Turtles All The Way Down…or is it?
Am I real? Am I really here? What might seem like the beginning of a philosophical hero’s journey is actually a question that commonly plagues sufferers of OCD. Although the doubts and questions might wear different masks, or “themes” as those of us with OCD might call them, underneath the doubts lies a series of similar questions. Unanswerable questions. The question of existence itself. Everything you once knew, or at least thought you knew, becomes fair game for scrutiny under the microscope of OCD. Am I here? Who am I really? What is real? These are the questions that open the film, Turtles All The Way Down.
Graphic: DA-HEE KIM/ The Stanford Daily
As a fellow human with OCD, I assumed the main character, Aza, suffered from what’s known in the OCD community as existential OCD. We quickly find out that her mental preoccupations are linked to germs. She is obsessed, and convinced, that she’s going to get sick, likely from C. Diff, and her world as she knows it will be over.
This film does an excellent job of portraying what it’s like inside the mind of someone suffering from OCD. There’s the exquisite pain of wishing to be normal. Wanting to do anything in your power to be like everyone else. We assume that whatever anyone else is dealing with, OCD or not, it would surely be better than our current circumstances. All we know is, life would be better without a sticky brain.
When you’re trapped inside your mind, it feels like you’re watching life pass you by from inside a glass cage. You can see it happening around you, but you’re not really there. We see this happen on several occasions, when Aza is hanging out with her friends, but the audio begins to shift to sounding far away, like she’s underwater. Time slows down, it warps and bends around the onslaught of intrusive thoughts and you become a witness to your own experience. You’re there, but not really. Her friend snaps her out of the mental fog, asking, “are you okay?”. Aza is able to excuse herself, to go take care of her compulsions, away from the prying eyes of her friend group.
“When you’re trapped inside your mind, it feels like you’re watching life pass you by from inside a glass cage.”
A double life. That’s what OCD sufferers tend to feel like and it can be hard to describe this kind of experience, even to loved ones. It’s like there’s moments where we’re plugged in and we’re present, we may even forget about our obsessions for a while, and then there’s times where we are so deep in the OCD rabbit hole, we can’t possibly imagine being anywhere else. Sometimes you’re able to “fake” a normal existence to the outside world. Sometimes you actually ARE actually feeling “normal”, nothing to fake! And OCD will say, “how dare you?”. You can have fun and laugh with friends and then when the intrusive thoughts hit again, you fall that much harder. We also see Aza going through this with her friends. Since no one can know what’s going on inside the head of another, her friends can’t have any idea of what it’s like to have OCD.
This movie does a great job of showing some of the physical compulsions that come with contamination. My only gripe is, this is still the most widely used “theme” that we see in popular media. However, the experiences depicted in the movie felt very real. Being hyper awareof every thought or symptom as “evidence”. The incessant googling. We’ve gotta FIGURE THIS OUT NOW! Our thoughts become so jumbled we don’t even know what actually happened or what was imagined. We see Aza start to question her own lived experience when she’s pulled into the OCD bubble.
At first, I wanted the OCD voice to be more. More panicked, darker, more sinister. As I kept watching, I saw that they intentionally first had the OCD voice sound more like Aza, still urgent, but not mean. As the movie went on, the OCD voice got louder, stronger, meaner. In my experience, this seems to be a common trajectory of the OCD voice or bully in our head. The more we “feed the monster”, the stronger it becomes. It feels almost impossible to ignore, but it’s actually what will ultimately set us free.
My heart went out for Aza when she really realized how her OCD could impact her happiness and her dating life. Dating can sometimes be so much harder with OCD, no matter the subtype. For one, it keeps you trapped in your head. If your partner’s not understanding, this could be taken as being aloof, not paying attention, etc. You’re often put in the place of either disclosing your diagnosis, or keeping it close to the chest. As Aza puts it, it can feel like being “forced to choose between lying and seeming weird”. It can feel like you’re living a double life and lying to your partner. We might even feel shame, or feel not good enough to date, like we’re too messed up for love. More of OCD’s lies.
“As a reminder: You never have to disclose your diagnosis to who you’re dating. You get to CHOOSE when to, if ever, share that with your partner. Sometimes, you find someone (or something, a passion, a hobby, an opportunity), that’s worth setting your rituals aside for. It can feel like an absolute free fall to give up the compulsions, but it’s worth it.”
The ending of the movie was so beautifully tied up, while heartfelt to watch, not always the case with OCD. It can take years to get a proper diagnosis, the battle to make sure you’re actively participating in your treatment, including your medication, finding the right support, the belief in yourself, the list goes on. However, I also think it’s important to weave in a message of hope for OCD sufferers. As Ana’s best friend puts it so beautifully, maybe all your doubts are what make you real.
Turtles All the Way Down (2024) is available to stream on Max, Hulu, or DirecTV Stream.