Tori Peyton on Harm OCD, Trauma & Eating Disorder Recovery

In this episode of The OCD Confessional, we’re joined by Tori Peyton (@growithtori), creator, advocate, and host of the Keep Growing podcast, for an incredibly honest and powerful conversation about OCD, trauma, and eating disorder recovery.

Tori shares her story of experiencing sexual abuse at a young age and how that trauma later manifested as harm OCD, intrusive thoughts, and a struggle with an eating disorder. We talk about how OCD can attach itself to trauma, why intrusive thoughts can feel so real and terrifying, and how silence and shame can keep people stuck.

Most importantly, Tori opens up about what helped her begin to heal — including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and trauma-focused therapy — and how she’s rebuilding her life with compassion, awareness, and honesty.

In this episode, we explore:
 • Harm OCD and intrusive thoughts
 • The intersection of trauma and OCD
 • Eating disorders and control
 • The role of ERP in recovery
 • Healing after shame and silence

This episode is sensitive, real, and deeply hopeful — for anyone navigating OCD, trauma, or both.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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_03 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_00 0:20

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

SPEAKER_03 0:29

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

SPEAKER_00 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_03 0:43

And yes, we did check this recording four times before uploading it. Today's guest is Tori Payton, a mental health advocate and content creator using her lived experience to create real change. Through her platform, Grow with Tori, she's built a community of over 85,000 people by sharing honest conversations about eating disorder recovery, OCD, and what healing actually looks like. Well, we're so excited to chat with you, Tori. Welcome to the OCD Confessional. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Thanks for being on.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Okay, we love to start every episode with a confession. Is there anything you'd like to confess today?

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Yeah. I feel like this is like so niche, but my confession is when my parents found out that I had OCD when I was seven, they had no idea what to do with me. So they just like sent me to a mental hospital for 10 days. Like, I know, but I like to tell people that because it's like, guys, if your parents responded poorly or you don't know how to navigate it, like I promise mine was worse. Like I promise. Like they literally just sent me because they were like, I don't know what to do. They had no idea what I was having harm OCD, so they didn't know if I was like a threat to myself or other people. Like wow. So honestly, I look back at that time like now, and I think it's kind of funny because I'm like, mom, dad, like, come on. Like you, you, you should have known. You should have known it was OCD.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

We have a whole plan to talk to you about your eating disorder, but uh, we're I'm throwing that out the window right now because you just told us that it's seven.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

You were sent to a uh mental hospital. So what what led up to that? What symptoms were you exhibiting that made your parents say, okay, we think this is serious enough to send her away?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah, this is the part of my story that I honestly don't think I've ever really shared. But this is kind of the root of where all of my mental health problems started. And I do just want to send out a little trigger warning um because it is pretty heavy. But um, when I was seven, I was sexually assaulted by my great uncle. He shortly died after, which I thank God. Um, and then right after his death, I all of a sudden woke up in the middle of the night with severe intrusive harm OCD thoughts. I was terrified I was going to hurt my family, whether that be sexually or like physically, with I remember saying, like, the knives in the kitchen, I'm so scared I'm gonna take them and hurt my sisters. Um and this all just kind of culminated into me confessing to my mom, hey, these are my thoughts. This is what happened to me. I don't know what to do. Um, and so I think my mom being the very like quickly responsive mom that she was, she was like, okay, we're gonna get you the best care we can. And so that's what led to, you know, she sent me to a local children's hospital. Um, and and it was looking back what I needed to stabilize myself. But I think now it's funny to like look back with some humor on a time that was actually like quite dark for me. Um, so yeah, that's kind of how that happened.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Well, thank you for sharing that with us. So when you were in the mental hospital, were they able to identify right away that it was OCD you were struggling with?

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yeah, so I will say this was probably wow, now I'm 28. And so this was 20 years ago. I do think OCD research and just how they address it treatment-wise has improved so much. Um, I didn't love how immediately I was just put on medication, like whatever they could get to just chill me out. Um, and they sent me home on that same medication. I'm not quite sure what it was, but they did identify that I had OCD. They told my parents after I went home just to never talk to me about my OCD or my trauma again. And so that was professional advice my parents had gotten. Um, I therefore did not grow up understanding OCD. No one explained what is OCD. It's a chronic condition. It's something that might come up again. And so when I started experiencing symptoms again in middle school, high school, college, I had no idea that it was OCD. I just thought that there was something severely wrong with me. And I figured that it was related to the fact I was sexually assaulted because my parents never wanted to bring it up. So there was just so much shame around, okay, I'm a bad person. And so now, you know, 20 years later, having gone through that, the root of a lot of my issues is still I'm scared that I'm a bad person. And that's kind of like the core fear that all of my OCD latches on to.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

