Life On Purpose Over 40 Podcast

Doctors Miss THIS in 50% of Women Over 40 (It’s Not Anxiety)

• Caroline Balinska + Erin Davis • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Most women think OCD is just flicking light switches or washing hands — but the reality is far deeper and far more shocking. In this eye-opening episode of Life on Purpose Over 40, Caroline Balinska sits down with Erin Davis, OCD coach and host of Bossing Up: Overcoming OCD, to uncover the truth about obsessive-compulsive disorder and why it so often hides behind anxiety, perfectionism, and over-giving.

You’ll learn:

  • Why more than 50% of OCD cases in women are misdiagnosed as anxiety
  • The surprising link between perimenopause, hormones, and OCD flare-ups
  • The different types of OCD you’ve never heard of — relationship OCD, health OCD, religious OCD, and more
  • Why traditional talk therapy and bubble baths don’t work (and what actually does)
  • The dangerous cycle of people-pleasing, over-giving, and self-doubt that keeps women trapped

If you’ve ever second-guessed yourself endlessly, felt like you’re “too much” in relationships, or wondered if you’re the problem — this episode will open your eyes and give you hope.

 Connect with Erin Davis on Instagram & Threads: @erindaviscoaching
  Explore her programs here

www.lifeonpurposeover40.com

[00:00:00.000] - Erin Davis
There are a lot of people out there diagnosed with OCD. The other crazy part, more than 50% of the time, that OCD diagnosis is missed. So many women don't even realize that they have OCD. They think they just have, quote, unquote, a lot of anxiety. Part of OCD, what it does, it undermines your self-trust because you're constantly second-guessing yourself. You're even second-guessing your reality.

[00:00:28.640] - Caroline Balinska
Welcome to the Life on Purpose Over 40 podcast, where empowerment, elegance, and health take center stage. I'll be your guide on this thrilling journey to outshine your past self. This is a podcast all about transformation. We're plunging headfirst into exactly what health What does your health, wellness, style, relationships, and career look like as a woman over 40? You'll be hearing from all the most sought-after global trailblazers and experts. This isn't just about learning. It's about embracing your inner, fierce, fabulous self.

[00:01:00.000] - Caroline Balinska
Let's get started. Welcome back to the podcast. I have the lovely Erin Davis with us today. Hi, Erin. How are you today?

[00:01:07.000] - Erin Davis
Hi, Caroline. I'm doing well. How are you?

[00:01:10.100] - Caroline Balinska
Very good. I am so glad to have you on the podcast. We've been working together for a long time now, about eight months, and you're a client of mine. I mentor you, and I've been saying, I want you on here. So once I got season 2 up and running, I said, That's it. You need to get on here because I want everyone to hear about OCD from you.

[00:01:27.700] - Erin Davis
Awesome. I'm so thrilled to be here, and it's truly an honor.

[00:01:32.020] - Caroline Balinska
You are so welcome. We've been working together for about eight months. I didn't have much idea about OCD before I started working with you. When you reached out to me originally, I went and checked out your amazing podcast. You've got a podcast called Bossing Up, and we're going to talk about that as well. But I had a look at your podcast, and I got really intrigued into this whole OCD area because when you reached out, it was actually around that time that I had myself, and I speak about this going through perimenopause menopause myself. A friend of mine, around the time that you reached out to me, a friend of mine had just been diagnosed with OCD. She's around 50. She said to me, Maybe you have OCD as well. I thought, That's projection for you. That is projection. But then I thought to myself, Maybe I do have it. I have never been diagnosed. I don't know. But I do hear that there is some connection between perimenopause, menopause, and OCD. Can Can you just go into that a little bit for us and tell us more about that?

[00:02:33.440] - Erin Davis
Yes. What a lot of women don't know, first of all, women are more likely to be diagnosed with OCD than men. The amount of people who are diagnosed with OCD is the amount of people, the entire population in Houston, Texas. There are a lot of people out there diagnosed with OCD. The other crazy part, more than 50% of the time, that OCD diagnosis is missed. Ocd is such a crippling condition. What happens with perimenopausal women is OCD can be linked to the estrogen. This happens a lot for a woman when they are about to start their monthly cycle, like that week before your estrogen rises. Because of that rise, it can trigger and worsen your OCD. When you're perimenopausal, your hormones are all over the place, and therefore, you can be experiencing a season of OCD, and that can be very troubling and alarming if that's not something you've ever dealt with before. I'm excited to be talking about OCD on your podcast because so many women don't even realize that they have OCD They think they just have, quote, unquote, a lot of anxiety.

