Chris Trondsen on Surviving Severe OCD & Finding Recovery Through ERP

In this episode of The OCD Confessional, we’re joined by Chris Trondsen, licensed marriage and family therapist at The Gateway Institute and longtime advocate with the International OCD Foundation.

Chris brings a rare and powerful perspective to the conversation — not only does he treat OCD professionally, he has also lived through severe OCD himself.

Chris shares how intrusive thoughts and compulsions once consumed nearly every waking hour of his life, the years he spent misdiagnosed, and the moment he finally discovered Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) — the gold-standard treatment for OCD. After reaching a devastating low point during his illness, Chris eventually rebuilt his life and dedicated his career to helping others recover from the same disorder that once controlled his own.

In this episode we discuss:
 • What severe OCD actually feels like
 • The damage misdiagnosis can cause
 • How ERP treatment works in real life
 • The emotional aftermath of recovery
 • What Chris learned moving from patient to therapist

This conversation is both deeply honest and hopeful — and a powerful reminder that recovery from OCD is possible.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Alicia. And I'm Liam. We both have OCD. And instead of spiraling alone, we decided to turn our symptoms into a podcast. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Here we overshare real stories, laugh through the anxiety, and talk to actual experts who can explain why your brain keeps asking, What if I accidentally marry my cousin?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Whether your thing is hand washing, mental rituals, or just silently panicking during normal conversations, congrats. You have found your people.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

This is a safe place, unless you're an intrusive thought, in which case, get in line, buddy. We're booked.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

So grab a weighted blanket, cancel your plans for the fifth time, and let's dive in. This is the OCD Confessional.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

And yes, we did check this recording four times before uploading it. Today we're joined by Chris Tronson, a licensed marriage and family therapist, OCD specialist at the Gateway Institute, and longtime advocate with the International OCD Foundation. Chris's connection to this work is deeply personal. Before becoming a therapist, he struggled with severe OCD himself, experiencing intrusive thoughts, compulsions that consumed most of his day, years of misdiagnosis, and ultimately a suicide attempt. Chris, we're really grateful to have you here to talk about your story and what you've learned both sides of OCD as someone who's lived through it and now helps others treat it. Welcome to the OCD confessional.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yes. Thank you so much for having me on. I I it's funny because you guys asked me before we started if I've watched episodes and like everyone that I love in my life has been on your podcast. So um yes, I watched it. I feel like I know you now. So um pretty much twice removed. So we're just gonna have to act like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

So perfect. So let's let's jump in. What would you like to confess today?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, you know, it's funny because I was thinking about my confession and I was like, okay, which direction am I gonna go? Because I have one, I have like one that's embarrassing. I have two that are kind of embarrassing, but the one that I picked is the one that I wanted to kind of just share that how deep in delusion your brain can go when having like severe untreated OCD. So one of I had multiple subtypes, but one of my subtypes was harm. I was so afraid I was gonna kind of lose control of myself, harm people. Um, it could be through road rage, it could be through just kind of like losing my temper and attacking a stranger, harming a family member. And so one of the rules that OCD kind of made up for me is that I can't do any substances. I'm talking about caffeine, carbonation, um, I'd read the back of every product, no alcohol, et cetera. So one of the things I did is like I was so afraid of getting anything with alcohol in me, because then I would kind of lose control and harm people, is what my brain said. So it got to a point where not just not drinking alcohol was good enough. It got to a point where, like, if my dad had alcohol on a shelf in the fridge, I couldn't eat food from the fridge. Um, I couldn't walk down the aisle at the grocery store if there was alcohol bottles in it. I was afraid it'd get on the items I had and I'd go home and eat them or use the shampoo, get alcohol in my system, lose it and harm people, kill people, and get arrested. But when it got the very worst, um, I was driving home one time. I'd just gone grocery shopping, had kind of like a car full of like groceries and shampoo and body wash and things. And I was at a red light and I saw a billboard for Coors Light. And my brain just clicked and said, You have alcohol in your system. You're drunk, you're about to ram your car into all these people. You have to pull over. So I pulled over and I Googled, like, how long does it take um for alcohol to get out of your system? What's the best way for alcohol to get out of your system? And it said, you know, to sleep is one of the ways. Caffeine, it seemed to say, and I was like, no.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So I pulled into a parking lot and just like slept for eight hours to sleep off the alcohol. I remember because you can't, as you you know, Alicia, because you used to live here, you can't just sleep in your car in Orange County. The cops come. So I had a cop knock on my window because I'm running my car while I was sleeping for the air conditioning. And it was now like two in the morning, and he's just like, Are you drunk? And I'm like, I don't know. He's like, Well, did you drink alcohol? And I'm like, No, I saw a billboard with alcohol, and he's like, What? He was so confused. Luckily, he didn't have me get out of the car. He just thought I might have something in me. But after talking to me and kind of like engaging and smelling my breath, he's like, You don't have alcohol, just drive home. So I it was more like seven hours. So I was like, Okay, well, cop said I could drive, so he trusts me. So I drive home, but I had to throw hundreds of dollars worth of groceries out because there was Coarse Light all over it. And then if I would have used those products, I would have been drunk and harmed someone. So it got to a point that whenever I drove, I would look down. So I didn't accidentally see any kind of billboards and get drunk, to the point that even years after my treatment, I forgot it became a habit and I would drive looking down and never at billboards. So one of my exposures is to look at billboards. So still this day when I drive, I look at billboards. Good to report. I haven't gotten drunk yet. Uh, when I drive by a Victoria's Secret billboard, I don't suddenly have lingerie on. So my brain has learned that there is no relation between billboards and what happens to you in your car. So I just want to give everybody a little bit of assurance on that. Oh wow. But yeah, I mean it's it's so funny now, but like that just shows just how intense your brain can make stuff up when you're at your worst.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

When the cop showed up and he knocked on the window and said, you know, have you been drinking? You said, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

No, yes, if I was like buzzed or or drunk and I was like, I don't know. So he thought I'm I just like wasn't sure about how much alcohol, but I didn't mean to cover it off.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

You're like, I don't know, maybe it's worn off.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Did you have a moment of recognition there of like this is crazy? No, I haven't had anything to drink. This guy must think I'm insane, or were you still so deep in it that you were like, no, it truly could be the case that I had alcohol even though I didn't intend to?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

What's insane, Liam, is like I was so deep at that moment that I almost hoped that if I did have alcohol in me, I'd go to jail. Because it's like at least I would go to jail, I would sober up and I could deal with it. It was such a fear of mine. And it was never like I'd accidentally drive home drunk because I wasn't even drinking, but it wasn't even accidental. It's like somebody would cut me off or I'd get anger and I'd ram them. And so it wouldn't even be an accident. Like I'd purposely take someone's life. So to me, a cop coming and kind of doing that was just like, oh my God, thank you. You know, I was almost excited to see him knock on my window versus uh fearful. But no, I mean, when I was at my worst, my dad used to have to like cut food for me, even like feed me like a toddler, because I was so afraid I'd contamination as well, that I'd somehow get contaminant on my food and then ingest it and get a disease. So I mean, I was pretty severe.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

