Latest / Living Uncertain an OCD Podcast / Why People-Pleasing Is Actually an OCD Compulsion (OCD)(Episode 31)
Transcript
- Opening: Hello, and welcome to the podcast, Living Uncertain. This podcast is dedicated to obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, and the primary treatment, exposure response prevention, ERP. OCD comes in many forms, such as contamination, perfectionism, checking, harm, superstitious, religious or moral, sexual orientation, and or relationship. ERP is the gold standard to treating OCD. and it focuses on deliberately confronting fears, the exposure, while refraining from compulsive rituals, the response prevention. With repeated exposures and without engaging in compulsions, we learn to tolerate anxiety and break the cycle of intrusive thoughts. We are a married couple that have faced both the challenges of OCD and the incredible healing that ERP can provide to your marriage, family, and your home. As a person who lives with OCD, I am much more than this diagnosis. We all can be. Marc & Stacee: Hi, y'all. I'm Stacey. And along with my husband Mark, we want to thank you for living uncertain with us once again this week. welcome to episode 31. We're so excited to be here with you all again. As y'all know, this is the podcast that discusses everything OCD and ERP related. And we are excited to share more with you tonight about our journey, about our ups and downs with OCD and being the spouse of someone with O C D and what that means and so please, yeah, welcome. Thanks for coming on today and listening with us. We appreciate it. I know today's topic, Stacy and I have been talking about it and kind of came up came up in therapy the other Yes. The other day. It did. you know, one thing about Stacy and I, if you haven't noticed, very often we don't argue. We don't argue about a lot of things. We don't. You know, we're pretty much on the same page with a lot of Lot of all the same stuff and And have been for two decades now. And and I think that's the oldest versus youngest birth birth order, yes. So there's a lot of we hear a lot out there that says the oldest child of a family should marry the youngest child of a family. And that birth order, as far as spouses go, is often one of the most successful relationships, marriages, et cetera, that that you can have. Now, of course, I am the oldest sibling in my family, and Mark being the youngest sibling in his, it definitely works works for us. And I'm the oldest daughter, and he's the youngest son, and so that's even better. And I think that there's a lot of support for that dynamic and a relationship being really successful. And I think at a time in our life when Mark and I met and found each other, we just immediately felt drawn to one another. We fell in love. We have been in love. For more than two decades now, we are truly one another's best friend. Twenty two years tomorrow. yeah. Check us out. Look at that. I know. Yes. Okay. Happy anniversary, babe. Yeah. Happy early anniversary. Look at that. Okay. Can't give her flowers because our cats eat the flowers. So And I love flowers. But it's okay. Diamonds work too. See what I did there? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. Just making sure. I think one of the things that has been the hardest throughout the years, and now that we've identified my OCD and we've been through an intensive treatment journey, it's gotten better, easier, if you will, not without its complication or struggle, but it's been easier, is that we have always been on the same page. We have really always been a team. And that included raising our two children and buying a home and having two careers and and buying a business and and doing all of that. We work together as a team. We wanted to do it. We support one another in our hopes and dreams and what we want out of life. And we've always been that way. And and I and I want you guys to know, like Stacey's O C D has been a people pleasing O C D. And and I and that I don't think was necessarily the the reason why we would get along, you know. I think there's a couple of occasions where I could probably say, okay, yeah, she, you know, was trying to people please and you know, allowing me to do things, or maybe we didn't see necessarily eye to eye that maybe her OCD kicked in. but not very many times. No, and it it just felt different with Mark than anyone else in my life, and that even includes other people who I'm close with. or even our children too, that I I didn't feel necessarily the need to people please as often. And yet when it came to our children or our former employees or other friends that I tried to make over the years, I did have a very a need to people please. And that is one of the areas where my OCD tends to come out. Yeah. And I think it's this idea of an if then. And that's the idea that I kind of wanted to address on on this episode and it it kind of correlates with a situation that Mark and I were talking about in therapy, the one that he's referencing now, which is that if I feel like I don't let me say it this way. I've shared before that if that I have just right tendencies is too. So if I don't feel like I've left a conversation just right, or I don't feel like I've sent a text message or an email that sounds just right to me in my own head, I will then follow up with other conversations, text messages, emails, et cetera, with lots of flair to them to make sure that I've left it in a