If you came of age on lesbian YouTube, you already know Rose Ellen Dix. She’s spent more than a decade sharing pretty much everything with millions on Rose & Rosie, the channel she runs with her wife Rosie Spaughton – the marriage, two children, a book, a documentary and a sold-out tour. So what’s left to share? Quite a lot, it turns out.
Her new podcast, RoseCD, is the first thing Rose has made entirely on her own, and it’s her most personal yet. Across ten episodes she gets honest about living with OCD, which she was diagnosed with at 17. Not the tidy-desk version, but the intrusive thoughts, the compulsions, the shame – and the years she spent trying very hard to fancy Ewan McGregor. (Spoiler: it was Nicole Kidman all along.)
We caught up with her to talk coming out, raising two boys, and why having a thought doesn’t make you that thing.
Congratulations on RoseCD. You’ve shared so much of your life with your audience over the years. What made this feel like the right moment to talk about your OCD?
“I just thought I was at the stage of my career where I wanted to talk about things that were very, very close to my heart. Things I’m really passionate about. Don’t get me wrong, I love making YouTube videos with Rosie, but it was also nice to do an independent project for the first time in, I think, forever.
“I really wanted to create a space where like-minded people felt confident that they weren’t in this alone, and that OCD can affect anybody in a number of different ways. I wanted to make something where the shame, the stigma and the guilt had just gone, and people found their people.”
What’s the strangest compulsion or intrusive thought you’ve had that you’ve never said out loud until this podcast?
“Ooh, so many. When I started, I wasn’t sure whether I was actually going to go into the specific details of my own brain. Then I thought it would be really beneficial for people, and that’s a level of vulnerability I’ve never done before.
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“Some of the silly ones – I say silly – are things like my compulsion to kiss the door handle before I went into my parents’ bathroom. I never knew why. I never knew how it started. I just did it every time I came in and left. Then I did it twice. I didn’t even question it, I just had to do it, until one day I was like, that’s ridiculous.
“Usually with OCD you do a ritual or compulsion because you’re scared of a certain outcome you believe will happen if you don’t. I didn’t even have that outcome this time. It was just this integral need to do this thing.
“I also talk about the more taboo, darker side of my OCD: intrusive thoughts, whether they’re violent, sexual or just dark. That’s where a lot of the misrepresentation comes from, because it’s rarely spoken about. There’s so much stigma around pure obsessional OCD, and I really wanted to bring a voice to it, so people weren’t so scared of their own thoughts.
“Nothing about having OCD is cute, don’t get me wrong. But everyone talks about the germ stuff and the fear of contamination, or ‘I’m a little bit OCD, I need that to be perfectly aligned.’ People rarely go, ‘Oh, I’m a little bit OCD with all my dark, sexual, intrusive thoughts.’ And then people are like, sorry, what? I wanted to talk about it.”
You spent years convincing yourself you fancied Ewan McGregor when it was really Nicole Kidman. How much did OCD get in the way of you coming out?
“Oh, that’s a really good question, because they do go somewhat hand in hand, I think simply because of timing. I did have that moment where I thought, God, I fancy my own friends. Should I be worried about this? Does that make me a perv? Do I have this huge, dark, shameful secret? Should I actually try to convince myself that it’s not girls I fancy?
“I don’t know how much of that was OCD compared to the ‘normal’ coming of age process. But I was very much in a loop of compulsions when it came to looking at a picture of Ewan McGregor for a certain amount of time, to convince myself I was attracted to him. That was definitely OCD, because it was a compulsive behaviour I did to get an outcome I believed would be acceptable.
“Having said that, I’ve been quite lucky with my coming out. Even though I had that brief time of self-doubt and self-loathing, I got over it quite quickly, because if there’s one thing I’ve been confident about in my life, it’s my attraction to women. I’m not confident in much, but that I am certain of. So yes, OCD got in the way slightly, but fortunately not hugely.”
What’s the biggest myth about OCD that winds you up the most?
“That people see it as being a little bit neurotic in a quirky way. It isn’t. It can be so debilitating, isolating and depressing. It can truly limit your potential, and it can be quite heartbreaking in that sense. I almost see it as a mental disability, because it can stop you from doing so much, whether that’s travelling, leaving your house or leaving your bedroom.
“I didn’t leave my bedroom for two years. There’s nothing quirky and fun about that, is there? People don’t realise how deep and dark it can get, how heavy it can weigh on you, and how much it can affect living your life in the simplest of ways. It’s a serious condition, with so many different subtypes. What annoys me most is when people trivialise it into being one thing.
“I know people with really heavy OCD who don’t give a shit about things being clean. It never used to affect me like that either. Only now am I like, oh my God, I need order just to stay less anxious. It affects everyone so differently.”
