Episode 18

This week I'm sharing about an incident that has happened recently. People in my life found out about my OCD themes and all of a sudden questioned whether I'm 'safe' to be around. This was devastating for many reasons...but after the initial shock...I knew what I had to do. 

This is one of the biggest fears many of us have. To be misunderstood. To be not believed that this is unwanted. And unfortunately, many of us encounter it and then feel like we have to wear a mask to make OTHERS feel better about something that isn't our fault. I hope this episode helps you to see that if it ever does happen...you will get through it and you can act with resilience and empowerment to protect yourself in the face of people who are unwilling and incapable of understanding the facts. 

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Episode 17: A Day in the Life of OCD Relapse

I know you DON'T want to listen to this one especially if you're feeling good, haha! However, it's so important to know the truth about OCD. We will experience symptoms again. You will be in a position at some point where you will need to remember the tools that work for you and that there is absolutely hope for you to move through symptoms and be better again. Preparing for it seems scary - we'd rather believe OCD is gone for good! So, this episode is here for you when you need reminding 

- You can get through relapse - you can and will be okay!

In this episode, you will hear 3 stories of experienced relapse of OCD symptoms and how each person worked through it and what they learned through the process. You will also get some encouragement and simple tips on what to do to prepare and how to manage when it happens. 

It's also amazing that this episode is dropping right after I published my workbook on relapse preparation! "The OCD Relapse Roadmap: Your Recovery Compass". This is a comprehensive workbook that will walk you through everything you experience OCD and help you prepare when symptoms reoccur. This is the roadmap you will need and want when you are in the dark - it will be the compass to guide you back to the shore. And I'm here with you as you navigate! 
Get your copy at www.amazon.com!

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Episode 16: Taking Back What OCD Spoiled

In today's episode, I wanted to share a story with you, especially since right now I'm in Seville, Spain and the first time I was here, OCD almost ruined what has turned out to be a lot of love for this country and my experiences here. 
I wanted to share this with you because every time I'm here I remember just how far I've come since that trip...and I just want to keep getting stronger. 

In this episode, I also wanted to let you know that I published my Relapse Workbook! It's called The OCD Relapse Roadmap: Your Recovery Compass. It's so fitting that it published this week in the midst of being here. This workbook was a labor of love for me, and I'm so excited to give it to you!

You can find it on Amazon!

If you are in need of a community for people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn 

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you’d like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Episode 15: What 'Real Recovery' Means to Me

In today's episode, we have 4 guests who live with OCD sharing what 'real recovery' means to them. What does real recovery even mean? The actuality of being in recovery with OCD can often be vastly different than what we imagine, and this can sometimes cause confusion, distress, and even grief. We sometimes look at OCD as a problem to be 'fixed', or something we can just find 'the key' to and it will all go away. And when we realize that OCD is part of how our brain operates, and we need to work within that reality and within ourselves to create a life with OCD, this may feel overwhelming. This is SO common! And this is why this episode is so important. 

You will hear four different accounts of recovery evolution, and what has helped each individual get where they are today. One of the things I love about this episode is how each person stresses the importance of individuality. How are you framing your recovery, and what do you need to work through to continue to push farther into it? These are individual questions and the answers can take us in so many incredible directions. Because recovery from OCD is about discovery - the discovery of who we are with OCD, and knowing that we are still worthy and deserving regardless.

Recovery for OCD isn't about 'fixing' our brain, it's about adapting and finding out who we are with it. And I hope this episode inspires you to believe that about yourself!

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Episode 14:

Today we are talking with Natasha Daniels, therapist and advocate and educator for parents who have kids with OCD / anxiety. Natasha is a parent of kids living with disorders and she also lives with anxiety. Today we have a discussion that ranges from the emotional journey for the parents and obstacles they deal with, to attachment styles and how it can sometimes be difficult to understand each other's roles because often both the parents AND the child are suffering - and both silently because of shame and guilt. 

