Latest / Living Uncertain an OCD Podcast / Intention (OCD)(Episode 5)
Transcript
- Marc & Stacee: Hey there, I'm Stacey and along with my husband Mark, thank you for living uncertain with us. Of course, this is the podcast where we talk all things related to OCD and ERP. Welcome to episode five, where we'll be discussing intention. I felt like this episode in particular was a good time to talk about intention because from my experience, I believe this is one of the pillar concepts of OCD treatment. 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: I do think as well the one that really came up and was one of the most challenging for me was when it had to do with interactions with other people. And these, what I like to call cringe-worthy check-ins that I would have to do with people. ⁓ and I had been doing it for so long, I didn't even recognize that that was an actual compulsion that I was engaging in until much, later. And so I really had to learn where the boundary was with that and where my intentions were with those check-ins. And then I had to learn how to sit in that uncomfortable moment. So for example, with my two children, with my employees at the time, former now, but employees at the time, I had to... And I think it's one of those pieces that for me, I could take away from all of our sessions and be able to put that into practice at home and use the object and the concept of intention in my everyday life along with Mark to make sure that I was continuing to grow and to heal. When we talk about intention, we learn that this is what separates our compulsions from us just living our normal everyday life. 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. really measure what the intention was behind my going and having an extra chat or the need to say one more thing or the need to check in on them one more time to make sure I left that interaction, that conversation feeling just right. I was doing that with both of my kids. I would do that with Mark. I would definitely do that with my employees and that became very challenging. Opening: I am much more than this diagnosis. We all can be. Marc & Stacee: It's after we learn to recognize the difference, AKA are we engaging in compulsions to remove the intrusive thoughts or are we simply being ourselves, that we know what our intention is behind different actions, different words, different behaviors that we, as those of us who have OCD, have to engage in. For me, as we've talked about before, I have Just Write OCD, I have Reassurance OCD, and of course I have to not engage in those compulsions with them. Well, unfortunately, because of February 19th, when I pulled you out of the clinic, you actually have not been able to practice on the people that worked for you. No. Where you were able to practice on, it was your new place of employment after the closure of the business. Yes. So the... these looping thoughts of different interactions and conversations that I have with people that cause me to need pep talks, which I now know are mental compulsions in order to get through ⁓ those kinds of conversations even after I've left them. If you remember, as Mark so eloquently stated on our last episode, this is only the first layer of the onion of what is my OCD, and as I have 15 plus people that you normally would be doing those check-ins with, you weren't able to practice with them, which is probably a good thing. Because they knew you from before where, you they want to make sure that you were making sure that they were happy. Yes, I tried to practice on them because I was going through some ERP and some OCD treatment. I recognize that there are lots of layers of my OCD to peel away. But this concept of intention has been huge for me. And it really has been one of the biggest pieces that has helped me gain some speed in my OCD treatment and living a better life. So what I would do... while we still owned the business and while we were still working actively with our employees. And I was trying to learn how to sit in an uncomfortable moment and not check in. And that proved to be much harder than I was anticipating and almost impossible. At the end of the day, the way that our story has opened into a new chapter, it is for the best that I don't have that business or those is I would go into a therapy session and I would discuss with both Mark and our therapist an example, a scenario of something that I had done in the past or even something recently. And I would discuss that with them and then our therapist would help me essentially learn what my intention was behind the emoji that I needed to use, the check-in that I had to have, the need to... reorganize something that I had just organized the day before. What was my intention? Was it that I was trying to remove intrusive thoughts? Was it that I was trying to decrease the spiking anxiety or is it just Stacey? I'm still me. I'm more than what OCD is. Employees in my life anymore. It is for the best that I don't have the opportunity to even aka or quote-unquote practice that that skill on them ⁓ I've moved on from that. I've I really am feeling like I am a new version of myself now, but I do still need the opportunity to Continue I want things out of my life and I want to be able to seek that out. And I don't want to always be caught in a, this OCD or is it not? But I did have to really bring my attention to it, bring my awareness to it so that I could make different decisions so that I didn't continue to engage in the compulsions that were meant to remove the intrusive thoughts and decrease the anxiety. And let's be clear with your intentions now versus when we started We call it practicing, but I also like to call it building the muscle, which is a phrase we learned in therapy, building the muscle around not engaging in the compulsions, which means looking at your intention with my kids. If we had a disagreement or if there was a moment in our household that was a little discontent, I would have to feel the compulsion to go back and check in on them. and was not allowing myself to live in an uncomfortable moment that, ooh, maybe they're a little upset. Maybe my husband's a little