← Breaking the Rules: A Clinician's Guide to Treating OCD
Breaking the Rules: A Clinician's Guide to Treating OCD
Peer-to-peer: A frank conversation about OCD
00:27:27
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- [00:04]
A
This is Breaking the Rules, a show for mental health professionals designed to help you build confidence in treating Obsessive compulsive disorder. I'm Dr. Celine Galgett and I'm a clinical psychologist who works extensively with OCD.
- [00:17]
B
And I'm Dr. Victoria Miller, but you can call me Tori. And I'm a clinical psychologist who works with young people, including those with ocd. Through our shared professional experience, we've found that effective treatment of OCD requires commitment, creativity and the recognition that things can sometimes get a little messy.
- [00:34]
C
They sure can.
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A
We want to empower clinicians to be able to work with their patients in new ways to treat OCD with confidence.
- [00:45]
C
Wow.
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A
Are we going to ruffle some feathers with this two part series with Chrissy Hodges, Advocate and Peer Support Specialist for the treatment of ocd.
- [00:54]
C
For those of you who are unfamiliar.
- [00:56]
A
With Chrissy's work, Chrissy started out just as an individual with OCD who wanted to make a difference, create awareness and find a community to help heal. From her own experience with OCD, she began OCD advocacy in 2012, starting as a podcast host and doing public speaking on mental health. Through the years, Chrissy has expanded to many platforms and projects and continues to push for more awareness, more opportunities to connect the community and for the elimination of stigma around ocd. She is the founder of Treatment for OCD Consulting and is a Certified Peer Support Specialist through the State of Colorado. She was also a co founder of OCD Peers, a group based peer support practice and she co founded Peer Recovery Services which is a government contract that hires, trains and supervises certified peer support specialists in the Colorado State Mental Health Institute. Chrissy has also documented her experience in her book Pure the Invisible side of Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. She is also the founder and Executive director of the 501c3 nonprofit OCD Game Changers.
- [02:08]
B
In part one of this episode you will hear Chrissy share her incredibly personal story of her OCD which began when she was 8 years old. Hearing Chrissy's story will give you great insight into how she became the inspiring peer support worker that she is today and why community is essential for those with ocd. And a trigger warning for you. This episode contains a discussion of suicide. Let's get started.
- [02:35]
C
Hello. We are so excited because we are with the lovely Chrissy Hodges all the way from Colorado and she has agreed to spend a little bit of time with us chatting all things OCD and specifically emetophobia today, but also talking a little bit about all the wonderful work she's doing with Peer support and how important it is to make sure that we hold our clients in mind. So welcome. Chrissy. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [03:05]
D
Thank you for having me. I have lots of clients over in Australia, New Zealand. I always love talking to people with full accents.
- [03:14]
C
Oh, my God. Side story.
- [03:15]
D
Thank you for having me.
- [03:16]
C
Oh, my husband's gonna laugh. I telling this. We went to America a little while back, and our first stop was Colorado. And then we picked up a car and drove all the way back to la. And we stopped off along the way, and when we got there, we got SIM cards and everything. And the lady was like, oh, you're from Australia? And I was like, yeah, she'll be right. And like, really? I was really putting on the accent. And my husband stopped and looked at me and he was. Looked mortified, and he was like, it's already on. You don't need to turn it on. You already speak like an Australian person. And I was like, okay.
- [03:54]
D
We're always so excited about, like, the uk, European, all of those accents here. It's just like, oh, my God, this is so cool. Well, maybe, Chrissy, we could kick off.
- [04:06]
B
By you just telling us and our listeners a bit about yourself and how you found yourself in this world.