[00:04:05.340] - Caroline Balinska
Okay, let's get into what it actually is, because working with you, I went into it thinking it's flicking a light switch. That's what I always thought of OCD. But I've learned from you that it's a lot deeper than that. Can you just give us a scenario of what are the main symptoms that people get with OCD?

[00:04:24.400] - Erin Davis
Yes. It's a whole cycle. In the therapeutic world, We say that if you're spending more than an hour a day on your fears, on your worries, but it has to be very concentrated and focused on basically a concentrated problem. So long story short, your obsessions, those can be intrusive thoughts, images, urges, and feelings. I mean, how many times as women do we feel intrusive guilt? Like guilt can come out of nowhere, and it just derails our whole day. So once you experience that intrusive obsession, whatever it is, next step in the OCD cycle are the compulsions. And all that means is the behaviors or the things that you do to try to get rid of those unwanted thoughts, feelings, images, and urges. Because of its complication, a lot of therapists can even miss diagnosing OCD because sometimes people don't always do the compulsion. Sometimes they just purely obsess. I'm sure we've all... I mean, you know how it is. We've all been there where we are thinking about the same thing over and over and over, and we keep looping all the time.

[00:05:49.360] - Caroline Balinska
I've definitely had that. I know that feeling. But you're saying if it's something that happens for more than one hour a day, then when it really becomes class as OCD?

[00:06:03.240] - Erin Davis
Yes. On top of that, you want to consider how much of this is affecting your life. I've worked with so many women. For example, one woman, she came to me on the edge of breaking up with her fiancé because she was getting intrusive thoughts of, what if we're not compatible? That's so understandable because you're about to make a big decision. For her, what she was doing, she's researching online, she's asking her friends, she's asking her family, do you think we're meant to be together? Do you think we're compatible? Through our work together, she was able to recognize, He is the one for me. I love him deeply. I can't imagine my life without him, and walk down the aisle without breaking a sweat.

[00:06:56.920] - Caroline Balinska
That's amazing because I can just imagine. If I asked my mom's past now, but I remember at the time when we would have these really deep and meaningful conversations, if I ask her once about a guy, if I ask her twice about a guy, if I ask her three times about a guy, and I keep on asking her that same question, Are you sure that we're suitable for each other? By the time I've asked my mom five or six times, my mom would be saying to me, Maybe you're not suitable for each other. Maybe he's not the one because you keep on questioning so much. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy at that stage.

[00:07:29.120] - Erin Davis
Yes, absolutely. But then deep down, you know, Well, I love this person. Why does this feel off? Why do I feel this roller coaster of loving them and then unsure? And so part of OCD, what it does because it undermines your self-trust because you're constantly second-guessing yourself. You're even second-guessing your reality. You wonder, for example, for women who have health OCD, like they're worried about their health, they will wonder if, did I really see that thing? Because they think that maybe they're developing a brain tumor or they're developing dementia. Or that they're one day going to snap and go crazy.

[00:08:19.440] - Caroline Balinska
Wow. That would be, yeah. Like you said, it makes it debilitating in your life. You can't really do much else when that I can't imagine how hot that would be.

[00:08:33.260] - Erin Davis
Yeah. I've worked with a woman before who actually checked herself into a hospital because she was so afraid of that situation of snapping and hurting people, even though she would never hurt a fly. So through our work together, she was later able to go to a public park and enjoy her day and not worry about losing it or hurting anybody or anything. Because of how it makes you second guess yourself, she was isolating herself at home, not getting out, not even using knives. Oh. Yes. It's very limited. In our work together, she got to a place where she could cook in the same room with her kids.

[00:09:29.160] - Caroline Balinska
I'm It makes me breathe. I couldn't imagine that. You mentioned something just then. You said health OCD. I know, and I only know this because I work with you in your marketing, so I know what you're putting together at the back-end. You have a quiz for different types of OCD, and because I've gone through it to help you with it. I know that you've got things like relationship OCD and religious OCD. Can you just touch on what all those different types of OCD are and what they... Just a little explanation of each of them.

[00:10:02.580] - Erin Davis
Sure. Yeah. There are honestly tons of subtypes, and all it means is the focus of your fears and concerns. For example, there's religious OCD, where you have a fear of maybe going to hell or doing something that God doesn't like. A lot of Christians struggle with this. There's also the relationship OCD, where you may be obsessing about, How do I know they're the one? How do I know we're going to be compatible? What if we fall out of love? Or what if I'm no longer attracted to them or they're no longer attracted to me? And me personally, relationship OCD is one of my big triggers, and it was a feeling of, what if I'm not enough? And so I was always seeking the reassurance, and that's a big compulsion for OCD sufferers is getting that reassurance that things are okay, that bad thing is not going to happen. But in getting back to the themes, the religious OCD, relationship OCD, health OCD, where you're worried about your health in some way. A lot of women worry about heart attacks, brain tumors, vomiting. That's a huge one for teen girls, especially. Then there's germaphobia, of course, the contamination OCD, which is what we're all very familiar with.

