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- [00:00]
Emily Bartheisler
I like to write books for, I say, people who are 12 or have ever been 12. I have been living with OCD for as long as I can remember. What if we could sort of like take these OCD traits and think of them like special skills and figure out how we could put them to use? I feel very lucky in that I think a lot of my OCD thoughts are extraordinarily creative and inventive and so I at some point figured out I could play those into my work as a creative writer. I think one of the things that kept me from getting help for a long time was also the myth I had been told of like, artists are inherently anxious or depressed and that is what makes you an artist. And I really bought into that myth, as I think a lot of people do. And I am here to tell you from the other side, it's the opposite of that. I am a writer because I take medication for ocd.
- [01:00]
NOCD Podcast Host
You've probably heard of ocd, but I bet you don't really know that it's a condition that impacts 1 in 40 adults in the United States. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is more than about just cleaning and organization. It causes intrusive, persistent sticky feelings and thoughts and images that can seize on any topic from romantic relationships to to illness to spirituality and really anything that matters to you. Now this can cause significant anxiety and guilt and shame and disgust and whatever uncomfortable emotion it may grab onto and it may make it hard to function in day to day life. If this sounds familiar, know that you're not alone and help is available. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist with 25 years of OCD treatment experience, so I know how scary these symptoms can be, but I also know that they can be managed with the right type of treatment. This is why I lead a team of top tier clinical experts at nocd. NOCD is an online platform offering specialized, accessible and convenient OCD treatment. My team and I have helped people take back their lives from OCD through specialized therapy that's covered by insurance. To learn more about OCD and effective treatment, you head to nocd.com that's n o c d dot com. You deserve to live the life that you want to live and not the life that OCD wants you to live. And also, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you can stay up to date on our latest podcasts and webinars. Now, onto today's episode. Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the get to Know OCD Podcast. Happy to have you here today. Thanks for joining. If you like the get to Know OCD podcast, feel free to Free to subscribe to our NOCD YouTube channel. Today, fresh off of the IOCDF 30th anniversary conference as the keynote speaker, Emily Bartheisler. Hi, Emily, how are you?
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Emily Bartheisler
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on the podcast.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Happy to have you here too. Why don't you introduce yourself a little bit to everyone and tell everyone a little bit about yourself and some of the things you've done?
- [03:09]
Emily Bartheisler
Sure. I am a writer and author. I always like to say those two things are different jobs and different skill sets and I'm lucky enough to get to do both of them. I have worked as a journalist and done a lot of different sort of writing. As an author, I specifically write books for kids and their families. Age range from picture books through ya, which stands for young adult. I. Sorry, I often forget outside of the kid lit community, not everybody knows what that means. So I like to write books for, I say, people who are 12 or have ever been 12, just meaning that, you know, I think the majority of the stories that I like to tell center around kids that age, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's limited to that audience. I certainly write with adults and families in mind in terms of thinking of books as a way for people to connect with each other. So conversation starters amongst families, classrooms, intergenerational groups. So I have two books that are out now and three more coming out in the next year or two. And I also continue to freelance, write for magazines, sometimes personal essays, sometimes journalism. Topics that interest me that I write a lot about include environmentalism and consumerism, things like sustainable beauty, sustainable health and. Yeah, and I have been living with OCD for as long as I can remember. And before it, I had a name for it and understood what it was. But understanding more about it, even in just the past few years, has been so, so helpful to me. And being part of this community has been eye opening and comforting. And I'm so excited to get more opportunities to talk to people with lived experience and understand each other and understand myself.
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NOCD Podcast Host
That's awesome. Well, so the ocd. Interesting. You said you've had it your whole life, even before you knew what it was. What, what was OCD to you before you knew what it was?
- [05:27]
Emily Bartheisler
Well, I think it's. It's hard for me to understand. I hear people talk about sort of the onset of OCD sometimes and how they notice it's different from the way their Life used to look or the way that their brain used to process the world. And I never had that moment.
- [05:45]
NOCD Podcast Host
You were a lifer.
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Emily Bartheisler
I'm a lifer. I dove in early and.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah, there you go.
- [05:50]
Emily Bartheisler
Um, but the. I think the other confusing thing about it is that I have a couple different intersectional, neurodivergent traits, and I don't always know how which one ends where and which one is which. So I have generalized anxiety in addition to ocd. And obviously those two things are very linked and somewhat interchangeable, but not totally. There's some nuance of what's anxiety and what's OCD that I'm still learning. And then I also have synesthesia, which is where one or more of, or two or more of somebody's senses get intermingled by a single, single stimuli. So for example, the. One of the sort of most prominent in pop culture representations is chromaesthesia, where somebody sees color when they hear music and vice versa. I don't happen to have that particular form of synesthesia. It's just the easiest one and sort of most recognizable that people understand. There are over 80 forms of it, and I have at least four or five that I've identified. But it involves synesthesia, can involve. And for me, it does a lot of black and white thinking and sort of categorizing things, which I find to be really similar to, in some ways, OCD for me, in my experience. And so the more I learned, the more I'm realizing how intermingled those two things are for me. But if I just sort of step back and think about what does OCD look like in my life? I think mine really started around fear and attachment. You know, the fear of something bad happening to. To my family, my parents, myself, my sister growing up, and the idea that my magical thoughts could, you know, somehow counterbalance that and that I had to engage in rituals or repetitive motions or certain thinking to keep everyone safe and saying it out loud. Now, as a woman in my mid-40s, I'm like, oh God, what a burden for a five year old to be. Like, I have to keep the boat afloat.