- [04:13]
D
I'll just go ahead and get my age out of the way. I'm 47. OCD showed up for me when I was really young. So I was 8. It was in the 80s back then, and metaphobia was my first intrusive thought. Even though when I look back, there were other things. There were fears of people breaking in the house, things like that. But it was really just this one day where everything just broke for me. I was 8 years old in the third grade. Someone had gotten sick in my class, and really it was the first time I had a severe panic attack. I had been exposed to vomit before, so I didn't really know why this was any different. However, I remember I was laying on the floor because I jumped out of my seat, because he threw up right next to me. And I was paralyzed and I couldn't move. And I started to see some kids laughing at me. And of course I thought, oh, no, I've got to do something. And that was when my first ritual started. So it was this breathing ritual. It was, you know, starting to pray, things like that. So religion was my worldview growing up in the south here in America, and my dad is a retired Southern minister, so everything I knew was religion. So once I did those bizarre compulsions that I don't know where they came from that got me out of whatever was happening. The teacher got me up, took me to the back of the room and the first thing I thought was, I have done something wrong. I'm being punished by God because my worldview was religion. So I thought, okay, you're having bad feelings, you're having all this fear, so you must have done something wrong. So that's where the prayer ritual started. And there was also another component to this. I'm not sure whether this has as much to do with OCD as it had to do with my upbringing and my parents. But I just thought to myself, I am not going to tell anybody this is happening. I just knew I probably wouldn't be validated or understood for what was going on. And I swore to myself I would keep this a secret. Just kept thinking, this is a bad day, this is just a fluke, I don't know, but hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow and it will be gone. It wasn't. I woke up the next day, the anxiety hit me, but I went through the next day and no one threw up. So in my brain I thought, okay, I must have done something correct before I went to bed last night. And thus the big rituals, you know, the prayers that I had done the night before, what time did I close my eyes and go to sleep, how did I arrange my bed, things like that, all the while wanting so desperately to tell something that somebody that this was going on, but not knowing how to. I truly believe that God was punishing me for doing something wrong. So I spent a lot of my time doing mental review of looking for how to repent for things that I might have done. And so, you know, I like to say from then on my life was changed. I was no longer a happy go lucky child. And it was because I kept it inside. I really just thought I'm the only person that was dealing with this. And God forbid I tell my minister father that I'm being directly punished by God. I mean, how shameful that was. So my world became rituals from then on out and hiding everything from everybody. And my biggest thing was be the best person that you can repent for everything and God won't punish you with the bad thoughts. Now I'm sure that this paves the way for, well, what happens when someone does vomit or you vomit? Then it is what have I done wrong? Was just this slew of mental review and everything. I truly don't know how I survived for so long with all this. So as I got into my teenage years, this Just became the norm. Life transformed into managing ocd. Not being a kid.
- [07:58]
C
Yeah. And I can imagine how much mental effort that would have taken while trying to concentrate and learn and interact with peers and all those things. So exhausting.
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D
There's one part, and I wrote about this in my book, where I had a friend come over, my best friend, and she got sick and she threw up while she was at my house. And I look back on this, I've actually since then apologized to her as an adult. But when she went home, of course, I had like the mandatory 72 hours I had to wait until I got sick, blah, blah. Well, when I went to school, I ignored her, I shunned her, I made my friends shun her. I mean, it was horrible. And I knew what I was doing was awful, but, like, it was just fear and you just do things to survive. And the things I had to do were the things that just to protect my sanity on all this, all the while hiding it from everybody. So that was the exhaustive piece. When I got into my teenage years, it turned more into intrusive thoughts about sexual, violent things that were just really, really terrifying. However, the overarching theme of religious scrupulosity always stayed. That was the kind of like the main.
- [09:10]
C
The main umbrella.
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D
Absolutely. And so, you know, I went into demon possession for a little bit after watching the Exorcist. That was a mist. And fears of harming kids, fears of sexual intrusive thoughts about animals. And then the big one hit, sexual orientation and OCD when I was 14. And a lot of the reason why that hit was because I had all these rules for myself in religious scrupulosity. You can talk about this, you can't talk about this. You can engage in this, you can't engage in. So my whole life was a bunch of rigid rules or. Or else I'd get punished with bad thoughts. And so it was one night, I was with one of my girlfriends. We're talking about boys. Cause we're all boy crazy. And then she starts talking about sex at 14. And of course, I believe nobody had sex until they got married. That was my belief system back then. And I remember thinking, you cannot talk about this. This is off. This is against the rules. So here I am, like, trying to engage in this conversation and then going like, just smile and nod. Don't say anything. But then she said something about having sex with her boyfriend. I was just pissed. I was like, how can she have sex and do whatever she wants? And I can't do. I can't even, like, kill an ant without worrying I'm gonna be punished. And so that was the night I went to sleep. And I just. It's almost like I started to, like, be on to ocd. I was almost figuring it out, and then OCD was like, I really watch.
- [10:38]
C
This, and it does that all the time.
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D
All of a sudden, I picture my friend naked, and my brain was like, oh, maybe you're gay. And I was like, whoa. Like. And that was really the biggest turning point for me. And there was a moment that I thought, this feels so familiar. It feels like the emetophobia. But then it's almost like, well, let's turn the heat up. And then my brain said, no, this is just now the next form of punishment. So now you have to be extra good, as stupid as it sounds. I mean, like, I sound insane saying all this.
