You know that feeling of being disconnected from your own body? Or being physically present but not actually there? That's not just anxiety. It has a name.

This week Leela and Pri explore derealisation, depersonalisation and dissociation. What they are, how they connect to OCD and chronic illness, why they're so frightening when they happen, and why understanding them is the first step to making them less terrifying.

And we're completely obsessed with Sam Smith's foodie Instagram. The foodie hot takes, the endearing term for their followers, and not least, the dining recommendations. The unhinged joy of it all.

We also take several of our famous detours into Ed Sheeran, The Great British Bake Off, and a broader conversation about celebrity culture and why Leela might be slightly too invested.

And to close: the Sallie House, Atchison, Kansas, 1993. A young couple — Tony and Debra Pickman — move in with their newborn son. At first, the house feels almost playful, and the baby is happy with whatever presence is lingering, so no problem right? Wrong! Soon, Tony begins experiencing things that go bump, scratch and light fires in the night. They filmed it. America's most documented poltergeist case, and one of the most unsettling ghost stories we've ever told.

Pour your tea. Stay grounded. Don't look in the mirror too long. ☕

I'm, like, totally obsessed with...

Sam Smith's Food IG: @samserved

OCD

Can OCD cause derealization?

IOCDF

NOCD

DTWM

Sallie House (Atchison, Kansas)

Tangent Stuff

The Great British Bakeoff (Netflix)

Nigella Lawson says "microwave" (YouTube)

That Gilmore Girls reboot ad (YouTube)

Contact Us

IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

EMAIL: [email protected]

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shrinking is the Apple TV+ show about a grieving therapist who stops following the rules, and it might be the most honest portrayal of therapy, grief and anxiety on television right now.

In part two of the DTWM OCD AV Club and the Bill Lawarence/Brett Goldstein mental health universe of shows, Leela and Pri turn their attention to Shrinking, the series about Jimmy Laird, a therapist so consumed by his own grief that he starts telling his patients exactly what he thinks. It's funny, it's devastating, and it has more to say about anxiety, avoidance, grief, and the messy reality of getting better than most dedicated mental health content.

Leela and Pri unpack what Shrinking gets right about mental health, including OCD, what it gets wrong, and why Jimmy Laird might be the most relatable therapist on television, not because he's good at his job, but because he isn't.

Plus: Harrison Ford doing the best work of his career, Michael Urie delivering the monologue of his career, and the return of Emily Gilmore.

Two shows. One question answered. And possibly a third recommendation by the end.

Spoilers throughout. You've been warned. ☕

Other TV shows we rate/mentioned in this episode:

• Shrinking (Apple TV)
• Ted Lasso (Apple TV)
• Rooster (HBO Max)
• Scrubs (Disney+, Hulu)
• Spin City
• Saved by the Bell
• Home Improvement (Hulu, Disney+)
• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu, Disney+)
• The Americans (Hulu)
• Ozarks (Netflix)
• Gilmore Girls (Hulu, Disney+)

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ted Lasso isn't just a feel-good show. It's one of the most thoughtful explorations of mental health, therapy, and OCD-adjacent thinking on television.

This week Leela and Pri launch the DTWM OCD AV Club: because sometimes the most important conversations about mental health happen through the media we love.

In part one of two, they unpack the therapy and mental health themes running through Ted Lasso: the way the show portrays anxiety, avoidance, the resistance to getting help, and what it actually looks like when someone starts to do the work. Plus the complicated, beautiful mess that is Ted Lasso's own mental health journey, and why Dr. Sharon Fieldstone is one of the best fictional therapist on television.

Next week: Shrinking. Two shows, one question, what does good mental health storytelling actually look like?

Spoilers throughout. You've been warned. ☕

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pri is back and the sisters waste no time getting into the lore behind MCR, whether their South Asian culture has influenced their mental health and Pri's relationship with vampires.

Pri returns from trips to England and Florida, and we get the full debrief. Then Leela shares what she's been obsessing over while Pri was away: Leah Remini joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and My Chemical Romance on tour, specifically their extraordinary storytelling and the way they build a world around their music.

Then we get into the real business of the week: does Pri have OCD? Leela and Pri investigate Pri's OCD tendencies, dig into the difference between having OCD tendencies and having OCD, and ask the questions that don't get asked enough: What actually causes OCD? Can culture influence OCD? And can the causes exist separately from the condition itself?