- [08:05]
NOCD Podcast Host
Right, That's.
- [08:06]
Emily Bartheisler
And also my therapist often says to me, like, wow, would that we had that power, you know, how great, like, what a great idea. But no, no one has that power. Like, the fact that I, as a 3 year old, 5 year old, 10 year old, 44 or 5 year old, thought or think that, like, I could actually have that kind of power to change anything is. Is kind of wild. But so I'd say, you know, so a large part of it is unpleasant thoughts and repetitive compulsions. There's also. I have a lot of German exposure and hypochondria related ocd, so just huge fear of germs and contamination and done a lot of exposure. I've not, I've never done official exposure response therapy, but I, I do work with a therapist who understands OCD a lot and we've worked a lot on dealing with that kind of intense fear and how it can really get in the way of living the life that I want to live the most. Full and complete and authentic life. Yeah. So separation anxiety was a huge part of my childhood. And that's one of those things that I think could be categorized in general anxiety and could also be looped into OCD and very intermingled. Yeah, I mean, I think those are sort of the main categories. We've got the health, the attachment, the general.
- [09:41]
NOCD Podcast Host
Lucky you.
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Emily Bartheisler
Yeah, A little bit of everything. Yeah, it's been fun.
- [09:47]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. One of the things I'll say to people with OCD is you have a lot of unused potential because you could be the greatest hit person in the entire world and go work for a major government and get paid a million dollars just by not doing a compulsion to take out some world leader that they, that they might not want in the world or something like that.
- [10:07]
Emily Bartheisler
Fascinating. I mean, that is such an interesting way of thinking about it. And I, I think about that a lot just in terms of what is this brain energy that I have and how am I using it? And that's sort of, you know, what I, what I hope my speech got at, at the, at the conference is sort of this idea of like, what if we had the ability and not everyone has the ability or, or has it yet, or is able to get there, but what if we could sort of like, take these OCD traits and think of them like special skills and figure out how we could put them to use, you know, if possible. And of course it's not possible with all of them and it's not right, everybody. And a million caveats. But I do think I feel very lucky in that I think a lot of my OCD thoughts are extraordinarily creative and inventive. And so I at some point figured out I could put those into my work as a creative writer. And you know, it's not like a, it's not a fix. It's not like I can just, you know, click and drag those thoughts over into the computer in my brain. That's just like, oh, let's only use this for creative purposes. But I am able to channel a lot of that. And I've had conversations with people with other neurodivergences like adhd, where they've talked about sort of a similar thing. Like, ADHD comes with lack of focus, but also hyper focus for some people. And how to channel that hyper focus, or a lot of my own doctors have said, you know, they have anxiety disorders or OCD and use that to be, you know, one of my doctors was like, I'm so anxious, but it means I never miss a trick. I don't forget, you know, to tell a patient something or forget to prescribe this medicine or what. You know, like, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking, did I think of everything? And that's a way that, you know, there are traits, obviously, of anxiety and OCD that are inherent to our survival and. And sometimes to our joy. Like in my case, with creative thinking. And I think when we are able to utilize some of those traits in a good way, it can be really rewarding. Again, it's not always possible, but sometimes it can work to our advantage.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Because OCD knows no limit. Right. I mean, it will go where it needs to go in order to get you to do a compulsion. So therefore, it can be amazingly creative to get you scared enough.
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Emily Bartheisler
Exactly.
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NOCD Podcast Host
That you will do that.
- [12:38]
Emily Bartheisler
Exactly. And the key word is creative. Like, how cool, in a way, if you can step back and let go of the absolutely torturous moments that OCD provides for many of us. But look at just its incredible drive and its creativity. Like, those are the two things. Drive and creativity are two really essential parts of my career of being a writer. You know, it requires the what if, what if, what if, you know, idea machine. And then on the other hand, it also really utilizes, you know, being a writer or any kind of creative artist means you're constantly getting told no by people. And people say, how do you keep going on? Like, how do you not give up? And I'm like, well, I've got a lot of experience being compulsive. And I think about, you know, not. Not that you can just sort of untap to let it. Let it go, but. But that drive is also a positive part of my brain. I am, for better, for worse, super driven. And that can mean a lot of good things, and it can mean a lot of bad things. And when I'm able to use it as a good thing, it's often of, like, okay, I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to, you know, like you said, get creative, to get your, your brain to do that one thing. And if you can sort of redirect that one thing into something that you need to do or that you want to do, those are the moments where I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm working with this.
- [14:09]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. And then you add the creativity that comes with the synesthesia, which gives you a whole different view of the world than many.
