The holidays tend to magnify whatever OCD already cares about — food, family, responsibility, and the pressure to get things “right.” In this video, NOCD therapist Tracie Ibrahim talks through what that's looked like in her own life: the mental rules that quietly take over, the constant second-guessing during ordinary moments, and the effort it takes to stay present while your brain is pulling you elsewhere. Stick around 'til the end to hear what's worked for Tracie and others with OCD.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy, the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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NOCD therapist Mia Nunez had always imagined what life would feel like after having a baby. What she didn’t expect was how quickly her own mind would turn into the most frightening part of the experience. Within days, intrusive thoughts began showing up that felt violent, disturbing, and completely incompatible with who she knew herself to be. The fear was immediate and overwhelming, and it came alongside postpartum OCD and depression she hadn’t seen coming.

In this conversation, Mia speaks candidly about an issue affecting a growing number of new mothers — and one that’s still rarely talked about. She draws perspective from her lived experience, but also clinical work. Mia explains down what postpartum OCD actually looks like from the inside, why these thoughts are so terrifying, and how understanding what’s happening can be the first step toward relief.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy, the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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Holiday gift-giving can be stressful for anyone, but for people with OCD it often becomes overwhelming. The pressure to get the “perfect” gift, spend the right amount, and avoid disappointing others can trigger intense anxiety, mental checking, and endless second-guessing that turns a kind gesture into a source of fear and exhaustion. In this video, NOCD therapist Tracie Ibrahim gets to the root of the issue, and explains how evidence-based treatment can help loosen its grip and make the holidays feel manageable again.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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It’s hard enough to talk about OCD openly, let alone how the disorder affects people’s sex lives. That’s the focus of this episode with Dr. Patrick Patrick and Tracie Ibrahim — a conversation about a part of OCD that usually stays hidden, even in therapy.

They dive into the moments people don’t admit to anyone else: the sudden panic over a normal physical sensation, the guilt that appears out of nowhere, the fear that a random image or thought says something terrible about who you are. These aren’t the “quirky” parts of OCD people joke about. They’re the ones that make people feel isolated, ashamed, and convinced they’re the only person going through it. Patrick and Tracie take the shame out of the conversation, explain why these fears hit so hard and show how OCD can twist the most human parts of life into something threatening.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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Howie Mandel returns to the Get to Know OCD podcast. He’s here to catch us up on his OCD journey — and yes, it’s a journey. Like so many people with OCD, his symptoms ebb and flow, sometimes quietly, sometimes in full view, including live television after being hypnotized (yes, really!). Howie’s back to revisit that moment and the countless others that slip past the casual viewer but shape his life in ways most never notice.

In this interview, Howie opens up about what living with OCD actually feels like when the cameras aren’t rolling: the calculations, the fear, the unpredictability, and the work it takes to keep moving through a world that doesn’t always understand what’s happening in his head. He and Dr. Patrick McGrath explore how he’s learned to navigate those spikes, what helps him stay grounded, and why speaking honestly about OCD still matters to him — not as a celebrity, but as someone who knows exactly what it’s like to fight a battle most people never see.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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For many, hair pulling, skin picking, and nail biting don’t feel like choices. The urge hits, the hand moves, and the moment is over before you’ve even registered what happened. It can be confusing, embarrassing, and often something you end up hiding — especially when you’ve “promised yourself” for years that you’d finally stop.

In this video, Dr. Patrick McGrath digs into why these body-focused repetitive behaviours show up the way they do and why stopping isn’t a matter of discipline or willpower. It’s about patterns your brain learned long before you realized they were patterns at all.

NOCD specializes in exposure and response prevention therapy, the most effective treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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OCD and perfectionism can mix together so seamlessly that people often don’t realize they’re dealing with two different patterns. Both can show up as a fear of mistakes, avoidance, overchecking, or the feeling that nothing is ever “good enough.” But OCD adds another layer — intrusive thoughts, compulsions, mental rituals, and a need for certainty that turns everyday tasks into high-stakes situations. Understanding how these two interact is key to knowing why some behaviors feel like “just perfectionism,” while others lock you into a full-on OCD cycle.

In this episode of the Get to know OCD podcast, NOCD therapist and author Taylor Newendorp joins Dr. Patrick McGrath to break down where the two overlap and where they split. He also shares how certain types of therapy help people loosen rigid standards, challenge the rules they’ve built around performance, and relearn what “good enough” actually means.

NOCD specializes in Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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A lot of people with OCD come out of Thanksgiving weekend feeling guilty, behind, or convinced they “should have” used the time differently. In this video, Dr. Patrick McGrath explains how quickly OCD can take an ordinary Thanksgiving — the travel, the exhaustion, the unfinished tasks waiting at home — and turn it into a narrative that you didn’t do enough or aren’t trying hard enough. He also shares three practical tips to help if this is the mental loop you find yourself in after the holiday weekend.

NOCD specializes in Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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Thanksgiving has a way of triggering OCD in places you don’t expect. A small doubt about the food, the table setup, or how an interaction “should” feel can snowball into a spiral before you realize it’s happening. In this video, Dr. Patrick McGrath breaks down why the holiday pressure sharpens those reactions and lays out what you can do when your brain starts pulling you into an endless loop.

NOCD specializes in Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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Automatic mental compulsions are one of the easiest ways OCD pulls you in without warning — you don’t plan them, you don’t choose them, and half the time you don’t even notice they’ve started. One moment you’re living your day, and the next you’re ten layers deep into replaying a conversation, solving a fear, or trying to think your way to certainty. In this video, Dr. Patrick McGrath explains why OCD makes these loops feel automatic and how to “undo” a mental compulsion by ending it in doubt instead of reassurance.

NOCD specializes in Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD. Want to explore your treatment options? Book a free 15-minute call with us at https://learn.nocd.com/YT

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