And to close: Pri tells us about her fear of vampires. Which is ironic. Because in Eastern European folklore, vampires were believed to suffer from arithmomania, a compulsive need to count. Villagers scattered seeds, grains of rice, and poppy seeds at their doors and graves, knowing the vampire would be compelled to stop and count every single one before sunrise. It's the reason Sesame Street's Count von Count exists. And it means that Pri's most feared creature and her potential OCD tendencies have more in common than she'd like to admit.

Pour your tea. Count your seeds. Welcome back, Pri. ☕

We're Totally Obsessed...

Leah Remini on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

King of Queens (on CBS and Paramount+)

Kevin Can Wait (IMDb)

Kevin Can Fuck Himself (on AMC+, Sling TV, Prime)

My Chemical Romance Tour

Rooster (HBO Max)

Spooky Storytime

Count Von Count (Sesame Street) 

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remembering Dolly Parton.

Leela is flying solo this week, and she's holding space for Dolly Parton, the rhinestone life that shone bright enough for the whole world to see. A woman who rose from the Smoky Mountains to become one of the most beloved, generous, and joyful humans who ever lived. We talk about what she meant, what she leaves behind, and why losing her feels personal even if you never met her.

Then, because we're talking about death, Leela dives into death anxiety in OCD, one of the most universal and least discussed OCD themes. Sitting with the intrusive thoughts about mortality and how we can process these fears on a topic where certainty doesn't exist.

And to close: something lighter this week. Leela reads sinister affirmations for every sign, earth, air, water, and fire. The dark motivations you need to hear!

Pour your tea. Put on a Dolly song. You're going to be okay. ☕

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pri is on vacation. Leela is flying solo. What could possibly go wrong?

This week it's just Leela, and she's doing what any self-respecting podcast host does when left unsupervised: she's giving us all the juicy details. From classic Americana pumpkin spice coffee to Bollywood's Cocktail 2, Leela's tried them both and she's got thoughts. Then we deep dive into the world of pop-culture, Rosie O'Donnell is back in the conversation in the best possible way, and our old friend Lena Dunham has just announced a Broadway musical of 10 Things I Hate About You with Carly Rae Jepsen writing the music.

Then Leela gets honest. A personal OCD check-in: where she is right now, how the journey has been feeling lately, what's shifted, what hasn't, and what it actually looks like to live with OCD in real time. And, of course, Leela being Leela, there are pop-culture tangents, and we get to hear all about My Chemical Romance and how her relationship is with them today.

And to close: the first ghost story Leela ever heard at a slumber party in elementary school. Someone turned off the lights and turned up the spookiness. And she has thought about it ever since.

Some monsters stay with you. ☕

I'm, like, totally obsessed...

• Cocktail 2 (Netflix)
• Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ft. Shah Rukh Khan (Netflix)
• Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge ft. Shah Rukh Khan (Netflix)
• Hilary Duff Tour
• Ted Lasso (Apple TV)
• Lena Dunham musical announcement (Playbill)
• 10 Things I Hate About You (Disney+)
• Rosie O'Donnell on Good Hang with Amy Poehler
• Rosie O'Donnell on Jimmy Kimmel
• My Chemical Romance Tour

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy first anniversary to us, and to everyone who's been drinking tea with us since the beginning. ☕

One year in, and we are celebrating the way we know best: with a pop culture roundup so packed it needs its own episode.

• Wizards Beyond Waverly Place has just wrapped its four-part finale on Disney Channel, and the behind-the-scenes drama is almost more interesting than the show itself.
• Then there's Hilary Duff, who is back with new music, a sold-out tour, and songs about her estrangement from sister Haylie, including "We Don't Talk," which she's confirmed is about their rift, calling it, in her own words, an "emotional eviction."
• And as if this week couldn't get more millennial: an official Gilmore Girls documentary is headed to HBO Max, directed by Bonni Cohen, featuring Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino, and Lauren Graham herself, with never-before-seen outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage, and script pages. Stock up on coffee. 

Then we get into this week's OCD topic: emotional contamination OCD, the subtype where the fear isn't germs or harm, but feelings. The dread that a person, place, or object carries a negative emotional residue that will transfer to you. The ex's jumper you can't wear anymore. The friend whose bad luck feels contagious. The song that played during the worst moment of your life and can never be listened to again. One of the most personal and least talked-about OCD subtypes, and one of the most relatable.

And to close: high up in the Dublin mountains, the ruins of the Hellfire Club sit atop Montpelier Hill, a 5,000-year-old site built over by Ireland's wealthiest man in 1725, who destroyed a prehistoric cairn to do it. Ghost hunters have reported screams, apparitions, and traces of rituals ever since, but the most notable spirit is much darker.

