minutes ago?

Those who disliked me will continue to dislike me; those who like me will continue to like me; and those who were slightly agnostic could go  either way.

For the first time, I am feeling really positive and very happy. But there is still stigma and  discrimination about mental  illness.

I am afraid that in our ultra risk-averse world, that is a career death sentence for those people. We need to sort that out.

But I am not frightened any more. I am pretty middle-aged and I do not care what people think of me.

When people come up to me and say: ‘Mr Walker, we think you’re an absolute  rotter and so-and-so’, with OCD, I would probably have said a lot worse to myself 20 minutes earlier. It is not such a big deal.

It is a really good place to be, and we need to ensure that many hundreds of thousands can be in that place as well.