Podcasts about my ocd

This weeks questions: 1. Currently Sick, How do I not spiral with health anxiety? 2. How to work on anxiety that comes from codependency in a relationship? Episode 75 talks more on this 3 . Have you ever passed out? I have and now i'm so scared every day! 4. How to stop nocturnal panic attacks? Episode 70 talks more about this. 5. Always looking for problems with my health because it seems too good to be true. do you? 6. My OCD is getting worse again. What can I do to help myself from spiraling back into old patterns? Episode 160 talks more on this. Don't forget to tune in to The Chicks Chat LIVE on Instagram every Wednesday at 3pm EST! Follow The Chicks The Anxiety Chicks: @theanxietychicks https://www.instagram.com/theanxietyc... Taylor Barone: @health_anxiety https://www.instagram.com/health_anxi... Alison Seponara: @theanxietyhealer https://www.instagram.com/theanxietyh... Sponsored by LMNT Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase: DrinkLMNT.com/Chicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode I bring to you THREE of the most difficult experiences I go through in winters. My OCD. My Depression. And a constant flux of my soul between meaning and non meaning. It is an often a notion that just because one is successful and is a coach, they may have ABSOLUTE clarity of mind and brain. They are so to say SORTED. And they don't go through periods of deep anxiety, distress or confusion. And I wanted to come out on this. I wanted to let you know that it is so not true. To go through mental health issues and ailments is also to accept ourselves as humans. It is only through the lens of suffering intangibly that we often find integration of the most wounded parts. And while we learn to live with it, nothing in our business or the impact we create in people's lives must stop. We heal as we grow our business and we grow our business as we heal. I hope this episode fills you up with a lot of courage, confidence and wisdom. ATEPS now has a new home. Check it out at www.drgauravdeka.co.in To receive regular updates and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠free coaching calls⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on transforming your money and business reality join my Free Facebook Community ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠You are Money ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoyed this episode, and want to tell me about how it shifted your money reality, come and join me on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@drgauravdeka ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, if you haven't subscribed to my Free Email Coaching delivered to your inbox every single week, do it right away at drgauravdeka.substack.com Enjoy the Show? Don't miss an episode, follow on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and subscribe via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stitcher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RSS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. Join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

Kimberley: Welcome back, Ethan Smith. I love you. Tell me how you are. First, tell me who you are. For those who haven't heard of your brilliance, tell us who you are. Ethan: I love you. My name is Ethan Smith, and I'm a national advocate for the International OCD Foundation and just an all-around warrior for OCD, letting people know that there's help and there's hope. That's what I've dedicated my life to doing. Kimberley: You have done a very good job. I'm very, very impressed. Ethan: I appreciate that. It's a work in progress. Kimberley: Well, that's the whole point of today, right? It is a work in progress. For those of you who don't know, we have several episodes with Ethan. This is a part two, almost part three, episode, just catching up on where you're at. The last time we spoke, you were sharing about the journey of self-compassion that you're on and your recovery in many areas. Do you want to briefly catch us up on where you're at and what it's been like since we met last? Ethan: Yeah, for sure. We'll do a quick recap, like the first three minutes of a TV show where they're like, “So, you're here, and what happened before?”  Kimberley: Previously on. Ethan: Yeah, previously, on real Ethans of Coweta County, which sounds super country and rural. The last time we spoke, I was actually really vulnerable. I don't mean that as touting myself, but I said for the first time publicly about a diagnosis of bipolar. At that time, when we spoke, I had really hit a low—a new low that came from a very hypomanic episode, and it was not related to OCD. I found myself in a really icky spot. Part of the reason for coming or reaching that bottom was when I got better from OCD into recovery and maintenance, navigating life for the first time, really for the first time as an adult man in Los Angeles, which isn't an easy city, navigating the industry, which isn't the nicest place, and having been born with OCD and really that comprising the majority of my life. The next 10 years were really about me growing and learning how to live. But I don't know that I knew that at the time. I really thought it was about, okay, now we're going to succeed, and I'm going to make money, live all my dreams, meet my partner, and stuff's going to happen because OCD is not in the way. That isn't to say that that can't happen, and that wasn't necessary. I had some amazing life experiences. It wasn't like I had a horrible nine years. There were some wonderful things. But one of the things that I learned coming to this diagnosis and this conclusion was how hard I was being on myself by not “achieving” all the goals and the dreams that I set out to do for myself. It was the first time in a long time, really in my entire life, that I saw myself as a failure and that I didn't have a mental illness to blame for that failure. I looked at the past nine years, and I went, “Okay, I worked so hard to get here, and I didn't do it. I worked so hard to get here in a personal relationship, and I didn't get there. I worked so hard to get here financially, and I didn't even come close." In the past, I could always say, “Oh, OCD anxiety.” I couldn't do it. I couldn't finish it. I dropped out. That was always in the way. It was the first time I went, “Oh wow, okay, this is on Ethan. This is on me. I must not be creative enough, smart enough, good enough, strong enough, or brave enough.” That line of thinking really sent me down a really dark rabbit hole into a really tough state of depression and hypomania and just engaging in unhealthy activities and things like that until I just came crashing down. When we connected, I think I had just moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta and was resetting in a way. At that time, it very much felt like I was taking a step back. I had left Los Angeles. It just wasn't a healthy place for me at that time. My living situation was difficult because of my upstairs neighbor, and it was just very complicated. So, I ended up moving back to Georgia for work, and I ended up moving back in with my parents. I don't remember if we talked about that or not, but it was a good opportunity to reset. At that time, it very much looked and felt like I was going backwards. I just lived for 10 years on my own in Los Angeles, pursuing my dreams and goals. I was living at home when I was sick. What does this mean? I'm not ready to move. I'm not ready to leave. I haven't given up on my dream. What am I doing? I think if we skip the next three years from 2019 on, in retrospect, it wasn't taking a step back; it was taking a step forward. It was just choosing a different path that I didn't realize because that decision led to some of the healthiest, most profound experiences in my life that I'm currently living. I can look back at that moment and see, “Oh, I failed. I've given up.” This is backwards. In reality, it was such a beautiful stepping stone, and I was willing to step back to move forward, to remove myself from a situation, and then reinsert myself in something. Where I am now is I'm engaged, to be married. I guess that's what engaged means. I guess I'm not engaged with a lawyer. I'm engaged, and that's really exciting. Kimberley: Your phone isn't engaged. Ethan: Yeah, for sure, to an amazing human being. I have a thriving business. I'm legitimately doing so many things that I never thought I would do in life ever, whether it had to do with bipolar or more prominently in my life, OCD, where I spent age 20 to 31, accepting that I was home-ish bound and that was going to be my life forever and that I'm “disabled” or “handicapped,” and that's just my normal. I had that conversation with my parents. That was just something that I was going to have to live with and accept. I'm doing lots of things that I never expected to do. But what I've noticed with OCD is, as the stakes seem raised because you're engaging yourself in so many things that are value-driven and that you care about, the stakes seem higher. You have more to lose. When you're at the bottom, it's like, okay, so what? I'm already like all these things. Nothing can go wrong now because I'm about to get married to my soulmate, and my business is doing really well. I have amazing friends, and I love my OCD community. The thoughts and the feelings are much more intense again because I feel like I have a lot more to lose. Whereas I was dismissing thoughts before, now they carry a little bit more weight and importance to me because I'm afraid of losing the things that I care about more. There's other people in my life. It's not just about me. With that mindset came not a disregard but almost forgetting how to be self-compassionate with myself. One of the things that came out of that bipolar diagnosis in my moving forward was the implementation of active work around self-compassion. I did workbooks, I worked very closely with my therapist, and we proactively did tons and tons of work in self-compassion. You can interrupt me at any time, because I'll keep babbling. So, please feel free to interrupt. I realized that I was not practicing self-compassion in my life at all. I don't know that I ever had. Learning self-compassion was like learning Japanese backwards. It was the most confusing thing in the world. The analogy that I always said: my therapist, who I've been with for 13 years, would say to me, “You just need to accept where you are and embrace where you are right now. It's okay to be there. Give yourself grace.” She would say all these things.  I always subscribe to the likes of, “You have to work harder. You can't lift yourself off the hook. Drive, drive, drive, drive.” That was what I knew. I tried to fight her on her logic. I said, “If there's a basketball team and they're in the finals and it's halftime and they're down by 10, does the coach go to the basketball team and say, ‘Hey guys, let's just appreciate where we are right now; let's just be in this moment and recognize that we're down by 10 and be okay with that.'” I'm like, “No, of course not. He doesn't go in there and say that. He goes, ‘You better get it together and all this stuff.'” I remember my therapist goes, “Yeah, but they're getting out of bed.” I'm like, “Oh, okay, that's the difference.” They're actually living their life. I'm completely paralyzed because I'm just beating myself down.  But what I've learned in the last three or four years is that self-compassion is a continuous work in progress for me and has to be like a conscious, intentional practice. I found myself in the last year really not giving myself a lot of self-compassion. There's a myriad of reasons why, but I really wanted to come on and talk about it with you and just share some of my own experiences, pitfalls, and things that I've been dealing with.  I will say the last two years have probably been the hardest couple of years and the most beautiful simultaneously, but hard in terms of OCD, thoughts and triggers, anxiety, and just my overall baseline comfort level being raised because, again, there's so many beautiful things happening. That terrifies me. I mean, we know OCD is triggered by good stress or bad stress. So, this is definitely one of those circumstances where the stakes seem higher. They seem raised, so I need more certainty. I need it. I have to have more certainty. I don't, really. I'm okay with uncertainty, but part of that component is the amount of self-compassion that I give myself. I haven't been the best at it the last couple of years, especially in the last six months. I haven't been so good. Kimberley: I think this is very validating for people, myself included, in that when you are functioning, it doesn't seem like it's needed. But when we're not functioning, it also doesn't feel like it's needed. So, I want to catch myself on that. What are some roadblocks that you faced in the implementation of this journey of self-compassion or the practice of self-compassion? What gets in the way for you? Ethan: I will give you a specific example. It's part of my two-year journey. In the last year and a half, I started working with a nutritionist. Physical health has become more important to me. It may not look like that, but getting there, a work in progress. But the reality of it is, and this is just true, I'm marrying a woman who's 12 years younger than me. I want to be a dad. I can't wait to have children. The reality of my life—which I'm very accepting of my current reality, which was something I wasn't, and we were probably talking about that before—was like, I wanted to be younger. I hated that everything was happening now. I wasn't embracing where I was and who I was in that reality. I'm very at peace with where I am, but the reality of my reality is that I will be an older father. So, a value-driven thing for me to do is get healthier physically because I want to be able to run around and play catch in 10 years with my kid. I would be 55 or 60 and be able to be in their lives for as long as I possibly could. I started working with a nutritionist, and for me, weight has always been an issue. Always. It has been a lifelong struggle for me. I've always yo-yoed. It's always been about emotional eating. It's always been a coping mechanism for me. I started working with a nutritionist. She's become a really good friend, an influence in my life, and an accountability partner. I'm not on a diet or lifestyle change. There's no food off the table. I track and I journal. But in doing this, I told her from the beginning, "In the first three months, I will be the best client you've ever had,” because that's what I do—I start perfectly. Then something happens, and I get derailed. I was like, my goal is to come back on when I get derailed. That is the goal for me. And that's exactly what happened. I was the star student for three months. I didn't miss a beat. I lost 15 pounds. The goal wasn't weight loss, mind you; it was just eating healthier and making more intentional choices. Then I had some OCD pipe up, my emotions were dysregulated, and I really struggled with the nutrition piece. I did get back on track.  Over the last year, I gained about seven pounds doing this nutrition. Over the last six months, I was so angry at myself for looking at my year's journey. This is just an example of multiple things with self-compassion, but this is the most concrete and tangible I can think of at the moment. But looking at my year and looking at it with that black-and-white OCD brain and saying, “I failed. I'm a piece of crap. I'm not where I want to be on my journey. I've had all of the support I could possibly have. I have all the impetus. I want to be thinner for my wedding. I want to look my best at my wedding. What is wrong with me? In these vulnerable emotional states or these moments of struggle, why did I give in?” In the last couple of months, I literally refused to give myself any compassion or grace around food, screw-ups, mess-ups, and any of that. I refused. My partner Katie would tell me, “Ethan, you have to love--” I'm like, “No, I do not deserve it.” I'm squandering this opportunity. I just wholeheartedly refused to give myself compassion. Because it's always been an issue, I'm like, “What's it going to take?” Well, compassion can't be the answer. I need tough love for myself.  I think I did this in a lot of areas of my life because, for me, I don't know, there's a stigma around self-compassion. Sometimes, even though I understand what it is on paper-- and I've read your workbook and studied a lot of Kristin Neff, who's an amazing self-compassion expert. On paper, I can know what it is, which is simply embracing where you are in the moment without judgment and still wanting better for yourself and giving yourself that grace and compassion, regardless of where it is.  I felt like I couldn't do that anymore because I wasn't supposed to. I wasn't allowed. I suddenly reframed self-compassion as a weakness and as an excuse rather than-- it was very much how I thought about it before I even learned anything about self-compassion, and I found myself just not a very loving person myself. My internal self-talk was really horrible and probably the worst. If somebody was talking to me like this, you always try to make it external and be like, “Oh, if somebody talked to you like this, would they be your friend? Would you listen to them?” I was calling myself names. I gave myself a room. It was almost in every facet of my life, and it was really, really eating at me. It took a significant-- yeah, go ahead. Kimberley: When I'm with clients and we're talking about behaviors, we always talk about the complex outcomes of them, like the consequences that you were being hard on yourself, that it still wasn't working, and so forth. But then we always spend some time looking at, let's say, somebody is drinking excessively or doing any behavior that's not helpful to them. We also look at why it was helping them, because we don't do things unless we think they're helping. What was the reason you engaged in the criticism piece? How did that serve you in those moments? Ethan: It didn't, in retrospect. In the moment, I think behaving in that way feels much like grabbing a spear and putting on armor. I don't know if it's stigma or male stigma. I mean, I've always had no problem being sensitive, being open to sensitivity, and being who I am as an individual. But with all of this good in my life, my emotions are more intense. My thoughts are more intense. My OCD is more intense. I felt like I needed to put on-- I basically defaulted to my original state of thinking before I even learned about self-compassion, which is head down, bull horns out, and I'm just going to charge through all of this because it's the only way. It's just like losing insight. When you're struggling with OCD, it's like you lose insight, you lose objectivity. It's like there's only one way through this.  I think it's important to note, in addition to the self-compassion piece, this year especially, there's been some physical things and some somatic symptoms that I've gotten really stuck on. I'm really grateful that-- and I love to talk about it with advocacy. It's like, advocates, all of us, just because we're speaking doesn't mean that we have an OCD-free life or a struggle-free life. That's just not it. I always live by the mantra: more good days than bad. That is my jam. I'm pleased to report that in the last 13 years, I've still had more good days than bad, but it doesn't mean that I don't have a tough month.  I think that in the last couple of years, I've definitely been challenged in a new way because there's been some things that have come up that are valid. I have a lot of health anxiety, and they've been actual physical things that have manifested, that are legitimate things. Of course, my catastrophic brain grabs onto them. You Google once, and it's over. I have three and a half minutes to live for a brown toenail, and-- Kimberley: You died already. Ethan: I'm already dead. I think it all comes back around to this idea of self-stigma, that even if you know all this stuff like, I'm not allowed to struggle, I'm not allowed to suffer, I have to be a rock, I have to be all things to all people—it's all these very black and white rules that are impossible for a human being to live by because that's just not reality. I mean, I think that's why the tough exterior came back because it was like, “All right, life is more challenging.” The beautiful thing about recovery is, for the most part, it didn't affect my functioning, which was amazing. I could still look at every day and go, “I was 70% present,” or “I was 60% present and 40% in my head, but still being mindful and still doing work and still showing up and still traveling.” From somebody that was completely shut down, different people respond in different ways to OCD. From somebody who came from completely shutting down and being bedridden, this was a huge win. But for me, it wasn't a huge win in my head. It was a massive failing on my part. What was I doing wrong? How was it?  Just as much as I would talk every week on my live streams and talk about, it's a disease, not a decision, it's a disorder. I can say that all day long, but there are times when it tricks me, and I stigmatize myself around it.  It's been very much that in the last year, for sure. It's been extremely challenging facing this new baseline for myself. Because, let's face it, I'm engaging in things that I've never experienced before. I've never been in a three-year relationship with a woman. I've never been engaged. I've never bought a house. Outside of acting, I've never owned a business or been a businessperson. I mean, these are all really big commitments in life, and I'm doing them for the first time.  If I have insight now and it's like, I can have this conversation and say, “Yeah, I have every reason to be self-compassionate with myself.” These are all brand new things with no instruction manual. But it's very easy to lose sight of that insight and objectivity and to sit there and say-- we do a lot of comparing, so it's very easy to go, “Well, these are normal human things. Everybody gets married. Everybody works. This should be easy.” You talk about, like, never compare struggles, ever. If somebody walks to the mailbox and you can't, never compare struggles. But that's me going, “Well, this is normal life stuff. It's hard. Well, what's wrong with me?” Kimberley: Right. I think, for me, when I'm thinking about when you're talking, I go in and out of beating myself up for my parenting, because, gosh, I can't seem to perfect this parenting gig. I just can't. I have to figure it out. What's so interesting is when I start beating myself up and if I catch myself, I often ask myself, what would I have to feel if I had to accept that I'm not great at this? I actually suck at this. It's usually that I don't want to feel that. I will beat myself up to avoid having to feel the feelings that I'm not doing it right. That has been a gateway for me, like a little way to access the self-compassion piece. It's usually because I don't want to feel something. And that, for me, has been really helpful.  I think that when you're talking about this perceived failure—because that's what it is. It's a perceived failure, like we're all a failure compared to the person who's a little bit further ahead of us—what is it that you don't want to feel? Ethan: It's a tough question. You've caught me speechless, which is rare for me. I'm glad you're doing video because otherwise, this would be a very boring section of the podcast. For me, the failing piece isn't as much of an issue. It was before. I don't feel like I've failed. In fact, I feel like I'm living more into where I'm supposed to be in my values. I think for me, the discomfort falls around being vulnerable and not in control. I think those are two areas that I really struggle with. I always say, sometimes I feel like I'm naked in a sandstorm. That's how I feel. That's the last thing you want to be. Well, you don't want to be in a sandstorm—not naked, but naked in a sandstorm—you don't want to see me naked at all. That's the bottom line. No nudity from Ethan. But regardless, you're probably alone in the sandstorm. You feel the stinging and all of that. No, I'm just saying that's what I picture it feels like.  Kimberley: Yeah, it's an ouch. That feels like an ouch. Ethan: It feels like a big ouch. I think that vulnerability, for me, is scary. I'm not good at showing vulnerability. Meaning, I have no problem within our community. I'll talk about it all day long. I'll talk about what happened yesterday or the day before. I'll be vulnerable. But for people who don't know me, I struggle with it.  Kimberley: Me too. Ethan: Yeah. We all have our public faces. But vulnerability scares me in terms of being a human being, being fallible, and not being able to live up to expectations. What if I have to say I can't today? Or I'm just not there right now and not in control of things that scare me. Those feelings, I think, have really thrown me a bit more than usual, again. I keep saying this because things feel more at stake, and they're not, but I feel like I have so much more to live for. That's not saying that I didn't feel like I didn't have a reason to live before. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm simply saying, dreams come true, and how lucky am I? But when dreams come true with OCD, it latches onto the things we care about most and then says, “That's going to be taken away from you. Here are all the things you have to do to protect that thing.” I think it'd been a long time since I'd really faced that.  To answer your question in short, I think, for me, vulnerability and uncertainty around what I can't control, impacting the things that I care about most, are scary. Kimberley: I resonate so much with what you're saying. I always explain to my eating disorder clients, “When you have an eating disorder and you hit your goal weight, you would think we would celebrate and be like, ‘Okay, I hit it. I'm good now.'” But now there's the anxiety that you're going to go backwards. Even though you've hit this ridiculous goal, this unhealthy goal, the anxiety is as high as it ever was because the fear of losing what you've got is terrifying. I think that's so true for so many people. And I do agree with you. I think that we do engage in a lot of self-criticism because it feels safer than the vulnerability, the loss of control, or whatever that we have to feel. What has been helpful for you in moving back towards compassion? I know you said it's like an up-and-down journey, and we're all figuring this out as we go. What's been helpful for you? Ethan: A couple of things. I think it's worth talking about, or at least bringing up this idea of core fear. I've done some recent core fear work, just trying to determine, at the root of everything, what is my core fear? For me, it comes down to suffering. I'm afraid of suffering. I'm not afraid of dying; I'm afraid of suffering. I'm afraid of my entire life having to be focused on health and disease because that's what living with OCD when I was really sick was about. It's all I focused on. So, I'm so terrified of my life suddenly being refocused on that.  Even if I did come down with something awful, it doesn't mean that my life has to solely focus on that thing. But in my mind, my core fear is, what if I have to move away from these values that I'm looking at right now and face something different? That scares the crap out of me.  The first thing around that core fear is the willingness to let that be there and give myself compassion and grace, and what does that look like, which is a lot of things. This fear—this new fear and anxiety—hasn't stopped me from moving forward in any way, but it sure has made it a little bit more uncomfortable and taken a little bit of the joy out of it. That's where I felt like I needed to put on a second warrior helmet and fight instead of not resisting, opening myself up, and being willing to be naked in a sandstorm.  One of the things that I've learned most about is, as a business owner yourself, and if you're a workaholic, setting boundaries in self-care is really hard. I didn't really connect until this year the connection, the correlation between self-care and self-compassion. If I don't have self-compassion, I won't allow myself to give myself self-care. I won't. I won't do it because I don't deserve it. There's a very big difference between time off, not working, sleeping, but then actually taking care of yourself. It's three different things. There's working, there's not working, and then there's self-care. I didn't know that either. It was like, “Well, I didn't work tonight.” Well, that's not necessarily self-care. You just weren't in a meeting, or you weren't working on something. Self-care is proactive. It's purposeful. It's intentional.  Giving myself permission to say no to things, even at the risk of my own reputation, because I feel like saying no is a big bad word, because that shows that I can't handle everything at once, Kim. I can't do it all. And that is a no-no for me. Like, no, no, no, everybody needs to believe that you can do everything everywhere all at once, which was a movie. That's the biggest piece of it.  Recently, I was able to employ some self-care where it was needed at the risk of the optic seeming. I felt like, "Here I am, world. I'm weak, and I can't handle it anymore." That's what I feel like is on the other end.  I was sick, and I had been traveling every week since the end of March. I don't sleep very well. I just don't. When I'm going from bed to bed, I really don't sleep well. I had been in seven or eight cities in seven or eight weeks. I had been home for 24 hours. This was only three weeks ago, and I was about to head out on my last trip, and the meeting that I was going for, the primary reason, got canceled, not by me. I was still going to meet with people that I love and enjoy. I woke up the day before I was traveling, and I was sick. I was like, “Oh man, do I still go?” The big reason was off the table, but there were still many important reasons to go, but I was exhausted. I was tired. I was sick. My body was saying, “Enough.” I had enough insight to say, I'm not avoiding this. This isn't anxiety. This is like straight up.  When I texted the team—this is around work and things that I value—I was like, “I'm not coming.” I said, “I'm not coming.” They responded, “We totally understand. Take care of yourself.” And what I read was, “You weak ass bastard. You should suck it up and come here, because that's what I would have done. Why are you being so lame and lazy?” That is what I read. This is just an instance of what I generally feel if I can't live up to an expectation. I always put these non-human pressures on myself.  But making this choice, within two days, I was able to reset intentionally. This doesn't mean I'm going to go to bed and avoid life. I rested for a day because I needed to sleep to get better. But the next few days were filled with value-driven decisions and choices and walks and exercising and getting back on nutrition and drinking lots of water and spending quality time with people that I care about, and my body and brain just saying, “You need a moment.” Within a couple of days, everything changed. My OCD quickly dropped back down to baseline. My anxiety quickly dropped back down. I had insight and objectivity.  When I went back to work later that week—I work from home—I was way more effective and efficient. But I wouldn't have been able to do that. It was very, very hard to give myself self-compassion around making that simple decision that everybody was okay with. Kimberley: I always say my favorite saying is, “I'm sorry, but I'm at capacity right now.” That has changed my life because it's true. It's not even a lie. I'm constantly at capacity, and I find that people do really get it. But for me to say that once upon a time, I feel this. When I was sick, the same thing. I'm going to think I'm a total nutcase if I keep saying no to these people. But that is my go-to sentence, “I'm at capacity right now,” and it's been so helpful.  Ethan: In max bandwidth.  Kimberley: Yes. What I think is interesting too is I think for those who have been through recovery and have learned not to do avoidant behaviors and have learned not to do compulsions, saying “I need a break” feels like you've broken the rules of ERP. They're different things. Ethan: You hit them down. I was literally going to say that. It also felt when I made that decision that it felt old history to me, like old Ethan, pre-getting better. I make the joke. It was true. I killed my grandfather like 20 times while he was still alive. Grandpa died. I can't come to the thing. I can't travel. I can't do the thing. This was early 2000s, but I had a fake obituary that I put into Photoshop. I would just change the date so I can email it to them later and be like, it really happened. I would do this. It's like, here was a reason. It was 100% valid. Nobody questioned it. It was not based on OCD. It was a value-driven decision, and it felt so icky. My body felt like I might as well have sent a fake obituary to these people about the fake death of my grandfather. It felt like that. So, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Kimberley: I think it's so important that we acknowledge that post-recovery or during recovery is that saying acts of compassion sometimes will feel like and sound like they're compulsions when they're actually not.  Ethan: That's such a great point. I totally agree with you. Kimberley: They're actually like, I am actually at capacity. Or the expectation was so large, which for you, it sounds like it is for me too—the expectation was so large, I can't meet that either. That sucks. It's not fun.  Ethan: No, it's not. It's not because, I mean, there's just these scales that we weigh ourselves on and what we think we can account for. I mean, the pressure that we put on ourselves. And that's why, like the constant practice of self-compassion, the constant practice of being mindful and mindfulness, this constant idea of-- I mean, I always forget the exact thing, but you always say, I strive to be a B- or C+. I can never remember if it's a B- or C+, but-- Kimberley: B-. Ethan: B-. Okay, cool.  Kimberley: C+ if you really need it. Ethan: Yeah. To this day, I heard that 10 years ago, and I still struggle with that saying because I'm like, I don't even know that I can verbally say it. Like, I want to be a B... okay, that's good enough. Because it sounds terrifying. It's like, “No, I want to be an A+ at everything I do.”  I know we're closing in on time. One of the things I just wanted to say is thank you not only for being an amazing human being, an amazing advocate, an amazing clinician, and an okay mom, as we talked about. Kimberley: Facts. #facts. Ethan: But part of the reason I love advocating is I really didn't come on here to share a specific point or get something across that I felt was important. I think it's important as an advocate figure for somebody who doesn't like transparency or vulnerability to be as transparent and vulnerable as possible and let people see a window into somebody that they may look at and go, “That person doesn't struggle ever. I want to be like that. I see him every week on whatever, and he's got it taken care of. Even when it's hard, it isn't that hard.”  For me, being able to come on and give a window into Ethan in the last six months is so crucial and important. I want to thank you for letting me be here and share a little bit about my own life and where I met the goods and the bads. I wouldn't trade any of it, but I appreciate you. Kimberley: No, thank you. I so appreciate that because it is an up-and-down journey and we're all figuring it out, myself included. You could have interviewed me and I could have done similar things. Like here are the ways that I suck and really struggle with self-compassion. Here are the times where I've completely forgotten about it as a skill until my therapist is like, “Uh, you wrote this book about this thing that you might want to practice a little more of.” I think that it's validating to hear that learning it once is not all you need; it is a constant practice. Ethan: Yeah, it definitely is. Self-compassion is, to me, one of the most important skills and tools that we have at our disposal. It doesn't matter if you have a mental health issue or not. It's just an amazing way of life. I think I'll always be a student of it. It still feels like Japanese backwards sometimes. But I'm a lot better at putting my hand-- well, my heart's on that side, but putting my hand in my heart, and letting myself feel and be there for myself. I never mind. I'm a huge, staunch advocate of silver linings. I've said this a million times, and I'll always say, having been on the sidelines of life and not being able to participate, when life gets hard and stressful, deep down, I still have gratitude toward it because that means I'm actually living and participating. Even when things feel crappy or whatever, I know there'll be a lesson from it. I know good things will come of it. I try to think of those things as they're happening. It's meaningful to me because it gives me insight and lets me know that there'll be a lesson down the road. I don't know if it'll pay itself back tomorrow or in 10 years, but someday I'll be able to look at that and be like, “Well, I got to reintroduce myself to self-compassion. I got to go on Kim Quinlan's podcast, Your Anxiety Toolkit, and be able to talk to folks about my experience.” While I didn't quite enjoy it, it was a life experience, and it was totally worth it for these reasons. Now I get to turn my pain into my purpose. I think that's really cool. Kimberley: Yeah, I do too. I loved how you said before that moving home felt like it was going backwards, but it was actually going completely forward. I think that is the reality of life. You just don't know until later what it's all about. I'm so grateful for you being on the show. Thank you so much for coming on again. Ethan: Well, thanks for having me, and we'll do one in another 200 episodes. Kimberley: Yes, let's do it. Ethan: Okay.