upset. No, I need to go in and check in and say one more thing just to make sure that he's happy or that they are. And then that would, you know, assuage that anxiety that kept peaking and those looping thoughts that just wouldn't go away on their own. So I really had to learn how to do that in our own household with my new ⁓ going through treatment. Yes. You had, you did not know what the intentions were. So your OCD was running rampant. It was. And until we started tackling little step by little step, that's the only way that you ended up becoming more aware of your, intention behind your actions. Absolutely. I didn't even realize that they were compulsions. within my new work scenario and work life, which hasn't always been easy. And I've caught myself a few times going back into that people pleasing, overly accommodating, overly apologetic place and dialing it back to realize, no, my intention was not true there. My intention was more because I need, I felt the need to engage in a compulsion. I didn't even realize that the looping thoughts were intrusive and that the only way I could get a K rid of them was to engage in these mental or other kinds of compulsions throughout my day, sometimes all day long, where that was all I was doing. sometimes when we started going through therapy, your text messages came up as a. And so I'm still living, I'm still learning, and we're still healing and growing from this whole process. And it will still take some time, but the more I do it, the more muscle I build, the easier it gets. topic of conversation that we noticed that you would send multiple, multiple emojis within one message, exclamation points. You wanted it to feel just right when you sent it. Yes. So because I had these looping thoughts of different conversations, interactions with people and needing to leave them feeling like they were happy that they were happy with me. One thing I want to say about that is you and I have been doing the therapy together. So I think you and I have built that that trust, that relationship trust of when I can call you out on certain scenarios. So like with your new work environment. Yes. You you kept saying yes, yes, yes. And finally, I had to call your your intentional bluff on that one ⁓ and say, why are you doing that? Because you're I started to engage in the compulsion of my text messages. So I couldn't not send a text message without four, five, six, seven emojis or six or seven exclamation marks at some point. ⁓ I thought, what would happen if I didn't send that? And the anxiety that spiked, that peaked with that thought became so overwhelming that again, you're overloading yourself when nobody else in your position or any of the other people that are doing the same thing you're doing are at the number that you are at as far as like ⁓ your productivity per se. And, you know, with with other people that are going through ERP or going through, you know, mental mental health with OCD side. I had to send it that way in order to be okay, in order to feel like I was all right and I wasn't going to then continue having more anxiety. And for the other elicitors out there, for the spouses that live with somebody with OCD, Stacey would take and send me the messages prior to sending them to the individual. and they're not willing to take that journey yet, that probably is very frustrating to those people. And I'm very blessed to have you that is willing to do it and take the feedback that I'm giving you during those times. And I was having to, she would want me to check them over, make sure they were okay. Or if we were sitting next to each other, she would show me the message saying, do you think that's okay to send? It was a constant check. She would interrupt me at work even like, hey, I've got this message I need to send. What do you think? ⁓ that's so nice of you to say it like that. Thanks, babe. That's very kind. Well, because all you have to do is, you know, saying yes and understanding where I'm coming from. Yeah. And we do have our struggles with when I think that it's OCD and you're like, well, when is it just me? When is it just you would think we would? We had learned all of this by now, but it is not a perfect scenario by any means. And we are still learning all of that. And that aligns very well, I think our listeners can understand too, with my need for constant reassurance and my constant need for checking in, especially with Mark, very much so with Mark, to make sure that everything I was doing was quote unquote, okay. ⁓ but yeah, he marks, right. I, he often will call me out on different things to say, Hey, let's, let's think about your intention there. And while I jokingly say things to him, they would indicate I'm upset when it comes down to it. I'm really not because I want this. I really like the way that I feel having gone through this treatment, having lived a different life now than I was before. And so if it takes. So one of the things that we had to do is she could not call me and check in to make sure before she sent a message and all of her messages except to the kids had to be emoji free. That is such a simple concept y'all like don't send an emoji but it had such a big impact on my life because the idea of not sending emojis really made me feel Mark helping me through that, he's the most trusted person that I have in my life. And so I think that uncertain and uncomfortable. And it sounds silly to say it out loud now, but it really did. And it really then showed me the intention behind doing that was that I was doing it as a compulsion. I was doing it because I had intrusive thoughts I couldn't let go of unless I sent the emoji. Then I was able to, after some time, if we're taking the emoji example, I was able to say, hey, it's my sister-in-law's birthday. I'm gonna send her an emoji. being able to have someone like him, ⁓ I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to have him with me that was willing to commit to this, that's willing to still know that this is an everyday struggle and that we're gonna do that together and we're gonna come up with. our solutions together. It's the only way that we're gonna move