That's actually how I found you when you shared that real. I think it went viral of you having that moment. Um, I don't know, I think you were in the kitchen with your boyfriend. Yeah, my old one. Yeah, your husband, sorry. Um yeah, that was a really vulnerable moment to share. Um, and if you want, share, share uh for the listeners what was going on in that moment, just since we're on that topic.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, I had been having an OCD flare-up for the past couple of weeks. When I say flare-up, just you know, a lot of things were happening externally with moving. And, you know, I got into grad school, so I figured out I'm gonna have to move again, and just kind of craziness happening around me. And so internally, yeah, stress. Internally, I started to feel that buildup, and the thoughts were just getting so much louder. And so when my little dog escaped somehow from our front porch at this apartment we were renting, um, and a neighbor brought him to the door, she she was quite rude. She basically called me a bad dog mom. Like, I just it just all piled on. And when you already have a core fear of like, I'm a bad person, and then your thoughts during that time, things are flaring up. So they're telling you you're a horrible person and you're a failure, and you know, you're not good enough. And then someone quite literally tells you that to your face, it just all piles on, and I just couldn't handle it. And I am not a crier, I am not a crier. And so for me to just be breaking down in the kitchen while I'm making dinner is really saying something. I think it just finally got to me. And by the way, Liam is not a crier either.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Maybe you guys didn't. I am the biggest crybaby ever. I'll cry for the both of you.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

I mean, I I think it's good like to cry because you can get that emotion out and and redirect it in a positive way, and crying is a great way to do that. Unfortunately, I just I think for so many years I suppressed my emotions. It's really hard for me to cry.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Well, one thing you said in that video that really stuck out to me, which is I think at the video I saw that made me reach out to you was I just feel like I'm gonna have these intrusive thoughts forever. Am I gonna have my OCD forever? And when you have the flare up and you're in the thick of it, you really can't see outside of that, and you just fear like this is gonna be forever. So in that moment, because we've all felt that what gets you out of it? What's your go-to in those moments?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, so I would say the first thing is I am a follower of Jesus, and when I say that, I always like to clarify to people I'm not that, you know, Christian that you see on TV, the Christian nationalist that's just like forcing everyone to pray. No, I'm a true believer in God, and I think a lot of that came from recovery and the 12 steps of recovery and just surrendering to a higher power, right? And so for me, in those moments when I can just surrender control as best I can and remember, you know, God's been good to me in the past, He's gonna be good to me in the future. I just I have to ride the wave of almost like gratitude of like, I truly know that this is one drop in my journey, like this is one little valley, and there will be a lot more hills and there will be a lot more valleys. And, you know, it's this is just such a small piece. I think when we're in it, one of the things OCD is really good at is catastrophizing the moment. And it wants you to just feel this sense of urgency and catastrophe. And so we almost have to fight that by taking a step back and not fighting those thoughts, but just accepting that they're there and reminding ourselves that this is temporary and a future version of yourself as well as a past version of yourself probably feels better than you do right now. Like I almost just remembered that past version of myself that felt really good like four months ago. Yes. And and that's what I used to ground me.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

And trust that you'll have another day like that, another period like that. I wanted to ask when OCD reared its head again for you in middle school, was it showing up as harm OCD again, or were there other subtypes that were popping up? How are you experiencing it in that part of your life?

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Such a good question. Okay, so and that's I love that you mentioned the subtypes because so many people are not informed about the fact that OCD can mutate. And so I have not experienced harm OCD again since I was seven, in the same way that I did with like the I'm scared I'm gonna take knives and hurt someone. I, when I was 13, what started to happen was it was a mixture of like harm and germophobia OCD. So I was just terrified of touching people because I was afraid I would sexually assault them if I was touching them. And so, say, say my dad touched this table. And I remember this very distinctly at 13, this exact situation. My dad touches this table. Okay, that table touched my dad. So if I touch that table, that's gonna transfer the germs onto me. And if he touched himself in a in a specific place, that means I sexually assaulted him. And so there was a mixture of just this magical thinking with germophobia, with harm OCD, and they all connected with one another and kind of mutated onto each other to cause this very niche specific fear. But when I tell you it was so intrusive, like it was so it was so bad, like so, so bad. I had to go back to therapy, do pretty intense, like exposure response stuff. Um, but yeah, that one went away too. Uh, so that's good.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

