JESSICA Fisher’s new play began life as a piece about imagining a world where the London riots had not stopped.

Instead, Ghost Town became a story of lost friendship, memory and what it means to be courageous, featuring a boy with OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

“It’s still set on a beach, and I kept two of the characters, a young woman lying unconscious on the tide line, and Joe, who is standing over her, watching, panicking, washing his hands at the water’s edge,” says Jessica, whose play for Pilot Theatre will run in the York Theatre Royal Studio from Wednesday.

“But I then came up with the idea that Joe had run away because he has OCD and suffers these terrible thoughts of hurting people. It’s these disturbing thoughts themselves that become really distressing for people with OCD because they would never act on them as they’re generally good people to be around.”

It was at this point that she revealed she has OCD. “Luckily, I have more or less got it under control but I had it quite badly from in my first term at university when I was 19,” says Jessica, who is now 33.

“It’s only been in the past year that I’ve had help from a specialist in Cheshire, where my parents live, that has really helped me.

“With me, and this was more common back then because of the culture of the time, there was a fear of HIV, when there were terrible rumours about people being stabbed with needles.

“ I went clubbing one night and got caught in a rush of people that sent me into a panic that didn’t go away and stayed with me for months.

“So then I became afraid of blood or anything that looked like blood, so it was like a snowbell effect.”

All these revelations came as a surprise as I had known Jessica all the years she worked at York Theatre Royal before her recent move to London.

“One of the things that is really common with people with OCD is that they’re really good at hiding it, so unless I told people, they wouldn’t notice,” she says.

“At work, you find ways around it, though I was fortunate in being able to work whereas some people with OCD can’t work. With me, it would manifest itself in my home life, so I just had to get on with it because it could manifest itself quite often. I’m fortunate that I had supportive family and friends.”

The specialist helped Jessica to understand how the OCD condition works. “He developed my understanding of what was happening and showed me how to work out how to stop giving the anxiety any power,” says Jessica.

“We did this treatment called Exposure and Response Prevention, where you have to do the things that make you frightened or anxious, like touching a bin, and then you don’t do the things you would normally do to deal with that anxiety.”

Jessica has moved to Morden, where she is “living the dream”.

“I’m working as a cheesemonger three days a week at Neal’s Yard at Bow Market, which gives me just enough to live on and I have more time for my writing now,” she says.

• Pilot Theatre’s Ghost Town is on tour from today to March 4, including York Theatre Royal Studio, February 12 to 19 (except February 16 and 17) at 7.45pm. York box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk