Awakened Anesthetist

True Life: I Have OCD ft. The Awakened Anesthetist

• Mary Jeanne, Certified Anesthesiologist Assistant • Season 5 • Episode 85

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In this much anticipated episode, I finally open up about my lifetime battle with OCD. How its devastation shifted from childhood "just right" rituals to religious and sexuality obsessions to relationship OCD, and how naming it led to therapy, medication, and a gentler way to live. I share the tools that helped and why this CAA community matters so much to me.

Resources from this episode:

  • When are intrusive thoughts normal vs abnormal: A short blog article “What are intrusive thoughts and are they normal?” by Dr. Lauren T. Edwards 
  • Basics about OCD
  • OCD 20-question quiz
  • Listen to Podcast ‘We Can Do Hard Things’ by Treat Media and Glennon Doyle, Episode: “The Truth of OCD: Therapist Alegra Kastens on Living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” 
  • Podcast ‘Armchair Expert’ by Dax Shepard, Episode: “Alegra Kastens (OCD Specialist)” 
  • Podcast ‘Speaking of Psychology’, Episode: “OCD myths and realities, with Dean McKay, PhD, and Uma Chatterjee“
  • Ways to find more information/mental health resources: 
    1. Check your personal insurance to determine mental health benefits and coverage
    2. Look into your employer’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) if available, to see what mental health resources they may offer
    3. Find a Therapist that fits your needs: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Awakened Anesthetist Podcast, the first podcast to highlight the CAA experience. I'm your host, Mary Jean, and I've been a certified anesthesiologist assistant for close to two decades. Throughout my journey and struggles, I've searched for guidance that includes my unique perspective as a CAA. At one of my lowest points, I decided to turn my passion for storytelling and my belief that the CAA profession is uniquely able to create a life by design into a podcast. If you are a practicing CAA, current AA student, or someone who hopes to be one, I encourage you to stick around and experience the power of being in a community filled with voices who sound like yours, sharing experiences you never believed possible. I know you will find yourself here at the Awakened Annesotist Podcast. Welcome in. Hello, everyone. This is your host, Mary Jean. I am coming to you from the future in the context of this episode. I'm in post-production, which means I've been editing this podcast for the past five hours. I am still in the same room that I recorded it. And I'm realizing that I want to give you a little bit more information on some of the definitions and details of what OCD actually is. And I've put a bunch of effort into the links in the show notes as well as some information cards that are going to be shown on YouTube. So if you are right now listening to me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or some other podcast player, I encourage you to stop and switch over to YouTube. You can listen to me just the same, but you can also catch some of those informational cards at the beginning of this episode, especially if you are resonating with this episode, if you clicked on it because you perhaps are wondering if your intrusive thoughts are borderline OCD or, you know, you're just hearing my story and resonating with your own mental health journey. I just really want to encourage you to go to the show notes and find the resources that I found that really impacted me and made a difference in my own understanding specifically of OCD. And then I just have some general mental health things on there as well. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode. I am about to release it all to you. I am nervous and scared and excited and just feel really good about how far I've come. So I'm excited to share my story now with all of you. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. All right, welcome everyone. You are in my meditation nook right now. You're in my podcast space, our guest bedroom. And I just got comfortable and sat down to record a long-awaited episode for me, I guess. And if you've been around Awake in the Nestis podcast for a while, you know that I've been talking about talking about my OCD journey for years. And this is the episode. So we're gonna be talking about my diagnosis and journey and healing and lifelong battle, I suppose, with obsessive-compulsive disorder. And I really feel called to share today specifically, out of all of the days that I've been talking about it, um, because I have been doing a little bit more of my own healing and understanding how sharing my story in uniquely the way that I can share it only, um, is going to reach out and touch someone who needs to hear this today. And it was actually like one person hearing my struggle that completely changed my life, truly. And I'll tell you all those details in this story, but truly it was one person saying, hmm, this sounds like OCD. And it just sent me down the most beautiful healing journey that's been so, so hard as well. So I wanted to welcome you all here. Whether you're a practicing CAA, you're an AA student, maybe listening to this on your holiday break if you have one, hopefully. And um, of course, the aspiring CAAs, the pre-AA community, which I have come to know so much better over the course of really the summer and