This is a very thoughtful and insightful conversation as always with Natasha! She is such a valuable resource for our community and is amazing at helping parents feel heard and seen in their struggle to try to do the best for their kids. 

To find out more about Natasha - find her on TikTok and Instagram at @childocdtherapist 

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Welcome to Episode 13!

Today is a day of storytelling. I was on holiday last week in the Bahamas...a very sacred place of annual rest, relaxation, and ... um, yes - often painful realizations after time spent without distraction and intentional introspection. 

When I'm alone with my brain, very wild things happen apparently, and today I'm going to tell you a couple stories about what I've learned and how it's helped me in my healing and recovery journey, despite how painful and filled with grief it was and still sometimes is. 

This episode is a bit stream of consciousness, so I hope it resonates and makes sense (lol!). It felt good and cathartic to share with you some of these things that hit home for me when I least expected. And I think these things are important for us to share, so we know we aren't alone when putting the puzzle of...well ourselves...together. 

if you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

`Today's episode is SO important and I applaud the guests for sharing their detailed experiences with the theme of Harm OCD. We hear about this subtype a lot, but are we really sharing the details of what it is like to experience it? It's shameful and scary to talk about! While we sometimes hide behind the label knowing it's a pretty big genre of people with OCD...how hard is it to open up about the actual thoughts, images, intrusions and feelings? VERY HARD. 

People may not understand, people may MIS-understand, disclosing makes us feel shame and guilt, and so many other reasons. 

I'm so grateful for the guests for talking about real world examples of living with this. I hope it makes you see that you aren't alone with this and you don't have to live in silence or alone. So many wonderful people have this, live with this, and are willing to share and support you!

if you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Hello!

Yep - if you listened today and thought, what in the world is this, you heard my original recording of the intro and outro instead of the episode including me having to look through all my phone stuff because I had low data storage. 

Instead of beating myself up, I'm turning it into a self-compassion exposure. I explain what happened when I found out and I'm also including the original audio so you can see just what a huge mishap it was haha 

Trigger warning if you don't like to hear cussing!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and remember that I am just a human that makes mistakes and this is a great opportunity to expose that and remember that life goes on. 

Thanks for being a continued listener, and I've also published the original episode so you can enjoy that!!

Episode 11: What Self-Compassion Means to Me

This is such an important topic for those of us that live with OCD and intrusions! Why? Because OCD makes us believe we don't deserve compassion - and why?! We didn't ask for this disorder, we didn't do anything to make this happen, and it's not our fault. But by default, so many of us fall into this belief that we don't deserve self-compassion for so many reasons. It's a constant struggle for many of us living with OCD whether it be because of the disorder itself, the content, themes, our belief that we are damaged goods, or emotions about what we endure now or have endured before with symptoms or compulsions. 

In todays episode, we have three lived experience speakers who share the details about the struggle and what they have done to learn and start practicing - and I mean PRACTICING because it's a PRACTICE!! - self-compassion. I believe in this episode you will find practical tools, reasons, and ideas on how to integrate this into your life because even if it doesn't come easy or natural...

You DESERVE it! 

Community can be helpful on this path because as you'll hear often on this episode, we talk about what we'd say to others if they experience this...well, here's your chance! If you are in need of a community for people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn 

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you’d like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

I am excited to share this episode, it is a personal account of the different masks I have worn for decades trying to gain external validation. After my experience with OCD and my childhood experiences, I began looking to society and the world to build my worth - externally. This is impossible, but I did not know that. Not having the ability or skills to see any sort of worth in myself, I tried countless ways that the world, other people, and how I could impress everything and everyone as a means of finding internal worth. This is a bottomless cup that needs more and more but will never provide fulfillment, contentedness, or value. 

Today I talk about what that looked like for me, how our experience with OCD can encourage this, and what it took for me to finally see that - me - just myself - can actually be enough. 

I hope this episode helps you feel less alone if you are on the quest to feel whole, and wanting to experience the elusive feelings of self-love! It is attainable...but, it is a journey. 

Community was so helpful for me on this path, and if you are in need of a community fo people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked