Free Me from OCD

2 Kinds of Pain: Part 2 of 3 - OCD and Pain

• Dr. Vicki Rackner • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Episode Title: 2 Kinds of Pain: Part 2 of 3 - OCD and Pain

Host: Dr. Vicki Rackner

Summary: In this second episode of a three-part series on pain and OCD, Dr. Vicki Rackner explores the difference between primary pain and poisonous pain. She explains how our natural responses to pain, especially when dealing with OCD, can either help us move forward or keep us stuck in a cycle of suffering. Dr. Rackner also shares insights into how our brains react to pain and offers practical advice on how to manage it more effectively, leaning into primary pain to heal and avoiding the traps of poisonous pain.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Understanding Primary Pain:
    • Primary pain is a natural response to real loss or difficult circumstances. It's the immediate pain we feel when something important to us is disrupted—like the loss of something meaningful, whether that’s a rose garden or a loved one’s peace of mind due to OCD.
    • Primary pain is an unavoidable part of life, but feeling it and moving through it is the path to healing. It’s like letting the body heal a cut—natural and necessary.
  2. The Danger of Poisonous Pain:
    • Poisonous pain occurs when we try to avoid, numb, or distract ourselves from the natural pain we feel. This includes avoiding situations that cause discomfort, numbing the pain with food, shopping, or other distractions, or blaming yourself or others for the situation.
    • Avoidance, distraction, and self-blame keep you stuck and add layers of suffering to the primary pain.
    • These responses come from the Paleo Brain, which interprets pain as dangerous and tries to help you avoid it, but in doing so, makes the situation worse.
  3. The Role of the Paleo Brain:
    • Your Paleo Brain has three main strategies to protect you from pain:
      1. Avoidance – It tries to keep you away from things that might trigger pain, like looking away from the skeleton of a rose bush that was eaten by goats (or avoiding OCD-related triggers).
      2. Numbing – It encourages you to escape painful feelings through distractions like binge-watching TV, eating, or shopping.
      3. Blame and Resistance – It focuses your attention on fighting against what’s already happened, or blaming yourself or others for the pain.
    • These strategies keep you stuck in poisonous pain, preventing you from moving forward and healing.
  4. The Importance of Leaning Into Primary Pain:
    • Moving through primary pain is the key to growth and healing. Avoidance and distraction only increase suffering.
    • In the context of OCD, trying to avoid the discomfort of obsessions through compulsions only strengthens the OCD cycle.
    • Learning to feel your feelings—such as anxiety, sadness, or frustration—and trusting that you can survive them is a crucial step in overcoming both OCD and poisonous pain.
  5. Practical Tips for Managing Pain:
    • Identify Primary vs. Poisonous Pain: Ask yourself, "Is this pain a result of my current circumstances (primary pain), or is it my brain's attempt to avoid or numb the pain (poisonous pain)?"
    • Challenge Your Thoughts: Be mindful of thoughts that cause you to blame yourself or others, or to avoid the pain. Redirect your attention back to the primary pain and let yourself feel it.
    • Be Kind to Yourself: Treat yourself with the same compassion you would offer a child. Avoid harsh self-judgme

Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:


Hello, Friend.


This is the second of three episodes exploring how you can respond to pain more effectively.


In the last episode, you learned to identify your pain personality.


The In this episode, I’m distinguish between two kinds of pain: primary pain and poisonous pain. 


In the next episode you’ll learn the Connection Prescription—how you can make a positive difference to someone in pain.


Welcome to the Free Me From OCD Podcast. We’re here to offer educational resources, coaching and community support to help you say YES to your life by saying NO to OCD. I’m Dr. Vicki Rackner your podcast host and OCD coach. I call on my experience as a mother of a son diagnosed with OCD when he was in college, surgeon and certified life coach to help you get in the driver’s seat of your life. My vision is to help you move towards a future in which OCD is nothing more than the background noise of your full life. This information is intended as an adjunct—not a substitute— for therapy.


So, let’s dive into today’s episode.


I’m going to begin with the story of goats. But please stick with me because I promise to directly tie it into  ODC and pain.


I’ve lived several places in which the city brings in goats to clear invasive species like blackberry brambles and buckthorn. The goat herders come into the park, set up an electrified fence and then put the goats inside the designed areas to be weeded. The electrified fence keeps the goat in and the dogs out.


Boy do goat make an impact. They can quickly mow down even the most densely packed hillsides.


I always imagined hiring a goat herder to help me clear the invasive plants in my half-acre yard. I knew where I would ask them to put the electrified fences. 


Now imagine the fence broke and the goats got free. You wake up to discover that the goats mowed down your garden.


Maybe it’s not a big deal for you. You were planning to pull out the beds anyway. 


Maybe it’s a very big deal for you. Maybe the goats ate your favorite rose bushes, vegetable garden and prized hostas. Your tomatoes were two days from ripe. They’re just gone! 


You might be very upset.


I call this “primary pain.” Something happened.  The goats ate plants you didn’t expect them to eat. You had the thought, “something bad happened.” You just lost something that’s important to you, and loss is painful.


You might be reminded of the pain when you took out the kitchen window and see the skeleton of the rose bush.


Pain is not pleasant.  It’s painful to watch someone you love in pain. You may wish you didn’t have pain ever again. 


But then you realize that pain is part of the human experience. You wouldn’t want to be a person who does not feel sad when they lose someone or something that’s important to them.  


You cannot immunize yourself from primary pain; it’s part of the human experience. The best way to get to the other side of pain is to just goo through it.


When someone you love gets OCD, it’s like inviting goats onto your property. It changes the landscape of your life.


Unmanaged OCD is like the escaped goats. It can be disruptive and destructive. It can cause pain. That’s just what OCD does.


The primary pain of OCD might nudge you to learn more about OCD, hire a therapist or join a supportive community.


Sometimes the pain of OCD can seem like it’s more than you can bare. 


Here’s the most important piece I want to share with you today.


Usually it’s not the primary pain of OCD that makes it too much to bare; rather the fear of pain or the effort to avoid or numb the pain are the problem. I can this poisonous pain. 


Your brain might deliver two different messages in response to your pain.


Your Planning Brain—your prefrontal cortex—knows the best way to get over pain or any other feeling is to head right through it.


Your Paleo Brain disagrees. Remember, this is the brain circuitry that supported the success of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in the Paleolithic Era when we were predators and prey. 


Your Paleo Brain thinks that pain is dangerous. If offers three strategies in the  spirit of helping you. Unfortunately these three pain strategies cause you to stay stuck  rather than move forward when you have pain.


First, it says, “Avoid pain or the things that cause the pain or anything that reminds you of the pain.”


If your looked out your kitchen window and see a plant skeleton where your rose used yo to be, you might feel sad. Your Paleo Brain offers the helpful idea, “Stop looking out the kitchen window.”


Someone with OCD might try to control their ennviromnet in ways to avoid awakening the OCD Monster. This often impacts the entire family. 


This avoidance reinforces the idea that pain is dangerous, and reinforces more avoidant behavior. 


Second, you Paleo Brain might tell you to do what every you need to do to get rid of the pain as quickly as possible, even if it means numbing the pain. Instead of feeling lonely or sad or angry, the options include binge-watching Netflix, eating, drinking or online shopping.


Most people are not skilled at feeling their feelings. In fact, strong feelings of any sort can be frightening. 


For someone with OCD, the obsessive thoughts offered by the OCD monster trigger high levels of unpleasant feelings. They learn that the compulsions offer temporary relief from the pain. ERP offers an alternative to three hours of handwashing or any other compulsion. It’s learning that you can feel the anxiety and get to the other side of it. It’s like the choice that Weird Barbie offers stereotypical Barbie. Learning and knowing and trusting your can live through any feeling is life-changing. When it comes down to it, what we fear most is experiencing unwanted feelings. Once you know you can live through a feeling, you have nothing to fear any more.  


Efforts to avoid feelings keep you stuck; they don’t help you move forward.


The Paleo Brain has a third idea. In order to keep you from feeling the pain, it will  direct your attention to something else. 


Blaming your current circumstances and fighting against what’s already happened is a go-to move for your Paleo Brain. You could say, “That goat herder shouldn’t have let this happen.” Or, “I can’t believe my rose bush is gone.” Or, “I wish I didn’t have OCD.” When you invest energy fighting against your unwanted circumstances, you drain away the energy you could be using to create the circumstances you want.


Blaming yourself is another variation. “I was so stupid to bring goats on the property.” Or, “I must be a bad person to have these obsessions.” Or, “I’m weak or I would be able to get over OCD.” Your Paleo Brain might tell you that you need to beat up on yourself to keep yourself in line. If you were kind to yourself, who knows what would happen.


To summarize, leaning into primary pain pain helps you move forward. 


Efforts to avoid, numb or distract yourself from the source of the pain keep you stuck, and narrow your world. It’s like putting masking tape over the “low fuel” warning light in your car. 


The problem is not that the care warning light went on. The warning light in itself is not dangerous. 


Further, efforts to cover over or avoid the pain take away the opportunity to fix it. If you don’t know you car is low on gas, you miss the opportunity to refuel. Now you run the risk of running out of gas.


OCD-related pain draws your attention to the things that will help you manage your life more effectively. This is like putting the goats behind the electrified fence. 


So, if you’re having pain, ask yourself, “Is this primary pain or poisonous pain?”


Ask yourself, “What are my current circumstances? What are my thoughts about my circumstances?”


You might think, “I’m angry the goats escaped and I’m sad the goats ate my plants.” 


You might also think, “I’m angry that OCD popped into our lives.” Or, “I’m sad when I think of the all the losses that are associate with OCD.” 


Be willing to sit with this primary pain. Just like your body knows how to heal a cut, your brain knows how to heal from primary pain.


Your Paleo Brain might tell you, “Don’t feel your pain. Avoid this pain. Distract yourself from this pain. Blame your circumstances. Blame yourself.” Any efforts that keep you from feeling your primary pain are the sources of poisonous pain. They will make the primary pain worse. 


If you notice yourself wallowing in poisonous pain, just put your hand over your heart and say, “Oh, how human of me. Let’s turn out attention back to the primary pain to move forward.” 


Notice when you’re beating yourself up. Treat yourself the way you would treat a child. If you wouldn’t say something to a child, don’t say it to yourself. 


Give yourself some time to practice these new thoughts. You are forming new habits. If you have been in the habit of beating yourself up when you have pain, try just being a little kinder. It will be easier with time. 


The best things to do is just feel the primary pain. 


Thanks for stopping by. I hope that you found value in this episode. If so, please share this with family, friends and community members.


And if no one has told you yet today, I admire your courage. Managing OCD may be the hardest job I’ve. Whether you’re an OCD Warrior or and OCD Champion, you’re not alone. There’s hope for a better tomorrow. You got this!