Episode 140.5 recap: Host Jason Schreurs recaps episodes 131-140

On episode 131, I was joined by solo artist and former Deep Valley member, Lindsay Troy, to talk about living with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Lindsay has spent decades trying to manage the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

When she reached an impasse in her mental health, Lindsay turned to exposure and response prevention therapy to treat her OCD.

I've done exposure and response prevention, which is what they call the gold standard of care for OCD.

And I didn't start that until I was pregnant with my first child.

Cause that was like a breaking point for me when I had been off my medication and things were very stressful and hormonal changes.

And I knew that I really had to get my life together at that point.

Cause I was going to have a kid, but that's when you basically, are exposed to your triggers and it's the response prevention.

So you're not, you don't do the compulsion.

And with repetition, eventually the anxiety is supposed to go down.

But it feels like I said recently, like you're actively marching towards your doom.

Like it feels like, why would I choose to actively do the thing that I've spent endless hours and hours endless effort and stress trying to avoid and then I'm just gonna go actively do that and ruin my life like That's what it feels like like you're gonna ruin the rest of your life But that's the lie that OCD tells you and that's the lie that OCD tells me every day like every time a trigger comes up my therapist says OCD is a con artist and that is a really good way to explain OCD and thoughts that come into my brain that don't even, sometimes they make sense, but sometimes they're totally bizarre and really stupid.

It just latches onto any dumb old thing it can think of.

So I thought I would do this today.

I'm actually, I'm doing an exposure right now.

So I'm wearing this shirt that has two buttons and one of the loops broke off.

And so I can't button the top button.

So my brain told me, well, it's bad to wear that shirt today.

And it will do that a lot.

Like it'll just say something's bad.

Like, why is it bad? Well, because it's broken and that's symbolically is a bad thing and for me to be wearing this during an important interview where I'm opening up about OCD for the first time.

Well, you know, I'm ruining it by doing that.

And I'm always going to remember that for the rest of my life.

I'll still be thinking about this on my deathbed that I messed this interview up.

So that's the lie that the OCD tells you, right? But if you feed the bear, it gets worse.