- [14:18]
Emily Bartheisler
Absolutely. Yeah. And I really had no idea. I didn't. I had not heard of synesthesia until probably about 15 years ago. It had never come up in my life. And, like, why would it? You know, we all go through life looking at the world through our only lens, which is our one perspective. Right. So with things like anxiety and then also with things like synesthesia, I think a lot of times people have no idea that the way they are experiencing the world is not how everyone else experiences the world.
- [14:49]
NOCD Podcast Host
Exactly. And you don't see colors exactly like you, you absolutely intermingle them.
- [14:56]
Emily Bartheisler
And yeah, you don't ever, like, turn to somebody and be like, hey, so the number eight is orange for you, right? Like, no. Why would you ask? Like, it seems so natural to you. So it was a really interesting experience for me to not only learn that synesthesia was a thing, but then to be like, oh, wait, that I, I, I experience the world that way. And then upon researching it, finding out that even more of the things that I thought were unique quirks of my brain were categorized types of synesthesia, which is, like, both comforting and in some moments, a little bit like, oh, I thought I was special. It's just, it's just a brain quirk. I know obviously special is what we do with it, but it was a weird to be like, oh, some of the things that I thought I created or made up or like, sort of the stories I tell myself are part of a type of brain. And it's, it's so interesting to talk to other people who have similar experiences. And that's, I don't know, sort of what life is about. It's like, find your, find your people and then talk, you know, share with other people who don't experience it. And like, what a gift, though, when you come across somebody who can sort of validate your experience and add on to it. It's, it's really helpful.
- [16:14]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. Scientists love finding people with synesthesia because they love to study them and understand the. It's in a weird Way. Right. It's. It's a malformation. Your. Your myelinization on your neurons is actually not thick enough, and you get a crossover stimulation into another nerve bundle.
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Emily Bartheisler
Right. Technically, it's an error.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. But, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Emily Bartheisler
It can be a great error. And it's. What I find so interesting is people often ask me, like, what's the treatment for synesthesia? Or what's the official diagnosis? And it's like, there's none. You also. I'm sure there are practitioners who can do an official diagnosis, but they are few and far between, and the. The trouble and the expense is not worth it because it's not, in most cases, an impairment. I do write in my. In my book the Color of Sound, which features a main character with synesthesia. I do write a little bit about her overwhelm, because if you're a person with sensory overload to begin with, and then you're experiencing multiple reactions to just one stimuli, for every stimuli, you're. You're triggering two or three senses, the path to overwhelm is a lot shorter, and the instances of overwhelm are going to be a lot bigger. And figuring that out about myself, I. I wrote in the book a scene where the character goes to a museum. She's looking at these paintings. She describes the room as. It's so loud. You know, she's hearing all the different music from all the different colors and all the different works of art, and it's so overwhelming, and nobody understands this about her. And I, my whole life, have always found museums to be so overstimulating and uncomfortable. There's the synesthesia aspect of it, and then there's the OCD aspect of it, where I feel compelled to read every single word and look at every single piece of art and go in order and do it right. I'm putting that in quotes because there is no right way. But it makes it hard to enjoy art when you are trying to follow a particular path and do it correctly, when there is no correct. And, you know, I always thought of that as a moral failing of mine, like that I wasn't able to enjoy museums. And it was very freeing to figure out, oh, no, it's not. It's not that I'm a bad person or that I'm not a thoughtful art appreciator. It is part of how my brain works, and I've adjusted. I'm. I'm trying to embrace museums again with the knowledge that I don't have to experience it that way, and I don't have to go the whole time. And I can wear headphones or I can, you know, do whatever I need to do to make it helpful for my experience. But, you know, we only get to those places from understanding more about how our brains work. And when I was growing up, certainly no one was talking about it. And I. You know, I don't think. I'm sure the word neurodiversity had been invented because it is a very simple, you know, brain different. Like, it's two pieces of language that we already have. But no one was talking about that the way they are now when I was a kid. And if they did talk about OCD or anxiety or anything like that, it was with shame and whispers and horror. Certainly in the world where I grew up, where it was, you know, don't tell anybody you have anxiety and don't tell anybody. You know, I didn't, I think, for. Until I was in my late teens, we just called everything I had anxiety. I didn't know about OCD until later, and I think even when I learned about it, I thought it was really just the sort of the representations I had seen in popular culture. So it was like light switches and hand washing and things like that. And because my OCD didn't line up exactly with those, it didn't occur to me that part of what I experienced as anxiety was actually ocd. But the way that we are raising kids and educating kids now is so, so different in terms of not just noticing our neurodiversity, but celebrating it and making it not a dirty secret.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Is it therapeutic for you to write about these things? I mean, do you. Do you get something out of it for yourself?
