Latest / Living Uncertain an OCD Podcast / Initial challenges and breakthroughs (OCD)(Episode 15)

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Initial challenges and breakthroughs (OCD)(Episode 15) · Living Uncertain an OCD Podcast

• Marc & Stacee: 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. 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. Marc & Stacee: Hi, y'all. I'm Stacy. And along with my husband Mark, we want to thank you for living uncertain with us. As you all know by now, this is the podcast that talks all things OCD and ERP related. And welcome to episode 15 tonight, which we are going to talk about more specifics regarding ERP and what it means to really dive into it, learn from it, and use it at home. I think it's a good time in our Opening: 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, Marc & Stacee: If you and your significant other would like to share your story, we would love to have you on the podcast. Please click on the link in the episode description and fill out the interest form. In our journey here to really kind of go back to what the beginning stages of ERP looked like for us and what that meant for us then taking that and taking those steps into our house and into our home and into our family life. And we can also talk about what it means now sometimes for you. Absolutely. For us. Yes. Opening: I am much more than this diagnosis. We all can be. Marc & Stacee: Yes. So back in our early, early, early stages, you had to take a little assessment. I did. And and you kind of came up with your your top five. Yes. So for those of you who perhaps haven't listened to the very first couple of episodes of our podcast, or even for those of you who had have We just wanted to take a minute to kind of talk about that I had gone into a pretty dark place before I entered the intensive treatment of of ERP. I had just been recently diagnosed with OCD and I was starting to dip my toes into what kinds of techniques I would need to use in order to overcome OCD and what it looked like. I was beginning to identify the kinds of OCD I related most to, if you will, or had. And so that was definitely a big part of the journey. And then as business owners, we unfortunately hit a wall with our business and and that took me to a pretty dark place. And and because of that I I had to enter the intensive treatment, which was daunting and and I was a bit fearful about it right at first. And then I wasn't anymore. That wasn't the plan initially. No, no. To just catapult you right into No, it was not the plan. It was a start to ease you into Yes ERP, which, you know, that's where you would really start is kind of smaller things because your brain you know, as you start ERP, you know, it is it's very taxing. It can it ⁓ absolutely you're working at that mental muscle that most people don't usually have to work in that way. And they always want to start you off in a slower In hindsight, given how far we've come, and I say we because it has been, y'all, a very we process with my own health and wellness, with marks, with our marriage, with our families, including our two kids, It's I find it was a really good thing that we jumped in into a more intensive route and that I was going for so many hours a week and that you were coming with me and that we decided to take this very unique approach to O C D therapy, which is that we did it together. And I think that I wanted to just talk more about those initial stages. So for example, what Mark just brought up is that yes, the first part of it was I had to fill out a a little assessment that that kind of was a hierarchy, if you will, of my most feared things or the the anxieties that most inhibited my life. And then once I was able to narrow down those top five, top ten. Then with the help of our therapist, we were able to say, okay, let's tackle the biggest one, which again, as you all know, was an extreme fear of death that was ⁓ really at the top of the list. ⁓ so we tackled that one first. And we just kept going down the list in the hierarchy of what those fears, what those anxieties were, where OCD took over the most in my life, and we just tackled them one by one. Which and and the re one of the reasons why I think you started with the fear of death. I know it was at the higher end of the your spectrum. So was the people pleasing, but because of you walking out of the business that day, you didn't necessarily have that ability to do the exposure with people pleasing as much. Right. It would have been very difficult because because you did not walk back into the clinic ever again. Right. No, I did not. So so there was, you know besides people, you know, preferable people in your life. You didn't have that direct need to people please employees. Correct. And I did have to and eventually I did have to tackle that one because that was a huge the people pleasing was a big part of my OCD that was very much inhibiting my life. But it took some time to get to that one. Yep. And I tackled others first. So It's been a very interesting journey on how ERP actually works and how the exposures prevent then the response of the compulsions and and how you have to really not only did I have this hierarchy of fears and