[00:11:40.940] - Erin Davis
There is just right OCD, and this is when you've probably met some people who are very rigid in what they do and they want things to be a certain way. If it's not that way, they freak out.

[00:11:56.520] - Caroline Balinska
Can I tell you something that I used to do to my ex-fiancé? Now that I know you, you're probably going to tell me I'm a really bad person for this. But I think he had a little bit of OCD. Okay, I was 25, 30, so I didn't understand back then. But I saw he had some OCD, and I used to tease him about OCD. It wasn't that it was overly. It was just that typical what you see on the movies. He used to always have what you're calling, I didn't know that was what it was called, Just Right OCD. His books on his coffee table always had to be in a particular spot. I remember one particular night to mess with him. Every time we stood up to get something, I just moved the books a little. And he'd come back and...

[00:12:45.000] - Erin Davis
Yeah. Well, honestly, because of the OCD, it doesn't matter if you moved it or not, because if someone is giving into it, it's never satisfied. It gives you unsolvable problems. So Even if he moved it just right on his end table, he's going to get that urge again like, This doesn't feel right, and he's going to move it again, and it will make zero sense. And that's the other thing. Just because someone has OCD, it doesn't I mean, they're neat and organized. It could be that they may look messy on the outside, but they've got things at a certain spot because that's the way it feels. I've worked with a teenager before who They were going to take their water bottle down to a certain point and then left the water bottle in their room. The mom came to me and was like, I can't take this anymore. They won't clean their room. They won't get rid of these water bottles. It was just a feeling they had that if they got rid of these water bottles, something bad would happen. It's like, sometimes there's this magical thinking, too, that if we think If something bad is going to happen, then it'll come true.

[00:14:04.000] - Erin Davis
It's just a lot of different nuances and things. The other subtypes, like I already mentioned, one of them, the harm OCD. That's a really big fear for women because they wouldn't do anything, the ones who are suffering from harm OCD. They wouldn't do anything to harm the ones they love, especially. But these intrusive are deeply terrifying and deeply scary, and it's hard to talk about. Then there's suicidal OCD, where someone worries that they may accidentally kill themselves. Then there's pedophilic OCD, where they're worried that they are going to be a pedophile. All of these things, at the end of the day, I help the woman see that these thoughts, feelings, images, urges, all the things, they go against who you are. There's also sexual orientation OCD, where someone worries that they're not the sexual orientation that they identify with.

[00:15:18.640] - Caroline Balinska
When you treat these people, are you treating them in the same way? Are they getting the same, or is it very specific to different types of OCD that they're getting different treatment, or is it just a blanket way that you help them.

[00:15:32.520] - Erin Davis
Right. It's a very specific and unique way. Now, the techniques, they're all research-backed. I use exposure response prevention in therapy from time to time. But what I've seen a lot of women have success with is this theory about the OCD bubble and being in reality and trusting your senses. Because of With those methods, I've created my peace framework, which is something that I use myself. One of the first things that I help teach my clients is seeing the anxiety as separate from you. So that stands for the P in the peace method, which is perceive the anxiety as separate, because it's not who you are. And so many women think that there is something fundamentally wrong with them because they think these thoughts or because they experience these feelings, and that is not true at all. If anything, it's the farthest from the truth, but that's what OCD is trying to convince you of. It's trying to convince you that you are this awful bad person. And so I help them get to know their real selves.

[00:16:50.600] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah. It's our brains play funny tricks on us, doesn't it?

[00:16:57.780] - Erin Davis
It's just on that. Absolutely.

[00:17:01.240] - Caroline Balinska
That's really sad. I know you talk a lot about relationship OCD, and I think that one of the areas that you find, one of the areas I know you find really interesting is helping women who are that really high achieving woman on the outside, and they come across as if everything's going great in their life, but behind the scenes, they're crumbling when it comes to relationships. Can you give us a little bit of, I guess, insight into what that looks like? If there's someone listening and they think, Hang on, that's me. I've got this amazing, successful career, but things are not working with my love life. What's your perception on that?