way that I feel comfortable with, because I would never want to feel uncomfortable. Because what if? If I don't do this, so this is where it really comes down to, and this is why my people pleasing is very much a compulsion and very much a symptom of OCD. Because in my brain, in my head, I think if I don't People please, which means if I don't give in to this person, if I don't say what this person wants to hear, if I don't make this person happy. Yes, of course it's all in my head. We know this. Have we not established this by now? Goodness. Yes, it's all in my head, everyone. Because as we know, most of OCD can be very irrationally based. And while that's a very s challenging thing for me to say out loud, I think a lot of people who have OCD as myself. would recognize that a lot of what we do is kind of make up scenarios, stress out, get anxious about them, pretend like they're actually going to happen, and then have to do some kind of pul compulsion or ritual in order to make them not come true. But I've always had this thing where if I don't people please, if I don't give them what they want, if I don't tell them what they want to hear, if I don't, if I don't do this, then they will, and primarily for me, it's they will take something away from me. For example, their relationship with me, their friendship, their love, their well, when it came to our former employees, their employment. They would, they would quit, they would leave, they would speak badly of me. They would, if I don't do this, then they're going to do this. And it was a concrete, solid fact in my head. And that's why the people pleasing became such a compulsion. And I have been thinking about it with our oldest son, who you all know is going to college now and he's living in a dorm and he's away from home. And so we are dealing with this. Quasi-empty nest that we we're living in. We're sending our oldest child to college. We're part of a the Gen X crew that is doing that right now. we fit a lot of the mold of what other families and parents are probably dealing with, with freshmen in college children. And I tend to think too. If I don't say to him what he wants to hear, if I don't give him everything he wants, if I don't do this, if I don't, then he'll take something from me. And in my head, it could be he would take away the his relationship with us. He would cut us off. He would not want to be a part of our life anymore. He wouldn't want us to be a part of his. If I don't continue to do these things, that's the compulsion, then something will be taken away from me. And I have to say, as I've shared before, I have had OCD since I was about 15 years old, and I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 40s. And I have always, since I can remember, lived with this if-then, what if mentality. And I know that this is a concept I've shared before. I know this can't be me alone. Other people who have OCD have to be dealing with this on some level as well. It's just so difficult and I find that that one in particular, the the if then, so then I need to people please as the compulsion, that is one of the most challenging ones for me to settle into in an ERP kind of way. Yeah. And with Miles in particular, where Stacy and I are maybe not seeing eye to eye or disagreeing on is having him be responsible. And when I say responsible, I we mean responsible with his money. Yes. Having a job and working. Correct. Because one of the things that Miles has to pay for, which is the only thing that he really has to pay for outside of the gas in the car that he drives, is his car insurance. Okay, let me be for a portion of the car insurance. Let me be for the th Generally speaking, if we say it's my OCD, yeah, there's there's a really good chance it's my OCD. So we do, Mark and I tend to butt heads a little bit because I want to give Miles more than Mark wants to give him right now, because Mark wants to kind of hold the line with his wanting Miles to be more fiscally responsible, et cetera, what have you. I want that for our son as well. I just happen to think that, uh-oh, if we don't give him what he needs, and it's not even anything he's asking for. This isn't anything about him. This is about me and my own irrational thoughts when it comes to this. If we don't give it to him, he'll cut us off. Like it's like it's concrete in my head. Like it's like I've said, and it's the other when I've said before, if my children are out of my sight, then they're dead. Like that's the thought that goes through my head. I've had to learn. that it's okay and they they're both still alive, everyone. Just so just to put it out there, make sure that y'all know they've been out of my sight quite often. They're eighteen and fifteen now. And they're still alive. So I've had to have a lot of repeated exposure to that. I've tried in therapy along with Mark to do some different exposures and ERP with people pleasing. I've had some moderate success, but I have to say it's the one that I can't it's just It's the one that's kind of it's really hard. It's the hardest one for me. It's the hardest. It's the if I don't people please, they will take something from me. So this past weekend in therapy, you know, we we were talking about this topic. You know, 'cause it you know, our therapist could see that maybe there was a little contention between Stacy and I was still and she said, Well, I don't want to bring this bring this all around to O C D 'cause