anxieties, but then I had to take this step of ERP as a hierarchy, like first you do this, then you do this, and then this comes like it was a very succinct set of steps. It was systematic. Yes. Thank you. Very systematic. That was a big word for me. That's I'm impressed. Babe, nice job. And ⁓ so I think it was really the way to do it was just to to dive into it, to to do it in an intensive way. And and we're here discussing our journey because we want to give you these these techniques as well, right? That worked for us. One of them was here, I had to list everything from worst to least worst, if you will, of these fears. And then I could tackle them one by one. And that's something that was done right off the bat. And it was something that really worked. And so my exposures to death came first. And I was able to tackle that one with some pretty good success. Now it did take some time. And YouTube will never look the same for me now. But on a good note, I don't suffer from the panic attacks that I was having before. And I don't fear it. I don't I can't I can talk about it now without feeling the panic rising. And so I didn't I could expose myself to it and I didn't have to engage in the compulsion or i.e. the panic attack. I had to let that anxiety rise and come down naturally on its own. Which for me was really hard to watch. You know, because as your loved one, I wanted to make sure that you were okay. Mm-hmm. And and before I would step in to help reduce that panic attack to help Yeah. Prevent it from happening because I didn't like seeing you in that pain. And I think that was and and to be clear, I think that was more of the the piece that we really had to work on was the the way that we were handling it, which was that I would have the panic attack and I would seek to you to kel help me. And you were always willing and ready to do so because you didn't want to see me suffer in that way. And so we had to really learn that him doing that was just perpetuating the cycle of my panic attacks and my OCD with the intrusive thoughts of death. And so it became, nope, you gotta let that anxiety rise. You gotta get to that panic attack yourself, work yourself through it. Mark has to sit there, lay there, watch you, listen to you, can't say anything, can't intervene. And you have to bring that that back, that anxiety down yourself. And you have to re-regulate yourself. And and when those panic attacks would happen, she would constantly ask me. And and it was hard for me just to have to sit there and just watch. You know, when she felt like she was dying, it looked like she was in pain. I had to sit there and just watch that until it started to come back down and see that that form of relief that you would get to and okay, I made it. Mm hmm. So the more I exposed myself The more I brought the anxiety up, then the more I could bring it back down on my own. And then it started to not go up as high as the exposures continued. And so when I was able to tackle that one, I felt comfortable and excited to move to the next one. And so on and so forth. And so I would continuously expose myself to the things that made me scared, that made me fearful, that gave me anxiety. And I would have to. resist the urge to engage in the compulsion and then I'd have to do it again and I'd have to do it again. And then it worked. I don't see the panic attacks anymore. No, I ⁓ no no. But but both of us can can say that you s you we still see the O C D components come out. Yes. Without the anxiety. Yes. So there are certain parts of of my O C D that continue to How do I want to say this? They continue to plague me. ⁓ Yes, that's exactly what I want to say. They continue to plague me. And and then there are others that I've I've become really excited about having conquered. My driving and the need to consistently check in my mirrors for people who I passed by on the street or sidewalk. cars that I would feel were either getting too close or too far away from me and I'd have to Consistently and pretty compulsively check those. I the the fear of just driving itself, because ⁓ my gosh, what if something were were to happen? And those intrusive thoughts were enough to take me out of the present moment and be able to focus in on driving itself. And so I had to come up with ways to expose myself to all of these different scenarios. And then it worked. And again, as I've mentioned in previous episodes, I'm happily driving more so and more often than I ever thought I would be doing in my life. And and for me, that's so much easier on my life too. Yes. Now that you're driving. Of course. You know, you you have to bring the dogs to the groomers and I don't have to worry about myself getting the time off or making sure that the appointment fits within my exact schedule. Exactly. You know, it fits within your schedule and now you can do it. Even though you might not necessarily like doing it, you can do it. ⁓ I can very much do it. And I'm very excited and proud to do it. And so every time I had a win and I would conquer a fear or I would conquer an ⁓ an intrusive thought, I would say. ⁓ my gosh, O C D doesn't have to win. I get it now. I get how it was driving for me for so long. And now I'm taking my life back. And so