OCD Made My Own Thoughts Feel Unsafe

Summary

Podcast Summary: Get to Know OCD

Episode: OCD Made My Own Thoughts Feel Unsafe

Host: Dr. Patrick McGrath (A)
Guest: Faith Hillmer (B), Associate Therapist at NOCD
Date: January 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Faith Hillmer’s personal and professional journey with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). She shares her path from working in mental health, discovering her own OCD diagnosis as an adult, her advocacy and clinical work at NOCD, and the value of lived experience in therapy. The discussion emphasizes breaking stigma, the evolution of effective treatment (ERP), and hope for those struggling with OCD.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Faith’s Mental Health Career Beginnings

• Faith’s Early Experience: Started her career in a residential hospital on an OCD adolescent unit, which reshaped her understanding of OCD (00:53–01:50).
• Shift in Perception: Saw firsthand that OCD was much more debilitating than the "quirky, clean, organized" stereotype (04:43–05:43).

Discovering Her Own OCD

• Late Recognition: Faith realized her own OCD symptoms after working with patients, dispelling her initial doubts that she was just "convincing" herself (06:12–07:36).
• Doubt with Diagnosis: Even after three professional diagnoses, she struggled to believe she had OCD due to self-doubt and professional proximity biases (07:38–07:56).

“Let me start by noting that it took me getting diagnosed by three different professionals…before I actually believed the diagnosis.” – Faith (07:38)

Living with OCD as a Clinician

• Personal Impact: Faith discusses harm OCD, avoidance behaviors, and how ERP empowered her to regain control—like driving again (08:46–10:17).
• ERP in Practice: Her experience as both therapist and person with OCD enhances her empathy and encourages clients (19:27–21:11).

“Literally the driver's seat has changed in some ways.” – Dr. McGrath (10:17)

• On Being Triggered: Faith finds her lived experience enhances rather than hinders her work, citing improved understanding and relatability (19:27–21:11).

"My lived experience actually just serves as benefit to our sessions in that members feel so understood." – Faith (19:33)

Adoption and Empathy

• Background: Adopted at age 2, Faith describes the impact of adoption on her empathy and motivation to go into mental health (10:37–13:41).
• Adoption and Difference: Discusses how being adopted contributed to feelings of being different, sometimes fueling OCD themes like fear of abandonment (13:42–14:59).

"It often was just this reminder of not necessarily being good enough. Right? Or fears like that that kind of were fueled by the adoption." – Faith (15:02)

Choosing OCD as a Specialty

• Origins of Interest: Originally wanted to work with adoptive families, but found herself better suited for anxiety and OCD populations—drawn by her own experiences and exposure to effective treatment (16:57–18:44).
• Effectiveness of ERP: Cites witnessing ERP’s impact in a clinical setting as a major motivator.

Being a Therapist with OCD

• Common Concerns: Addresses the question of whether therapists with OCD are triggered and reassures that lived experience can be a "superpower" (18:44–19:33).
• Response Prevention: Describes the difficulty and eventual success of implementing response prevention, and how it’s now a core part of her clinical approach (21:38–23:01).

Gaps in Professional Training

• Lack of OCD Focus in Academia: Faith did not learn about OCD in her master’s program; most therapist training ignores OCD (23:09–23:34).

"I never once discussed, learned of, or heard a mention of obsessive compulsive disorder in my master's program." – Faith (23:09)

Advancing the Field and the Future

• Ongoing Learning: Highlights NOCD’s comprehensive training, learning about the diverse presentations of OCD (24:42–26:07).
• Supporting Each Other: Treating OCD as a therapist helps her manage her own symptoms and offers better understanding for clients (26:40–27:31).

Realness of OCD Suffering

• Intensity of OCD: Discusses how real intrusive thoughts and anxieties feel, and how difficult it is for outsiders to understand (27:29–28:25).

"Why does it have to feel so real? …Because if it didn’t go there and it didn’t feel real, nobody would be bothered by it. Nobody would do compulsions..." – Dr. McGrath (27:31)

ERP Process and Measurement

• Explaining SUDS: Details using the subjective units of distress scale (SUDS) to help clients gradually face fears (29:37–31:12).