I'm just picturing you're at a restaurant and people are looking at your table and your dad is like spoon feeding you as an insult.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Liam, how dare you insult me? I would have never gone to a restaurant at my worst of my OCD. I don't know who touches the food. I don't know. I can't be in a in a place with like chemicals and food. Um, no, we can joke the whole time. My OCD is is is wild, but no, I mean I wouldn't have eaten in a restaurant. I that was way too hard. That was actually one of the exposures my therapist and I did together because I was so far gone that eating in a restaurant would not have happened, Liam. Definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Oh wow. Thank you for sharing that. That that is severe. Um, when did OCD first show up for you? Take us back to when you first noticed some some stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, I mean, in retrospect, when you talk about it, you obviously realize like, oh my God, this has been around forever. There's an infamous picture whenever I've done talks and stuff that um my mom found. And it was when I was a little kid and I used to play freeway, which the whole joke is I can't believe I used to think freeway was fun living in Southern California. Now it's horrible to drive it. But um, I used to be really into like matchbox cars, and I used to line them up and play freeway, and I used to have to line them up perfectly, and I used to have to have like a thumb in between them. And I remember one time my dad walking by and accidentally kicking some and having a complete meltdown. And so even from a little age, um, there was stuff with like tags and the feel of clothing. I only wore the same outfit over and over because other clothing didn't feel right. Um, my favorite color is yellow, which is funny because I didn't do this on purpose, but I'm wearing a yellow shirt. But um when I was a kid, anything I saw at a store yellow, I had to buy because it was like something that would symbolize like safety in my head. So when I was too young to really grasp danger, it was like, okay, something bad will happen to me, but if I have yellow things around me, it'll keep me safe. So in childhood, there was definitely signs, um, you know, just long showers, um, uh a lot of, you know, magical thinking OCD. I had a lot of fear on my mom dying and certain things that I did could or could not um lead to her death. My OCD though got the most severe when I was in high school. But looking back, there's definitely signs that um, you know, that I it since a child, we just never it it never was severe enough until high school and beyond that we thought something was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

What started happening in high school?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, so I saw there was a news special about toxic mold. It was just like one of those random like local news toxic.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Oh my gosh, Chris, I went down a crazy okay, I can't wait to hear this. Let me hear about this mold, because I have similar experience.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah. So I um my my OCD was about contamination heavy in high school, but it was more so like health-related stuff. And so there's just like a local news special talking about like toxic mold in homes and how you can find it. But I had already started over showering. Um, so there was a little bit of like mildew stuff building up in the vents, potentially like a little bit of mold, very minor. But when I showered, I had to shower in hot water. I had to close all the windows because I didn't want like quote unquote contaminants to come in. So there started being a little bit of mold in um our house and very little, and like I said, minor to just the bathroom. And it was the kind that you could take a wipe and just kind of wipe it off and it'd come off. But in my head, it was toxic mold. And I had a friend who um had moved out and I was uh was looking for a roommate. It was a female, though. She was she had called me to see if I knew a female who wanted to move in with her. But I called her and pleaded. I was like, Can I move in with you? I never told her why, but I was just like, I'm looking to move out. And I ended up moving out with her. But um it was about three months before I moved out. But in those three months, it was just I started cleaning and wiping everything. My clothes were bleached, my inadimate objects were wiped. And um, yeah, so that was really kind of the jump-off point. I would say it almost like quote unquote broke my brain. Cause as I started to give into that and move out, then it was like downhill from there. And I think it correlated with being in college and having less structure of high school every day. Um, my roommate and I also didn't see each other a lot because of the differences in the kind of work we did. I worked as a waiter at the time. So a lot of nights and weekends, and she would work a traditional nine to five. So the combination of being alone a lot and um not having as much structure and this kind of like incident sort of opened up um going from little minor things to suddenly full blown.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Had you been diagnosed with anything at this point?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

No, my dig diagnosis didn't come after, um, like you said in the opening, I had a suicide attempt, um, which was probably the lowest and worst moment of my life, but also one of the best, because that's when I got diagnosed. But no, you know, it's funny because um when people hear my story, especially when I get to my worst, uh, it started when I first moved out, and then there's about three or four years where it was just terrible. I was quitting school, quit work, was housebound. But people have asked me, like, how did you not know something was wrong? The best answer I have is I have an uncle with an intellectual disability. And I just assumed like maybe my brain is developed wrong, or maybe I don't know. Like that it's hard. Like when you're consumed in it, OCD is kind of like that boiling crab. It's so small at first and they ask little things of you, and then it just grows so rapidly, and pretty soon you just, you know, you don't know what's going on. You just assume like I have to do these things to like be safe and survive and uh protect the people around me.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

You you lose all insight and and don't realize how deep into it you are. You know you're suffering, but you don't realize how bad it really is. You're just surviving.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, I don't think till my diagnosis it was like, oh my God, like this is where my life was. Like it's funny because I, you know, when I was in high school, especially my senior year, I had transferred school as my junior year, and I made a lot of new friends at my school, and I played sports and I was on prom court and like had friends. And it wasn't until you know I got the diagnosis and looked back, and I'm like, I went from that to like housebound, not going to family events. I'm Greek, so not being around your family is like a sin. So it was like starting to say no to family events, not leaving the house, um, not interacting with anyone. So I think the OCD in conjunction with isolation and loneliness and depression and a constant giving in to rituals, like my mental health um and insight just failed rapidly for me over those like three to four years that I was pretty housebound.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