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Emily Bartheisler
Yes. Well, it's really interesting because I think it's therapeutic. There's about three levels of therapeutic. One is the actual writing of it, which is therapeutic for me because I learn through researching and I learn through understanding my characters. And then there's the level where it's therapeutic, I hope, for the readers. You know, I. I hear from kids, you know, somebody reads the book and is like, oh, my God, I feel less alone or I feel seen, or I understand my sister better, or I understand my mom, or, you know, whatever aspect of it allows. You know, books are portals to empathy, and they're just, you know, they're magical in that way. They're conversation starters, but they're also sort of individual dialogues between reader and book. But then the third level of. Of therapeuticness for me, of therapy is the idea of healing something for my past self, and not just mine. But other people's sort of the, the redo and the writing the book for myself as a 12 year old and thinking, what book? What could I have read then that might have helped me in my journey? What message could I have really used to feel less alone and more seen and somehow empowered and really just to give my younger self the language to ask some questions. So I'm, I'm writing for myself, I'm writing for the readers and I'm writing for my, my childhood self. So I always say writing is like the most unselfish. Selfish. Selfish. That's a tongue twister. Let me try that again. Writing is the most unselfish, selfish act. You know, like there's something about it that can feel very self centered. You're writing, it's your book, it's your thoughts and whatever. But I think when done well, you're trying to help people, you're trying to educate people, even if you're not writing for kids, but especially when you're writing with kids and families in mind. But I always think, you know, writing is like sharing a piece of you in hopes that it's recognized by somebody else. Not for, just for your own satisfaction of feeling recognized, which of course is important, but that it may help them feel something, it may teach them something, it may help them be more empathetic. Like what a, what a magical piece of art that can make somebody feel less alone.
- [23:06]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah, I've seen that. Personally reading music lyrics, you know, just, I love that. I love them.
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Emily Bartheisler
Huge fan of them. Whether it's the experience that you say, like, oh, I've had that thought before and I agree, or the experience of like, I've never had that thought before. How cool.
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NOCD Podcast Host
I'm going to go back to something you said at the beginning. So you've described all this writing, but you also said there's a difference between being an author and a writer. Is there a difference in how you feel about the writing you do as a writer and an author?
- [23:43]
Emily Bartheisler
Yeah, that's interesting. And I'm sure, I think it may be different if I were an author who wrote nonfiction books. I, for me, my work is pretty separate where as a writer slash journalist, I'm often, you know, I'm writing nonfiction in this corner and then over here in this corner, I'm writing fiction as an author. So for me they're very separated. And perhaps that has less to do with the title of Author and writer vs. Fiction and nonfiction or personal essay. But for me they're kind of separate in that way. And you know, I think a little bit differently as an author in terms of who is the intended audience and who, you know, again, like, what do they need? I spend a lot of time thinking about, am I the right person to tell this story? Do I have the right way to convey it? Do I have the lived experience to back it up? Do I have the ability to articulate it properly? Am I not appropriating it from anybody else? But then also, like, who needs this story? Is this the moment for it? Is this the way to convey it? You know, all of these questions we ask ourselves, I think, are part of that sort of author job. And certainly writing for kids is this extra layer of responsibility that I feel to make sure that everything that I put out into the world is helpful and not hurtful, whether it's the messaging around diversity or inclusion or equity or any of those things. I think there's a lot to consider, particularly around writing for children.
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NOCD Podcast Host
How much of you is in the characters then in your books?
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Emily Bartheisler
That is a wonderful question. And I always start out thinking one thing and end up thinking differently. So, for example, in my. My first book, Aftermath, the main character, Lucy, we have very little in common. And I went into it thinking she was this totally separate person. And then by the end of the writing process was like, wow, I did put a lot of myself into her, even though our background experiences are really different. And then with the Color of Sound, the main character, Rosie, so much based on me in many ways. It's not an autobiography, but I did use pieces of my childhood and experience. And then she sort of grew into her own person and ended up quite different from me in some ways. So it is always a very personal experience. And I think even when we think we're not writing about ourselves, we are. We're often working out issues. I always say writing should not be in place of therapy, but it can be real helpful alongside it. And it's certainly, again, like, I'm not writing for me only, but I'm not not writing for me. You know, I have. I always like to ask kids when I do school visits to talk about being an author. I say, how many? You know, I have two published books and three books that are. That have been sold to publishers that are in process of coming out. So that's five books. How books do you think I've actually written? And usually they're like either five or maybe they'll say six or seven. And I say 15. And I have a one in three success rate so far. So if I were a baseball player batting.300, we'd say, like, hey, I'm having a pretty good season. And you have to remember that's part of the writing process, is that, you know, if you're batting.300, that means seven times out of 10, you're stepping up to the plate and you're not getting a hit. So sometimes when I write those things that never find their home or don't get published and they get put in a drawer, sometimes they say, okay, I guess that one was for me, like, that I wrote that one because I needed to or because I needed to learn something or I needed to get it out of my system or I'll come back to it later. But sometimes it's just. That's just part of the process and making peace with that. You know, I. It's easy to say now. And I just delivered that as if, like, oh, no problem. I don't get my feelings hurt seven times out of ten. No, of course, always disappointed when it doesn't work. But I can now see in hindsight how each of those things that didn't work out taught me something or led to something else or allowed. Made space for me to do something else. So I think that's also just a really important part of this process that I think was extra hard because of my ocd. And, you know, there's some perfectionism in there, and there's some, you know, magical thinking, and there's all sorts of things that made it really hard for me to accept that not everything that I wrote was gonna turn into a book. I wish I could have learned that lesson sooner.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah, nobody, no matter how many rituals you do, it doesn't make a publishing house.
