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Hi, everyone. Dr. Patrick McGrath. I'm the Chief Clinical Officer for NOCD. And if you've ever wondered why your OCD suddenly maybe spikes out of nowhere, it's usually not out of nowhere. Actually, it can be. We have to figure out the trigger, right? And there's so many triggers. And I want to talk about what those triggers might be, because in 26 years of treating OCD, I will tell you. I can see triggers can come up again and again in people's lives. So anything that increases your intrusive thoughts, your images, or your urges to do compulsions, these can be triggers. So it might be something like a really big life change. This could be a change in job, moving, getting married, becoming a parent, something of that nature. And that isn't just having your own child in terms of giving birth, but it could be having your own child by adoption. It could be foster children. All of these things are stressors. And OCD loves a stressor. There could be stressful periods with work or academics or something. There might be conflict in family. There could even be, unfortunately, somebody passes away or gets a troubling diagnosis, mental or physical, that they're dealing with. Maybe there's issues with sleep and fatigue that can be happening in people's lives. When we don't sleep well, well, lots of other things start to happen. You know, physically we can see that absolute fatigue that we're experiencing. People can report gaining weight as an issue. People can just look really tired and other people might comment on it, which then could be really triggering to have that noticed by others. And psychologically, our brains just don't seem to process things as well. May we lose that ability to multitask, something like that. So all of those things would be stressors that OCD would want to pick up on, going, oh, now you just did two things at the same time, but do you really sure that you did them both well or something? You'd want to grab onto that, right? There could be shifts in hormones, the puberty experience. It could be perimenopause, postpartum or perinatal. OCD could come about for people. Menstrual cycles, time of the month that people go through. All of these hormonal changes may also be something that increases the chances of having more difficulty with obsessions or doing compulsions. There could be reminders of past obsessions that come back into your life. Maybe you've worked on something and you've done really well with it, but now there's a trigger back to it. And so the cycle seems to be repeating all over. And OCD could grab onto that, going, oh, you thought you dealt with this. But maybe not. Maybe there's something else to do, too. Travel, sleep disturbances, time changes, right? Going into different time zones could go back to that fatigue experience, because all of these things might be some deviations from routine. And if that's a stressor to you, again, OCD loving a stressor will say, oh, we don't seem to be doing what we usually do. Maybe terrible, awful things could happen in this situation. World events have been a big thing that we've been hearing a lot about here at NOCD recently, where there could be things on a political. Political spectrum, maybe on a religious spectrum. There are lots of changes. And because of the way media works now, we hear about all of these things all of the time, and it could feel like an overload to some people. And we might even think, what if I somehow contributed to these things? You know, OCD doesn't just stay just in your own little world. OCD could say one of your thoughts or images or urges could affect the entire standing of the entire world, and everyone who lives in it, all the billions of people in the world will be affected based on one thought that you have. Now, we know that's not logically going to happen, but it doesn't matter because OCD goes with what emotionally is going on. It's. It's emotionally that's very scary. OCD is going to grab onto that. And it's this kind of stuff that, you know, you just have to be able to take in stride. Now, that's easy to say, isn't it, when you have all of these things going on. But in many ways, that's the thing that we're trying to help people do in OCD therapy, is to take things that happen in life in stride and not jump to the conclusion of, wow, I need to do a compulsion to somehow control this, to make sure that this thing doesn't happen. There are so many things going on in the world in so many places in our own lives, and OCD sends this message to us, and it's, I would contend, a very false message that says you can have control over all of this if you just do these compulsions. Now, I don't believe that, and I've never seen evidence of that actually happening. But I will say this. OCD is a master manipulator and convincer, and many people fall for the lies that OCD tells. So what we want people to do is to recognize that you can handle all of these things. You don't have to believe anything that OCD says because I would contend OCD is just a liar. When you're dealing with these things, what do we want you to do? We want you to learn how to face them, how to live with doubt, how to live with uncertainty and recognize that you can handle it. You don't have to like it. It never has to be comfortable. We just have to know that we can handle the doubt and uncertainties that OCD says that we can't. Just because OCD says things, of course, doesn't mean that it's true. But again, because it's so manipulative, it sure does feel that way. And what have we been taught most of our lives? Trust your gut. If it feels bad, it must be that way. And OCD can really take advantage of that. So that's why we purposely do exposure and response prevention therapy. And really that's what we do here at nocd. And our therapists are really highly trained in doing good ERP treatments so that we can help you face those obsessions with. Without doing your safety behaviors, without avoiding or seeking reassurance or distracting or using substances or doing compulsions and learning, oh, I had that thought, or I saw that image or that urge was there, but I didn't do anything to neutralize it. And I seem to have survived it. Nothing terrible, awful, horrible happens. In that case, what do you know? Now, I can't give you a hundred percent guarantee, right? I could be working with somebody who has a fear of what if I were to get into a car accident and I could be doing, doing some driving exposures, and I can't 100% ever say to someone, you will never have a car accident, right? I wish I could. I wish I had that crystal ball. I wish I had that level of control. And my goal actually in that treatment isn't to prevent ever having a car accident. It's to help somebody learn that they would be able to handle it even if they did. What's the likelihood? Not very, but it could. And living with the possibility of something becomes the goal of treatment. If you're looking to be able to do that so that you don't have to give in to what OCD tells you and you can live the life that you want to live and not the life that OCD wants you to live. I encourage you to reach out to us at NOCD and book a free call with us. If you're looking for help, go to nocd.com. that's no c d com. Our care team is standing by to chat with you to get you set up with a licensed therapist in your area who again, is expertly trained in what OCD is and what exposure and response prevention is and will help you get to living that life that you want to live and not the life that OCD wants you to live.