Kimberley: Welcome. This conversation is actually so near and close to my heart. I am so honored to have Jessie Birnbaum and Sandy Robinson here talking about Managing the anxiety of chronic illness and disability. Welcome and thank you both for being here. Sandy: Thank you for having us. Kimberley: For those of you who are listening on audio, we are three here today. We're going to be talking back and forth. I'll do my best to let you know who's talking, but if anything, you can look at the transcripts of the show if you're wondering who's saying what. But I am so happy to have you guys here. You're obviously doing some amazing work bringing awareness to those who have an anxiety disorder, specifically health anxiety OCD, panic disorder. These are all very common disorders to have alongside a chronic illness and disability. Jessie, will you go first in just telling us a little bit about your experience of managing these things?  Jessie: Yeah, of course. I've had OCD since I was a little kid but wasn't diagnosed until around age 14, so it took a little while to get that diagnosis. And then was totally fine, didn't have any physical limitations, played a lot of sports. And then in 2020, which seems like it would coincide with the pandemic (I don't think it did), I started getting really physically sick. I started out with these severe headaches and has continued on and morphed into new symptoms, and has been identified as a general chronic illness. I'm still searching for an overall diagnosis, but I've seen a lot of different ways in which my OCD has made my chronic illness worse. And then my chronic illness has made my OCD worse, which is really why Sandy and I are so passionate about this topic. Kimberley: Thank you. Sandy, can you share a little about your experience? Sandy: Yeah. Just briefly, I was born really prematurely at about 14 weeks early, which was a lot. And then I was born chronically ill with a bowel condition and I also have a physical disability called [02:31 inaudible] palsy. And then I wasn't diagnosed with OCD until I was 24, but looking back now, knowing what I do about OCD, I think I would say my OCD probably started around age three or something. So, quite young as well. Kimberley: You guys are talking about illnesses or medical conditions that create a lot of uncertainty in your life, which is so much of the work of managing OCD. Let's start with you Jessie again. How do you manage the uncertainty of not having a diagnosis or trying to figure that out? Has that been a difficult process for you, or how have you managed that? Jessie: It has been such a difficult process because that's what OCD latches onto, the uncertainty of things. That's been really challenging with not having a specific diagnosis. I can't say, “Oh, I have Crohn's disease or Lyme disease,” or something that gives it a name and validates the experience. I feel like I have a lot of intrusive thoughts and my OCD will latch onto not having that diagnosis. So, I'll have a lot of intrusive thoughts that maybe I'm making it up because if the blood work is coming back normal, then what is it? I'll have to often fight off those intrusive thoughts and really practice mindfulness and do a lot of ERP surrounding that to really validate my experience and not let those get in the way. Kimberley: Sandy—I can only imagine, for both of you, that is the case as well—how has your anxiety impacted your ability to manage the medical side of your symptoms? Sandy: I think that's an interesting question because I think both my OCD and my medical symptoms are linked. I think when I get really stressed and have prolonged periods of stress, my bowel condition especially gets a lot worse, so that's tricky. But I think as I've gone through ERP, and I'm now in OCD recovery, that a lot of the skills I've learned from being chronically ill and disabled my whole life, like planning, being a good self-advocate at the doctors or at the hospital and that flexibility, I think those tools really helped me to cope with the challenges of having additional anxiety on top of those medical challenges. Kimberley: Right. Of course, and I believe this to be from my own experience of having a chronic illness, the condition itself creates anxiety even for people who don't have an anxiety disorder. How have you managed that additional anxiety that you're experiencing? Is there a specific tool or skill that you want to share with people? And then I'll let Jessie chime in as well. Sandy: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is, it was realizing that my journey is my journey and it might be a little slower than other people's because of all the complicating factors, but it's still a good journey. It's my journey, so I can't really wish myself into someone else's shoes. I'm in my own shoes. I guess the biggest thing is realizing like my OCD isn't special because I have these complicating factors, even though I myself am special. My OCD is just run-of-the-mill OCD and can still be treated by ERP despite those medical issues as well. Kimberley: Right. How about you Jessie? What's your experience of that?  Jessie: I'd like to add to what Sandy had said too about the skills from ERP really helping. One of the things I feel like I've gone through is there's so much waiting in chronic illness. You're waiting for the doctors to get back to you, you're waiting for test results, you're waiting for the phone schedulers to answer the phone. I feel like I've memorized the music for the waiting of all the different doctors. But there's a lot of waiting, and that's really frustrating because the waiting is uncertain. You're just waiting to get an answer, which typically in my case and probably Sandy's and yours as well, then just adds more uncertainty anyways.  But I remember one of the tools that's really helped me is staying in the present, which I'm not great at. But I remember I had to get an MRI where you literally can't move. There's only the present. You're there with your thoughts, your arms are in, you can't move at all. It was really long. It was like 45 minutes long. I remember just thinking the colors. What do I see? I see blue, I see red. I thought I had to think of things because then my eyes were closed and I was thinking of different shapes of like, “Oh, in the room before, I saw there was a cylinder shape and there was a cube.” That's really helped me to stay in the present, especially with those really long waiting periods Kimberley: For sure. The dreaded MRI machine, I can totally resonate with what you're saying. It's all mindfulness. It's either mindfulness or you go down a spiral, right? Jessie: Exactly. Kimberley: You guys are talking about skills. Because I think there's the anxiety of having this chronic illness or a disability or a medical condition. What about how you manage the emotions of it and what kind of emotions show up for you in living with these difficult things that you experience? Sandy, do you want to share a little about the emotional side of having a chronic illness or a disability? Sandy: Yeah. I think the first thing that shows up for me emotion-wise, or did at least when I started to process the idea that I have a disability and I have these chronic illnesses and it's going to be a lifelong thing, was I was in my undergraduate university and I really hadn't thought much about what it's like to-- I had thought about having a disability, but I hadn't thought about the fact that I needed to process that this is a lifelong thing and it's going to be challenging my whole life. I think when I started to process that, the grief really showed up because I had to grieve this life that I thought I should have of being able-bodied or medically healthy or mentally well, I guess. I had to really grieve that. But I think that grief shows up sometimes unexpectedly for me too because sometimes I feel like I moved past this thing that happened. But then because it's an ongoing process to navigate chronic illness and disability, the grief shows up again at unexpected times.  I think the other thing too I've navigated was a lot of shame around the idea that I should be “normal.” But of course, I can't really control how I was born and the difficulties I've had. I think something that really helps me there is bringing in the self-compassion. I do think that compassion really is an antidote to shame because when you bring something out to the forefront and say, “This is something that I've experienced, it was challenging,” but I can still move forward, I think that really helps or at least it helps me.  Kimberley: Yeah, I agree. Jessie, what are your experiences? Jessie: I would say the first two words I thought of were frustration and loneliness. I think there's a lot of frustration in two different ways. The first way being like, why is this happening? First, I had OCD, and then now I have this other thing that I have to deal with. As Sandy was saying before, there's a lot of self-advocacy that has to happen when you're chronically ill, or at least that I've experienced, where you have to stand up for yourself, you have to finagle your way into doctor's appointments to get the treatment that you deserve. But there's also the frustration that both OCD and my chronic illness, I guess, are invisible. I look totally fine. I look like someone else walking down the street who might be completely healthy. I often feel frustrated that as a 23-year-old, a person who is a young adult, I'm having to constantly go to these doctor's appointments and advocate for myself and practice ERP, which is not always the most fun thing to do. It's frustrating to constantly have to explain it because you don't see it. And then that goes together with the loneliness of being a young adult and being pretty much the only person in the doctor's offices and waiting rooms who isn't an older adult or who isn't elderly. And then they get confused and then I get confused. My OCD will then attack that like, “Everyone else is older. What are you doing here?” I would definitely say loneliness, and I just forgot the other thing. Loneliness and frustration.  Kimberley: I resonate with what you're saying. I agree with everything both of you are saying. For me too, I had to really get used to feeling judged. I had to get good at feeling judged, even though I didn't even know if they were judging me. But that feeling that I was being judged, maybe it's more magical thinking and so forth. But that someone will say like I have to explain to someone why I can't do something. As I'm explaining it, I have a whole story of what they're thinking about me, and that was a really difficult part to get through at the beginning of like, “You're going to have to let them have their opinions about you. Who knows what they're thinking?” That was a really hard piece for me as well. I love that you both brought in the frustration and the loneliness because I think that's there. I love that we also bring in the grief, and I agree, Sandy. Jessie, do you agree in terms of that grief wave just comes at the most random times?  Jessie: Absolutely. Kimberley: It can be so, so painful. Let's keep moving forward. Let's go back to talking about how this interlocking web of how anxiety causes the chronic illness to get worse sometimes, the chronic illness causes anxiety to get worse sometimes. Sandy, have you found any way that you've been able to have a better awareness of what's happening? How do you work to pull them apart or do you not worry about pulling them apart?  Sandy: Oh, that's an interesting question. I think I have a few strategies. I do try to write everything down. I make notes upon notes upon notes of, this day I had these symptoms. I do automate a lot of tasks in the fact that I have a medication reminder on my phone, so it reminds me to take my pills instead of just having to remember it off the top of my head. Something that really helps is trying to remember that things that work for other people might actually also work for me too, because it's like, yeah sure, maybe me as a person, I'm unique and my medical situation is interesting or different or whatever. But a lot of good advice for other people, especially for mental health works for me too, like getting outside. Even if I feel really not great and I'm really tired or in a lot of pain, just like getting outside. Anytime I have my shoes on and I'm just outside even for five minutes, I count that as a win. Drinking a lot of water, for me, helps us too. Of course, I'm wary of saying all this because a lot of people might just say, “Oh well, Jessie and Sandy, they just need to do more yoga and that'll just cure them.” Of course, it's not that simple. It's not a cure at all. But at the same time, I try to remember that at least for me, I have common medical issues that a lot of different people have so I can pull on literature and different things that I've worked for other people with my conditions. Maybe other people haven't had this exact constellation that I do, but I can still pull on the support and resources from other people too. Kimberley: How about you, Jessie? Jessie: If I could add there, I'm not as good as differentiating. I can tell, like I know when things are starting to get compulsive, which I actually appreciate that I had had so much ERP training before I got sick because I really know what's a compulsion, what's an obsession and I can tease that out. But a lot of my treatment has also been really understanding, like maybe I don't need to know if this is my chronic illness or if this is my OCD because then that gets compulsive. I've had to sit in that uncertainty of maybe it is one, maybe it is the other, but I'm not going to figure it out. Kimberley: You read my mind because as you were both talking, I was thinking the most difficult part for many people that I see in my practice is trying to figure out and balance between advocating going to the doctor when you need, but also not doing it from a place of being compulsive because health anxiety and OCD can have you into the doctor surgery every second day or every second hour. How are you guys navigating that of advocating, but at the same time, keeping an eye on that compulsivity that can show up? Sandy, do you want to go first?  Sandy: Yeah. I honestly haven't figured out the perfect formula between trying to figure out like, is this anxiety around the potential that I might be getting sick again and compulsively trying to get things checked out, and the idea that I might have something actually medically going wrong that needs to be addressed. I find it still challenging to tease those things apart. But I think something that does help is trying to remind myself like, not what is normal, because I don't think normal really exists but what is in the service of my recovery. I can't have recovery from my disability or my chronic illnesses, but I can't have OCD recovery. I'm always still trying to think to myself, how can I move forward in a way that both aligns with my values and allows me to move forwards towards my recovery? Kimberley: How about you, Jessie? Jessie: It's so hard to follow that, Sandy. I love that. I would say, I think it's tough because a symptom that I have is like, I was never really a big compulsive Googler. But I know in OCD world, it's like, “Don't go to Google for medical issues. Google is not your friend.” But for my chronic illness recovery or chronic illness journey, Google's been important. I've had to do a lot of research on what is it that I possibly have. And that really helps me advocate my case to the doctors because I've had some great doctors, but they're not spending hours reading medical journals and trying to figure it out to the extent that I care about it because it's my situation and I want to figure stuff out. Googling has actually helped me a lot in that regard and joining different Facebook groups and actually hearing from other people what their experiences have been.  I know Sandy and I started a special interest group, which hopefully we'll talk about a little later, but someone in the group had mentioned that something that really helps them is the community of their doctors and their therapists working together of, oh, I'm going to wait two days if I have this symptom and if it's still a symptom that's really bothering me and my therapist thinks it should be checked out, then I'm going to go to the doctor. Having those people who are experts guiding you and helping you with making sure, no, this isn't compulsive, this is a real medical thing that needs to be checked out—I thought that was really smart and seemed to work for her, so I'd imagine it would work for other people as well. Sandy: I guess if I can add-- Kimberley: I have a question about that. Yes, please. Sandy: Oh, sorry. If I can add one more thing, it would just be that, while there's so many experts on OCD and ERP and your chronic medical issues or your disability or whatever it is for you, you are the only frontline expert in your own experience of your mind and your body and you are the only one who knows what it's like to exactly be in that, I guess, space. While I 100% think therapy is important, evidence-based treatments are important, I do also think like remembering when you think like, “Oh, this is really hard,” or “I can't cope,” actually, you can cope, you're capable and you know yourself best. I think that's challenging because I know sometimes in ERP, for people who maybe don't have other complicated medical challenges, they would say, “Don't Google.” But I think, as just Jessie has explained, sometimes because we have other chronic stuff going on, we do need to do things to help ourself holistically too. Kimberley: I love that. I'll speak from my own experience and if you guys want to weigh in, please do. I had to always do a little intention check before I went down into Google like, okay, am I doing this because anxiety wants me to do it, or am I doing it because this will actually move me towards being more informed, or will this actually allow me to ask better questions to the doctor and so forth? It is a tricky line because Google is the algorithm and the websites are set to sometimes freak you out. There's always that piece at the bottom that says, “It could be this, this, or this,” or “It could be cancer.” That always used to freak me out because that was something that the doctors were concerned about as well. This might be beyond just Googling, but in terms of many areas, how did you make the decision on whether it was compulsive or not? Jessie? Jessie: It's tough too because then you're down the rabbit hole. You've already been Googling it and it's like, “Or this,” and I'm like, “Well, I have to figure out what that is.” Sometimes it does get a little compulsive and then the self-compassion, and also realizing it like, okay, now it's getting compulsive and I'm going to stop and go about my day. But another thing that I've struggled with is the relationship with doctors. Sandy and I have talked about this before with wanting to be the “perfect” patient. I worry that I'm messaging them too much or I'll often now avoid messaging them because then I don't want to be too annoying of a patient. I can't be the perfect patient if I'm messaging them all the time. It really is, like you said, the intention. Am I messaging them because I want to move forward with this and I want an answer, or am I messaging them because there's a reason to message them and I need their medical advice? There's just so much gray in it. Again, not necessarily having that specific answer, it can be very tricky. Kimberley: It truly can. How about you, Sandy? Sandy: I think the biggest thing for me, and I'm still trying to figure out the right balance for this, is weighing how urgent is this medical symptom. Am I-- I don't know, I don't want to say something that would put someone into a tailspin, but do I have a medical symptom going on right now that needs urgent attention? If so, maybe I should go to my doctors or the ER. Or is the urgency more mental health related, feeling like an OCD need to get that reassurance or need to know, and just separating the urgency of the medical issue that's going on right this second versus the urgency in my head.  Kimberley: Amazing. You guys have created a special interest group and I'd like to know a little more about that. I know you have more wisdom to tell and I want to get into that here a little bit more. But before you do, share with us how important that part of creating this special interest group is, how has that benefited, what's your goals with that? Tell us a little bit about it, whoever wants to go first. Jessie: Sandy and I actually met in an online OCD support group, and I found those online groups to be really helpful for my OCD recovery and mostly with feeling less shame and stigma. Met some amazing people clearly. And then I remember Sandy had mentioned in one of the different groups that she had a chronic illness. When I was going through my chronic illness journey, I felt really alone. As I was saying before, the loneliness is one of the biggest emotions that I had to deal with. I looked online, and now online support groups are my thing. Let's just Google chronic illness support groups. I thought it would be as easy as OCD support groups, and it wasn't. It was very challenging and it was really hard to find one.  I found one that was state-based. For my state, it was me and three women. I think one was in their eighties, the other two were in their nineties, and they were very sweet. But we were at very different lifestyle changes. We were going through very different experiences. I remember I reached out to Sandy and I said, “Do you have any chronic illness support groups that you've been attending?” Even in that group with the elderly women, there were so many things that they were saying that helped them with their chronic illness and my OCD would totally have latched onto all of it. I was like, “I can't do that with my OCD.” There's so much overlap that it just seemed like there needed to be this dual chronic illness and OCD. Sandy had said she had the same issue, like it was really hard to find these groups.  I think we're really lucky that the International OCD Foundation was such a good partner for us and they were so kind in helping us get this special interest group started. I'm interested to hear what Sandy says, but it's been so helpful for me to see that there are other people who deal with a lot of these challenges. Of course, I wouldn't want anyone else to have these experiences, but being able to talk about it, being able to share has just been so helpful. I was really quite amazed to see the outreach we had and how many people struggled with this and that there really weren't any resources. It's been pretty amazing for me and I'm really lucky that we've been able to have this experience. Kimberley: Amazing. Sandy? Sandy: Similar to Jessie, I had found some resources for OCD support groups both locally to me in Ontario and online, and that was great. The sense of community really helped my OCD recovery. But then when it came to the chronic illness disability part, there was just a gap. As Jessie said, we started this special interest group and I think it's called—Jessie, correct me if I'm wrong—Chronic Illness/Disability Plus OCD is our official title. Basically, it's for anyone who has a chronic illness or disability and OCD, or is a clinician who's interested in learning more. Our goals really are to create a community, but also create resources for the wider OCD community to help people who are struggling with chronic illness or disability and OCD or clinicians.  The sense of community has been great. I think for my own recovery OCD-wise, it's been really motivating to be able to help found and facilitate this group because it's showed me that I really don't have to be in this perfect state of recovery to have something valuable to contribute. I just have to show up in an imperfect way and do my best and that is enough in itself, and that the fact that I don't have to get an A+ in recovery because that's not even a thing you can get. I just have to keep trying every single day and try to live my values. I think this SIG's been a great opportunity to embody those values as well of community and advocacy. It's just been great. Kimberley: Oh, I love it so much and it is such an important piece. I actually find the more I felt like I was in community, that in and of itself managed my anxiety. It was very interesting how just being like, “Oh, I'm not alone.” For some reason, my anxiety hated this idea that I was alone in this struggle. I totally just love that you're getting this group and I'll make sure that all of the links are in the show notes so people can actually access you guys and get connected.  I have one extra question before I want to round this out. How do you guys manage the—I'm going to use the word “ridiculous”— “ridiculous” advice you get from people who haven't been what you've been going through? Because I've found it actually in some cases to be quite even hilarious, the suggestions I get offered. Again, I know patients and clients have had a really difficult time because they might have been suggested an option, and then their anxiety attaches to like, “Well, you should do that,” and so forth. Sandy, do you want to go first in sharing your experience with “ridiculous” advice? Sandy: I guess to give a brief example, a practitioner who I've worked with for quite a while, who I think is great and a wonderful person and wonderful practitioner, had in the last couple months suggested that maybe I should just try essential oils to manage my bowel condition. What actually was needed was hospitalization and surgery. It's that kind of advice from both well-meaning practitioners or just people in my life that can be not what you need to hear and maybe not as supportive as they're hoping it would be. I guess for me, I manage it mostly by saying, “Thank you, that's a great idea,” even when it's not really a great idea. I just say to myself or maybe to a support person later, “That was not the best advice.” Just debriefing it with someone I think is really helpful, someone that I trust.  Jessie: Kimberley, I love this. I think, Sandy, our next SIG, we should ask this and hear all the ridiculous advice that people have been given because it's true. There's so many things that are so ridiculous. I'm going to shout out my mom here who I love more than anything in the world, but even my mom who lives with me some of the time and sees what I go through, one time she called me (she's going to kill me) and she said, “I heard there's a half-moon at 10:30 AM your time and if you stand outside, it will heal some of your rear rash.” I was like, “What? That's absurd.” She was like, “I know, I think it's absurd too, but you need to do this for me.” With that, you see she just wants me to get better. As Sandy was saying, people really want to help and this is a way they think they can help. I've also been told like, “Oh, if you mash up garlic and then you put--” it was like this weird recipe, then you want to had it. Just ridiculous things. But people are really well-meaning and they want to help. Unfortunately, those often don't really help. But now I can laugh about it and now text my mom and be like, “You'll never guess what so-and-so said,” or text Sandy and we could have a good laugh about it. But that's what's nice about community. You're like, “Wait, should I do this essential oil thing?” And then you realize from others, “No, that's probably not the best route to go.” Kimberley: For me, with anxiety, self-doubt is a big piece of the puzzle. Self-doubt is one of the loudest voices. When someone would suggest that, I would have a voice that would say, “It's not going to hurt you to try.” And then I would feel this immense degree of self-doubt like, “Should I? Should I not? What do you think?” “You could try. You should try.” I'm like, “But I literally don't have time to go and stand in the sun and do the thing,” or in your example. I would get in my head back and forth on decision-making like, “Should I or shouldn't I?” “It wouldn't hurt.” “It sounds ridiculous, but maybe I should.” And that was such a compulsive piece of it that would get me stuck for quite a while. It's often when it would be from a medical professional because it really would make you question yourself, so I fully resonate with that. Sometimes I wish I could do a hilarious Instagram post on all of the amazing advice I've been given throughout the time of having POTS. Some of it's been ridiculous.  Let me ask you finally, what advice would you give somebody who has an anxiety disorder and is at first in the beginning stages of not having these symptoms and not knowing what they are? Jessie, will you go first? Jessie: Yeah. I would say a big thing, as we've been talking about, is finding that community whether that be reaching out to us with the SIG or whether that be finding a Facebook group or online group or whatever it may be, because it has helped me so much to reach out and be in a community with others who really understand. There's nothing like people who truly get it. And then I would say to validate like, this is really tough. Having OCD is tough. Having a chronic illness or disability is tough, and having both is very, very tough. Validate those symptoms too because I think there's a lot of people that will say, “Oh, you have an anxiety disorder, you're probably making that up,” and that comes up a lot. Just validating that and really trying to find other people who are going through it because I think that's just irreplaceable. Kimberley: Sandy? Sandy: I think the biggest thing to echo Jessie would be try to find community. I think for me, for my OCD recovery journey, Instagram has particularly been great because there's so many wonderful OCD advocates or clinicians on Instagram. It's really a hub for the OCD community. I would say check out Instagram and once you follow a couple of people from the OCD community, the algorithm will show you more so it's nice that way. I think the other thing is that being disabled or having a chronic illness can really chip away your confidence. Just reminding yourself that you're doing the best you can in a really hard situation, and it may be a long-term situation, but just because your life is different than other people doesn't mean that it's not going to be a great life. Kimberley: I'm actually going to shift because I wanted to round it out then, but I actually have another question. Recently, we had Dr. Ashley Smith on talking about how to be happy during adversity. I'm curious, I'll go with you, Sandy, first because you just said, how do you create a wonderful, joyful life while managing not only an anxiety disorder, but also chronic illness or disability? What have you found to be helpful in that concoction per se? Sandy: I listened to that episode with Dr. Smith and that was a wonderful episode. If people haven't listened to it, I recommend it. I listened to it twice because I just wanted to go back and pick out the really interesting parts. But I think for me, the combination of finding things that are both meaningful from a values and an acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) perspective, meaningfulness, finding those things that matter to me, but also finding the things that challenge me. If I'm having a really bad pain day or fatigue day, the things that challenge me might just be getting out of bed, or maybe I'm really depressed and that's why I can't get out of bed. Either or, your experience is valid, and just validating your own experience and bringing in that self-compassion and saying, what is something that can challenge me today and bring me a little closer to recovery? Even if it's going to be a long journey, what's this one small thing I can do, and break it down for yourself. Kimberley: Amazing. I love that. What about you, Jessie?  Jessie: I would say I've been able to find new hobbies. I'm still the same person. I'm still doing other things that I found meaningful and this doesn't. Well, it is a big part of my life. It's not my entire life. I'm still working and hanging out with friends and doing things that regularly bring me happiness. But just a small example, I said before, I used to play sports and love being really active and that gets a little harder now. But something I found that I really love is paint by numbers because they're so easy. They're fun, they're easy, you don't have to be super artistic, which is great for me. I'm able to just sit down and do the paint by numbers. Even recently I had friends over and it was like a rainy day and we all did a craft. Even though it was a really high-pain day for me, I was in a flare of medical symptoms, I was still able to engage with things that I find meaningful and live my life. Kimberley: I love that. Thank you. That's so important, isn't it? To round your life out around the disability or the chronic illness or your anxiety. I love that. We talked about those early stages of diagnosis, any other thing that you feel we absolutely have to mention before we finish up? Sandy? Sandy: I guess to quote someone you've had on the podcast before, Rev. Katie, I find her content amazing and she's just a lovely person. But she always says, you are a special person, but your OCD is not special. Your OCD isn't fundamentally different or it's never going to get better. You got to remember that you are the special person and your OCD doesn't want you to recognize that you are the thing that's special, not it. Just be able to separate yourself from your anxiety disorder or your chronic illness or your disability, saying, “I'm still me and I'm still awesome, and these things are just one part of me.” Kimberley: So true. I'm such a massive Katie fan. That's excellent advice. Jessie? Jessie: To go the other route, I think you said right with people who are first going through this. I would say we recently did a survey of our SIG, so people who have chronic illness and OCD. We haven't done all the data yet, but the thing that really stood out was we asked the question like, have you ever felt invalidated by a medical professional or mental health professional, and every single person said yes and then explained. Some people had a lot to say too. I think I've really learned in this process that you have to be a self-advocate. It's very challenging to be an advocate when you're going through a mental disorder, a physical disability, and/or both. It's required. Really standing up for yourself because it's going to be a tough journey and there's so much light in the journey too. There's so many positive things and so much “happiness” from the episode before, but there's also a lot of difficulties that can come from being in the medical world as well as the mental health world and really trying to navigate both of them and putting them together. Really try to advocate for yourself or find someone who could help you advocate for yourself and your case because I think that'll be really helpful. Kimberley: So true. You guys are so amazing. Jessie, why don't you go first, tell us where people can get resources or get in touch with you or the SIG, and then Sandy if you would follow. Jessie: We have an Instagram account where we'll post-- we're experiencing with Canva. We're really working on Canva and getting some graphics out there about the different things that come up when you have both of these conditions. And then that's where we post our updates for the special interest group. Sandy, correct me if I'm wrong. @chronically.courageous is our Instagram handle. And then in there, the link is in our bio to sign up for the special interest group. You get put on our email list and then you'll get all the emails we send with the Zoom links and everything. And then you could also go to the International OCD Foundation's website and look at the special interest groups there and you'd find ours there. Sandy: The other thing is we meet twice a month. We meet quite frequently and we'd love to have you. So, please check out our Instagram or get at our email list and we would love you to join. Kimberley: You guys, you make me so happy. Thank you for coming on the show. I'm so grateful we're having this conversation. I feel like it's way overdue, but thank you for doing the work that you're doing. Thank you so much. Jessie: Thank you. Sandy: Thanks for having us.

Today we are talking all about ERP Scripting with Shala Nicely. Welcome back, everybody. We are on Week 2 of the Imaginals and Script Series. This week, we have the amazing Shala Nicely on the show. She's been on before. She's one of my closest friends and I'm so honored to have her on.  For those of you who are listening to this and haven't listened to any of the previous episodes, I do encourage you to go back to last week's episode because that is where we introduce the incredible Krista Reed and she talks about how to use scripts and imaginals. I give a more detailed intro to what we're here talking about if this is new for you. This will be a little bit of a steep learning curve if you're new to exposure and response prevention. Let me just quickly explain. I myself, I'm an ERP-trained therapist, I am an OCD Specialist, and a part of the treatment of OCD and OCD-related disorders involve exposing yourself to your fear and then practicing response prevention, which is reducing any of the safety behaviors or compulsions you do in effort to reduce or remove whatever discomfort or uncertainty that you feel. Now, often when we go to expose ourselves to certain things, we can't because they're not something we can face on a daily basis or they're often very creative things in our mind. This is where imaginals and scripts can come in and can be incredibly helpful.  If you want a more detailed understanding of the steps that we take regarding ERP, you can go to CBTSchool.com, which is where we have all our online courses. There is a course called ERP School that will really do a lot of the back work in you really understanding today's session. You don't have to have taken the course to get the benefits of today's session because a lot of you I know already have had ERP or are in ERP as we speak, or your clinicians learning about ERP and I love that you're here. Honestly, it brings me so much joy. But that is there for you if you're completely lost on what's going on today, and that will help fill you in on the gold standard treatment for OCD and the evidence-based treatment for OCD and OCD-related disorders.  That being said, let's get on with the good stuff. We have the amazing Shala Nicely. I am so honored again to have you on. You are going to love how applicable and useful her skills and tools are. Let's just get straight over to Shala.  Kimberley: Welcome, Shala. I am so happy to have you back. I know we have a pretty direct agenda today to talk about imaginals versus scripting in your way in which you do it. I'd love to hear a little bit about, first, do you call it imaginals or do you call it scripting? Can you give me an example or a definition of what you consider them to be? SHALA'S STORY OF ERP SCRIPTING  Shala: Sure. Well, thank you very much for having me on. Love to be here as always. I'll go back to how I learned about exposure when I first became a therapist. I learned about exposure being two different things. It was either in vivo exposure, so in life. Meaning, you go out and do the thing that your OCD is afraid of that you want to do, or it was imaginals where you imagine doing the thing that you want to do that your OCD is afraid to do. Research shows us that the in vivo is more effective, but sometimes imaginals is necessary because you can't go do the thing for whatever reason. But I don't think about it like that anymore. That's how I learned it, but it's not how I practice it.  To help describe what I do, I'll take you back to when I had untreated OCD or when I was just learning how to do ERP for myself because I think that would help it make sense what I do. When I was doing ERP, I would obviously go out and do all the things that I wanted to do and my OCD didn't want me to do. What I found was that I could do those things, but my OCD was still in my head, getting me to have a conversation about what we were doing in my mind. I might go pick up a discarded Coke can on the side of the road because it's “contaminated,” and I would then go either put it in the trash, which would be another exposure because that would be not recycling. There are layers of exposures here. But my OCD could be in my head going, “Well, I don't think that one is contaminated. It doesn't look all that contaminated because it's pretty clean and this looks like a clean area so I'm sure it's not contaminated. What do you think, Shala?”  “Oh, I agree with you.” “Well, we threw it away, but I bet you, these people, they're going to get wherever we threw it. They're actually going to sort it out and it's going to get recycled anyway.” There was this carnival in my head of information about what was going on.  I determined what I was doing because I was doing the exposure, but I wasn't really getting all that much better. I was getting somewhat better but not all that much better. What I realized I was doing is that I'm having these conversations in my head, which are compulsive. In my recovery journey, what I was doing was I was going to a lot of trainings, I was reading a ton of books, and I talk about this in Is Fred in the Refrigerator?, my memoir, because this was a pretty pivotal moment for me when I read Dr. Jonathan Grayson's book, Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I know you're having him on this series as well. I read his book and he talks so much in there about writing scripts to deal with the OCD—writing scripts about what might happen, the worst-case scenario, living with uncertainty, and all that kind of stuff. That really resonated with me and I thought, “Aha, this is what I need to be doing. I need to be doing ERP scripting instead of having that conversation in my head with the OCD. Because when I'm doing exposure and I'm having a conversation with OCD in my head, I'm doing exposure and partial response prevention. I am preventing the physical response, but I'm not at all preventing the mental response, and this was slowing down my recovery.” The way I like to think of imaginals—you think about imagine like imagination—is that the way I do imaginal exposures, which I just call ERP scripting, is that I'm dealing with OCD's imagination. People with OCD are exceptionally creative. If you're listening to this and you think, “Well, not me,” for proof, all you have to do is look at what your OCD comes up with and look how creative it is. You guys share the same brain, therefore, you are creative too. All that creativity. When you have untreated OCD, it goes into coming up with these monstrous scenarios of how you're harming others or harming yourself. You're not ever going to be able to handle this anxiety or uncertainty or icky feeling or whatever, and it builds these scary stories that get us stuck.  WHAT IS ERP SCRIPTING?  What I'm trying to do with imaginal exposure or scripting is I'm trying to deal with OCD's imagination because in the example I gave, I was picking up the Coke can and my OCD was using its imagination to try to reassure me all the ways this Coke can was going to be okay or all the ways this Coke can was going to eventually get recycled. I needed to deal with that. Really, the way I do ERP Scripting for myself and for my clients is I'm helping people deal with OCD's imagination in a non-compulsive way. For me, it is not a choice of in vivo or imaginal; it is in vivo with imaginal, almost always, because most people that I see anyway are doing what I did. They are doing physical compulsions or avoidance and they're up in their head having a conversation with their OCD about it. I'm almost always doing in vivo and imaginals together because I'm having people approach the thing that they want to do that OCD doesn't want them to do, and I'm having them do scripts. The Coke can may or may not be contaminated. The fact that it's sitting here and it looks pretty clean may or may not mean that it's got invisible germs on it. I don't know. The Coke can may or may not get recycled, it may or may not end up in recycling, but somehow contaminate the whole recycling thing that has to throw all that other recycling away because it touched it. I'm trying to use my imagination to make it even worse for the OCD so that we're really facing these fears.  That's how I conceptualize imaginal exposure. It's not an AND/OR it's an AND for me. Some people don't need it and if they don't need it, fine. But I find it's very helpful to make sure that people are doing full response prevention in that they're permitting both the physical and the mental compulsive response. DOES EVERYONE NEED ERP SCRIPTING?  Kimberley: Does everyone need ERP scripting? When you say some people don't need it, what would the presentation of those people be? Shala: That for whatever reason, they are good at not having the conversation with OCD in their heads. This is the minority of people anyway that I work with. Most people are pretty good at having compulsive conversations with OCD because the longer you have untreated OCD, the more you end up taking your physical compulsions and pulling them inward and making the mental compulsion so that you can survive. If you can't really do all that physical checking at your office because people are going to see you, you do mental checking. That's certainly what I did. People become good at doing this stuff in their head and it becomes second nature. It can be going on. I talk about this a lot in Fred, I could do compulsions while I was doing anything else because I could do them in my head. Most people are doing that and most people have been doing that for long enough by the time they see somebody like me that if I just say, “Well, stop doing that,” I mean I'm never going to see them again. They're not going to come back because they can't stop doing that. That's the whole reason they called me.  I'm giving them something else to do instead. It's a competing response to the mental compulsions because they don't know how to stop that. They're not aware of what they're doing, they don't know how to stop the process, so I'm giving them something to do instead of that until they build the mental muscles to be able to recognize OCD trying to get them to have a conversation and just not answer that question in their head. But it takes a long time to develop that skill. It took me a long time anyway.  Some people, for whatever reason though, are good at that. If they don't need to do the scripting, great. I think that's wonderful. They don't have to do it. The strongest response you can ever have to OCD is to ignore it completely, both physically and mentally. If you can truly ignore it in your head, you don't even need to do the scripting. It's a stronger response to just do what you want to do that upsets OCD and just go on with your day. HOW TO DO ERP SCRIPTING?  Kimberley: Amazing. So How do you do ERP Scripting? If you're not one of those people and OCD loves to come up with creative ideas of all the things, what would be your approach? You talked about imaginals versus scripting. Can you play out and show us how you do it? Shala: I mean, I guess imaginals in the traditional way that it is defined versus scripting. The way I would do it is we would design the client and I would design whatever their first exposure is going to be. Let's say that it would be touching doorknobs. They're going to be in their location and I'm going to be in my location. They're going to be wherever we've decided they're going to touch the doorknobs. Maybe it's to the outside of their house, for instance. I'm there on video with them and we have them touch the doorknob.  And then I asked them, “Well, what is OCD saying about that?”  “Well, OCD says that I need to go wash my hands.”  I will say, “Well, are you going to go do that?”  “No.”  I'm like, “Well, let's tell OCD that.”  “Okay, OCD, I'm not going to wash my hands.”  “Now what's OCD saying?”  “Well, OCD is saying that I'm contaminated.”  “Well, let's say I may or may not be contaminated.”  So far, we've got, “I'm not washing my hands and I may or may not be contaminated.” Okay, now I'll ask them their anxiety level. When they say, “Gosh, I'm at a four,” I'll say, “Is that good?” They'll often say, “No, I wish it were zero.” I'll be like, “I'm sorry, what? What did you say? You want your anxiety to be zero? I must have misheard that. Is four good?” Finally, they understand, “Oh, well, four is not good because we could be higher.”  “What would be better than four?”  “Anything above a four.”  I'm working with them on that. We might start to throw some things in the script. I want to be anxious because this is how I beat my OCD, so bring it on.  I'll ask again, “What's your OCD saying?”  “Well, it's saying that I'm going to get some terrible disease.”  “Well, you may not get a terrible disease.” I'm questioning back and forth the client as we're working on this, until we've got enough of a dialogue about what's going on in their head that we can then create a script. A script might look something like, “Well, I may or may not be contaminated. I may or may not get a dread disease, but I'm not washing my hands and I'm going to do this because I want my life back. It makes me anxious and I may or may not get a dread disease.” And then we'll focus in on what's bothering OCD most. Maybe it's, at the beginning, the dread disease. “Well, I may or may not get a drug disease. I may or may not get a dread disease. I may or may not get a dread disease. I may or may not get a dread disease.” We might sing it, we say it over and over and over and over and over again, and look for what the reaction from the OCD is. If the OCD is still upset, then we still go after that. If it starts moving, “Well, what's OCD saying now?” “Well, OCD is saying now that if I get a dread disease, then I won't be able to do this thing that I have coming up that I really want to do.” “Well, okay, I may or may not get a dread disease and I may or may not miss this important event as a result.” We add that in.  We do that and do that and do that and do that for whatever the period is that we've decided is going to be our exposure period. And then we stop and then we talk about it. What did we learn? What was that like and what did you learn? Really focusing on how we did more than we thought we could do. We withstood more anxiety than we thought we could withstand. What did we learn about what the OCD is doing? I'm not so concerned about what the anxiety is doing. I mean, I want it to go up. That's my concern. I'm not all that concerned about whether it comes down or not. I do want it to go up. We talk about what we learned about the anxiety that gosh, you can push it up enough and you can handle a lot more than you thought you did. That would be our exposure.  And then we would plan homework and then they would do that daily, hopefully. I have forms on my website that people can then send me their daily experience doing these exposures and I send them feedback on it, and that's what we're working on. We're working on doing the thing that OCD doesn't want you to do that you want to do, and then working on getting better and better at addressing all of the mental gymnastics in your head.  Now, if somebody touches the doorknob and they're like, “Okay, I can do this,” and then their anxiety comes up and comes back down and they can do it without saying anything, great, go touch doorknobs. You don't need to do scripting. Often, I don't know if somebody needs to do that until we start working on it. If they don't need to do the scripting, great. We don't do the scripting. Makes things easier. But often people do need to. That's generally how I do it. Obviously, lots of variations on that based on what the client is experiencing.  Kimberley: This is all thing, you're not writing it down. Again, when you go back to our original training, for me, it was a worksheet and you print it out, you'd fill out the prompts. Are you doing any of this written or is this a counter to the mental compulsions in your head? Shala: None of this is written. The only time I would write it out is after that first session. When you're really anxious, your prefrontal cortex isn't working all that well, so you may have trouble remembering what we did, remembering the specific things that we said, or pulling it up for yourself. When you're doing your exposure, you're so anxious. I might type out some of what we said, the main things, send it to the clients, and have that. But really to me, scripting is an interactive exercise and I want my clients to be listening to what the OCD is saying for the sole purpose of knowing what we're going to say. Because when we start doing exposure, what we're often trying to do is keep pace with the OCD because it's got a little imagination engine running and it's going to go crazy with all the things that it's going to come up with. We're trying to stay on that level and make sure we're meeting all its imagination with our own imagination. As we get better and better at this, then I'm teaching people how to one-up the OCD and how to get better than the OCD as it goes along. But it's a dynamic process. I don't have people read scripts because the script that we wrote was for what was going on whenever we wrote the script. Different things might be going on this time. What we're trying to do is listen to the OCD in a different way. I don't want people listening to it in a compulsive way. I want people listening to it in a, “I've got to understand my foe here and what my foe is upset about so I can use it against it.” That's what we're doing. There might be key things, little pieces we write down, but I'm not having people write and read it over and over. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not what I do. Everybody has a different way to approach this. This is just my way.  Kimberley: Right. I was thinking as you were talking, in ERP School, I talk about the game of one-up and I actually do that game with clients before I do any scripting or imaginals or exposures too. They tell me what their fear is, I try and make it worse. And then I ask them to make it even worse, then I make it even worse, because I'm trying to model to them like, we're going here. We're going to go all the way and even beyond. If we can get ahead of OCD and get even more creative, that's better.  Let's play it back and forward. You talked about touching a doorknob and all of the catastrophic things that can happen there. What about if someone were to say their thoughts are about harming somebody and they have this feeling of like, I've been trained, society has trained me not to have thoughts about harming people or sexual thoughts and so forth? There's this societal OCD stigmatizing like we don't think those things. We should be practicing not thinking those things. What would you give as advice to somebody in that situation?  Shala: I would talk a lot about the science about our thoughts, that the more that you try to push a thought away, the more it's going to be there. Because every time you push a thought away, your brain puts a post-it note on it that says, “Ooh, she pushed this thought away. This must be dangerous. Therefore, I need to bring it up again to make sure we solve it.” Because humans' competitive advantage—we don't have fur, we don't have fangs, we don't have claws, we don't run very fast—our competitive advantage is problem-solving. The way we stay alive is for cave people looking out onto savannah and we can see that there are berries here, there, and yawn. But that one berry patch over there, gosh, you saw something waving in the grass by it and you're like, “I'm going to notice that and I'm going to remember that because that was different, but I also don't want to go over there.” Your brain is going to remember that like, “Hmm, there was something about that berry patch over there. Grass waving could be a tiger. We need to remember that. Remember that thing, we're not going to go over there.” We're interacting with thoughts in that way because that's what kept us alive.  When we get an intrusive thought nowadays and we go, “Ooh, that was a bad thought. I don't know. I should stay away from that,” our brain is like, “Oh, post a note on that one. That one is like the scary tiger thought. We're going to bring that up again just to make sure.” Every time we try to push a thought away, we're going to make it come back. We talk a lot about that. We talk a lot about society's norms are whatever they are, but a lot of society's norms are great in principle, not that awesome in practice. We don't have any control over what we think about. The TV is filled with sex and gore, and violence. Of course, you're thinking those things. You can't get away from those images. I think society has very paradoxically conflicting rules about this stuff. Don't think about it but also watch our TV show about it.  I would talk about that to try to help people recognize that these standards and rules that we put on ourselves as humans are often unrealistic and shame-inducing and to help people recognize that everybody has these thoughts. We have 40, 60, 80,000 thoughts a day. I got that number at some conference somewhere years ago. We don't have control over those. I would really help them understand the process of what's going on in their brain to destigmatize it by helping them understand really thoughts are chemical, neuronal, whatever impulses in our brain. We don't have a lot of control over that and we need to deal with them in a way that our brain understands and recognizes. We need to have those thoughts be present and have a different reaction to those thoughts so your brain eventually takes the post-it note off of them and just lets them cycle through like all the other thoughts because it recognizes it's not dangerous.  HOW FAR CAN YOU GO IN ER SCRIPTING?  Kimberley: Right. I agree. But how far can you go in ERP Scripting? Let's push a little harder then. This just happened recently actually. I was doing a session with a client and he was having some sexual pedophilia OCD obsessions playing up, “I'll do this to this person,” as you were doing like I may or may not statements and so forth. And then we played with the idea of doing one up. I actually went to use some very graphic words and his face dropped. It wasn't a drop of shock in terms of like, “Oh my gosh, Kimberley used that naughty word.” It was more of like, “Oh, you are in my brain, you know what I'm thinking.” And then I had to slow down and ask him, “Are there any thoughts you actually aren't admitting to having?” Because I could see he was going at 80% of where OCD took him, but he was really holding back with the really graphic, very sexual words—words that societally we may actually encourage our children and our men and women not to say. Do you encourage them to be using the graphic language that their OCD is coming up with? Shala: Absolutely. I'm personally a big swearer.  That's another thing I talk about in-- Kimberley: Potty mouth. Shala: I'll ask clients, “What's your favorite swear word? Let's throw swear words in here.” I want to use the language that their OCD is using. If I can tell that's the language their OCD is using, well, let's use that language. Let's not be afraid of it.  The other thing I do before I start ERP with anyone is I go through what I consider the three risks of ERP so they understand that what happens during our experience together is normal. I explain that it's likely we're going to make their anxiety worse in the weeks following exposure because we're taking away the compulsions bit by bit, and the compulsions are artificially holding back the anxiety. I explained that their OCD is not going to roll over because they're doing ERP therapy now. Nobody's OCD is going to go, “Oh gosh, Shala is in ERP. I think I'll just leave her alone now.” No, the OCD is going to ratchet it up. You're not doing what you're supposed to do, you're not doing your compulsions, so let's make things scarier. Let's make things more compelling. Let me be louder. Your OCD can get quite a bit worse once you start doing ERP because it's trying to get you back in line. When somebody is in an exposure session and their OCD is actually going places, they never even expected them to go, and I'll say that's what we're talking about, “That's just the OCD getting worse, that's what we wanted. This is what we knew was going to happen.” We're going to use that against the OCD to help normalize it. Then I also explain to people that people with OCD don't like negative emotions more than your average bear, and we tend to press all the negative emotions down under the anxiety. When you start letting the anxiety out and not doing compulsions, then you can also get a lot more emotions than you're used to experiencing so that people recognize if they cry during the exposures, if it's a lot scarier than they thought, if they have regret or guilt or other feelings, that's just a normal part of it. I explain all that. When things inevitably go places where the client isn't anticipating they're going to go like in a first exposure, then they feel this is just part of the process. I think it makes it so that it's easier to go those graphic places because you're like, “Yeah, we expected OCD to go the graphic place because it's mad at you.” Kimberley: It normalizes it, doesn't it?  Shala: Yeah. Then we go to the graphic place too. I tell clients that specifically because this is a game and I really want them to understand this is what your opponent is likely to do so that they feel empowered so we can go there too and trying some to take the shame out of it. When you said the graphic word and your client had a look on their face and it was because how did you even know that was in my head, because you were validating that it's okay to have this thought because you knew it was going to be there. I think that's a really important part of exposure too. HOW LONG DO YOU USE ERP SCRIPTING FOR?  Kimberley: So, how long do you do ERP Scripting for? Let's say they're doing this in your session or they're at home doing their assigned homework. Let's say they do it for a certain amount of time and then they have to get back to work or they're going to do something. But those voices, the OCD comes back with a vengeance. What would you have them do after that period of time? Would they continue with this action or is there a transition action or activity you would have them do? Shala: That's a great question. It depends a lot on really the stage of therapy that somebody is in and what is available to them based on what they're going to be doing. Oftentimes, what I will ask people to do is to try to do the exposure for long enough that you've done enough response prevention that you can then leave the exposure environment and not be up in your head compulsively ruminating. Because if you were doing exposure for 20 minutes, you've done a great job, but then you leave that exposure and you are at a high enough anxiety level where it feels compelling. Now you have to fix the problem in your head even though you just did this great exposure. Then we're just going to undo the work you just did. I try to help people plan as much as they can to not get themselves in a situation where they're going to end up compulsively ruminating or doing other compulsions after they finish. But obviously, we can't be perfect. Life happens.  I think some of the ways you can deal with that, if you know it's going to happen, sometimes they'll ask people to make recordings on their phone and they just put in their earpieces or their earbuds or whatever and they can just listen to a script while they're doing whatever they're doing. Nobody has to know what they're doing because so many people walk around with EarPods in their ears all the time anyway. That's one way to deal with it.  Another way to deal with it is to try to do the murmuring out in your head as best as you can. That's really hard because they're likely to just get mixed up with compulsive thoughts. You can try to focus your attention as much as you possibly can on what you're doing. That's going to be the strongest response. It's hard for people though when they get started to do that. But if you can do that, I think that's fine, and I think just being compassionate with yourself. “Okay, so I am now sitting here doing some rituals in my head. I'm doing the best I can.” If you're not in a situation where you can fully implement response prevention in your head because you're in a meeting and you got to do other stuff and you've got this compulsive stuff running in the background, just do the best you can. And then when you're at a place where you can do some scripting, some more exposure to get yourself back on top of the OCD, then do that. But be really compassionate.  I try to stress this to all my clients. We are not trying to do ERP perfectly because if you try to do it perfectly, you're doing ERP in an OCD way, which isn't going to work. Just be kind to yourself and recognize this is hard and nobody is going to do it perfectly. If you end up in a situation where you end up doing some compulsions afterwards, well, that's good information for us. We'll try to do it differently or better next time, but don't beat yourself up.   Kimberley: It's funny you brought that up because I was just about to ask you that question. Often clients will do their scripting or their imaginal and then they have an obsession, “What if I keep doing compulsions and it's not good to do compulsions?” Would you do scripting for that? Shala: Oh yeah. I may or may not do more compulsions than I used to be doing. I may or may not get really worse doing this. I may or may not have double the OCD that I had when I started seeing trauma. This may or may not become so bad that they have to create a hospital just to help me all by myself. We try to just create stuff to deal with that. But also, I'm injecting one up in the OCD, I'm injecting some humor, how outlandish can we make these things? I try to have “fun” with it. Now I say “fun” in quotes because I know it's not necessarily fun when you're trying to do this, but we're trying to make this content that OCD is turning into a scary story. We're trying to make it into a weapon to use against the OCD and to make this into a game as much as we can. Kimberley: I love it. I'm so grateful for you coming on. Is there anything that you want the listeners to know as a final piece for this work that you're doing? Shala: Sure. I think that there are so many different ways to do exposure therapy. This is the way that I do it. It's not the only way, it's not necessarily the right way; it's just the way I do it and it's changed over the years. If we were to record this podcast in five years or 10 years, I probably will be doing something slightly different. If your therapist is doing something differently or you're doing something differently, it's totally fine. I think that finding ERP in a way that works for you, like finding how it works for you and what works best for you is the most important thing. It's not going to be the same for everybody. Everybody has a slightly different approach and that's okay.  One thing that people with OCD can get stuck on, and I know this because I have OCD too, is we can be black and white and say there's one right way. Well, she does it this way and he does it that way and this is wrong and this is right. No, if you're doing ERP, there are all sorts of ways to do it, so don't let your OCD get into the, “Well, I don't think you're doing this right because you're not doing this, that, or the other.” Just work with your therapist to find out what works best for you. If what I've described works well for you, great. And if it doesn't, you don't have to do it. These are just ideas. Being really kind and being really open to figuring out what works best for you and being very kind to yourself I think is most important. Kimberley: Amazing. Tell us where people can get more information about you. Tell us about your book. I know you've been on the podcast before, but tell us where they can get hold of you. Shala: Sure. They can get a hold of me on my website, ShalaNicely.com. I have a newsletter I send out once a month that they can sign up for called Shoulders Back! Tips & Resources for Taming OCD. In it, I feature blogs that I write or podcast episodes, other things that I'm doing. It's all free where I'm talking about tips and resources for taming OCD. I have two books: Everyday Mindfulness for OCD that I co-wrote with Jon Hershfield and Is Fred in the Refrigerator? Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life, which is my memoir. It is written somewhat like a suspense novel because as all of you know who have OCD, living with untreated OCD is a bit like living in a suspense novel. My OCD is actually a character in the book. It is the villain, so to speak. The whole book is about me trying to understand exactly what is this villain I'm working against. Then once I figure out what it is, well, how am I going to beat it? And then how am I going to live with it long term? Because it's not like you're going to kill the villain in this book. The OCD is going to be there. How do I learn to live in a world of uncertainty and be happy anyway, which is something that I stole from Jon Grayson years ago. I stole a lot from him. That's what the book is about. Kimberley: It's a beautiful book and it's so inspiring. It's a handbook as much as it is a memoir, so I'm so grateful that you wrote it. It's such a great resource for people with OCD and for family members I think who don't really get what it's like to be in the head of someone with OCD. A lot of my client's family members said how it was actually the first time it clicked for them of like, “Oh, I get it now. That's what they're going through.” I just wanted to share that. Thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so grateful to have you on again. Shala: Thank you so much for having me. It was fun.