So that's in middle school, and you did connect it as an OCD thing in that moment, or were you unsure what was happening? How did you end up getting treatment for that?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah, I was very unsure of what was happening. Luckily, my parents remembered the specialist that I had when I went to the mental hospital when I was seven. So they sent me to that woman again for like, I want to say six months. And we basically, it's so interesting because I remember she didn't really do much other than like we played board games and like I think there was some like acceptance like ACT therapy in there. But um, it it was just like talking through my trauma. I think that was the first time at 13 that I had actually had someone to talk about what happened to me. And so just her connecting the fact that something bad happened to me, but that doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or I'm capable of hurting other people. That alone kind of just broke off the chains of OCD at that moment.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

I feel like there's a connection between what our OCD themes are and what and the trauma that we experience. For sure. Because, you know, like after your experience when you were seven, you know, I feel like your body was in fight or flight, and then that triggered your OCD, and then the thing, the themes that stemmed around that. And a lot of people we talk to, they're they experience a lot of trauma. And then they they developed their OCD. I'm just yeah, I don't know. It's just I'm trying to connect the dots here on like because before before that happened and you experienced that, did you experience OCD prior to that?

SPEAKER_02 13:06

No, I definitely think it was the trigger. But but uh as you say that, so I've looked a lot into, I'm just like very curious about OCD because obviously I haven't really done the deep work until honestly this past like year, year and a half. And so I read a book by Jeffrey Schwartz, it's called Brain Lock, and he kind of he's a really, really good like researcher into OCD, and I believe he teaches at Stanford. Um, but he's like one of the leading researchers on OCD, and he does connect OCD to trauma as well as just genetics. And so I do feel like trauma impacts your sense of self so much that I think it really is connected to more of like your personality and your personality traits. Like we have beliefs about oneself and and we have certain personality traits that we take on, and I think that's what fuels the OCD. So whether trauma disintegrates, yeah. So whether trauma kind of impacts that sense of self or whether it doesn't, I think OCD just, you know, it does take our biggest fears, which are very connected to our sense of self, and exacerbate them.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Yep, you nailed it. I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Uh yeah, I think there are a couple of different ways to OCD, right? There's a genetic link, you could have that genetic predisposition. There is definitely a link between trauma and OCD that is being studied, and there's a lot of evidence that those two can be connected. And then you have something like pandas where kids get strep throat the next day they wake up with acute OCD symptoms. So there are a few different fun ways to arrive at what we all are struggling with. At some point for you, Tori, you also experienced an eating disorder. And I wonder if you think that those are linked in some way. And can you tell us a little bit about what your experience was with that?

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Yeah, I would love for people to do more research on the connection between OCD and eating disorders because I very much think that if I didn't have OCD, I would not have developed an eating disorder. I really think that OCD was the layer. I I kind of conceptualize what I've been through as like trauma is the core, then OCD, then my eating disorder. So I really think the eating disorder was a symptom of my obsessive-compulsive disorder. And the reason I say that is because as I was healing from my eating disorder, you know, I had it for five years from the middle of college to um 25. And at 25, I'm now 28, I decided to heal from that eating disorder. So I'm about to come up on three years of recovery. Yay. But um, which is great and it's a great accomplishment. But I noticed a year into that recovery, I was about 26, and I started having these intense thoughts about like, I'm not doing recovery perfectly. Like I am a bad person. I I was obsessing over my hunger and fullness cues, and I just couldn't figure out what was going on. I kept telling my treatment team, like, something is wrong with me. Like, I need to go back to eating disorder treatment. I I have no idea what's happening. And so what's so fascinating to me is that a lot of times OCD cannot just fuel the eating disorder, but can almost mask itself as the eating disorder and create those like those symptoms. Like a lot of things I thought were the eating disorder was just OCD. And so, yeah, now I'm just kind of in this phase where I'm disentangling the OCD from the eating disorder and and just kind of figuring out like what is OCD, what is the eating disorder, how can I address both of these?