maybe it's not O C D and I will sit there too and go, Okay, is this O C D or is this not O C D when sometimes we're dealing with different situations like this 'cause I don't want to call her out on it and say, By the way, this is O C D you know, because he knows better too. Riley? I mean, really? Like I'm not already thinking it in my head. The last thing I need is him bringing it up again. So you're s you're smart. So we try to point we tread lightly sometimes on calling it O C D or not, or whether it's just plain parenting, because Stacey has talked about, you know, i her her parenting mother's intuition is maybe sometimes skewed a little bit or doesn't feel like she has a grasp on it as much as Somebody without OCD because her OCD has lied to her about about many, many things. So like what? Yeah, exactly. So sitting there in therapy, you know, our therapist is like, well, let's let's let's try to look at this scenario, not through the lens of OCD. But more through the lens of parenting. Yes. So we kind of went through a little activity. Okay, if If we require Miles at the end of this month to pay his car insurance, what is the consequence to that? For Miles. He can't drive the car. Yeah. We just tell him it's gotta stay parked until you can pay the car insurance for your car. And in my head, and I'm sitting on the couch in the therapy in therapist office going, Well, if we if we hold the car from him, he'll cut us off. So that's what she's thinking. So we can't do that. And Then the next question is, okay, if you guys withhold the the car from him, you know, then what might happen? And that's when it starts to become a little bit more. Well, is this mother's intuition? Is this parenting, you know, one-on-one or is this OCD? Parenting one on one. Parenting one on one is like when they're in diapers, y'all. Come on, let's admit it. Let's all we we all gotta rise up, us Gen X parents who are you know having our babies fly the nest right now. This is not parenting one on one anymore. This is like major league advanced placement kind of shit. This is the this is the master's level of parenting. It's a master's class. Come on. Absolutely. Okay. So, but we had to go through and say, okay, it how you're feeling about it compared to how I'm feeling about it. Is it OCD or is it just parenting's feelings? Like you want to mother you want to give him because I want to mother him. I want to, you know. Sure. Well, I wish we could pull our listeners right now because shocker. What was the Conclusion that we came to in therapy. Well you tell me. No, I think you should say it. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to say it. No, no, go ahead. I just write on it. I dare you to say it now. Shocker, everybody. It was more of her O C D. Because if we say you can't drive the car, then he's not gonna love us anymore and he's not gonna want to be a part of our family. And of course he's gonna want to because the next month he'll be able to pay it and get the car and just be on his merry way. Or in two weeks he might be able to pay it. Or then. There you go. You know, and then in two weeks again after that, he'll have to pay another two hundred dollars for the next month. But that's just how life works because you know, you have to work. We have to teach which he does have a job. Yes, and we he's just choosing not to work. Well, and we're teaching him how to adults and quite frankly, he's going to love us. We've raised a good kid. We've all raised good kids. They're still gonna love us, they're gonna come back to us, even if they've somewhat forgotten that we exist right now. And in my O C D brain, the brain that says if then or what if, the stakes are just higher, but only because it's in my head. Him getting out of the parking garage because he doesn't have money and reaching out to us. He's not gonna die because we might not see the text message right away. He might sit in the parking garage for an hour because he can't afford to get out of it. But he's been out of our sight for quite a long time now and he's still alive. Sick though, everybody, because he's burning it from both ends. Because he's eighteen and a freshman in college. Let's just stay out till four thirty in the morning and then We need a support group. Please. If anyone wants to start that with us out there, let us know. We want a support group of Gen X parents letting their oldest children fly away to college right now and how it is just It's a miracle. It's it's a miracle and it is honestly not I think I don't know, is it what we all expect? Is it different? Is it easier, harder? We just yeah, we need a support group. But you know, things like you know, you might not want to drive, you know, every night to the other campus because you have to pay for gas and now he's at the point to where I don't want to go to the store because I need to ration my gas. He doesn't have the money now. Poor kid. Listen, we give our we give him a little bit of a rough time, but he's he's a really good kid. He's he's been a an excellent, excellent young man, student, brother, son, etcetera, for all his life now. So we're hoping that and and it will come back around. Once again, we go back to that holding him accountable. Right. And and the holding people accountable, again, shocker is challenging for me because that really ticks my if-then just right irrational thoughts. Because while we're tak well, we're talking about this very