I think you're so right that with each uh step you take, it starts small. Let me do this one compulsion to get this relief. And then OCD, as you say, keeps asking more and more of you. And so you found yourself in that position. Tell us about that uh kind of breaking point or rock bottom, how old you were and what exactly happened in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah, so I'd moved out at 18 and I was living with my roommate who was a close friend from high school at the time. Um, and so she we had kind of a duplex situation. It was like a place, but there's different entrances, and there was a lot of tension growing because um I wasn't, you know, taking out the trash and doing chores because of contamination, or, you know, I didn't want her to have people over because I was afraid that, you know, I might harm them. And what if I'm not in a good mental state and I didn't sleep well and I'd attack her, you know, the friends she brought over. I was afraid of uh dryer sheets. That was a big one I remember because of Famelde Hyde, so she couldn't use dryer sheets and she's like, I want to use dryer sheets. Like there was such like a battle, and it kind of became where we just sort of didn't talk. I think, you know, I was I was unable to get to work in school. I the only fortunate thing was I had worked since I was real young and had a lot of savings. Um, additionally, like my great grandma had passed and and not, I mean, I grew up poor, so I didn't have like thousands and millions of dollars from her passing. I think it was a couple thousand, but I was sort of starting to live off my savings and it was sort of a perfect storm. I wasn't seeing family, I wasn't going to work, and I wasn't going to school. I was pretty housebound. The only time I'd leave my house, there was a 24-hour Ralph's grocery store, and I'd go at like two in the morning, buy the things I needed for the week, and then just kind of like stay at home the rest of the week. Um, I was giving into almost like every waking moment was some kind of physical or mental compulsions. It could be laying in bed and just ruminating and spinning for hours. It could be cleaning. I had a lot of checking OCD. So I was checking the ground all the time if I lost something. Um, I always was afraid if I didn't connect with my mom each day, she would die. So there's all these like demands on myself. Um, but in conjunction, my roommate and I stopped being friends and we barely saw each other because, you know, she could enter the house a different way. Um, you know, I would avoid her because of different harm thoughts. And so it got to a point where like two, three years of that, where I was basically only seeing the lady who would scan me at two in the morning at the grocery store. Um, and I just became extremely depressed. Um, I became it was more than depression. It's like isolation, loss of purpose, but I also couldn't see a way out. Um, and it wasn't until I saw there was a movie by John Grisham, a book as well. It's called The Client. And in the beginning, um, I hope it's okay to go here. You can tell me to stop at any time. But um, you know, I had seen the opening scene, and there's a gentleman who like plugs the exhaust in his car and takes his life. And so I'd gotten to a point where it was just like there were there was so much tension between my roommate. I was running out of money, which was freaking me out. I didn't have anywhere to go because at the time, sounds so silly saying it now, but my mom had tented her house from termites, so I was afraid that I'd inhale that gas if I moved in with her and die. I didn't have a good relationship with my dad. I had nowhere to go. So I felt stuck. It was like, okay, I I don't know what to do. I I don't, you know, I'm not gonna be able to live here anymore. I don't know where I'm gonna live. My roommate is pissed at me. We don't talk. I don't talk to my family. Um, and just that like isolation and that delusion. And so I'd seen that that movie, and for the first time really in my life, I got strong thoughts, like, why am I even here? Like, why am I doing this? This is never gonna get better. And so um there was a moment where I just I just decided I was like, I can't do this anymore. And so we used the garage for storage and I kind of moved everything out of the garage and moved it into the house and like pulled in my car. And I waited for my roommate to go to work because I just, you know, obviously that wouldn't have worked if she was there. But I got to that point where I was just like, this feels like the only way out. And so um I turned my car and turned it on and just kind of prepared to die. I remember there's one point I walked out of my car and like went into the bathroom, just stared myself in the mirror. That that always kind of burns in my brain and just asked myself, like, am I really gonna do this? Like, is this really something that I'm gonna do? And um, it was like, yeah, I mean, just the thought of having to go back to the hours and hours a day, it just was too much. And so the only good news of this part of the story is that my roommate, who I'm telling you, like, she could have been shot and still gone to work. That's like one thing I remember about her. She just did not ever come home, came home um from work. She wasn't feeling well and was like surprised to see stuff in the house and the garage we never used. And so she walked in and saw me like in the car, and she's just like, What are you doing? And I I was just like, Oh, sorry, like I brought my car in here, I fell asleep, and I I just remember just being so out of it. So, you know, she's like, You need to go to the hospital, you need to do something. She was very confused. So she ended up calling um like the non-emergency line. They're like, Let's check them out. They took me to the hospital, and I just don't remember a lot of it. But what I do remember is like waking up and just being so angry because this was like the one way to get my brain to stop. And I remember it's so stupid, but it's like I woke up and my all my brain kept saying is like, now you have exhaust in your system. You have exhaust in your system. How do you get it out? How do you get out? How are you gonna be safe? It's like I didn't even get a break, you know, after that attempt. So the only plus thing that came out of this is I still remember the doctor, he looked a hundred, but he told me he's like, you have to connect with your family. Like, I'm not gonna release you until you talk to your family. So I reached out to my dad and I hadn't talked to him in a long time. And I just said, I need to move in. Will grandma let me move in because my dad was taking care of my grandma at the time. And he talked to her and he's like, Yeah, you can move in temporarily and we can figure, you know, what's going on financially and stuff. I didn't open up what was happening, but um, that was kind of like the start. I moved in with my dad, but he started seeing all the things I was doing. He got my mom involved, and that was really kind of the first of my my mental wellness journey because my family was like, what the hell has been going on with our son? They just assumed I was like living my best life in my own house with a friend and was too busy to to contact them. So that was kind of like the turning point. Sorry, I just brought down the mood really heavy and I didn't mean to.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

No, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. Thank you for sharing that. It just goes to show how how dark it can get for us. Um, you know, people struggling out there, but a testament to how far you can come. I mean, look at you now, you know, you're here talking about it and you you're on the other side. I'm sorry you experienced that. It's made me cry. It makes me cry hearing those stories because I think like you know, I've been there too. You can just that becomes the only option and you feel like it would just be quiet finally, you know, it could just be at peace.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

No, you nailed it. I mean, that's really um I ended up writing in a journal about my experience like shortly after. Um, and I read it at an event um where people were like reading from their journal during their mental health struggles, but it was the first time I ever read it out loud. But it was that. I mean, what you were just saying, Alicia, it's like all I remember is like, I just want my brain to shut up. And I think that's what people don't understand about this disorder. It's not this like I have a thought and I just can brush it off. It's like, what do you do if your brain is just yelling at you constantly and you're doing everything it asks? And it gets to a point, I think, also why it was so hard for me is like I couldn't do what it asked anymore. It's like I would do it and not even get the relief anymore. And then I would do it wrong. So it had me correct it. And I think it was just also sleep deprivation. I mean, just like weeks and weeks and weeks of no sleep. I was barely eating. I was about like 60 pounds lighter than I am now. And I have a couple pounds to lose, but not 60. But you know, it's just got to that point where I was just like, you know, I I just, yeah, it all all fell apart.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Were you put on medication at that point? Or had you been, had you been on it before?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

So what happened, and sadly, this is kind of ever so I had never been on medication or gotten any help for mental health because I was able to hold it together until, you know, really until I moved out. Um, the the very similar to a lot of people's journeys, I wish I could lie and be like, hey, I got an OCD diagnosis and started treatment right away. We didn't even know it was OCD. We thought it was depression. And so I saw a lot of different therapists for depression. But when I would talk about what was causing depression, They didn't understand it. They didn't understand, like, they kept doing like a like a harm risk assessment because of suicide attempt. And then when I would say I'd have thoughts about, you know, what if I harm someone but I don't want to? They would do, you know, talk to me about is there somebody you want to harm? Like they never could quite understand what was going on, which then just made me shut down in therapy because I didn't want them to like arrest me or something. And I guess um, you know, and and they were like, you don't need to wash your hands that much. And I'm like, well, thanks. That doesn't really help.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

