"The OCD Project," Thursday night at 10 on VH1
The best part of this new VH1 show about treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is that, in contrast to most reality programs, the featured subjects don't look even a little bit happy to be here.
When C-list celebs sign up for rehab shows, or civilian contestants risk humiliation on other reality shows, you often get the idea that they've calculated the pluses and minuses and decided that being on television outweighs any other consideration.
That may also be true here. But it doesn't feel that way. It feels like the six people who are undergoing tough-love OCD treatment on this show agreed to expose themselves in very unflattering ways because they're running low on both options and time.
Kristen, 28, who is phobic about "contamination," says she spends up to six hours a day washing her hands, sometimes until she rubs the skin off.
She works as a banker, but human contact, needless to say, doesn't come easily to someone who uses hand sanitizer every time she has to shake hands. So she lives in a bubble, literal and figurative. While it's a well-sanitized bubble, the 28-year-old also calls it "a lonely world."
Cody, 18, is home-schooled because his life revolves around various rituals. He estimates 60% of his day is rituals. It takes him an hour to turn a computer on or off.
Traci needs two hours to perform the rituals that get her out of bed. She's obsessed with the idea that if she doesn't perform these and dozens of others during the day, her 9-year-old son will die.
So even though her fears are more about herself than her son, he's imprisoned by them. She won't let him out of the house, for instance, because he might breathe "bad air."
While OCD is a casual punch line to much of the world, it's a life-changer to these six people, and not in a good way. The host, Dr. David Tolin, warns them that they won't enjoy his methods of taking their lives back...." More
More on Dr. Tolin, the show and watch the premiere: here
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