I just slowly started to chip away at all of these things. And it's not a perfect situation yet, but it's we're working on it. So I think the people pleasing is is the hard one. The people pleasing is a hard one. Yeah, and it still is one that that plagues me and it it takes a lot for me to not send a text message to not have a conversation that is just fraught with people pleasing in order to feel like I've left that interaction feeling just right. And one of the you have now said it over the a couple times. To me, that you're your driving, your success of driving, how you've overcome those compulsions with driving, the success of driving, because you feel it every time you get behind the wheel and you drive somewhere. Like you even said it today. Hey, I you drove from our house over to the store and then went and picked up some food for the kids, and and you didn't need to use your GPS to do it. You did it all on your, you know. Without that and and you felt success with that. Apparently GPS dates us now. We're not supposed to use that, but just so you know. You know, but way back in the day before they had actually maps on the GPS is you had to put in coordinates. You know. You know Gen Xers here. That was that was our success marriage saver when we dropped We it was it was out of state. Absolutely. Now you just type it in your phone and you're good to go. You're there. But yes, I am getting more confident and I do know that w what I have said, I yes, please go ahead. Well, but you you've said that you want to tackle the other pieces. You want to feel that same success that you have with your driving. Yes. Tackling the driving, tackling the fear of death, tackling a couple of other things has given me so much success and so much excitement that I really want to take that energy and put it into the the aspects of O C D that are the most challenging. People pleasing being the one. W well one of them. Yeah. So for example, I'm I'm getting really good at telling myself, okay, this is this is a moment that you can practice your ERP. You are going to expose yourself to writing this text message without all of the little pieces and and bobbles in it that make you feel like it's just right. And you're just gonna send it. And it's a, it's, it's a work and it's effort. And it's it still makes me nervous. But I do it anyway because I know that it doesn't make me as nervous now than it would have six months ago. And it certainly isn't as much as it would have been a year or ago or more. And so again, every time I allow myself to do these exposures, to let the anxiety rise, to bring it back down on my own, and then to be okay and to know that I'm okay with without having done any mental compulsions too, because that's one of my One of my big ones was the mental compulsions. If I didn't feel like something was right or an interaction didn't go the way I wanted, I'd have to re I'd have to replay it in my head. And I was often replaying things in my head for hours upon hours a day. And so I don't do that as much, but it's still it's still work. And so I want it to feel as natural as what some of these other pieces have felt like for me now. Like for the rest of us, you know, that might not suffer from O C D, like sending a text message, it's a you know, thank you for the information, period, send. Before you would have thank you for the information, heart emoji, exclamation point, da da da, you know, everything else. And then you're And then if in my head I would feel like that wasn't enough, I would send a follow up. Or if they didn't reply back to you, then Then it you would spiral down. Yes. And and that one I that's the one I think you still continue to struggle with. I do. And the spiral would then lead to the mental compulsions. That was the big one for me was that well, what if this, what if that, what if this? And then nope, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm good. Because you know what? Maybe this is happening or maybe that is happening. And so I would always have this little Which is not what she's supposed to be doing. Rehearsed. No, no, no. No, no, yes. I'm saying that's what I would have done. You still do that a little bit. I mean, I can't see that. I can't see that in your head. I wish there was a little bubble above your head of what you were thinking and or a little like light bulb that goes off or starts to spark when I something something to let us know that you're doing and but you I can't see those. Those are the hardest are the ones that I have had to have. the most self-accountability for. But I don't want to be like that anymore. I don't want to engage in mental compulsions anymore. I don't want to be caught up in my own thoughts 247. And and so because I've had success with all of this so far, it does bring me hope that I will continue to hold myself accountable because I want it. And I know what it is now. I didn't know it was O C D for a really long time. I didn't know that just this constant anxiety in my life was actually O C D. Now that I do and I'm more aware of it, I want to shut it down. I will and I will say this that that she does a lot better at shutting it down. now now that we're further along in the stage of her treatment. Now