We are excited to announce the finalists for the 2014 OCD Awareness Video Contest! Winning videos will be chosen by popular vote this week as part of OCD Awareness Week, and the winner will be announced on Friday, October 19, 2014.
Each year, we host a creative contest as part of OCD Awareness Week, inviting members of the OCD Community to help spread awareness and understanding through storytelling or art. This year, we are hosting a video contest with the same theme. We asked to see original videos that help challenge stereotypes, fight stigma, and most importantly, raise awareness about OCD. The videos can be animated shorts, documentaries, short works of fiction — anything you can imagine.
Watch the videos below and vote for your favorite — to vote, simply click the thumbs up button (at the top of the video-player once it starts playing). The video with the most YouTube “likes” by 5pm ET on Friday, October 17th, 2014 will be the 2014 winner. And please share the videos on social media to help spread awareness about OCD throughout the week.
The 2014 OCD Awareness Video Contest Finalists are (in random order):
Adira Weixlmann — OCD Awareness Video #OCDweek
OCD is a potentially debilitating disorder that affects millions of Americans. OCD behaviors are commonly misunderstood to be as simple as personality quirks and not as symptoms to a severe illness. This video helps to provide more information about the prevalence, onset, and treatment of OCD as a diagnosed mental disorder. It also serves to let people know that treatment and recovery are possible.
Melanie Lefebvre — Cooking up OCD Awareness #OCDWeek
My video features me as a chef in a pretend cooking show, cooking up recipes for OCD awareness. I’m hoping to connect with people’s curiosity while highlighting types of OCD that the general population isn’t necessarily familiar with, such as harm OCD and scrupulosity OCD. The ingredients consist of items that represent these types of OCD. I also wanted to portray a message of hope so I featured a recipe for exposure and response prevention. I present my chef hat to the camera at the end of the video to encourage people to become a chef of their own and learn more about different types of OCD after the cooking lesson is finished. I also self-disclose as having OCD in the beginning of the video to show that it is not something to be ashamed of.
Haley Hutchinson — Birdy’s OCD Story #ocdweek
This video is a personal story of my OCD and ERP therapy. I created this video during my therapy last spring and summer.
Dominic DeLay — Me and My Messy OCD (#OCDWeek)
Many people think OCD is about tidiness. This short film takes a peak at the “messy” mind of an OCD sufferer (who also happens to be quite untidy). He tries a few different ways of dealing with his latest encounter with OCD and before finding a helpful response.
Jasmine Surprenant — “What is OCD?” OCD Awareness #OCDWeek 2014
I am a family member of someone who has OCD. In talking to people I’ve come to realize how little and how misrepresented this disorder is. Being privileged to sit in on my family member’s support group made me want to speak up for some of them because they are reluctant to talk about it with their close friends and family.
My friend and I hosted a breakfast for her co-workers in order to interview them for this video. We figured if we picked a few people at random it would give us a somewhat accurate portrayal of how OCD is perceived by the general public. We were right. In the making of this video, we were better able to educate 5 more people of the realities of OCD. Who knows who they will talk to about it at this point, hopefully many. They will at least now be aware when OCD is being used as a joke when the reality is quite different.
I hope that this video reaches more people and helps to break down misconceptions and stigma related to OCD. Thank you for all that this organization does. It saves lives.
The first place video will win a trip to the 22nd Annual OCD Conference in Boston in 2015, including 2-nights hotel stay and roundtrip travel to Boston (domestic travel only, or up to $500 value) and a free conference registration for 1 person.
Thank you again to everyone who entered the contest! We had some amazing submissions to choose from this year.
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