Encouragement to Future OCD Clinicians

• For Aspiring Therapists with OCD: Strongly encourages others with OCD to pursue mental health careers, citing her own experience as empowering for both self and clients (31:22–32:57).

“The lived experience, I’ve literally had members call it a superpower of mine...” – Faith (31:43)

Innovation and Access

• Speculating on the Future: Both discuss potential evolutions—such as hologram and VR therapy, and increased global access (33:43–35:57).

Final Encouragement

• Why Seek Treatment?: Faith stresses that living with untreated OCD is more frightening than any exposure in therapy and shares hope for recovery (36:52–37:37).

"Nothing that you do with an OCD specialist is ever going to feel as scary as it does to live with untreated OCD." – Faith (36:52)

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Memorable Quotes

• "I think that OCD can literally latch onto absolutely anything." – Faith (24:42)
• “You can actually get through this.” – Faith (21:10)
• "Once I started doing [response prevention], I felt better so quick that it almost became like, addictive to get better." – Faith (21:38)
• “For me, the recommendation...is that no exposure or nothing that you do with an OCD specialist is ever going to feel as scary as it does to live with untreated ocd.” – Faith (36:52)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Faith’s Entry into Mental Health & NOCD: 00:53–02:44
• Discovering Her Own OCD: 05:43–07:56
• Struggles with Acceptance of Diagnosis: 07:38–07:56
• Personal Harm OCD Example & ERP: 08:46–10:27
• Faith’s Adoption & Empathy: 10:37–15:02
• ERP as Therapist with OCD: 19:27–21:11
• Professional Training Gaps: 23:09–23:34
• Explaining the SUDS Scale: 29:37–31:12
• Advice for Aspiring OCD Therapists: 31:22–32:57
• Final Message to Those Considering Treatment: 36:52–37:37

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Episode Takeaways

• OCD is not a quirky personality trait—it is a debilitating, shape-shifting condition, deeply misunderstood outside clinical spaces.
• Lived experience enhances empathy and effectiveness in therapy; having OCD can be an asset for clinicians.
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) works, and lived experience helps clinicians guide clients through it.
• Graduate training often lacks adequate OCD education, highlighting the need for better curriculum and continued professional education.
• Seeking treatment is essential—living with untreated OCD is harder than any therapy.
• The OCD field is evolving, with teletherapy increasing access and new technologies on the horizon.
• Hope for recovery abounds, and breaking stigma and isolation is possible.

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For more on OCD treatment or becoming a therapist, visit nocd.com.
Dr. McGrath's closing message: "Be better to yourself than your OCD ever would be."

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hi, everyone, and welcome once again to another episode of the get to Know OCD podcast. Today my guest is Faith Hillmer. Hi, Faith.

[B]

Hi, Dr. McGrath. Thanks for having me.

[A]

How are you today?

[B]

I'm doing well. How are you?

[A]

I am well and so happy to have you here. Faith and I have known each other for quite a while. We met in person first, I believe it's Orlando, right, at the OCD conference down there. We were booth setter, uppers. So that was. That was very exciting. And your role at NOCD then was, I believe, helping out with member advocacy and care team and things like that. So tell us a little bit about your work, your journey, and what brings you now to being an associate therapist with us at nocd?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So I started my career in the mental health field working at a residential hospital in Wisconsin where I'm originally from. There I was actually randomly placed on a OCD adolescent unit, and it was there that I had my first ever experience with what OCD really was. I had just finished up my bachelor's degree and was placed at that unit where my entire perspective of what OCD is and what it could be was blown away and, and totally changed for the better. In my bachelor's program, OCD was not touched on one time. And so I came in with, I think, the general stereotypes of what OCD was and just had my world changed in that moment. So I worked there for a bit before transitioning over to nocd. I had a colleague who started working at NOCD and just fell in love with company. And so I heard how much he was enjoying this new and up and coming program that was so specifically designed for ocd and I wanted to be a part of it. So that kicked off my role as a member advocate. And in that role, I was doing a lot of supporting new members, current members, as well as our therapist. Well, I actually went back to graduate school to finish up my master's in social work. And fortunately, I was able to use that and transition into the associate role here, and it's been incredible.