So the way that I found out I had OCD was actually totally bizarre. So um I was at a grocery store because I still was doing compulsions, even though I was now living with my dad, grandma, and youngest sister and connected with my mom. And I was still going to the grocery store in the middle of the night. But there was a like a 17 girl teen magazine, which is probably the most embarrassing embarrassing part of my story that I picked that magazine out of like the macho. I could have picked a sports magazine or something. But if you don't know, at two in the morning, they don't just have somebody standing there ready to scan. They're like putting things up and, you know, uh shelfing stuff, and you have to like ring a bell and they come up. And she was like, I remember the the worker was like, give me a second. I'm I'm putting some stuff up and you know, doing doing all that and kind of putting products on the shelves. So I'm reading through the 17 magazine, which I at this point I should just say was like manly sports magazine. But there was this little, there was this little like, it wasn't even an article. It was kind of like one of those fluff pieces. And it was like, if you do one of these three things, you may have obsessive compulsive disorder. So I read and I have all three. And I'm like, could this be it? So I remember calling my mom. My mom's a registered dietitian, but she works at a hospital and talked to some doctors, and they're like, no, they said that what you have is an OCD, it's just depression. Kept doing the depression route, and finally I was like, mom, I'm telling you, I've never read something that's so like is me. And she's like, then let's find you someone. So we sat at my mom's house. I had to sit in the backyard because her house was poisoned from the from tenting it for the turmoil. Yeah. So I'm I'm sitting out there. We're calling like everybody in my insurance. Prime, my mom and I always say it was like a hundred people. We got like no callbacks from 95 of them. Like two called back and said we don't know what it is. One called back and said she she treats it but had like a two-year waiting list. Another person said, you know, I I don't have uh enough knowledge for your case. And then finally we found um, you know, somebody that said they could treat it. A year and a half just of like people saying they could treat it but really couldn't, bad therapy, think about the ocean and the beach anytime you have a bad thing. Finally found the biggest specialist at the time, and I went and saw him, and I remember he sat my family down and said, Look, like Chris is the worst case of OCD I've ever seen. It's gonna be about four years till he sees any relief in treatment with me. But you guys should kind of have your expectations low, and he may unfortunately have to live with you guys forever, and you guys might have to take care of him. And so that was kind of like the prognosis. And um, it was just it was sobering. But my mom hit the internet, was searching, she's a fighter. Um, it was like I can't, I can't accept that, and found the International MCD Foundation, which is why I have such uh uh loyalty to them and and and appreciation. And she found a specialist up in LA in Westwood, and um I remember the them saying, like, I need a higher level of care. Um, UCLA was the only one at the time we got me on the waiting list. It was about a two-year waiting list, but um started going up to LA each week and seeing an expert and a specialist, and you know when somebody knows they're crap, because it was like the first session. I'm like, does this lady like live at my house and spy on me? Because everything she what I do, she gets it.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

So did you feel a sense of relief at that point? Like finally there's answers and somebody understands me. That is so huge.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yes, I remember like, you know, anytime I see a video of people that are like, we shouldn't diagnose everybody, like, diagnosis is so bad. I was like, you haven't been there because that diagnosis was the sweetest things that I've ever heard in my life. That's how I felt. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

It's like but also like a sense, did you mourn the the loss of your life had you known sooner? Like I remember when I found out I'm 41 and I only recently found out I've been struggling for a long time. And I've I would lay in bed and think, wow, I had I known this 20 years ago, how different my life would be, you know, and just mourning all the suffering and everything and the time that you spent just in pain. It's I it's I know it's not good to do that, it serves no purpose, but I did I did do that for a long time. It was a really hard thing for me to hear that I had OCD, but also a relief.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah, no, I'm glad you bring it up. I think it was in stages, right? And I'm glad you brought up what you just did because I don't think people talk about it enough. In the beginning, it was like a blessing. And I was in treatment for about two years and I got on medication about six months in. So I could talk more about treatment if you guys want to know. But for me, what you're talking about, Alicia, was after. Like I got better and kind of expected like it to all be like rainbows, and it's like, watch out, world, I'm here. But I fell into like a depression the same way you just talked about for about three years. Like, how did no medical staff ever recognize it? How didn't my parents or teachers or counselors? And like there were so many years and hitting such a rock bottom that could have been spared if people knew what this was. And so it was about three years of just a lot of depression and happiness. And it wasn't until my mom, I have two sisters, the one closest in age, they sat me down and they're like, You should be happy. Like you fought this disorder, like you're you're doing so much better, like you should be happy, but you have just been sort of stalling in life and depressed, and we'll never know what you're have gone through, and we don't want to discount that. But like you are better than this. And it was really my mom, my sister, kind of kicking my butt a little bit. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I'm I'm I can't ever go back in time and get that time back. But the last three years, I chose to kind of just like sit in that dirty bath water, and I needed a little bit of time to kind of process what happened. I didn't need three years. Um, and so after that, I got involved with the IOCDF, and I think that really gave me purpose and kind of got me out of that slump.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

We'll be right back. But first, a message from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

The same distressing, unwanted thoughts keep playing over and over in your mind. The same rituals keep eating up your time, holding you back from enjoying your life. You've tried talk therapy before and spent session after session diving into those thoughts and trying to understand them, trying to fix them, but somehow they just get worse. And the shame piles on because you think, why isn't this working? What's wrong with me? If this sounds familiar, here's what you need to know. You are not the problem. You're experiencing something that a lot of people with OCD experience. Getting your life back is impossible because OCD is highly treatable. It just requires a completely different approach than other mental health conditions. In fact, standard talk therapy often makes OCD worse because it encourages you to analyze those intrusive thoughts or try to replace them with positive ones. But with OCD, the more attention you give the thoughts, the stickier they become. That's where no CD comes in. No CD provides virtual therapy designed specifically for OCD. Every single one of their therapists is extensively trained in a type of therapy called ERP, or exposure and response prevention, which is the most effective treatment available for OCD. And they get their training from world-renowned OCD experts so they truly understand what you're dealing with, even the stuff that feels impossible to say out loud. In live face-to-face virtual sessions, your no CD therapist will teach you how to take the power away from intrusive thoughts so you can live the life you want to live. In between sessions, you'll be able to message your therapist at any time, join dozens of live support groups, and continue your progress with other expert-developed therapy tools. No C D is also covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans, and their team makes it really simple to get started. Visit nocd.com and book a free 15-minute call. That's no cd.com to learn more and talk to someone who can help because you deserve treatment that actually works for OCD. And now back to our show. I do want to talk about your work with IOCDF and how you are now someone who helps other people going through OCD, but just to take a quick step back, you finally do go see this specialist in Westwood, California, and you start working, I assume it's ERP. So what did that look like? What kind of exposures were you having to do? And can you remember what some of the worst were?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Yeah, no, I mean I can absolutely remember. Um, you know, I always say like it was some of the hardest moments, but I think what you gain out of it right is like a confidence in yourself, a strength and a willingness to kind of fight through. Um, but you know, she really told me, she's like, you need a higher level of care, but because we don't have it, you have to create your own PHP at home. You have to be spending six hours a day kicking OCD's butt. So I would say like the biggest, I'll kind of go through subtypes quickly, but like biggest for contamination. At the time, I was taking about four one-hour showers a day. So I spent a lot of time in my shower. So that was a big thing we worked on was not only cutting the shower time back, but completely cutting out showers. Um, for me, hand washing was huge too, because I also had magical thinking around numbers. So every time my hands got dirty, I'd have to wash my hands seven times in a row because it was a good number. So I'm washing my hands like 200 times a day. They're bleeding, they're cut. So that was a big thing was reducing and kind of cutting back the hand washing. When it came to the harm thoughts, I had a lot of harm thoughts around strangers in public, as well as my grandma and my youngest sister. My youngest sister, because she would get into my stuff not in a rude way, but she just didn't get it. And so my brain would always be like, if you just took her out, she wouldn't do that, right? So then I got really scared of those thoughts. Um I want to take her out for some other reasons. Just kidding, Gabrielle, I love you. I'm just kidding, we're great. I I love my sisters. I had seen one of those true crime kind of 48 hours about these two boys that found out they were in their grandma's will, pushed her down the stairs to look like it was an accident. So they got their grandma's money and they lived, you know, pretty lavishly. One of them cheated on his wife. He had told his wife he did it, cheated on the wife, the wife reported him, and that's how they got caught. So the moral of the story is don't change. But um, I watched a special, and even though my grandma had no money, my brain was like, You're gonna do that. And so I was living with my grandma, my younger sister, and my big fear, we had a lot of stairs in my grandma's home, was I was gonna push her down the stairs. So for ERP in general, was spending more time with my little sister and my grandma. But a big thing was like, if my grandma was going up or down the stairs, I would hold on to the couch, like the arm, and like look away to ensure I was like the least likely to push her down the stairs. And my therapist is like, no, anytime she goes up or down those stairs, you go up and down those stairs. I even want you to kind of like motion that you're gonna push her down like, okay, this therapist is crazy. And it sounds wild, but it it works because I'm sitting there doing this, and I'm like, A, I have no urgency to actually go through with it. And then B, I just feel like an idiot doing this. I feel like I'm doing some kind of like 1960s dance or something, and I'm like, this is just lame.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Did you tell your grandma that that was going on in your head at the time? Or that was all oh, so you didn't even tell her, grandma, I'm a I'm thinking I'm thinking this is a good one.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