Has OCD ever made you doubt your relationship with Rosie, and how does she deal with you when you’re spiralling?
“I actually did an episode on this. I’m very fortunate that even though OCD seems to have affected every single avenue of my life, it hasn’t affected my relationship. I did have relationship OCD with a past relationship, but in all fairness, I don’t think that was quite the relationship for me.
“I’m very, very confident in my marriage, because we’ve been through so much together: the highs, the lows and everything in between. Rosie’s incredibly patient. She has ADHD, so she’s neurodiverse in that way, and she has a lot of understanding and time for OCD, which is hugely beneficial for me. She doesn’t just see me as attention-seeking or annoying. I’m very lucky in that sense.”
You carried Rocky and Rosie carried Ziggy. Did your OCD treat those two experiences differently, and did being a same-sex couple add any worries that straight parents might not have?
“It’s a really good question, and I’m going to answer it absolutely honestly, because why not be? I feel exactly the same way about both children. And I didn’t expect that. I thought there would be some kind of difference, because if you biologically carry a child, that’s going to be a different experience to watching your partner do it. I’m not saying one is greater or worse than the other. I love my children so equally.
“And my OCD actually got better through having children, which might not be everyone’s experience. But if you’re living with OCD and you’re worried having children will be a trigger, don’t just assume that it will. Having a baby can be stressful. You’re sleep-deprived, there’s a lot of noise, a lot of stimulation, a lot of responsibility, and those can all be triggers. But for me, it quietened the noise. I was like, what? How am I this calm? I guess it’s because I had someone greater than myself to worry about. I was very calm with Ziggy, and I was very calm with Rocky.
“You don’t know how it’s going to affect you. It’s a bit of a lottery, a bit of a gamble. But look, I took the chance, and I’m so glad that I did.”
What does a bad OCD day look like in your house now that you have two small kids?
“OCD comes with anxiety for me. If I feel quite anxious one day and don’t really know why, that’s when my OCD will kick in, and my mind goes to health worries. So a bad day at the moment, and it can change, is when I’m highly anxious and start worrying about things I can’t control, like my health, my parents’ health and my children’s health.
“I think it’s because everything is so uncertain in this day and age, isn’t it? You can never promise tomorrow. It’s not guaranteed. And that’s something I struggle with sometimes.”
Was there anything you recorded for the podcast that you nearly cut because it felt too much?
“Yeah. A really taboo subject is intrusive sexual thoughts, intrusive violent thoughts, the things you don’t want to say out loud because you assume the listener will judge without understanding. That’s what we’ve got to break down: people aren’t their thoughts. Having a thought doesn’t make you that thing. You don’t have to carry the burden of the guilt and the worry and the shame, because we can’t control what comes into our heads.
“I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Often, the people least likely to ever be anything remotely close to that image of fear, that monster, are the ones likely to have these thoughts, because it’s the thing they fear the most.
“It was a worrying thing for me to talk about. I thought, am I really going to come on my podcast and say I’ve had incredibly upsetting, distressing sexual thoughts? In my mind, that’s the most taboo nature of a thought, because it’s the thing I’m so repulsed by. But I thought, do you know what? I’m going to, because I need to lead the way for others to do the same, and realise that it’s just OCD. That’s all it is. It’s realising it’s not you, it’s something you unfortunately live with. It was quite scary to talk about, but I’m really glad that I did.”
What would you say to someone listening who thinks they’re the only person in the world having the thoughts they have?
“Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, I can guarantee that you’re not. There are so many more people than you ever thought living with this, because it’s rarely spoken about. There’s so much shame, guilt and fear around it, and so much misunderstanding.
“Do not feel alone. Do not feel like you are your thoughts. They don’t have any bearing on who you are or your moral compass, and please don’t feel like you need to carry all this guilt. It’s a fear-based, anxiety-based condition that thrives on uncertainty. But there is a positive way forward. I’ve always been an advocate for therapy, all sorts of different therapy, and I’ve benefited from each and every one. There are definitely resources available. You are not alone.”
Where to listen
RoseCD is out now on Spotify and all major podcast platforms. You can follow Rose on Instagram at @roseellendix.
If you’ve been affected by anything in this interview, support is available:
- Samaritans – call 116 123 free, day or night.
- OCD-UK – the national OCD charity, run by and for people with lived experience of OCD, with information, support groups and a helpline
- Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline – call 0800 0119 100 free, 10am-10pm every day, or chat online
Nonchalant x
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Abi is the Founding Director of Nonchalant Magazine. She’s previously had a 7-year career in Digital Marketing within the eCommerce and Travel Sector. Aside from running Nonchalant, she’s a Lead Software Engineer and has worked on large scale projects for some of the biggest tech giants and was recently shortlisted on the Google Startups and Computer Weekly ‘Women in Software Powerlist 2020’.
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