SUMMARY:  In this podcast, Micah Howe addressed his expereince with intensive OCD treatment and the 6 most important turning points of OCD Recovery Compulsions keep OCD going,  I can control my reaction to OCD Worrying is a false sense of control and is not productive Anxiety does not mean something needs solving Find an OCD community Self-compassion helps manage uncertainty Micah also addressed how to know you are ready for intensive ocd treatment and how he managed his OCD grief.  Links To Things I Talk About: https://www.instagram.com/mentalhealthmhe/ ERP School: https://www.cbtschool.com/erp-school-lp Episode Sponsor: This episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit is brought to you by CBTschool.com. CBTschool.com is a psychoeducation platform that provides courses and other online courses and resources for people with anxiety, OCD, and Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors. Go to cbtschool.com to learn more. Spread the love! Everyone needs tools for anxiety… If you like Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast, visit YOUR ANXIETY TOOLKIT PODCAST to subscribe free and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like Your Anxiety Toolkit, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (maybe even two). This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 314. Welcome back, everybody. Today, we are talking about the major turning points of OCD recovery. This episode is literally how I want to end the year, although we do have more podcasts coming this year before we finish up 2022. But literally, this is like mic drop after mic drop after mic drop. I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing this week's guest. I'm so honored to share with you this interview with Micah Howe. He's an OCD advocate and is one of the most inspirational people I know. I just have so much respect and adoration for him. And this episode is literally a bomb. I just can't, I can't shout it from the rooftop loud enough. I'm going to keep this intro very short because I really just want you to hear exactly what he's saying. And really what we're talking about here is some ideological shifts that he had, going through intensive treatment and treatment in general, specifically for OCD. But if you don't have OCD, this is still going to be a powerful punch for your recovery because the tools that he shares that he realized on the end of his recovery are ones that anybody could apply to their recovery. So, let's just do it.  Before we move on, let's quickly do the review of the week. This one is from Tristramshandy1378, and they said: “I stumbled across your podcast recently. I have been through therapy with Anxiety and panic and I have a high-stress job that I love, but I needed to continue my journey to recovery and be reminded of all the skills that are available to help me along the way. Your online courses for OCD and your amazing podcast reminded me the most important part of the process is to love myself, before, during, and after my episodes of intense anxiety and that every day is a beautiful day to do hard things.” Oh my gosh, Tristramshandy, this is just so exactly my mission and my model. And so, I'm so grateful for you for leaving a review.  It sounds like actually Tristramshandy's review of the week should actually be the “I did a hard thing,” but we have an “I did a hard thing” as well. This one is from Anonymous and they said: “Hello, Kimberley. Very glad to have this resource. I did a hard thing. I started using public transportation much more often. It helps a lot with agoraphobia. I also significantly decreased media consumption, and that helped me learn to live with my thoughts and generally slowing down to process the information.” So, thank you so much for Anonymous for sharing that.  To be honest with you guys, the review of the week and the “I did a hard thing” and this entire episode is like three different “I did a hard thing” segment, so I've just so overjoyed that we're all here doing the hard thing, bringing in the end of the year. This episode is going to be such an amazing resource for you. So, let's get over to the interview. Introduction To Micah Howe Kimberley: Thank you so much for being here, Micah. I am actually so excited to hear this story. So, welcome. Micah: Yeah, thanks so much. Glad to be here. Kimberley: Yeah. So, you and I had talked before we came on to record about how you are going, wanting to tell the story about your intensive OCD treatment specifically around OCD. And this is the topic that I find so interesting and something that I actually really am so excited to hear your story. So, would you be able to tell us just in brief what the backstory of your recovery looks like and get us up to date in terms of where you were, what you experienced, as much as you're willing to share? Intensive Treatment For Ocd  Micah: Yeah. So, what had me in intensive treatment – I grew up in rural Iowa and so resources for OCD, particularly evidence-based treatments like ERP, particularly several years ago when I was first starting to show really debilitating symptoms, those sorts of resources were really hard to come by. And so, it took me a long time to find good help. And then once I did find good help, my OCD had gone on unrestrained for so long that I needed a really intensive setting. And so, my OCD started becoming quite debilitating around the age of 18 or 19. The college transition was really hard for me. But by the age of 25, even doing some outpatient therapy, it just wasn't really putting much of a dent in what I was dealing with. And so, I ended up in a partial hospitalization setting where we were putting full-time job hours into exposures every week. And that's what it took for me to begin to see breakthrough. Kimberley: Right. So, what was it like? What were you experiencing? Because I'm sure there are people who are going through treatment who may be feeling similarly. You are doing outpatient once-a-week therapy, were you? Micah: Yeah.  How To Know You Are Ready For Intensive Ocd Treatment Kimberley: And how did or was it you who knew you were ready for in treatment or was it the clinician who advised you to take that next step? Micah: For the longest time, I had so much stigma about going to a “mental hospital.” Really, I didn't know what to expect, and just naturally as people, we're afraid of the unknown. And so, I was pretty resistant. But eventually, a clinician that I was working with really had said, “If you want to get to these goals you're talking about in any reasonable amount of time, I really think I should recommend that you go to a higher level of care.” And so, that really opened me to this idea of seeking a higher level of care. It was the combination of a clinician recommending it and also my just experience of realizing, this once a week, I mean, we're very well-intentioned here, but I'm just not getting very far. Kimberley: And I think so many people are there and the stigma holds them back. There is a lot of stigma attached. Besides that conversation, was there any other shifts you had to make to get your foot in that door, or it was an easy decision once you explained it? Micah: I hate to say it, but unfortunately, it's all too common in the world of OCD recovery. But I was another one of those people that I went kicking and screaming. I had to hit rock bottom. It was helpful for a clinician to tell me, “I really think this would be beneficial to you.” It was eye-opening for me to realize, gosh, I'm coming back here every week and I'm just not getting very far. But I think what really pushed me the rest of the way was this very sobering realization that this OCD is going to continue to take as much of my life as I allow it to. If I continue to just do a level of therapy that, at least for me personally, is not getting me where I want to go – if I just continue doing that, hoping that something is going to change, experience was teaching me that OCD is not just going to back off if I don't do anything different. So, I think that idea of hitting rock bottom, of being tired of chasing the same goals month after month that I wasn't getting any closer to, that really pushed me to say, “Okay, I'm more afraid of losing my life and opportunities than I am of whatever stigma I might have to shoulder adding to my life's resume that I spent time in a mental hospital.” Micah' Intensive Ocd Treatment Story Kimberley: Yeah. You had to weigh the pros and the cons and all directions were leading you in that direction. That's cool. That's so cool that you were able to do that, make that shift in your mind and make that decision. So, okay, you're in the door in intensive. Was it what you expected? Tell me about what you expected and how it was different. Micah: Yeah. And it's that question that I really appreciate because, for anybody listening that might be considering another level of care that is intimidated, I mean, that's right where I was. I mean, I didn't know what to expect. And when I got there, I'll never forget the biggest thing that really was surprising to me is how calm and inviting and not scary it was. I met a lot of people there and I was like, “Wow, these people are just as genuine as I am. We're all just trying to get better here.” And I also think, I thought there was going to be-- the other thing that really stuck out to me was I thought there was going to be this really significant talk therapy element. I thought we're going to-- all these things that I couldn't figure out in outpatient, these treatment teams at these intensive centers, they're going to have the answers that my outpatient therapist didn't have. And it's actually like, no, they don't have the answers. They're actually more encouraging than my outpatient therapist that I live without the answers.  And so, we're not really talking through the things that concern me. We're instead doing this evidence-based really rigorous exposure therapy where I'm not talking about my feelings and my past as much as I'm talking about how I reacted to something they asked me to challenge myself to do that day. And so, just the way they went about helping me get better was so different than the path I thought we were going to go down. Kimberley: Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Would you say-- and this is sometimes how I explain it to some clients, but you should actually give me feedback here. I'm as much learning from you as any. Sometimes we say intensive treatment isn't different, it's just more. It's more frequent. It's more of what you're doing in session, and that's a good thing. Was it that for you? Was it just more of what you were doing? Or was there some fundamental differences in the structure of the sessions? How was it different for you? Micah: Again, yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm not a therapist or a medical doctor, anything. Everything I say on the episode is just from my limited personal experience as a sufferer. But I would say in my experience, when I was doing outpatient therapy, only meeting with a clinician once a week, only doing so many exposures a week, I guess this idea of tolerating uncertainty, I understood it, but I don't think I bought in as deeply as I bought in when I was in intensive treatment because now, instead of we only have 50 minutes to talk through everything, now my treatment team is like, we've got two hours if you need it. And so, we've got two and a half hours if you need it. And so, if I was hung up on an exposure that I didn't want to do, it wasn't a situation of, “Ah, we'll get to that next week.” It was like, “We can wait. What's the issue? What's getting in the way?” And so, I couldn't just run out at the end of 50 minutes like I would in an outpatient context. We were there full-time to deal with fears and help me gradually be willing to engage in exposures, that in an outpatient context, I didn't have to push myself that hard. And it was much harder than outpatient for me, but it also caused progress so much faster because when I ran into a bump, it was like, we're either going to try to work through it now, or we will be right here tomorrow to keep working on it. And so, there was a consistency that created breakthrough that once a week just wasn't doing.  Kimberley: Right. See, that's so interesting, the mindset shift for you that you had. So, okay, I've got lots of questions, but I also want to know, you have come with four main points that I want to make sure you've got plenty of time. So, I've probably got questions there as well because I always have too many questions. Micah: Oh, no, that's great. The 6 Most Important Turning Points Of OCD Recovery Kimberley: You had said there were four ideological shifts you had to make during intensive treatment, and I want to highlight those because they're brilliant. So, would you be kind to share that with us? Micah: Yeah. Do you want me to just start with the first one or did you want me to list-- Kimberley: Yeah, just lay them on. Anxiety Does Not Mean Something Needs Solving Micah: There were so many, but for the sake of time, I think when I think about some of those paradigm shifts, some of those ideological shifts that really created a lot of breakthrough for me, the first thing that comes to mind is my treatment team challenging me to accept the notion that anxiety was tolerable and that it was an ordinary part of the human experience. When I started out in treatment, I saw anxiety as a signal that I was doing something wrong in my life, a signal that there was a problem that needed solving. And OCD didn't exactly know what that problem was, but it had rituals to offer me in the meantime. And so, I just felt like anxiety, it is a catalyst, it is an impetus, it is a sign that something is awry and I'm supposed to be doing something.  The last thing I thought was, like my treatment team encouraging me, “Micah, what if anxiety is just part of being a person? And what if it doesn't necessarily mean that life is asking you to do anything to make it go away? And what if your life was actually better tolerating the distress that anxiety created rather than being a fugitive from it your whole life?” And I had never considered that in part because I again thought that it was extraordinary, but also, I had never considered the idea that anxiety could just be tolerated. It was so unique and novel to me because I just saw anxiety as anxiety is something I hate, anxiety is something I find unbearable, and either my life is miserable because it has anxiety in it, or I'm able to live the life I want because I've completely eliminated anxiety from my experience. And to be offered something in the middle, that that wasn't black and white, that was so just revolutionary for me to say, “What if I can't ever get away from this thing called anxiety? But also, what if I never come to love it either? What if I just live my life just lukewarm to this emotion? Just allowing it to be in my life?” And that was something that prior to my treatment team encouraging me to think that way. There was just nothing in my natural instinct that thought about just letting anxiety be around without reacting to it. Kimberley: Yeah. So cool. Isn't that so cool? Okay. So, what's the next one? Compulsions Keep OCD Micah: So, the next shift that was extremely meaningful to me – when I was in intensive treatment, we did a lot of ERP, we did some ACT principles, some behavioral activation because I also deal with comorbid depression and hoarding disorder, and we also did a fair amount of thought challenging. And the thought challenging was particularly insightful for me in that as I started to break down some of my rituals, I really had to come face to face with the fact that my rituals were creating very much the antithesis of what my OCD told me those rituals existed to accomplish. Compulsions keep OCD going. So, for example, scrupulosity was a big issue for me. And my OCD was telling me all of these things you are doing, all of these repeating things you are doing, this is to make you feel closer to God. This is so that you will be more engaged with your faith. This is so that you will be a better Christian. And yet, as I started breaking these things down, I was like, I have never felt so disconnected from my faith as when these rituals have become such a significant part of my experience. And even with my hoarding, it had an effect. I was collecting all of these things to relieve anxiety. And the notion was you're collecting these things so that when the day comes that you need them, you'll have them. And yet, the effect was that I had so many things accumulated that when the day came that I thought, oh, that thing would be really great. I couldn't even find the thing in my mess of things. And so, in reality, there wasn't much of a difference between not having any of these things and having a basement so full of things that I couldn't find the things I wanted anyway.  And so, that thought challenging and really analyzing why am I doing this and what is the difference between how I feel about these rituals versus the reality they're actually creating in my life? And I was able to see that I am giving up long-term progress towards the person I want to become in exchange for short-term relief of anxiety. And that took me a long time to acknowledge, but once I saw it, it helped me break away from the rituals a little bit easier.  OCD Grief Kimberley: I know, isn't that so true? Is that we feel in the moment the ritual is helping. It's like, this is a part of the solution. And that's a big awakening when you're like, it's not a part of the solution. At least not the long-term one. That's that. Was there any OCD grief? Was that a relief or was there some grieving you had to do about that? Micah: Yeah, I think there was some grieving only in the sense that when you spend all this time doing these things and you're believing your OCD that these are helping me, these are getting me closer to the person I want to be, there is some grieving in recognizing that there's a lot of emotional reasoning involved in why I'm doing these things. They make me feel like I'm getting closer to the person that I want to be. But it's really an illusion because people who are close to God, I don't associate those people as being people who repeat their prayers so many times because they're terrified. I associate those people as being people who enjoy the discipline of prayer, who enjoy being in religious services. And so, it was a very odd experience to have to come face to face with the reality that these rituals are making me feel a certain way, but when I look at the results I'm getting over the long term, I'm actually getting farther away from the person I'm wanting to be. Kimberley: Right. It's gold, isn't it? And I've seen that recognition and realization in my clients and it's a tough one, but it's an important one. Did that come in pretty quick in your intensive treatment or did that take time? Micah: I think in the first maybe week or two of intensive treatment, I just had my clinicians, because I was resistant to ERP at first. And so, there were a lot of nuggets being dropped that I was just like, “Whoa, I have not thought about that in my whole OCD journey.” So, I would say the real change happened several weeks into intensive treatment, but definitely that first week or two, I was encouraged to think about these rituals and uncertainty and all these different elements involved in recovery from OCD very differently than I ever had before. I mean, I remember one of my first conversations with a therapist at treatment just asking me to think about what do you think a committed Christian is like, what do you think their life looks like? And I had never thought about that before and I realized that doesn't look anything like my life. And that was really eye-opening for me to be like, I don't associate being close to God with doing all these things out of fear. I associate it with actually finding meaning in these things. And so, I just had to separate that, just because these things make me feel a certain way. Another one was, I was so afraid of getting brain cancer and so I did all sorts of Google searching. And I was really challenged to think through, do you think about a healthy person as being someone that's on Google all the time? Is that what health looks like to you? And of course, the obvious answer was no, but I just had never been encouraged to think that far previously. Kimberley: Yeah. I'm loving everything you're saying, so I'm just wondering like, keep going, keep going. What's number three? I Can Control My Reaction To OCD Micah: So, the third thing was, if there was anything that I underestimated when I came into intensive treatment, it was my own capacity for change. When I came into intensive treatment, there was a lot of hopelessness, and it was rooted in this idea. My thoughts trouble me deeply. My emotions bother me deeply. I can't control either of those. And then on top of that, my life circumstances bother me. And although I might be able to change those, I can't really change them quickly. And so, what hope is there for this getting better?  The blind spot I had coming into treatment was this idea that even though it's hard, and even though it doesn't feel this way often, I do hold the keys to the behaviors that I choose. And my treatment team really worked hard to say, “Micah, it's a losing battle to try to fight thoughts and emotions that you can't direct. But what if we focus on the things that you do have some ability to influence, even if it's hard to do?”  And so, my life just really began to change, hope began to flood in when I began to buy into this idea that I'm not in control of many of the things I would like to be in control of, but I do have influence over my behavior. And because I'm so caught up in my rituals, I'm really not tapping into that potential at all when I'm coming into treatment. And so, once they started to say, “Micah, we're not going to sit here and talk you out of your thoughts,” but they exposed me to ERP and concepts like neuroplasticity and this idea that what if we can't change your life, but we can improve your brain's ability to react to your life with more helpful behaviors? And I was just blown away because I had just never thought about it. I just thought, well, if we can't change my thoughts, we can't change my life. And they flipped that on its head and said, “Well, what if we just tolerate the distress of your thoughts and start living the way you want to live and see what happens?” And I didn't even know that there was a relationship between cognition and behavior that allowed progress to be created that way. It was unbelievable. Kimberley: There are all these light bulb moments. All I want to keep asking you, I keep feeling like myself going like, you were receptive to this? You were obviously eventually receptive to this, or did you fight them on this? I'm thinking about my clients and now the people listening, I know they may have been hearing these same things, whether it's through this podcast or through their therapists, is like OCD has a strong opinion about these concepts too, I'm sure. Was OCD throwing a massive tantrum? Micah: Yeah, no, for sure. I don't want to make it sound like I just walked in and they said these things and I was hopping down the lane just like, “Oh, perfect.” It wasn't that at all. There was a tremendous amount of resistance, but I think that that resistance was weakened faster, both because we were talking every single day for hours at a time and also because, by the time I reached intensive treatment, it was like, if I'm not willing to try these concepts, if I decide I don't like this and I'm going to check myself out of this place, what am I going to go back to? Where am I going? If I'm not willing to try this, what's the next thing? And I knew it was just going to be back to more rituals, not getting anywhere. And so, I was open.  And there were also specific exposures that I'll never forget. And I don't think my behavioral specialists necessarily knew the depth of impact some of these exposures would have on me. They knew it would help, but some of them were like, “Wow, that was an unbelievable exposure.” One of them was, they had me watch YouTube videos of people who were explaining their experience of being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. And so, they're dying and they're on YouTube and they're telling their story. And if I could find them of brain cancer, I did brain cancer. But if it was ALS, whatever, they just find a terminal disease, find someone who's describing what it was like and watch those videos as an imaginative script. And I'll never forget watching those videos and seeing even people dying of terminal illnesses had moments of laughter and smiles. And I thought to myself, they didn't get there by sulking in their thoughts. I just realized, when these people know they're dying, somehow, they decided: I'm going to do things that matter to me even when my brain is probably telling me, “Your life is over. What's the point?” It just so inspired my confidence that, wow, I do not understand at an anatomical or at a metaphysical level what is involved in living life the way I thought I did.  I had to be open to this idea that there is a way to choose behaviors, that my thoughts are not exactly supportive, and get places even when I don't necessarily feel like getting to those places. And I didn't realize I could just challenge my thoughts by choosing behaviors that mattered to me, even if it scared me to do it. And some of those exposures just really stuck with me in that sense. Kimberley: I love that. And it is true, isn't it? You're doing an exposure to purposely simulate the fear and sometimes there's a lesson in it. There's a message-- not a message, but just a lesson. So, that is incredible. And thank you so much for sharing that exposure example because that's some hard stuff you're doing. That wasn't easy. Worrying Is A False Sense Of Control And Is Not Productive Micah: No, no. It wasn't. And I think that was also part of the treatment that really was hard for me but has helped me grow so much, is just this idea that that worry doesn't have any utility to it. My OCD convinced me for so long that by worrying about things, we're doing something. And it was this magical thinking in a sense that something in the cosmos is happening because I'm here worrying. And really just being able to acknowledge, “Micah, your worrying is not doing anything productive. Your OCD can make you feel all day long, like the energy expenditure.” Well, there's so much energy expenditure in my worrying. It has to be accomplishing something. Instead of just acknowledging it, it actually doesn't have to be accomplishing anything and it isn't. And as blunt and hard as that was to accept, it did help me when they started to offer me this acceptance piece of like, it sucks, but they really encourage me, my treatment team, that Micah, you do have to accept that you are a limited being and that there are answers that your OCD would love to have. And no amount of fretting about it is going to get you those answers. But it is going to chew up your life. It is going to take away opportunities. It is going to keep you out of the present moment.  And I think-- sorry, I'll just add two more things real quick, but I think the one thing was this idea. When I first came into treatment and they started offering mindfulness and we did a little bit of yoga, I really didn't buy that when I got started. I just thought this is not me. But by the time I left treatment, I just found mindfulness for OCD to be the most helpful practice because the reason I didn't like mindfulness at first is because I thought it was cheesy. But once I really started to buy into what my treatment team was saying, I really recognized at a very brutal level, mindfulness is just recognizing the world for what it actually is, even if I don't like it. That what I really have as a guarantee is this moment, this breath, this blinking of my eyes. And that's really all I know for sure. And as terrifying as that statement once was for me, I became much more pro-mindfulness as I became comfortable with accepting that reality about the world. Find An OCD Community And then the last thing I would say as far as paradigm shifts that really was so impactful for me in intensive treatment was just this idea that uncertainty is a burden that is best shouldered authentically with other people. And what I mean by that is group therapy just meant the world to me when I was in intensive treatment. I grew up in rural Iowa where there's a lot of stigma and talking about what I was dealing with was really hard. And so, to finally-- instead of just bury all this stuff and pretend that the world is not as uncertain as it really is and just try to get through, it was just so unbelievable to just finally be in a circle of people and we are all just admitting we are terrified of this thing called uncertainty. And I'm terrified of uncertainty related to my health. And you are terrified of uncertainty related to religion, and you are terrified of it related to whether or not you hit somebody on the way here to treatment today or whatever. And to just openly voice our fear of uncertainty. I can't even explain it, but it just created a human bond to be able to be honest with each other in that way that I never experienced just trying to bury these things and pretend that uncertainty wasn't as scary as it really was.  Self-Compassion Helps Manage Uncertainty And I think the other thing it did is it introduced me to self-compassion in a way that I hadn't really acknowledged before. There's something unbelievable about, when I talk about how much uncertainty scares me, it's so hard for me to feel empathy for myself. But as soon as I see another person across the room say it scares them, all of a sudden, it's like, where's all this empathy I have for them? When they say it affects them and, “oh, I had to drop out of college because I couldn't deal with this and I'm scared of this and that,” when I have the same story, I don't feel much compassion for myself, but when I see someone else have that story, here's all this compassion. And I walked away from that thinking like, whatever it is that makes me so sympathetic to someone else's struggles with these things, I need to find more of that for myself. Kimberley: Is that something that was the switch that went on or is that something you go in and out of being able to do that self-compassion piece? Micah: I think, if I'm being honest, it really is an in-and-out thing for me. And I think it is related to the camaraderie of other sufferers. Whenever I'm at the conference, gosh, I am like at my all-time annual self-compassion highest because it's just like, “Ah, yeah.” I remember we're all a community and it's like high school musical all over again. We're all in this together. But when I get back to Iowa and I'm not regularly rubbing shoulders with sufferers, I start comparing myself to non-sufferers a lot, and all of a sudden, this desire to be compassionate towards myself lessons. So, it's something I have to work on continually to remember that I'm dealing with something that is not easy and a lot of people aren't dealing with. And it's just, I work very hard to try to remember the feelings that well up inside of me when I hear somebody that's not me share their struggle and their recovery and do my best to be like, okay, whatever it is that wells up in me when it's somebody else, I need to work hard to feel the same way about my own journey. But it's definitely a process. Kimberley: Oh my gosh, you're on fire. These messages are so incredible. And I think it's exactly like what people need to hear. It's the pep talk they need. I want to be respectful of your time. Is there anything you want to say about your journey that you think would be helpful or that would be great for you to share? Micah: Yeah. I think the only other thing I would say, and I say this quite often, but I just think in my journey, I think early on in my journey and especially when I was coming to intensive treatment, I wanted everything to happen fast. I wanted a quick fix. I was hurting so badly that I wanted things to get better so quickly. And I think one of the things that has become a mantra for me personally in my recovery is that my recovery was definitely not immediate, but it has been and continues to be substantial. And I think that's a truth about my recovery that I've really tried to hang onto. Because I'm very much this person that I don't want to just-- when people are looking for hope in my story, I don't ever want to just say something that's hopeful if it isn't entirely true. And so, the thing I tried to say, at least I can't say what will be appropriate for someone else's recovery, but my recovery, it has not been as fast as I wanted it to be. I think it's so important to be transparent with people and say, I have suffered with this disorder far longer than I ever would've wanted to, but my life has become and is continuing to become far more than I once thought it was going to become. And so, there is that bittersweet hope in that, I think, is the most honest and encouraging thing I can say about my experience. Kimberley: You're such a shining bright light. Thank you for sharing that. I feel it. I've got goosebumps. I love when I get to interview people, I get goosebumps the whole time. I'm so grateful for you sharing all of these wisdoms that you've shared, and that's what they are. They're just such deep wisdom. Can we hear where people can hear more about you, learn about you? How can people get your stuff? Micah: Yeah. Right now, I don't have a ton going. I hope to have more going in the near future. But if people want to reach out to me on Instagram, they can find me at @mentalhealthmhe. Kimberley: Okay. So amazing. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. Micah, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you for sharing all these amazing things. Thank you. Thank you. Micah: Thank you so much for having me on. This was a wonderful conversation. Kimberley: Oh, it makes me so happy. Thank you.