SPEAKER_03 16:51

You need that certainty, right? And and it's gonna play into every part of your life. And eat eating's a big part of our life. So if you can feel like you have this illusion of controlling it, it's it's gonna manifest in into an eating disorder, unfortunately. What was yours? What did you deprive yourself of food? Was it food rules?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

What were you? It's interesting. So I had anorexia, but I also had bulimia, and usually when you have that double diagnosis, they just call it anorexia subtype binge purge disorder. And so I kind of had a mixture of both, but I do think the bulimia was more of a control issue that wasn't as related to the OCD. I very much think that the anorexia, the counting, the checking, the figuring out, you know, how much how can I get it just right, just perfectly, that was very much a manifest manifestation of the OCD.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

The calorie counting, and if I eat this many carrots, it's this many, uh yeah, that that that makes perfect sense to me. And that just right stuff too. So was there a rock bottom with the eating disorder where you realized, okay, it's time to go in for treatment?

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Oh yeah. I was 25. Um, it had been five years of just like honestly, every single day was miserable. Like I did not, I did, I had no hope, truly. Um, I was so, so obsessed with my weight and how I looked that I had no personality. I feel like I was treating everyone around me so poorly, like my friends, my family. And that's just not me. Like I am a very kind, like love to help people type of person. And so it finally got to the point where I was on the bathroom floor and I didn't know what to do. I self-harmed actually for the first and last time. Um, I think kind of as a cry for help. So I don't like to necessarily claim self-harm as I know a lot of people struggle with that. But I sent a picture to my mom, and then she just like raced down to Florida. We were living in Florida at the time, so it was like a 12-hour drive from North Carolina, and she raced down and kind of helped me find a place to go.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

At what point did you address the sexual abuse and the trauma that came from that?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yeah, I I will say I probably could do more work on it. But at the same time, like I spent three months during treatment for my eating disorder where I feel like my therapy wasn't even related to the eating disorder. It was all like EMDR intense, like going back, like reshaping how I viewed the trauma. Um, so I feel like as far as processing what happened to me and you know, being able to talk about it, I remember years ago, I would sob if anyone even mentioned like sexual assault at all. Um, that's just it.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

I mean, unless we unless we get help with that first, I don't feel like our OCD is ever gonna get better. And that could just be a strong assumption on my end, a poorer assumption. But um, yeah, I think we need to address the trauma first.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

I do too. And I think like what's interesting is now, you know, a couple years later, I'm noticing bits of that come back. I do think I needed to address the trauma full force at the beginning, and now I'm recognizing some of the shame and some of the like I'm a bad person. It's starting to come back a little bit or like rear its ugly head in little areas, and that's when I think it would be important for me to address the trauma in tandem with my OCD therapist.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, it's so intertwined. The eating disorder treatment, it sounds like they did some EMDR. Was that also an exposure treatment? I'm not totally with how you treat an eating disorder, but given that this one was so linked with your OCD, my guess is exposure is involved, right? Like let's eat this ice cream, let's eat this cupcake, whatever it might be.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yeah, so I went initially to a residential facility. I only stayed there for eight days because it was quite it was it was not a great facility. They don't have great reviews. Um, but then I went somewhere else and it was much better. But what they typically do at residential facilities is it's I sounds kind of bad, but it's a lot of force feeding, right? Like you'll have these meals and you have three meals, three snacks a day, and the idea is you will complete every single one of them. When you're in more of an intensive outpatient setting, which is where I went next, there is a bit more flexibility or like autonomy in, hey, we're gonna challenge fear foods, we're going to eat bigger meals, we're gonna make sure we follow a meal plan. But I knew I was so dedicated to healing that like I'm not very good with like you're going to force me to do XYZ. So I very much liked more of the autonomy base. Um, but yeah, the basis of all that is exposure response prevention. Like it is expose yourself to these foods. Over time, they will get less and less scary. And honestly, it definitely works. Like, I I don't know about the force feeding. I I still to this day don't think that's a great idea because I think the response prevention piece is probably the piece. It's missing, people aren't responding in a great way to it, but but overall, like I really think it was effective what what they did for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

I think I saw you eating cake the other day or something on your Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

No, now it's like it's so funny. My husband's like, Tori, you like ask me to order dominoes like weekly with like cinnamon bites and like icing, like girl. Like if ever ever I doubt like my recovery, he's like, You're fine. You're fine.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Do you doubt your recovery? And what does that look like? Because oftentimes that comes up for Liam and I. He recently went back into therapy and we're like, do we even have OCD anymore? And then and then sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so bad. Like, how do you navigate where you are? You talk a lot about healing isn't linear, which we all know it's not. Yeah. So when you have those spirals and you have your flare-ups, um, yeah, how do you navigate those questions that come up for you?