- [11:14]
C
No, not at all. I'm sure anyone who's listening, who's experienced OCD would be like, this. This is exactly how it feels. Yeah.
- [11:23]
D
I then knew, you know, it's like someone had turned the heat up. And again, I just really bought into the idea that this has something to do with me being a good person or whatever else. And there was just this impending doom that. Just this heavy weight on me of, how am I gonna live now that this has surfaced? I mean, I do remember that day my mom came and picked me up. And I remember putting the seatbelt on, and of course, knowing I can't talk about it. I can't say anything. And it was so confusing to me. Like, I. You know, this is in the 90s in the south. Like, everybody thought gay people were going to hell. And I remember thinking to myself, I don't care. Like, I don't care if this is the truth. But I. I knew that it wasn't my truth. And so then, in the circumstances that I was in, in this religious community in the south in the 90s, now I really can't talk about it because there was just this idea of me even saying it out loud meant that it could be true. And I really remember thinking to myself, I don't care if it's true. I just know it's not. And so that was the argument inside of me. So I just thought, just make it the secret. I did the same thing. I was like, make it the secret. Be a good person. So through the next six years, I went through high school, went to college. I fell in love. Like, I did all the things that every person does. And on the outside, I was, like, wildly successful. I mean, I was an athlete and I was straight A. I got a full ride to college Homecoming queen. Anything and everything you could be. Which, by the way, I curated all that because I wanted people to think that everything was okay because of the nastiness inside of me, which was not knowing who I was. And I was a sinner and God was punishing me.
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C
Well, it was a way of proving that you're a good person in a sense. Right. Kind of trying to do the opposite to what your internal struggle was. But what breaks my heart is you had suffering in silence for all those years. All those years, yeah. And like, Tori and I both have young children, and you don't have to have young kids to think this, but just anyone who's involved with a young person that you care about to know that that might be going on for them, even though on the surface everything might be looking calm, great, successful, all those things, it's really heartbreaking.
- [13:47]
D
Again, I say this, I have no idea how I survived that long. I really don't, because I also went through depressive stages. I mean, I can only just now reflect that it was depression. I mean, it would be weeks on end. You know, we talk about the OCD haze a lot. I would be in the haze for weeks and counting the days. Last time it only lasted four weeks. Last time it only lasted five weeks to just hang on and all the while being like, I'm a straight A student, I'm this, I'm that. It was horrific. So I went to college and, you know, again, like, full ride. I was in sorority. I was. I ran cross country for college. It was just again, like this epitome of everything is okay. And also, I do want to mention the hard part about OCD. And by the way, this was in the 90s, so we had no Internet. It wasn't like I could be, like, going on for me, nothing. And I was not going to say anything out loud about any of it because then it would come back to, you're a sinner and God's punishing you. Right? And so then I'd be found out as some that I am directly being punished by God. Like, it sounds so psycho, like psychosis almost. And then every once in a while, I'd come up for air and be like, but wait, I've been worrying for eight years, so it can't be not real. You know, it was just bizarre. Like I would say, you know, one of the things I like to mention, and this is why I do peer support now, is I really Felt like I had no connection to anybody, that I was hiding this part of myself that there was this second person inside of me that the world got to see, this beautiful, perfect person. But then this horrible monster was inside of me that was, like, worthy of punishment. And so I did grieve. And I didn't even know that this was going on. But I was grieving, not being able to connect with people, that no one would ever know who I was, that there would never be that deep connection that you really desire from other human beings. So I always felt separate and. Which also fueled my low self esteem, my inability to keep friendships. You know, things that, like, a lot of people normally struggle with, but OCD just lights on fire. So I went to college, and actually I had a pretty good year or two where it didn't flare a lot. There was a lot of new, you know, new environment. I was like, well, maybe it's gone, you know, but it just goes to the back of your head. And then my junior year, my cousin died, and he died tragically, so he drowned. And I just really, you know, had never been taught as a child how to experience really big emotions or been allowed to experience very big emotions. And so grief holding that up on top of a mental illness just took me down. I mean, it was within six months, I was massively suicidal every single day. Had no idea how to communicate that I was suicidal, because if I communicated that, people would want to know why, which meant I would have to tell. And then I would have to say to my dad, by the way, God is punishing me, which would. Then there was so much shame. And. And then I also was like, this is going to sound nuts too, so I don't want to say it out loud. Or I thought that if I said it out loud, that meant it was true and if I could keep it in. So I weathered about three months of, like, critical depression. You know, my grades fell, I was running cross country. My season was horrible. I stopped showering, I stopped leaving the sorority house. All the signs that people could have said, hey, is something going on? Because. And they'd ask, and I would just say, I'm just tired, desperately. I wanted to tell someone, but I was too scared. And then I went home for Christmas break, and I started to do these bargaining things with God, right? Like, the religious scrupulosity was so huge at this point. I started, like, bargaining, and I would say things like, okay, if this is all real, then give me a sign. And I really started relying on this magical thinking. And so I went. I went home for Christmas break, and before I left, there was this heavy sadness of, like, I'm probably not going to come back because I'm going to kill myself. I had just resolved that I would probably kill myself and. Because I was going to be home for eight weeks. Eight weeks in the brain. That was sick. No. And so I went home and I was like, God, just give me a sign. In 24 hours. Is all this real? And I want to know, like, am I gay? You know, because I identify as straight, so I had sexual orientation, ocd. So it was like the intrusive thoughts about being gay. And I was like, just tell me, and then I'll know that all this is real or it's not real. Right?
