Neil Hilborn – “OCD”
A poet with obsessive compulsive disorder has taken the Internet by storm with a heartbreaking performance about falling in love.
And his bravery is inspiring others to share their own stories about overcoming limitations.
Neil Hilborn performed ‘OCD’ in June during the individual finals at the 2013 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam.
In the poem, through repetition and theatrics, Hilborn paints a painful but beautiful image of being in a relationship while dealing with OCD:
The first time I saw her everything in my head went quiet. All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared. When you have obsessive compulsive disorder you don’t really get quiet moments… When I saw her, the only thing I could think about was hairpin curve of her lips or the eyelash on her cheek, eyelash on her cheek, eyelash on her cheek.
On Monday, after Redditor antron81 posted the clip to Reddit, Hilborn’s performance went viral.
He decided to do an impromptu Q and A on Reddit.
In the comments, Hilborn explains that the poem was written in 2011. The tics in the performance are intentional, he says, “but they are also .. actual tics. Sometimes in performance they become real.” Click here to continue reading.