My OCD tendencies. My #1 dude. Abortion, Johnny Bench behind the plate. A two year moratorium on immigration reform. In the meantime, enforce existing laws. 7-23-22 4 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/john-adams85/support

Everyone's journey to heal looks a little bit different, but it is important to have a general knowledge of what to expect as well as the beauty that comes from putting in the hard work. Alyssa pulls from both her experience as a trauma therapist and her personal experience with recovering from an eating disorder and complex PTSD to discuss patterns she has noticed as we move along in our healing journeys. Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lightaftertrauma You can also check out Alyssa at www.alyssascolari.com   Transcript:   Alyssa Scolari [00:23]: Hey friends. What's up? Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and we are going to get right into it today. So, this episode topic was actually Dave's idea. So if you don't like it, blame Dave. No, I'm kidding. But seriously, it was his idea, and it's something that I have been wanting to do for a while. And it's like, I guess I struggled with it because I feel like everybody's healing journey is different. Alyssa Scolari [01:04]: With that being said, I think through my experience as a therapist and through my own healing journeys and through having friends, and other colleagues in the field who have gone through their own healing journeys, I notice very similar patterns throughout the journey, and I wanted to talk about those today. Right? Because I think that a lot of people assume when they sign up for ... not when they sign up, but if you decide that you want to start healing, whether it's from your eating disorder or trauma or addiction, right, I think that people have this idea that when they start therapy, and this is me assuming that this is like you going to a standard once a week therapist. Right? I think people assume that when you start therapy, it only can get better from the moment you start. Alyssa Scolari [02:05]: Like once you make that decision to begin your healing process, a lot of people have this idea that it's like, "Well, things are only going to get better." And unfortunately not to burst anybody's bubble, I don't see that it works like that. It certainly didn't work like that for me. And for a lot of folks that I know, and that I have worked with who have complex trauma, that definitely has not been the case. Now, if somebody is coming in with standard PTSD, right, there's been a singular incident in which they are struggling. Yes, that certainly can be the case once you start therapy, things can get better. But what I'm talking about here is healing from complex trauma. And that process does not look like, "Oh, I started therapy and now I feel so much better." It is much, much different. Right? Alyssa Scolari [03:07]: And because a lot of people will ask us, "Well, you've been in therapy for three months, don't you feel better?" And I think those of us that perhaps live with people who don't understand complex trauma or who don't get how therapy works, we have people say things to us like, I know my mom used to say this to me, not all the time, but every once in a while, she'd be like, "Do you feel like your therapist is helping at all?" And it's just like, "I don't know how to answer that because it's not that my therapist wasn't helping, it's just that there's so much that it's hard to know, three months into therapy, if anything is helping." And that's just not what people expect. People look at it very similar to maybe going to a doctor. Right? "Well, you've been seeing this doctor for three weeks, so why hasn't your arthritis flare gone down or whatever the heck it may be?" Alyssa Scolari [04:08]: So I'm here to get pretty real and raw with you about what the healing journey actually looks like. And also just what it has looked like for me and where I'm at right now. I believe that healing is lifelong. And with that said, though, I don't believe that your suffering is lifelong. I think there is certainly happiness to be found, even if you aren't a 100% healed, because honestly, can any of us be a 100% healed? I mean, just look at what's going on in the world. Alyssa Scolari [04:43]: I think all of us have experienced collective trauma from the mass shootings, our children being gunned down, rights being taken away. Like how can we live through all this stuff? Right? A global pandemic and then say, "Oh, I'm completely healed." That's the thing about trauma, is that it doesn't go away. It's not like once we've been traumatized once, well, that's it, and we never ever experience any trauma. We will experience it down the road. And that will probably further our healing in some way. Alyssa Scolari [05:23]: Now, again, please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that you have to continue to be traumatized in order to heal. But what I'm saying is life is fucking hard. And so, you can't get to a place where you're 40 and you're like, "Oh, I've completely healed." And expect that nothing traumatizing or triggering is going to affect you for the rest of your life. I just don't think that's realistic. So, many people when they come to me and this is myself included, they don't usually walk in the office. Again, this was the case for me. I didn't walk into my therapist's office saying I have complex trauma and I need help with this. Hey, some people do do that, and that's amazing. Alyssa Scolari [06:16]: But typically, we don't even realize we have complex trauma. And instead what we think we want help with is whatever vice we have turned to to be able to cope with what we're not dealing with, with what we're not feeling, our eating disorder serves as a numbing tool. Your addiction serves as a numbing tool, whatever it may be, even I believe this, right, anxiety disorders, like OCD serves as a numbing tool. Many therapists agree with me, a lot of people, I think treat OCD as just this singular disorder that's like, you have to combat the obsessions. Right? You have to just not give in. And once you do that, then your OCD will go away. Alyssa Scolari [07:13]: I don't necessarily believe that to be true. I actually just took a training, where this woman said that, she works with OCD and she basically was like, "The only treatment for this is having people not give in to their obsessions." And yes, that is super important, but I think a lot of OCD specialists are going to say that, that need for control with OCD is almost always rooted in some kind of trauma. So, I actually don't know what the research is on that, and I will look into it, but in all of the work that I've done and just talking to other OCD specialists, that's what people would agree on. Alyssa Scolari [07:59]: So even so many disorders can be a reaction, not just eating disorders and addiction, but OCD, or perhaps social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, all of these things can likely, not always, be linked to some type of trauma. So most people, when they go into therapy, they are looking to treat the symptom of their trauma, and that symptom is another disorder. For me, it was an eating disorder. I struggled with an eating disorder, I mean, my whole life. I started counting points probably as early as eight years old, and I just struggled my entire life with ... Alyssa Scolari [08:50]: I was overweight and everybody in my family was on Weight Watchers, and everybody used to tell me that our family had a weight problem and that we needed to be dieters our whole lives. So I just thought from very early on that I needed to restrict my food intake. And then as I was older, that led to binge eating. So I would sneak food. I have this one distinct memory. I don't think I've talked about this on this podcast. I've talked about it when I was a guest on Guy Macpherson's The Trauma Therapist, but this specific memory I was really young. I can't remember how old, but I remember I took a stick of butter from the fridge and I went and hid in the garage, and I was just eating a stick of butter. Alyssa Scolari [09:43]: So, that's where all of my restriction led me as just a little kid. And so, basically I spent 20 years up a hundred pounds down, a hundred pounds every new diet. And when I would gain weight, people really ignored me. I felt super ignored and unseen, but as soon as I lost weight, everybody praised me. I was well known in my town for being this huge success story. People wanted to know how I did it, where I got the willpower from. I was fucking dying, and I wish I could go back to all those people now and tell them I was fucking dying. Alyssa Scolari [10:30]: Of course, I can't do that, but when I went into therapy, that is what I wanted help with. I wanted help on how to let go of my eating disorder. Because at that point I was binging almost daily, and I just couldn't stop myself. I felt like I had no control, and I would just pray day after day. Like, "Please let me get rid of this eating disorder." So that's how I started out. I want to get rid of this eating disorder. And over time my eating disorder started to go away. I remember sitting in my therapist's office and I would say to her like, "Why can't this eating disorder just be gone?" And she would be like, "Because it's not about the food." Alyssa Scolari [11:21]: And I would get so mad at her because I would be like, "Are you fucking dumb? Yes, it is about the food, stop fucking telling me it's not about the food." And as much as I hate to admit this, she was absolutely right. It was not about the food for me. It was about trying to numb out what I was feeling. And how I came to learn this is because I started to look at what was happening during those moments I was binge eating, and a lot of times it would be after something upsetting happened. Maybe I got yelled at by my boss, or I had a fight with my mom or things were really bad at home. And I would be sitting at the drive through, in some kind of fast food restaurant eating until I could not breathe. Alyssa Scolari [12:16]: That is how I started to learn, "Oh, okay. I don't think the problem is that I don't have willpower, I think the problem is I'm really trying to numb out." For me it was anger. I am a chronic people pleaser. Well, I'm a recovered people pleaser, but I was a people pleaser back then. And so when I had bad feelings, it was never safe for me to show them. So I stuffed my feelings down with food. At the same time, I had internalized so much fat phobia and diet culture that I hated eating. So, I would do my best then to restrict and starve, but then when I starved, it worked out for me because all of my hunger cues shut off and I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel anything in my body. Alyssa Scolari [13:16]: So I definitely couldn't feel anger or rage or depression or sadness. So I started to learn in that process that my eating disorder was deeply tied to my emotions. And that is the case for so many people, they come in with whatever disorder it is they might be struggling with. And then they start to unpack it and they start to realize the emotional ties between their disorder, their vice and their emotions. They realize that connection. Now I wish I could say that it got better from here, because it sounds great. You're like, "Oh, wonderful. I realized I made this connection. Well, now I can just heal." But it actually doesn't work like that in my experience, this is where things get really hard. Alyssa Scolari [14:10]: In terms of a timeline, it's really hard to give a timeline, because everybody is so different. For me, it happened probably a year into therapy. For the people that I work with, it usually takes a couple of months. So it's really different for everybody, and I can't give a timeline, unfortunately, but it does start getting harder because then what happens is, people start to let go of their defenses or their vices. Alyssa Scolari [14:48]: And I started to let go of my eating disorder. I started to become more in tune for the first time in probably 20 years, I started to become more in tune with my emotions. And now this is also what happens with so many of the people that I work with. They start to become more in tune with their feelings, and it feels like the pits of hell. And I don't even think that is an exaggeration. If you have been through it, you understand, because you're letting go of your coping mechanism. Alyssa Scolari [15:24]: And so now all that's there are the feelings that you have been running from for however long. And so it doesn't feel like, "Oh, yay. I'm in touch with my feelings again." It feels like, "Oh my God, these emotions are going to kill me." And I think that that's actually understandable because your brain is just trying to keep you alive. Your brain is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Kiss your brain, that is what my husband's old boss always used to say, "Kiss your brain, kiss your brain." And my husband now says it to me all the time. If I'm having a really bad day and I'm like, "Ah, I wish I didn't have a traumatized brain." He'll be like, "You kiss your brain." Alyssa Scolari [16:02]: Because my brain has worked so hard to keep me alive, and so has yours. It is a beautiful thing that your brain does where it blocks out feelings because those feelings are so intense that we feel like they're going to kill us. Now, they're not going to, especially if you are in a place where you are surrounded with support and safety. Right? If you have a therapist who is well versed in trauma, then you are okay, as long as you have a good connection with this therapist. Alyssa Scolari [16:32]: I had a therapist who was well versed in trauma, and it was a fucking nightmare. That was before, I now have two therapists, as many of you know, because I'm doing EMDR right now. And both of my therapists are the bomb. So anyway, this is when things get really difficult. You might find yourself really depressed, you might find yourself crying all the time, you might find yourself fully in touch with a rage that feels so intense. It feels like you might lose your mind. This is where coping skills are so effective. Alyssa Scolari [17:12]: I hate when therapists just talk about coping skills being the be all end all therapy, learn some coping skills. Because if you are not allowing yourself to feel your feelings and truly feel them, then you are honestly not going to really need those coping skills, because you're never going to let go of your eating disorder or your addiction. Right? Coping skills when it comes to complex trauma recovery are crucial when you let go of your other disorders or your other vices and become fully in touch with your emotions. Because at this point, what you're doing is you've shifted from eating disorder recovery or addiction and you have now shifted into trauma work. You are now taking a look at all of the people in your life and the patterns and the behaviors that have led up to this point. And it can feel so overwhelming. Alyssa Scolari [18:22]: I know we've talked about this before. Some people don't even remember until they start doing the trauma work. And then they have all of these new memories that come to the surface and they learn things that they weren't even sure really happened, maybe they might have thought happened, but they always told themselves, "No, there's no way that happened." It's learning about your past and seeing it in a much different light. And it is absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking and infuriating, and sometimes it feels like there's nothing you can do, but sit back and watch the last, I don't know, let's say 30 years of your life unfolds in a way you've never seen it unfold before. Alyssa Scolari [19:13]: And I say this not because I want to deter you from making the decision to heal, it is the best decision ever. I say this because I want there to be realistic expectations about what it is like. In fact, when people start to get fully in touch with their trauma and the feelings behind it, oftentimes those defenses or those vices or those other disorders will come back tenfold, because your brain is just doing what it knows how to do best, which is protect you. So my brain, right, let's say like my eating disorder and my OCD, because those are two of my vices, that is what always comes back to the surface. Through EMDR right now, I am processing memories. Alyssa Scolari [20:05]: I've talked about EMDR in previous episodes, it's been awesome so far. I'm still very new at it. So, I will talk more about it. But when I am getting in touch with a lot of these little childhood memories, I will notice that my OCD will spike through the roof. Like last night I was having a literal knock on wood. If you've seen the movie, Encanto, and you've seen Bruno is his name, and you've seen like he will knock on wood at different parts of the movie. That can be a part of OCD, and that certainly is for me, I have to knock on wood when I have a thought. And like last night I was knocking on wood because I kept having all of these thoughts. And I was like, "Man, this is getting bad." Alyssa Scolari [20:59]: My OCD popped back up because I was processing a really painful childhood memory, and my brain was like, "What are you doing? We don't think of this stuff. We don't feel these feelings. I'm going to need you to stop, and I'm going to distract you from these feelings with this OCD." And for people with eating disorders, it's the same thing. Once people start to get fully in touch with their trauma and the pain that comes with that, I often see them they'll come into my office and they'll be like, "I've been thinking about stepping on the scale again, or I've been thinking about starting a new diet, or I need to get myself to the gym more often." And it's all distraction. It's all distraction to help you really manage or avoid the pain that you're feeling about the other stuff that is going on. Alyssa Scolari [21:58]: So, it gets worse before it gets better, because this is the point in your healing journey, where you no longer can avoid knowing about your past and maybe some family stuff, but you also are just afraid to move forward. And it can be a really sticky time for folks. It was a really sticky time for me. And unfortunately, when I was at this place, I didn't have a therapist who was safe, and this therapist was pushing me in ways that I should have never been pushed. And I almost lost my life in the process quite literally. Alyssa Scolari [22:38]: So, I can't emphasize enough the importance of being with somebody that you truly feel safe with and somebody who isn't going to push you, is going to meet you exactly where you're at. Unless of course, you're engaging in behaviors that could end your life, then yeah, your therapist is going to need to push you. But when I say push, I mean, your therapist should not be pushing you to talk about memories or family stuff. If you ever have a therapist that says, "You got to talk about this stuff in order to feel better." No, you do not. If your therapist says that, get up and walk right the fuck out. Because that is what was told to me and forcing myself to speak about things prematurely, literally almost took my life away. Alyssa Scolari [23:25]: So, just a little caveat there, but yeah, this is when it gets difficult. This is when it gets really, really hard, but you can get through it because this is when you learn, A, coping skills, but B, how to be your own best friend advocate and parent. A lot of us with complex trauma, we look back on our childhoods and we are devastated because we see that there was nobody there for us. But what we do through this next part of the healing process is we learn how to be there for ourselves. We learn how to be the hero we always needed. So this part, isn't all doom and gloom, yet it's really hard, but we learn how to save ourselves. And that is the most empowering thing in the whole world. Alyssa Scolari [24:30]: Over time, your grief shifts, it transforms. At first this grief feels all consuming and it feels like it's going to suck you up into a black hole of despair. I can promise you, it does not stay that way. As long as you don't fight it, you will move through it. I made the mistake of fighting it time and time and time again, for years, I have fought my grief. I've run from my grief and from the feelings of abandonment. And the more I ran, the more my body acted out. Right? If it wasn't my eating disorder, it was my endometriosis. It was an autoimmune disease. I was just holding all of this stuff in my body, because I was too afraid to feel it. Alyssa Scolari [25:23]: And then I made the decision that enough is enough, and that I have to move forward and I have taken my pain and I have shifted it from this big black hole of despair to something that I can actually do something with, in the form of being able to help other people, in the form of being a voice for the voiceless, being an advocate, being an ally, I have taken my pain and I have used it to help others, but I have also taken my pain and I have used it to make my own family. And what I mean by that is like, I have taken what I have been through and I have become better because of it. I have decided that I am going to give myself the life now that I always deserved. Alyssa Scolari [26:23]: I am only going to have people in my life who I can communicate appropriate with. I will not engage with people who abuse me. I will create safety. I will have a family of my own, and I will raise my child so that she or he, or they feels so safe and never once questions if I love them, if I believe in them. And I'm not saying you have to go on and have children in order to heal, because my healing has come and I don't have children, it's come because I have cultivated a space of safety. I wake up every day and I look at my life and I think, "God damn Alyssa, look at how far you've come." Alyssa Scolari [27:09]: From feeling like the pain was so bad that I didn't want to live anymore, from six years ago when my husband and I met, I had an eating disorder. I was so sick with anorexia that when he would cook for me, I would sob because I didn't know how much salt he put in the food. I would induce, vomiting all the time. I was an over exerciser, and I look at my life today and I think, "Damn, I don't worry about that anymore." I wake up, I enjoy breakfast. I have coffee. When he cooks for me, it's a great day. I go out to eat and I don't panic. I know that he is safe. I know that I am in a safe home. I have surrounded myself with everything that I love that makes me happy. I have learned how to be my own best friend and my own parent. And I have a picture of little me in the mirror, in my bedroom, and I check in with her every so often. Alyssa Scolari [28:15]: "Hey, how you Dylan, are you doing okay?" And if we're not doing okay, what can I do for her? What can I do with eight year old me? That is where you get to, when you get through the darkest of the healing process. It absolutely gets worse before it gets better, but I promise you when it gets better, it gets so good. I am able to do things that I never thought I would live long enough to do. And yes, there are times when I struggle. Right now, EMDR not going to lie. I'm struggling. And I'll say just a word about that. You do not have to do EMDR in order to heal and get better. Right? I have worked with loads of people, I am not an EMDR specialist, I have worked with loads of people who have achieved healing while not doing EMDR. Alyssa Scolari [29:11]: And the reason I'm doing it is because I notice that my nervous system, despite all of my healing, is completely out of whack. And what I mean by that is this, I have come a long way in the fact that I know that I'm safe, and if something happens, I know I'm okay. I used to get really, really scared if my husband would get angry and he's not at all a rager, but he's entitled to get pissed off every once in a while. Like we all do. But because I'm so afraid of angry people, or I was so afraid of angry people, I would get really, really triggered. And my nervous system would just go through the roof. Like my heart would start racing. I would start sweating. I wouldn't be able to breathe. I would want to cry. Alyssa Scolari [30:04]: And in my brain consciously, I knew everything was fine. I would be so frustrated with myself because I would be like, "It's literally not a big deal that he's getting mad." But my body didn't understand that, my body was off to the races, I was in fight or flight mode and I could not calm down. And I know it's not good for my body, right, to constantly have my nervous system on edge, to constantly have my cortisol levels spiking. I knew it was really bad for my body. So, I wanted to do something about that, and EMDR is a really great way to just rewire the brain a little bit and get the right brain talking to the left side of the brain and make it so that I am not so hypervigilant and so reactive. Alyssa Scolari [30:53]: So that is why I have decided to further my healing journey with EMDR. Not everybody has to do that, not everybody needs it. I think it is amazing. But it's really a personal decision. So, along the way, right, there's going to be so many little caveats, and nobody's healing journey is the same, but this is a pattern that I often see with myself and with people I work with, where you come in to treat a more surface level disorder. And then as you treat that, you start to get more in touch with the trauma that's behind the disorder. And then we start the grieving process, and really start learning how to best take care of yourself. Especially given the fact that you weren't cared for, right, when you were younger, if you have complex trauma. Alyssa Scolari [31:53]: And once you're able to do that, you are frigging unstoppable because you know that at the end of the day, the safest place is you. And for so many trauma survivors, when we start therapy, we don't feel safe at all. We spend our whole lives trying to escape our bodies. But at the other end is this beautiful, beautiful concept that you are so at home in your body and you are so safe, and paradise and peace is you. Alyssa Scolari [32:33]: So, I hope that this has been helpful to at least give you a brief outline. I mean, not brief. Right? This is like 40 minutes. But to talk a little bit about the process, like what can you expect out of healing? It hurts like hell. But I mean, I can't help, but sit here and smile as I say this, because I just think of my own journey, and I think like, "Damn, I saved my own life." And as a result, I get to help so many other people, and I also get to enjoy spending time with myself. Alyssa Scolari [33:09]: I get to enjoy nurturing younger me. I get to spend the rest of my life taking care of the child in me. And I want to, because I love her, and you can do the same. So if you are in the pits of it right now, I need you to hang on, I need you to tie it, not in your rope and I need you to hang on, because if there was anything that I wish I could go back and tell myself even six years ago, it is that, it doesn't stay like this forever. And the other side is, it's almost the equivalent to seeing the world in colors that I just couldn't see before. Alyssa Scolari [33:56]: I appreciate everything so much more now, and you can too, and I want nothing but the best for all of you. Hang in, hold on, love yourself through this. You're going to make it. I know it. I love you, I am holding you in the light, and I will see you next week. Alyssa Scolari [34:20]: Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