[00:17:39.780] - Erin Davis
I've worked with a lot of women where the relationship OCD is showing up as worries that they're not with the one, and also the fear that their partner is cheating on them. But then also in my case, where I was fearful that I wasn't enough. So all In all of those situations, your OCD is looking for loopholes and it's looking for evidence where it's trying to prove those things are right. It's actually called reverse reasoning because you already have this conclusion. You have this conclusion that they're not the right person for you or that they are cheating on you or you're not enough. You try to find evidence to justify those beliefs. Ocd really is about doubt. It's a doubting disorder. It's a belief disorder. You don't believe in your reality. You don't believe the evidence. That's the part of the obsessional doubts. For example, we all experience doubts. We'll have questions about things, but with a normal doubt, once we get the information, we feel satisfied and we can move on. But someone with OCD, they experience what's called obsessional doubts, where, like you were saying earlier, whenever you go to get reassurance or whenever you go look something up, even when you get the information, you still don't believe it.

[00:19:16.380] - Erin Davis
You're still like, Maybe not. You keep going through the what ifs. Telltale signs of OCD is when you're experiencing thoughts like, What if? What if they're not the one? What if they're cheating on me? What if I'm not enough? So starting with the what if, and then you're experiencing some level of distress, so much so that you feel like you need to do something about it, and it can be very sneaky. Some of those common signs, if you're asking for reassurance a lot from your family. I know I was asking for reassurance a lot from my friends and my mom, and that didn't help at all. If you're also doing a lot of research online, or in the case of wondering If your partner is cheating on you, I've worked with a woman who had already gone down the path of, he has cheated and I need to forgive him. Even though there was no evidence that he had cheated and she had conjured up this whole story in her mind that she very much believed. Having to come back to reality and think about the stories that you're telling yourself. Because when you're doing those what What if stories, you have then crossed into the OCD bubble.

[00:20:49.500] - Erin Davis
The OCD bubble is a very dark, scary, and very entrapping place.

[00:20:58.580] - Caroline Balinska
Would Would things like food disorders, eating disorders, come into OCD, or does that stand aside, or is it somewhere that they meet in the middle? I'm just thinking of people that have certain eating disorders.

[00:21:13.380] - Erin Davis
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, eating disorders, in my opinion, tend to overlap a lot with OCD because there's this obsession of, what if I get fat? What if I don't look attractive? And then the compulsion is to control their food or to avoid eating. Like, avoidance is the king of compulsions. That's what a lot of OCD people do. They avoid doing things that make them uncomfortable. They may avoid eating in front of people. They may avoid eating a lot of food. I don't want to undermine eating disorders because it is a very tough disease to deal with, as well as OCD. But there are a lot of overlapping tendencies for sure.

[00:22:06.120] - Caroline Balinska
That's interesting. No, the reason why I ask is just I think that being aware as women is the most important thing that we have that awareness that something's going on. I think once you have that awareness, then you can take some action. But I don't know, what I noticed is once I got into my 40s, it became very different. My awareness switched. I became much more self-aware of a lot more things, whether it be the types of people around me or things that were happening to me or around me. I think that, and that's why I wanted from this podcast, is that we, as women, become more self-aware. Whether it's that... My friend said to me, Oh, I think you have OCD, and listening to you now, I'm like, No, I don't have OCD. There's a couple of things I'm like, I could joke around I have it, but when you say it has to be something where it's taking over your day, it's taking at least an hour of your day away, yeah, I don't see any of that thing happening in my life. But I think it's that awareness sitting down and saying, Hang on a second, is one of these things taking over my life.

[00:23:18.120] - Caroline Balinska
Because I think from what I've seen from other people is that they spend a lot of time denying things, and they could have just taken the action and made a difference in their life rather pretending that it's not a problem.

[00:23:33.060] - Erin Davis
Yeah, that could be part of it. Another part is that women are very fearful that if they stop doing these compulsions, then that awful thing will come true. Another subtype of OCD is what's called existential OCD, where it's the fear of the world ending or what's my purpose in life stuff. I worked with a woman who had a fear of... All these compulsions can be very unrelated, but it was this feeling that, Oh, if I'm happy, something bad is going to happen to one of my family members.

[00:24:16.060] - Caroline Balinska
That one's terrible.

[00:24:18.480] - Erin Davis
Yeah. So even depression can be a compulsion because she was purposefully keeping her mood low to protect her family.

[00:24:30.680] - Caroline Balinska
Wow. Yeah. Just sitting on that for a second of just saying, imagine that life, creating that. Her brain has created that life. If she didn't take action on it, that would have been terrible for her.

[00:24:50.520] - Erin Davis
Right. What motivates a lot of these women to finally get treatment is wanting to be better for their kids. That's what normally gets them in the door. Not only are they wanting to be better for their kids, but they're realizing that all the other talk therapy that they've done in the past didn't work, was a waste of time, or it didn't help. On top of that, their medication is not touching the OCD anymore.

