← The OCD Stories
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You're listening to the OCD Stories podcast hosted by me, Stuart Ralph. The OCD Stories is a podcast dedicated to raising awareness and understanding around obsessive compulsive symptoms. I do this through interviewing inspired therapists, psychologists and people who have experienced OCD. Welcome to the OCD stories and welcome to episode 515 of the OCD Stories podcast. And it is, as you've seen from the title, the 10 Year Anniversary Episode. So roughly 10 years ago, I released the first episode of the podcast. Now the website actually started a few months before because I originally started publishing people's written stories. But about a few months later I started the podcast, which was about 10 years ago when I started it. I was merely following my interests, my passions and wanting to help and also finances for myself. So to think back 10 years, if I was able to think forwards, I never would have had this in my mind. So incredible to be here. And, um, I did the 500 episode where I reflect much more, so I won't spend long talking today. I just wanted to say a few things. Firstly, thank you so much for listening. Whether you've listened to one episode, half an episode, or all of them, I deeply appreciate you. Thank you to everyone who has liked something on social media, subscribed to the podcast, shared it with friends, shared it with therapists, therapists who shared it with their clients. Thank you so much. Um, thank you to all my guests, you know, the, the podcast, you know, you guys make it so your stories, your expertise, all of that. Thank you so much for anyone who's been on the podcast or wanted to have been on, not had the opportunity. I appreciate you too. To say thank you to my wife because you know about her support and sacrifice at times, you know, allowing me to go places to do the podcast, spend time on it, all of that. Um, she's been great, so thank you to her. Thank you to NOCD for supporting me for so long. It's great to have their backing and it really helps me keep doing what I do because I obviously have to reduce clinical hours and stuff like that so I can make time for the podcast over the years. So, you know, their support allows me to do that. So I deeply appreciate them and the work that they do trying to get evidence based care to people worldwide. So a couple weeks ago I put a call out to anyone that wanted to give up to a 30 second voice note talking about how the podcast has impacted them or something they enjoyed about it. And I got 27 people back and I put all that together and that is in this episode. And in fact it is the episode because for the 10 years I wanted it to be about your voices, the listeners. So I deeply appreciate every single person that has left a voice note and made this episode and it was really moving to hear everyone's thoughts. So thank you so much for sharing them and also I hope you enjoy it and I hope it builds a sense of community and a sense of community around the podcast and it gives you an insight into the other people that are listening alongside you and maybe in the same place as you. So thank you so much. Them thank you so much to you. There's a few therapists you may recognize, there's a few advocates, so you know, listen out for those, see if you recognize them because they don't always use their name. And many other listeners gave a voice note. And thanks to our podcast partners, nocd. If OCD is interfering with your life, NOCD can help their licensed therapists specialize in exposure and response prevention therapy. The most proven therapy for OCD with NOCD, effective treatment that is 100% virtual, is available for children and adults with OCD and most members can get started within seven days on average. No hassle, just real science backed help and support between sessions. Begin your journey@nocd.com or I'll put the link in the episode Description. So yeah, 10 years ago it started. The first episode was with Mark Freeman. His voice is actually in this episode. So thank you to him for leaving a voice note. So yeah, it's been a long journey. Thank you so much for everyone who has supported me and my work along the way. I will keep going as long as I can and hopefully put out many more good or useful, more importantly episodes for you all. So thank you so much and I hope you enjoy this podcast and all the wonderful people that have participated. Hey Stu, it's Michael Greenberg. I just wanted to wish you congratulations on 10 years of the OCD stories. You've really done incredible things with it and I feel super grateful that you've given me the opportunity to be a part of it. Here's to 10 more years. Happy 10 years to the podcast. My name is Miranda and I started listening right after I was diagnosed with ocd. To say it helped me is an understatement. I can't explain how beneficial it was to hear from other people whose stories were exactly like mine. Hi, this is John from Kentucky. Just wanted to say thank you Stu for this incredible program. Your interviews have been a tremendous help to me and I know to countless others so thank you for all the energy you put into it. You're truly saving lives. Thank you so much. My name is Raul and I am eternally grateful for the OCD Stories. It was recommended to me by my psychologist as I started doing exposure response prevention therapy here in the past couple of weeks. But I greatly appreciate the work you do. Y' all definitely have made me feel less alone. Greatly appreciate you all. This podcast is a comfort blanket for everyone struggling with ocd, providing current information plus education along with such inspiring stories, making sufferers less isolated with this debilitating mental illness. Thank you. Stuart Love from Katrina hi Stuart, My name is Cameron. I've been listening to the OCD stories podcast since 2022. My wife was pregnant with our now 3 year old son and I was having a lot of existential and relationship OCD themes coming up and my therapist at the time recommended the podcast. And yeah, listening to everyone's stories as well as learning more about different treatment approaches gave me so much hope and I've since trained as a music therapist and I'm very interested in using creative arts therapies to help folks with ocd. And hey, I'm hoping to break some new ground on this one. The OCD Stories was the very first platform I found that truly