specific example with our son, Miles, I could come up with another example that involved our daughter Avery at some point in her life. Or As of recent, I could very much bring this to the business that we just owned and our former employees. And if y'all have been listening to this for a a long time now and going back to our very first episode, we recounted what was absolutely the darkest, most terrible day of our life, and how we closed a whole chapter in that day and opened up a whole new chapter in our life, which then led us to this podcast. So that's Really exciting as of now, but at that point it was challenging. I did the same with my employees. I thought I had a good handle on things. I was very much, if I don't say this the right way, if I don't give them what they want, if I don't let them do this, if I don't. So I gave everything. I did everything they wanted. I gave them everything they wanted. I never said no. I never held the line. I never held held them accountable because my fear was if I don't, or I should say if I do hold them accountable, then they will quit. They will not want to work here anymore. They will go out and tell everyone what a terrible boss I am. They will not want to, they will not allow me to do the other part of my career any longer. and we again, by choice, we've kept kind of the the timor of our business, like what we actually did and what we do very kind of close to the vest because we don't want to put out too many details out of respect. But I had always felt like, oop, if I don't give this person everything they want, if I don't do this for this person, if I don't let this person have that behavior, then they're gonna take something away. They're gonna take away their friendship. They were, I had known a lot of these women for a really long time. I had worked side by side with them for a long time. They'll take away their employeeship, if you will. I don't know if that's a word, but and they'll quit. And in the industry we're in, I can tell you that it is not necessarily just hire the next person that that you find. This is a very specialized type of career. And they don't these types of employees are not just like lining up. So they'll quit if I don't give it to them. So there's that. I can't do that. What else could they take from me? They could take anything imaginable away from me that I could come up with in my head, which always led me to the compulsion. to have to leave it feeling just right. And if I was uncomfortable with how I left a conversation with them, I would literally go back to them and have more conversations, making stuff up. Things that didn't even have to do with the business, things that didn't have to do with their being my employee, but just anything, the weather, a book, anything you could imagine, I would go and talk to them again just to make sure that they felt okay with me and that I could leave that scenario just right. I called them my cringe-worthy check-ins for a long, long time. I can happily say I don't necessarily do that behavior anymore, but that's one of those exposures that I've had to undertake. If you leave it feeling just if you leave the conversation feeling not right, you sit in that discomfort space. That's that's the exposure. You don't go back and do the check-in. You don't go back and send the other emoji. You don't go back and you sit in the discomfort of. Well, but what if they don't like me? What if they don't? Maybe they don't. Well, what if they take something well, they could. So what you're saying in 14 days in 14 days, you get to practice that. Fourteen days from now? Yeah. Because both you and I know in fourteen days our son's not gonna have the two hundred dollars to put Are we counting it down? Well, I just know this day of the week and miss. You know, or thirteen days by the time we drop this this episode and stuff. You're gonna have to practice that. I will sit in the discomfort. I will live uncertain. I will practice what I preach, y'all. And yeah. Fine. You know, and we've and we talked at therapy, like what are some of the concessions that we potentially could do. You know, like, charge him a late fee, you know? yeah. I'm not too big on that one. I don't love that one. I'm more on board with we we can let the car sit until he pays it. You know, and he's it brings me back. It's a little PTSD bringing me back to my business ownership days. I'll be honest with you. Yeah, but you know, then you does have to get to work and stuff like that. So are we going to, you know, give in a little bit? Yes, we will because Or do we have him try to figure out how to get from where he's at to where up here when he should to maybe push purchased concert tickets or did X, Y, and Z, all of the adulting stuff. This is why we need a support group. The fun adulting stuff that we've because this is what's doing afflicting teenagers everywhere right now who are experiencing their first year of college. And all of us parents on the other side going, What in the hell are they thinking? Because college now is not how college was. When we went. Well. Are you calling me old? That's not. On the side. Okay. Yes. All right. I you're older. I well, not that much older. Come on. Older is older, Ben. So win in my book. So at least you're gonna have to practice that exposure. And I don't I and because we no longer have the business, because I no longer have employees, because I have taken a new career path and I