The Man Who Couldn´t Stop: The Truth About OCD
David Adam
The Sunday Times bestseller
‘Life-changing work' - Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
Have you ever stood at the edge of a tall building and felt the terrifying urge to jump? Or caught yourself imagining swerving into oncoming traffic for no reason at all? You’re not broken — and you’re not alone.
In The Man Who Couldn't Stop, writer and journalist David Adam takes us on a gripping journey into the darkest corners of the mind. Blending science, history and raw personal experience, this extraordinary book explores the hidden thoughts we all have but rarely admit.
With unflinching honesty and unfaltering humour, Adam reveals what it’s like to live with obsessive-compulsive disorder — a condition he has battled for over two decades. From a schoolgirl driven to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece, to two brothers who are buried alive by the things they’ve hoarded, he asks: when does a fleeting thought become a trap we can’t escape from?
‘I urge anyone to buy it’ - The Sunday Times
‘Just buy it now’ - Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
‘Superb’ - The Times
‘Brave, funny and illuminating’ - The Guardian
Product Details
About David Adam
Reviews for The Man Who Couldn´t Stop: The Truth About OCD
The Sunday Times
A fascinating study of the living nightmare that is obsessive compulsive disorder . . . one of the best and most readable studies of a mental illness to have emerged in recent years . . . an honest and open and, yes, maybe life-changing work
Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
The Observer
Combines a scientific account of OCD from ancient times to the most recent research with passages of tenderly written memoir
Telegraph
The Man Who Couldn't Stop is quite simply book of the year, on living with OCD: just buy it now
Adam Rutherford Superb . . . A brave and helpful contribution to deepening our understanding of the intricate complexities of mental ill-health
The Times
Adam recounts his journey with humour and detachment
Literary Review
An engaging, exhaustively researched neuro memoir, a blend of brain science and personal history
Evening Standard
This blew me away. Stunning
Ian Sample
The Guardian
An insider's tour of the OCD brain, providing insight into the cultural and scientific evolution of how we view and treat a disorder that affects up to 3% of people worldwide
Nature
A captivating first-person account of how a blizzard of unwanted thoughts can become a personal nightmare. At times shocking, at times tragic, at times unbelievably funny, it is a wonderful read
Focus
A lucid, humane - only intermittently autobiographical - science book . . . offers a clear history through riveting case studies and the work of key figures
Metro
David Adam, a successful writer, is also a sufferer of obsessive compulsive disorder . . . He covers the history of OCD, the treatments that have been tried without success, and his experience of cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT, which was greatly helpful. A well-written, thorough account
Independent
Well-researched, witty, honest and irreverent, Adam's account proves as irresistible as his subject
Kirkus Reviews