[00:25:23.800] - Caroline Balinska
Wow. Okay. Talk therapy, we mean just seeing a normal therapist where you just have conversation?

[00:25:31.820] - Erin Davis
Yes. I mean, how many times have you, and I've been there too, where you go to a therapist and all they do is nod and listen and validate. They're not investigating, they're not exploring, they're not challenging you, and they're not giving you techniques to help truly rewire your brain. Because what's fascinating with OCD, people with OCD, there's a part of the brain called the amygdala. Are you familiar with that? Yes, I've heard of it.

[00:26:03.820] - Caroline Balinska
Yes.

[00:26:04.280] - Erin Davis
Okay. So that's part of your fight or flight response. And it's the one that sends the adrenaline and cortisol throughout your body whenever you're stressed out, whenever you're nervous, et cetera. People with OCD, their amygdala is larger than someone who doesn't have OCD. That's point number one. That's pretty crazy. Like your amygdala is already bigger. But the fascinating part, Caroline, is that through treatment, through proper OCD treatment, your amygdala can get smaller.

[00:26:41.860] - Caroline Balinska
Wow. So you really make a difference. You're really changing people's brains with the training.

[00:26:48.220] - Erin Davis
Yes, it's amazing. You can totally feel the difference in the energy in the room with someone day one of a session to week six, for example. I mean, I've had women graduate from therapy and really turn their lives around in six weeks, in as little as six weeks.

[00:27:14.200] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah, that would be amazing for a woman who's been dealing with this for years and years and years, and then it only takes six weeks to see such a big difference.

[00:27:23.860] - Erin Davis
Yes. And the longer you wait, the more those brain pathways are getting formed and sticking around. I like to use the metaphor with clients about you're walking in the woods, and when you walk that path enough times, that path gets worn down and it's very easy to walk over. But when you enter OCD treatment, you're going to be doing new things. With those new things, you're going to be walking a new path. We got to start making those new paths and give it time for those old habits, those old paths to get grown over because we're no longer going that way.

[00:28:11.780] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah, makes total sense. I know another thing you talk about a lot because you've mentioned a lot when we talk about your marketing, is women that are over-givers. So this seems to be a big area that you help women on. Can you explain what you mean by that?

[00:28:27.640] - Erin Davis
Yes. I mean, that whole idea of not feeling like you're enough. And so it feels like you're doing good things. Sure. Got it. But if we really look at your intentions, This is likely a compulsion to try to satisfy that what if I'm not enough? You continue to people please. You continue to say yes. You continue to do things for others, even if You're burnt out or worn down or resentful because you feel like by saying no, they're going to think that you're not enough or that you're not nice or that you're not polite. It's a lot to do with how you want to be perceived by others because you don't want to be seen as a bad person or someone who is not or is selfish. Oh, my gosh. So many women worry that they are a narcissist when in reality, a narcissist is not worried if they're a narcissist. They're just going to dominate and roll right through you.

[00:29:48.360] - Caroline Balinska
As you were saying that, actually, because I just came out of a very cohesive, controlled relationship, financial control, all sorts of things. As you were saying that, it actually just made me go, Maybe I do have OCD because that whole overgiving and doing everything in that situation just to make sure that that's what happens in those relationships. Then you just touched on women that think they're narcissists. I think that's actually really funny. I remember a couple of weeks ago, you were telling me that you were doing a series of podcast interviews about this whole thing about narcissism. But I think that that's actually a really funny overlap, a really funny situation that it's the woman who... Usually a woman who is an over-giver is the one that ends up in those coercive, controlled relationships because they're the ones giving and the types of men, and we're talking men and women, it can happen for the other way around as well. But in this sense, we're talking about from a woman's point to a man's point. But that woman is the person who gives a lot because that type of man finds that woman and takes her for that reason because he wants that.

[00:31:05.520] - Caroline Balinska
The other women that are not givers, the women that are more selfish, he goes, I don't want you because he's not going to get in the narcissistic world, they call it supply. He's not going to get his supply. He goes for the type of woman who is just naturally a giving person. But then what happens is that woman is giving, giving, giving, giving, and then they feel like they need to give more. But it's really funny that you're talking about that these women also then question, are they the narcissist? Because those men are saying, why aren't you doing more? You're a narcissist.

[00:31:43.720] - Erin Davis
Yes.

[00:31:44.340] - Caroline Balinska
And so those men are the ones saying, You're the one that's a narcissist. You're the one that's selfish because you should be doing more and more and more for me. And then they create this cycle that puts in the woman's head that she's not good enough. She needs to do more.