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Yeah, interestingly, I think one of my OCD's favorite tricks is just to get me to obsess over if I'm doing well in eating disorder recovery. So, like I full force, like always just care about eating disorder stuff. Like I want to make sure I'm doing the right things. Like, I don't want to mess up, I want to be a good example to people. And then I don't realize that's actually my OCD latching on to my recovery. Hence why I often say, like, I have recovery OCD, which is something no one talks about. So what's interesting is like I will let OCD slip by and kind of just mask itself as me being protective over my eating disorder recovery when I really think the issue is probably OCD trying to like control things. But yeah, as far as the layers of that, it's like it's so intertwined. It's so freaking hard to because like I'm now in the phase where like I am intuitive eating. And when I tell you the fact that there is no guide to intuitive eating, and I'm supposed to listen to my hunger and fullness cues, like I will have those times that are really stressful in life, I will be so disconnected from like what my hunger and fullness cues are sometimes that I'm like, I don't know what the right thing to do is. And so my OCD will just have I can relate to that. Yeah, like my OCD will literally have me obsess over my hunger and fullness cues like all day. And so I was going through that about a month ago, and that one's kind of one that will go away and come back, and I just have to like face it as best I can. But it's so interesting because you hear that come up, and my first thought is like, oh, she has an eating disorder again, right? Because it's food and it's hunger and fullness and obsessing. And no, I'm I'm not freaking out about workouts and calories, it's just weirdly manifesting in a different way. So that's why I think it gets really confusing and intertwined sometimes with OCD.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

If someone hasn't heard of recovery OCD, because frankly, I had not, although it makes sense to me now that you describe it, but could you define that for someone who hasn't heard of that, doesn't know what that is?

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, I would say recovery OCD is well, okay. First I would take a step back. OCD can latch onto anything that you care about. So I know a lot of times we like to identify OCD as subtypes, but I could easily have like a specific OCD that doesn't fit into the perfect subtype box. And so yeah, a lot of people haven't heard about recovery OCD. It's really the same thing of like, I'm obsessed with being perfect in recovery or doing recovery the right way. And I feel like if I don't do it the right way, I'm a bad person, and that means I've relapsed. And so I had this intense fear of relapse or messing up. And the way my brain kind of accommodates to that fear is I will sit and just ruminate and I will sit and check my hungerfulness cues constantly, and I will ask for a reassurance about my recovery journey from professionals. And so, so that's kind of how that manifests for me.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Tori, I have never felt more understood than listening to you. We are so similar. Um the difference is I'm 42 this year, and I only recently found out in the last year that I have OCD, and I have lived my entire life in my head like that, not knowing.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Can I just bave and both like do not look like you're in your 40s? Not that that matters, but like you look so easy. Like I would maybe I'm 42 and I'm like, oh gosh, like I gotta get my red light therapy going.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

Yeah, I do love those. Thank you for that. That's really sweet.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Um, no, yeah, it's it that's why it's so important to talk about it and to share our experiences so that people can have those aha moments of like, oh my gosh, me too. You know, if it wasn't for Liam sharing his story with me, I would still be very hurt and in pain and yeah, and depressed. So yeah, thanks for sharing.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

The depression is so secondary to the OCD. Like a lot of times people will think they have depression. And I'm like, guys, make sure you know CD. Like, make sure the OCD isn't fueling.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Every time I hear about that now, I'm like, well, what's the root of the depression? Let's talk this through because I don't think you even know that you have OCD and the rumination and all the things causing it, and you're just burnt out. I know. And I feel like you can almost identify it with people now that I see it. I'm like, oh my gosh, she doesn't even realize that that's OCD. How do you tell them?

SPEAKER_02 27:25

It's so hard. The diagnoses are so interesting, and you really have to find a good psych. Like you, that's like the number one thing I tell people find a good psychiatrist because there's I went to a psychiatrist, guys, mid-recovery of my eating disorder, and she was like, You're right, you don't have OCD. It is all in your head, it is your eating disorder. You should go back to treatment. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so bad. And it's like, no, she was wrong. She she had no idea what was actually happening, but sometimes they just work with symptoms and they they don't look at the what is happening inside, like at a deeper level.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