Pastor Bill: [0:00] Hello and welcome to season 3 episode 77 of the Green Man.   Intro And Outro Music   Pastor Bill: [0:08] And love for the modern Christian I'm Pastor Bill and I'm joined by always with year to Freshly head shaven this guy this guy's here.   Pastor Newms: [0:18] We should should we try again.   Pastor Bill: [0:19] No I don't want you to get this guy's here.   Pastor Newms: [0:21] Just that just that back part I'm joined as always, we're not we're joined a lot but we're definitely not joined to always.   Pastor Bill: [0:34] As always by he's right here if the show in part of the show you are and here is you right here.   Pastor Newms: [0:41] Who is it tonight's going to be like this all right.   Pastor Bill: [0:45] Tonight is all week has been like this man all week has been my brain all week has been just like that's a good example of what it's been like in my head all week long.   Pastor Newms: [0:54] So how has your week gone since we've already.   Pastor Bill: [0:57] That just like that all week long it's been like that it started on, the words just were wrong from the get-go, and it never went uphill from there you just mentally just like was like yeah yeah yeah, so how was your week.   Pastor Newms: [1:21] Lucas pretty good busy at work like always lots of stuff going on lots of projects so many projects, I was was I something why didn't I are we I was still coughing and stuff still trying to get over the crud, Phoenix I finally asked her if she had any Mucinex and it just cleared up in a day after she of course had some and, Biggs is saying it twice.   Pastor Bill: [1:58] I know Biggs really wants to call it, all right so I guess we'll do that so the first weekend in June we are going to be ministering at Pride Dallas Pride, and we will have shirts like this one for sale the one that I'm wearing if you are listening to this and you want to see the shirt then you'll have to hop on over to, you know what actually I could just attach a picture of the shirt on to the podcast.   [2:30] Transcription so they already can see it if you listen to it right so it's got a circle of Ampersand symbols in different rainbow colors you says fully known fully loved, responding to God's love.com first John Chapter 4 verses 9 through 10 and Isaiah 44:24 this is the theme fully known fully loved is the theme of all of the March that will have, pride and then we'll have you know we'll be there in our Free Hug shirts giving out free hugs and well, we'll have a brief Manifesto little section and we'll have a gaming with the pastor section will have the merch section and, it's going to be a good time where we're going to love on folks so, this week I'm wearing this shirt next week I'll wear a different pattern of one of the shirts were selling and then the next week oh we're different pattern and the next few cars are better and then the last Sunday before Pride I'll actually Where My Free Hug sure.   Pastor Newms: [3:28] Or we just wear all of them at once just like arm arm over your face.   Pastor Bill: [3:34] This is this is not an episode of Friends that's.   Pastor Newms: [3:39] I don't know what you're talking about.   Pastor Bill: [3:40] So this episode of Friends where um one either Chandler Chandler Joey Chandler Chandler sleeps with Joey's girlfriend, I think that's what it was anyway Joey goes into Chandler's closet and puts on every piece of clothing the channel owns all at the same time, and then comes across the hall into the girl's apartment where they're all hanging out and he's like you do this to me I'm going to wear all your clothes at the same time and tenders like how is that even.   [4:25] Or maybe you just kissed his girlfriend anyway it was an overreaction but yeah he was wearing all of all of Chandler's closing all the same time.   Pastor Newms: [4:34] I was thinking it was an under reaction but okay.   Pastor Bill: [4:36] And he was like and he was like could I be any more overdressed no mocking Chandler's thanks okay obviously you were not a friend an avid friends fan.   Pastor Newms: [4:50] No we my aunt's were definitely huge is it my wait for a car to your Weaver card.   Pastor Bill: [5:04] It's definitely my week for a card.   Pastor Newms: [5:22] How's it going you going to finish it at or I have to.   Pastor Bill: [5:25] My little groggy get addicted to do do do.   Pastor Newms: [5:32] That's fun okay.   Pastor Bill: [5:33] All right I will pull the card not just any card the next card.   Pastor Newms: [5:39] Get to know the pastor's.   Pastor Bill: [5:41] Groggy says his parents liked friends I think you guys are trying to insult me you were saying your aunt's he's saying his parents I'm like I'm not that old guys I'm only a few years older than you are.   Pastor Newms: [5:53] 17 I agree.   Pastor Bill: [5:56] 17   Pastor Newms: [5:57] Yeah you're 17 years older than I am.   Pastor Bill: [6:01] I'm not 17 years old.   Pastor Newms: [6:04] Yes you are a true like 97.   Pastor Bill: [6:05] All right you ready.   Pastor Newms: [6:11] No I'm never ready for your card.   Pastor Bill: [6:14] What's one bad habit you're trying to get rid of.   Pastor Newms: [6:34] I don't think I'm actively trying to get rid of any habits, I don't think.   [6:47] I don't think so I don't think I'm actively getting rid of anything.   Pastor Bill: [6:55] It's not going to actually try and get rid of any bad habits.   Pastor Newms: [6:58] I don't think I am right now what about you.   Pastor Bill: [7:05] Bad habits.   Pastor Newms: [7:06] I think we're going to pull another card I think this one doesn't work for us.   Pastor Bill: [7:14] I forget to eat until my wife or one of my kids reminds me that Foods a thing so that counts a bad habit today.   Pastor Newms: [7:22] Are you actively trying to not do that.   Pastor Bill: [7:25] No I guess we'll pull another car.   Pastor Newms: [7:28] I won't consider eating sugar a bad habit that's an addiction slightly different.   Pastor Bill: [7:35] How would you like to die that sounds like the weird start to a Tinder conversation.   Pastor Newms: [7:47] How would I like to die.   [7:53] Can everyone hear my chair squeaking when I'm rocking back and forth.   Pastor Bill: [7:57] I cannot hear your chair know.   Pastor Newms: [8:00] I think it's actually like bouncing up and down the green bar when I do it because I was just thinking and I saw it hmm interesting.   Pastor Bill: [8:08] How would I like to die.   Pastor Newms: [8:11] I mean realistically, I would like to die quick pain painless when I'm asleep like you know just out is what I'm going to say for our podcast that goes out to everyone, yeah that's what I'm going to say for our podcast church night.   Pastor Bill: [8:49] I don't care how I just get it over with.   Pastor Newms: [8:52] I do I will I will say quickly in both ways, both on the timescale and in as it's happening I've always had a very much a, Paul belief of die is gain, if I have to be here it's just because of, no no I would not want to die in a battle axe dual because my fear would be one, you probably die slowly bleeding.   Pastor Bill: [9:30] So that came from bat-brains on YouTube the battle ax dual suggestion that newms is responding to.   Pastor Newms: [9:39] I couldn't it's always like to kill someone it's not how I would like to die it'd be very painful slowly getting hacked up it would be epic yes.   Pastor Bill: [9:51] Hear why it's gonna die of cholesterol buildup this is currently eating a bag of Rolos.   [10:11] That's funny.   Pastor Newms: [10:13] All right yeah that's too bad questions for you.   Pastor Bill: [10:19] Yeah dude should I pull the third card now or.   Pastor Newms: [10:21] Sure because.   Pastor Bill: [10:22] Just going to keep this big going.   Pastor Newms: [10:23] We we've wasted four minutes exactly and no one knows us any better other than we're both not working on any bad habits and want to die easily I mean that's kind of weird dudes that's not exactly.   Pastor Bill: [10:37] Weird dudes.   Pastor Newms: [10:39] Why are you putting cards back over and over again.   Pastor Bill: [10:41] Huh.   Pastor Newms: [10:45] Anyone who's watching can see you your chair is higher now.   Pastor Bill: [10:49] We talking about.   [10:58] I'm just trying to find a good one.   Pastor Newms: [11:00] Pick a card.   Pastor Bill: [11:01] I'm picking the card I have to read them if I will pick one.   Pastor Newms: [11:06] Oh we're going to get through your deck tonight if you keep flipping cards like that you're crazy you're crazy.   [11:22] All right you're done you're done.   Pastor Bill: [11:24] Play you in a movie.   Pastor Newms: [11:24] Circle you're back to the beginning of your cards we've pulled that card before.   Pastor Bill: [11:35] Because then all these other cards I would have recognized that come after it which I do every last one of them.   Pastor Newms: [11:46] Yeah okay so.   Pastor Bill: [11:47] We've gone through this whole deck so for the ones I skipped.   Pastor Newms: [11:52] If you were writing an autobiography if you were writing an autobiography what would the book's title be besides your name.   Pastor Bill: [12:02] Life sucks and then you die.   Pastor Newms: [12:06] I once told people mine would just be Hoops still here.   Pastor Bill: [12:12] I'm still here.   Pastor Newms: [12:16] Living extremely Reckless for several years and then just Hoops till here.   Pastor Bill: [12:22] Living extremely extremely Reckless wreck Ritz.   Pastor Newms: [12:27] That I just I don't know I don't know how I'm here oops let's figure it out.   Pastor Bill: [12:39] You still here don't know how I did that but I did it.   Pastor Newms: [12:43] Oops still here what about you billion oh life sucks and then you die.   Pastor Bill: [12:50] Yeah life sucks and then you die the autobiography of William Andrew Shay.   Pastor Newms: [12:57] Alright alright alright, I didn't know she was in here that scared me Kai's usually not in my office and so her bark made me jump.   Pastor Bill: [13:12] I think Biggs would be it was not an accident.   Pastor Newms: [13:16] Next.   Pastor Bill: [13:17] The life.   Pastor Newms: [13:18] The song is your life insurance doesn't know that that's good.   Pastor Bill: [13:23] The last story of David Biggs holding it was not an accident.   Pastor Newms: [13:27] Yeah oops.   [13:41] Now listening to my wife try to coax the dog quietly while Whispering from the end of the room is.   Pastor Bill: [13:49] What about Justin Timberlake.   Pastor Newms: [13:51] Alright okay.   Pastor Bill: [13:54] His would be it's going to be met the autobiography of Justin Timberlake.   Pastor Newms: [14:00] It's going to be me wow all right so straight into the topic here we go because we are done getting to know each other not tonight.   Pastor Bill: [14:10] All right so we're still in Acts I had a little bit of a moment this week where I thought we were going to be in first Timothy but then after about an hour of study I realized, it was an intrusive thought or something I don't know what it was but it wasn't the topic for tonight.   Pastor Newms: [14:29] Maybe it was just something to get your mind working for a later topic.   Pastor Bill: [14:33] Maybe it's weird though because it was the one about physical exercise and I don't really do that already so yeah Total Physical.   Pastor Newms: [14:41] Not doing it.   Pastor Bill: [14:42] Profiteth little, it was about you know you shouldn't be wasting your time on honing the gains because it profiteth little, I said that right is up the way bodybuilders talk the gains all right.   Pastor Newms: [15:04] It depends on your need for gains and why you're getting gains whether it would profit little or not if that your only thing is to look sexy yeah probably.   Pastor Bill: [15:13] Almost everything you just said went over my head so.   Pastor Newms: [15:17] Okay it's been that kind of week two.   Pastor Bill: [15:22] We're in Acts chapter 2 and we're going to be looking at verses 42 through 47 so let's start there, they have a whoo, they that early church because in the verse before this he talked about that day about three thousand people were added to them to the Believers, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer.   [15:57] Everyone is filled with awe and Many Wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles, now all the Believers were together and held all things in common they sold their possessions and property and distributed, the proceeds all as any had need every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house they ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people every Lord added to their number those who were being saved, and once again we have to keep in mind that those that are being added to their number are solely Jews at this, they this none of these are Gentiles none of these are non, descendants of Israel there these are all Jews because they didn't believe that salvation in the Holy Spirit, were for the Gentiles yet they believed it was still only for the Jews and that salvation wasn't for the Gentiles, which is kind of a.   [17:13] I don't know it's kind of a rough rough thing to consolidate in your head that they're like yeah we need to save as many Jews as possible so that, in the resurrection, they'll be found worthy of Eternity with God and everyone else is going to go to the pits of Tartarus and and live in torment and because for all eternity because it's not for them it's just for us, the worldview man The worldview Who.   Pastor Newms: [17:44] It's definitely an interesting world view yes, and I think it's one of those where it's like okay and that's why I think when the Revelation was given later that it was for everyone it was very much like a oh my gosh, oh crud why didn't I think about that you know I oh we should have known that like that that should have been obvious.   Pastor Bill: [18:15] Cuz you could you could convert him to come and you, and so then I guess technically you would qualify for what the disciples and the apostles thought about salvation.   Pastor Newms: [18:32] Technically.   Pastor Bill: [18:34] Technically.   Pastor Newms: [18:36] It would be a definitely a very interesting thought process definitely the, one of the things I always find to be interesting with situations like that is is is those moments where, I come to Jesus moment where it's like, oh oh I was so wrong oh crud I've been wrong for years and years oh crud I don't know what I'm doing now you know and, having that aspect is it would definitely be sombering to say the least because it's like oh no, you got it you got it you got to worry about you gotta wonder I mean how, worried Peter and and Paul and just everybody was at that moment going, oh no we've missed out for a little while now like this wasn't like two or three days.   Pastor Bill: [19:39] I just think it's funny to put myself in their in their shoes, Peter has this Revelation from God that salvation is for everyone later in Acts and we'll know we'll get there eventually, and he comes back and he's like hey did you guys realize this was for everyone and their response it doesn't record it quite like this but their response is we're so glad James took over for you as the leader of the church, man that could not have happened soon enough you are crazy bro that is some next-level crazy.   Pastor Newms: [20:17] And then it's like oh wait crowd he's right.   Pastor Bill: [20:18] And then it's slowly they're like oh that actually makes sense hey James did you know this and James is probably like, yeah I was with Jesus Peter you were with Jesus too how come you didn't understand I'm Peter.   Pastor Newms: [20:36] I'm Peter.   Pastor Bill: [20:38] You want to know how to knit a net I can tell you that you want to know how to catch fish I can tell you that.   Pastor Newms: [20:43] I'm really good at cutting off ears.   Pastor Bill: [20:45] I got some sword skills but man.   Pastor Newms: [20:49] Clean cut clean cut.   Pastor Bill: [20:50] This theology stuff I'm still getting there man.   Pastor Newms: [20:53] It definitely, it's one of those where and we've talked about this before it truly shows the, fact that as Christians as people as humans we are allowed to grow, there are times when we're wrong there are times when we're right there are times when we're right but wrong, like when you when you got the right thing but you got it at the wrong time or the wrong situation or the wrong person you know there are you know, it's interesting when you look at things like that because it's like oh snot.   Pastor Bill: [21:38] And then it's definitely one of those major themes of the book of Acts that they grew and they learned and they changed I mean heck Paul goes from going by Saul and, literally holding people's coats so they can throw stones at a stoning to killing Christians himself to becoming a Christian, and asking people to call him by his Jewish name instead of his Roman name Paul and says salt.   Pastor Newms: [22:13] Oh you started fading out.   Pastor Bill: [22:17] Um that's that's some major growth.   Pastor Newms: [22:22] So Pastor Bill is trying to say something but we're not sure what that is and he's Frozen with a great look on his face.   Pastor Bill: [22:28] I said that's a major growth Arc right there.   Pastor Newms: [22:32] Yeah we got going so it was going from holding coats to killing himself too, robot robot robot robot robot silence Frozen robot robot what I said was so.   Pastor Bill: [22:50] Becoming a Christian and going by his Jewish name instead of his Roman name Paul instead of salt, that's a major growth Arc.   Pastor Newms: [23:07] And and the church themselves it's interesting to see often, you know where it started where it's at it appears the big two bigs took a screenshot of it I didn't this time.   Pastor Bill: [23:24] You guys and your screenshots.   Pastor Newms: [23:28] Only when you're that Frozen because it's just fun, it's interesting to see some of the, changes, as the church grew and as people, we're given Revelations and were learning things and more you know it's interesting to see, that growth and then it's interesting to see what didn't change you know some things didn't, and the understanding of certain things as the books are written in as you know when you look at, the gospels and then you look at the early church and then you look at the early church but slightly later they're definitely different themes and.   Pastor Bill: [24:24] As far as the church is concerned I mean hear their meeting everyday, it going to the temple to have a meals together and they do this is a daily thing that they're doing and then later you know Paul gets saved, Paul Works serves in the church for 18 years before he think of that in the ministry on his own and then we see in his writings he start to referencing things that the church wasn't doing before like meeting on the first day of the week, to have a service and not so much meaning everyday anymore they're doing their normal lives every day they're just getting together on the first day of the week, and you know doing Ministry to each other the first day of the week instead of being together everyday, so it's interesting that within that first two decades or so, they went from we're all in we're kind of share everything we have and everything belongs to everybody and we're going to sell all we have and and you know be one body and then within two years within 20 years, um they more resembled just the weekly Church like we have now, and that's just really really interesting I don't even want to call that growth I want to call that, complacency Maybe.   Pastor Newms: [25:52] I want to call it.   Pastor Bill: [25:54] Because while they were being hunted they were so meaning every day and then once Christianity became mainstream they dropped it to start it only meeting once a week.   Pastor Newms: [26:06] I think it's also just the aspect of.   [26:14] Lifestyles and making disciples and bringing people in, there is a time of well now what.   Pastor Bill: [26:34] It almost gets that pyramid scheme.   Pastor Newms: [26:36] Yeah.   Pastor Bill: [26:37] Vibe of unsustainability you know, like we came in we saw everything we had now I have nothing left to contribute or meeting every day I'm not making an income to contribute we're all literally just living off of the incomes of the new people that come in when they then sell everything they have, okay.   Pastor Newms: [26:56] And so it's definitely it's definitely at a certain point where you go okay we have to you know, there are some people who should be spending all of their time studying and I and you know that's when you start to get the church hierarchies that's when you start to get the you know all of those aspects.   Pastor Bill: [27:22] And they did two at the beginning they had that whole everything is everybody, point of view if we look at Acts chapter 4 starting in verse 32 now the entire group of those who believed were one heart and mind and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common, with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was on all of them, for there was not a needy person among them because all those who own lands or houses sold them brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid them at the apostles feet, this was then distributed to each person as any had need Joseph A levite from Cyprus by birth the one the apostles called Barnabas this is the guy that later than goes, Paul, to some Ministry which is translated son of encouragement sold a field he owned brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet, and that was a common thing for them to do but yeah completely unsustainable.   Pastor Newms: [28:37] Cuz you get to a point where all right where are we living.   Pastor Bill: [28:49] I mean understand we can we can make a farm we can you know maybe so.   Pastor Newms: [28:54] Not if we sold all the.   Pastor Bill: [28:55] From the farm but where are we going to get the land we yeah we sold the land.   Pastor Newms: [28:59] Yeah we sold all our land we sold all our.   Pastor Bill: [29:01] Yeah so like.   Pastor Newms: [29:03] It does get to a point where you're like.   Pastor Bill: [29:06] So this whole argument where people like we you know the first church was they were socialists they were communists.   Pastor Newms: [29:12] Well now.   [29:19] I will say though they continued in taking care of the weak and the sick and the Widow you know that part wasn't and we as the modern Church, you know some churches are getting back to it, we clear a lot of churches are doing really good work but there for a long time the church as a whole, that went straight to the Wayside.   Pastor Bill: [29:49] But even here in the early church when they realized it wasn't sustainable, and yeah nobody had any meat that's great but it was completely unsustainable even then while James is still on the scene right because we've talked about the higher art the leadership of the church, Peter James then Paul before Paul took over while James is still a myth you know leading the church, he boils it down and says you know what we're to take care of Orphans and widows, that's it everybody else is on your own go figure it out.   Pastor Newms: [30:24] And it's because you know it's sustainability you know if everyone sells their property where we sleeping everyone hanging out at the apostles house are they did they sell theirs if everyone.   Pastor Bill: [30:36] Well they did have by the time Paul was converted they were all on the run which nobody owned anything so they could be on the Run, um so you know the Holy Spirit worked it out in their favor in that manner but they basically lived in these giant tent settlements they would set up these tents that could all just be broken down thrown on their back and moved at a moment's notice, and they taught started teaching everyone how to make.   [31:11] And they would make the tents and they would sell the tents and so it kind of you know they started learning a trade, and this is where you hear about Paul being a tentmaker and the whole Tent Maker anointing and all you're going to be a Ministry you got to be a tentmaker you meaning you can't be full-time Ministry you have to have a job to to support, being in Ministry you got you're going to be a 10 maker you got to you got to be making an income, which again you don't want to be a burden on Believers and at the same time, some people are called to full-time Ministry and they are due pay, it's a thing now are they do millions of dollars pay year, probably not I say probably because that's really none of my business that's between them and God probably not are they do hundreds of thousands a year maybe depending on the size of the church, you know what workers worth is wage and so they just have to fill that out with you know between them and their board and and with the Lord and figure out you know, yeah is a tentmaker type thing is this a is this the thing where the church can pay you and so yeah.   [32:37] I try to be nobody wants to buy my chance well very few people want to buy my tents so but that's neither here nor there, which people wanted to buy my tents I'm a committed tentmaker.   Pastor Newms: [32:59] You do work hard when there's work.   Pastor Bill: [33:00] When there's work to be done oh man I don't, I don't get it why so I have such a hard time getting hired Greg he says he'll buy a tent thank you groggy I appreciate it but I don't think you can afford my tents anyway no junk.   Pastor Newms: [33:27] You know I was.   Pastor Bill: [33:28] I don't literally make tents let's let's just put that out there not a.   Pastor Newms: [33:34] Tent from you if you were making a tense in actuality I'm clear on that I support you and so many you know best friend ways I'm buying a tent, trust I might from from your from from from Bad Brains like nice crocheted.   Pastor Bill: [33:52] Crocheted take you know that wouldn't keep anything out weather-wise I mean you be warm you definitely be warm in there but if it started raining.   Pastor Newms: [34:01] Now that's for the inside of the regular 10.   Pastor Bill: [34:06] I'll just make a crochet 10 that go on the inside of the tent as if tents aren't hot enough already.   Pastor Newms: [34:12] And then and then you put one on the outside to be pretty.   Pastor Bill: [34:15] Oh my goodness.   Pastor Newms: [34:16] Yeah igloo.   Pastor Bill: [34:20] How many thousands of dollars that would cost to crochet.   Pastor Newms: [34:22] I will I will let bat-brains do that math for me and tell me at some point when she wants to but.   Pastor Bill: [34:34] So many schemes of yarn so many.   Pastor Newms: [34:37] So many the I had something it was good.   Pastor Bill: [34:50] You were going to say something.   Pastor Newms: [34:52] But it's definitely like a situation like the Ecclesia house you know we don't have any paid staff currently.   Pastor Bill: [35:02] All right well while you're trying to remember what you were going to say oh wait I guess I'm frozen.   Pastor Newms: [35:05] I remember are you frozen again oh he's Frozen again he doesn't exist he can't hear my good idea.   Pastor Bill: [35:13] He's trying to figure out what he was going to say but while he's Frozen.   Pastor Newms: [35:15] A good one and he doesn't just.   Pastor Bill: [35:16] Um here on the podcast you should go read Acts chapter 5 about what happens when, you lie to the Holy Spirit and then.   Pastor Newms: [35:29] He's almost back he's robot.   Pastor Bill: [35:31] For it so.   Pastor Newms: [35:33] He's almost back.   Pastor Bill: [35:35] Am I back on the line.   Pastor Newms: [35:37] He's almost back.   Pastor Bill: [35:38] No I'm not back on the live at all I just lost.   Pastor Newms: [35:40] Maybe nope he's still gone sadly.   Pastor Bill: [35:44] Should go read acts 5 about and a nice and Sapphira they sold a piece of land and then they keep back a portion of it and.   Pastor Newms: [35:57] Can y'all hear him and just I can't hear him.   Pastor Bill: [35:59] To give that portion I am back on the line I was just telling the podcast about, go ahead and read an X5 to follow up with what we're talking about tonight about selling all you have and giving and ananias and Sapphira you know making a sale, and yeah and then lying about it.   Pastor Newms: [36:21] Yeah not a good idea.   Pastor Bill: [36:21] My restream chat and give just completely.   Pastor Newms: [36:26] What you're having some internet hiccups you're definitely having some internet issues at the moment, one thing I was thinking and this was just something that I came to me when I was in conversation with I don't remember whom today I talked to a lot of people today, we need to after the event we need to put up some of the shirts and stuff for people to buy.   Pastor Bill: [37:02] Yes.   Pastor Newms: [37:04] That needs to be I know you have a personal store but we should set up a, either a church store or it goes to your personal I don't know how that any of that stuff kind of works I don't do any type of Commerce but now I was talking to two bigs about it at lunch.   [37:31] Yeah.   Pastor Bill: [37:34] And this is everyone's least favorite design of everyone that I pulled that's why I started with this one tonight you know start with the least favorite and get onto the favorites after that.   Pastor Newms: [37:47] I'm going to be honest I didn't like it looking at it, in Black in camera it's not as bad as just the design.   Pastor Bill: [38:03] Yeah.   Pastor Newms: [38:14] But.   [38:18] I think that it's actually not as bad as I thought it was.   Pastor Bill: [38:26] As I'm a good bottle.   Pastor Newms: [38:27] Biggs that's that's exactly what it is good job.   Pastor Bill: [38:30] It's how big the canvas is that I create to show off the it's the wide canvas aspect.   Pastor Newms: [38:40] What is just a small picture it's not any good but on a full-size canvas it's.   Pastor Bill: [38:45] Full size canvas like my chest, right so this week go read chapter 5 of X find out about ananias and Sapphira, and then I sells the they sell the property and then and then he brings the money but he lies to the Holy Spirit and it's not about, when you read it it's not about, whether or not they gave one hundred percent of the sale price it's about the fact that they said yes it's 100% And then it actually wasn't.   Pastor Newms: [39:23] Yeah it's that aspect of of you know.   Pastor Bill: [39:29] Wow.   Pastor Newms: [39:30] Even what.   Pastor Bill: [39:31] She brought me a picture of a okay okay that's very hippie is it crochet tent.   Pastor Newms: [39:39] Oof.   Pastor Bill: [39:39] And a crocheted glamper.   [39:47] I just put the flash does images up onto the the livestream so if you're listening on the podcast and you want to see the crocheted tent you will have to go to Facebook twitch or YouTube and scroll forward to about, 47 minutes in to see the, crocheted glamper and the crochets tent image.   Pastor Newms: [40:11] Yeah it is it's busy and they definitely used whatever they had laying around.   Pastor Bill: [40:18] What they did is they made smaller pieces and then put them together so.   Pastor Newms: [40:25] I mean obviously.   Pastor Bill: [40:27] Yeah they didn't just crochet one giant piece no that would be insane.   Pastor Newms: [40:34] But you would think if you were going to do that yes bat-brains it was so ugly, if you were going to do that you would do patterns that complemented each other, those particular ones looked like what you would see at a festival where there are wild.   Pastor Bill: [40:51] Poor people are doing LSD yeah.   Pastor Newms: [40:53] Growing you know that's I think that's the only way you could enjoy that.   Pastor Bill: [40:58] Welcome to Woodstock back there we've got the crochet 10th that's where you're going to get your vegetables, hey vegetables and then over next to that there's the crocheted glamper you're gonna go over there and get some grass like grass I mean we'd, and by the way I you know what I mean.   Pastor Newms: [41:17] Billy.   [41:22] That was that was terrible yeah anywho, yeah that was uh oh I'm scared, what did you post groggy.   Pastor Bill: [41:43] It's a guy he put a link to a clip in the twitch chat.   Pastor Newms: [41:51] Oh he put a link to you showing he clipped it for us.   Pastor Bill: [41:56] Oh he clipped me showing the crochet tent and crochet glamper.   Pastor Newms: [41:59] So you could so that way if you wanted you could put it in the in the release notes for people to see so they would then easily find our well he's our twitch, look it groggy.   Pastor Bill: [42:16] That sure does look good man I like that.   Pastor Newms: [42:18] It does it looks good on you and that comes from someone who didn't like the shirt at all.   Pastor Bill: [42:25] Even like this design it does it looks good nice.   Pastor Newms: [42:29] Not even a little but yeah.   Pastor Bill: [42:32] Cool thank you groggy I appreciate you clipping that and I will definitely put that link in the, transcription for people to click on so there has a fast forward to 47 minutes into the live but this podcast does come out live we record it live on Sunday evenings at 6:30.   Pastor Newms: [42:51] Wait why are we wrapping up we have 10 more minutes.   Pastor Bill: [42:52] Central Standard time it was just a really good segue we can just keep talking after it but it was a good Segway into the the info.   Pastor Newms: [42:59] Well I killed it so.   Pastor Bill: [43:01] Killed it you killed the Segway yeah so my three year old, um has has come to use the restroom by himself he didn't bring anyone to help him, and now he's telling me he's done using the restroom and I'm saying that on the livestream and hearing about 30 to 45 seconds that's brain is gonna hear it in the living room and be like oh my gosh.   Pastor Newms: [43:23] Come take care of it yeah that is funny that he came in there without there's been some funny moments this past week with him as he, has been learning to use the restroom fully by himself.   Pastor Bill: [43:41] He's learning the etiquette of daddy I'm done so.   Pastor Newms: [43:47] It's been it's been a lot of fun this week as we were doing things.   Pastor Bill: [43:53] Right so spot this comes out on Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time wherever you get your podcast and if you'd like to join us live you can do so that we do this on twitch Facebook and YouTube you can go to our website www.marykay.co.uk/awilliam stretch which YouTube and which Facebook, that we do this on live and you can join us in the peak of the clackety chatty thing we have some regulars to join us and we have some, people who come every once in awhile and then we would like to throw the chat to just be full of people asking questions just agreeing giving input creating bunny trails that we can try not to go down, just all kinds of things just just a lot of interaction it would be really awesome, because that's the style of thing we want to do we want to have it be you know a group of thing a group event more than just the two of us being Talking Heads but more interaction the more interaction love about.   Pastor Newms: [45:00] Because we talk to each other a lot almost.   [45:16] But we talk to each other all the time we don't we don't need to talk to each other anymore.   Pastor Bill: [45:22] Yes we do.   Pastor Newms: [45:25] Well I'm not saying it from I'm saying there's no reason to have this.   Pastor Bill: [45:29] Yay.   Pastor Newms: [45:30] Utah oh my gosh here we go guys this is what I have to put up with every day, um no but we want the interaction in the end the people Linda the talking and because that's, you know this started if you go back to you know the beginning episodes the first Parts when we were alive they you know we're in restaurants.   Pastor Bill: [45:54] Well in the very beginning beginning I was releasing a podcast today and then we were meeting once a week.   Pastor Newms: [46:02] Sustainable look at what we did.   Pastor Bill: [46:04] We were meeting once a week and trying to then discuss okay so all the podcasts that came out this week what you learn what you want to talk about with you and then we net we you know narrow that down to okay just one podcaster week, and I would release it and then everyone have a whole week to be able to listen to it and we'd get together on Sunday and nobody would have listened to it and nobody was ready to interact and nobody was and and you know, we just kind of we move on from there and so now with covid now we're here.   Pastor Newms: [46:40] Which is a completely different place but it's a good place.   Pastor Bill: [46:46] So bad Blaze should differ.   Pastor Newms: [46:47] No just different and we're continuing to grow.   Pastor Bill: [46:51] Heart of this was always Fellowship face-to-face being able to interact being able to say your piece being able to ask questions.   [47:06] Anyway that's why we encourage people to come Live While We're recording the podcast and be a part of what's going on so there's that all right you have anything you want to add to the topic for tonight.   Pastor Newms: [47:19] No   Pastor Bill: [47:22] You were pretty chatty about this topic more chatty than I expected you to be.   Pastor Newms: [47:26] I mean it's valid since we're doing throwbacks.   Pastor Bill: [47:29] You said it's valid.   Pastor Newms: [47:33] You know it's one of those things where it's important to look at, everything like we always talked about you know don't take the two verses you want to look at, out of contacts don't take you know it's that whole like you hear some people talk about the, innocence fire that's why you can't lie to preachers you're like no that's, that's not what God's not going to strike you down for fibbing God's Gonna strike strike you down, to make a point because you lied to the Holy Spirit multiple times to make yourself look better, not oops I made a boo-boo I said you know I said the wrong thing I did the wrong thing you know it was blatant we're going to do this and we know what we're doing and we know it's wrong but, we're going to do it and make ourselves still look.   Pastor Bill: [48:45] Nobody's going to know they'll never know you know that whole audio Tick Tock nobody'll ever know they'll never know they knew, they knew when you said it and drop down dead in there.   Pastor Newms: [49:04] Well and let's be honest, if everyone in an area are selling their properties and and giving to the church and those types of things right, it's pretty obvious what properties are worth and so when it's like here's everything we have you guys weren't this poor.   Pastor Bill: [49:33] You either got ripped off or you lying right.   Pastor Newms: [49:50] Yeah, we do we do sometimes still have the fellowship in the living room at the same time because when groggy is here it's it's zadie groggy in Phoenix and sometimes the girls all in the same room but it would be, nice to I do agree with Sadie that I do miss everyone's face every week.   [50:20] I just realized why, I don't like the design it just came to me it's not equal.   [50:37] That's why you moved a certain way and I went oh yeah that.   [50:48] I just.   Pastor Bill: [50:48] If you say so.   Pastor Newms: [50:50] My OCD doesn't like the fact that there's not an equal number of a Sands because of the word loved.   [51:03] Which is fine because of everything it you know, but that's that's the reason because the shirt crinkled and I went oh.   Pastor Bill: [51:14] It's fully known and and and and and and and fully loved.   Pastor Newms: [51:18] No that's just how many times we have to keep saying it for people to believe it sometimes.   Pastor Bill: [51:24] Seven times if you hear something 7 times before sinks in.   Pastor Newms: [51:28] Yeah but no for the known in Philadelphia but no fully known it but no full enough.   Pastor Bill: [51:37] Then we get the all you mean fully known and still full no no no no don't add words to what I'm saying that's not what the scripture says this is fully known and there is no, still there is a there are yet stills, in the Jewish scriptures in the early New Testament where it says Point Blank we hated God, yet still but it never says you were a sinner and even still no it was you chose sin and still, hmm the message is God knows you fully and God loves you fully, we're not having a conversation about whether or not you're perfect because if you've been listening to breed Manifesto, we believe everyone should be trying to grow and better themselves and no one is perfect period, not as an insult not as a slight not as a try to get out of something trying to get out of saying something no we're not doing that we literally believe everyone should be moving forward everyone should be growing and changing and getting better, Anyway come and join us at Dallas Pride.   Pastor Newms: [53:02] Yeah.   Pastor Bill: [53:02] On June 4th what was that face you just made.   Pastor Newms: [53:09] My my my computer did something I didn't want it to and I don't know why but it.   Intro And Outro Music   Pastor Newms: [53:22] It just kind of sideways itself.   Pastor Bill: [53:30] All right well that's all we have for tonight I love you have a great week.   Pastor Newms: [53:37] Be safe out there.   Pastor Bill: [53:38] And until next time.

Back after a hiatus ! My OCD and my musings part 1

In this review, I take you behind the scenes of my life and business and share:   Why I'm pivoting my business slightly and the changes you'll start seeing My OCD journey this year What taking months off has taught me about business minimalism The top 3 lessons I learned this year My top challenges and wins of 2021   FREE masterclass: 10 Steps To Go From Overwhelmed To Organized Free Roadmap: Starter Kit for Booking Clients Consistently My courses Instagram: @neshawoolery   Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, I'd really appreciate it if you left a 5 star rating and review. Thanks so much!

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 195. Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I'm your host, Kimberley Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals. The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn't get to decide how you live your life. And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, because experiencing anxiety ain't easy. If that sounds good to you, let's go. Kimberley: Hello there. I have with me a very special friend who is going to talk about something so important. So, so important. I am so excited to have with us Shala Nicely. Oh my goodness, thank you for coming back onto the show. Shala: Thank you so much for having me. I love being here. Kimberley: Oh my goodness. Okay. So, probably the reason that I have been so adamant about getting you onto this episode is this topic that we are going to talk about is probably one of the topics that comes up the most with my patients and clients that nobody is talking about. Shala: Yes. Kimberley: Nobody. And I am seeing it more and more and more and more and more, which is why I wanted to have you on. So, thank you. Shala: Yeah. Kimberley: Thank you. Okay. So, you wrote a blog about depression as a compulsion. Can you tell us what does that mean? Shala: Yes. I'll start off by saying that this is one of the many subtleties of OCD. Sometimes OCD takes a long time to figure out. I spent years becoming a therapist. I spent years thinking about my own experience and when I was writing my memoir Is Fred in the Refrigerator?. It wasn't until after Fred was published, that I figured out this particular compulsion that I had been doing. By identifying it, it's been able to help me make a huge difference in my recovery, and that's why I wanted to share it and write the blog. Kimberley: Right. It's so important. I mean, I can't tell you, I've been practicing for many, many years and I only came across this in the last year or two. But the more I get to know it and the more I understand it, I'm just like, I feel like I see it in almost all the cases in some way. So, go ahead. Tell us what it is. Tell us what it looks like. Shala: So, I'll give you an example that I used in Fred, which is, when I was in my twenties, I was convinced I'd given myself HIV aids because I had gotten cut with a broken beer bottle at a party and I had spent all this time in my head arguing with OCD about whether or not that you can transmit HIV aids through that. It went on for months and months and months. While I was doing all this ritualizing in my head, trying to figure this out and prove to myself I didn't have this disease, which this was years and years and years ago, the treatments for HIV aids are much better now, they weren't. This was 25 years ago. I know people with OCD are still frightened of it. I was really frightened of it back then because there weren't very many treatments for it. And so I would spend all day long thinking about how I had given myself a fatal disease and how I was going to die. And then I started acting as though I had a fatal disease that there weren't good treatments for and I was going to get it and die. So I would go into situations and put on a happy face and smile, but in my head, I was thinking, “Oh, this is the last time I'm going to be doing this. Oh, this is so sad. Just wait until people find out what is really going on with me.” So I would focus in those situations on how awful this was and how depressed I was and how this was going to be the last time I was going to do it. So, I was actually acting as though what OCD was telling me, which is that I'd given myself fatal disease, was true. And the depression that came from that became the compulsion because I took that emotion and I acted on that emotion. So I started acting depressed, making depressed choices, living in a depressed lifestyle, having a depressed attitude as I went out into the world because I had given in completely to what OCD was saying. When I realized that, again, this was after I'd written the story, after it had been published, and I started seeing this in my clients. I started recognizing I still did some of this. I'm like, “Wait a minute, it's the depression itself, which was really propping all this up.”  It's really a very subtle form of compulsion that if you don't recognize it can sabotage your ERP work. Kimberley: Yeah. I would admit as a young intern of treating OCD, I think if I saw this, I would have stopped ERP and focused on depression and really worked on that, which is not a bad solution, but without really recognizing it under the lens of OCD, right? So, I would have seen it as separate. I love it. Let me explain how I've seen it a lot. Once I've shown them your article, patients and clients have said, “I recognize in the moment that I'm having uncertainty. I try doing a compulsion to make the uncertainty go away and that doesn't work. So, going into depression is our easy way to just exit out of uncertainty. It's the worst-case scenario. That's where I'm going to hang out.” That has been so helpful for people to be able to recognize that. It's a response to not wanting to be uncertain. Shala: And I think it's important to differentiate between depression that comes secondary to having a diagnosis of OCD from this, because a majority of people with OCD will end up with some form of depression at some point, because it's just so debilitating. It's the 10th most debilitating condition in the world. So people will end up depressed just because of how exhausting it is to manage this monster in your head all day long. But that's very different than being depressed because you've decided to believe that the OCD is true because you cannot figure it out otherwise. And OCD just wants certainty. It doesn't care what kind of certainty it gets. If it can't get certainty, for instance, that I don't have HIV aids, it's just going to go the other way and say, “Well, I'm going to get certainty that she does have it,” and then go from there and then becoming depressed as a result of that obsession. So, I think that's really important for people to understand. You can have both going on at the same time too, which makes this even more tricky. Kimberley: Yeah. Even more tricky, but even great to know that we can differentiate the two now, because we'll talk later about how to manage that. Now, this is where I want to look at insight because, in your blog, you talk about insight. I think that's an important piece of this, right? Because when you first have the onset of OCD, you might recognize that this is like ego, what we would call egodystonic, like this stuff. “I know it's not true, but I keep fearing it's true.” Can you share how insight impacts this specific situation? Shala: Yes. In fact, it was Jon Hershfield who introduced the two of us years ago, who helped me put this insight about insight together, because I was talking with him about this depression is a compulsion. What he pointed out is that typically, when an OCD obsession starts, you're doing compulsions to try to prove that it's false. If you can't get that to work, which of course you can't because there's no way to prove all this stuff that I see he's worried about, then sometimes you can start going the opposite way and trying to prove that it's true. Really that's the difference between insight. When you're trying to prove that it's false, then you know that what OCD is saying in some part of you is nonsense. “I don't have HIV aids, come on.” Not like in a reassuring way, just there's a part of you that still recognizes, “Yeah, this is super scary, but this is OCD reacting to an intrusive thought. This isn't actually a real problem.” So, you've got that insight there. You're still stuck, but you got insight. When you start trying to prove it's right, that's when you've lost insight. When you really give in to everything that OCD is saying, really hook, line, and sinker, and you don't have any insight anymore. That's really when this depression as a compulsion becomes a big problem. The longer that a particular obsession is maintained by doing compulsions, the more likely you are to lose insight, the longer it's been going on. Kimberley: And this is where it's hard, isn't it? Because we know the whole story of when you stare at something for too long, it starts to look weird and distorted. I think that's very much true here. I think it's true of depression in general and in this subtle compulsion. When we look at things as negative, we notice more and more things that are negative. Is that what you feel to be true here? Or is it just the same story that you hear over and over? Share with me how that might sound in your head. Shala: I think it starts to sound like a soundtrack for my life because most of my rituals became internal. And the way I see mental rituals, it's physical rituals taken inside. So you can't do things physically because you don't want people to see or whatever. So you start pulling it inside. The more that I would do that, the more I would argue with OCD, of course, the more I'm strengthening in it. So the more I hear it and the more I argue, it just expands to fill every waking moment. It really becomes a soundtrack playing 24 hours a day because I was doing those mental rituals. And then the longer that that went on, the more likely I was to start becoming depressed because I was losing insight, which then also further reinforces this cycle. Kimberley: So interesting and so helpful. One thing that you talk about is emotions as a ritual. Can you share how this may play out with other emotions such as – you've written guilt and shame, regret and grief? Shala: Yes. So what I'm going to do to describe this is I'm going to take you through the OCD cycle in some anatomical details, so to speak, so we can piece together how this is all happening. So you have an intrusive thought. That is not OCD because everybody has intrusive thoughts. The OCD is the next stage where OCD reacts to the intrusive thought – “Why did I have this? What does this mean? Am I going to do it? Am I going to make it come true because I have the thought?” That reaction, that's the OCD. Of course, that makes you feel anxious. And then if you haven't had treatment, you typically do some form of compulsion, something to try to get certainty about what the OCD is bothering you about, because this is all based on an intolerance of uncertainty. And OCD just picks content that you care about and puts uncertainty about it in your mind and then gets you stuck in that cycle. When you do a compulsion, it tells your brain that this is a dangerous thought, “This intrusive thought I had is dangerous,” and you need to keep doing something about it. These steps just repeat on an endless loop. And then what happens is that when it repeats on the loop long enough, the acceptance of the scary thoughts that OCD is presenting causes you to experience the emotions that you would feel if those stories were true. Those emotions tend to be things like depression, as we've talked about, guilt, regret, shame, grief, and others. And then in classic cognitive behavioral therapy perspective where our emotions and our thoughts and our actions all come together in this triangle, the emotions then dictate how we act, so we begin to act depressed or guilty or regretful or shamed or grief-stricken. Those emotions can then become compulsions because they're driven specifically by believing the content of the OCD, by acting like what OCD is saying is true. That's the definition of doing compulsions. So that's how emotions can become part of the compulsion cycle because you start acting as though they're true. Kimberley: Right. This is so true and this is where I see it play out a lot, is when people have an intrusive thought that they've done something wrong, and then they feel... Because they start to believe it, they go into regret and then they go into confessing, right? Then they'll go into like, “Well, I have to confess it because I've done something wrong,” instead of that they had a thought that they did something wrong. Or that they feel such deep guilt that they're saying things like, “I'm a terrible person. I'm terrible. And I'm so guilty. What kind of human am I?” because of a thought like you've just described, how then that plays out and keeps playing out over and over again. Let's play out because we haven't really talked about this, but what would the action be as a result to regret? It would be reassurance seeking or confessing. What else would you say? Shala: Maybe going back in your mind and trying to undo it and, “Gosh, what would it be like if it had only gone like this?” Almost like a wishing compulsion that I think [14:22 inaudible] talks about in his book. All sorts of things like that. Kimberley: What about guilt? Similar, but what about guilt? Shala: I think with guilt, it's a lot of self-punishment as a ritual. “I'm bad. I did something bad.” With guilt and shame, guilt is, “I did something bad,” shame is, “I am bad.” I think in this case, those can get conflated together and people just start punishing themselves. “Well, I don't deserve this because I did this bad thing,” or “I am this bad person.” They start being very uncompassionate with themselves and treating themselves like they're this horrible human being. Kimberley: Right. And that's a big part of how I see it play out is that the self-punishment is pleasure withholding, like you don't deserve the nice-- it could be as subtle as you can't have the nice brand of crushed tomatoes. You have to have the crappy brand because you don't deserve good things or you don't deserve the nice sheets or so forth. And that will make you feel-- when there's no pleasure in your life, you get depressed, right? I think that's a very subtle way that OCD plays out. I've heard lots of people will say, or the flip side is they'll say something like, “Oh, because I have harm thoughts about my child, I have to buy them the best diapers,” which is treating yourself as if you've done something wrong. Shala: Yes. You're making up. Kimberley: You're making up for something that you had a thought about, right? Shala: Yeah. Kimberley: Right. It's so subtle. What about grief? Can you kind of give an example of that? Shala: I think with grief, it's pre-planning things. So, for instance, I'm not kidding you, I've pre-planned my funeral in my head – “Well, this is what it's going to be like. It's going to be so sad and I wonder if this will happen and that will happen,” as though it's an event two weeks from now on my calendar, Shala's funeral. So I think it's almost like you act like the loss has occurred already and you begin to start going through the grieving process. People with OCD tend to be really empathic people, so it's really easy to go there. It's easy to put yourself in that, “Oh, so-and-so has died. This horrible thing has happened. Let me go ahead and get into that grief state,” because we're just good at being able to put ourselves in other people's shoes to imagine what something would feel like, and to feel it as though it were happening. Kimberley: It's so good. All right. So-- Shala: Can I say one more thing? Kimberley: Of course. Shala: Sometimes I think of these as fake emotion. They're not, right? But they're OCD-induced emotions. Kimberley: They're manufactured. Shala: They're manufactured. They don't actually fit the truth of the situation. I'm not saying they're fake like, gosh, the shame you're feeling or the guilt you're feeling isn't real. Certainly it's a real emotion, but I think it is induced completely by the OCD, as opposed to being induced by a situation that has happened in life. Kimberley: I agree. And that's where that insight is really important, right? Is to be able to catch that. I fully agree with you. I'm so glad that you recognize that because people will say it feels real, right? It feels real. And then I'll always follow up with like, “But it's not a fact.” But still, it's important to have that conversation. Now, I want to just jump in here. Before we talk about how to break this cycle, how might this play out with just Right OCD? Shala: I can give you an example from yesterday about this. Kimberley: All right. Shala: I decided I was going to get these floating shelves and hang them on the wall. It requires using a drill and all sorts of things, which I can do, but I'm not very good at it. I also, I guess, was sort of distracted and I'd had problems with one of them and with the drill, as I went downstairs to do the other one. I put the shelf a couple of inches too high because I used the wrong mark on the wall, probably because I was exhausted from having drilled drywall over the place and making a huge mess upstairs. Once I got the shelf installed, I'm like, “Oh, what's that little mark on the wall? Oh, that was where it was supposed to be, a couple of inches higher.” I am not redoing it because it made a huge mess in the wall and it's going to have to stay there. My OCD put this little feeling in my stomach. “That's just too high. It's wrong. It's horrible.” I could feel it. Like, I feel it right in my solar plexus, this little tightening, like, “Oh, we can't stand this.” What I decided to do, because I am not moving that, I just say, “OCD, this is great. I am so glad that shelf is at that level. I'm glad, number one, because it's upsetting you. But number two, it actually probably is a good level because I have a big dog who likes to bounce around on the couch. This is above the couch. If it's actually too low, he's probably going to knock his head on it and knock it over. We're just going to live with it. There are some good things about it being at this level, just like there's some good things about it being at another level. I'm just going to smile and be happy every time I see that shelf.” So, when I see the shelf now, I really try to have good, positive, happy emotions about the shelf being at that level and tell myself, “We're not changing it. OCD, if you don't like it, fabulous.” Kimberley: Right. But originally, was it that you would slip into a depression as a compulsion? Shala: Yes. So, what happens with Just Right OCD that can have this same thing go on is we look at the shelf every day and go, “Oh, it's ruined the house. The house is not perfect because the shelf is in the wrong place. If we could just move the shelf down.” And then you envision moving it down, but then you think, “Oh my gosh, it's going to open up more holes in the drywall, and then I'll have to fix that. I can't do that. If I'd only been paying more attention.” Everybody can't see this because they're not watching the video of this, but if you can see my posture, it's like-- Kimberley: It is. You're getting low. Shala: Like, “I screwed up and now it's bad and I'm depressed.” And then every time you look at it, you have those regretful thoughts and you think about, “Gosh, how I'd like to change that.” And that causes more regret. And then that fuels the whole emotions as a compulsion cycle. Kimberley: Which is interesting. I think this is true for any subtype. And you may correct me on this. The thought that I hear the most is, “This is going to bother me forever.” That's where I feel like the depression as the compulsion set seen as like, “You'll never have happiness again. This is going to be the worst.” And then you go actually, like you sunk down into that. You sunk in and you stayed into that kind of mindset. Is that an example you would give as well? Shala: Yeah. I think with any Just Right OCD, it's this feeling that life is somehow ruined because this thing is wrong. Ruined means forever. It's all blurry, black and white like you were saying. So it feels not only unfixable, but unbearable, and then giving into that and then acting as though this unbearable thing has happened, then becomes the emotions as a compulsion. I think this is probably pretty common within the whole Just Right OCD thing, is having so much regret that it's not right, then act as though that regret were true. Kimberley: Right. Well, okay. So, that's the perfect segue, is how do we break this cycle? How do we intervene? Where do we intervene in the cycle? Shala: The way that we intervene in this cycle, through exposure and response prevention obviously, is doing the acting as though the content that OCD is threatening you about or bothering you about is irrelevant. Let me start out by first saying how people tend to make mistakes doing this because I think this is important. So, as we know with exposure and response prevention, we're exposing ourselves to the uncertainty of the obsession while not doing compulsions. If you have emotions as a compulsion, depression as a compulsion, you can do an exposure. Think you're not doing compulsions because you're using scripting to get out of your head. You're not asking for reassurance. You're not doing your physical compulsions. But you're still bummed out, regretful, ashamed. So you're doing it while in your head, really spending a lot of time in that emotion. So you're really doing exposure without response prevention. You're doing some response prevention, but you're not doing enough response prevention. So the exposures don't work very well. People can get stuck in this cycle where they're doing ERP over and over and over again and they think that they're getting rid of all these components and they're not getting better. It's probably because something like this is going on in the background where they're still, at some level, believing this and acting as though it were true. So, that's where people make mistakes. What we really need to do here is find that little bit of joy because it's there. It's probably been so covered up by the OCD, the depression, whatever other negative emotions you're experiencing, that you don't think it's there, but it is there. You can take yourself back to when you were really happy about whatever it is, like, say that you think you're going to harm your children. And you can remember times that you were with your kids where this wasn't bothering you. So, you take yourself back to that and you think, “How was I acting? What was I doing? How was I feeling?” You find that and you go do those activities and you focus on that joy. So, when the OCD says, “Oh no, we can't, we can't. You're irresponsible. We were going to kill them. We're going to harm them. We have to focus on how bad we are,” you're like, “Nope, I'm going to focus on how much fun my kid is having in the pool. Isn't this great? It's a sunny day. Really enjoying it. It feels so nice to be out here. Look how happy my kids are.” You just find all of the joy you can and you focus on the joy. What we're trying to do here is act as though the content is irrelevant. So, if you're acting like it's relevant, you're standing in the pool with your kids going, “Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I'm going to kill them. They're happy now. But just wait until I kill them and their mother finds out or whatever, that it was me.” Or you can be in the pool like, “This is great. I love spending time with my kids. This is awesome. Look how much fun they're having. They're doing so well with their swimming. They're having a great time. They could probably stay in here until they turn blue. This is great.” You're acting like all that stuff in your head about the fact that you might harm them doesn't matter. And that's the essence of good exposure. It really takes this finding joy because you want to do the opposite of what OCD is saying. OCD says you should act depressed, regretful, ashamed. So you say, “I'm going to do the opposite of that. I'm going to act happy, jubilant, carefree.” And that's how we do these exposures. It's not easy, but if you get good at it, it can be really revolutionary in terms of your recovery. Kimberley: I love this. So, I'm thinking of one particular person right now, and it's a follower actually. What would you say, because I love everything you're saying. What would you say to the person who then may start to do that as a compulsion too? Shala: Yes. I think that OCD can turn anything into compulsion. Kimberley: It's so skilled. There's such skill. So Shala: Yeah. I think that that is a potentiality for anything that we do with ERP. We are not doing this to make your anxiety go away. In fact, you're going to be more anxious while you're trying to find this joy because you don't deserve to be joyful. It is not responsible to be joyful. It is tempting fate to be joyful. So you're going to be-- Kimberley: Irresponsible is the word. Shala: Yeah. You're going to be having maybe 5% joy and 95% anxiety if you're doing this right. If you make this compulsive, you're doing it to reduce anxiety. I'm so glad you brought that up. That is what we're looking for here, is this is going to make you more anxious. And the more that you do it and really find the joy and act like you're having fun anyway, eventually, the anxiety will subside. Who knows when? It may take hours, days, weeks, months, whatever. But that is not the goal. The goal is to be in the situation while being anxious. And the more anxiety, the better, right? Because that means you're giving your brain a good learning experience. That means that you're doing things that help you tame OCD and reclaim your life. Kimberley: Right. Thank you so much for sharing that because that's such a crucial piece – to be able to integrate joy and anxiety in the very same moment. If you could do that, you're winning, right? You've won, because OCD wants you to integrate anxiety and depression at the same time. So, I love that that is the way to give OCD birth ultimately, is to show that you can do that. I love it. So, let's talk about one more thing. I want to be respectful of your time. Someone has had OCD for a long time, obviously, because this has gotten so stuck. They're having a lot of this depression as a compulsion. We're asking them to find things that used to bring them joy or look back to a time where they could integrate anxiety and joy at the same time. What are your thoughts around “Fake it till you make it”? Is that an approach that you would consider? I know you've talked about other ways. Would you like to share your thoughts on it? Shala: Yeah. I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with the “Fake it till you make it” stand, except for if you're saying you're faking it, you're saying that there is no happiness there. And that's almost giving in to the OCD once again. So, what I like is a different way of phrasing it, which comes from a woman named Heather Hansen who wrote a great book called The Elegant Warrior. We've both been on her podcast. What she says is, “Show it till you grow it.” I love that because that acknowledges that the positive emotions are there. The OCD is sitting on them and squishing them and you can't feel them, but they are there. That also reinforces this notion that the OCD, this is a bunch of content it's making up. It doesn't feel like that, but these are things that it has imposed upon your life to make you worry about them. But you've got this great life that sort of smushed down underneath it. And you just need to find a little bit of what that great life used to be and find that and grow that. It's almost like if you think of a black canvas and then there's a little pinprick of light, sunlight and it comes through as like a ray. And then the ray comes through and it starts to makes the black cloth start to have the hole, get bigger and the sunlight gets bigger. And then the sunlight comes through and eliminates everything. That's what we're talking about here. It's just a pinprick. It's a tiny bit, but it's really there. If you say you fake it till you make it, you're not giving yourself the empowerment you deserve, that it is in you. It is there. You just don't feel it because of the OCD. Kimberley: Right. It is. It's like a muscle that you grow. I agree with that. I think that that is exactly perfect for it because, like anything, if you're trying to get 100% joy, you won't get any joy. But if you give yourself permission-- because we can get perfectionistic about this and be like, “Well, no, this used to bring me so much joy.” So I think you're right. It's just little baby steps and little baby pinpricks is the way. Shala: I'm so glad you brought that up because like all of us with OCD can make things compulsive. We can also try to do our therapy perfectly and try to do these exercises and go out and be like, “But I wasn't totally happy. I did have some intrusive thoughts. I did feel some depression.” Yes, of course. You're going to. So, I think recognizing this is a process and what we're trying to do is find the 1%, the 0.05%, the 3%, the 15%, whatever it is of joy and focus on that. Yeah, you're going to have those depressed feelings. They've been there for a while. By the time you have depression or other emotions as a compulsion, it's probably been there a while. So, this process of ERP is also going to take a while and it's challenging and it's hard. So, you're not going to go out and do this perfectly. You're not going to go have some awesome experience with your kid. You're going to be acting as though you're having an awesome time. You're going to be trying to focus on that in your head. But the vestiges of the OCD and those other emotions are going to be there. Let it be there. We're not with this trying to shove those away necessarily and not feel them. What we're trying to do is focus on the ones that actually match the ERP, which is, if I'm going to go focus on being with my kids and having fun, that's what I'm going to focus on. Not this other stuff that's going on over there. But give yourself permission to have this be a messy process because it is and do it imperfectly because you're going to, because everybody does. It's going to take a while, because it took a while for all of us with this to get there. It's going to take a while to unravel it. And then even after you unravel it, it can still come back. I still have to watch for this one. If I get triggered with something that is a really high-level item for my OCD, I have to work on this sometimes too, because it's easy for me to sink back down to this because I did it for so many years. Kimberley: Which I'm so grateful that you share that because I think that for those-- and I want to make sure I just did it before we finish up and I want to hear about what you're up to these days is, the treatment for this is actually similar to the treatment of just depression too. You're working double shifts here, but in a good way. You're working on two things using the same tool. So, do you have any feedback on that? Shala: Yeah, that's a really good point. I hadn't thought about it like that before, but it's very much a behavioral activation approach. Behavioral activation is used in the treatment of depression to help people start to put activities back in their lives that gave them pleasure and that gave them some feelings of mastery. And that's what we're trying to do with the added component of “And let's focus on that pleasure. Let's focus on that feeling of mastery. Those other feelings are going to be there, but let's focus on the way life used to be before the depression came in.” So, yeah, it is a very behavioral activation type approach here. Kimberley: Oh my gosh. I love it so much. It's so good. I feel like everyone needs to be trained in this specific area because it's such an important area that gets missed and missed and missed and missed. So, you're like brilliant, brilliant in my mind, as you already know. Shala: Well, thank you very much. Kimberley: Okay. Is there anything you want to add before you tell us the way we can find out about you? Shala: I don't think so. I think we've covered everything. Kimberley: Okay. Tell us where people can hear about you, your blog, and all the amazing things you're doing. Shala: They can go to shalanicely.com. On that website, you can sign up for my newsletter, which is called Shoulders Back!: Tips and resources for taming OCD. I send it out every couple of weeks and it has some sort of new resource I've created or been a part of every time I send it out, free resources to help people learn how to effectively tame OCD and reclaim their lives. So, that is where you can go. If you want to read more about this, this particular blog is on my Psychology Today blog. It's called The Subtle OCD Compulsion that you might not know you're doing. Again, you can go on my website and it'll link back to all the Psychology Today blogs as well. Kimberley: What about your book? Shala: Yes. So, both books, Is Fred in the Refrigerator?: Taming OCD and Reclaiming My Life and Everyday Mindfulness for OCD: Tips, Tricks, and Skills for Living Joyfully, which I co-wrote with Jon Hershfield. You can learn more about those on my website or on Amazon or anywhere that you buy books. They're both available on audiobooks as well. Kimberley: Right. Let me do a plug for your book because I have had so many of my patients say it's the first time they wanted to hand their book to everybody because it was exactly how it felt for them. I have so many clients who bought a copy for themselves and a copy for their parents because their parents were like, “Oh, this is what it's like to be you. Now, I finally get it.” So, I'm so grateful you did that beautiful book. Shala: Well, thank you. That's the whole reason I wrote Is Fred in the Refrigerator? because I wanted people to understand how it feels to have OCD. If you have OCD, I wanted you to understand that you're not alone and that there is hope that you can get better. You can tame OCD and you can reclaim your life. Kimberley: Right. Oh my God, thank you so much for being on today. Shala: Thank you so much for having me. It was fun. Kimberley: Such important information. I can't say it enough. So, so important that we're addressing this more. I think that this can open it up to everybody having a better understanding. Shala: Thank you again. Website: shalanicely.com Is Fred In the Refrigerator: https://www.amazon.com Everyday Mindfulness for OCD: https://www.amazon.com Psychology Today blog ----- Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.

