How do you recover from OCD? Interview with Kelly Renee

[@robynbarrow5194]

I am 61 years old, over the years I have tried many different ways of treating my OCD. You name it I have tried it. What has made the most impact for me is Mark's book, You are not a rock. I am working through the book slowly and I can honestly say that this book is helping me more than any other book/therapy I have ever encountered. It has given me many new realisations and I am committed to do whatever it takes to live a better quality of life, to live my life according to what I value. Also, this interview is brilliant and extremely helpful as well. Thank you so much!

[@careersteering]

I am so glad to hear that OCD is NOT chronic (or doesn't have to be). This video gave me hope.

[@everybodyhasabrain]

It is so useful to see that we can create a different path to take.

[@j.c.denton2060]

I really liked the trail metaphor. It really does feel like a physically intense thing to resist asking for reassurance and confessing when you're in the OCD loop.

[@everybodyhasabrain]

It is such a useful metaphor!

[@Blacktiinkerbell]

@@everybodyhasabrain hi can I message you elsewhere?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

@@Blacktiinkerbell There is a Mental Fitness Discord server we have a Questions channel and myself or others experienced with recovery share feedback. You can join with this link: discord.gg/yj2FTeSQMt

[@leakindt653]

This is a phenomenal interview, thank you for sharing!

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks, Lea!

[@MattLees-Nunan]

Great interview! Thank you so much for your time Mark and Kelly. Very informative👌

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks for watching, Matt!

[@TheMoonrise007]

When she said when your brain says " ' but this time...' that's suss" is so relatable 😂😂 What a great indicator that it really is just the feeling of fear. I also really relates to her stating her worst fear and saying "now what do you guys want for dinner." I love the rawness of her words and relate sooo much to her struggle of practicing acceptance, which perhaps practicing acceptance is always a struggle but a very long-term, rewarding struggle. Thank you!!

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks for watching! I'm glad you found the discussion useful to hear!

[@Emily-yp8zs]

Thank you Kelly, for introducing me to so many brain things! I'm going to dig in and get some self-work done.

[@stevepepin9009]

Really well done. Thank you for sharing your journey, Kelly!

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks for watching, Steve!

[@annwhelan547]

Thanks for this very important program! So helpful.

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks for watching!

[@paige15803]

MARK I'm feeling better after a couple of days the thoughts are still here but I'm feeling happier

WOW this is incredible, I feel so much better since I watch this video it open my mind so much, I didnt know it had a cure and this is so helpful ❤️

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Enjoy the adventures and changes ahead!

[@davidmurphy1009]

Amazing Guys

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks, David!

[@jayl7855]

Hey Mark, I just watched your video from years ago saying that anxiety and ocd are just symptoms of practicing detrimental compulsive behaviors and it gave me an overwhelming amount of confidence in tackling this problem because it helped me believe that my mind was the problem, not my brain. However recently as I was approaching about 90% recovery, I relapsed and compulsed again by looking up stuff on the internet and read things about how there are certain parts of the brain that are malfunctioning in brain scans of individuals with OCD. I was wondering what your take on this was. My ocd has gotten very severe since and I feel as if my perspective on this problem after reading about the brain scans is a significant reason as to why I feel like I am a victim of my own brain again. In case you don't like addressing such problems on your youtube channel, I am more than willing to pay for a session with you or contact you via email. Best, a fellow sufferer

[@everybodyhasabrain]

One thing that I find useful is not getting caught up in measuring recovery like 93.5% recovery or anything like that. I found it more helpful to approach mental health like physical fitness. Because then, when a new challenge comes up, I want to approach it with fitness skills. It's totally normal in the gym to encounter challenges. That's not a reason to go and do compulsions. Now, onto the question you asked: Brain scans! This is one of my favourite topics to debunk. The stuff you saw on the internet is basically a meme now, and outdated. There was a time when we thought we would be able to diagnose mental illnesses with brain scans. And there were a bunch of studies done that hyped up the results. But we quickly learned that's not possible. 1) For starters, there are simple, logical problems with a study like that. If somebody has been diagnosed with OCD, then anything in their brain could be the result of OCD, not the cause. If you see somebody in the gym with large muscles, you don't assume those large muscles were the cause of them exercising. So any study on the structure of a body of somebody with a disorder like OCD, which involves repetitive behaviors inside and outside of their head, isn't going to tell you anything causative. 2) Many of those early studies haven't been replicated. That's why we don't have brain scans to diagnose mental illness. In small studies, you can often find patterns in the data. But when we move up to large studies or we try to apply the same findings to other groups of people, the results fall apart. Some of this has to do with the fact we're still learning how to do brain scans and analyze the data. A lot has been changing in the neuroscience field in the past 10 years. Many of the studies you saw probably came before that. A fun study that called into question many earlier brain scan studies was this one, on brain activity in dead salmon: www.wired.com/2009/09/fmrisalmon/ 3) Even genetic studies find a similar amount of heterogeneity that we see in the brain scan studies. Each time we find a new gene that may be implicated as a potential causative factor for a mental illness, a larger study comes out that finds lots of people with no mental illness symptoms have the same genetic mutation. Looking for simple, black and white answers when it comes to human behaviour simply isn't realistic. But engaging in that black and white thinking is a very common compulsion you can get caught up in. SO it's very useful to cut out compulsions!