the fall of 2025. And I just really want this message to go out into the CAA community and reach exactly who it's supposed to. And if that's you, I'm so happy that you found this episode. Let's chat. Okay, I do have some notes that my assistant producer Adri actually wrote for me. She also created the little jingle that's at the beginning of this podcast. And I'm really excited to have some help now with the podcast. And so she's gonna hopefully keep me on track with some of these questions. So, okay, I've already shared why OCD, why now, why this story. Um, I also wanted to share that uh, you know, of course, like the disclaimer of I'm not a doctor, I am someone who's been truly diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Um, OCD is a spectrum. It has many personalities, it has many sort of symptoms, but the overarching difference between, you know, being a little obsessive or, you know, being super excited about something where you can't stop thinking about it, or ruminating that word where you're like kind of going over and over something, like where that bridges into a diagnosable disorder is when it starts to impede you living your life. So um, it's not like walking around with excited energy because you're obsessed over this new song or this new person or this new like profession that you found, but it is um impacting the life that you want to lead and making it very hard to lead that life, you know, things like trouble sleeping or like trouble getting out of the house or trouble maintaining the relationships that you want to maintain. And that's where it can cross over into truly having an obsessive-compulsive disorder. And that is absolutely what I had. I first noticed my symptoms uh probably when I was maybe, I want to say probably nine or 10. I very vividly remember I was with my mom and my sister, and we were at the outlet mall, you know, the outdoor shopping centers with all of the doors on the exterior and the sidewalks connecting everything. And we were leaving a store and walking to the parking lot. And I just have this memory of turning around and going back and kind of being separated more from my family because I hadn't stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk correctly. And there was some sort of pattern that I wanted to hit or like touch my toe to certain areas. And I remember vividly, like my my mom kind of walking more towards the car, and I was being pulled back, and I just had this almost out-of-body moment, I think, where I realized I'm being compelled to do something that's pulling me away from my safety. But I felt this desire, like, oh, I have to get this right in order to be able to walk past this part and then catch up to my mom. And yeah, that's my first memory of now what I know was obsessive-compulsive disorder. I believe there was a triggering event for me personally. The causes of OCD are not super well defined. It can be multifactorial, but OCD is an anxiety disorder. It's a way that your body learns to cope with anxiety and to try to self-soothe and to like um help your brain work through the anxiety. And I had a triggering traumatic event when I was seven that was sort of um re-instilled sort of throughout my puberty, you know, pre-pub, pre-pubescent and then on through probably eighth grade. And I believe that that is what triggered my OCD. I um from that, it was a sexual trauma. I had a huge healing in 2020-ish, late 2020, personally realizing that I deserve to feel better. And so I went to therapy. I did a therapy called EMDR. It's a type of trauma therapy that reprograms really your subconscious memories and beliefs and thoughts and overrides them with feelings of safety and love and sort of um can reprogram that subconscious. The word I learned was shame. I had a lot of shame after that event. And it was sort of through that healing process in 20, I would say late 2020 and early 2021, that my OCD actually got a lot worse. Um, it sort of felt like the the hole inside of me that had been filled with just decades of shame, unaddressed shame, not being able to ever tell anyone, and just feeling like I was a horrible, awful, disgusting person. When that shame actually got healed, it left this what felt like I well, first I felt amazing. I felt amazing for a long time, probably four or five months, the best I've ever felt in my life. I just felt so lightened. I felt healed. I felt like I could do anything. Like I just, it was a really beautiful, magical time in my life. And then about five, six months after I stopped EMDR therapy, it felt like my OCD got really, really loud. Again, I did not know I had OCD at this point, but just these very familiar feelings of um ruminating thoughts and worry and dread and being up at night and being like almost shocked with like a horrible thought or image. And then um, the compulsion is like your brain trying to fix it, trying to find a way out of that horrible thought. And it just got louder and louder and louder. And um I realized then that um the therapy that I had gone to, the EMDR therapy, didn't fix everything. And the type of OCD that I was struggling with, because there are several different types of OCD, kind of like the themes that your brain latches onto. When I was younger, it it was like the um get it right, like the just right type of OCD, where you know, it's sort of the common, like you see it maybe in the news, or like when people are, ha ha, you're so OCD funny. It's