[A]

Nice. Well, we're thrilled to have been able to keep you here at NOCD as you continue your studies and am thrilled that you're getting to do the clinical work now that you got to kind of witness and be a part of, but now really, really direct. In that experience, as a member advocate, you spoke to a lot of people who had OCD and who maybe were reaching out for the first time ever to talk about it. What was that experience like for you to maybe hear for the very first time, some of these things that people had been shamed or scared to ever talk about.

[B]

Yeah, that was a really empowering experience for me in that I was able to see these people reach out, so fearful and intimidated about what they had been experiencing and actually get to support them and getting set up with a therapist and then seeing results. And so for me, it was initially really heartbreaking to hear the stories of what these people were navigating on their own, but to also see that fear turned into hope was just incredible. I actually ended up referring a bunch of my friends to also work on the member advocate team. I was like, you guys gotta do that. It's like, it is life changing to. To see these people change their lives.

[A]

And as you've worked with ocd, how. How has your conception of OCD changed from maybe what most people think about it in terms of washing your hands or checking something to what, you know, OCD is today?

[B]

Yeah, I think that, like many people, I heard about OCD in movies and books and people who are really clean and organized and all these fun, quirky personality traits. And when I began working on that residential unit, I was just in awe at how debilitating the condition actually was. My journey and exposure to supporting other people with OCD was actually how I came to recognize that I also had ocd. And so it was really interesting for me and able. And being able to recognize what I've been going through too. And it definitely didn't feel like a fun, quirky personality trait of mine to recognize, like, hey, this is actually what OCD is, and this is what it looks like for people who navigate it every day was really unique for someone.

[A]

Coming to the diagnosis of OCD older. I'm interested in discussing that a little bit because here you are. You want to go into the mental health field? We'll get into what inspired that in a little bit. But you're working with a group of people. Is there just a light bulb moment for you that one day you think, oh, shit, I might have this too? How did that come about for you?

[B]

Yeah, so I would say it was really not a light bulb moment. It was a constant battle of, all right, oh, do I have this? No, I'm probably just convincing myself that I have OCD because I'm around people with ocd. And so for years, that was what I went through of I'm totally just convincing myself that I have OCD because I live and am surrounded by people with OCD all day long. I think that working at that higher level of care also kind of allowed and aided me in persuading myself at the time that I'm not that bad. Right. And my symptoms aren't that severe, so it can't actually be ocd and, and things like that.

[A]

That's got to be really interesting to then come to that conclusion of, I think I have this, and then finally maybe approach treatment for it and start to work on making some changes. I mean, that. That's just a really. For some. Again, for someone getting the diagnosis older like that is. Is really interesting that. Were you able to look back on your life and then suddenly be able to say, well, that was ocd. Oh, yeah, well, that was your OCD too. I mean, is that, Is that kind of what happened or.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

Let me, let me start by noting that it took me getting diagnosed by three different professionals with. Before I actually believed the diagnosis.

[A]

Oh, well, that's even more interesting. Yeah, yeah, they're wrong. They're wrong. All right. I guess they're right. Yeah, right.

[B]

And being in the field, I also struggled with like, well, maybe they're just saying it's OCD because I suggested I thought it could be ocd. Right. And the constant doubt and time and time again. So prior to my diagnosis, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety. I was prescribed an ssri, and for a while it was manageable. And then it. It actually wasn't until later on and actually when I started working at NOCD that I. I decided it was probably time to, to take my symptoms a little bit more seriously. Um, and so I did.

[A]

And what kind of change did that bring to your life when suddenly you start taking over the driver's seat instead of ocd? Doing.

[B]

Was huge. Um, my OCD got to a point where. Well, for example, one theme of. Of OCD that I struggled with was harm ocd. And the thoughts were initially that I was going to have a seizure and harm was going to come to myself. That then spiraled into, I'm going to have a seizure and someone else is going to get hurt because I had a seizure. And then I wouldn't drive because driving was scary. And if I had a seizure while I was driving, someone could get seriously injured or even die. And so initially there were some rituals while I was driving because I had to do it. I was still doing some in person work at the time. It was an everyday thing. And then it got to a point of completely avoiding driving and working from home definitely didn't aid that. It was great. It felt great. In the moment, but it certainly kind of added fuel to the fire. After working with an ERP specialist, I have completely changed my perspective on that. And I actually, to this day, am actively making efforts to go drive somewhere to keep the things that. That felt really intimidating to. To me at the time.