You need to find someone who's specialized in OCD. I was misdiagnosed for years with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, and it was never caught that it was OCD. And so then I struggled like Alicia did for years and years and years needlessly when I could have been getting the proper treatment. Uh, you mentioned the recovery OCD. I'm curious if that showed up or has shown up in your relationship with your therapists as well, because I've gotten into this pattern of like trying to be the perfect patient. Uh uh. And I recognize that that's happening. And there are even times so for people who haven't been in ERP, you before an exposure that you're about to do with your therapist, you will tell him or her what your current stress level is. And you know, say, okay, it's a one. One ten being the highest zero is nothing. You're starting the session, you're a one. And then they'll do an exposure with you and say, Okay, so where are you now? And you're like, okay, I'm a five or whatever. And then in theory, you're then supposed to come down as you're doing your response messages and as you're just sitting with the discomfort. And there are times where I shouldn't admit this, but I will just be like, Yeah, no, I'm down to a two now, and I'm not, I'm still like up here, but I I want to be the perfect.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Like you don't want to disappoint, you don't want to disappoint her.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

Yeah. Yeah. She's just lying to herself. I mean, I think we all do the same.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Yeah, I don't think I've ever related to something more. And but here's the thing, and then I'll obsess over like, am I a bad person? Cause like, am I lying or not? So, like, I always say, like, yes, give me something to obsess over if it matters to me. Like, I promise you I'll be good at it. Like, if they had an award and obsessing over something, like, I got you, I'll be there.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we always say that we would win win the Olympics of yes, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Can I ask actually, if you don't mind talking about it, what to like what your OCD is or like what you struggle with, unless you're not comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

No, no, definitely. We we've we share it all on this show.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Um I know I need to go back and listen to some of you guys' F's because you, Tori, you would really like you would really like it. It's actually really it's really good. I like funny like you guys, like you're really cool. Yay! I don't have to ruminate with that thought if I if you liked me or not, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

No, yeah, we don't necessarily have to include this in the episode, but I'll just tell you quickly that I've had several subtypes throughout my life, similar pattern to a lot of other people where um, you know, different phases of your life, different things pop up. When I was a kid, again, I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my late 30s, but uh when I then looked back on my life, I identified all these different moments. And when I so when I was a kid, I had a really bad case of harm O CD. I was obsessed that my parents were gonna die, and that if I didn't do things in an exact right way, I was gonna cause their death. So I did lots of prayers, lots of light switches, tapping. Um that went on for years and years, and my parents just thought I was just you know anxious, right? They didn't have any of that vocabulary, they didn't know what OCD was. And um, and I was very good, I I'm very good at masking. Um, I think Alicia and I have joked that if there were an Olympic sport for masking, we would we would win the gold medal.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

I I I was an actor, actor, so I I masked the hell out of that thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah. I was like super focused on achievement. So for me to admit that I was having this struggle was just unthinkable. So I just dealt with it myself. But I had that was harm OCD, and then um it showed up in all kinds of other ways. I I actually did have some disordered eating at one point, and and I look back on that now and go, okay, that was definitely an OCD thing. And then um then really for the last like five to ten years, the main theme has been relationship OCD.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

So Oh, I feel you. I feel you. It's been going on for that long, Liam.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yeah, so it's showed up, it showed up a bunch of different ways for me.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

When I tell you the amount of times I've like almost left my husband because of my relationship OCD, like it's a joke at this point with me and him of like, Tori, you gotta calm down. Like that is just an intrusive thought. I mean, I haven't had that come up in like a couple years, but early on in our marriage, I was like, is this per is this the perfect love of my life? Like, am I doing like is it's it's crazy. So I get that one for sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Yeah. I mean, that still comes up for me too. I think I asked my husband the other night, I'm like, do you think we're soulmates like for real? Or did we just get married because we're like and he's like, I honey, it's like 10, it's 10 p.m. over here. Let's go to bed. I'm like, you just tell me because it's your OCD, go to bed. And I'm like, oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Sometimes we just need them to call us out on like our bullshit. Like my husband sucks the most moments. No, it sucks. It sucks for sure. But yeah, we kind of make it a joke now, too. You gotta mix in some humor.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

That's the best. Yes. When you have a partner that doesn't get burnt out and want to divorce you over it and can like walk through the fire with you on the other side, you're like, okay, for sure. We made it. We made it to the other side, and I love you, and we're gonna get through this. It's so important. Quick break. We'll be right back. But first, a word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