My OCD and what I have done to be able to live with this crazy mental illness! I hope to inspire you with my story. Feel free to share. You are still a great person even if you have it!!!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/pawsn2wetnosesyahoocom/support

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a widely misrepresented mental health disorder. Many people do not know of the debilitating effects OCD can have on those who struggle with it. In this episode, Alyssa sits down with Gina Abbondante, LCSW, as she shares about her own battle with OCD. Gina explains the various types of OCD, the ways in which the disorder can become traumatizing in itself, and expectations people can have as they begin their recovery journey.  Gina's Website Support The Podcast Transcript: Alyssa Scolari: [00:00:23] Hello folks. Welcome back for another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. And this is going to be a good episode. I am saying this right out of the gate because I adore our guests today. And let's just take a minute to talk about the imposter syndrome, right? Yeah. This imposter syndrome that so many of us feel like we have. Our guest today is Gina Abbondante. I met Gina through actually as a result of the pandemic through a peer consultation group. Gina is a colleague, fellow therapist, incredible human being. So she has her own group practice that she actually just started up this year and she... So she does a lot, but her specialty is treating anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder, particularly in pregnancy and postpartum. So when we talk about imposter syndrome, when I met Gina over a year ago, I was so intimidated. This was like before the podcast is even like a blip on my radar because Gina. Is just a bad ass at what she does. And each just radiates. When we first started the peer supervision group, I would just sit back and like listen to like the stuff that she would say. And I have been thinking a while about asking Gina to come on the podcast. But I was scared, like imposter syndrome took over and I was like, she's not going to have time for me. She's way too busy. Shotgun would come on my podcast. And then I wrote this blog post, which I think is ultimately what prompted you to reach out to me, right? Gina Abbondante: [00:02:44] It was, yeah. Alyssa Scolari: [00:02:46] So I wrote this blog post on obsessive compulsive disorder and after writing that Gina reached out to me and I of course giggled like a school child. Cause I was so excited and she was like, wow: "I thought that you were going to reject me." Gina Abbondante: [00:03:08] Talk about imposter syndrome. Alyssa Scolari: [00:03:10] I know. Right. So like here we go. So welcome. Thank you for being here. Gina Abbondante: [00:03:17] Yeah. Thanks for having me. Alyssa Scolari: [00:03:19] I'm glad that you reached out because I was terrified. So, can you elaborate a little bit more on like what you do, who you are, what life is like for you? Cause you dabble in so many different things. Gina Abbondante: [00:03:37] Yeah. I mean, it's definitely been, it's a journey. So I originally started in solo practice just as my own doing my own thing in 2014, I think, and at the time I've kind of always specialized in pregnancy and postpartum, mental health, mood disorders, things like that. And also infertility pregnancy loss, birth trauma, infant loss, all that stuff. And I love it. I just love the population. They've just always been really near and dear to my heart. I have two kids, so that probably also plays into it as well. I love it. So I have been in solo practice and then moved into group practice in the beginning of like May 2020 ish, the height of the pandemic, which was nuts. But you know, here we are. And I do, you know, I specialize in anxiety disorders and OCD. I see a lot of it. I mean, I think anxiety is pretty universal. We all experience anxiety at some point in our life. And for some of us, it does turn into a disorder, which it kind of takes on a life of its own and it becomes a whole other thing. And for some reason, I think, you know, there are a lot of factors that play into it, but, I see a lot of anxiety disorders and OCD during pregnancy and postpartum, and then add on top of it, (the) pandemic. It's been a lot. So that is my specialty. I love working with this population. It's so rewarding to see people when they realize and make that click of like, wow, I really can control this. There's nothing wrong with my brain. It's not broken. I can do this. And to really see people get that empowerment and that sense of agency back that they can do it. Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:41] Yeah. And it's,one of the things that I remember so clearly on like one of our first peer consultation groups, where we were introducing ourselves and you had said like, you know, OCD is a beast and it really resonated with me then, but, lately as my OCD symptoms, as I wrote in the blog post, have really been exacerbated. I'm like, Oh God, this is a beast. And I think that OCD is portrayed one way, but I don't think that people truly have a grasp on like its entirety. Like it is not just needing to have an even number on the heat and air or the volume, so could you just first start by like breaking down? Like what is OCD? Gina Abbondante: [00:06:45] Yeah, absolutely. So OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. It is characterized by having obsessive intrusive thoughts that create anxiety essentially and compulsive actions that we do to neutralize the anxiety. And that is, if we're talking about how OCD is ever sort of miscategorized or mis-seen that's it. Is like we often only from the outside, people categorize OCD as just your compulsion's and it's really not. So it's not just needing things orderly or needing things clean, or it's not just that. Compulsion's take up such a range of things. It's not just physical. Compulsion's, there's also a mental compulsions, which are a huge aspect. And I think not seeing quite as much to me, no matter what the DSM says and where it is in the DSM, it is an anxiety disorder. It originally was seen and characterized as an anxiety disorder. At some point along the line, the powers that be decided it needed its own part in the DSM and I still think that's nuts. It's just, it's an anxiety disorder. So it is characterized by obsessive intrusive thoughts and the compulsive actions that we take to neutralize or get away from that anxiety. OCD has a few different subtypes or sort of categories underneath of it, there is the straight up OCD. And then there's something called pure O or pure OCD, which usually is seen as someone doesn't have physical compulsion's they just solely have mental compulsions. A lot of times it's seen as just having intrusive thoughts. That's baloney, everyone that has OCD has some kind of compulsion, even if it is a rumination or it's the mental checking or things like that. Alyssa Scolari: [00:08:53] So when you say a mental compulsion, can you give an example of what a mental compulsion is? Cause I have not heard that term before. Gina Abbondante: [00:09:02] Yeah, absolutely. So mental compulsions, are there things that we do to try to get away from... when we have physical compulsion's, there's the things that we do with our hands or the things that we say, but mental compulsion's usually. It's mostly around rumination. So we ruminate over a problem. Mostly the thoughts that we have, meaning we try to figure out our thoughts. We try to figure out if they're going to happen, or if they're going to come true. We try to prove them true or false. We try to analyze how we feel about the thoughts. Other mental compulsion's can look like checking. So we check on our sensations inside of our body. Like, do I feel anxious now? Do I feel more anxious now? It can be really just anything that draws attention to, or brings the focus back to the anxiety and the thoughts that we're having. And they are very, I have to tell you, they're very, very challenging to treat because it becomes a habit. And a lot of times those mental compulsions that we have, end up...they're a habit, they're things that we've been doing for long before the anxiety was and the intrusive thoughts were ever present. Alyssa Scolari: [00:10:24] Right. Right. So it's very, very difficult to treat. Okay. So then you were saying, so there's two different subsets of OCD. Gina Abbondante: [00:10:34] Yeah. So those would be like the, I still categorize it as OCD. I don't really delineate between OCD and pure O, I think they're all the same. But underneath of that, in the OCD community, there is a tendency to look at the subtypes of OCD. Again, it's all OCD. One is not better than the other, but we look at the different subtypes. So there's a bunch. We see contamination, OCD, which is, that's actually broken down into two categories also. So it would be the thinking of I'm going to be contaminated and get sick or be poisoned or something like that. And then there's also the contamination of I'm going to feel disgusting or that disgust based contamination. And I won't be able to shake that feeling of being disgusting. There is sexuality OCD, where people get caught up on thoughts on whether or not they are straight or gay. If they're a transsexual or not. There is scrupulosity or religious OCD where that really focuses on the morals, whether we're doing something right or wrong. Have we broken the law? Are we sending that sort of thing? There's harm OCD, which is intrusive thoughts about harm coming to us or people that we love either by ourselves or the world at large, that would be things like, am I going to drive and get in a car accident? Am I going to hurt my child? There's a knife. Am I going to stab my child? Am I going to stab my loved one? There's also suicidal OCD that falls under the harm OCD. There's pedophilia OCD where people worry that they're a pedophile or not. There's existential OCD where we have thoughts, these existential thoughts of am I stuck in a glitch? Am I in a video game? Is this life real? Am I alive really right now? Or am I dreaming? So there's quite a few different, really anything that can create anxiety can be categorized into something, some sort of a subtype. Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:53] Wow. I had no clue that there were so many subtypes and I've, I realized that it's such a huge beast, but I think that the way they teach it or the way it's in the DSM, which for the listeners out there, as I'm sure many of you know, is like the Holy Grail of where we find mental health disorders, it's a human being or a group of human beings decided that this is: "if you have these symptoms, this is what disorder you have." Gina Abbondante: [00:13:23] Yes, a Bible, so to speak. Alyssa Scolari: [00:13:26] Right. Exactly. So we take it with a grain of salt, but when it's in the DSM, it is not like that. It is not described to be as what's the word I'm looking for, like debilitating as it truly is. Can you speak a little bit on how, I know for me when I was younger, it started out just like washing my hands, like to the point where my skin was just bleeding all of the time. And then as I got older, my OCD shifted and it became much more debilitating. So, can you talk about some of the ways in which it can be like. I mean, really like knock you off your feet in terms of like your ability to function. Gina Abbondante: [00:14:17] Oh yeah, absolutely. So I look at the debilitating factor in two ways. It's the anxiety and then it's the actual compulsions. So. I think the anxiety alone can be debilitating where people feel so overcome with fear of they're really their own mind. Their thoughts become afraid of the things that we think that that alone can become debilitating and cause people to feel like they just get sucked into their own thoughts. And then on top of that is the compulsions that some compulsions are so time consuming that people can't leave the house, you know, that they can't function on a day-to-day basis. Somebody has a contamination OCD issue where they are concerned that they're going to pick up AIDS from a drawer handle. And so they're sanitizing the door handles in their house repeatedly, but they have to get it just right. And if they don't do it just right, they have to start all over again. I've had clients that it takes several hours to leave their house because of all of the compulsion's and the things that they have to do physically. And for those that have more mental compulsions versus physical compulsions, It literally pulls you away from your life. You just get this feeling of like you're locked in your brain in all of these thoughts and trying to prove whether or not they're going to happen. And what does this mean about me? And I feel differently about that thought. Now, what does that mean? Like you just get so stuck in your own brain. You just really lose touch with your own life. It's awful, Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:13] Yeah, it's like the world is happening in front of you, but you are disconnected and stuck in your own mental compulsions. Gina Abbondante: [00:16:23] Yeah. I mean, I can look at it. So from my own aspect, I have anxiety. I have OCD. I've had anxiety my whole life. I mean, since I was a child, the first panic attack I remember having was when I was in kindergarten. So it's been a feature of my life since I was really young. Mostly it would be sort of like pegged on to things, things that created stress. So school was really hard for me when I was younger, going to school, tests were really hard for me. Anything that required me to perform or do something really proved to be difficult for me. I didn't develop OCD until really just a few years ago, which is hard. It's hard to be one thing or be one way your whole life and then wake up and be like a completely different person. And it really rattles you. Alyssa Scolari: [00:17:23] Wow. So you only just developed OCD a few years ago? Gina Abbondante: [00:17:27] Yeah. I mean, I've had. Listen, we all have intrusive thoughts. That's just sort of a facet of being a human. It's just those fucked up thoughts that we have as human beings. Alyssa Scolari: [00:17:37] Yeah. Let's normalize that we all have intrusive thoughts and it doesn't mean you're fucked up. Gina Abbondante: [00:17:43] Yeah, totally. I mean, it's just the way our brain works. Our brain is an amazing machine, but it also does some really bizarre things. So I tell people all the time, like any time that you're standing on a train station platform. And you have that thought of like, I could just push this person in front of me on the tracks. That's an intrusive thought. But most people that don't have sticky minds or anxiety can just kind of be like, "Oh, that was weird." And keep it moving. Whereas people that have anxiety and OCD, they get stuck on that thinking. "There's something wrong with me. Oh my God. I'm having these thoughts. What's the matter with me?" So we all have intrusive thoughts. And of course I had had intrusive thoughts my whole life as the rest of us, but it wasn't until a few years ago when actually my family, my husband and my kids, and I, we went down to Disney and I had had like a really massive panic attack on the way down. And from there I started ruminating on, "Oh my God, what does this mean?" "Am I going to ruin this trip? I don't want this." And just really struggling with the anxiety that, that raised my anxiety and it lowered my threshold for being able to manage the intrusive thoughts. And we were walking in Disney and in our resort. I mean, and I remember having this really big flush of anxiety, thinking about having to take the boat from our resort to the magic kingdom the next day. And in response to that flush of anxiety, I just had this intrusive thought that said, if this anxiety keeps up this way, you're going to end up killing yourself. And that was it. I was off to the races. I was, I ruminated the entire trip. Thinking, "Oh my God, I'm a therapist. What does this mean about me?" "Have I been depressed this entire time? I'm in Florida. I don't know the mental health system down here. Do I need to fly home? Am I going to ruin this trip for my kids? Like what is the matter with me? "Just I was off to the races. Alyssa Scolari: [00:19:48] Yup. That thought train has left the station. It has taken off Gina Abbondante: [00:19:52] Yup, absolutely. And it's a wonder that I don't exactly know how I got through that trip because it was just like anxiety at a 20, not even a 10, like over the top, you know, but I managed it and it's interesting looking back, my kids don't. They never noticed anything was off, which just speaks to the amazing, like actor ability of people with anxiety. Like you're suffering inside, but outside mostly people have no idea what's going on. Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:28] No idea. Yup. Your kids had no clue. And here you are. And it's like, boom, onset of OCD. Suicidal. Like I'm gonna kill myself. If this anxiety doesn't go away. It's like, Oh God, that's horrifying. Gina Abbondante: [00:20:44] Yeah. And from there I spent the next good probably I would say 10 months, almost a year. Just ruminating endlessly. And when I tell you, and I tell my clients, this I'm very open with it. I know that feeling. I know that feeling of your anxiety being off the charts, you're afraid of your own thoughts. You can't trust yourself, you're locked inside your own head. I would tell people, I felt like my brain was on fire because it was exactly what it feels like, you know? Just these thoughts running through and like, "what does this mean about me? And am I dangerous and trying to figure it out?" And then this weird thing happens sometimes where you almost pretend like the thoughts are true and you respond emotionally that way. So it was then I became depressed and, Oh my goodness. It was just, it was awful. Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:41] Absolutely. I mean, I relate to that so much, you know, just the thoughts about the obsessions about like, am I. I have lots of obsessions about like, am I the perpetrator when it comes to being a survivor of sexual abuse? It's lots of like, well, I'm the perpetrator. Like I did this. And then I behave as if I am one. Like I closed myself off from the world. Gina Abbondante: [00:22:10] Exactly. Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:11] All of a sudden my thoughts have become my reality. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm bad. I have to go away. And then I don't talk to anybody. Gina Abbondante: [00:22:18] Right, exactly. It's so awful. I mean, I tell what I say is that it is the closest that I feel like I have ever come to having a nervous breakdown because it was just so scary on a day-to-day basis, which I think is also very important thing. I think a lot of, even some OCD specialists don't really touch on is the trauma associated with having an OCD flare up or the onset of it is it is so scary. And the fear that I hear from my own clients and even from myself, is this constant fear of, "Oh my God, is it going to get bad again?" "Is it going to come back? Can I handle it again"? And I feel like even long after the exposure and response prevention therapy, and once that is over that pervasive feeling of, "Oh my God, is it going to come back again?" That is trauma. That is like the underpinning of the trauma response of having OCD. Alyssa Scolari: [00:23:31] So what you're saying is it's not necessarily that a history of trauma is linked to OCD. It's more that having OCD can cause trauma. Gina Abbondante: [00:23:46] Or both. I think it can happen both ways. Yeah. I think it can happen both ways. I mean, I certainly have seen my fair share of clients that have trauma history and develop OCD because of their trauma history. I have clients that didn't have a prior trauma history and developed trauma because of their experience with OCD. I think it can happen both ways. Alyssa Scolari: [00:24:14] Yeah. Yeah. I know that when I was little and I had like, I guess more so like the contamination OCD at that point. I didn't necessarily have a history of trauma. So, but now as I get older, I have intrusive thoughts of seeing my loved ones dead. Like that is the most upsetting thing in the world. It is truly traumatizing and, you know, going through an episode where I think this had to have been just a couple of nights ago. My OCD, my intrusive thoughts are through the roof. Trigger warning for anybody who's listening, intrusive thoughts. So it was just a couple of nights ago because I'm in the process of coming off. I was on Klonopin for a while and I'm in the process of coming off the Klonopin. And the rebound effect of coming off of any kind of benzodiazepine is like anxiety through the roof. So my intrusive thoughts are coming back and I just, the other night I was looking at my family, like my dogs, and I was just seeing everybody dead and the worst kind of dead and the horror that endured from those images. Right. Nothing happened. I just have that visual. And then the entire weekend I was down for the count hysterically crying, trying to do anything I could to erase the images from my mind like that is at a level... Gina Abbondante: [00:25:55] which is a mental compulsion. Yes. Yes. And that's the other thing is that a lot of times we think intrusive thoughts have to be thoughts. Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:06] They have to be words it's very often images. It's pictures. Yes. That a very good thing to point out. Yep. Gina Abbondante: [00:26:13] Totally. You know, I see from my own experience, I couldn't look outside and see a tree and not have an image of myself, like hanging from it, which was terrifying. I couldn't walk into my kitchen and see a steak knife sitting on the counter and have these intrusive images of me like cutting myself or hurting myself. It's just relentless. It was absolutely awful. So I think that's important as well as a lot of people get tripped up on thinking, Oh, these are thoughts. That means it has to be thoughts. Doesn't have to be, it can also be urges as well. People get intrusive thoughts can come as intrusive urges, which happens. Alyssa Scolari: [00:26:59] Like an urge to do an action? Yeah. It could be in response to having a physical sensation and then having an urge to, I need to do this compulsion. I need to, or even the feeling of I'm having this fear of, "Oh my gosh, this awful thing is going to happen." Gina Abbondante: [00:27:24] I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it right now." For instance, when I have clients that are postpartum and they're changing their baby's diaper, they might have a fear of, "Oh my God, what if I'm changing my baby's diaper? And I sexually abused them. What if I do it right now or giving their baby a bath?" "And they think. Well, I can just push this baby under the water. Okay. What if I do it right now?" It can feel like urges, which is really scary for people as well. Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:51] It's so important to hear you say that, like, and say things like that out loud, because I think that there are thousands, millions of people who have these thoughts. And don't feel like they can tell a single soul because of the shame. Gina Abbondante: [00:28:14] Absolutely. Absolutely shame and guilt is a huge motivating factor in what keeps OCD hanging around for longer as well. Just having shame of thinking there's something wrong with us that we're bad, that we're evil. That were fucked up in some way. It feeds that anxiety spiral as well of thinking like, "Oh my God, there's something wrong with me. I can't tell someone about this because they're going to want to lock me up or they're going to want me to go to a mental hospital or they're going to take my kids away from me or they're going to whatever." Yeah. I think that's what keeps people that have these thoughts and have these compulsion's quiet and in secret for so long. Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:06] Yes. Especially people who have kids. Oh yeah. Or even, even younger people who live at home with their families who don't necessarily understand mental health. And I think that in treatment, one of the most healing moments is when the person is able to speak the thought. And have the therapists not blow up and be like, "Oh my God, that's horrible." Gina Abbondante: [00:29:34] Absolutely. Alyssa Scolari: [00:29:36] That is, I think probably one of the most healing moments in therapy now when it comes to like the treatment for OCD, obviously, you know, one of the most well-known treatments is like the exposure. Gina Abbondante: [00:29:54] Yeah. So the gold standard is exposure and response prevention, which. What that really means is we expose ourselves to the things that create anxiety. That's the exposure part. And the response prevention part means that we don't allow ourselves to do the compulsions to neutralize or get away from the anxiety. So what that might look like is, again, if you have someone that maybe has health, anxiety, or health OCD, that they have a belief that they're going to have a heart attack. Their compulsion might be that they take their pulse multiple times a day. They're checking in on their heart. It would be allowing those thoughts."Oh my God. I might have a heart attack and not allowing them to check their pulse." And what that does is it teaches us. It teaches our brain that we can feel afraid and be safe at the same time. So our amygdala, which is that fancy part of our brain that creates the fear response. That's what makes us feel afraid. And because the feeling is so intense, we then believe we are unsafe. And that's why we do the compulsion is so that we make ourselves feel safe. So we're not quite as afraid by taking away the compulsions because compulsions are what feed the anxiety. When we look at OCD treatment, the intrusive thought part and the anxiety part is not the problem. The problem is the compulsions and the behaviors that we do to get away from feeling anxious. So a lot of therapists will say, if you can do one part of therapy for OCD, it's just treat the compulsions. Just move away from doing the compulsions. Every day is an exposure for most people, opening their eyes in the morning is an exposure. So you don't have to plan too much. The most important part is. Holding back on doing the compulsions. Alyssa Scolari: [00:32:08] It's so difficult. I don't know. I just even think back to like last night when I was leaving my office, I have this compulsion right now where I light a candle in my office and I will look at it before I leave to make sure it's blown out. I'll leave. And then not believe that I saw that it was blown out. So then I have to drop my stuff, unlock the door again, go back in, look at it. Then lock up again, go to my car and still, I have to force myself to go to my car because I could just go back 10 times and keep looking at that candle. Gina Abbondante: [00:32:45] Right. That's called unproductive reassurance. So two of the most common compulsions that we see with OCD are actually not physical at all. Well, one of them is kind of physical avoidance. And reassurance seeking. So avoidance is obvious, right? So anything that we're afraid of, we just don't do it. So anything that creates anxiety, we don't do it. If we don't do it, that makes the anxiety drop way down. Oh, done. You know, we're fine. We don't do that again. Yep. Reassurance is very sneaky, especially in the days of the internet, because Googling is probably number one of the reassurance seeking compulsions anytime we put into Google, "why do I feel, or why is this happening?" Or we never, totally never, it never goes anywhere good Because there's nothing on the internet going to be able to say you're totally fine. It's just OCD. Alyssa Scolari: [00:33:51] Yep. There's not one website out there. Maybe you should make one that pops up. Gina Abbondante: [00:33:56] Oh my God, that'd be great. I'd be a millionaire. And we'll probably not people wouldn't like it. They would look for there another answer to that. But it's really like that reassurance seeking. We look at reassurance seeking in two ways, productive reassurance, which means you can go to the internet. Like if you're learning how to build a bird house or something, you look for your instructions on the internet, you get a plan, you execute your plan. That's productive reassurance. Unproductive reassurance is kind of like what happens when people check, which is: "Okay I've gone. I've see that I blew it out. I walk away, but I don't remember." I'm not sure I can't handle that uncertainty. I'm going to go back and check again and again and again and again, but because it was never about really checking. It was just about getting away from that sensation of anxiety and uncertainty that was driving it. Alyssa Scolari: [00:34:52] Yeah. Now I'm wondering as I'm hearing you talk, I'm wondering, how did this work for your treatment, with the thoughts of committing suicide? How does treatment work with that? Because you can't necessarily do, like, I don't know how does treatment work with that. Gina Abbondante: [00:35:14] Yeah. So it was really hard. It got to the point where I would. Let's talk about unproductive reassurance. I would Google TV shows before I watched them to make sure that there was no themes of suicide in them. I couldn't even like listen to the radio because like, if Nirvana came on the radio, it would spin me the fuck out. So, it started with things like that, where I would purposely listen to songs that had themes of suicide or a band member had committed suicide. And I had to listen to them and let the anxiety come and go and not engage in mostly it was avoidance for me. So I had to not avoid, just sit, let the anxiety calm, let the anxiety go. And kind of teach my brain. No, this is okay. It's still safe to do this. And then it sort of built from there. I did a lot of, for me, it was a lot of imaginal scripts. So I would write out scripts of what my worst case scenario was in my head of, okay. Worst case scenario is this anxiety continues on. I become nonfunctional. I can't leave the house. I can't take care of my kids. My husband is resentful and angry with me. I can't work anymore. I fall into a deep depression and because I fall into a deep depression, I ultimately become suicidal and feel like this world is hopeless and this life is not livable. And I follow through on my thoughts and I would have to write that and then read it over and over and over and over again, because the anxiety would do the same. The anxiety would come up, it would spike. And I would have to practice not allowing myself to compulse meaning I couldn't avoid, I wouldn't allow myself to ruminate. So it was just sort of like a bit of a different approach because there's not a whole lot of like physical things that you can do when you have a fear of suicide. Alyssa Scolari: [00:37:30] Right. And that was what I was asking, but I guess it's kind of getting almost creative with the type of exposure because it's a different type of OCD than just like, "okay, you have to touch this door handle and then sit with it." But regardless, it sounds like what you're pointing out is that nobody can stay in a chronic state of anxiety forever. Right? So the goal is repetition until your body regulates. Gina Abbondante: [00:37:58] Exactly. Yeah. So the rule is any emotion, even the good ones or the ones we judge as good, only lasts in our body for 90 seconds. Anxiety follows the similar suit. It has a very definitive pattern. It starts, it rises, it peaks, it falls off and it goes away and that happens in 90 seconds. If we can ride that out without feeding the anxiety. So how do we feed the anxiety? We feed it with those what if thoughts. We feed it with more intrusive thoughts. We feed it with ruminating over whether or not these things are going to happen. If we don't feed it and we just let it be, it will cut off and we teach that part of our brain: "Oh, wait, I didn't have to do X, Y or Z thing. The anxiety left on its own. Hmm. Okay." The funny thing is though, as I very well know this, we can learn fear and a fear response in two seconds, but it takes way more like wildly more time to unlearn a fear in our brain. Alyssa Scolari: [00:39:14] Isn't that a bitch? Gina Abbondante: [00:39:17] It really is. Alyssa Scolari: [00:39:18] I know. It's like, what the fuck, man? Yeah. It can take a split second for that fear to start up, but to be able to get it to go away is work upon work upon work. But the point is is that you can recover from OCD. Gina Abbondante: [00:39:40] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I will give this caveat though. So people come to me and they say, what does recovery from OCD look like? And people don't usually like my answer when I tell them this, because a lot of times people want the answer of, yup, you're going to wake up. You're going to do all this and you're going to have no anxiety anymore. And you're never going to have another intrusive thought either. You're going to be healed. It's going to be sunshine and rainbows and puppies, and you're going to be great. And that's not how it works. What recovery from anxiety disorders and OCD looks like is you learn how to be anxious better. You learn how to become nonreactive to the anxiety. You learn how to become nonreactive to the intrusive thoughts that come, you learn how to be anxious better. Alyssa Scolari: [00:40:39] And I would imagine that there's also like ebb and flow to it where like, there are certain things that trigger it. Like when there are really stressful moments of your life, it may be much harder, but as time goes on, just like you said, you learn to be. Anxious better. Gina Abbondante: [00:40:59] Yeah. And yeah, there's totally going to be times of stress and there's gonna be things that trigger it and you might have a pop-up intrusive thought. That's like, totally you weren't expecting. And it does spike anxiety, but we use our skills. We know what to do. We do the same thing every single time. So that we don't really have to think about it too much. Even just yesterday. I was going to pick up my daughter from school. I was a few minutes early, so I parked in the parking lot across the street. Cause my daughter's school is weird. You can't go in until it's time for pickup. And there was a teenager, but I'm guessing it was like late teensish in the parking lot. Alone playing loud music and immediately my intrusive thoughts went to, "Oh my God. What if he's a school shooter?" Cause that's a huge thing of mine in my harm OCD world. And I wasn't expecting it. And I noticed it, it caught my awareness and I did the same things I do every time. Okay. We know what to do. You sit here, you let that anxiety calm. You let that anxiety go. You are not going to ruminate over this. Ruminating is a huge compulsion of mine, but I'm not going to ruminate over this. I am going to act as if everything is okay, let my thoughts come and go and do what you need to do. So it is, it's a practice. It's a thing that we have to make those behavior and lifestyle changes and stick with them. Alyssa Scolari: [00:42:33] Very difficult one, but one that can be done nonetheless, Gina Abbondante: [00:42:39] The way I look at it is it's awful. And I would not wish this on my worst enemy, but there are worse things. Alyssa Scolari: [00:42:47] Yes, but also the discomfort of recovery of going through that process, I still think is easier than staying in a world where OCD runs your life. Gina Abbondante: [00:43:03] Oh yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Cause it really is. It's all encompassing. If you think of like Howard Hughes, who was like the epitome of someone with OCD, he devolved into a world where he couldn't leave his house because he took 17 showers a day and he just devolved into a world of his own madness. And that's totally possible with having OCD, you know? Alyssa Scolari: [00:43:32] Yep. When it's unchecked, that's what it can become. Did you decide, did OCD become a huge passion of yours after you had that moment in Disney? Or were you already very passionate about OCD prior to even knowing that you had it. Gina Abbondante: [00:43:52] Sort of a little of both? So, because I had always specialized in anxiety disorders. So it had always been on my radar as a passion. Like, you know, it's really interesting that I see so much of this because anxiety around OCD as an anxiety disorder. I have yet to meet anybody walking on this planet that has any other anxiety disorder and doesn't have a compulsion. So that's where it kind of, the overlap comes in. So, I had been doing ERP and exposure therapy with clients for years, because I would see so much of it in just the regular population of clients. And then it was interesting. You would think that by knowing what to do that when you start to experience yourself, you know what to do and you don't .The short answer is you don't. That's a very different thing to be able to do it for someone else, but when it comes to you and ourselves, I was in the weeds. So that sort of renewed my passion for it, for knowing, for getting to that place of like, Oh, wow. Yeah. Like I knew what panic attacks were before, but now I know what this is like, and Oh, this is a whole different thing. Alyssa Scolari: [00:45:23] Whole different ball game. Oh my gosh. So now. Your group practice. Are you accepting new patients right now? Gina Abbondante: [00:45:33] We are. So we have as myself and I have another therapist who also specializes in OCD. We all have our little are things that we are interested in or our population, so to speak, but we are accepting new clients. We have some clinicians that specialize in adolescents, which is huge because there's so many adolescents and kids that need therapists and just not enough therapists to go around. Alyssa Scolari: [00:46:02] Yes. Not enough adolescent therapists out there. That's for sure. Sure. That's for sure. And it's Change of Mind Counseling, is that correct? Gina Abbondante: [00:46:13] Yes. It's Change of Mind Counseling. Alyssa Scolari: [00:46:16] So I will definitely pop that into the show notes for anybody who is listening today, who is interested. Obviously from the conversation you can tell Gina knows her shit. I learned a lot today, a lot about OCD. So thank you for coming on the show and for being vulnerable, because I think it's really hard. You know, and I know we were talking a little bit about this, like prior to recording, but I think it's really hard to be vulnerable as a therapist because there's just this, I don't know, idea that therapists are... Gina Abbondante: [00:46:56] That we have our shit together. Yeah, that we together, which is like furthest from the truth. I mean, listen, we didn't get into this field because we're like these epitome of perfect mental health. We got into it because we're in struggled with our own shit. Alyssa Scolari: [00:47:15] Right, right. I'm not the portrait of a mental health over here. Yeah. No, there's this idea that we just like are not affected and that we have all the answers to life and it's like, we don't and we struggle. And I think it takes a lot to just break down that barrier and just say "Hey, no, I'm a human too." And part of you going through this and you being in recovery is part of what makes you, I think, such a good therapist. Gina Abbondante: [00:47:50] Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it's important. I think it's the relatable aspect. I think people want to hear. They want to hear their story. They want to hear other people have been through a similar experience to them and they're not alone. And. I try to normalize that as much as possible. And I'm very open with my clients about that. I have OCD that I'm in recovery from it, you know, some days are better than others. And I think that's really important because I think we have to normalize the struggle. That it's normal to have days that are good and some days are bad and that's okay. It doesn't mean that it's going to be all good or all bad, or what that means something about you and your coverage journey. And I think that's super, super important. Alyssa Scolari: [00:48:44] Yeah. I think it's one of the most powerful parts of the therapeutic relationship is like the ability to just kind of like be a human, for sure. So thank you so much for coming on today. Gina Abbondante: [00:48:56] Yeah, well thank you for having me. It was great. Alyssa Scolari: [00:49:01] Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram. We are at @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter. It is at @lightafterpod. And if you're on Facebook, please be sure to join our Facebook group. It is a private community where trauma survivors are able to connect and chat with one another. That Facebook group is called light after traumas. So just look us up on Facebook and be sure to join. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/light aftertrauma to support our show, we are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over again. That's patrion.com/late after trauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