[A]

That's awesome. So literally the driver's seat has changed in some ways.

[B]

Quite literally, yeah. In the driver's seat now.

[A]

So you didn't have to become a therapist or go into the mental health field. What was the impetus for that? Why. Why this area?

[B]

This area was really important to me because when I was two years old, I was adopted. And my adoption put me in kind of a box of people that were different and didn't share that lived experience. And so something that was really important to me was being someone to advocate for people with these different experiences that were so misunderstood. And fortunately, I have incredible adoptive parents, and they were super supportive and raising me to be the person that I am. And all of that aside, I think that my levels of empathy just kind of skyrocketed in. In my own lived experience. And so I wanted to help people. And how I was going to do that was by becoming a therapist in some sort of population that also had some misunderstood lived experiences.

[A]

That is such an act of love, right? To bring someone into your home like that. So that's awesome. Glad it was a great experience for you. So that's absolutely wonderful. But tell us about how you felt different because you were adopted versus others. Like, what were. I think this will be good education for people. You know, I don't know. It's a topic.

[B]

We.

[A]

We've never talked about it here on the podcast, I can tell you that. So I'm excited to learn a little bit about what should we know about people who have been adopted and maybe how they might feel different.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a great question, and it is a very kind of taboo topic. I know that when I share that I'm adopted, people are very quick to apologize. Right. Or. Or say like, oh, sorry for. For asking about it.

[A]

And you're like, no, it's okay. Right.

[B]

I. I think there's a lot of stories of hardship for those who are adopted. And I know that not everyone who. Who does go through the foster care system or is adopted is provided the same outcomes and opportunities that I was. And I think that even still, in having a wonderful adoptive family, it's hard. I. I think back to my childhood and always being a very tall girl. Neither of my adoptive parents are Tall whatsoever. So I've towered over them for a good amount of time. Common questions is, oh, my gosh, where does she get her height from? Yeah. It was really in moments like that where I was reminded that I was adopted because.

[A]

Oh, wow. Yeah.

[B]

Often I fit in so well with my parents. That didn't even cross my mind.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

However, on Mother's Day, on birthdays, it was hard. It was hard to know that I had this family who was so wonderful here. And also I had a family somewhere out there who wasn't present. And in looking back at my OCD and being able to identify some of those patterns, I think a lot of it does stem from or is related to the adoption. Those fears of abandonment. Right. Kind of the common conceptions of. Of what an adopted child lives through and. And goes through were definitely things that I could kind of trace back.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think the most important thing to know about people who are adopted is that it's not always a bad thing. Right. For so many people, they are given such a great life and. And opportunities that they would have never had. Also, for some people, it's harder to talk about than others. For me, I love talking about it because I get to share how awesome my. My adoptive parents are.

[A]

Yeah. That's great.

[B]

Yeah. And I know that's not the case for everyone, but I think that in my experiences, it often was just this reminder of not necessarily being good enough. Right. Or. Or fears like that that kind of were fueled by the adoption.

[A]

It is interesting, the questions families get, like, about your height or about. I have a friend who has twins, and people always ask her, oh, what. What kind of fertility treatments were you doing? And she's like, I wasn't. You know, I just. I had twins. You know that there's a lot of. Just to some, I. I've gotten to the point that I don't ask questions anymore. I just say what a lovely family you are, you know, and just if. If people want to tell me, they can absolutely let me know. But at this point, I'm just going to go with, you know, hey, this is the family. And that's what they are. They are the family. And that's it. Right.

[B]

Yeah. I think it's pretty cool when. When family isn't blood, but the people who just love you unconditionally. And I think that's so common in today's world. Right. More mixed families, more adoption, more.

[A]

There's entire TV shows now about people going and meeting their biological families. Right. And everything.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Certainly.

[A]

So, yeah, there's a lot out there. Okay, so you have this experience and you didn't have to go into OCD though. Right. You could have decided, well, I'm going to work with adoptive families. What was the initial draw to the anxiety OCD kind of world for you?