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SPEAKER_02 35:27

I do have to say one thing is like I didn't realize until pretty lately, like that OCD is related to Asberger's and Tourette's. And when I found that out, that made so much sense to me because I was like, first of all, it made me feel better because we'll never be fixed, right? Like I think people just need to know it's not exactly like generalized anxiety where you can be in remission. Like, yes, you can be in remission in the fact of like it won't affect you as much, but it is a condition that you're going to have your whole life. So for me, at least that like took some of the pressure away because I was like, okay, it's like I, it's like I have Tourette's. Like I just gotta like chill it down as much as I can in my head, but know at the same time, it's not gonna go away. And that just like made me feel better because for me at least, my OCD loves to put pressure on me and like you'll never get out of this, you'll never get out of this. And like, I don't know, kind of encouraging myself, like, you'll never get out of this, and that's fine. And you'll also like be able to manage it, and it's cool. Like, I just think taking off the pressure. Yeah, yeah. Some people think it's a death sentence, but I think it's encouraging.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, we've had so many debates on this show, and different guests bring different perspectives. There's that debate about can you cure OCD? Some people prefer to refer to it as freedom. Can you get freedom from OCD? Other people think about it as, well, if you're no longer at a clinically diagnosable level of OCD, is that essentially the goal to get to a point where, you know, your stress from it, your your discomfort from it is low enough that you would probably not be diagnosed with it anymore. Um it's where where do you stand on that? It sounds like your perspective is no, you essentially just want to get to a place where you can live your life and recognize that at some point it might rear its head again and you'll have the tools and the ability to deal with it in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Yeah, I think that's really well said. I I agree with that in OCD as well as eating disorder stuff. So there's also a big argument in the eating disorder recovery community over, you know, can you be recovered from an eating disorder? And I am very much of the kind of ideology that you can achieve full recovery in the sense that you know how to manage yourself well, you know how to use tools. It doesn't really come up for you as much nearly as it ever did. And you're not immune. And I think that's what's so important is to remember the second you kind of speak, I am healed over myself, which I have spoken over myself in the past, that's the moment where like you almost create more vulnerability because you've told yourself, hey, I'm immune, like I don't struggle with this anymore. And then that's when OCD might come up. And because you've told yourself, oh, I'm healed from this, that just creates more and more shame if it comes up again. And so I always tell people, like, I'm never going to tell myself I'm healed from my eating disorder or my OCD because I don't want, if those symptoms come up again, to feel an immense amount of shame or like I'm going backwards or like anything like that. I just want to feel like recovery and healing is a process and I'm doing the best I can every day.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

I feel like that's Liam. Do you share the similar? I feel like you you say the exact same thing. That's your view on it as well. I think my view is a little different. Similar, of course, but um I think I'm I'm more on the why not just think that I can free myself of this entirely and not shame myself when it does come up. Like my goal is freedom. Yeah. I, you know, my goal is to say I can with lifestyle changes and maybe the right medication and the tools, I can be almost entirely free of this.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah. And I think that too is like freedom looks differently for so many different people. Like, I also would say my goal is freedom, but freedom for me just looks like maybe having it as background noise, but not noise that I pay attention to. So I but I do know some people who it's like, no, I can't have an ounce of this in my head. Like that is freedom for me. So I think it's also kind of like with your team setting expectations. I think because I have so many, you know, I've struggled with OCD, an eating disorder, trauma. I'm just trying to set the expectation of like I didn't really deal with this stuff until 25, is when I really started digging into it. So I have 25 years of undoing to kind of work on. And I always have the advice that like it takes, you know, twice as long to heal from something as it does like the negative patterns that you were sitting in. And so I'm like, honestly, that just shows me it's gonna be a lifetime of growth and healing. And if I can just like, I think the main thing for me is the pressure. Like, I feel so much pressure to be fixed tomorrow. And so if I can just take that pressure down by setting the expectation of like you will be walking in freedom, but it won't be perfect freedom until you know heaven, then I don't know. I feel like that's helpful for for me personally, but I think everyone's different, and some people don't struggle with pressure like I do. Like I am not good with pressure. If you told me I could be healed, I'd be like, okay, tomorrow. Like now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Yeah, I think that that's my approach to it too, Tori. Is I'm big into expectations management, you know. Um, I I don't want to be in a situation where my expectation is perfection. And I I we said this to Dr. Liz Mackinale, Alicia, and she said, Well, yeah, no, perfection is not the goal. And so then at some point it just becomes semantics. But to me, I my approach and I feel better with the approach of this is a lifelong situation, and the sooner I'm okay with that, the better. Like, and that doesn't mean yeah, that literally just gut punched me when you said that.