[00:31:59.640] - Erin Davis
Right. Telling a woman who has this fear of being a narcissus, telling her that she is selfish is very crippling. It feels almost like a scarlet letter. You know what I mean? It feels very shameful to be seen as selfish when you're worried about being a narcissist. I've seen and worked with plenty of women who have this fear of being a narcissist to the point where they don't want compliments. They don't do anything to look even extra nice because they think that they are drawing attention to themselves in a narcissistic way.

[00:32:43.020] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah. That is the rule that I have learned the hard way is that anyone who questions themselves on whether they're a narcissus, really questions it, and sits down and says, Am I a narcist? Is not the Narcist. Never.

[00:33:02.780] - Erin Davis
Correct.

[00:33:04.420] - Caroline Balinska
Because narcissists would never ask that question. They're the ones saying, I am not a narcist.

[00:33:10.640] - Erin Davis
Yeah. I mean, even for this woman who gives other people a compliment, they will second guess. See, the second guessing comes in a lot where they say to themselves, What if I just did that for them to like me, and therefore that makes me a narcist?

[00:33:30.380] - Caroline Balinska
Whoa, hang on a second. What if I just did that thing for them?

[00:33:36.120] - Erin Davis
Yes.

[00:33:36.760] - Caroline Balinska
To get them to like me. Oh, yeah, then she's not a narcist because that's not what narcissists do.

[00:33:43.580] - Erin Davis
Of course. But think about their reality where they have struggled with this more often than not for years. I mean, it can take people anywhere from 10 to 14 years before they get help for OCD. That's why there's so many older women finally getting help for OCD because they don't know what it is and they keep putting things off. Then probably hormones has a lot to do with it.

[00:34:09.800] - Caroline Balinska
Do you think these women have, or you know that they're keeping this from everyone? They're not telling people?

[00:34:17.720] - Erin Davis
100%, because how scary would it be to tell someone these deep, dark thoughts of like, Oh, I had an intrusive sexual thought about something. Does that make me an awful person? I mean, they keep it in a lot. The other thing that happens with OCD, it is a shapeshifter. I've worked with women before who are like, I got through the contamination OCD, I got through the relationship OCD, but when it comes to harm OCD, I just can't get over It shifts, and a lot of times it shifts around what's important to you at that season of life. When you're a teenager, sexual orientation OCD will definitely come up because you're figuring out who you are and who you like. Then when you're of the married age, it's going to be the relationship OCD. Then maybe later on in life, it's the harm OCD because you can't even imagine hurting your kids or your grandkids, stuff like that. I've seen how this OCD shows up differently depending upon your stage of life. More often than not, these women are like, Oh, yeah, I had contamination OCD back in elementary school where I used hand sanitizer all the time and things like that.

[00:35:54.340] - Caroline Balinska
You're saying once you teach them how to change their pathways, the way they think, then it takes away the different OCDs. It calms down everything, that overthinking in all ways.

[00:36:11.820] - Erin Davis
Yes, it does, because we take away the OCDs power. They start to recognize the tricks that OCD is playing on them. As you were saying, the mind tricks, while OCD is full of tricks. They start to call out as tricks, and they're more aware. Once they're aware, they keep themselves on the side of the bridge where they're in reality, they're using evidence, they are trusting their senses, and they are not crossing over into the OCD bubble where they're caught up in all of those what-if scary stories.

[00:36:47.720] - Caroline Balinska
Where do you think this starts from? Is this another trauma response or is this something else? Or is it a mix?

[00:36:55.360] - Erin Davis
It can be a mix of a lot of things. A lot of women do suffer from trauma. There's also research showing that women with... Well, not just women, but in general, autoimmune disorders can also increase OCD symptoms, and a lot of women more so struggle with autoimmune disorders because of the inflammation that's involved, and inflammation can absolutely impact your brain. It can also be genetics. It's a whole mix of things, and that's why it's so important if someone is continuing to struggle with anxiety that just doesn't seem to get better with therapy or any other self-help methods or self-care. How many times are we going to take a bubble bath and realize that ain't it? If you're struggling with anxiety that just won't go away, I encourage you to get an OCD evaluation. I've also got my quiz that's about the different subtypes of OCD. I've also got a quiz for those folks who have relationship OCD, and it's called Red Flags or Relationship OCD. Because sometimes it's hard to know, are these legitimate red flags in my relationship, or is it just the mind tricks? I was definitely a victim of the tricks for years.

[00:38:33.920] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah, that's another interesting thing. Then that plays back to what you were saying, you ask your friend, you ask your family. Then it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy of Well, maybe that is going wrong in the relationship.