that she's further along in her treatment, I I do know that if I feel that it's O C D If if I do feel that it's O C D Then And I and I say that. Sometimes that that creates a little bit of friction. with us sometimes. Like we always just think it's our my O C D when it's not necessarily want it to be. I don't wanna admit that everything is so driven by my OCD and I'm so I'm not even conscious of it. And it just irks me sometimes now because now I see the success I've had and now when I feel like I've slid backwards a bit or I feel like I've Caught myself in a moment where I allowed the compulsion or I, you know, something to that effect. Ooh, it just it burns me now. I get I get frustrated with myself. And so certainly I don't want to admit it. And that's the hard part. You you when I call you out on it. Yes. But I'm saying it right now. It's going on record. But nobody likes to be called out on anything that they feel like they might be doing wrong. No. But you're not doing anything wrong. You're just you're, you know. No, I'm putting it on the record. It's always my O C D yell. It's we can refer back to episode fifteen from now on when the next time I say You're right, it is my O C D. Then we can pull it back up. Okay. Yep. Because it is, but I know it's frustrating for you. When it is your O C D and you you have to admit that it's your O C D and kind of go, Yeah, you're right, that happened because of you know, my I O C D or Yeah, you're right. Because of, you know, whatever whatever is happening in our time during that time, that it's your O C D. But there are also times like I'll say, Hey, why don't you drive? And you'll kind of go, No, you're you drive. We're you know, it's just better if we drive together. It's just easier if you drive together. You know, that right there is an escape. Okay. And you're in your OCD. That's fair. That's fair. Now tomorrow she's supposed to drive and now it's gonna have to be a drive. You know, but you know It's got them ready. I don't I don't usually sit in the passenger seat while you're driving and you know, you think that I'm critiquing your driving or this or that. And sometimes I do because that's you know, I'm a superior driver than you. Let's just be honest. Well, you certainly have more years under your belt than I do. I'll give you that. I will give you that one. That's fair too. Unlike our son thinks he's a superior driver than any of us. He's already eighteen. So he's had two years of experience. Goodness gracious. Crazy. ⁓ my goodness. I feel like it's just really important to express how life changing this journey has been for us. And and to really break down the steps that we took to break down the parts of it that worked for us the best, the parts that maybe didn't work for us so well, and to to really give hope to others. And and that's what we're really all about. One of the things I want to do in future episodes is is record you going through some of your ERP. ⁓ good gracious. Kind of real time. I don't think we need to do that, do we? To kind of see how it is. Okay. Well, buckle up buttercups. You know, 'cause I you know, there's a couple things that that our therapist and myself have talked about doing and Okay. You know, I know It would be good for people to hear it would be what it how you're feeling, what you're feeling what's going on as you're going through it. And and you you've experienced enough ERP now that some of the stuff that we have to do is probably some more of the the bigger, heavier stuff but making sure that you're safe. Yes. You know, and and everything that we do with the ERP is is also revolved around safety like driving, for example, you know. Yes, of course. Like I'm not you know, driving at night in a unknown neighborhood, you know, that one is is not necessarily that wouldn't be, you know, unsafe. But if your, you know, OCD came out and your anxiety went up, it could turn into an unsafe scenario. Sure. But yet you've done it. Yes. You know, you've you've driven from people's houses back to our house and, you know, in the dark and You know, but you've driven those routes before. Mm-hmm. You know, but if it was someplace you would never been, I think that potentially could be an unsafe scenario. Isn't it so interesting when you say these things to me, or I think about them and say them myself? All of the ways that OCD kind of took over my life. And and I said this in the last episode, which was how many moments have I lost out on? And I think about the fact that. It's never too late, right? I'm about to have my forty-eighth birthday this summer and I am just now feeling confident behind the wheel. I am just now feeling like I don't have two people please my way through my life. I am just now feeling a a confidence that I've never felt before. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. And although there are times that I get frustrated because I wished I had that earlier in my my life, I'm so glad I have it now. And I'm so glad that I went on this journey. And these exposures do work. They help. And they might not feel like it at first. Not at first. No. You have to you have to keep going. That's what the other idea we've talked about, which is that whole idea of committing to exhaustion because it gets taxing and exhausting. But if you commit, it works. It's like doing homework. You know, for math homework. Nobody, you know. Ew, nobody likes that. No, yeah. You nobody likes math. Come on, please. Who needs math? Nobody. Not true. ⁓ the world revolves around math. Okay. Okay, fine. But if you don't practice it, then you kind of you're not gonna get good at it. Right. It's like learning a language. If you're not practicing the language, then you're you're gonna ⁓ you're never gonna get good at it. You know, like when I started college, you know, I worked towards becoming a sign language interpreter, got to that point of doing that. But now post 20 years, because that was not my native language. Right. Learn that skill pretty heavy to where I could actually, you know, interpret for people. Yes. Now, twenty years later, 'cause I haven't been practicing, I haven't been using it. You'll lose it. It is that's such a great analogy to use too, because ERP is a lot of of just that, that if you don't keep working on it and you don't keep practicing it, you do lose it. You might revert you might revert back to your old ways. Yep. And I know you don't want to. And I don't I absolutely do not want to. And so I am now at the place too where I can hold myself more accountable. I can say, All right, ERP, bring it on. Let's see what else you've got for me because if I can take the confidence that I've gained from certain aspects of my life into the others that are still challenging for me, it's an exciting prospect. And I think this podcast also holds you accountable too. Certainly. Apparently now I have to do ERP live on the air. You know, like we've like we've taken and we we've put in different layers. Yeah. You know, f you know, some stop gaps, if you would say, that that prevent you from falling back into a year ago. you know, we we are now coming up to a year of when you kind of graduated. It was in July when you graduated from from the intensive. From the intensive. I mean, we still go every other week, sometimes weekly for for therapy, but You know, you you still have to practice that. Well, and again We do a lot at home now because we've learned how to implement the ERP. We've learned how to even if we have to come up with ways to make the ERP work at home and we do. Yeah. And we haven't lost steam for that because Sometimes reluctantly by you. It's so important. Which one? Sometimes you just don't want to. Like if I say you drive or something like that. I don't need to do that. ⁓ my goodness. Okay, I'll drive tomorrow. I don't need that, you know. It it's you know, sometimes you'll make an excuse for why you don't get away with anything tonight. Why you don't want to do it, but yet you know you need to do it. Yes. And once I get on the other side of it, I'll be happy I did it. Just like anything else, it's challenging. Yeah. But it's good when you're on the other side. It is. Anything anything else you want to share tonight about your journey so far? I don't think so. Not tonight. But I besides that is exhausting. That I just want to make sure that people recognize that it's it's not too late and it can be so life changing in the most positive of ways to take it on and that there is help and support and a whole section of cheerleaders out there who wanna help those of us who have O C D because we do know how debilitating it actually can be and We're here to bring awareness to that. And so please, if you feel encouraged by this, if you feel excited, let us know. We'd love to have your stories and shared. Yeah, and if you listen to our our podcast and you don't know anybody or you you know, you you don't have O C D yourself, but just know that O C D is probably the one of the It it is used in the wrong ways that those words. It can't just those three those three letters. It's used in the wrong way. It is one of the most misunderstood and most disrespected mental health disorders out there. And I've heard that spoken by other people who have O C D, who know someone with O C D, and it is just so incredibly true. And I know we've given examples of that as well that I've had to to kind of deal with over the years. I just did last week. Somebody was in my office and we were talking about stuff. And they was like, Yeah, I'm a little O C D with ⁓ yes. The I'm a little O C D. Yeah. I yeah that phrase gets me. That one gets me. You're you no, you're not no a little O C D doesn't necessarily exist. I have spent hours Days, weeks, months, years, when I when you equate it to how much time I have spent. engaging in compulsions, whether they were mental, whether they've been checking in, seeking reassurance, whether they've been physically checking on things, like whatever it is, the amount of time that I have spent having to do that in order to just maintain Some level of Sanity, if you will. I don't even know another word to say it. It's astronomical. And I and I and I personally as a as a person who has OCD refuse to let that get me any longer. And so I'm working as hard as I can to achieve that. But we want to hear from you. Yes. We appreciate all of you listening to us so very much. We're thank you for living uncertain with us. Yes, thank you. As always. Until next time.