[@Ma-tu2jd]

Guys why isn’t this on tv?! Come on that’s the future

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Many people watch KZbin on TV now. It just depends on your TV set.

[@Ma-tu2jd]

@@everybodyhasabrain yes😅

[@Ma-tu2jd]

Anyway the interview is amazing thank you

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Thanks!

[@Ma-tu2jd]

@@everybodyhasabrain i don’t know if I was clear but I meant that your interview should be aired on tv as well . Because I definitely. Use more KZbin but I know people still watch tv (I wasn’t talking though about the fact that tv was best or anything )

[@COLOFIDUTI]

its hard work indeed.I have heart anxiety over my heart palpitations and such, and man feels like im diyng every effing time 😢 Im living my life mostly normal , but i still cant workout which i miss dearly

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Have fun cutting out those compulsions as you explore doing more of the things you want to do!

[@haneenbany-mohammed4981]

beautiful

[@Whoeverwhateverwhenever]

PLEASE can you make an interview like this on contamination ocd?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

It can really help to tackle OCD as a pattern. The topic of the fear is irrelevant. The exact same tools mentioned here would apply to any OCD compulsions. The fear of dying from a heart attack is no different then the fear of being contaminated with something that could kill you. It's just a fear of a thing you're afraid of. Getting over it is about shifting the focus to the healthy actions you want to spend your time and energy on in life.

[@maketheworldabetterplace5624]

Should values be on top of the to do list when getting started on mental health work or should overcoming the intrusive feelings be?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

There's nothing wrong with feelings.. Judging and trying to avoid/ control feelings is the problem, so it's definitely not something I'd put on any to-do list

[@maketheworldabetterplace5624]

@@everybodyhasabrain just started reading "your not a rock" freaking exhausting and I just feel like smoking and drinking my problems away but gonna stick through with it for now. Thanks for your tips!

[@Dupontcore]

Good stuff. Got your book. Have been working through the ideal inventory and making that list of compulsions I want to crack down on. Personal story. I shaved my head during COVID last summer bc well, I had that lovely bald spot. I always wore hats in public. I wore regular hats, gross hats that hadnt been washed in forever, bucket hats, anything to cover my head. I wore them INSIDE MY HOUSE!!! This week I decided the easiest compulsion to cut would be that one- I just don’t wear the hat! Worked great. Felt super dumb for wearing the hats in the first place and I see just how silly this compulsion was and how easy it was to fix it. Like you say “change beliefs through ACTION” Would you provide the link for the discord?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Congratulations on noticing that and making that change! Enjoy :) And here is the Discord invite: discord.gg/DbkM5XBcbD

[@kristymarie6065]

I find myself crying more during recovery. Maybe that’s part of recovery

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Having emotions and experiences like crying are totally things we can have. I find it's useful to have a definition of recovery that's about actions I do. Whether there's crying or not, that's fine, just like I can have farts or burp or something like that. The body can do whatever it wants to do and I'm going to take that along with me while I do the things I care about. I wouldn't define recovery by something random the body is doing though. I'd explore a question like: What are actions you're in charge of that you can define recovery by?

[@kristymarie6065]

@@everybodyhasabrain great advice

[@Ma-tu2jd]

@@everybodyhasabrain that’s wonderful thank you! Do you have any advice for those like me who have done really good erp work for some time now and I would say I am pretty recovered but I still monitor myself and stay strong when some compulsions want to manifest . But I feel that sometimes it might be a little more difficult to be strict with yourself later than at the beginning of the erp work. At the beginning you feel you want to eradicate all the compulsions but maybe after a year a year and a half of doing erp , sometimes when a thought pops, you find yourself engaging in the compulsion because you feel already « safer » I hope it is clear but do you have any advice regarding this ? 🙏 thank You

[@everybodyhasabrain]

That's great you can see the trick the brain will use to get you back into compulsions. I find it's helpful to keep the focus on actions. The feeling has nothing to do with it. If I feel safe, I'm not going to do compulsions. I am going to do things I value. If I don't feel safe, I'm not going to do compulsions. I am going to do things I value.

