4 Pillars of OCD Success

Episode Title: 4 Pillars of OCD Success

Host: Dr. Vicki Rackner, MD

Summary: In this episode of Free Me From OCD Podcast, Dr. Vicki Rackner introduces the Four Pillars of OCD Success—four foundational principles to help OCD Warriors and their caregivers thrive. These pillars provide a structure that supports healing, growth, and freedom from OCD. Dr. Rackner draws from her experience as a physician, mother of a son with OCD, and certified life coach, offering listeners valuable insights and practical tips to support their journey toward overcoming OCD.

Key Takeaways:

1. Pillar 1: Connection to the Science of OCD and Best Practices
   • Understanding OCD through a biological model removes judgment and stigma.
   • It’s important to replace myths with facts about OCD, such as the role of obsessions and compulsions.
   • Therapy, especially Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is essential in managing OCD effectively.
   • Explore new scientific discoveries about the nervous system, microbiome, and how they relate to OCD management.
2. Pillar 2: Connection to Yourself
   • Knowing yourself—your needs, desires, and brain wiring—helps you become a stronger caregiver.
   • The goal of OCD management is to keep OCD at bay, like an annoying buzzing mosquito.
   • Learn to manage your thoughts, regulate your nervous system, and embrace self-compassion to better support your loved one.
3. Pillar 3: Connection with Your OCD Warrior
   • Reclaim leadership in your family by fostering an environment of love and support, not one controlled by OCD.
   • Be an empathic witness, showing up for your loved one with empathy and encouragement.
   • Support your OCD Warrior in a way that empowers them to manage their own OCD.
4. Pillar 4: Connection to Community
   • Feeling isolated is common for OCD Warriors and caregivers.
   • Finding a safe, supportive community can make a significant difference in managing OCD.
   • Dr. Rackner emphasizes the importance of caregivers connecting with others who understand OCD to share experiences, insights, and encouragement.

Actionable Steps:

• Educate yourself about OCD: Replace myths with a deeper understanding of OCD's biological roots and best therapeutic practices.
• Focus on self-awareness: Know what you need to thrive, and learn tools to regulate your own emotions and thoughts.
• Be a supportive force for your loved one: Create an environment that helps your OCD Warrior feel safe and understood.
• Join a supportive community: Don’t navigate this journey alone—connect with others who understand and can offer support.

Quotes:

• “People with neurodivergent brains, like those with OCD, thrive when supported by solid external structures.”
• “The best way to help a loved one with OCD is to manage yourself first. Be the empathic witness they need.”
• “You have the potential to be a key force for healing in your loved one’s journey with OCD.”

Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:

• Website: FreeMeFromOCD.org
• Social Media: Follow Dr. Rackner on Instagram and Facebook for more insights and resources on managing OCD.

Transcript

Hello, Friend. If you stopped in because you or someone you care about is learning to manage OCD, you’re in the right place. And today’s episode is for you. You will take away four foundational principals that can guide what you say and what you do to be freed from OCD We call them the Four OCD Pillars, and support thriving lives.

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.

I’m a big gardener. Most of the plants in the garden like lilles or lettuce grow and thrive all on their own. Just plant them in the right soil, sprinkle on sunshine and water and voila!

Others plants, like the peonies and tomatoes, do best when external structures like tomato cages support their growth. 

When I planted some grape vines about 5 years ago, I let them grow on netting tied to stakes. However, the grape vines are big enough that they could collapse under their own weight. That’s why I’m building an arbor this year. 

You want the people you love to grow and thrive. 

People with neurotypical brains are like the lillies and lettuce. Just plant them in nourishing places, sprinkle with love and respect and they will grow and thrive.

People with neurodivergent brains are like the peonies and tomatoes. They grow best when solid external structures support their growth. The structure might include an understanding about how their brains work, self-advocacy tools and tips to help them regulate their sensitive nervous systems.