- [18:19]
C
You were desperate for certainty.
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D
Yes. So I go home, I put my suitcases out. I'm, like, miserable. My mom is like, dinner's ready. So I come in and she's like, let's watch 2020 tonight. Like the bane of OCD's existence, right? So I go in there, she turns it on, and it was like, lesbians in their 50s, women who were married and then realized they're gay.
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C
That is not what your brain needed.
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D
I am not joking.
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C
The amount of times clients will share a story like that. And I was like, of course that happened. And then how do you know? Coincidence? Or did my thoughts bring this on? Or like, what the hell?
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D
Yeah, like, how can you.
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C
Like, what the hell?
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D
I literally was like, this is the sign. The sign I had asked for. And again, like, understanding. Like, I could watch that show and be happy for these people. I did not care. I was like, if I want chicks, I will have chicks. Like, it was so strange to me because it wasn't something that I was. It wasn't taboo. It wasn't something that I was anti. I just knew you're going to be forced into this life the same way that emetophobia. And we can get into that later, because emetophobia is very different than other fears. But, like, that's when I knew, okay, now I have betrayed God somehow. I didn't know how. And so now I've lost that part of my life. And so now I knew, like, suicide was the only option. And so I won't go into detail. You can read my book if you want to know details. It's. It's a very dark time of my life. But, like, over the next couple weeks, I did attempt suicide. And again, on a bargaining. It was again, like this magical thinking. And then, you know, I was hospitalized I had an injury from the suicide attempt, so I had to have surgery and then I went directly into a mental hospital on a hold and that's where I was diagnosed with OCD in 1998. So that was hella, like, lucky that they. And literally he, like, came into my room at night and he was like, oh, my God, I think I know what's going on. It's ocd. I've never seen this before, but. And I was like, I don't think this is ocd.
- [20:34]
C
Hey, Tori.
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B
Hi, Celine.
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C
Did you know that we run our own courses here at Melbourne Wellbeing Group?
- [20:40]
D
I did know that.
- [20:42]
B
In fact, it's one of my favourite things we do here because it's a great way to help psychologists and other clinicians learn more about ocd, which means.
- [20:50]
A
We get to help more people. So if you're a clinician who works in mental health and you're interested in learning from us, then get in touch.
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B
For more information, head to www.melbournewellbeinggroup.com and click on the webinars and Books tab.
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C
Alrighty, back to the show.
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B
Had you heard of OCD before?
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D
Oh, I mean, just in my psychology program in college. And literally I remember they were like, hey, in Washington, da da, da. And I remember looking at the person next to me like, those people look nuts. And it was me. And if they had only said in that psychology class, the fear of being a pedophile, the fear of murdering someone, the fear of being in the wrong relationship, the fear of harming cats, the fear of sexual orientation, not knowing what it is. I mean, it just. I would have known and I would have gone and gotten help, but either way I. Medication worked amazingly until I thought that I didn't need it. And I thought, like everybody does, I can just out think these thoughts. Got off the meds, came back with a vengeance, and a year later, we did have AOL at that time. And so when I relapsed a year after that, I searched AOL high and low for days and then found Dr. Stephen Phillipson's website, OCD Zone AOL, and contacted him and he did phone therapy with me and that's how I got ERP over the phone. I was so lucky. I was so lucky that he would do it and I was so lucky we could afford it.