I never, I never told my grandma. I've always been very open about it. Um, and my grandma, you know, never found out. Um, you know, my little sister might know because she's more likely to watch my stuff, but like we're great now and she understands OCD. She, you know, my um I have some OCD on that side. But that was really, and then going in public, that was a big thing. I would I had to start going in public during daylight hours and like being around people. Um, magical thinking, I felt like I had to talk to my mom before noon or she'd die in a car crash. So I couldn't call her. And um, my therapist is like, well, if she dies, you know, it's on you. And I'm like, thanks a lot. You're not helping. But it was really actually helpful because the way she was so flippant about it, it kind of cued me in that this isn't real. Like, these aren't real fears. I love my grandma, my little sister. I I'm Greek, I'm a man, I like want to protect them. I mean, my grandma was six foot, so she could kind of throw down on her own. My little sister has like 40 tattoos, so she could kind of throw down on her own too. But still, in my brain, I'm like, I gotta protect them, right? Um, in public, it was like violent. Sometimes it was sexual intrusive thoughts too. So I'd be at like Target and there'd be like an 80-year-old woman and my brain's like, You want to have sex with her. And I was like, I really don't. But you know, I would normally want to like run out of the store or I'd kind of like go in a different aisle. So my therapist was like, You really gotta stay in that aisle. A big one of mine was checking, um, to the point that if I, you know, would leave a room, I could spend three hours kind of going back and forth checking. So my therapist had us like go out in public and I would start to like leave stuff on a table, walk out, then come back and have one second to grab it. We went to restaurants finally, Liam. So I could eat in restaurants and um I couldn't like, you know, look at what the kitchen was doing. I had a lot of stuff with contamination with my fingers, so having to eat chips and salsa and things. Um, a big part of it was just getting out of the house. I mean, I was so afraid of the harm and sexual thoughts that I was like staying home was like my kind of like savior down in my room. Actually, um, during OC Awareness Week, I'd found some pictures that I used to take of my room. Um, I had a big room, but there was kind of like a supply closet that um people my sister used it for a supply pri uh supply closet now. But I actually went in there and I made a makeshift room. Um, my grandma helped and dad kind of helped me make a room of it because I could lock the door and it was the furthest away from people. So I'm sleeping in this kind of like little, like, I don't even know, it could be like seven by seven room because it just was the only thing that made me safe. So I could lock myself in and there was less chance that I was gonna get up and in the middle of the night harm a family member. So my life was like 100% OCD, but through the treatment, facing the fears and really kind of understanding like what's going on in my head after about two years of treatment. Um, because I was also going to a support group at the time, um, I was able to get to a point where my therapist finally came to my house. Uh, we did exposures in the house, we did exposure with family out of fear of driving and somebody being in the passenger seat, and I get in a crash and they die and I don't, and I live with guilt. So I drove her around. Um, she touched my items in my house. I spent time with my grandma and sister. We went out in public and kind of, you know, went to stores. And after about a month later, I concluded treatment and really started to hit the ground running after. I got hit with that depression that I talked about earlier. But once that kind of shook and I started getting back to life, um, I started repairing my life and kind of getting involved with the IOCF. But treatment was hard. It was a lot of doing. I was spending six hours a day just doing, doing, doing, kind of rebuilding structure in life.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Where are you with it now? Can you drink caffeine? Can you have a sip of alcohol that those still off limits for you? Where do you stand with that?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Yeah, so let me tell you, uh, on the West Coast, it's well, it's not early, but you know, it's earlier, right, Alicia. So uh we definitely drink caffeine, Starbucks. I would be so much wealthier if I didn't drink caffeine. I'm like, could it that couldn't that thing have stayed? Um, I'm a big green tea and a matcha drinker, I have been for years, but no, I I definitely drink caffeine. Um, I can drink carbonation, I can eat and drink foods. I choose not to drink. Um, I did do some alcohol exposures and drank. Um, you know, there's a little bit of alcoholism on my dad's side. My grandma was uh one glass of wine, but really a bottle a day drinker, God bless her. But um, you know, and I think the impulsivity of OCD, I never really had an off-limit. So I've chosen to live not drinking, but um, it was to the point, obviously, where like like I can go to Italian restaurants and they can have like a wine sauce. Like I'm not, you know, that kind, just more like drinking, but everything is different. I mean, I can, you know, I I take one 15-minute shower a day. I only wash my hands, my hands have healed, you know. I only wash my hands when needed. I can drink carbonation, um, I can eat certain foods because it it was also like I would read somewhere like dairy I avoided because I read somewhere that dairy might have hormones, and I'm like, I will hormones make me rage like the Hulk. So I can have dairy now. I love my cheese, right? Um, I love my little sister. I spent a lot of time with her. My grandma um passed away, unfortunately, and 20 uh two years ago, but we spent a lot of time together. Did you push her down the stairs? No, it that would have been great, but she knew gymnastics, Liam. So she would have like backbended, landed on her feet, did this whole thing. She would have joined the Olympics, but um no, uh no, unfortunately her heart. But um, no, she lived till 88. She was a fighter, she was such a a huge part of my mental health recovery. But I would I always tell people like, I can't, the only time that I see OCD show up a little bit is I've been a perfectionism perfectionist since I was a kid. I mean, I used to like spend hours on homework, turn things in, get good grades, cry if I got an A minus. Um, I do a lot of uh work, you know, in the mental health field. We put on a lot of events. And I know for me, it's like if we're putting on an event, I can see that part of me like spark up and like, we got to have this perfect, and we got to make sure this person shows up and we got to get this on time and you know, get that. And the boards I'm on are like, Chris, calm down a little bit. So that's why I kind of see it come back a little bit. But um, I think the the subtypes that were just never me. I think I just genuinely do like to do things really well, but I think I've always been somebody that likes to protect versus harm. So I think as I got better from OCD, I had those aha moments. And I'm like, well, I'm so OCD attacks what you care about. I'm so the kind of person that protects my friends and family. Of course it's gonna say I'm gonna harm them. Um I'm the kind of person that if like somebody was being attacked in a store, I couldn't live with myself like running away. I'd be the one that would run in there and start karate chopping some people, right? So it's like who I really am is the opposite of what OCD was saying. So when I had that kind of like aha moment after treatment, a lot of my subtypes melted away. Um, and like I said, the only thing that really stuck was some perfectionism because that's just kind of more to my core versus the other stuff. But I went from like 98% of my life being OCD to like one to two percent being, and now I'm more stressed about like taxes, traffic, um Whole Foods. I'm like, how can I eat a salad that's$30 and live with myself if those more than um, you know, than OCD ever does anymore.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

