The retailer TK Maxx has pulled a range of products that appeared to trivialise obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), a mental illness which severely affects around 750,000 people in the UK.
The issue was brought to light after multiple customers tweeted photos of the kitchenware range sold in stores, which read: “I have OCD… Obsessive Christmas Disorder.”
After the charity OCD UK tweeted the retailer asking them to consider removing the product, saying it was “in poor taste”, TK Maxx pulled the line from stores.
Emily Heath, from Staffordshire, lives with OCD and said seeing the kitchenware range “felt like a kick in the stomach”.
The 29-year-old marketing executive told HuffPost UK: “The seriousness of OCD is constantly misunderstood as just being a perfectionist, when in reality it is a debilitating illness that can ruin lives.
“OCD has affected me for most of my life and when it is repackaged as a cutesy eccentricity to sell products, especially by a respected brand like TK Maxx, it undermines how unbearable living with the illness on a day-to-day basis can be.”
[Read more: 8 things people with OCD want you to know]
OCD is a mental illness which can cause persistent thoughts and images that cause distress. People with the condition might also feel compelled to ritualistically check things.
It’s a serious and debilitating illness to have, yet it’s still often trivialised – people often refer to themselves as “a bit OCD” if they’re neat and tidy without batting an eyelid. Doing so can downplay the serious impact of the illness, campaigners say.
Sharing an insight into what life with OCD is like, Heath said she would struggle to make decisions at work because she’d be so worried that something bad would happen if she made a mistake.
“I couldn’t leave work before I had checked my sent-box to make sure I hadn’t sent an email to the wrong person. But as I got more unwell it wouldn’t just be one check, it would be over and over again and I couldn’t make myself stop.
“I became frightened one little thing could turn into a disaster. I could see tragedies everywhere, and they would all become my fault.”
She pushed her friends away and didn’t want to leave the house anymore.
But where it once ruled her life, Heath reports that she is now having therapy and taking medication for her condition, and notes it’s a “work in progress”.
It’s not just TK Maxx which sells items with the “Obsessive Christmas Disorder” slogan. A quick Google search shows there are numerous items on sale from different online retailers.
A spokesperson for TK Maxx told HuffPost UK: “We take our customers’ concerns very seriously and appreciate that these items were brought to our attention.
“It is never our intention to cause offence and as soon as we were made aware of the concerns, we initiated a process to remove these items from sale.”