- [28:48]
Emily Bartheisler
You can't control it. Right, Exactly. And people, I. I don't know, I understand the principle of manifesting. Like, you know, modern wellness culture and people say, manifest what you want. And I get it from the sense of it's good to identify what your goals are and think about how you might get there and how it might feel, and it keeps you motivated and stuff. But I. I often sort of laugh at that because I'm like, trust me, if manifesting worked, those of us with OCD would have made all kinds of horrible and wonderful things happen already. Like the amount of thoughts I have in my head that don't turn into anything and thank goodness. Right? Like the bad ones. But it's just, I'm sort of like, you have no idea how little our thoughts have to do with what happens. Until you have OCD and experience The. The many times that you have a thought that doesn't turn into anything.
- [29:44]
NOCD Podcast Host
And. And OCD can stick around, though, because it has one excuse, which is. Well, that's just because you did a compulsion. But had you not.
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Emily Bartheisler
Right. The reinforcement, or lack thereof, is incredibly powerful. Yeah, that's hard to explain to anybody who hasn't lived it.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Right, right. I mean, OCD is the jerkiest disorder as far as I'm concerned.
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Emily Bartheisler
It's so rude.
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NOCD Podcast Host
It's so very pervasive.
- [30:11]
Emily Bartheisler
You know, one thing that I just thought about recently, that if I. I think if I'd remembered this earlier, I might have included it in. In my keynote speech at the convention was the first time when I finally started taking medicine for OCD. I was 19, and I was in college, and I locked myself. You know, like, a couple weeks after I started taking the medicine, I locked myself out of my college dorm room, and I called my mom, and we were celebrating because the fact that I was able to forget my key and lock myself out was a sign that my vigilance had been turned down enough to make a difference. And it was so funny. We were like, you know, I had to pay the, like, college campus security. Yeah, right. Like, to come and open my door. Like, I don't remember what the charge was, but we were celebrating it because we were like, that's great. Like, my brain that was always on and always obsessed with not forgetting my key had adjusted just enough to forget my key. And what a weird and beautiful thing to celebrate.
- [31:23]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah, I like that. You know, that's. To me, the beauty of. Of what we get to do in treatment is when you get to start celebrating living the life that you want to live and not the life that OCD wants you to live.
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Emily Bartheisler
Oh, absolutely.
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NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. Not a lot of celebration in living the life that OCD wants you to live, by any means.
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Emily Bartheisler
No. Even if you think it's all the things you want, it has to come with a lot of baggage. And letting go of that baggage is also going to mean letting go of things like always having your key with you. And if you can celebrate those victories and not see it as a failing, but be like, hey, I wasn't being hyper vigilant. How great. You know, it's all about sort of how you look at it. And. But I think for me, medication and therapy. But, you know, a lot of this medication allowed me to sort of step back and see things slightly more objectively and understand so much more about my brain and how it was working and why it was Working the way it was. And that was just a tremendous gift. And I, you know, I probably started medication five or 10 years too late, or, you know, quote unquote too late, like it would have been helpful sooner. But again, we were living in a. In a different society then, where the. The barriers to getting help felt immense. And I hope those barriers are getting less and less. Obviously, it depends where somebody lives and in what family, you know, culture. All of those things can impact it, as you well know. But I do think on the whole, overall, it's getting a little bit easier. You know, we're seeing more pop culture and media reference medication. We have more people and, you know, movie stars and pop stars talking about mental health, you know, things like that, which does move the needle.
- [33:24]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah. And that's one of the reasons for the podcast.
- [33:26]
Emily Bartheisler
Right.
- [33:26]
NOCD Podcast Host
Just even if someone like you come on to talk openly about OCD and how it's not the Hollywood version of ocd, Right.
- [33:33]
Emily Bartheisler
Definitely not the Hollywood version. But the other thing is, it's also, I think one of the things that kept me from getting help for a long time was also the myth I had been told of, like, artists are inherently anxious or depressed, and that is what makes you an artist. And so, as somebody who thought at the time, you know, I wanted to be a writer, I was also, you know, a child actor and very involved in theater and film and television and had been sort of told this lie that if I wanted to be a good actor and a good writer, I needed my mental torture to drive me. And. And the other side of that coin also being that taking medication for it would. Would dull me, would take away my creativity. And I really bought into that myth, as I think a lot of people do. We are told that, and it still persists. I think a lot of people still live in that fear. And I am here to tell you from the other side, it's the opposite of that. I am a writer because I take medication for ocd. It allows me, like I said, to step back enough to have some perspective on how my brain is working and what I need to use in what way. And again, also therapy. I think neither of those two things on their own is a complete package, but for me, medication has just been so essential in being able to not just be a writer, but be a working writer. Like, to actually make it happen requires some, you know, sort of basic organizational skills that I couldn't access without medication. And if so, that's certainly one thing I really want to share with people listening is that you Know, if you've been told medication is going to dull your creativity or make you not as artistic or whatever, that is simply not true. It's, you know, the right medication will not change that part of you. It will just allow you more access to the parts of you that are creative.
- [35:39]
NOCD Podcast Host
There's at least that decreasing stigma. Right? That's out there.