What made you decide to go into the mental health space and make a career out of that? I would imagine that your experience and not being able to find help for so long or find the right help played a part in that.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Yeah, you know what's funny? I actually went to school for film school. My dream was to direct music videos. That was kind of like my passion when I was in high school. That's all I thought about. I used to love music videos. It was just something that I was really into and music. And since I can't play an instrument and I sound like a dead cat when I sing, I was like, okay, how can I get in the music industry? And it was to direct music videos. And I went to a school that had like a hands-on kind of film and television broadcast um program, and I started working in the field. Um, I mainly actually worked for a company that did like post-production. We did a lot of like movie trailers. I worked for a production company that did a lot of commercials. Um, I did work on doing like live coverage of like bands and sports. Um, and we kind of created some of the people I went to school with and worked with, we created a production company and we like filmed a couple music videos and live shows. And that was really what I wanted to do. And then this all hit. So when I got better, I actually reconnected with uh one of my mentors in the field and actually got a job. Um, it later became a TV show with Jennifer Lopez, but there's a show called World of Dance. Um, but before it became a TV show with Jennifer Lopez, and I think um Hoff, the the it's the two brothers, the the girl and the boy. They're always brother-sister, the blondes, but he was one of the judges. Um, but I worked for that event. I ended up getting a job with MTV, and I was covering a TV show at the time called America's Best Dance Crew, and I actually started going on camera. So I worked for Billboard, I worked for Fox, I worked for all these different major um Hollywood reporters, I worked for these different companies where I was doing entertainment journalism. Um, I worked for American Idol and X Factor and So You Think You Could Dance and Dancing with the Stars and all these shows. Um, and in uh somebody who I was in a support group with reached out and said, Hey, there's a treatment center in Orange County that's opened up about a year ago. They're looking with somebody with lived experience to help run the support group with the director because he doesn't have lived experience. And so we want somebody there that has OCD as part of the support group. And it was Tuesday nights, and I'm like, okay, I'm pretty full-time in the entertainment industry, but you know what? I can do like a Tuesday night, uh, six to eight. So I helped run the support groups Tuesday nights, and it's something clicked. I mean, I could be on a red carpet and interview Angelina Joe Lee, but I was still like, when is it Tuesday night? I can't wait to like be with my people. Um I started doing that, and then my parents are pretty educated and probably always wanted me to have like a traditional degree. So I was like, why don't I take a psychology class? And I never loved school, but I started taking the class and I remember reading the whole book, like turning stuff in early and just being passionate. I was like, let me just see where this goes. So while I was working in the entertainment industry, um Um, pretty much like 60 hours a week. Um, I was going to school on the side and I was running that support group with my boss um uh on the side and I just never stopped. I just kept going up and going up. And so I had to make like a decision once I got into a master's program like, am I really gonna do this? Because you can't be a full-time therapist and also a full-time uh entertainment reporter, but I had such a good rapport with the people that I work with in that field, and they're like, look, like if you want to go into that, you can um freelance for us, you can consult, you can, you know, still be on payroll and do things more part-time, like whatever you need to do. And so that's kind of been my life. I've been a full-time therapist, but I still do entertainment reporting. I did the Golden Globes and do stuff on the side. But for me, it was that. I also um, you know, I don't want to put her business out there, but my youngest sister went through something pretty bad at 12 years old with a sexual assault and seeing her just like really bond with her therapist and her therapist really kind of bring her back to life. I think that was like the final like straw. It was like, okay, I want to be a part of this world. Um, and it, and when I started doing it first with the IOSDF and advocating and then eventually becoming a therapist and giving back, it's like, okay, this is what was missing. I love the entertainment, it's so much fun, it's fast, it's quick, it's enjoyable, but I need something deeper. And how could I have gone through that whole experience and like you both said, have such trouble find help and just like walk away from that? And so um, that's what really got me into this field. And then I do anything that IOCDF asked because I'm so grateful for um the work they did because I would not have found the therapist I did.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

And I I bet that helped shape you as a therapist, and you're probably an amazing one because you have lived experience. I always look for the ones that know exactly what we've gone through.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

So well, my clients would hopefully say that I'm great. Um, when I'm having them do things, they probably don't think I'm as great. When I'm like, no, you should probably sit down on that bench or like, come on, you can't tap that eight times. Um, but no, I think it does help because when um you become a licensed therapist, you have to go through uh working with different populations. And I worked with like people in the foster care system, or I worked with uh couples going through divorces, and I'm like, I feel so out of it. I don't know. I've never been through this, so I can only lean on clinical um education and training. But with my work with clients, they'll be like, I have to tell you this crazy thing I thought up yesterday. I'm like, oh, I thought of that like six months ago, you know. So it's like I feel more like an insider. So I do think it helps. And I think it bonds me with my clients because they know I've gone through it, they know my story, that's how most of them find me. And so they understand that I'm not gonna tell them to just like stop, you know. Like, right, um, you know, I drive around the block six times because I think I heard someone, just stop. Okay, thanks, and they leave, right? Like they they know that it's more than just stopping, so it helps. And um, I get it. I've been there, I totally get it.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Yeah, that really must help your experience. What made you also get into the marriage therapy side of things?

