Traverse City Record-Eagle

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April 8, 2011

Coming Saturday: OCD baffling, exhausting, frightening

BY MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — For many people obsessive compulsive disorder is the comic struggle of TV detective Adrian Monk.

For Kevin Putman, OCD is a frightening way of life.

The Petoskey man has battled the disorder since he was 10 and used a Sharpie to mark “L” or “R” on each of the socks he planned to take on a camping trip.

Back then, friends and family wrote off his behavior as individualism, said Putman, 31, whose acquaintances are often surprised to learn he has the disorder. Even when he noted the eerie similarities between himself and people with OCD in a college psychology course, Putman shrugged it off as coincidence.

“It was just kind of the way that I lived. I just maintained and I got through,” he said.

See Saturday's Record-Eagle for more on the story.

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