[@Ma-tu2jd]

I was interested in maybe becoming a certified ocd therapist in the future. Does anyone know about this? I can’t find a proper curriculum or formation for this..

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Therapy certifications are geography dependent. So the thing to look for would be the organization that certifies therapist in your area/state/province/etc. There wouldn't be a certification specific to OCD. You could study to meet the qualifications to become a therapist and then focusing on OCD could be something you choose to specialize in

[@Ma-tu2jd]

@@everybodyhasabrain that’s great thank you I will definitely look into it! And thanks for the quick response ! I feel the more people cure their ocd the more they can then help others overcoming it, it doesn’t need to be them becoming therapists but already by spreading the word

[@homiekeen23]

What if the compulsions are thoughts? It's easier (not easy) to stop yourself from doing an action than it is to stop thoughts. As an extreme example, you could lock yourself up in a room without any alcohol and throw the key away, but with thoughts it's like you have the alcohol or drug in your brain and system already 24/7 AND! In my case I just have intrusive compulsive thoughts about everything. It's not even related to anything specific. Like if I'm having heart attack thoughts for example and I just go to make dinner I'll start having obsessive thoughts about dinner and food, if I move to exercise or anything else I start having intrusive thoughts about that. Like just hearing someone on the bus talking about potatoes would get me started with obsessive thoughts about potatoes.... any activity I engage in would result in obsessive thoughts about it 😭

[@everybodyhasabrain]

Mental compulsions are no different than physical compulsion. Kelly mentioned that during the interview. You can find a video here on mental compulsions: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d6Oto6WDlL2Ueqc and it sounds like you're getting thoughts and thinking fused together, but they're different, as this video explains: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJ-npI2JfryIerc

[@homiekeen23]

@@everybodyhasabrain will check these out! Thanks a lot for replying! 🙏

[@Riyuzako7]

@@homiekeen23how are you now

[@homiekeen23]

@Riyuzako7 they're still there but gotten much much better. What helped the most is 1)stop believing every thought 2)let them exist without trying to understand them or analyse them or stop them etc..

[@Riyuzako7]

@@homiekeen23 i’m so suicidal with mine they just randomly came out of nowhere and i’m scared to leave my bed

[@ExploreElements]

Any chance of a video coming out where it’s just you and your own view on what recovery looks like?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

I thought I had lots of videos on that. Is there something specific you're wondering about?

[@jackmartin4320]

Can someone please help me with this question it might not even make any sense. These past couple of months I keep having a repetitive thought or image in my head about a feeling in my body but I don't know if I'm imaging the feeling or not. It's kind of like a black shape in my stomach. I don't know why but it comes into my mind all day every day and I know it sounds stupid but it's true. It's kind of like an image where I'm looking at my stomach and it is a black round shape of anxiety. It's making me feel dissociated from my body. It's making me want to escape in my mind. Can someone explain if this sounds like ocd or not? Has anyone had any similar experiences?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

It can really help to see that this checking is the actual OCD compulsion. The topic is always irrelevant. Because of that, you'll often see people posting on OCD forums or channels sharing about an unwanted and unusual experience, and checking if it is OCD and if anybody has a similar experience. To see the OCD pattern, take a step back from the topic. OCD is just about judging something as wrong (it could be an intrusive thought, it could be a physical sensation of contamination, it could be a word somebody said, an eye floater, a round shape in the stomach, etc) and judging that experience then brings up uncertainty or emotions we dislike, and then we engage in the compulsions as a response to that. But chasing certainty about or control of the experience just fuels the cycle. It encourages the brain to give you even stranger things or even more complex experiences so then you have to go and do even more checking and controlling. For getting over OCD, it was so useful to break that cycle and recognize that the superficial qualities of the unwanted experience were irrelevant. The problems arose from me reacting to the unwanted and experience and checking for reassurance and control and certainty.

[@Ryy22]

Hey Mark, I am thinking about doing your quit internet/smartphone addiction course. However, I know values are a big part of quitting, but I have trouble formulating/coming up with them. Does the course also contain some examples of good values to use/follow? If not, any way I can get them (if I purchase the quit smartphone/internet course) Regards, Ry

[@everybodyhasabrain]

There is a brand new internet skills course on the way through thetoolkitstore.com It's a week or two away from going live. And a big focus of it is orienting your internet time around values. There is also a values course already on the TOOLKIT site: www.thetoolkitstore.com/product/the-values-course/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

[@Ryy22]

@@everybodyhasabrain awesome, i will be waiting. any date already know yet?