[00:38:50.300] - Erin Davis
Oh, yeah. I was constantly double-checking and reading between the lines of text messages or evaluating my husband's tone of voice or feeling like that comparison, and that's something that we haven't talked about yet, but that comparison of how you think your relationship should be a certain Hollywood version way or Instagram reels way. Life isn't always like that. Marriage isn't always like that. If for some reason I felt like my husband was upset upset with me. I mean, it was like I could not get myself to focus at all. I was so upset with myself for him just being him. Or if he wasn't, I don't know how to put it other than- He's not as upset as you are.

[00:39:52.100] - Caroline Balinska
So is he invested in the relationship in the same way? Do you mean it like that?

[00:39:55.860] - Erin Davis
Well, no, he wouldn't even be upset. Because of the mind games, I would think that, okay, so you know how it is when you first wake up in the morning, you're tired. Well, he's working third shift. Of course, he's going to be tired. But anytime I felt like his mood was off, I felt like it was because he didn't love me or I wasn't enough. And it's like, oh, my gosh, come on. He's a human being.

[00:40:23.540] - Caroline Balinska
And then it's self-fulfilling prophecy, because then we went into the relationship and then he's there going Calm down. I'm doing my best, and then you don't think that my best is good enough, but you're thinking my best is not good enough, and then it ends up in a cycle.

[00:40:40.500] - Erin Davis
Yes. We finally had that come to Jesus moment, and he was like, Erin, I want to grow old with you. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks because I was so afraid he wanted a divorce. You know what I'm saying? My mind went to the worst case scenario. Just because he's tired and groggy in the morning doesn't mean he wants a divorce. I always felt like I was trying to prove myself or I was, like I said, reading his tone of voice or just feeling like, Oh, we got to have a date night every week. This is a must for us to have a secure marriage. That's not true at Yeah, it doesn't work like that.

[00:41:31.520] - Caroline Balinska
That would be wonderful if it could work like that. Then I heard something the other day that it was some podcaster, and he said, he's a financial podcaster, and he was saying, The Keeping Up with the Jones that we used to say, I think, I don't know if people still say it now, but that used to be about your neighbors. And he says, Back in the day when they started out was, you saw your neighbors, and yeah, they bought a new car, but you also knew that they were fighting or you saw that their little kids were little brats. So you were seeing the full picture of this family that, yeah, they got their new car or they just bought new curtains, but you knew everything else going on in their life because they lived in your street. Whereas now you go and look on the Instagram and you see these girls. I had an argument with a friend of mine recently. She's got the most wonderful husband in the world, and it's making me think. I'm not going to, of course, say her name here because I wouldn't do that. But she's in the situation, wonderful husband, amazing situation.

[00:42:31.900] - Caroline Balinska
And yet she's looking at her Instagram talking about these particular Instagram influencers. We're in our 40s, and she's talking about these influencers, how my daughters, who are 14, talk about influencers. And I'm like, get over it. And she's like, Look at this influencer. She's so happy. And look at the photos. And I said, Girl, I used to work on photoshoot. That photo would have taken them 200 photos to get that one photo. And that poor kid, they had a breakfast setting and the kid was sitting there to eat croissants. I was like, That poor kid was the same age as my daughter at the time. I said, My daughter's four. She's not sitting around for 200 photos to eat that croissant on the table. She's probably going, Mommy, let me eat my food. This woman's trying to come across as this perfect life. But really, what's going on behind that photo is a completely different situation. It's pretty scary to use anything, public social media, anything like that as your standard for a relationship.

[00:43:33.060] - Erin Davis
Absolutely.. Yeah. On the other podcast I've been on, I talk about the comparisonitis, because whenever you do that comparison, especially on social media, you normally get the short end of the stick, right? Oh, yeah. It never goes in your favor. And so, again, it's like being mindful of those ways that you think, being mindful of where your mind goes, because you can't allow yourself to go down that path of comparing. And I used to do that all the time. In fact, I even, of course, I don't know if I want to publish this part. But I felt like my husband will be more in love with someone else than me.

[00:44:22.360] - Caroline Balinska
We can do that about anything. Do you know what I mean? Yes. I've been around and say, my daughter could have a better mother than me, or My partner is going to have a better partner. You're so right.

[00:44:34.200] - Erin Davis
I did that even with my kids. Felt like I wasn't a good enough mother. Now what I do is I just stay in the present. I stick with the evidence. When I hear that, what if? No, I'm not going there. In this moment, I'm going to enjoy my life. I'm going to make dinner, or I'm going to have fun with my My kids are smiling. Even if they're having a bad day, it doesn't mean that I'm a bad mom. That's what the situation is.