like hand washing, like some cleanliness things, or like flipping on and off a light switch, or you know, numbers counting, or however many strokes you have to stroke your hair when you brush it, like all of that just ripe OCD is definitely what I had when I was younger. Um, I'll put maybe on the screen somewhere all the different types of OCD because that was very helpful to me because it changed throughout my life, um, which I think is one of the reasons why I didn't realize this was a disease. I just thought this was like some new awful thing that I had to stress over. But I when I was maybe, you know, 11 through 14, I had what's called religious religiosity OCD, where I thought I was going to hell and just really, really hurt me, like really changed the way I was living my life because I was so obsessed with the worry that I was going to hell. Um, also during that time I had sexuality OCD, which is when you constantly question your sexuality. Mind you, I had no like no real understanding of sexuality. I was very sheltered. Um, I had no one coaching me or allowing me to ask questions or to explore or anything like that. It was very much based in anxiety and fear and shame. And then as I got older, those sort of quieted until um college. And I would say I got almost like the OCD that I think maybe a lot of people would relate to sort of the lower level symptoms of OCD. Um, I know that I have OCD. I still had OCD even when it kind of quieted. But I think what happened during my you know late high school years and college years is that my OCD compulsion got to be very helpful in our world. So it was very much about um being diligent and studying and keeping everything in order and um, you know, having a very clear agenda and all of that just right OCD actually allowed me to excel. And so I got a ton of external validation at this point. And um, oftentimes external validation is exactly what someone with OCD is dying for. It is the external person saying, like, you're okay, you're normal, even if I can't express all of these awful feelings I have on the inside or the way I feel, that external validation soothed me. And so I just kept going and going. And of course, this is sort of the trajectory of, you know, a high-functioning type A person who has this external drive to succeed rather than an internal drive to succeed. And that led me all the way into AA school. I moved from Ohio to Missouri to teach anesthesia through an AA program out here in Kansas City, as well as work in this area. I loved it. And then my biggest, I guess, theme of OCD crept in when I was um really getting serious with the the man who now became my husband. There is a type of OCD called relationship OCD, ROCD. And this is the type of OCD that I had from the time I met my husband, which was like 2005 through really being treated, which was in 2021. So how many years is that? That's uh 17, uh, 16 years. Yes. 16 years of very, very loud relationship OCD. Relationship OCD is when you're constantly worrying whether the relationship you're in is the is right, is the right one. You know, you can see a little bit of a pattern in OCD thinking, but it focuses like on a different aspect of your life, something that's important to you, um, which is something that once I learned that, I was like, that's one of the reasons why it hurts so bad, is it just takes the things that are most important to you, safety, you know, early on with my my family unit, um, acceptance was a lot of the like puberty phase. And now this the love that I had with my husband was just always being tested by my OCD brain, my relationship OCD symptoms, asking, like, is he the right one? Well, that just happened. Um, oh, you weren't attracted to him, you know, that's five-second period. What does that mean? Maybe he's not the right one. And just I can't tell you how much peace it stole from me for 16 years. And my husband and I, well, my husband's just the perfect person for me. He was able, without knowing that that's what was going on, he was able to see that there was something going on, kind of um in addition to the love that I was able to show him. And I would say things like, I know I love you, but my but I can't stop worrying that you're not the one for me. Like I could, I could almost verbalize it and I would kind of get around it, but I never number one knew about OCD, really. I never knew that there were these flavors of OCD, that there was just one called relationship OCD that I perfectly fit into. Um, I had like immense love for him, but also so much doubt right along with it. I was always looking for reassurance from my friends or my family, or like, hey, is this person right? What do you think? I just could never settle into the love I felt being enough. It was always like this thing was being pulled away from me, and I was grasping at it, trying to prove that, like, oh no, you're supposed to be here with me, truly physically and emotionally and mentally. So then um, you know, it was like um the rest of my life had been where I was able to coexist with the pain and the discomfort and the uncertainty. I just basically lived with it. I I didn't know another way. I had felt this way since I was eight, nine, ten. And I was too scared to say anything out loud. I also wouldn't know exactly what to say. I had I had none of this language. I think maybe it sounds like I know a lot about OCD and you know, why wasn't I seeing these patterns