Dirty Filthy OCD

The main character of the movie Dirty Filthy Love, Mark Furness played by Michael Sheen had a severe case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and Tourette syndrome (the main focus is on his OCD). In the movie Mark shows many signs of having OCD. Mark touches things more than once, he shakes his keys, and he has a weird sequence when going up the stairs. Mark would step up on a few stairs then step down a stair then goes back up a few stairs then repeat.

In the movie there was a scene were Mark would step out of the subway but have his hands on the door of the subway in which he would block people from getting off for a few seconds before he got off. Mark would continue to do his awkward stair ritual when he went up the escalator and whenever he went up any type of stairs. Mark would usually walk then run then repeat in a random fashion.

Mark also suffers from Tourette in the film. Mark has very bad neck ticks and later on in the movie he develops arm ticks as well. Mark would make uncontrollable noises or hums. Whenever he gets upset he curses uncontrollably. Also whenever Mark passed by a dog he would bark just like a dog sometimes he would bark at random. In the film for the most part his OCD symptoms over shadowed his Tourette symptoms.

Mark’s OCD was so bad that it would cause him to be late to important occasions. Mark would sometimes stare at the ground and at the sky for a bit before continuing to talk when he was outside. Mark also touched his face a lot, sometimes even hitting himself with the palms of his hands when upset.

Mark did have some of the stereotypical OCD symptoms as well when it came down to cleanliness. Mark would wash his hands in a particular way by turning on the water and putting soap on his hands then putting his hands into the water while rubbing his hands very fast then repeating the motion of his hand washing ritual. Mark would shave his face in a very accurate manner, only by shaving a certain part of his face each time he took the razor to his face as though he was shaving inch by inch. In one part of the movie Mark washed his feet in the kitchen sink while being nude and he washed his feet until they were red and some of the skin on his feet was peeling off.

For some old reason Mark wouldn’t (for the most part) sit down in the movie. When he went back to his job and when his bosses told him to take a seat he would look down at his seat and wouldn’t sit. In other parts of the movie he would always look at his seat and touch the seat with his hands before he sat down. Mark later revealed that he thought by sitting down he was damaging his spine and was breaking the chair.

In the movie Mark also had Tourette Disorder in which you could tell that he had it. It was interesting to see how both Tourette Disorder and OCD mixed together in this movie. I feel like the movie freely associates OCD and Tourette Disorder which makes them seem like their two of the same disorders.

In the movie a lot of other characters have OCD just like Mark has. You really can piece together how similar some of the other characters and Marks symptoms are compared to the traditional symptoms that you can find that involved OCD. Mark’s character really embodies people that have OCD and their everyday life activities with this disorder.

As I explained before Mark displayed all of the known symptoms that comes with OCD. Mark’s OCD symptoms consist of repetitive behaviors, skin picking, and time consuming patterns such as his stairs pattern as well as many more of the known symptoms that come with OCD. Mark would also deal with Excoriation as well which also deals with OCD.

Mark also dealt with a lot of issues that would cause his him to engage in is OCD rituals more. Mark lost his job due to his OCD habits, Mark got a divorce with his wife, and these events caused Mark to fall into a deep depression which made his OCD and Tourette’s worse plus he stopped taking his medicine that helped stop his disorders.

Mark would also attend a self-help group but stopped going because he got into an argument with another character from the movie. You could even say that real life stressors could make the symptoms of a disorder worse. From watching this movie the statement in my last sentence seems pretty accurate.

After watching the movie I concluded that Mark had OCD. His symptoms are pretty much as accurate as they could be. If you look at the DSM information that I have at the beginning of this paper and compare them to all of the symptoms that I described, Mark truly does have OCD.

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