[00:45:10.860] - Caroline Balinska
That's what the situation is. You talk about spiraling, and that's part of that spiral.

[00:45:15.400] - Erin Davis
Oh, yes. It totally impacts friendships, too, because think about all the times you've gone out on a girls night, and then the next day, you're like, Oh, my gosh, why did I say that thing? Did she take it the wrong way? Am I being too much? How many times have we known of ourselves or of a friend to act insecure when all along, maybe it's OCD.

[00:45:48.230] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah. That's why I was just, as you were talking, and I just remembered about this friend of mine, and it just hit me. I actually, now that I analyze her personality. She's one of those women that's like, Look at her perfect light. But then when I actually think about it, it's like maybe there is some OCD going on there that on the outside, perfect. But behind the scenes, there's something more. That's where the compassion comes in, having compassion for other people, because I think we can walk around all the time thinking, Oh, those people are happier than us. Those people have got more than us. Those people have more money than me. Those people are taller or slimmer or been in a car than me. But really, it's never what it looks like on the outside.

[00:46:38.080] - Erin Davis
No, no, never. And OCD will play those tricks, and it takes you away from your values, from the things that you love and enjoy. And it continues to take more and more from you until you recognize it and put a stop to it.

[00:47:01.560] - Caroline Balinska
What would you tell people? People listening and thinking, Okay, I can see a little bit there, or I see a lot. Some people might be there saying, I've got a lot that makes sense now. There's probably some eyes opening out there. What would you tell them to do as the first step to probably do some investigation into what's going on in their minds?

[00:47:29.060] - Erin Davis
First of all, I would encourage them to be aware of those what if thoughts and to lean into thoughts that are more like what is. Because what if thoughts can take you a million different directions, and you need to stick with reality and the evidence and what is true and go with what is. And honestly, remember who you are. You have a good heart, you have good intentions, and so lean into those because OCD is going to try to convince you otherwise. It's going to try to tell you that you're a bad person or that you're unwanted or you're not enough. And that's not true. None of that is true. There's just so many things to it that you really can't do it on your own. You really can't self-help your way out of this. You need support, and you need someone who understands it, who gets it, and can help you with strategies that actually work.

[00:48:40.440] - Caroline Balinska
So no talk therapy. That's not making the difference in this situation.

[00:48:46.560] - Erin Davis
No, not your traditional talk therapy. How does that make you feel? Well, makes me feel like crap.

[00:48:52.360] - Caroline Balinska
Yeah. See you next week. That's another $200, thank you.

[00:48:56.710] - Erin Davis
Yes.

[00:49:00.000] - Caroline Balinska
Hey, Erin, you're amazing and I love everything you're doing. And that's why I really wanted to have you on my podcast so you can share some insights. And I'd love to get you back another time to just really hone in on relationship OCD in a much more direct way, because today I think we covered a lot of general information. If people want to get in touch with you, I think, first of all, check out your podcast. I think that's the first thing. Do you want to just plug your podcast and then let people know where else they can find you?

[00:49:29.040] - Erin Davis
Yes. My My podcast is available on all the platforms. It's called Bossing Up Overcoming OCD. My name is E-R-I-N, Davis. For connecting with me on socials, you can find me at Erin Davis Coaching, Instagram, TikTok, and threads. I'm really loving the conversations over on threads. So I'm definitely on there every day on threads. So if someone wants to chat or talk, You can find me Erin Davis Coaching.

[00:50:03.420] - Caroline Balinska
Fantastic. I'll put all your links in the show notes. And you have, you do one-on-one coaching, but you also do, you've got your program as well, so people can reach out and find out the best way to actually work with you if they want to get some help directly with you.

[00:50:16.960] - Erin Davis
Yes, I have some one-to-one VIP experiences, and I also have a group coaching experience. It's all for women because I feel like our needs and situations are They need to be honored, and we need to be in a room with people who get it because there's nothing worse than feeling invalidated, because the OCD invalidates you all the time. To be in a room with other women where We all get it. We all understand. I know you're busy. I mean, a lot of these women are high achievers. They've got a million things going on. So honor your time very seriously by giving you strategies that start working from day one.

[00:51:04.880] - Caroline Balinska
Love it. Fantastic. Erin, thank you so much for joining us. And I know that there's going to be a lot of people out there that are going to walk away from this episode going, wow, I never thought along those lines. So I really appreciate your time today.

[00:51:17.670] - Erin Davis
Thank you so much, Caroline. It was a pleasure.

[00:51:20.390] - Caroline Balinska
Thank you. And thanks everyone for watching and listening.

[00:51:22.610] - Erin Davis
Bye.