have a new career, so to speak, at least a new lane of the career I've been in, I haven't had to do the exposures of the people pleasing. And now you've got to do it with a family member. Not only just a family member but our own my my oldest baby, my son. Yeah. Who I adore. That you don't want to see him suffer. You don't want to see him be in anguish or you know, just my goodness. You know, you want to see him thrive and you know do all of that fun stuff. Because what did we do today? we put money in his account. Yeah, we put money in his account because he's grub hubbing food, which is, you know, I'm gonna buy, you know, Taco Bell. And it's gonna cost me $23 for a five dollar order. And it's like, no, get off your lazy ass and go down and get the food. I think this this podcast occasionally, I feel, is taking a life of its own. I do have OCD. Mark is my spouse. We love to talk about the spouse's perspective of loving someone with OCD. We have just channeled and covered our journey and continue to do so because it there it is week by week. what we are doing and how we are facing those challenges that come up. But man, sometimes it's just it's amazing how life turns and spins and goes. And next week it'll probably be very different because he will have been paid. We'll see how much he actually gets paid. See what I'm saying? That's what I'm talking about. But it's so hard not to talk about other things that are happening. Yeah. And other things that we're challenged by because we know we're not the only ones. And and this is all about building a community of support in in all kinds of different ways. This was one we didn't think about. You know, when your children are little, whether you have OCD or not, you don't think about them. necessarily moving to college that and that just like all of a sudden comes up and wow they're going to college now that went fast and I think that with any life change and having a child go to college being one of them when then you have OCD or love someone who has OCD there are additional challenges that present themselves and you do have to go above and beyond that to make sure that you're still maintaining a solid foundation of your marriage, of your family, and you're not and your OCD is not holding other people back. Cause that's what I learned that my OCD was holding my family back. And I didn't even see it or recognize it for a long time. And now that I do Well and and we talked about it this past week too. you know, like your O C D probably did hold Miles tight for the first two years, two and a half years of his High school career. It was he was a senior in high school before I started getting intensive treatment-ish. Maybe the end of his junior year. End of junior year. Junior and into senior year. Yeah. For sure. It was a year and a half worth of his high school career that you were going through treatment and you had to allow him to have some of those freedoms. So it's not like he didn't go through his whole high school career not being able to do anything. So now all of a sudden he's in college. Now he's doing all the things. And you know, that's You know Along with probably many of your sons and daughters who are also freshmen in college. Yeah. You know, they're they're just they're they're living a a life that they feel like they have and because at that point they're adulting because adulting is always roller coasters and Rainbows. Rainbows. And vacations and there you go. You know, with a little bit of classwork sprinkled there and there. You know, but for him, you know, we asked him how his classes were. they're easy. They're all easy because I'm a fashion major. Well, I am sure they are easy because, you know, you went through, you know, fashion design, you know, one through six in high school, which is pretty much what you're taking now because you chose not to sign up for the dual enrollment classes. Okay. Can you tell that we're, you know, having a having a time sending a kid to college too? my goodness. And when you work in the school system too, it doesn't make it any easier when your own son did not do what he probably should have to sign up for those dual enrollment yeah courses. And now he's taking them over again and that's why college is easy. Well, we're still in our first semester, so let's see how that pans out later on. So but I wanna thank everybody for listening today. As do I. We appreciate you all living uncertain with us. And if you wanna jump on our show, please let us know. Drop us an email or if you just wanna, you know, make some comments and You know, we'll more than happy to respond. You have a Facebook page and our Instagram page too as well. So we appreciate you listening every d every week and hopefully you get something from it. And if you feel like we would benefit somebody else that you know, take and share our story with them. Yes, please. And thank you again, everyone. And until next time. Have a good week. Thank you for joining us on today's episode and Living Uncertain with us. We are not therapists and this podcast is intended to provide information and support. It should not replace traditional means of seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. If you like this episode or would like to hear more, please like, subscribe or share with someone you think may benefit. Here at Living Uncertain, we're building a community of support. 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