"Baby I'm back by popular demand"Slight audio technical difficulties.  My OCD  was stressed!00:49-  Kofi's Lost Love04:12 - Wisdom Teeth Misadventures 10:11 - Tales from the City : Strangers 18:18 -  Where's the TV Talk? & That's So Raven 21:45 - Quote of the Week : “If you're offended by what I say, imagine what I'm thinking” - Janet RoachKofi MannTwitter @KforKofiInstagram @Kofi.xxEmail - Thoughtsaloudpodcasts@gmail.com

Everyone who listens knows and understands that I have OCD. For people who don’t know what that is, it’s obsessive compulsive disorder. It is classed as a mental disorder. You can go listen to Season 1 episodes and I talk about it a lot. I’ve had OCD for a long time, 40+ years. Some days are worse than other. Some days there is no controlling it and those days are not good at all. I’m constantly in turmoil and no matter how I try I cannot get organized.I refer to OCD as my addiction because just like people that are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex or gambling you constantly fight for control. Since October, my OCD has been Outta of control daily (that was the name of my original podcast).I was unemployed, husband’s hours had been cut and we knew we needed to sell our home.Having family in real estate really helped. Our realtor found us a private investor and we were under contract in no time. That’s when the real fun started. I had to start packing find movers, not to mention find us a new place to live. I also had to keep the podcast going and search for a permanent job. I had just had one dog put down in September and another was showing signs that he wasn’t well. I tried to keep my daily schedule which if you have OCD, a daily routine is important.I was walking/jogging/running every day at least 2.5 miles and I was doing that in40 minutes or less. Then I made my energy drink and started to work for the day. Since moving I have not been able to do any of that, mainly because of my wreck and trying to heal. However, my OCD does not understand that. My OCD wants a routine. We are starting to get one and it gets better every day. It is a constant struggle to keep things at bay. I know we will eventually get everything worked out and that it will take time. OCD is not patient and it doesn’t understand the healing process either. Things are really looking up in the last few weeks and I have obtained a sponsor and we are working on it together to get her more business and me a bigger following which I hope will lead to more sponsors World Pet Travel - We Can Move Your Pets It is not as easy as you may think to move your furry children to a new country or across country. Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lsfarnsworth29)

Hosts: Steve Arterburn, Dr. Jill Hubbard, Dr. Alice Benton Caller Questions: - I have been diagnosed with a form of autism; how can I deal with my emotions and grief? - My mom suddenly died after I was her caregiver for 10yrs; how do I change my life? - My OCD has been accelerated by Covid-19. Are there ways to cope besides meds? - A 27yo family member is living on our property and pays for Internet; should we block his porn? - I am unemployed and going through depression alone; what can I do? To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/451/29

Topics: Autism, Grief, Sexual Abuse, Caregiving, OCD, Pornography, Depression, Connection Hosts: Steve Arterburn, Dr. Jill Hubbard, Dr. Alice Benton Caller Questions: I have been diagnosed with a form of autism; how can I deal with my emotions and grief?  My mom suddenly died after I was her caregiver for 10yrs; how do I change my life?  My OCD has been accelerated by COVID-19. Are there The post New Life Live: May 25, 2020 appeared first on New Life.

Nate Morton from "The Voice" In this episode, Part 2, we dig deeper into the audition he went on thanks to Barry Squire and his own networking becoming known as a "player" in town. Besides doing gigs around town and networking, he would go to some of the more well-known jam session so he could be seen, heard and start to build his network. As you'll hear as a constant thread throughout both parts of this conversation, networking and relationships have been key to Nate's growth and success. We talk about the sequence of auditions and gigs in a timeline so you can get a feel for the progression of what Nate went through to bring us current to today. In 2005, there's the lengthy audition for "Rock Star: INXS" and then in 2006, "Rock Start: Supernova". Then onto "The Bonnie Hunt Show" from September 2008 to May 2010. Finally in 2011, he lands one of the greatest gigs of all times, "The Voice" We talk more about his early days in Los Angeles and we walk through his timeline of auditions, touring gigs with well-known artists and end in the present day. Enjoy and thank you for listening!! ********** Nate Morton: Nate's Website: https://natemortondrums.com/ Fraudprophets Website: http://www.fraudprophets.com/ YouTube: Nate Morton Drum Cam Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natemortondrums/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/n8drumz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/n8drumz Nate's company affiliations include: Pearl drums & percussion Zildjian cymbals & sticks Roland Remo ePad Cympad GoPro Sennheiser Kelly SHU WingKey https://youtu.be/pjljYtm5DCQ Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#thejoecostelloshow Follow Joe: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jcostelloglobal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcostelloglobal/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jcostelloglobal/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUZsrJsf8-1dS6ddAa9Sr1Q?view_as=subscriber Transcript Part 2 - Nate Morton Interview: Joe: And some of Nate: I Joe: The process, Nate: Will say. Joe: Like with the Billy Myers or gay. Right. With with that with that two day audition series that happened. Nate: Yep. Joe: Were you given music ahead of time or did you have to go in and just wing it? Nate: Oh, God. No, no, no, no. If you're gonna do an audition typically back in that era and they would say, you know, oh, go to her manager's office and pick up this C.D. and the he would have, you know, three songs on it and they would generally be listed in the order that they were gonna be released as singles. You know, here's the first single second, third. And in the case of Billy Myers, I feel like her single was already out or was a song called Kiss the Rain. Kenny Aronoff, I think, played drums on the original recording. Joe: Ok. Nate: And yeah, that dude. Yeah. You know that. Yeah. That that up and coming guy. Joe: Right. Nate: What Joe: Right. Nate: He's got, he's got a lot of potential. Joe: Yeah. Nate: I think if he sticks with it, he's really Joe: Right. Nate: Going to Joe: Yeah, Nate: Go far. Joe: Yeah. Nate: I hope, I hope people get my, my stupid sense of humor Joe: They Nate: Like Joe: Totally. Nate: They're just out there just not like oh my God. He said he thinks Kenny Arnow is up and coming. Joe: The Nate: Oh, my God. He's an idiot. That guy. Joe: No. Nate: So, yes, Kenny, if you're listening. I'm sorry. Just joking. So. So I pick up, you know, you pick up the C.D. and. This is twenty, twenty years before almost 20 years before I have to start. No, no, no, no, no. I think that that. I'm sorry. That would have been in the. That would've been let's call it let's call it ninety nine. Two thousand area. And then it wasn't until. Two thousand, five, six or so when Rockstar came along, which is which is this TV show that I did where we started having to learn these like kind of high volumes of songs, right. Where it's like, oh, there's fifteen songs this week to learn, which in retrospect doesn't seem like a lot because there are times on the voice when it's like, OK, here's the thirty six songs rolling this week. Joe: It's amazing. Nate: But at that time to have to come in and in a week learn 14 songs or 12 songs, it was like, I mean if you do a tour. If you do a tour, you might be rehearsing. Let's just say six days a week. Seven or eight hours a day. And you, depending on the tour you're doing and the level you're doing. I mean, you might be learning two songs a day. You're not Joe: Hey, Nate: Saying Joe: Yeah. Nate: Muddy Lane shoes on the day because the keyboard players are dialing sounds and this is that I didn't want to wear. It was it was actually literally that it was literally out of a 10 hour day. The keyboard players and guitar players were dialing sounds for seven and a half or eight hours of getting the sound right for you. The track was so the idea that you would come in and in the space of a week, from Monday to Saturday, Saturday, really Monday to Sunday, you know, it's like Monday and Tuesday, you've got to learn 14 songs because you're seeing the contestants on Wednesday and Thursday. I mean, at that, like I said now. I mean, I could I could, I could. You know, this sounds terrible, but, I mean, I could do that and read a book and crochet a sweater at the same time. Well, but then but then the idea of fourteens on the two days like war. So anyway, my Joe: And this Nate: Only. Joe: Was the rock star time frame that you're talking about. Nate: Correct. Joe: When? Nate: This was the beginning Joe: Ok. Nate: Of rock star. This is Joe: All Nate: The Joe: Right. Nate: Beginning of rock star. Joe: Ok. Nate: So. So. Joe: And how did you get that? Like. Morgan walks in the room and like every drummer runs its runs to the corner like a bunch. Nate: Are you out of your mind? Joe: So don't don't you know, don't belittle Nate: Okay, okay, okay, Joe: The Nate: Okay, Joe: Fact Nate: Ok. Joe: That you had to go do something to get these gigs. That's important. Nate: Ok, Joe. Joe: It's. Nate: Ok. Why did you ask me? Ask me? Joe: Ok, so you were with Nate: Ask Joe: Billy Nate: Me, Joe: Myers Nate: Ask me, Joe: And then. Nate: Ask me the big question, which is because this is this is this was this is the big question that I'll bring it on home. Ask me the big question, which is how did you get the gig on The Voice? Joe: No, because there's so many other things in Nate: No, Joe: Between. Nate: No, no, no, no. Just Joe: Oh, Nate: Try Joe: I thought there Nate: It. Joe: Was. Nate: No, no, no, just try Joe: Ok. Nate: It. Joe: Really? OK. So Nate, how did you get the audition on The Voice? Nate: No, no, no, no, no, no. The gate, the gate stretch. Joe: Oh, the Nate: Try, Joe: Gag Nate: Try again. Try again, Joe. Nate, how did you get the gig on The Voice? Joe: Me. How did you get the gag on The Voice? Nate: Funny you should ask. Joe: Oh, good. Nate: So back in, ho, ho, ho. Get comfortable people back. Somewhere around 2002. I always want to do like in the year 2000. Joe: Right. Nate: If anyone remembers that, I don't even remember that little Conan O'Brien bit. That has to do with Eddie Richter. So back somewhere around 2002, I was playing with the singer songwriter piano player named Billy Appealing. That was a little earlier named Vanessa Carlton. So 2002, 2002, 2003, somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe 2003. And for those of you who may not be familiar with Vanessa Carlton, she had a single called A Thousand Miles. It was a really big summertime single. So interrelates with Vanessa, and we're somewhere in the middle of somewhere and I get a call. Joe: See? But there you go again, you skipped over, how did you get that gig? Nate: Well, I actually didn't skip over Joe because I said because I said Nate's a jerk because because I said that many of my earlier auditions, of which Vanessa Carlton was one can't be very Swier, actually. Probably Joe: Ok. Nate: Did. I probably Joe: Ok. Nate: Admitted that. Yes, she. So OK, then I'll give you the quick I'll give you the quick. Overview of the various wire gate, so of the various of the gigs that I did or of the auditions that I did when I first moved the town, that I found myself in a room in some way, shape or form or fashion at the result of knowing or as a result of knowing various wire. The first one was Billy Myers. The next one, I think, was Tommy Hinrichsen, who is a guitar player, bass player, singer songwriter, rocker of all levels. He's currently playing guitar with Alice Cooper. Right. But it's time he had a deal on capital. Yes, capital is the only capital records. So Billy Myers, Tommy Henderson. Darren Hayes, who was a lead. I think he was the lead singer of Savage Garden. And so for a minute there, Darren Hayes had a solo project. Darren Hayes. And so I didn't audition that. I was fortunate to get through that. I was unable to do it because of a conflict with another very ask audition that I did, which was Vanessa Carlton. So Darren Hayes and Vanessa Carlton conflicted. So I found myself having to choose between the two or fortunate to have the, you know, good, good problem of choosing between the two. And and I elected to. Play with Vanessa Carlton and then also in there was there was a well, there is a he's a bad ass, a techno dance artist, ETM artist, if you will, called Brian Transito or Beatty is his name. So those those handful of auditions all came through the Barry Squire stream. So Joe: Perfect. Nate: Very smart, Joe: Now, I feel Nate: Very Joe: So Nate: Suave Joe: Much Nate: Stream. Joe: Better now. Nate: There you go. Barry Swier Stream led to Vanessa Carlton. So both now mentor Vanessa. Phone rings This might've been a Bery call as well, but it was Hey, Nate. There's a certain big artist who's auditioning and she is looking to put the band on retainer and the auditions are this day, she's heard a lot of players. They haven't said of the band yet. And we would like you to come to the audition and I won't say the artists. Name, but her initials are Alanis Morissette. So. Let's hope Joe: Oh, Nate: So. Joe: Good. Nate: So Joe: That Nate: I'm Joe: Was true, Nate Nate: So Joe: Martin Nate: I'm free. Joe: Form right Nate: Thank you. Joe: There Nate: Thank Joe: Was Nate: You. Thank Joe: Perfect. Nate: You. Thank you. Thank you. Joe: God, I'm so glad. Nate: So so I'm out with Vanessa and I get this call that Atlantis is auditioning. And I know that Vanessa's tour is winding down. And so I'm very excited. I'm like, oh, man, this could be a great transition. So in the middle of the Vanessa gate, I fly home. All of this, by the way, I'm still answering the question, how did you get to get on the voice? If you can't if you can believe it. So, so so it works out that the day she's auditioning it, it falls on like a day off that I've got with Vanessa. And so it's a day off with Vanessa. I don't remember where we are, but I raced to the airport in the morning. I fly home. I'm listening to Atlanta songs on the way home, the song songs if you're going to ask for a rhyme, charting out my little charts. And I think and I get there and I go to the audition and. And it was amazing. I played it. Yeah. Sounds great. You guys will rock it. And at the end of the audition they go, man, that was great. You didn't get to play. Oh, my heart broke. I was so sad. Right. So I did not get the gig. They said, thank you for joining us. You're you know, you did a good job. But we're going to you know, we have another guy. OK, I get back on a plane the next day, I fly back, I rejoin Venessa, which is a great gig. No disrespect to Buddhism. Joe: Anybody Nate: And so. Joe: Know where you went in that period of time? Nate: Sure, Joe: Was it Nate: Probably. Joe: That the van? Nate: Or you know what? Do you know what the truth is? I'll be honest with you. I don't even remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I might have said maybe it would be not kosher to be like, hey, I'm going home to audition for a gig that's no bigger than this one. And so so maybe I wouldn't have said it. Maybe it would have added more a little bit more subtle approach. But nonetheless, I didn't get it anyway. So I arrived back and then I finish out of Inessa tour and I'm a little bit bummed that I missed out on that great opportunity because. Hashtag comments were sent. Joe: Yeah, Nate: All Joe: Yeah, Nate: Right. Joe: Yeah. Hell, yeah. Nate: Shoot. So if you called me today, I'd be like, I don't know, can I. Can I fit your voice schedule? Or is it here? I mean, she's amazing. Right, Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Nate: Though. So the Vanessa. Tour finishes and not too long after the Vanessa tour finishes, and I feel like this is I feel like this is the end of. Oh, for. I get a call from a friend and he says, hey, mate, Mark Burnett is putting together his TV show. It's called Rock Star. He needs a band. And so he is called upon however many in eight, ten, twelve days to put together bands to come in audition to potentially be the house band on this show. It's going to be like American Idol, but it's going to have like rock and rock songs. You know, it could be great. And so I go, okay. That man, of course, I would love to. And so the person who called me for that audition was a bass player named Derek Frank, who has a very, very long list of credits to his name. So Derek put together the band as the band leader, and we went and auditioned. So now we're in early 2005, because if memory serves the first round of auditions for Rock Star, we're in the first or second week of the year. That was like January 5th or something, right? Was the audition. We audition and again, multiple bands audition again. The whole process is going on and on and on. And eventually they wind up saying, OK, I get a call from Clive Lieberman, who is I'm still in my life at that time. I get a call from Clive Lieberman and he says, OK, we've narrowed it down. We have three drummers that we're looking at. And you're one of the three. And here's the next day, you know, can you be here on this day? At this time? OK, sure. Of course I can. So I go there. And now now we're in like late January because the process started like early January. Now we're moving into like mid late January. Joe: Wow. That's incredible. Nate: The man I was started. I'm just getting warmed up. So so I go there. And the other drummers are playing and the rotating Grumman's in and out in the way that. I mean, I've done several auditions and they all work a variety of ways. But generally, if none of the band is set, then some portion of the audition live audition is that drummer with that bass player, that bass player with that guitar player, that guitar player with that drummer that removes that bass player on that guitar player in there, especially in this sense, has a television show. They're analyzing it all. So so they're they're well above like, do these guys sound good? They're like, do I like that guy's dreadlocks? In my case, for example, I know that guy has a guitar that's like Dayglo pink. That's cool. Oh, I hate that guy's boots. Like, it's on that level because the TV show. Right. So at the end of the day, we're playing with vulnerably. Okay. I'm let's let's say I'm drummer number three. So we're playing, playing, playing, playing, playing. At some point they say, okay, drummer number one, you can go home. And then I look around and there's just like German number two and me bling, bling, bling, bling, bling. And at some point they say, OK, drummer number two. Thank you a lot. You can go home and then it's just me and I'm playing for like the rest of the day and well into the night. So finally they say, OK, we're finished for the night. Everybody can go home. Now, when they did that on Billy Myers, it was this is the band we're playing Vibe tomorrow. Let's get her done as opposed to on this, where they're like. All right. Joe: Go Nate: So Joe: Now, Nate: I Joe: Go home Nate: Could Joe: And worry. Now go home and Nate: Go Joe: Worry. Nate: Home. Now go home. Right. So I go up to Clyde. Clide Lieberman. Love them, love, love, love. I got to climb. I go say Hi, Clyde. As I look around, I don't see any other drummers. I said so. So can I. I said, so should I. Should I go home and, you know, have a celebratory drink? And Clyde's response was, well, you should definitely go home and have a drink, Joe: Yes. Oh, no. Nate: Right? It's so, Joe: Oh, no. Nate: So, so now we're at the end of January. The band that they arrived at. Sort of somewhere in February. They had this band. Right. And I was included among and within that band. And they had an M.D., a guitar player, a bass player and a multi instrumentalist. And so then that band did a gig for the. That was a CBS show. So we'd have done a gig for, like, those higher up CBS guys. Right. We would have had to have been approved by them. Then at some point, they kind of went like, well, what if we had this person on bass? So then that band did another gig for the CBS people. Then, well, what do we have this person on guitar? Then that band did another gig for the CBS people. Joe: Wow. Nate: Then I was like, wow, this isn't working out. Let's go back to the other band. OK, now then that band did. So. So there were there were there were hoops aplenty to jump through. But in the end of all the jumping through hoops and I remember this date, I don't know why it's burned in my head. I could have it wrong. But I remember this date. I feel like May. I feel like it was May 19th. We were all sat in a room with the executive producer of that show, Rock Star. His name is David Goffin and that band. Was myself on drums. Sasha could face off on base. Half Amaria on guitar, Jim O'Gorman on guitar and multi instrumentalist and musical director. Paul Markovich. So that was the first time Paul, Sasha and myself worked together as a rhythm section. Now, Sasha was my bass player on Vanessa Carlton. And Paul had also worked with Sasha in other situations. But this is the first time at that that this was the genesis of that rhythm section. So. From Rock Star, that rhythm section went on to do multiple sessions in town. Two seasons of Rock Star. That band went on to do a tour with Paul Stanley. Ultimately, that rhythm section wound up doing the Cher Caesars Palace run. So now I flashed all the way forward from 2000 and. Five. Right. By the way. So the first audition, the first part of that audition was in early January. And the band wasn't solidified until Joe: May 19th. Nate: The end of May. Well, May 19th was when they said, if you want to do it. Joe: Got it. Nate: And then ultimately, by the time contract or signed. Yeah, it was the end of May. It was the end of May. Beginning of June. Somewhere in there. Joe: So all of this time, you're not making any money. Nate: No, the auditions that we did and the rehearsals that we did were paid Joe: Ok. Nate: Because because at the end of the day, you are a professional musician. So even whether whether you have the gig or not, it is still your time, you know. And Joe: Ok. Nate: It is, you know, I mean, we were we weren't on some sort of, you know, incredible retainer or anything. But at the same time, the powers that be know that to expect you to dedicate the time to learning these songs and doing these rehearsals and showing up and, you know, wearing halfway presentable clothes and showing up with good gear and playing gigging town and good, that's not something that people would typically want to do for free. That's something that that you know, that that's what we do. And so Joe: Right. Nate: They wouldn't have expected us to do that for free. Joe: So any point during this interview process from early January to this may date where it finally gets solidified? Did any other tour opportunities come up that almost tore you away to go and say, OK, this great thing has just come in? And if I get this, I'm out here, I'm done with these auditions. I'm going. Nate: So, Joe, when you called me. And you were like, hey, man, can you come in my pocket hasn't got to me and I was like, Sure, sure. And then you were just like, Yeah, we'll talk about your life story. Joe: All. Nate: And I was like Joe: Right. Nate: I was kind of like, oh, there's gonna be like everything I've always been asked before and about we all the same stuff. I hope Joe comes with a new question. I hope so. That's the first time anyone has ever asked me that question. Joe: Seriously? Nate: And yes, that's the first time I've ever been asked that question. And that is an interesting question. And it is, is it is very insightful. Joe: So we'll think I'm Nate: So Joe: Looking. Nate: Absolutely. Joe: I'm looking through all of this because I live through you, you know that, right? So I am all of these questions are like, man, if I was in the middle of all this and all of a sudden, you know, share, I get the call from Barry saying Cher's auditioning. So anyhow, that that's why it was Nate: Well, Joe: Important. Nate: And like I said, it's a good question and it's a very astute question. And the answer is yes. I mean, because it was from early part of the year to like May, April, you know, in that in that neighborhood. Joe: And they're building Nate: So, Joe: Up Nate: Yeah, Joe: Their tour Nate: That's Joe: Vans. Nate: When things are Joe: Right. Nate: Happening. Joe: Right. Nate: Right. That's why things are happening. I can't remember specific things that I would have, you know, turned down or that I would have not been available for. But I will say that even in that context of it not being solidified. I felt like it was definitely worth keeping my. Carts hooked to that ox because it was a TV show. And all the time that I was touring, I was definitely like, you know, like touring is great. Touring is a blast. I love it. I may wind up doing it again at some point. That'll be amazing. We'll be fine. But there's also an extent to where it's like it might also be nice to be able to make a living, staying in town and seeing your family every day and sleeping in your own bed, driving your car and go into your favorite restaurants and not dealing with the fact that you showed up at, you know, 10 and the rooms won't be ready until two. So you're sleeping on a couch in the hotel lobby. You know, that's that's also an element of truth. So. So, yes. So things came in. Kate came and went, and I definitely decided to stay the course and, you know, follow that that that path towards what I thought would be a TV show which wound up being a TV show. And where was I? Sorry, Bella. Joe: So, no, it's OK. So Rockstar, you guys did Nate: Right. Joe: A bunch Nate: So Joe: Of Nate: That Joe: Shows. Nate: Was the first time I played Joe: Yes. Nate: It, right? Right, exactly. Exactly. Joe: You're the new Nate: So. Joe: Heart rhythm section in town, right? Nate: Where are the new rhythm section and how. Joe: Ok. Nate: Oh, we were that time. But but yeah, you know. And so so the whole the only the only point that I was really trying to make in this very, very, very, very long winded, you know, spool here is. The. The fact that I'm able to be on The Voice now is a direct result of the relationship that I started with Paul Markovich back in 2005 on Rock Star. So what is this, 2020? Joe: Yes. Nate: Right. So. This whole gig started coming about. A decade and a half ago. And so I. And so I say all that, I say that to even spend it further back to talk about what I was saying earlier about relationships, which is that you have no idea, you know, the the guy that you do a gig with one time for one hundred bucks at a club somewhere. Might be the guy who calls you for the audition that completely changes the course of your career. Joe: All right. Nate: So, you know, Joe: So Nate: I mean, and. Joe: So Rockstar was till when? Nate: Rockstar, unfortunately, only lasted two seasons, Rockstar was 2005, 2006 on CBS. The first season it was Rockstar in excess and the feature band was in excess. And we were going through the process to find a lead singer to replace Michael Hutchence. And then the subsequent season was called Rock Star Supernova. And they had chosen Tommy Lee. Oh, this is embarrassing. Tommy Lee. Jason is dead. And a guitar player. Joe: Tell us of. Nate: But they are putting together the supergroup. They're putting the supergroup. And and so they were basically auditioning for a singer to front this supergroup. And that was what that season was about. And so then, yeah, like I said, that's easy. It ended. And then Paul Stanley called like Vee Paul Stanley. Joe: Yeah. Nate: Like the walking, breathing, living. Iconic legend Joe: Yes. Nate: Paul Stanley calls and says, Hey, guys, I'm going to go out and support my solo record. You want to play with me and I will. Duh. Joe: Right. Nate: You know, I mean, Paul is amazing. Paul, Paul, Paul is Paul and Cher. Paul, Stanley and Cher share. Shares is a share on all adult donor list, but possibly in share. Both have this. They are at once incredibly. Sort of present and know exactly who they are. And the fact that they are literally. Iconic legends. But at the same time, able to make fun of themselves, able to laugh. Selves able to be down to earth, able to be. Just so what's the word I'm looking for, relatable. Joe: Authentic. Yeah, Nate: Authentic, relatable Joe: Yeah, Nate: In a crazy Joe: Yeah. Nate: Way. You know what I mean? Have figured. I didn't pause daily. I said to you, man, I was in this band, you know, however long ago or whatever you guys met and she was older than that. Oh, okay. Go. I love it. Was the early days as to whether I was the rock band. It's the story. Joe: Peter. Nate: Sorry. You know, because I was such a funny time. So it's the band from Rockstar Impulse Daily. And I hit the pause daily as it meant the band from Rockstar and Paulist Aliens is the best band ever played with us. Here it goes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure this is the best band you've ever played with. Joe: Nice. Oh, my guys, Nate: No, Joe: It's Nate: It was Joe: Hours Nate: It was Joe: Of. Nate: So great. He was so great. It's like the cool thing, too, is we did it. We did a show a while back. And one of the songs we played in season finale after the season finale is over and the show's over. I hopped my car to drive home and drink. And I have a text from Paul Stanley telling me, oh, my God, man, great job on, you know, such and such a song tonight. Joe: That's so cool, man. Nate: It's amazing. Joe: It's so Nate: You know, Joe: Cool. Nate: He is he is genuinely one of those guys who. I don't know. He's just he's he he's he's able to balance being an icon and still being sort of down to earth and, Joe: That's really Nate: You know, Joe: Cool. Nate: Relatable and. Yeah. Joe: So what year is this that you go out with him right after Rockstar ends? Nate: Well, Roxette would have been a five oh oh oh five was one season. 06 was another season. And so I feel like we did. I mean, it would have been 06. It would've been 06. Maybe in two oh seven. But maybe just because because Rock Star was a summer show, so we wider than rock star and been down at the end of the summer. And then we might respect, like the fall slash winter with Paul Stanley Joe: Ok. Nate: And then been done because because the the second leg of the Paul Stanley tour was Australia. And so Australia, if you don't know or if anyone doesn't know. Is backwards to us. So Australia winter is our summer. So it's 100 degrees in the winter. So I feel like it was that. I feel like it was like the fall here. I feel like it was 2006 rehearsals. Maybe in the fall tour here in the fall. And then I feel like that tour would have gone into like maybe. Like October, November in in Australia, Joe: Ok. Nate: Something of that nature. Joe: And at Nate: Yeah. Joe: This point, is this the biggest tour that you've done up to date to Nate: With Joe: That Nate: Paul. Joe: Yet? Nate: He is definitely the most iconic artist that I would have worked with up Joe: Up Nate: To that point, Joe: To that Nate: You know? Joe: Point. OK. Nate: Well, OK. Well. No, because I don't mean. I tried not to like. Joe: You've done so many great things, we can't leave anything out. Nate: No, no, I'm just. I'm OK. What exactly Joe: That's why Nate: Is Joe: I'm Nate: Going Joe: Prodding Nate: On right now? Joe: You for all of this stuff. This Nate: No, Joe: Is my job. Nate: I mean, man, I'm just fortunate. I'm fortunate that I've managed to eke out a living doing this thing. And I'm fortunate that, like, people calling me to do what I do, I feel like. Joe: And you're about the most humble person I've ever met in my life. That's the reason. Nate: That's nice. That's nice of you to say. Thank Joe: It's Nate: You. Joe: True. Nate: But it's Joe: It's. Nate: True. I know. But you know what? It is so so look. So when I was in high school. I wasn't walking around like, yeah. One day I'm gonna play a post alien, Chaka Khan, and, you know, remember me on TV? I didn't think that. I thought like Joe: That was like your Richard Pryor. Nate: I thought. Joe: Now it's like you're selling Richard Pryor. That Nate: I'm so not going to even try to do Richard Pryor. Joe: Was Nate: But Joe: Great. Nate: But Joe: Oh, Nate: But Joe: Good. Nate: I mean, I guess. But bye bye. But my point is that, like, my point is every day I am of two people. I am the person who gets up and goes like, OK, today it's time to get up and learn the Peter Frampton song that we're playing on the show today. Like what? Like the first. Right. Right, so so, so part of me goes. OK, let's learn. Peter Frampton on. That's the that's the current me. But the high school me is still in there, and one of the first records I ever owned was a Peter Frampton record, right? Not Frampton comes alive, but it's like one before that. The single was a song called I Can't Stand It No More. Which I'm not even going to try to sing. But it's a really cool tune. But like so the part of me gets up and goes, OK, let's go to Linda Peter Frampton song play today. But then inside that is still like the little kid going like, I can't believe I'm playing with this guy. That is one of the dudes that I learned to play drums by jamming along to my drum set Joe: Yeah, Nate: To the Joe: It's Nate: To Joe: Crazy. Nate: The LP. I'm a record player, so I say all that just to say, like in terms of being humble. It's not like I'm trying to be humble. It's just that I still the meet the young me still steps back and looks at what I'm fortunate to do and goes, Oh my God. Dude, you're you're a lucky friggin fortunate mofo to get to do what you're doing. So and then again, circling back to where we were, which was you said up to that point, Paul Stanley. And the reason why I paused. I had not played with Cher at that point, but I feel like I had played with Natalie Cole at that point. Joe: Ah, Nate: Yeah, so. Joe: So that's Nate: Right. Joe: Here. Nate: So so genre differences, obviously, and volume of people who know, obviously, you know, potentially different. Joe: Yes. Nate: But I mean, in terms of iconic, Joe: Yes. Nate: I mean, they're both they're both right there. I remember going out to dinners. Natalie would have these dinners. We were on tour in Japan at one point and she said, we know want everybody come down to dinner at the restaurant, at the hotel or whatever, and we're there. And she would say things like, you know what? When Daddy said that? And I'm like. Joe: Oh, my gosh. Your mind explodes. Nate: My mind explodes. Joe: That is so Nate: One Joe: Cool. Nate: Time Daddy said, and it was like, Wow. Joe: Yeah. Nate: So yeah, man. So I mean so so I can't remember the exact timeline. But up to that point. Yes, it would have been Natalie, Paul Stanley. I had a short I had a short run with Chaka Khan Joe: Ok. Nate: Up to that point. So she's you know, she's you know, I mean, Chaka Joe: Yeah. Nate: Khan. Right. Joe: Hey. Nate: I mean it again, like I said, even as I say this, that I have a hard time saying these things because I don't come across like I played with her. It's like to me, I literally look back and I like I play with a person like they hired Joe: So Nate: Me. They're bad. Joe: Call Soquel. Nate: So now I it's. Yeah, it's man. I'm so fortunate. I'm so fortunate. Joe: So where are we in the timeline now, because. Nate: Well, at this point, we're up to about where we're up to Paul Stanley. So impossibly ends, Joe: Yeah. And this again, Nate: Stanley Joe: What Nate: Ends. Joe: Year is this? Remind me. 2009, Nate: Well, Joe: You Nate: We're Joe: Said. Nate: All well, we're we're pretty much almost current at this point because when Paul Stanley ends. That's got to be like, let's see, oh, five or six or seven. That's got to be like in the O2 eight ish 07, Joe: Ok. Nate: Seven or eight ish ballpark. Joe: Yes. OK. Nate: And then I did a TV show. I was fortunate to do a couple of TV shows, and one of them was called the Bonnie Hunt Show, which was a daytime talk show on NBC. And circling way back to your way earlier question about in terms of who was at early with me, who that I know still. So Churchill era was the piano player and the band on the body honcho. And and it is and it is through Chechu Elora that I got the call to audition for the band or the Bonnie Joe: Wow. Nate: Hunt show right Joe: How many years later Nate: Later than Berkeley. Joe: Here? It's like. Nate: I mean, it's a little Berkeley, I graduated ninety four, the call for Bonnie Joe: It's crazy. Nate: Hunt to audition comes 94, 2004 to about a decade and a half. Joe: It's crazy, right? This is exactly Nate: It's crazy, Joe: What you were talking about. Nate: But it's relationships, Joe: Yeah, Nate: It's relationships, Joe: Yeah. Nate: You know. So, yeah. So then. So Bonnie Hunt. And then that ran for a while and then Bonnie Hunt for a stretch, ran concurrent with Cher. So I was playing with Bonnie. And share at the same time, and I can't actually remember which one came online first, but what I was basically doing was I was playing in Vegas with Cher and then on my days off from Cher, I was coming home to Bonnie here in L.A. and I was basically driving back and forth and doing sort Joe: Wow. Nate: Of double duty. Yeah, it was it was a little bit. It was a little taxing because Joe: Oh, my God. Nate: I. Joe: So was Cher a Barry Squire gig? Nate: Cher actually came through my relationship with Paul Markovitch dating back to 2005, Joe: Ok. Nate: So meeting him in 05, doing the show with all five of six rock star Paul Stanley tour sessions in town. Other things in town. And then Cher would have come about. I mean, it feels like. Oh, nine ish. But don't quote me on that. Oh nine oh nine. Give or take six months to a year. Joe: Ok. And the share gig was at a walk on for you because of Paul. Or you still had to audition. Nate: Share. That's what he called a walk on. Joe: Guy, Nate: It makes Joe: I Nate: It sound so Joe: Don't Nate: So Joe: Know Nate: It Joe: What Nate: Makes us so casual, like, Joe: Would Nate: Hey, Joe: Have Nate: Man, Joe: Come Nate: Come on over Joe: Up. Nate: And play with us and share. Joe: I don't even Nate: Hey. Joe: Know where that term comes from. Walk on. Was Nate: Oh, Joe: It? Nate: Well, we'll Joe: Isn't Nate: Walk Joe: That like Nate: On Joe: A Nate: Is Joe: Football Nate: Like. Joe: Thing? Like if you don't have to. You don't have to go through the audition. Nate: No, Joe: Are Nate: I Joe: The. Nate: Think it's. No, I think it's kind of the opposite. I think it's a college. I think it's a college athletics term. But it's not a good thing. I know you're using it as a good term, but I think that in college athletics, you have your your your top tier guys who are on scholarship. So like, for example, on a college basketball team, like a Division One team, I think there's like twelve kids, I think. And I think that, like, 10 of them are on scholarship, but there's like auditions, auditions, music nerd tryouts Joe: Tryout. Nate: To fill like those last spots. Joe: Hey, Nate: And Joe: I Nate: I think Joe: Said auditions, Nate: Those last Joe: Too. Nate: Spots. Joe: I couldn't think of the word. Nate: Right. I think those last spots are walk ons like, OK. We've got art, we've got our eight or whatever it is, our 10, we've got our we've got our blue chippers over here. We've got to fill out the team, open tryouts, and then there's like 100 kids. And of that one hundred kids, you pick like four or five, whatever it is to fill out your team. That's a walk on. So like a walk on. Oftentimes never even gets on the floor like in in that context. But Joe: So Nate: I understand Joe: I Nate: What you're Joe: Totally Nate: Saying. Joe: Use Nate: No, Joe: That. Nate: You did. But no, but I understand. I totally understand what you meant. I told you so. But and to answer your question, yes. I did not audition. Mark was playing with Cher. And I believe that Pink had dates that conflicted. And so I believe that he made the decision to go and fulfill his obligation with Pink, which vacated the Cher position, which gave Paul the leeway to basically call me. And then I came in and I finished out the whole run with Cher at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. Joe: Got it. And she Nate: So Joe: Was Nate: Then. Joe: Amazing. Amazing person, everything you actually got to hang with her a little bit. Nate: She's Joe: A lot. Nate: Awesome. She's awesome. She she is one of the people like and again, I never take any of this for granted. I never think any of this is assumed. None of it. But like those kind of stories that you hear about artists who are like, you know what, I'm just gonna buy out the whole theater for Tuesday night. So my whole band and crew and dancers and everyone can go and watch Boogie Nights. You know, I mean, like or hey, I'm just gonna, like, buy out all of the pole position, indoor, you know, go kart race track for a night. So my whole band and crew could just go and do that. So, you know, she really she did a thing once where Cher is the coolest. Like, shares the coolest. And the first person to make fun of Cher is Cher. Like, she's so, you know, like self-effacing. But at the same time knows that she's an icon. And that's an amazing thing. It's an amazing balance. But we did a thing one night where we played. Bingo. Right. Hey, guys, I want everybody to come down to the theater where we're going to play bingo. OK, so here we sit playing bingo. And the prizes, if you get bingo, is like an Apple iPad. OK. So this person wins, OK? He got B eleven I 17 in bingo. Here's my pad. Thank Joe: Nice. Nate: You. Good bye. OK. Here's your iPad. OK. It's like. It's like. It's like Oprah. You got a car. Joe: Right. Nate: You've got a car. You've got a car. Right. So. So. So the night is that we played. I don't know. There's there's 200 people on the crew. And we played 30 rounds of bingo. So 30 people have walked out with iPods. OK, well, it's late. It's you know, it's Vegas. So. So, so Vegas late. So it's, you know, hetero. 3:00 in the morning. OK, everybody. It's all good. Great job. Last round works on me. OK. Goodnight. Right. Bye. OK. Show up the next day. Do you know whatever it is, soundcheck? Oh, date. He's right that way. What you mean? I didn't win. No, no. Sure. Have for everybody. Joe: Nice. Nate: You know, I mean, like that kind Joe: Yeah, Nate: Of thing. Joe: Yeah, yeah, Nate: He get out Joe: That's cool. Nate: So. So. So, yeah, I know she was she was one of the. Coolest, most relaxed, she Ampol. I mean, I don't. I got to say, it's it's ironic or not that two of the most well-known, iconic, well respected artists that I've ever worked with are also two of the most down to earth. Relaxed. Nothing to prove. Cher has nothing to prove. Paul Stanley has nothing to prove. There's no attitude. There's no weirdness. Like. Joe: It's really cool. Nate: It's really cool. Joe: Yeah. Nate: It's really cool. And I've just been fortunate that. I. I have historically never shows in. Gigs, opportunities, situations. Politically, and here's what I mean. I've never chosen a gig because the artist was the biggest artist or because the guys in the band I thought were the coolest guys who would call me for gigs one day. I've always been the guy who. If you call me for a gig, you call me for a game. OK, Joe. Hey, Nate. Put together a band for this game of going on. I'm never gonna be like, let me call the four guys who I think are most likely to call me for a big gig. Let me call the four guys who are my boys, who I think could really a user gig or B are going to play this the best. I'm never. So that might wind up being four guys you've never heard of. Joe: Right. Nate: But they'll kill it. Joe: Sure. Nate: And they're my buddies and. And it'll be a great game. So I guess my point is I've always done that and I've never chosen gigs. By the way. Based on. Political or financial gain? So numerous times. I've had a. That might be more beneficial politically or financially, frankly. But maybe I hate the music or I've got gig B. Where I love the music and I love the dudes, but it pays half what gig pays on gig based. And the reason I've always done that is because I've always hoped that in the end, wherever I land, I'm gonna be playing great music with great musicians in a cool situation with guys that I really love being around. And I am so fortunate that that's the case. The guys in the band on the boys are my brothers. Those are my guys. Joe: Right. It could Nate: You Joe: Prove Nate: Know. Joe: To be a really long tour if you're on a gig where it pays a lot of money. But the music sucks and Nate: Or you Joe: You don't Nate: Don't Joe: Like Nate: Like Joe: The Nate: The Joe: People. Nate: People. Yeah, or you don't like the people you're playing with. And and yeah. And. Yeah, I like I said, I've just I've just been very I've been very fortunate, you know? And again, it's like the guys on the voice are my family and not even just the guys on the voice. The guys are the boys in the band. The girls on the voice in the band. The whole voice, music, family. People sometimes say, how do you guys get along so well? And I'll quote one of our keyboard techs slash. Brainiac Patrick, who knows the answers to all the questions. He just does he's like DOE technology. But someone once asked, how do you guys get along so well? And Patrick said, or no, they said, why do you guys go along so well? No. Was it. Hold on. Let me go straight. Yeah, I was how do you guys get along so well? And Patrick said it's because we have to. But we have to in other words, what we do and the product that we create and the amount of time that we spend around each other and working with each other. It could only exist if we had the kind of family relationship that we did. We have to if it if it's not that it can't get done, it can't Joe: Right. Nate: Happen. Joe: Right. Nate: You know, Joe: Yes. Nate: So I'm rambling, but that's kind Joe: No, no, Nate: Of where Joe: No. Nate: That's kind of that's that's the whole story. So, so, so an answer. Joe: So, again, in the timeline, year two thousand nine. Nate: Yeah. That's when the voice starts 2010, somewhere in that ballpark. Yeah. Joe: When the voice was, I guess I might be getting it mixed up with the rock star. The Voice wasn't a lengthy audition, right? It was you already because of Paul and everything. I don't remember. Nate: Well, I mean, the voice, so the voice came about. The voice was not an audition. The process that led to me being on The Voice. Started. A decade prior. Over a decade prior, you know, so. So, no, it wasn't an audition, but it was a relationship that built over the over the preceding however many years that was from. Well, I said it decades. So I guess I guess not a decade. But. The voice would have been 2009 10 and I would have met Paul is more than five. So about a half a decade. So, yeah, so would have been a five year, six year relationship prior that led to the voice ultimately Joe: That's Nate: For Joe: Amazing. Nate: Me anyway. Joe: Right. Nate: Yeah. Joe: And it's and it's going strong and you guys sound better than ever. And it's just amazing. And just to be on the set. It was so cool. I think the funny and I tell people the story all the time. The fact that I was able to have, you know, some ears to listen to Nate: Yes. Joe: The band, Nate: Oh, God. Joe: The banter Nate: Oh. Joe: On the bandstand. Nate: Woo! Oh, don't you ever put that out anywhere Joe: Oh, okay. Nate: Where the worst are the worst. Joe: Okay. Nate: All we do is back on each other all day. Joe: Oh, my gosh. It is amazing. So what else? I want to make sure we didn't miss anything. And I want to also give you a moment to plug anything that you're doing. I don't know if you still you still have your band outside of The Voice. Nate: Well, I'm involved in a side project with my buddy Sean Halley, Sean Halley and I, and sadly now do you always do these v a zoom? Joe: So far, because I just started it when all of this happened. Nate: Right. Joe: So. Nate: And all of this for your listeners who may see this down the road, years, three years, four years is that we are in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Joe: Correct. Nate: There are cars being turned over. Joe: Better known as Cauvin Nate: Yes, Joe: 19. Nate: Yes. Yes. That's Joe: Yes. Nate: It's it's it's crazy. So, yeah, I mean, all of this is happening amidst this time when, you know, gigs are getting canceled and all of this. And actually, I had a gig with my side project, which is a band called Fraud Profits, which is myself and my dear, dear friend Sean Halley, also a genius, by the way. And we had this band for our profits, which was filled out by bass player Ben White. And Ed Roth was gonna be playing keys with us. And we had a gig booked on April 10th that we were all excited to do it. And so it's not happening. But in terms of things that I'm doing outside the voice, that is one of the primary things. So you can if you're interested, you can look up Frauke profits F are eight. You d p r o p h e t s dot com. And you can also find us on Instagram. You can also find us on Facebook. And so we will continue to keep you updated on what we're up to in the albums available where all albums are available. It's called Pop Ptosis and it's really rad. Yeah, Joe: Awesome. Nate: Yeah, Joe: All Nate: Man, Joe: Right, cool. Nate: It's. Joe: And then what about lessons? What are you doing Nate: I don't know, I guess trying to study with you at some point when you have some have Joe: Ok. Nate: Some availability Joe: Well, Nate: And you can you Joe: Yeah, Nate: Can fit me Joe: I'm Nate: In. Joe: Pretty tied Nate: Ok. Joe: Up Nate: We'll Joe: Right Nate: Get back Joe: Now. Nate: To me. Get back to me. You can when you can fit me in your schedule. Now, Joe: Oh, Nate: So. Joe: Good. No, sir. So how can people how can drummers that want to go to the next level take lessons from you? How I know that. Nate: Right. Joe: I guess if they're in L.A. and when things get back to whatever air quotes normal, if that happens, they could come there to your studio and Nate: Right. Joe: Do it. Nate: Right. But in Joe: You Nate: The meantime, Joe: Doing? Nate: I Joe: Yeah. Nate: Will. I am making myself available for online lessons. And it's a thing that thanks to this. I think I mentioned to you earlier, I got my whole rig up and running. So I'm talking into like an actual microphone as opposed to my my earbuds and I have on headphones as opposed to my earbuds, because the headphones, the microphone are all running through my studio gear, which I'm making like gestures at, but no one can see. But I am getting the rig here setup so that I can do online lessons. I have done some of the past and I'm thinking that with my new audio going on. Thanks to the motivation of getting with you and chatting tonight. I have it a little bit more under control. So sure, if you want to man if you want get together online for like a lesson or an exchange of knowledge or any of that stuff, I'm so easy to find. I'm on Instagram or Insta, as I call it, when I want to make my wife really Joe: It's Nate: Angry. She's like Joe: Nice. Nate: No one calls it. It's the I call it ads that no one calls it. It's. Oh. Joe: Oh, good. Nate: No, Joe: So Nate: It's very. Joe: What's your what's your handle on Instagram? Nate: Oh, no. Joe: Oh, man, I'll I'll find Nate: Shut up, Joe: It and put it Nate: Shut Joe: In the show Nate: Up. Joe: Notes. Nate: Wait, wait, wait. No, I think it's just. I think it's in in as inmate eight, the number eight D. Are you Amzi in eight D. Are you M z. I think that's me on Instagram. It's also my license plate. Oh, hey, buddy, sorry. So so the band was having a rehearsal at center staging. And my license plate on my SUV says in eight D-R, UMC meat drums. And there were some other band there and I can't remember who the artist was. But like the drummer and the guitar player of that band came over to our rehearsal. I was hanging out. And you know how it is. Musicians know, what is this? The voice. Oh, what are you doing? I'm doing this gig. And so the drummer talks to me and says, Oh, you know, you're the drummer on The Voice. What's your name? Nate anymore. Oh, Nate. Nate. Oh, is that your car in the parking lot? This is Nate drums on the license plate. I was like, yeah. And like, literally, I swear to God, that's because. I could be an atriums like like I felt like I needed to have a gig Joe: Right. Nate: Of a stature that would allow me to Joe: The Nate: Have the mic. Joe: Name Nate: And Joe: On Nate: They Joe: Your Nate: Trust. Joe: License plate. Perfect. Nate: Oh, yes. I was like, oh, you're so young, like young, you Joe: Oh, Nate: Know? Joe: Good. Nate: But he was funny. He was funny. All right. You could be aid drops was like, thanks. Joe: That's so Nate: Next year, Joe: Funny. It's awesome. Nate: Let me just give like a.. Joe: Yeah. Nate: Ok. Joe: Oh, God. Nate: David, he was girl. Of course. And of course, I looked him up and he's like, you know, what are these killing young drummers? There's so many bands. There's so many of those incredible guys Joe: Yeah, Nate: Just playing all that stuff. Joe: Well, cool. Nate: And I go, boom, boom, boom bap. Joe: Yeah, well, no, you don't, but you can say that if you want. You do a lot more Nate: It's Joe: Than that. Nate: True. Joe: So how about Nate: Well. Joe: Facebook? Do you know where they find you on Facebook? Nate: Yeah, sure, Facebook dot com slash Nate Morton drums. Joe: Perfect. So we did Instagram, Facebook. You have a website. Nate: I don't have an actual Web site. The closest thing I have is probably the for profit scam Joe: Ok, cool. Nate: Site. Joe: Ok. Nate: And what else we got? Joe: I assume Nate: Facebook. Joe: You don't hang out on Twitter or do you? Nate: You know what? So here's the thing. And I'm just being honest right now, it is being real. Somewhere along the line, I intentionally or unintentionally linked my Instagram to my Twitter. So it seems like whatever I put on Instagram winds up on Twitter. Or maybe it's my Facebook. But no, I'm not really active on Twitter. So if you actually want to catch up with me, find me on Facebook and I'm easy and like I'm not always the fastest to get back, but I get back to people. So if you find me on Facebook, dot com slash Nate Morton drums and you follow me there, you send me a message, whatever, whatever. I'm going to find it eventually. I'm gonna get back to you because it bugs me. My OCD would be bother. I can't look at a message and like, just delete it. Like, I look at it and I go back to that. So even so, if it's a it's over a day or a week or a month. I do my very best to get back. Joe: I'm sure. Nate: And and and you can always go, like super old school and just email me at an eight D argue Amzi at EarthLink thought that. Joe: Cool. And then really important is your YouTube page. Nate: Oh, I asked ask you to recite Joe: No. Nate: It. Joe: I'll put it in the show notes. But do you have more? Do you have your name? One and then. Is it the nake? Nate: No, no, it's just one. Joe: So it's the one Nate: It's Joe: With Nate: Just Joe: The Nate: One. Joe: Nait can. Like all the stuff. The Nate: Yeah, Joe: Voice videos. Nate: Yeah, it's all Joe: Right. Nate: On the same. That's all Joe: Ok, Nate: The same. Joe: Cool. Nate: Yes, that's all the same channel and it's YouTube dot com slash. See, like the letter C slash. Nate Morton drums, Joe: Perfect. Nate: Youtube dotcom Joe: See, Nate: Slash Joe: Nate Martin jumps. Nate: C slash O C anymore and drums. Oh, wow. Joe: There you go. Nate: I kind of just got that. Again, I swear. Joe: Oh. I think I should actually put some, like, cool Jeffs Nate: Yes, Joe: On the Nate: Yes, Joe: Video like that, lower Nate: Yes. Joe: Your head, just explode like the top flies off. Nate: I think Joe: All right. Endorsement's. Nate: If. You're awesome, Joe. Joe: Say always thinking. Nate: That's my endorsement. That's my words. Joe: No, no, Nate: That's my judgment. Joe: No. Nate: You said endorsements, Joe, your incredible. Joe: Yeah, well, you're amazing. But that's not Nate: What Joe: What you know. Nate: Does that mean? OK. So I am very, very fortunate to be affiliated with some really awesome companies. I'm afraid to say them all because like. I'm afraid to forget one and then Joe: Oh, I know. OK, Nate: So, so, so, so it's OK to put it in the Joe: I put in Nate: In Joe: The show. Nate: The text. Joe: Yeah. Is there anything else that I missed that you wanted to talk about? You know, I don't want to leave anything out. Nate: You know what? That's that's that's interesting, you should ask. And I will just I will just say this. I have it's going to be really weird. I'm going to go a little a little go a little left, Joe. Joe: That's Nate: And I Joe: Right. Nate: Know if you're expecting this Joe: That's Nate: Or not. Joe: Ok. Nate: I have six kids. I have a wife. Her name is Nicole, and outside of all of this, the show stuff and the gigs and this audition and that audition and this tour and that artist in that venue and that TV show and all of those things are amazing. I have to say that. I find my motivation and I find myself. Looking back on what is most important and all of those things are great. In the sense that. They allow me to do the things that I want to do with my family. Does that make sense? Joe: Absolutely. Nate: Know, I don't mean to be fruity or anything. It's just it's like I spend I spend a little bit of time getting to do things like this, like chatting to you. And I talk about drumhead to talk about music on the show. And I just never want to lose sight of the fact that within that world. I take a lot of pride and I put a lot of import on being able to spend time with my kids and my family as well. And one of the biggest words in our industry or in my life. I'll speak very small scale. One of the biggest words in my life is balance. And so while it may look from the outside, like the balance is completely shifted to all of that, there's also the other side, which is that you've also got allow yourself time to like spend time with your gnarly four year old to drive you crazy because she's insane or you're a two year old who might fall off the trampoline if you don't zip the thing closed. Or my 13 year old who has a tennis lesson or who can't play tennis right now. So I take him to Home Depot so he can hit on the on the wall or my 17 year old who I drag into the lounge room to play a game of chess with me or my 19 year old who is away at college while he's home. Now, who I communicate with and go, how's things going in your pursuits? You know. Or my. I left on my eight year old. Who? Who is it? Eight year old teenager. She's eight, but she's already a teenager. Isabelle, could that have a hug? Okay. Joe: Fine. Nate: You know, so. So it's like I don't mean to get too cheesy, but, you know, a long time ago, a great and dear friend of mine, Tony de Augustine, said the hardest thing about creating a career as a professional musician is finding a balance. And I said, a balance between what? And he said a balance between everything. And at the time, I was in my early 20s and I was like, what? What does that mean? And the older I get and every day, every week, month, year that goes by, I really do get it. It's a balance between. Gigs that you love. Gigs that pay the bills. Being gone on tour, making money and supporting your family. Seeing your family. Working hard and, you know, doing whatsoever versus having to work, but making yourself spend time doing things that are important otherwise. So again, I don't mean to get too cosmic with all of this, but yeah, I just want to make mention of that. I just wanted to make mention the fact that. Again. Certainly. Certainly way back again to Sharon, what's her name? Who said you don't sound very well rounded? I said I'm focused. Well, now I've adapted that focus. And that focus is, you know, to fill the time, music and and creativity and doing that side of things. But it's also in focus on Family and spending time with the wife and the kids. All those people who put up with me, Joe: Yeah. Nate: You know, all those little people who call me dad, I'm like, what? Joe: Yeah. Yeah. You have such a great Nate: And Joe: Family. Nate: My wife and my wife and the wife who puts up with me, the wife. Joe: Yes. Nate: I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't be in my studio working 10 hours a day without her. Joe: No. Nate: I couldn't jump in my car and drive in the universal and work, you know, 80 hours a week without her. Joe: Go Nate: Right. Joe: Get. Nate: So. So those people are important and those people create the balance that that that makes my life really fucking cool. Joe: You deserve, brother. It's. I am honored to call you a friend. I am so glad we met. I don't even know how it happened. I, I know that we were both at one of those drum get togethers. It was a remote village in something. Nate: Yes, sure, probably, yeah. Joe: And I saw you as I was leaving and I handed you a card. And I had this funny slogan on the back of the card. And I was like a block and a half away already. And you're like, Hey dude, I love your card. Nate: It's Joe: It was really funny Nate: Like Joe: Like Nate: Me Joe: That. Nate: That Joe: Yeah. Nate: Sounds Joe: And Nate: Like me. Joe: Then it just it went from there and all the other stuff. So I appreciate you so much and I can't wait to Nate: I Joe: See Nate: Appreciate Joe: You in Nate: You. Joe: Person Nate: I appreciate Joe: Again. Nate: It. Joe: Please give. Nate: Hopefully soon. Joe: Yeah, I know. Please give my love to your family. Nate: We'll Joe: And Nate: Do, buddy, and you Joe: Yeah I will. Nate: And you. Joe: I will. And I really appreciate your time. And this is awesome. And thanks so much. Nate: Joe, absolutely my pleasure. And thank you for having me on. Joe: All right, brother, I appreciate it. You take care.