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B
And was he the one who helped you understand the pure O component of your ocd?
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D
Absolutely. So his website was everything to me. It's now renamed Rethinking the Unthinkable. But when I found his Website. The first article said, you know, Bob is having sex with his wife, and as he's having an orgasm, he thinks of his friend Fred. I was like, these are my people. This is it. And I just knew knowing that helps me identify more with having ocd, because I did not before. And also make me feel like even though I didn't know anybody, that there's got to be a community of people out there that experience this too. If he's writing about it.
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C
Yeah, if someone's writing about it, it's there. 100%.
- [23:01]
D
Yes. So that therapy was 100% effective in managing the behavioral symptoms. Unfortunately, I then, like many people, thought, okay, now this is gone, and I'm gonna go on and live life. And tried to go into the world and fill up a Worth cup that was bottomless. And that's when I came out to Colorado. But nothing was working. I was traumatized from the experience. I was traumatized from the suicide attempt. I was angry that I had gone that long. I was angry I had to keep everything a secret. I turned to alcohol for many, many, many years. And in my 30s, I relapsed, even though I had relapsed earlier. But when it's different from your original theme, it's just hard to recognize.
- [23:45]
C
And it feels different. Right in that moment.
- [23:48]
D
Yes. I mean, I wasn't having the groin oil, so I didn't know it was ocd. Like, at that point, the groin oil has become reassurance. I'm like, there's the groin oil. It's OCD. But when I was 33, I'd moved. I'd owned a clothing store at that point, moved it. Big move big everything. So I relapsed with harm ocd. And so because it was so obscure, I thought, oh, no, this is ocd. It took me about six weeks to recognize it, and then about three weeks to believe it was OCD because it felt so real. And then I contacted Philipson again. I implemented my own ERP plan because he had taught me really well how to do that. And I got back on meds and worked through that relapse. And that is when I was like, I cannot go on anymore hating myself. I cannot go on anymore without a community. I want a life surrounded by people with OCD. So I started speaking out. I started a YouTube channel, which is probably where most people know me. And then once I did the groinal video, that's when it blew up. And I became a peer support specialist because I really value the lived experience perspective, not only just in mental health in general because it does help with the shame and motivation and recovery and also promotes recovery model over medical model. Not that I'm anti medical, but I'm just pro both. But it also for OCD in particular because it's ego dystonic having another person sit by you and be like, oh yeah, I know that when my groin is firing and I'm looking at a kid and I know I'm not a pedophile, but I can't stop thinking about it and I feel nuts. That makes you feel like, oh my God, I'm not a monster because this person isn't one either. The lived experience is so important for OCD in particular because of just how strange it is that we know what we want and we can't stop thinking about the things our brain says we do or don't want.
- [25:35]
C
What a trajectory. What a story. What a trajectory. And thank you so much for being brave enough to go into the detail and tell us the story. I think a lot of our listeners, both who work with people with OCD or who experience it or who have a loved one who is going through it or aren't sure what's going on and it's just trying to figure it out, I think it will just resonate with a lot of people, whether they've heard it through a client or experiencing it themselves. So thank you so much. It's really lovely to see what I'm going to almost call like post traumatic growth in a sense, where you've just grown into the space and are now wanting to give back because of your experiences. And I think that's really awesome.
- [26:20]
B
Thanks for joining us for Part one of our chat. Join us next episode as we conclude the conversation.
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A
You've been listening to Breaking the Rules, a show for mental health professionals designed to help you build confidence in treating obsessive compulsive disorder.
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B
This podcast is brought to you by Melbourne Wellbeing Group, a psychology practice based in Melbourne with a special focus on treating OCD. To find out more, head to our website melbournewellbeinggroup.com au all one word. That's melbournewellbeinggroup dot com this podcast was.
- [26:54]
A
Made with strategy and production support from Wavelength Creative to make sure you don't miss an episode of Breaking the Rules. Be sure to subscribe to or follow the show in your podcast app. And while you're there, leave us a five star review. It really helps others find the show. I'm Celine Galgett.
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B
And I'm Tori Miller and we'll be.
- [27:14]
A
Back next episode with more reasons to convince you to get messy, have fun, and break the rules.