or, you know, um, I remember actually seeing an MTV. I don't know if I was born in '84. I don't know if anyone remembers those like reality shows on MTV where they would show you like the true life behind. And I just remember one was like teenagers, 13-year-olds with OCD, and they were doing just the very typical one that I feel like everyone thinks about with OC, which is like the counting and the light switching and the um the like blinking. I actually had that one for a while, that symptom. But I it was like interesting to me. I was like, huh, that's that's that feels like I'm very interested in this. Like I felt resonance, but I it was nothing more than that. There was no light bulb. There was no I just think I was so in shame over everything that I just couldn't see that this wasn't me, that this wasn't my truest essence. And as I say that now, I realize that's exactly what it was. I was so scared. Scared by the fact that this was truly who I was, that I was going to be this way forever. But I just, it made me hold it all in, as opposed to reaching out for help. Um, until I had a huge, really mental health crisis. Again, I had finished the trauma therapy, and it felt like after a period of peace inside, my OCD symptoms just came on worse than ever. And of course, we all remember that 2020 was also the year of the pandemic. I had recently switched from working full-time as a CAA to a part-time CAA. This was a huge, amazing transition in my life, but again, a huge transition. Um, and remember, OCD is an anxiety disorder. And so it was all just kicked up and mounted on each other. And I was still struggling with the relationship OCD. We have three kids at this point, um, three little kids, our youngest, when this all was happening, I just turned two. And I had a four-year-old and a five or six-year-old. And it all just came crashing down around me. I just, I became so overwhelmed. I couldn't think about anything else. Um, I was so consumed by the uh worry that my husband wasn't meant to be. He wasn't the right one. Um, I it was also like, I just can't live this way anymore. I can't feel this forever. And it felt like our relationship was the thing that was making me feel so horrible inside, like the worry, the uncertainty, the never knowing, never feeling settled, never feeling at peace about it. I um one night after, you know, I tell my husband really everything. He he he knew as much as I knew at this point. And I sat him down and I actually was like, I don't think I can be with you anymore. Um, I told him that I didn't want to give up on us. I was willing to do anything, go to therapy. Um, I just, you know, kind of had my eyes open to how therapy can help and heal through my own, through the trauma EMDR therapy. But I said, I don't, I don't know that it's gonna work. I don't, there's nothing, I nothing has changed. I've been dealing with this since we met. Um, it's been almost two decades. I just can't live this way any longer. And it was so horrible to say out loud. And also, it felt like the only thing that was gonna make me feel better, like the only thing that was gonna allow me to escape the torment, the absolute torment I felt when I like when my mind got stuck on these loops of um whether this relationship was meant to be. Um, and I could go round and round telling you about how unsettling and awful it felt, but it's hard to describe, I guess, if you've never been there, because I mean it's just maddening. It makes you not want to be in your own body, in your own head. It is so overwhelmingly awful. And so I just I cracked. I was like, I can't do this anymore. Um, he was extremely supportive and was like, okay, let's, you know, take this day by day. I ended up that evening having a call with our reverend, actually. And I was notably distressed on this call with her. It was a Zoom call. Again, this was like 2020, and she asked me what was going on, and I somehow was able to tell her in enough detail something like I told Kevin that who's my husband, that I want a divorce, that I can't do this anymore. I don't feel like he's right for me. And she asked me a couple other questions, and I remember telling her, I can tell I'm happy, I can tell I love him, but there's a part of me that doesn't believe that's enough or won't let that be enough, and it just absolutely haunts me, is the wording I used for her. And she was very kind and listening, and she said, I don't want to put words in your mouth, I don't want to diagnose you, but what you're describing sounds like OCD. She had some personal experience with OCD, and she was like, I think that you should look into um your symptoms online or just take that with a grain of salt. What do you think? And I talked to her a little bit more about it, and then I got off the call with her. I Googled my symptoms. You know, I think I said something like, I am married, I can tell I'm happy and I love my husband, but I can't release the feeling that something's not right, that he's not the one for me. Um, there's something wrong, and I can't find what's wrong. And immediately it came up with OCD and ROCD, relationship OCD. And I read just the first sentence or two of like the Google AI, you know, like top hit, and and it was me. I just I just couldn't believe how perfectly this algorithm had told me what I've been struggling with, you know, for the past 16 years. And then as I continue reading on, I very quickly saw that there were these types of OCD and the way it manifests, and just I could pinpoint the ones that I had struggled with over the course of my life and growing up. And I I didn't feel better. Like the anxiety, the awfulness, the shame, the worry, the heaviness, the pressure, that didn't go away. But my brain went, this is it. This is what I have. This is why I can't be at peace. Um, this is why I'm haunted. And it just, you know, when you when you're searching for a reason, you know, so much of OCD is searching for a reason for whatever, finding something, finding just the right thing, finding the perfect way to walk or the right times you need to blink. And so this diagnosis or like seeing this on Google like fed this deep, deep, deep need in me to figure out what was wrong with me. And from there, I um went immediately to find the OCD therapist, the specialist therapist that my reverend had recommended. I saw that she had a three-month wait list and I'm a CAA. So you give me something that, you know, I need or it's gonna help me, or I need to learn. And I was like down that rabbit hole so quick. I ended up going to BetterHelp, which um I had been hearing a lot about, you know, online and in the podcast I was listening to, and just I feel like BetterHelp had its heyday during the pandemic, which is an online therapy community, or find a therapist online and attend therapy online. So I went on there, went to BetterHelp, made a profile, found a specialist who um does OCD work. I did not know about the type of therapy that is meant for OCD, which is called ERP exposure response prevention. And I set up my first appointment like a week later. I ended up being recommended by that therapist to go to see my primary care doctor. Um, long story short, my primary care doctor recommended an SSRI. So I was recommended Prozac. And I remember being prescribed 10 milligrams of Prozac. And I went back after I think like 10 days or something of being on it, and you, you know, go to see how the dose is affecting you. And my primary care was like, How are you feeling? And I remember telling her, I felt like I had just a boulder sitting on my chest, like since I can remember. Um, and starting the Prozac made me aware, like exquisitely aware of that boulder. And then by the time 10 days on Prozac had gone past, I remember telling her that I feel like that boulder is still there, but it's broken up into like thousands of little pieces. So there's like teeny little pockets where I feel I just I don't even know that I felt relief. I could just feel the pressure releasing. And so then she upped my dose to 20 milligrams, and that's what I've been on since. Um, and slowly, probably over the course of two months, in addition to the online therapy that I was doing. And then, of course, after three months, I went in person to an OCD specialist, uh, a therapist who does ERP therapy exposure response prevention therapy, which is the gold standard of treatment for OCD, but not the only thing that works. And I I started to understand myself was probably the biggest thing that first happened. And once the Prozac started working and the therapy, I could see that it was working, I just was able to see that I don't have to live like this every day. I don't have to continue on this way. I felt hope. I felt like I could find peace finally. And um it took probably about a year for me to really feel not symptom-free, but very well controlled. Um, so much of it was an educational process. I learned so much about OCD and what it can look like and act like, um, and who has it and why you have it and all those sorts of things, which really helped understanding it more and understanding me more. And so basically, since then, I have just been on this journey of trying to, I guess, figure out who I am without the OCD, without the good parts of OCD. And I I don't know if that's whatever controversial or whatever, but I know that our culture held up what I was able to do when I was almost manic from the OCD in terms of perfectionism and pushing forward and getting everything done and being reliable. Like I am the one of the most reliable people I know. And it's it's because of this like ingrained stress, maybe, or this ingrained anxiety to like, I have to finish this task for it to feel complete and good. And so I've just been figuring out like who am I in addition to the parts of me that were shaped because of OCD. And some parts I'm okay with, you know, kind of keeping a little bit, but just understanding. Um, I like that I'm highly organized and can do a lot and can kind of juggle many things, but I am so much more tender with myself on what I need, how to rest. I mean, it's just been a really, really amazing and powerful healing journey. And so, yeah, I totally didn't look at any of the questions. Adri, thank you for making all these questions, but I just started talking. Um, Adri posed this question: what do you think you would have done differently had you been diagnosed earlier? And I do sometimes think about this. I actually just read a um story by Dr. Cassie Ferguson, who is a pediatric ear physician who I just had on the podcast talking about neuroplasticity. And she wrote and told a story. Um, if you are familiar with the moth storytelling hour, it's just a sort of an open mic night storytelling community. And she told a story. And the at the end of the story, she talked about like, if this wouldn't have happened to me, where would I