There is one type of neurotypical brain that often gets left off the list. As you might guess, it’s OCD. OCD is a flavor of neurodivergence. Yet, it doesn’t make it to most lists of neuhrodivernet brains like ADHD or autism.

However, when the person you love has unmanaged OCD, they can be held down by the wight of their own brain glitches like my grape vine. Unmanaged OCD can lead to profound disability. 

In this episode, I would like to offer you the four pillars of the arbor-like structure that supports the growth and development of OCD Warriors—people with OCD and the people who love them. We call them OCD Champion Caregivers.

I’ll lay them out for you:

The first pillar is a connection with the science of OCD and proven best practices. 

Unfortunately many people do not understand  what OCD is and what it is not. This may explain why so many OCD warriors go years before they get a diagnosis.

Few healthcare professionals get special training in treating OCD.

People can struggle for years before they are diagnosed. I’m a physician and I missed my son’s OCD diagnosis for years. Why? He didn’t have a neat, tidy room. He didn’t wash his hands. I simply was not educated about what OCD really is. 

Further it’s important to know what works and what does not work. You can save your family time, money and hardship by knowing best practices. The first place to turn is NOCD for recommendations for an practitioner for ERP—express and response prevention. 

I think of a person’s brain being invaded by an OCD monster who behaves like the worse bully you can imagine.

There are many promising ideas to help someone with OCD get their lives back. 

For example, we often think of the OCD as a glitch in the brain and we focus on things above the neck. What about the nervous system that brings messages to and from the brain? What role might the dysregulation of the nervous system play in treatment of OCD?. 

Obesessions are really a danger alarm. When we thing we’re in danger, our nervous system activates to help us get back to safety. When we’re dysregulated—getting back to safety—we cannot access the most help problem-solving parts of our human brains. Could a better understanding of the nervous system and tools to regulate a dysregulated nervous system be part of the OCD management plan?

We have evidence that they microbiome—the garden of microorganisms in the gut and the brain communicate. There’s even evidence that the microbiome may be different for people with OCD. 

So, invest in your knowledge. Replace myths about what OCD is with a biologic model. This  helps remove the judgement and stigma of OCD.

That’s why in my OCD Caregiver Bootcamp—intended to help families be freed from OCD,  and we begin with a biologic model of OCD.  And many people who go through the bootcamp comments that they are often better informed that their doctors. 

Once you are educated, you can educate others,. You can let people know that OCD is not a character flaw. People with OCD are not lazy or undisciplined. 

People with OCD understand that this is not rational behavior. They desperately want to be freed from their obsessions and compulsions. It’s just very hard.

The second pillar for your OCD success is your connection to yourself. 

Even human does better when they know who they are, what they want and what they need to thrive.

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in my forties. I remember my overwhelming gratitude for a different way to see and tell my story. I could replace judgment and shame and a sense of brokenness with more insight, compassion and insight. 

I could create my environment to help me thrive. I could learn to embrace and accept all parts of me. Yes, I’m distractible, but I can hyper-focus on things that interest me. I see the gifts of ADHD and I can make a plan to minimize the challenges it causes. This brain wiring was just who I am. 

This is where OCD is different than any say ADHD or autism. The goal of OCD management is not to welcome the OCD Monster and give them a seat at the table; it’s to learn how take your power back and see OCD as an annoyance like the buzzing of mosquitoes.

The immune system asks a single, simple question: is this me or is this not me? Is this bacteria part of my health-promoting microbiome, or is a disease-causing pathogen?  

Some people see OCD as a chronic medical condition like diabetes or nearsightedness. You can learn to live a perfectly normal rich life despite their presence.

We are always growing and developing.

We ask people with OCD to do some hard things: witness and choose their thoughts, lean into highly uncomfortable feeling these obsessive thoughts create instead of numbing them with compulsions, and resist urges. 

To live a life of integrity, you don’t ask people to do what you’re unwilling to do yourself. It’s like the obese cardiologist I know who advises his patients to lose weight. What kind of authority does he carry with his own patients? 

I believe that the brain management skills people with OCD are asked to master are universally helpful skill. We should ALL learn these things. These are the very same tools that high performers in a any area of life embrace.  

That’s why we spend time in the OCD Caregiver Bootcamp addressing self-coaching skills and tools. It allows to to witness your human brain at work, and actively manage your brain rather than letting it run on autopilot. That’s like letting to a toddler run with scissors.

The third pillar is your connection with the your OCD Warrior. 

After Katrina struck, many dogs were separated from their families. These homeless dogs organized into packs. The pack chose the pack leader. It wasn’t always the biggest or the strongest dog. It was the dog the pack  trusted to make good choices. When do you defend your territory and when do you retreat. Which dogs and humans could be trusted?

I can tell you that when my family was at its lowest disempowered stage, OCD was our family pack leader. We would do anything we could to escape from drama the OCD Monster creates. Many things I did in efforts to make things better actually made things worse. 

The OCD Monster wants you to believe that there’s no way out. You may as well succumb.

That’s not the leadership you want in your family.

Instead, take the reigns of family leadership back. Stephen Covey says, “Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly they come to see in in themselves. 

Step into he role of family leader and self-leadership. We cover The Connection Prescription in the OCD Caregiver Bootcamp. It often mean hitting the reset button in your relationship with your OCD warrior.

The fourth pillar is your connection to community. Most people with OCD in their lives feel alone, and misunderstood.  We feel safer in a safe community. That’s why part of the OCD Caregiver bootcamp is access to an online community where you to can your story and know you’re not alone.

So those are the four pillars for thriving when OCD enters your life. connection with solid knowledge and best practices, connection with yourself, connection with your OCD Warrior and connection with community.

Notice what all these four pillars share. It’s all about what YOU can do. And you don’t have to be a healthcare professional to be a force for healing when OCD enters your life. 

It brings me great delight to see the transformation of people who embrace these four pillars. 

When I first meet members of the community, they say things like, “I’m exhausted. My home is a battleground. I desperately want things to get better, but I just don’t know what to do to make that happen. I’m losing hope. ”

If you’ve said these things yourself, you’re not alone. And it’s not your fault. OCD is a formidable foe. 

Some people think, “If I just found the right therapist for my OCD Warrior, things will get better.” 

Others think, “In order to create a home I actually want to live in, I need to inspire my  OCD Warrior—the person diagnosed with OCD—to do their ERP homework .”

These are all completely understandable and logical thoughts.

Here’s something that you may not realize. You have the potential to be one of the most important forces for healing in the life of your OCD Warrior. 

As an OCD Caregiving Champion, the single investment that will have there biggest impact on your family’s transformation is this: focus on what YOU can do differently to create an environment that shrinks OCD. 

Stop doing the things that grow OCD; start doing the things that shrink OCD.

I’m not suggestions that these four pillars of collection will replace therapy. You want your OCD Warrior in the hands of a skilled OCD therapist. However, please do not underestimate your ability to make a positive difference. Family caregivers are the unpaid extension of the healthcare system. Even with no formal medical training, you can play a critical role in freeing yourself, your OCD Warrior and your family from the prison of OCD.

You can be that person holding a candle in the dark saying, “There’s a way out of this OCD darkness. I know the way. Follow me.” 

And that’s what I have for you today.

I encourage you to find just one idea that called out to you and put it into action.

However, if you want to make a transformation more quickly, I invite you to explore participating in the upcoming OCD Caregiver Bootcamp. You’ll take away a roadmap that lays out the path from where you are to where you want to be. You’ll take away ideas about what to say and what to do in difficult situations. You ‘ll take away practical, actionable tips about what to say and what to do to be a force for healing.  I’ll leave a link so you can learn more. 

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. You have everything it takes to infuse your family with more love, more joy and more hope.  There’s hope for a better tomorrow. You got this!

Please click on the link below to learn more about our upcoming OCD Caregiver Bootcamp.You’ll learn how to build all four of these pillars fro success.