Excerpt from "Joshua and Carrie"

Carrie, on the other hand, has had fears of catching a disease if she doesn't keep her room, and the rest of the house for that matter, clean.  So she spends hours constantly cleaning her room especially and checking to see if it in particular had no germs.  She has disturbing thoughts of catching a disease or even dying if she doesn't think her room is clean enough.  She is especially fearful if she has a cut on her hands, so she often wears a glove or opens a door with a cloth or towel.  She spends hours daily thinking and fighting and writing about those thoughts.  The writings bring temporary relief, only for the obsessive thoughts and the compulsions to occur again.  The cycle just seems never-ending.

To the both of them, it is like there is no hope sometimes.  They both have amazing insight into their problems yet it seems that they are alone because they know no one else like them.  Until now.  Both of them, like many teenagers, are avid internet users.  When they are not in school, doing homework, or hanging out with their friends, or spending time with their families they spend a lot of time alone on the internet in their own little worlds.  Carrie even has her own myspace page.  Yet she doesn't list herself as having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Instead she goes on a forum for young people who have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  That way, she at least has someone who can relate to her.  Like with Joshua, both of her parents worry that she spends too much time on the internet and not enough time with her family.

Joshua's parents began to worry not only about his time on the internet, but about his overall health after the breakup.  His parents had to constantly monitor him in case he was suicidal.  Joshua at one point had even become a different person due to the breakup. He had even begun to hang out with a different crowd and become dark and more depressed.  He began to lash out at anyone including his parents to the point where his father had to restrain him.  His mother called the emergency room because of this.  Soon after, Joshua was hospitalized. That was over a year ago. Since then, his condition has improved, yet has suffered through a cycle of unwanted thoughts, triggers, and endless research and investigation about infidelity.  He knows the thoughts are not real and are not based on his real life, but they frustrate him.  Sometimes, they are just too much to bear.  Even though his parents are concerned about him going on the internet, they have seen how much he has improved from the last year.  Joshua does not have a myspace page like Carrie, but he does go on the chat rooms and read comments on the forums.  Then he came across a message from a poster who has OCD, so he clicked on that one, but that page did not interest him.