SPEAKER_00 46:59

So in California, I'm also getting a second license. I'm gonna be a licensed professional clinical counselor. In in California, we don't have as many options. Like there's social work, I guess. I think for me, um I I think what really kind of because it's a marriage and family, and I think the family part more than marriage, because I'm still single. Well, I'm in a I'm in a relationship, but I'm not married. Um, but um for me, it was like my mom was such my mom and I were honored to be asked to be keynotes at the IOCDF um annual conference in San Diego one year. And they asked if my mom would be interested in making a few words because she was such a involved part of my treatment. But my mom and I ended up doing something cool instead of me talking the majority and her kind of coming in at the last five minutes. We did it where we went back and forth and we we told my story, but from different perspectives because she was such a big part of it. Um, my sisters were a huge part. I remember my sister, Selena, she's the one closer in age. Like, she just I remember one time we were at a family event eating dinner for Thanksgiving and her looking at my hands and my weight loss and like me struggling to eat. And she just was like, Are you okay? Like, do you need help? Is there anything I could do? Like, are you okay? And just that was enough, right? And my grandma letting me move in and and into her house, and my dad letting me move in so I could have a stable place to get treatment. I think the family is such an important part. And even if you're not living with your family, you know, I think the marriage part comes in because I work with a lot of clients and their spouses don't have OCD, and there's a lot of clashing in an otherwise amazing marriage because of the OCD. And so I think a systems approach is so important because we rarely have OCD and live on an island. Like our friends, our family, our spouses, our kids are affected, right? And so, really kind of taking that into consideration. One of my um mentors is Barbara Van Oppen. She's a uh researcher and therapist out of USC. And in the 80s, uh, she coined the term family accommodation and really talks about how the accommodation from our spouses or our parents or our grandparents, et cetera, really kind of reinforced the disorder. And it's hard to get better if everybody around you is catering to the disorder. And so I truly believe that.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

That idea, yeah, the the spouse is reinforcing some of it or the parents are reinforcing some of it. I think that's such a powerful idea. What do you think people misunderstand the most at this point about OCD? You've been in this advocacy world for a long time, working with the IOCDF and working in the field itself. We've come a long way, I think, in the public understanding of OCD, but there's still a long way to go. What do you think is still misunderstood about the disorder?

SPEAKER_00 49:41

Yeah, I think there's two layers. I think for the general public that just doesn't get it, the biggest misunderstanding is that this is like a personality quark or kind of like a superpower or something kind of cool. It's where people like to like organize things or have their place really clean or kind of vacuum a lot. And so it's almost like, hey, these people take special attention to kind of keeping their space really nice, keeping themselves clean. Um, I think Chloe Kardashian hasn't helped the situation right with her closed because it does make it look fun. Like, oh, she loves to shop for like, you know, at the at the container store and like organize her closet. And so I think the problem is that takes away the pain and the urgency that this disorder we have, we know there's higher suicidal um ideation and suicidal attempts, not just with me, but about 25% of people with OCD will attempt, about 50% have suicidal thoughts. Um, so it's not a cute kind of personality quirk. And I think because it's dismissed like that, like somebody who likes to wash their hands or be neat and tidy, we don't get the research dollars. We don't get the empathy, we don't get people going into our field to want to treat something. They think, why would anybody want to treat being a cleaner person? I think for the people that maybe do have a little bit more understanding, that kind of second layer, maybe they have a loved one with OCD or they they just know it. I think the biggest misunderstanding is this is simply a thought disorder. In my experience, it's an experience disorder. So if I um I had a lot of moral scrupulosity as well. And so if I did something that I thought was wrong or bad, it wasn't just I had the thought like Chris, you're bad. It was like my whole body would react. It's like a thought, your heart's racing, you feel like your gut kind of drops from your from your lap, your hyperfixation on this, you can't focus on anything else. It's like you're almost taken over. And until you kind of uh address this potential threat, whatever that may be, you're so dysregulated you can't function in other places. And so people don't get that, even those that are supporting us. And so I tell people it's not just thoughts, your whole body is taken over. The best analogy I can give is if you're crossing the street and you have your little daughter or niece or nephew and she runs ahead of you, and a car is running the light. You're not just like, hey, she's gonna be hit. I mean, your whole body lurches in, grabs her, pulls her to the side so she doesn't get hit.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

That happens to us, but it happens to us every hour of the day that we're awake. And sometimes in our dreams, we have thoughts and dreams about our OCD as well.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Yeah, it was a really good explanation of uh the stigma around it and how important it is to really understand what goes on. And it's not just about being organized. So thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Well, I mean, I'm I'm thanking you guys too, because I think what is a big part of it is people love podcasts and podcasts are doing really well. I like I said, I've been honored to have your podcast, you know, flip up on my screen and been able to watch stuff and listen to it. And I just think that the work you guys are doing, and then obviously the IOCDF as well. That's why I'm so proud to be a board member as well as just like help with their advocacy program and advocate for them. Um, it's the only thing that's gonna work. I mean, people are gonna come across your podcast, people are gonna come across the IOCDF. And I think the more people get educated. It was way before I was born, but my mom used to talk about how it was with like HIV and AIDS or with cancer, right? Like people just didn't understand it. And she's like, people wouldn't even say the word cancer because they were afraid it would cause, you know, you to get it. So now we have such good understandings of different viruses and diseases and illnesses because brave people were speaking about it. People were doing, you know, podcasts and TV shows about it. So my hope is that, you know, y'all and everybody else that's doing this work can make enough of a scratch. I think the main thing is I there's people out there right now that are suffering with this disorder and have no clue they have it because their manifestation and subtype of it doesn't match up with what the the current general discussion of OCD is.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Um, and as you were talking about earlier, Alicia, just with your own journey about struggling, struggling and suffering for so long in silence, it's like this is why, you know, people go five, 10, 20 years without a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

We talked a lot about how, you know, we wish we had known sooner what this was, that we could have gotten help, and then we wouldn't have lost those ears. What would you tell your eight-year-old self if you could go back when you started to perform those first compulsions? What would you want to tell that eight-year-old boy?