[B]

Initially, I did want to go specifically into adoption.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And in my own lived experience and concerns that still kind of popped up into my life here and then I didn't think that I would be best suited to do that. I think it was something that's heavy on my heart and I think it takes insight to recognize, like, I might not be the best person for this, because I think I would want to bring home every, every person going through anything like, like what I had. And so anxiety was something that I knew I also struggled with. And I also had moments in my life where I was like, oh, I just did this thing and it really helped. Right. Or that helped me manage it. And that was actually in doing exposures without knowing what exposures were, just having experiences of facing my fears. And so I think that those experiences, as well as this random placement on an OCD unit really made me feel like, oh, my gosh, this is a really misunderstood population too.

[A]

Yeah. And.

[B]

They can get a lot better. This treatment works. They were doing exposure therapy and I was obviously not, not too involved in the treatment, but more standing alongside watching it and having a front row at these life changing outcomes with exposure therapy was like, oh my gosh, I want to do that. I want to help people do that and see these same changes.

[A]

I think people wonder sometimes. So you're a therapist who treats ocd who has ocd. Do you ever get triggered in your therapy sessions? Is a common question that people will ask. And how do you manage that? Right. What, what do you do to keep yourself there for the members you're working with, even in, you know, a moment that might be triggering? And let me just say, you don't have to have OCD to hear something that could be triggering in a session. Right. So that's, that's not the only reason for it, but a lot of people would, Would wonder about that. So how do you, how do you approach that?

[B]

Yeah, I have certainly heard that question from a lot of my members.

[A]

Yeah, I figured.

[B]

I think that my lived experience actually just serves as benefit to, to our sessions in that members feel so understood. And as a result, when. When they share a theme that, that maybe I have struggled with in the past or that was really triggering to me, I almost approach it in more of a. Oh, yeah, like, I, I get that. I hear how scary that must be. Right. And. And of course, OCD's latching onto this. Right. That makes sense. And so I think that for me, being able to. To come from this place of having done exposure therapy myself, I don't feel so triggered by members who will come to me with almost the same exact fears and same exact triggers. And it's more empowering in that I know what exposures I did that helped me get through this. And we can come up with some for you and really tailor them to your triggers and your core fears here, and you can get better. You can actually get through this. And so I think that my excitement to see these members take back their life in the same ways that I have and so many other people have almost kind of fuels me out of even hanging out with those triggers.

[A]

Of course, there's a lot of discussion. You know, sometimes the. What looks to be the cool part of the therapy is the exposures we make, but it's really the response prevention exercises that are the key component, the true way to heal. How was it to accept response prevention for yourself and now teach response prevention to people?

[B]

It was hard for myself. It was a really hard part of my treatment. It's certainly not an automatic thing. And when you're struggling and you're in the depths of it, you want a quick fix, right. You want something that makes you feel better fast. And learning to, to implement that into my own life and my own responses was challenging. But once I started doing it, I. I felt better so quick that it almost became like, addictive to get better. Right. And, and just start feeling those. Those positive changes. And so I think with. With my members, I'm very open on. This is gonna feel weird, right? You're. You're so used to, and wired to this other response, right. This compulsion and. Or the, the rumination that follows the exposure of a trigger. And this might feel funky, right? But we do it enough times and it does start to become automatic. And the only way that we can get. Get to that is to go through it. And so, yeah.

[A]

That wasn't trained in graduate school, though. I'm going to make an assumption here, but tell me if I'm correct on that.

[B]

I never once discussed, learned of, or heard a mention of obsessive compulsive disorder in my master's program.

[A]

Let's take a pause for a moment and just lament that. Just how sad that is. Wow.

[B]

Yeah. And I was working at an ocd throughout the entirety of my grad school program. And so I was, I was hyper vigilant, looking out for it, waiting for it, and it never came. But I did write a paper on OCD for a prompt. And I remember my professor being like, oh my gosh, how do you have this, this understanding of this disorder? Like, this is. I learned so much. And yeah, it was crazy.