forward. Mm-hmm, I agree. And I really hope that those of you listening out there and if you are dealing with OCD or you do have the significant other or the spouse of someone who has OCD, that this can be impactful for you, that you can know that there are concepts like this concept of intention that really do carry the help you can get in therapy forward, that it really can help in your everyday life. ⁓ it's, you know, my niece just sent me a cute text message. I want to send something back and use an emoji. And I had to learn that those were the scenarios that were okay, because that was simply me being me. That was Stacy. That intention was laid out for me. If I felt like I needed to send an emoji to someone because, ⁓ my gosh, what if they didn't like me if I didn't send it? Or, ⁓ my gosh, what if they didn't feel like I was being friendly enough if I didn't send it? Make sure you're doing it together though. Always. Thank you for listening today. Yes, as always, thank you for living uncertain with us every day. That was when I had to stop and go with it to say, nope, now I can't send the emojis. And I had to live in that uncomfortable space until it became very comfortable not to. Because people, they didn't stop liking you? No. No, because then it worked, right? Then I didn't send emojis and they were still responding the same way they would have had I sent seven emojis. And so I had to learn that. And the problem with it was you were sending it to the people that worked for you. Yes. To make sure that they felt good. Yes. Which kind of backfired. Yes. On you and myself. Absolutely did. You know, so going through that, the therapy was very helpful. And that was just one small aspect of the... The intentions. Well, then to learn about my intentions when, for example, I call Mark. What is my intention behind calling him? Am I calling him to seek out some sort of reassurance? Am I going to ask him a question that's a what if in order to get some response from him that will alleviate that anxiety? And if it was, then I had to stop. Nope, can't do it. You can't call him to ask him that. If you want to call him to ask him how his day was, how that meeting went for him, sure, that's a normal wife thing, wifely thing to do. But if you're going to call him to make sure that it's okay, that you... sent this message to a co-worker, then no, you can't do that any longer. And that's why the intention piece of the intensive OCD treatment became so very important. Include, yeah. And you're still dealing with it because Friday. 100%. You know, last Friday you took and called me up in the morning time as I was getting my day started. And you wanted to ask me something, but you stopped yourself. I did. Because you recognized that the intention was a check in. Yes, I was calling to check in with him about a text message, ironically. And then as he answered the phone, I said, ⁓ no, I think I can do it. Never mind. I shouldn't have called. And we literally just hung up the phone from each other. And I sent the text message and, hey, guess what? I'm still here. Mark's still here. The world is still turning. And I think that's the biggest piece, right? We who have OCD don't realize the world will stop, will continue turning if we don't engage in the compulsion. And it is so hard to commit to that. But once you do, it's life changing. rewriting your brain, changing. So one of the other aspects was one of the things that really were impacting us as a family early on or prior to your treatment was your organization of the house. And not even just the organization of the house when you felt like you had done something wrong. Oh man. Or had maybe upset somebody. Your intention at that point was to do self harm and it wasn't like self harm is like harming yourself. It was to give stuff away. The compulsion, yes. So the compulsion became I need to give something away because I feel as though I've made a mistake or I've upset someone or I've left a situation not feeling just right. And so I would get very committed to organizing the smallest of spaces or largest of spaces in our home. And I would then start purging items and giving them away. And it was a way to feel like I was atoning almost for this magical mistake that I thought I had made or this moment I might've even made up in my head about something I said that maybe did or didn't go over well enough. And so, yes, I would reorganize and purge items in order to feel that anxiety reduce. And then I started doing that at work. And it especially came out as I became the owner of the company because I would be in my office and as soon as I would feel anxiety spike, I had a bookshelf in my office with items that I would use and I would reorganize it. And then maybe two days later, I would feel that anxiety coming on again. I would feel that urge to have those mental compulsions or to do check-ins. And I would organize that same bookshelf again. And so I had to learn, even though I love organizing and I love being clean and tidy in our home, I had to learn what was the intention behind cleaning? What was the intention behind organizing? Was it that I needed it? The house actually needed it? Or was I doing it to bring down the anxiety and remove the intrusive thought? I even had to do a scenario where I had to sit in a messy home. had to intentionally dirty up our kitchen and I wasn't allowed to clean it up. We had to intentionally get things out of alignment in our home and I couldn't fix them or, you know, make them better in my head. And then I would have to sit and I'd have to write about it. I'm big on writing. I love writing. And so with my therapist, we came up with these strategies to say, hey, let's sit in that mess and write about it. Talk about in your writing, how does it feel to be sitting there like that? How does it feel to not be able to clean it immediately or because you feel anxious about that or you're feeling anxious about something else and needing to clean in order to feel better? And so it was with these different exercises and learning about the intentions behind my compulsions that became really paramount in my ability to. do things differently.