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Like I have a hard time wrapping my head around this lifelong situation. Yeah, but maybe that's part of my OCD is not wanting to let go of that control that I the illusion that I think I have over it. Yeah, you know, like I can control this, I can fix this, and I will. But that that does and has manifested into eating disorders and being very health conscious because for a long time I thought mold was running this, was driving the ship. I thought my mold illness and my eating habits and my workouts were the reason why I was having so many um intrusive thoughts and compulsions and depression. And so for me, you know, it's still very new, but I also think that there's a lot to be said about, yeah. I guess you guys are you're yeah, I'm still in the thick of trying to wrap my head around this being a lifelong thing. I don't I don't like that at all.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

I don't mean a lifelong shitty situation.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

I just mean that that's what I hear.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

No, no, yeah, that you work on it to a point where you still have a great quality of life and you can be large and free of the intrusive thoughts and the compulsions, but that you recognize that your brain is wired a certain way, that many other people's brains are not wired, and that and that, you know, to some extent you're keeping um, I don't want to say keeping your guard up, because that I think it means that you're applying too much effort to it. It's just more like you're aware that somewhere in there, somewhere in the back of your mind, it's in there, and and you're, you know, you're gonna live with that and get to a place of comfort with it.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Yeah, I think if you can, over time, if we can see OCD more as like a personality trait that we can use for our benefit, like it actually does cause a lot of creativity. And a lot of people with OCD are pretty intellectual and good thinkers. Like, the more I can focus on using it for my advantage and kind of transitioning towards seeing it less of like kind of this death sentence, but more of like a superpower that I have, I think that's a help more helpful way. That I can visualize like quote unquote living with it. You know, like you almost live with like traits of it. And that's what me and my therapist are working on, right? Is like once you've done a lot of exposure stuff, like how can you start to work on using the positive aspects of OCD for your benefit?

SPEAKER_03 44:17

Yeah, like your voice and sharing your experience to help others. That's one right there. Yeah. And you have your own podcast. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah. I have I have a podcast. It's called Keep Growing. I, you know, I'm not a huge podcaster. I basically just created it because I had a lot of girls want me to talk more deeply about eating disorder and OCD topics. And through it, I feel like it's kind of allowed me to have my own voice. I've never been good at speaking or public speaking. I just get really nervous. I know that sounds stupid, but like I just get nervous. And so it's almost been like a fun exercise for me to establish my own voice, but also have a long-form way of engaging people and talking about topics more deeply than I can on like Instagram or TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Where can people find your podcast?

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Yeah, you can find it on honestly. I send people to the Instagram because I feel like our Instagram is such a vibe. It's Keep Growing Pod on Instagram. And then the links to the Spotify and Apple are in the bio.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

And then how about your Instagram?

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Oh yeah, my Instagram is Grow With Tori. And that's both Instagram and TikTok. And I started a YouTube because I feel like YouTube's really fun and I want to explore it. But yeah, we'll see on that too. I'm kind of a big like the more I do OCD recovery, the more I'm really trying to embrace flexibility, spontaneity, like creativity. And so I'm almost using all of these outlets to do that. So I'm trying not to be super black and white with like a perfect schedule or like a perfect brand identity. Like we're just kind of doing life over there.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Okay, so really fast before we hang up, you guys, if someone is listening and they're in the thick and they are of it and they're struggling with an eating disorder, what is something that you would like to say to them?

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Yeah, I would say honestly, the first thing is just community. Like I think we forget how often like isolation alone can cause issues to really increase, whether it be an eating disorder or OCD. So when I say community, I'm not just talking about family and friends, but like integrate a therapist, a psych, a dietitian, like get a team of people that you can do life with and just expect them to be your backbone for the rest of your life. Like just like surround yourself with people. I think I didn't realize early enough how important it is not to isolate yourself because the thoughts feed on isolation, truly.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

That's great advice. That's great advice for everyone, not just people with eating disorders and OCD. So, Tori, you are such a light. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this and being so.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

Oh, thank you. You guys are awesome. Thanks for creating this space. It's so cool to like talk about these hard things and not feel judged or weird. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

You guys go check her out. She's wise, smart, and really does a good job at bringing awareness to OCD. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Thank you. You're so kind. And I've loved hanging out with you guys. You're so freaking cool. Like, I wish we all like got to hang out. I I know. Well, hopefully in July we will. That would be so fun to meet you in person. No, I'm I'm gonna be there a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

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.