be? I wouldn't be standing in front of a room full of medical students, which is where the storytelling hour was. Um, I wouldn't be here as a physician, or would I? I'm not sure. And and I really sat back and thought about that for my own life too. Like, if I hadn't had OCD, would I have been as driven? Would I have been able to accomplish everything I've been able to accomplish? How much of that is me, and how much of that is OCD? And I think what I want to say is that I know there are parts of me that OCD has shaped that I want to completely let go of. I know there are parts of me that OCD has shaped that I'm okay holding on to some of. And I know there's a lot of me that OCD didn't touch that I can tap back into. And so this part of my life, I'm very interested in seeing when I tap back to almost those untouched parts, those parts that went hidden away really early on because they didn't feel safe or they weren't venerated by my family or they weren't held as important. I want to tap back into those and just see where they go. I think I'm a creative person. I think I'm a storyteller and I want to be a storyteller. Um, and I think there's something there for me that OCD didn't touch. And so it's just really interesting as a CAA know that I'm happy and I feel really good giving anesthesia. And I'm happy and I feel really good doing this podcast. And I'm happy and I feel really good when I'm teaching our AA community, and that all of those things can coexist. And so much of OCD tells me like it has to be this one way. There's these very like linear paths, and there's got to stay within these, you know, limits. And having more freedom from OCD tells me like there's so much gray, and I'm okay with the gray now in a way that I was never okay with. And it's really exciting. It's actually really exciting to see where this is all gonna go and take me. I feel like I have so many years of peace and freedom ahead of me. And also, if I only get today, that was pretty good too. Because living the way I had been living for decades was torture. It was torture. And because I had that very dark time, I feel like my days now, I can really appreciate how good they feel and how many amazing, joyful moments happen to me every day. And yeah, I'm just excited to continue and to keep going. Um, I'm gonna probably put some stuff in the show notes about OCD awareness, probably some links that Adri's gonna help me find that will be useful for you. And if you've listened all the way to the end here, I'm so grateful. We were probably meant to have this conversation. I'm excited to put this out into the world. I probably am going to put it out really shortly. I just recorded this and I'm actually hoping to maybe put it out tomorrow and then go on a meditation retreat and just kind of disconnect from it and let it settle, kind of let the vulnerability hangover happen in peace and quiet on my own before I check Instagram or anything. Um, but I hope it reaches who it's supposed to. And even if this wasn't a perfect story, I feel proud of myself for sharing. And I just encourage you to share your stories as well. It doesn't have to be on a podcast with a big community. Um, you know, it could be just even with yourself, like talking yourself through something that's hurt you or a worry you have is really helpful. And reaching out for help is the next best step. My life was totally changed when I just mentioned how horrible I was feeling to my reverend, to someone close to me. And she mentioned this thing that completely changed my life for the better. And it's as easy as that, and it's also as hard as that. I don't want to minimize that that took me years and years to be able to do. But I'm so glad that I was strong enough to be vulnerable and to um share my story. So, all right, everyone. I will see you next week after my meditation retreat. I'm planning on recording another wellness Wednesday about, well, actually about this right here, my year-end like journal and inventory that I do. Um, I wanted to share just kind of where I've been in 2025, what sparked joy for me, what I want more of, maybe what I want to let go. And so that's what I have planned for our next wellness Wednesday. You can DM me your questions or comments through the link in the show notes wherever you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube. If you want me to email you back, you have to put your email in that text. It doesn't show me who those are from. And um yeah, just share this episode with someone you love. You never know who these things are going to help or touch. So, all right, bye everyone. Thanks for listening to Awakened Anesthetist. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a CAA friend, an AA student in your life, or a perspective, and let them know why you loved it. It's the most important thing you can do to support this podcast and its mission. You can always find more ways to connect with me and this CAA community at awakenedanesthetist.com, including an invitation to join season five Mindful Connections. These are free virtual gatherings open to anyone in our Awakened Anesthetist community. And while you're scrolling the website, check out my trusted CAA partners who make this podcast possible with a special thank you to my season five sponsor, Harmony Anesthesia Staffing. Talk soon.

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Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

Host