Dispelling misconceptions about OCD
Claire Carstens of Durham earns Girl Scout Gold Award for awareness project
November 04, 2025
DURHAM, NH – “If I had a dollar for every time I have heard my peers say, “I’m so OCD” because they like to color code their pens, I’d be rich,” said Claire Carstens.
Obsessive compulsive disorder can be a debilitating condition, which Carstens knows firsthand. She wants people to understand the struggle of OCD, so she created a series of videos that explain how intrusive thoughts play out, filming three videos and creating an animated video that further explores the topic and offers help. She has earned The Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor for a Girl Scout in Grades 9-12, for her project, “I’m So OCD” – A Short Film Series on the Realities of Living with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.”
Carstens, 18, wanted to challenge the stereotypes around OCD with her project.
“I chose (this topic) because of my personal experience with OCD, especially during COVID,” she said. She’d like viewers of her videos to be kind to those with OCD. “This is a hard thing. It’s not something that you can just put aside or say it’s just organizing. Give yourself that grace and give other people that grace, too.”
Carstens spent over 210 hours on her video project, using friends as actors and relying on psychologist Rebecca Rouse to present accurate information. She has shared the videos with OCD New Hampshire and put them on YouTube for all to access. Her hope is that they will be available for training sessions and educational activities.
The videos include a wide range of topics, including juxtaposing stereotypes of OCD with an example of the reality of living with the disorder, health anxiety and persistent doubts that lead to the urge to check things repeatedly, and intrusive thoughts about contamination that interfere with a person’s daily life.
Carstens’ videography is of high quality, thanks to the many hours of research and practice she put into the project. She also had to learn how to animate slides for the fourth video.
Corinne George of Troop 10019 speaks highly of her Gold Award Girl Scout.
“It has truly been a pleasure to be Claire Carstens’ Girl Scout leader,” she said. “She is a young woman of exceptional dedication and quiet determination. Claire is dependable, thoughtful, and perseveres through every challenge she faces. Having earned the Girl Scout Gold Award recognizes her leadership, community service, and will have a lasting impact on our world. Watching her grow through the years has been a great joy. I am so proud of Claire, and of the strong, kind, capable young woman she has become. Through her Gold Project and her years of Girl Scouting, Claire demonstrated the courage, confidence, and character that truly defines a true Girl Scout.”
Aside from her Gold Award work, Carstens had a full Girl Scout experience with Troop 10019 from middle school through 12th grade. Part of that time was having troop meetings on Zoom due to the pandemic, but she was able to make good friends outside of her school circle and earn the Girl Scout Silver Award for a care package project. She particularly enjoyed a troop trip to Savannah, Georgia, where the birthplace of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low is. Selling Girl Scout Cookies partly funded that trip.
“We worked really well together for a group of pretty different people,” she said of her Girl Scout troop, which she found to be supportive and positive.
Carstens graduated from Oyster River High School last spring and was part of the National Honor Society. Currently she is a freshman at Macalester College in Minnesota where she plans to major in anthropology because she is interested in learning more about who we are as humans, how we have functioned in the past, and how that connects to current social issues.
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Gold Award Girl Scouts don’t just change the world for the better, they change it for good. The Gold Award is earned by girls in grades 9–12 who demonstrate extraordinary leadership in developing sustainable solutions to local, national, and global challenges. Since 1912, Girl Scouts have answered the call to drive lasting, impactful change. They earn college scholarships, demonstrate high educational and career outcomes, and are active in their communities.
Claire Carstens has answered the call to drive lasting, impactful change, and her Gold Award is a testament to her remarkable dedication to improving her community and the world.
About the Girl Scout Gold Award
- Gold Award Girl Scouts on average spend one to two years on their project.
- A Gold Award project must be sustainable after the girl’s involvement ends.
- The average age of Gold Award Girl Scouts is 17.
- Since 1916, more than 1 million girls have earned the Gold Award or its equivalent.
- Gold Award Girl Scouts are entitled to enlist at a higher pay grade when they join the military.
- University research indicates that noting you are a Gold Award Girl Scout on a college application is influential in the admissions decision-making process.
- Seven young women from New Hampshire and Vermont earned their Gold Award in the 2024-2025 membership year as part of Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains.
- The Girl Scout Gold Award is the mark of the truly remarkable.
We Are Girl Scouts
Girl Scouts bring their dreams to life and work together to build a better world. Through programs from coast to coast, Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves as they discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges—whether they want to climb to the top of a tree or the top of their class, lace up their boots for a hike or advocate for climate justice, or make their first best friends. Backed by trusted adult volunteers, mentors, and millions of alums, Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and make changes that affect the issues most important to them. To join us, volunteer, reconnect, or donate, visit girlscouts.org.
Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains serves girls throughout New Hampshire and Vermont through volunteer-run troops, events, and virtual programs. Visit www.girlscoutsgwm.org to learn more.
