A TEENAGER who is raising awareness of mental health issues using her online videos has shared details of her own experiences with OCD.

Elle Brewster, 17, was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder last year, but she thinks she has had it since she was a child.

The youngster, who lives in Meadowfield with her mother, Emma, said the condition means she has to do repetitive rituals to stop herself from feeling anxious.

Read more: County Durham teen's mental health TikTok videos go viral

She said: “I have to do rituals at certain times. I cannot step on drains or cracks.

“If I see a magpie I would touch my head three times.

“There are certain words I can’t say. And if someone else says it I will have to touch my head four times.

“I like to touch black, and I have to touch it three times.

“I have to do it three times if I get the urge to do something.”

As well as OCD, Elle has also been diagnosed as suffering from anxiety.

She said: “I feel it has always been there.

“Looking back I think I have always had OCD, but it was only recently I realised what it was.

“I was out with my mam and I told her that I had to touch something, or that I could not walk somewhere. She said ‘Elle, that is OCD.’

“But when I was younger I could not walk on cracks in tiles so maybe it was there then.”

Now over a million people saw her TikTok video about OCD, as well as others about body image, depression and suicide.

She said: “When I was diagnosed with OCD, I would sit and watch people’s interpretations and they say OCD was cleaning and stuff.

“That is how people think it is but it is not just that.

“I thought I would try to show people how it is with my OCD.”

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