Weighted blankets, My OCD and anxiety has a name separate from ME and I walk about it here❤️ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tracie-west/message

I grew up with a normal childhood. I had friends and good grades and I was happy with my life. Though this wasn't always the case when I turned five. At the age of five came along something that has definitely left scars, both physically and mentally. My life was infected by OCD and Trichotillomania. My OCD is the first disorder I dealt with. OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is where a person has repetitive thoughts or behaviors due to stress. I relate to OCD because of the thoughts I have. I usually have terrible thoughts like someone or myself dying, breaking bones or even embarrassment. Another thing I fear is a form of radiation in the air or something that involves germs and because of that, it causes me to have repetitive behaviors like scratching the right side of my nose and pulling my hair out on my head. All of these behaviors have caused me a lot of stress. Due to the stress, my other disorder called Trichotillomania was formed. Trichotillomania is a big factor in my OCD. Though now that it has gotten more repetitive it has formed into its own issue more than just an OCD side effect. It's now its own disorder. About Trichotillomania, it is a hair-pulling disorder. It has other side effects like nail-biting or scab picking but in my case, it's just hair pulling. When I say hair pulling people tend to think it's painful, but really it's not. When I pull my head hair it feels good and for me is a way of relieving stress. The feeling of the hair coming out of my head is satisfying so it makes me want to keep pulling. After so much pulling I got a bald spot. The bald spot makes me very uncomfortable and it just makes me stress even more. So because of this, I recently had to inform my parents about it. Just so you're aware most of my friends and family know about the disorders I'm not really afraid to tell them. Though when I told them my disorders got better. My parents said they would help me find ways to help me stop pulling hair so it can regrow. They also said they would help me find methods to help my OCD die down some. It's now been a day since I told them. During that day I didn't pull my hair once! Also confronting my parents about my thoughts and behaviors I have not had a bad thought for over 24 hours now which is ten times better than before. So now I realize that all I need to change is to confront my issues. Whenever I get stressed, I just need to talk about my issue. Whenever I want to pull hair I will stop and ask myself, why am I doing this? From this point on I do see great improvements in my future. For everyone who also might deal with relatable issues, I hope this might have been helpful advice!

OCD Symptoms can manifest in many different ways. Here is one hack I use to eliminate an OCD of mine and it totally works FAST. OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder impacts 2.3% of the population but is more commonly co occurring with other conditions like BPD and Autism. OCD symptoms in adults is the same as OCD symptoms in children it is an obsession to do something. Sometimes this can cause distress if it is also a custom to negative intrusive thoughts. What is OCD symptoms? It is basically symptoms that relate to an obsessive compulsion. These sometimes occur after a person experiences trauma, but mostly it is a mental health condition that occurs organically. My OCD causes me to be late for things a lot of the time as i like to get things right before moving on to something else, and this makes me return and re peat the actions again until I'm happy that they are done correctly. I talk about how to treat OCD and how I treated some of my OCD symptoms, with basic hacks that anyone can use. I also have had OCD treatment before professionally. there are many types of OCD and there will be multiple signs of OCD but it is the same concept of compulsion to do something repetitively until it is done to a standard to ward off negative thoughts, these are symptoms of OCD. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theaspieworld/support

Steve and George welcome Leila Gorstein. Together they talk about The Bachelor, goopy gloves, great food, and whether Leila knows what a guilty pleasure is.Support Leila:-on Twitter (@leilabrooke)-on her hidden wix website-February Saturdays at Second City-Big Tobacco-Brady in the iO Improv All Stars Monday nights at 10Follow George Elrod: Twitter, InstagramComet: iO Harold TeamFollow Steve Han: Twitter, InstagramStir Friday NightAn Open Letter to My OCD at the Lifeline TheaterHosted by George Elrod and Steve HanCover Art by Jordan StaffordMusic by Nathan SandbergEditing by Dominic GuanzonProduced by Jacob Duffy Halbleib (@TheGameSnake)This is a KnaveryInk podcast.

My OCD keeps me from making excuses and complaining. However, the acceptance of excuses for not achieving life objectives is not acceptable. There has to be a self- check with the mirror. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heroes-and-kingz/support

1-Bad Habits 2-OCD ~1-How self-permissions and evasions reinforce bad habits.2-My OCD is driving me to feel and do crazy things.This podcast, and past Dr. Kenner Podcasts are at http://bit.ly/2qbQJGOEavesdrop on caller's personal dramas four times each week. You can call too. 877-Dr-Kenner. The Rational Basis of Happiness (r) radio show hosted by Dr. Ellen Kenner, a private practice clinical psychologist. She will take your calls and questions on any personal issue! Call anytime, toll free.ps. Free romance advice - download chapter one of Dr. Kenner’s romance guidebook for free at drkenner.comevasion, habits, ocd, obsessive, counseling, therapy, self-help, mental health,

We've all said, or heard someone say "My OCD is out of control", or "She's so OCD" without even thinking about those who are actually suffering with this time consuming disorder.  OCD can be frustrating, but there's hope - and you're not alone!  Even if you don't have OCD, I promise you'll learn something in this sit down with Dr. Bradley Riemann of Rogers Behavioral Health. 

Are you coming? Connect Here  https://goo.gl/forms/EAJHVIaVgDAQzsdG2 I Am On A Mission For The Next 90 Days, Are You Coming With Me?? Do you remember a time where the magic happened so fast in your business? Doesn't it feel amazing to remember how fast change and results can happen... Listen, My OCD is switched on..! When that happens, whoever is around me gets results like they could only dream about... 15 years of working with the best in the world, has allowed me to get rid of all the fluff and B.S. out of the personal development and business coach world to create something special. For the next 90 days, I am bringing a handpicked team of 15 people to change their whole world. Are you coming? Connect Here  https://goo.gl/forms/EAJHVIaVgDAQzsdG2 __________ Ask Me a question Andy@MindsetByDesign.co

Our first episode of the EXCLUSIVE series 1956 is out now! To give you a taster of what’s to come, this first episode and its follow up are absolutely FREE for all listeners, but episode 3 onwards will require you guys to sign up for the bargain price of just $5 a month to join in the party. By paying $5 a month, you’ll not only secure your place as a valued history friend, you’ll also guarantee that you get the best of WDF, the earliest access and of course, access to future exclusive series like the Age of Bismarck! Above all, you’ll be helping to ensure that I can continue to do this as part of my living, and you’ll be making history thrive in the process.Above all you should notice, as per some previous announcements, that this podcast series is moving to a new address! 1956 will have its own RSS feed and its own home within the WDF podcast group, soon to be joined by many more, as you’ll soon see! This way, 1956 can serve as a constant advertisement for the benefits of becoming a Diplomat, but it also means that we don’t clog up the feed with any 1956 episodes. My OCD senses are pleased, but your history senses should be well pleased too! Remember that all Patrons can even help out further by giving a review in 1956’s new home if you are enjoying the series. Now then, you may be wondering – what does 1956 have to offer? What exactly is in the box?Well, if you want to learn more about what followed after the Korean War – as a story and as a year of significance, 1956 has few equals, and we open our narrative with the event which set up all subsequent events – the death of Josef Stalin on 5th March 1953. As far as deaths of prominent characters go, the death of Stalin from a succession of strokes at the age of 73 sticks out particularly – a man who allowed his paranoia get the better of him, out of fear of his own vulnerability and out of lust for power, died without being the victim of any underhanded scheme. As we’ll see, he also died without naming an official successor, throwing into chaos those men who had stuck around long enough to accumulate some power for themselves.In this episode we’ll meet these figures – the so-called ‘collective leadership’ of the Soviet Union, which included such heavy hitters as Molotov, Malenkov, Lavrenti Beria, Anastas Mikoyan and a sometimes crude, always blunt figure by the name of Nikita Khrushchev. The story of what would come after Stalin is a gripping and fascinating snapshot of life at the top of the Soviet greasy pole. It prepares us for the eventful months which are to come, by investigating exactly what it was that compelled these men to undo some of what Stalin had made, while still holding onto the terrifying edifice which held half of the continent of Europe in rapture. I hope you’ll join me – and a huge thanksss for all your support so far!******************************Sign up to our NEWSLETTER for the latest news and deals! In April and May subscribers get 20% OFF my Thirty Years War book, so don't delay! sign up here: https://mailchi.mp/a0d49eec863c/wdfpodcastWant to grab yourself some quality, stylish head/ear phones and get 15% off? Use the code WDF15 to avail of this special offer and start your listening journey with When Diplomacy Fails like never before! See: https://www.sudio.com/eu/Want to support this podcast in other ways, as we meander through the Korean War? Check out the following links to our social media, shop, website, source materials and Patreon below.History Podcasting Platform:http://www.wdfpodcast.com/history-podcasting-platform/Official shop where you can pick up all manner of podcast-related goodies:

Our first episode of the EXCLUSIVE series 1956 is out now! To give you a taster of what’s to come, this first episode and its follow up are absolutely FREE for all listeners, but episode 3 onwards will require you guys to sign up for the bargain price of just $5 a month to join in the party. By paying $5 a month, you’ll not only secure your place as a valued history friend, you’ll also guarantee that you get the best of WDF, the earliest access and of course, access to future exclusive series like the Age of Bismarck! Above all, you’ll be helping to ensure that I can continue to do this as part of my living, and you’ll be making history thrive in the process.Above all you should notice, as per some previous announcements, that this podcast series is moving to a new address! 1956 will have its own RSS feed and its own home within the WDF podcast group, soon to be joined by many more, as you’ll soon see! This way, 1956 can serve as a constant advertisement for the benefits of becoming a Diplomat, but it also means that we don’t clog up the feed with any 1956 episodes. My OCD senses are pleased, but your history senses should be well pleased too! Remember that all Patrons can even help out further by giving a review in 1956’s new home if you are enjoying the series. Now then, you may be wondering – what does 1956 have to offer? What exactly is in the box?Well, if you want to learn more about what followed after the Korean War – as a story and as a year of significance, 1956 has few equals, and we open our narrative with the event which set up all subsequent events – the death of Josef Stalin on 5th March 1953. As far as deaths of prominent characters go, the death of Stalin from a succession of strokes at the age of 73 sticks out particularly – a man who allowed his paranoia get the better of him, out of fear of his own vulnerability and out of lust for power, died without being the victim of any underhanded scheme. As we’ll see, he also died without naming an official successor, throwing into chaos those men who had stuck around long enough to accumulate some power for themselves.In this episode we’ll meet these figures – the so-called ‘collective leadership’ of the Soviet Union, which included such heavy hitters as Molotov, Malenkov, Lavrenti Beria, Anastas Mikoyan and a sometimes crude, always blunt figure by the name of Nikita Khrushchev. The story of what would come after Stalin is a gripping and fascinating snapshot of life at the top of the Soviet greasy pole. It prepares us for the eventful months which are to come, by investigating exactly what it was that compelled these men to undo some of what Stalin had made, while still holding onto the terrifying edifice which held half of the continent of Europe in rapture. I hope you’ll join me – and a huge thanksss for all your support so far!Remember to head on over to https://www.patreon.com/WhenDiplomacyFails if you want to access all that this incredible story has to offer! By pldging $5 a month to our Patreon page, you can access over 20 hours of content that already sits in the XTRA feed, but you can also prepare yourself for exclusive series to come,1956 right here, and even the Age of Bismarck in the future! I hope you'll think about it - but make sure and listen to this episode here and its sequel first, my lovely history friends! Thankssss! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Continuing the conversations on the stigmas against mental illness, Steph chats with Leah Adair about her struggle against OCD and the stigmas surrounding it.  Leah shares her journey to being diagnosed with OCD and coming to understanding what OCD looks like for different people, far from the widespread misconception that it is just about compulsive hand washing.   Discussion questions: 1) What stops you from sharing your story? (We’re not talking necessarily about telling the world on Facebook, it could be just with a friend.) 2) How can you create space for people to share their stories with you this week? 3) What have you learned about OCD during this podcast that you didn’t know before? What stigmas have been debunked for you?   Resources:   Embracing my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Leah Adair: http://thesaltcollective.org/embracing-my-obsessive-compulsive-disorder/   My OCD does NOT stop me from being a teacher, wife, sister & friend by Leah Adair: http://thesaltcollective.org/my-ocd-does-not-stop-me-from-being-a-teacher-wife-sister-friend/   Websites with more information: https://jackieleasommers.com/ocd/ http://www.overcomingocd.net/chrissieface-of-o/   Twin Cities OCD support: http://www.ocdtc.org/   International OCD foundation: https://iocdf.org/   debunking the myths of OCD youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhlRgwdDc-E   Follow Lead Stories Podcast to interact with Steph and Jo: Twitter: @LeadStoriesVox Instagram: @LeadStoriesPodcast Facebook: LeadStoriesPodcast Connect with Jo at: www.josaxton.com @josaxton Connect with Steph at: www.pastorsteph.com @pastorsteph Subscribe on iTunes to have the podcast automatically download to your device every week or listen at www.leadstoriespodcast.com www.leadstoriesmedia.com 

Good Morning, On this mornings ride to CrossFIt I discuss my recent Lego discovery, My OCD is back at it and my confusion about Ruby Rose continues.   Thanks for Listening Spread of word @TheVBSHow TheVBShow@gmail.com

Voice Comment: (920) iPhone-1 [audio:http://onglinepodcast.com/media/Ongline-2014-04-21.mp3] :: download file :: listen on iPhone & iPad :: Duration: 34:29 | 50.5MB | Stereo | It's Easter. I talk about religion. My OCD in church. Who is my God?