- [35:43]
Emily Bartheisler
Oh, yeah.
- [35:44]
NOCD Podcast Host
It's okay to reach out, and it's huge. Get help. Because I look at it like this. Writers might have writing coaches, actors have acting coaches. You know, we have people who make millions and millions of dollars in sports who have coaches. But then when it comes to our own brain, we're like, nope, no, no, we. We need to do that on our own.
- [36:07]
Emily Bartheisler
Yeah, exactly.
- [36:08]
NOCD Podcast Host
You need to just figure that one out. And why. Why is it okay to be coached for anything and everything else other than that? Why?
- [36:15]
Emily Bartheisler
That's a really good point, the coaching thing. And I also discovered when I was pregnant with my first child, the difference between medications we take for our. For, you know, like, quote, unquote, physical health versus mental health. I have an autoimmune disease that attacks my thyroid. So I've been taking thyroid medication almost as long as I've been taking anxiety medication. And yet, you know, so. But thyroid hormones are something that they figured out how to measure. So they would measure and be like, oh, you need. You need to keep taking this during pregnancy. It's really important for the development of baby. But at the time that I was. This was 15 some years ago, they did not view mental health medication, SSRIs the same way. They were like, oh, you don't really need that, so why don't you stop taking it? We don't. You know, they hadn't done all of the research yet that they've done now about how safe it is to take during most pregnancies. And I was really struck by the fact that, like, these two medicines that I thought made my life or not just thought that truly made my life possible. One of them doctors thought was really important, and the other one, they were like, well, we can't measure it, so we don't really know if it. If you need it. And the different way I was treated for taking those two medications, and it would just. So it makes no sense. You know, it's like, they are very similar medications in terms of what they do and how they tell the brain to produce certain hormones to trigger other reactions. And yet the way people look at them is so different. So I always say to people, I'm like, You'd be shooting yourself in the foot to not take your medication for diabetes or thyroid disorder or blood pressure or whatever it is. Like, yeah, why can't it be the same for your brain?
- [38:05]
NOCD Podcast Host
We don't. Right. We don't give the side eye to someone who takes thyroid med, but we still do it to someone who takes a SSRI or tricyclic or an anticyclic or something.
- [38:16]
Emily Bartheisler
Exactly. It's so bad words, because literally without my thyroid medication, I mean, my thyroid no longer works on its own. And for anybody who doesn't know about the thyroid, it's sort of like it. It tells your body to do all the other important things, like your brain tells your thyroid to do something, and then it's a chain reaction that makes everything else possible. So not taking it would end my life. And it would be really weird to. For a doctor to be like, no, that's not really, you know, like, why. Why would anybody not want to take that medicine? And.
- [38:49]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yes.
- [38:50]
Emily Bartheisler
Yeah. So we've all evolved the way we were thinking, and I think society will continue to do so, you know, as hopefully. Hopefully for the better as we learn more and more about how the body works. And, you know, we're. We're living longer and differently than our ancestors, and so that requires different accommodations.
- [39:11]
NOCD Podcast Host
Absolutely. Yeah. Will. Will we see some OCD in future books? Maybe.
- [39:18]
Emily Bartheisler
So that is a great question. I am working. I am working on one now. Well, it's funny because I also thought, you know, you asked that great question earlier about how much of myself is in my characters. And when I was writing my first book, Aftermath, which of course, was not actually my first book. That was my third complete novel that we took out and shopped to publishers, sticking with my one in three metaphor.
- [39:42]
NOCD Podcast Host
One in three. Yeah.
- [39:45]
Emily Bartheisler
So when I wrote that book, I did not think of the main character, Lucy, as having. I didn't examine or pathologize her at all. And after the book came out, several mental health professionals said to me, oh, it's so interesting that she has ocd. And. And then even years later, somebody said to me, you know, that's a kind of synesthesia again. So Lucy, the main character, is dealing with a lot of grief in her family life. And one of the ways she gets through it, she thinks of. She sees the world through numbers and shapes, and that part is synesthesia. And the way she gets through sometimes by calming herself by doing the 12 tables or by thinking of numbers, is. Can. Can be in the OCD category. And I did not think of those are both things that I do. Again, these are ways that I didn't understand my own synesthesia and my own OCD well enough at the time to recognize, But I just intuitively, you know, I'm putting myself in the character's shoes to be like, well, how would I cope in this situation? And so you end up sort of imbuing your character with characteristics. And I didn't realize until after publication that Lucy probably could get a diagnosis in OCD and in synesthesia, so. So there is a little bit of OCD in that book, but it's not talked about overtly, obviously, because I wasn't even aware of it. And same with the Color of Sound, where the character has synesthesia. And there are definitely parts of that that, in my mind, overlap with OCD for her, but it's not specifically mentioned. I think it's. I really, really want to write about ocd, and not just once, and not just casually, and not just. Just, you know, sort of in the background. But I. I feel such a responsibility to get it right. In some ways, it's harder for me to write about than other things. But I am working on it now, and I remember. I think there's a lot of work for me to do with my own biases, because I started writing a book probably 10 years ago with a main character who has OCD, and it's a peek inside her brain, and her brain is just so busy and so full of thoughts that are very obsessive and repetitive. And I started writing as her and feeling, first of all, exhausted as a writer, channeling that. But then, second of all, I thought, oh, God, is anyone going to want to read this? It's so. It's so hard. And that's where it's my job to untangle a little bit from that and say, you know, that maybe that's my own bias, that it feels hard, that it feels unpleasant, that it feels. Yeah, like, too much. You know, those are the messages I've been told about my brain.