Pour your tea. Happy anniversary. Don't go up the mountain after dark. ☕

We're totally obsessed...

• Wizards of Waverly Place (Disney+)
• Wizards Beyond Waverly Place (Disney+)
• Hilary Duff on Tour
• luck...or something, Hilary Duff
• Lauren Graham on Gilmore Girls doc
• 'Gilmore Girls' Documentary In The Works For HBO Max (Deadline)

OCD

• What is emotional contamination OCD and how is it treated? (NOCD)
• Emotional Contamination (IOCDF)

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did that actually happen or did your brain make it up? False memory OCD is one of the most disorienting subtypes there is.

This week, Leela and Pri dive into false memory OCD, the creeping, relentless doubt that you can't trust your own recollections. Did you do that terrible thing you're convinced you did? Did that conversation actually happen the way you remember it? The harder you try to be certain, the less certain you become. If you've ever found yourself mentally replaying an event over and over trying to confirm what actually happened, this episode is for you.

And we are completely obsessed with Wisecrack! The true crime comedy podcast named Apple Podcasts' Best of 2025. Stand-up comedian Edd Hedges returns to his hometown for a charity gig and finds himself at the centre of a double homicide investigation. Despite all odds, it's funny, it's dark, it's brilliantly told, and it feels like it was made for our listeners specifically.

And to continue the theme of the day, wait, no seriously, did that actually happen? We head to the Paris Catacombs, where six million people are buried beneath the streets. Bones are stacked in endless walls, forming corridors of skulls and femurs that stretch for miles. Cataphiles take to the maze under the iconic city of lights to explore and find out for themselves if any ghosts truly haunt this labyrinth. Some things stay buried. Some don't.

Get cozy. Pour your tea. And try to remember don't go underground unless you're willing to uncover the ancient secrets of Paris. ☕

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the obsession isn't a thought, it's your own heartbeat?

This week, Leela and Pri dive into somatic OCD, also known as sensorimotor OCD, the subtype where your brain fixates on automatic bodily sensations you're not supposed to consciously notice. Your heartbeat. Your blinking. The way you're breathing right now. The moment you become aware of it, you can't stop. It's one of the most disorienting OCD subtypes because the thing your brain has latched onto is completely inescapable. You can't put your body down.

And we are completely, unapologetically obsessed with Mindy Kaling. Her career from Matt and Ben to The Office to The Mindy Project to Never Have I Ever to Running Point. Her situationship with BJ Novak spanning all of these eras. And her newest Hulu show Not Suitable for Work — the final chapter of what Kaling calls her trilogy of shows about young people, this time based on her experience moving to New York City in her 20s, being super ambitious, and figuring out personal happiness alongside professional success. We have thoughts. Strong ones.

And to close: a trip to the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia — a museum that collects, preserves and exhibits the ghosts of relationships past, offering a cathartic outlet for both donors and visitors. Inside: a tiny bottle filled with a woman's tears, an axe used to, and a prosthetic leg. This is not a traditional ghost story. It's something much more haunting.

LINKS TO STUFF

I'm, like, totally obsessed with...Mindy Kaling and everything she does

Not Suitable for Work (Hulu)

The Office (Peacock)

Running Point (Netflix)

The Mindy Project (Hulu)

Matt and Ben (Amazon)

OCD

IOCDF

What is Somatic OCD? Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment (NOCD)

DTWM

Museum of Broken Relationships

Contact Us

IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

EMAIL: [email protected]

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How are a failed bank robbery, a hostage situation, and a bridge connected? Through OCD and mental health.

This week it's OCD Book Club, and Leela and Pri are reading Anxious People by Fredrik Backman — a novel about a group of strangers thrown together by accident who turn out to be hiding extraordinary amounts of pain beneath very ordinary lives. It's funny, it's devastating, it's about the way obsessions, compulsions, anxiety and fear shape every decision we make.

But first: Leela and Pri, share the story of how they met. Specifically, the day Pri was born. There was a three year old Leela, innocently watching the classic British children's TV show, Rainbow, eating her tiny ham sandwich, and along came Pri.

And then there's the World Cup Final and the half time show.

No ghost story this week because there's nothing scarier than human emotion and anxiety.

Pour your tea, pick up the book, and maybe call your sister. ☕

OCD Book Club Pick: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

OCD Resources

IOCDF

Psychology Today

Looking for another cozy listen?

🎧 Check out Leela's other podcast, No Dating Till You're Married, an audiobook podcast. Gilmore Girls meets Crazy Rich Asians.

Contact Us

📱 IG: @drinkingteawithmonsters

📧 EMAIL: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.