[@monicsala6639]

Mark, do you think people can spontaneously develop OCD? Meaning it didint start in childhood or adolescence, but as an adult?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

I meet many people that feel the OCD started spontaneously but it can really help to see that OCD is like a heart attack. The experience of a heart attack can seem sudden, but the build up to that was decades. With OCD, something I always emphasize to people is that "normal" gets us there. It's just that we spend many years doing compulsions we see as normal, and then only when we start to notice the consequences of those compulsions, do we label it as a problem, and we blame the symptoms instead of what led to them

[@monicsala6639]

@@everybodyhasabrain thank you so much for that thorough response. Maybe I'm struggling with accepting this😬. Wanted to also thank you for the videos, your explanations are so clear. Your helping so many.

[@care2goo]

OCD is so so cruel 😢

[@everybodyhasabrain]

That's why it's useful to leave it behind us!

[@monicsala6639]

Would OCD be a type of PTSD?

[@everybodyhasabrain]

I would look instead at how we want to give our time and energy to living our lives, with whatever the brain throws up.

[@monicsala6639]

@@everybodyhasabrain thank you for that feedback. It's so true. I find myself constantly looking for explanations to darn near everything. It's a mix of enjoying learning and probably a dollop of OCD 😬🤣. But I find having a sense of humor helps a whole bunch. It's all so ridiculous. Appreciate what you do and put out there. Hope your also doing some self care.

[@everybodyhasabrain]

@@monicsala6639 It is great to laugh at the brain!

[@Maggie-y5e]

When my therapist said you have to sit with the dragon

[@XENON3120]

Do OCD people also suffer from over-attention to their basic body behavior? something as little as eye blink or swallowing saliva, being aware of every swallow over the day, or the way you walk. I also had specific places that i drive by that made me tired but it was only specific places like 200meter long places, those places don't make me tired anymore, what is that pattern i don't understand? Before I got from what I believe is sexual obsession now suffering from what i believe is HOCD but I am worries because I was never diagnosed. I just remember having other patterns also, like my heartbeat, obsessing over it while I went to bed thinking I have a heart issue, I constantly obsess and focus on the beat, now my other theme is sensation in my anal area, duo to too much mucus I was getting too much liquids stored there, but my mind makes me think of sexual things, things that i wouldn't wanna write here even. I had this 5 years ago and I beat it but its back again and now i was worried that I am gay and I have a gf but now I worry that I don't even worry that much anymore, I'm just tired of this constant hell of questions in my head, am I? It sometimes feel so real also and sometimes like just made up things while waking up, and then googling everything and reading same comments even. This is not normal for somebody that would be repressing his true sexual interest? Correct? I know this is like reassurance seeking but in my country OCD is barely even recognized, let alone the sexual theme one. All this is making me depressed, I feel my anxiety is at all time high, I don't feel comfortable being with friends I had no problem being with before, because my mind makes me wonder of my past exp, and all the things that would signal that i am just gay in denial. I would seriously even have ocd coming into my dreams, and sometimes have 5 dreams over one night and 3 of them being lucid also, is that even normal? What is destroying me is the idea that I would lose all romance with girls, or better said my own gf. Because of this constant doubt I would start to become super needy in my relationship also, which only makes me more unhappy, but deep down its like my ocd tells me if i even have it, it tells me to let go, if you let her go now you will not shame her later when you come out gay, so my mind storm in misery

[@everybodyhasabrain]

That's a common compulsion people can practice. I would flip the description though: people who practice compulsions like that are going to fuel OCD. For getting over OCD, it can help to see it as an outcome of the compulsions. It doesn't cause anything. The different obsessions you mentioned there are the same pattern: chasing certainty about your self. All of the checking just fuels more anxiety, which leads to more checking.

[@vergilsparda6823]

thanks for your videos, its a magnificent help for me, i have a clinical OCD. i have 2 questions. 1: how to get out from "inside the storm"? i know that preventing compulsions/not following the thougth helps with the OCD but what to do when you fell right inside the well? 2: i have a obsession with not sleeping, and the ocd from it make it hard to sleep (like a self-fulfilling prophecy). fear to not sleep - anxiety - anxiety make it hard to sleep - fear confirmed and more anxiety. how do i get out from that chain of reaction? thanks in advance

[@everybodyhasabrain]

I find it useful to recognize that we've never fallen in the well. There's no hole. We are whole. Seeing ourselves as down some hole is just another way the brain tricks us into a delusion that gets us doing compulsions. With sleep, one useful thing to look at is cutting out compulsions during the day. It helped me to recognize at the end of the day I only have the brain I've been training all day. And then with any fear, you can see how it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so it helped me to want to have the things I was afraid of.