- [42:46]
NOCD Podcast Host
Sure. I got to interview John Green talking about Turtles all the way down and.
- [42:50]
Emily Bartheisler
Oh, amazing.
- [42:52]
NOCD Podcast Host
You know, it was interesting for him to, as he said, you know, writing about ocd. But, you know, you also have to be protective of yourself when you have these things because you don't necessarily want to let everyone know, well, here's. Here's the newest thought going on and everything, too. So there's. There's that line of, you take your personal experience and you bring it into something, but.
- [43:17]
Emily Bartheisler
But you have to.
- [43:17]
NOCD Podcast Host
How do you also protect yourself.
- [43:19]
Emily Bartheisler
Exactly. I think about that a lot, and I think that's why I haven't written so overtly yet about ocd. I mean, as we've just discussed, it finds its way into my characters and into my plotlines. But I really do want to write and talk more explicitly about it. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to do so, not just for my readers, but also for my own health. And it's interesting what you just said and what John Green said. Same thing with synesthesia. I've gotten so much more comfortable with it now, but when the book originally came out In March of 2024, I was so scared to talk about my own synesthesia. I was really specific about the fact I gave the character Rosie different kinds of synesthesia than what I have, because I really didn't. I remember saying to my editor, if I wrote about my own synesthesia, it would sort of feel like slicing my brain open and presenting it to the world and being like, take a look. Let me know what you think. You know, and that's like, a terrifying thing. I think with every book, I get a little more comfortable about what I am happy sharing of myself and. And certainly what I've learned through talking about OCD is that it is immensely helpful to people, the more vulnerable and honest we can be. But also, we don't owe everyone everything. So it's all about finding a balance in how much we share and what we share and with whom. But certainly in writing, I think the closer the character gets to me, the harder it is. And, you know, again, even though I've written about 15 completed novels, I still. I'm still a baby writer, and I'm still figuring out, yeah, you know, how to share what I want to say. And. But I. I think a large part of it, too, though, is talking openly about being a writer with ocd. So even if my book isn't about ocd, letting the audience know, talking to kids again, I do school visits, I do library visits, and, you know, author talks at bookstores and things like that. And being open about the fact that I have OCD and anxiety and synesthesia is part of the conversation. And, you know, I wrote this book and I have ocd is. Is like a huge part of destigmatizing. Again, like, I talked about, you know, the myth of the tortured artist and the. The lie we tell ourselves about creativity and, you know, we don't want to dampen it by medication and, you know, these pervasive myths, but also the Self limiting thoughts that kids can be taught like, oh, I have ocd, so I'll never be able to do X, Y and Z, or you know, to, to bust those myths is, is one of my greatest joys to be able to go into a school visit and be like, I have ocd. And I, I did this, you know, and yeah, there's always at least one kid and usually a, a bunch more who say, oh, I have ocd. And I'm like, awesome. And they're like, cool. And you know, it's just, just, it's so much simpler than I always thought. You know, when I was a kid, it was my anxiety, was my dirty secret. I was told never to talk about it, don't tell people about it, don't admit it. And the fact that kids today feel more comfortable easily admitting it and that I'm part of, I hope what helps them feel comfortable to be like, oh yeah, I have OCD or I have ADHD or I have, you know, Tourette's, or I have whatever it is that they decide to share, like, what a world, what a different world. It's so amazing to see that change happening in real time.
- [46:57]
NOCD Podcast Host
Yeah, that's awesome. And then you get to be the keynote speaker at the OCD conference. That had to be fun.
- [47:03]
Emily Bartheisler
It was, that was just a lifetime dream fulfilled. I told my parents when I was diagnosed. I remember this conversation I was having with my mom. I said, if I ever get the opportunity to like, have any kind of platform where people want to hear what I have to say, like, I am going to work to reduce the stigma around OCD and anxiety and to finally get to make good on that promise in this way was, was so, so fulfilling and rewarding and hopefully that journey is just beginning in terms of, you know, getting more engaged with advocacy and, and you know, dismantling the stigma is just like, I can't imagine how much that would have helped me when I was just diagnosed or when I was really in, in the throes of struggling. You know, basically my late teens and all of my 20s were really, really a massive struggle. And some of that was figuring out the right medication and the right amount of medication, finding the right therapist, getting all the right help. But some of it also was combating the stigma both within my, my own stigmas about myself and other people's stigmas about me. And I, I hope we're able to offer people some shortcuts for that now by talking about it openly. And I just think how that would have changed that period in my life.
- [48:30]
NOCD Podcast Host
Before we go, what advice do you want to give to people who are considering, should I do treatment? What would you say to them?
- [48:39]
Emily Bartheisler
I mean, gosh, I can only say I wish I had done it sooner. I can say it's okay for it to be hard. It will be hard. And there's not one way to do this. There's no correct way. There are a lot of different ways to get treatment. There are different kinds of therapy that work for people. There are different medications that work for people. You have to start the journey somehow. And sometimes there's some trial and error involved, but you have to start. And I wish I had understood at the beginning that it was going to be a journey and trial and error. And I did try different kinds of medication, and it took a little while to find the one that made me feel like, oh, wow, I get it. Oh, that's. That's how I want to feel. A big piece of advice would be also, you know, I was really struck by how many people I know, my fellow writers, who still really do believe that pervasive myth about the tortured artist and that, you know, well, van Gogh painted these gorgeous paintings because he was so depressed, and he channeled it into his painting. And. No, he. Those two things are separate. And we would have gotten a lot more of his paintings, I think, if he hadn't been so depressed. You know, like, it may be kind of the opposite of how we thought. I'm using him as an example. I don't actually know his. His exact diagnosis, but I know he had a lot of mental health struggles. So forgive me if I'm getting that wrong, but I just. In giving the speech, the keynote at the OCD convention, I've heard from several of my colleagues who are writers who say, like, really, you take medication, but how are you still a writer? How are you able to be creative and realizing that that myth persists? This idea that, you know, medication that we take for our brains can change our creativity. I just want to. I guess my big piece of advice is don't believe that there. You may have to try two or three different kinds of medication, but there is something out there that will not dull your creativity, but will actually unlock your creativity even more. Like, if you think that. That, you know, medicine would hinder you, you don't even know how not being on medicine is hindering you. And there's a third option that's even better. It's out there. You have to find it. And it's scary. But I also. I did not Utilize, you know, the IOCDF or any organizations like that through my teens, my twenties, my, you know, childbearing years where I was struggling with, you know, anxiety around, you know, perinatal and postpartum. Anxiety and OCD are huge things. We haven't even gotten into that but you know, obviously that was like a, a big part of my OCD struggle was around pregnancy and postpartum and just all of the things that it kicks up. The resources that are available through, you know, organizations like NOCD and the IOCDF and are are tremendously helpful and I didn't discover them until the last couple of years and how amazing to have, you know, support groups. There are people who've been there and done that. There are people who will tell you, you know, where to go to try and get which help that you need. Like wow, again, what a world, what a difference. So yeah, I guess the other piece of advice for people would be reach out, like ask questions, find, I mean say what you will about the Internet and social media, they are complicated, they're not perfect, but they have allowed us to connect with, with people in a very direct and you know, easier way around certain things. Like obviously Internet has done its share of harm but it does allow us to sign on to, you know, to listen to this podcast or to find an organization or to whatever it is to feel less alone and what a gift. Like that's, that's something that my 12 year old self, you know, just to bring it full circle. Like what kinds of books do I write? I write the book. Books that would have been useful to me as a kid and gosh knows this podcast would have been useful to me as a kid. The IOCDF would have been really useful to me. So I hope that people listening know like, don't hesitate to use these resources. That's what they're there for and they're tremendous.
- [53:12]
NOCD Podcast Host
Awesome. Where can people find your stuff?
- [53:16]
Emily Bartheisler
Well, my books are available wherever books are sold and we're recording this on August 8th. So actually on Tuesday, August 5th, my book the Color of Sound came out in both paperback and an audiobook read by me. So if you've somewhat enjoyed listening to my voice on this, you can hear me read my book. And my first book Aftermath is also available in hardcover, paperback and audiobook read by me. They're both available wherever books and audiobooks are sold. Bookstores online. I love bookshop.org it's a non profit that gives money back to local indie bookstores. But okay, yeah, but books are also available on Amazon And Target and Walmart and all the places and. But I post a lot on Instagram. Maybe too much on Instagram, but I do share. I love to share stuff there both about OCD and my work. But also I have a a new book coming out next year that we're about to release. The COVID art which is so gorgeous and the design and, and announce and it will be available for pre order. So if people want to follow me on Instagram, Elybarth Eisler, all one word, that's where I will post probably too much about my books and my work and other advocacy and writing and stuff. Stuff that I am doing. So I and I love to connect with people that way. It is such a cool as a, as a writer and as an author to be able to directly talk to readers in a way that I wasn't able to as a kid, admiring authors or engaging with their work. I do love to engage with, with readers. So please, I hope people will follow me there and, and reach out and say hi.
- [55:08]
NOCD Podcast Host
Awesome. Emily, thank you for being with us today. I really appreciate it. This was wonderful.
- [55:12]
Emily Bartheisler
Thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks for the great questions and thoughtful conversation.
- [55:18]
NOCD Podcast Host
Awesome. And thank all of you for watching the get to Know OCD podcast. If you like it, you can subscribe to our NOCD YouTube channel and watch other episodes in addition to this one. And if you're looking for help for OCD or related conditions, we've got you covered. Go to nocd.com that that's nocd.com and take that step toward doing therapy to help you live the life that you want to live and not the life that OCD wants you to live. We'll see you again next time. Be good to each other.