[A]

What was it like then, actually getting trained in what OCD truly is? Because I, I don't want to make any assumptions here, so please feel free to correct me, but I'm going to assume even diagnosed with ocd, probably you had some stigmas and different ideas about what OCD was, that maybe now going through the NOCD training have been altered and changed and kind of eyes open kind of experience, right?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. The NOCD training is incredible. Being able to see how OCD can literally latch onto absolutely anything was really shocking to me. Obviously, I knew about my experiences. Right. And I knew about what I had seen in, in the hospital I worked at. And to know that not only was it in that box, it actually just applied to everything. And OCD really could shapeshift. The training that we were provided encapsulates all of it and every single thing that OCD can, can show up as. And I think that experience for me was really insightful and helpful in understanding. It's never just what you think it is. There is so much to learn about ocd, and, and I mean, we're, we're still learning about it. Right. Every day. And so the training that we were provided just really helped me understand, for example, why the response prevention was so important. I had seen treatment done where it was just exposure, exposure, exposure and low response. Prevention wasn't a big piece.

[A]

Yeah. And what do we know when that happens? It just followed with compulsion, compulsion, compulsion. And therefore people just stay stuck, Right?

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. And those people weren't getting better.

[A]

Yeah. And as you do therapy, how does it help? Or does it help you with your own understanding of your own OCD as you work with other people who have OCD?

[B]

I would 100% say it helps me.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

I think not only does it help my member to, to feel understood, but also it helps me come from, from a place of being able to recognize how real it feels. I think that for someone without lived experience, it's harder to understand how real these irrational fears feel and how convincing OCD can be. And I think that my own OCD allows me to, to hear some of the things my members say and, and Truly be like, yeah, I. I'm sure that's terrible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And feels so real.

[A]

I hear at least once a week. Why does it have to feel so real? You know, it's just one of the most common questions that I get about ocd, about why it has to go to that level. And my answer is usually somewhere along the lines of, because it has to, because if it didn't go there and it didn't feel real, nobody would be bothered by it. Nobody would do compulsions, and then I wouldn't have a job if that was the case. Because you don't need me helping you with OCD if it doesn't feel real.

[B]

Right, Right. And I've. I've had parents of child members, too, who are like, well, this is also irrational. Right. Like, none of it makes sense. Why can't they just snap out of it? Right. So I think to. To have that understanding of. That's a lot easier said than done. Yeah.

[A]

Why don't you snap out of your OCD faith, by the way? Just. Just go ahead and do that. That would be.

[B]

That would have made life a lot easier.

[A]

It really would have, wouldn't it? I mean, if you had just done that, that would have been so much better. But. Oh, well, next time. Next time you can consider.

[B]

No, instead. Instead I got to lock myself in a dark bathroom with a strobe light and lean on in.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. How did. How did that fear of seizures go when you were doing that? Yeah.

[B]

Oh, it was up there. My. My suds level was high. That was like my final exposure. That was. That was the end goal, was being able to tolerate a strobe light.

[A]

And you survived, which is amazing. Right. You are still alive to this day, even though doing.

[B]

I couldn't use a seizure.

[A]

Wow. Tell people just so they understand. What. What's a suds level? You know, we. We use this idea of subjective units of distress as a way to measure it. So how. How do you explain that to people you're working with? How was it explained to you to help you not feel like you're being thrown in the deep end of the pool to do ERP, but to gradually build up to doing it?

[B]

For me, the suds level is something that I think is really helpful in being able to dip our toe in the cold water and instead of. Of jump straight into these really scary exposures, we start with a. A very gradual approach. Right. And. And we start at a lower level sud score. So on this scale of. Of 1 to 10, I like to say maybe at like a 3, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable. Right. Feel maybe my palms get sweaty or, or just like. Right. I noticed some sort of kind of physical reaction for me personally on the Sudscale. And in having this subjective scale, we're able to really kind of tailor the treatment to feel gradual. Right. To not overexpose or. And instead build confidence in members who are working their way up to facing their fears. Right. When we start with these lower level stud scale exposures and the response prevention, those exposures that. That felt like they would be a level eight, start to feel like they'd be a level six, and then they start to feel like a level three. And I think the most rewarding thing is, is towards the end of someone's treatment when we get to something that used to feel like a little 9 or 10 and they do it and says, got up to a three or a four.

[A]

Yeah. Suddenly not so frightening, huh?

[B]

This used to be a 10. I. Are you sure? I told you this was going to be a 10. Faith. I love that moment.

[A]

Yeah, that's awesome. There are people out there, maybe watching this, who are considering a career in mental health who may have OCD and are considering a career in mental health, who wonder about can they have OCD and treat ocd. What. What kind of message would you want to send to them?

[B]

The message that I would send to. To people questioning whether they're. They're capable or whether they should do it is to absolutely do it. I think that the. The lived experience, I've. I've literally had members call it a superpower of mine in, in coming from a place of, of being understood within such a misunderstood population. There's days where it's hard. Right. I want to be the perfect therapist. And I'm never gonna be, but what I can be is. Is the best that I can be. And I think also reducing this stigma around OCD and actually being an example of, yes, I struggled with OCD and I can have this career supporting other people. Right. And I could finish my master's program and I could keep going. I think that's a perfect example of doing it scared. Right. And facing the fears and seeing what can happen.

[A]

Yeah, there's always going to be changes in the field. I'm excited now for all the new folks coming into the field when, when I started. I'll tell you a quick story. When I started, I was working at a postdoc. We did teletherapy in 1999. However, just between our office and one other place about Two and a half hours away, connected to a specific office in that hospital. And the entire setup cost about $200,000.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And that was just from point to point. It didn't go anywhere else. There were no branches or anything. So. So now just with a phone anywhere in the world, you can get a therapy session, which is pretty amazing. So what. I don't know if you think about this ever, but, you know, you're coming in now fresh. What do you think might happen in the field in the next 20. I'm 26 years in, so I'll say, say 25 years from now. Where. Where do you think the field might be? Or do you have any thoughts or just fun speculations about what. What might be coming next?

[B]

Yeah, I think that specific to ocd, the. The community's thriving, and I think that as we identify more people who are struggling with OCD, one in 40 people, right, who are. Who are experiencing it and actually can get the support they need. I think people are going to feel so much happier, and I think that more people can be in therapy. And also we're going to need more therapists because we are breaking the stigma of getting therapy and seeing results. Right. People stay stuck in some therapy forever and ever. And we've identified this effective way of not only receiving the treatment, but doing the treatment. And people are getting better and people are learning how to manage their symptoms. And I think that for the field, that's just going to continue to grow with more accessibility and more conversations about it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The access. I. I wonder if we'll do hologram therapy at that point. Like your. Your therapist could literally show up in your home as a hologram or something like that and walk you through doing erp. Like, VR gets that good that we could. We could be in a virtual space together doing. Doing actual ERP or something like that. I. I think that would be really fascinating.

[B]

I'm picturing the hologram therapist, like, contaminating something.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

That would be pretty neat.

[A]

That would be really interesting. So. So you'll graduate and, well, and with. With all the final licenses and everything like that, and be, you know, one of our full therapists here at nocd. That'll be awesome. And what, before we go, kind of parting message just in general then, to those out there watching, you know, we had our. Yes, for those of you who want to come into the field, but there's also people watching who might be wondering, should I get treatment for this? And you've been on both sides of that. So what would be a word of encouragement you would give to somebody who's debating if maybe I could just live with this, maybe I don't need to tell anybody about it versus what it's been like to get treatment for.

[B]

For me, the, the recommendation that, that I would share is that no exposure or nothing that you do with an OCD specialist is ever going to feel as, as scary as it does to live with untreated ocd. And so that being said, we have this, this incredible option of, of getting support and learning how to manage symptoms and taking it can, can really change people's lives. And I, I live to share that story and I also get to, to be a witness to it all time. And I think that alone just shows to the worthiness of it.

[A]

That's awesome. Well, it's been thrilling to get a chance to chat with you today. I've enjoyed it thoroughly and we've known each other for quite a while. So it's fun to have you on and to talk about a couple of topics that I knew we were going to talk about and some topics I didn't even know we were going to go to. So there was a lot of great education today. So thank you, Faith, very much for being open with everybody so they can learn.

[B]

Yeah. Thank you for having me and for.

[A]

All of you, thank you for joining. For those of you watching who might be interested in seeing what it's like to work at nocd, well, we've got a place for you to go. Go to nocity.com careers find, fill out an application. We'd be happy to chat with you. And for those of you who are looking for help for OCD related conditions, you can go to nocd.com and look up all of our therapists there. You can see all of their profiles, the insurances that they take and the things that they specialize in. They're waiting and willing to work with you. So check us [e-mail] that's n o c d dot com. Remember this, everyone. Be better to yourself than your OCD ever would be. We'll see you again soon. Thanks.