Student with OCD faces complications related to her condition at school

By Staff Writer

A high school student is complaining after she got in trouble for wearing colorful wigs to school. However, the teen has an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that causes her to pull out her hair.

The 18-year-old senior wore a blue wig to school on Monday to cover her condition, and school officials told her not to wear it again, news channel WSFA reports. She wore a red wig the next day and was taken out of class.

Murphy calls the situation insulting and embarrassing, but school spokeswoman Cindy Warner says rules prohibit students from wearing wigs that are not natural looking, or ones that could cause disruptions.

Murphy's mother, Colleen Traeger, told the news source that educators should be more considerate of her daughter's disorder.

According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as many as one in 200 children and adolescents struggle with OCD. Medical Interface reports that the total costs of OCD were estimated to be $8.4 billion in 1990, which is 6 percent of the estimated $147.8 billion cost of all mental illnesses.