Our Editor-in-Chief, Richard Beck, caught up with Olivia Levine to find out about the realities of growing up as ' a horny little lesbian' with undiagnosed OCD.
Talking about it all, laughing about it; it helps me and it helps them
Olivia let’s start chronologically. Tell us something about growing up in San Francisco, your family and your education.
My parents divorced when I was one and a half, but they both remained in San Francisco, twenty minutes apart. I split time between both households, doing three days with my dad, then four with my mom, and so on. I honestly didn’t mind going back and forth – I got along really well with both of my parents, and I liked moving around. I’m a Sagittarius, so I like being peripatetic (yes, I am an astrology lesbian).
I was a very happy kid, but I had some strange habits early on. When I was five, I started developing a series of ticks. I had a sniff, a snort and an eye roll, and I would repeat them over and over again. My mom’s boyfriend at the time was a standup, and he had a whole bit where he would ask me to do the tics but switch up the order. I liked that he made light of them. Later I would find out the tics were a part of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
When I was nine, my house caught on fire. That’s when my OCD started to really flare up. I had lots of physical compulsions like checking the stove, checking on my dad to make sure he was still breathing at night, etc. I also experienced extreme amounts of guilt. This can be common for someone with OCD. Guilt may arise after feeling you’ve done something wrong, or because you have obsessive thoughts that make you feel gross, or for other reasons.
I remember once when I was 12, I was on a school trip in Yosemite National Park. I went to a tiny school. I had 12 kids in my 7th grade class, and like seven of us were gathered in a cabin. It was my best friend Sarah and me, plus five boys. We were playing spin the bottle, and she had a cold sore, so I was the only one that could kiss the boys, and I ended up kissing all of them, haha! But I was immediately overcome with guilt for doing something “naughty” that I exited the cabin and told my teacher! MY TEACHER, LIKE WHAT OLIVIA!? Then, when I got back home, I immediately ran off the bus and told my dad about all the kissing. He laughed and said, “Okay!” I was thinking in my head “Noooooo, punish me or something!” I was so comfortable feeling guilty as a young child, and didn’t learn the relationship between guilt and my OCD until much later in life.
You moved to NYC and gained a degree in Theatre from Barnard College and have since studied at RADA. At what point did you decide that comedy was going to be your career?
So I was a big football player growing up. I was a goalkeeper – like every good lesbian! – and sort of ended up playing really competitively without knowing what was happening. I fell into it because I did everything my best friend Sarah did, and she was playing football. That meant I really couldn’t focus on performing, even though I knew I wanted to be an actor when I grew up. So when I got to college, I decided not to play soccer and focus on getting a degree in theatre. I had done lots of improv during my childhood, so I auditioned for all the improv troupes and sketch comedy troupes. I ended up getting into the sketch comedy group as a freshman, as well as Barnard’s all female improv troupe, Control Top.
I fell in love with improv. I started taking classes at UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) and went through all the levels there. Then, my senior year, I was actually inspired to try standup because my mom was doing it back in San Francisco. I thought that was so cool, so I tried my hand at it. It felt very natural from the beginning. I love performing on stage with other comedians, but I also love the spotlight haha. Then I kind of just kept doing standup, started writing my solo hour, and here I am!
Talking of trying your hand at things, apparently another aspect of your growing up was a desire to masturbate in public. How did that come about?
Ha! Yeah, the age old question. Well, I remember discovering masturbation when I was around 10 or 11. I was home one day, and I don’t remember where I got the idea – like if I had seen someone masturbating on tv, or if I just sort of discovered it through exploration and instinct – but I started masturbating and COULD NOT STOP. Like I did it the whole day. I remember I was watching tv in a room with my dad, put a blanket over my lap and just went for it. Given the amount of guilt I already struggled with, I’m not sure why I felt so comfortable doing this, but I did! Later that day, I went to my mom’s house and just did the same thing – blanket over lap, resume activity haha. I remember thinking, “This feels so good, why would I ever stop!?” And that sentiment seemed to really compel my behaviour for the next few years. Any time I was bored, I would be like, “Oh, I could touch myself right now, how fun!” I did it in Spanish class with my sweatshirt over my lap, in the movie theatre while watching March Of The Penguins, in bed next to my step brother while watching The Chappelle Show. I would always conceal it and keep a very straight face, I became a pro at that! So yeah, for a few years, it was sort of my go to activity, regardless of where I was.
But then OCD took over and you had issues reconciling all sorts of things during some tumultuous teenage years.
After about two or three years of masturbating wherever I could think to do it, one night I was overcome with a sudden, very intense wave of guilt. It suddenly struck me that it wasn’t an okay thing to do. But instead of accepting that reality and moving on, I felt absolutely awful. I basically said to myself, “Olivia, you are the worst, grossest person in the world for doing this.” My brain started to spiral – I convinced myself that I was a sexual predator. I told myself that I had done something wildly illegal (I mean, it probably was illegal but hey, I was a kid), and I told myself I would never be able to qualify as a good person ever again.
I understand now that these were intrusive thoughts that I could not control. You see, people with OCD experience intrusive thoughts and images (obsessions) that cause them to engage in repetitive thoughts or behaviours (compulsions). The compulsions help to alleviate the stress of the obsessions. So I was having all of these intrusive thoughts about being a horrible person, and then I would compulse by thinking up reasons in my head why the thought wasn’t true. For example, an obsessive thought might be “You are a sexual predator.” Then, to try and rid myself of the thought and the accompanying anxiety, I would come up with three reasons why this wasn’t true. 1) Nobody saw me touching myself. 2) I wasn’t aware there was a law against it. 3) I always concealed what I was doing.
I would repeat the justifications over and over, until I felt okay. But the thing with compulsions is, you only ever feel temporary relief, and then the anxiety comes back, and then you compulse again and so on and so forth – it’s a horrible cycle. It took me about four months to finally forgive myself for ‘what I had done’. Four months of straight obsessing and compulsing, barely able to be present with people because I was so stuck in my head. After four months, I finally allowed myself to believe I wasn’t horrible. But I banned myself from masturbating for two years after that. I also started experiencing all of these other obsessions related to my sexuality and vagina. At one point I became convinced I would impregnate my mother – obsessions are often very irrational – and kill my father with the germs from my vagina. FUN STUFF, HUH!?
Then you moved on to college and the heartbreak you experienced there was anything but irrational.
When I got to college, I finally realised I was gay. Well, I wouldn’t even necessarily call it a realisation, it was more like I fell immediately and intensely in love with a senior at my university. All I ever did was talk about her and follow her around and try and spend time with her. I was OBSESSED. That was sort of my coming out – just constantly talking to my friends and family about this person. We ended up having a brief thing – and when I say brief I mean reallllyyyyy brief; it lasted for a day – but then she sort of freaked out, I freaked out, and it ended. I was DEVASTATED.
I started majorly obsessing again, was barely present with my friends and in class, and that’s when I finally went to a therapist and got diagnosed with OCD. It was a big relief to finally put a label on what was happening, but it took quite some time to finally get a handle on it. I also started to understand that all of my sexuality related obsessions, my obsessions surrounding my vagina, probably had something to do with my repressed queerness. OCD tends to attack the things that are important to you. And it’s ultimately an anxiety disorder about control and certainty – folks with OCD have a terribly low threshold for uncertainty. I think all of the unknowns around my body and sexuality caused me to obsess and compulse. I also think that, as a woman, I was taught to feel particularly ashamed about my body and sexuality. So that was also a big part of things. I feel sad for that little girl who felt so guilty about perfectly normal things. It’s a large part of why I do this show – I want folks to feel less ashamed and less alone.
Guilt seems to be a popular theme on the comedy circuit this year, but others derive it from a religious upbringing and indoctrination, but that’s not the case with you.
I didn’t grow up religious, but I had plenty of guilt due to my OCD and just my personality. And I experienced a lot of shame from an early age just due to being a woman with a body. The queerness didn’t help. I felt so much shame for having desire, for having a body that felt things. And I kept it all inside, all in my head. When I finally started talking about all the things I had kept bottled up – whether it was the public masturbation stuff, or queerness stuff – I felt so much more free. I started talking about all of it with friends and on stage. And of course, all of my friends then felt more comfortable talking about their own shame around their sexuality and body and whatever else. And when I perform, you know, I am just very candid. An oversharer, even.
But this feels incredibly important to me, because one of the best things about being a performer is the ability to help folks feel less isolated. Audience members often come up to me after my show to confide in me about mental health things or sexuality related things, and they are so relieved when I just listen. So yeah, talking about it all, laughing about it; it helps me and it helps them. How wonderful!
