Lily Bailey on mental health and Morten Harket

Lily Bailey, author of ‘Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought’, talks anxiety and Eighties’ bands with Christine Manby

(Illustration by Tom Ford)

I used to think of myself like an iPhone that had been given the wrong settings,” says Lily Bailey, author and model, of her experience of obsessive compulsive disorder. Her memoir of growing up with OCD, Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought, is an unflinching account that lays bare the reality of living with the condition that is still the punchline of too many jokes.

These days, Bailey uses her painfully gained knowledge to help others living with OCD and anxiety. She hosts a regular #OCDTalkHour on Twitter. In 2019, she was presented with an “Illumination Award” by the International OCD Foundation. And the soundtrack for her activism. Bailey announces her go-to feel-good culture fix somewhat shyly. “It’s the video to A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’.”

“I grew up listening to eighties music thanks to my parents,” she explains. “I found ‘Take On Me’ while trawling through videos on YouTube as a teenager.  The song gave me that swoopy stomach thing. I was instantly attracted to Morten Harket.”