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Well, my eight-year-old self was probably like picking my nose and playing with like X-Men action figures. So I don't know if he would have understood or listened. I think probably the age I wish I could go back to was really like freshman year of high school, um, because I stopped eating glue. So I was a little bit clearer in the brain. So I could actually like hear myself. Um, but no, I I think my eight-year-old self, I wish I would have talked to my my parents more, my mom specifically. But what I would have told my younger self, let's say, you know, 14, is like I was in pure terror all the time, which you guys both know, having the disorder. It's like I was in pure terror all the time. And I wish somebody would have sat down and been like, you're okay. Like all of this, I always tell my clients, I'm like, I wish somebody would have told me even later on, like in it, it wasn't until I was like mid-treatment my therapist said this, but I wish people would have told me, like, you're not in danger. Your brain is just overactive. It's coming up with every possible scenario. It wants you to have a six, you know, point plan for the 900 potential outcomes, but you're okay. You're strong, you can kick some butt, you know, martial arts, you know, you got your family aside. Like, you'll be good. Chill, like you're okay. You don't have to like, you know, fix every problem that comes up. Every thought isn't worthy of getting an hour of your attention. So I wish somebody would have just told me, because as you guys probably know, we're told the opposite like, trust your intuition, trust your gut. If you have a thought about a situation that feels uncomfortable, get out of there. So all of us with OCD take that advice and it runs us into the ground. Now it's great advice, right? Like, if I'm talking to somebody shady, I'm like, yeah, I gotta go. Getting a phone call. But in real life, or in OCD, it's like I didn't need to. So I wish somebody would have just sat me down. And I think the hardest thing is, as y'all know, like being eight, being 14 is hard enough. You're trying to be cool and popular and you're trying to like, you know, wear those Nikes and not getting them stained and holla at the person you think is cute in class. And there's already so much like identity formation and figuring out who you are. And I wish somebody would have just sat me down and been like, you're okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Like this isn't that's interesting you mentioned that because you know, like I'm like I said, I didn't know until later on. So there's a decade of struggling with my husband, and I would tell him that exact thing. I said, Can you just tell me I'm okay? I need you if you could do this one thing. This was again before I knew I had O C D. Just tell me I'm okay. Tell me things are safe. Tell me we're okay, everything's okay. And and that's all I needed to hear in those moments, which is probably a compulsion, actually, asking him for that reassurance in those moments of me, right? But um, yeah, it's it's it's the lack of safety that we feel on a regular basis, you know, and and just in that constant fight or flight and just hearing you're okay is sometimes enough.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Yeah. I mean, when I got in my first relationship, because I wasn't obviously dating during this time, but when I got done with treatment and got into my first real relationship, I had a lot of relationship OCD, and there was a lot of that. And I think as a therapist, I have to tell you that's reassurance. As somebody with OCD, I'm like, you need that sometimes though. And that's what I needed from my partner was to just sometimes, are we good? Is this relationship okay? Am I, you know, I have all these thoughts, et cetera. But I I the thing that I think is cool about the treatment, and then like years and years go by, you do start to build that internal assurance. You're able to tell yourself, like, I got this. And I'm okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

I don't need you to tell me I'm okay. It's okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Yeah. And being able to really believe yourself too, not just say it, but believe it. I think one of the things that's always stuck out with me is um I was putting together photos for this presentation I did in LA, this like kind of like live show talking about mental health. And my mom found this picture and she's like, This is this is before the OCD got bad. You were so fearless. And I'm sad that that got taken from you. My first reaction was like, I'm fearless. What? You know, but I'm like, no, it does bring OCD, kind of leaves its mark and it has you question things. So I think what I would have also told my eight-year-old self, Liam, is like, you were so fearless before this. Like, go back to being fearless because I used to just go for things and I was like, I'll figure it out. Um, so I work on that more and more to this day. I continue. There's a picture of me. I'm wearing these like tucked-in little shirt with these blue shorts, smiling because it's my birthday. And and I I was fearless in that picture. So, you know, I have that picture on my my laptop, and I always tell myself, I'm like, be that fearless, Chris. Like, that's who you are. This like fearful, questioning everything, scared self that you you can be at times or used to be. That's not you. That's a disorder. Like, be your fearless self.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Yeah, that's who we all are. And if you're listening right now, be fearless. It is such a freeing, amazing feeling when you can step into that and just go, I can do this, I can do this. Thank you so much for sharing your story and being on the other side of it now is amazing. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

Well, thank you both. I mean, like I said, I appreciate what you're both doing. I I have the most, and I'm not just saying this, I have the the most admiration for people that go through this and say, hey, I gotta do something. Like this, you know, this field, we don't have the autism uh spotlight or the cancer spotlight, or right now there's a lot of talk about like colon cancer spotlight. I will say first and foremost, all of those deserve a spotlight. Like, don't hear me not say that. Like I we should be taking physical and mental health more seriously. I think it's just sad we don't have that. We have a dim little light, and a lot of people don't um have have a voice, and you guys do. And so thank you both. Obviously, like I said, I have such admiration for people that go through this and decide, like, hey, I gotta find time in my life uh to give back, and that's what y'all are doing. I'm just honored to be a little part of it. But um I just saw your post that you guys have um over 5,000 downloads. So congratulations, that's huge and keep kicking butt. I'm honored to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Thank you, Chris. We're really brightening that light that you mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:03

Where can people find more on you? Yeah, so on social media, it's just my name, and I wish I had a cool last name. I wish I kept my Greek last name because I feel like it's easier to spell, but my Norwegian, and so it's my dad last name. So you can find me at Chris Tronson. It looks like Tron D. Sen. So that's you know how I describe it. But uh Chris Tronson on Instagram, obviously, like all social media. Um, I do a live stream every Wednesday for the International OCD Foundation. I gotta get y'all on. I usually, I usually interview um, there's one with Ethan Smith who does like people with. I usually interview the clinicians and stuff, so I gotta figure out a way to spin that to get y'all on. But every Wednesday at uh 12 noon Eastern, but nine o'clock here on the West Coast, um, I do a live stream called Ask the Experts where I have different experts in the field come on. I do a live stream for that. Um, I'm on the board of uh the directors of the International OCD Foundation, so you'll see me at the conferences and you'll see me at events through the IOCDF.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

So we'll meet you in July.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yes, I'll see you guys in July. You but y'all I'm a hugger, so y'all better hug me. Oh, yeah. Like weird. Uh at least we'll come up with a cool handshake if if hugging's not your thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

I love hugs. I'm a hugger.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

I'm a hugger. Yeah, so be at the conference. Um, and then I also am on the board and vice president of OCD Southern California, our Southern California affiliate. We're putting on an event in person in Orange County um May 30th. So I'm always around um doing different stuff. I'm an advocate for the IOCDF and lead their advocate advisory council. So really heavily involved. Um, but you know, please DM me, um, hit me up, stalk me, go to my favorite coffee shop. I like matcha, order it and we'll sort of maybe I'll run into you in Orange County. Yeah, six.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

If I do, I'll give you a big squeeze and we'll go have a matcha.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Yes, because you're all friendly, you're from my hood, so if you come down to Orange County, um, we better hang. And then Liam, you're gonna call on the West Coast. What are you doing? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

At least when when you see him, put a little shot of alcohol into his matcha. Yeah, thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

It won't phase him, Liam. He's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

Yeah, I know, I know. Like I said, I have all my caffeine now. Now I really do want to hit people in my car. That's the funny thing, right? That's when I was so scared, but now I'm like, I really do want to hit people in my car. Nobody knows how to drive, especially when it rains. Awesome. Thanks again, Chris. Yeah, thank you both, and thank you, and good luck. Yeah, I'll see you on the gram. I'll see you in July and keep killing it with episodes.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Thanks for listening to another episode of the OCD Confessional. Be sure to follow the show so you get new episodes. You can subscribe to us on YouTube or find us on Instagram and TikTok at the OCD Confessional.