raised awareness for ocd. It was the first OCD podcast I ever discovered and the first place I heard people openly discussing themes I had experienced myself. It was incredibly encouraging and ultimately inspired me to come on the show and share my own journey. I'm so grateful for everything that OCD Stories and Stuart has done for our community over the past 10 years and I'm honored to be a small part of his story. Hello Stuart and congratulations on the podcast 10th anniversary. I'm 75 years old and three years ago during an especially brutal bout of OCD symptoms, only I didn't know it was ocd. I started googling out of desperation because I was considering suicide. I found out information about OCD and subsequently your podcast. It's it was such a relief. ERP has truly been a game changer for me and has made the last few years as peaceful as I can remember. I hope no one else ever has to wait as long as I did to make changes. Thanks for everything, Stu. The OCD Stories has been everything for me throughout my recovery. Going back 10 years ago when no one knew that I had OCD, I didn't know I had OCD and listening today's wonderful podcasts really helped me out of a dark and isolated so all the way through my recovery, my own advocacy, having a friend for life in Stu now, it has always been a constant and something that I've always been able to dip back into whenever I've needed to. It's incredible. Hey, Stu, it's the Bear family here in New York City. Wishing you and thanking you for 10 years of fantastic podcasts and all the joy and information and fantastic work that you've done for the OCD community. Congratulations. Congratulations. Here's to 10 more years. I just wanted to show my appreciation. In the early days of recovery, the podcast was a lifeline. Stuart, Dr. Phillipson, all of your guests, it all just made me feel less alone when I didn't know how things were going to go. Congratulations on 10 years of the podcast, Stuart. It is so impactful what the OCD Stories has done. From episode one to ten years of episodes, it's created this space for people to interact with stories about OCD that they wouldn't have any other place to share or, you know, for so many listeners around the world, they just wouldn't have heard about otherwise. They wouldn't have heard about other people navigating similar experiences to them. So thank you. Hi, my name is Lauren Rosen, and first off, I just want to say congratulations on 10 years. That's phenomenal. This podcast is an incredible resource, and I've learned so much listening to it over the years and have loved being a part of it, too. And ultimately, I'm just grateful that Stu has done so much to spread the message about OCD. Ralphie, congratulations on 10 years of the OCD stories. We're just so incredibly proud of everything you've built, and. And I think it's an achievement. After 10 years, I think your mum and dad are no longer calling it a blog, so that's something. What you've created has just helped so many people, and I know for you it's been a journey of personal growth as well. I know you always learn something new from every conversation recording you have.
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And that's not just kind of shaped you, but it's helped your listeners as well. So, yeah, 10 years is huge, and we couldn't be prouder. And here's to the next ten. Love you. Bye. Hey, Stuart, it's Hugo on this side. I wanted to say thank you for all these amazing episodes. There's obviously a lot of work on everything you did, and I just wanted to give my appreciation. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Stuart, for all the effort and hard work you put in every single week to keeping this podcast going. It truly has and continues to be a source of hope, encouragement and information.
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For me. So thank you to you and to every single person that you have.
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On your show. My name's Elliot and I've known Stuart for much too long, probably about 20 years, actually, from basketball. And I've seen his journey through getting interested in mental health advocacy due to his own journey and retraining as a therapist, having worked in marketing, and it's been a real privilege to watch him grow and evolve as the podcast has over the last 10 years. And I've also been really privileged to to be involved with the OCD camp on a couple of occasions and hope to do so again in the future. And it's just fantastic to be celebrating 10 years and all the lives that the podcast has touched and all the blood, sweat and tears that Stuart has poured into it as his mate. I'm really proud of him and I know the impact he's made and yeah, just really great to celebrate that after 10 years. Hello from Amsterdam. I first came across the podcast in 2021. At this point, I was already diagnosed with OCD and have also been to therapy. Yet the therapy that I had didn't have a lasting impact for me, which led me to still question if I even had OCD or maybe I should be feeling like this. This is when I found the OCD Stories podcast and I can honestly say it had a huge impact on my life. I could finally find myself in the stories that were shared. I felt seen and heard. It gave me the motivation to continue therapy, eventually getting into a program that was specialized on icd. And here I got the right treatment and now living my life in a way that I never thought I could. So thank you so, so much and please keep up the great work. Hi Stuart and all of the wonderful team at the OCD Stories. My name's Anna. I have had OCD since I was about six or seven years old, grew up in the 80s and was told to wear a rubber band, snap it against my wrist and get rid of the thought cue. A lot of years of a lot of stre. Had a breakdown in 2017, 2016 and ended up doing an episode of the OCD Stories. And you, Stuart, and your incredible experts, from Puro, Chrissy to Johnny, to all of the people that you have on yourself, you're amazing. I'd. You know, I knew erp, but I hadn't heard about act before. I think you're amazing. You save lives. Yeah. You feel like a little second family. A second family that I know Online only, but a second family. So thank you. Keep going, you're saving lives. Spread that word. Love you all. I love you all. Amazing humans listening as well. Hey, Stuart Lawrence, congratulations on 10 years of the podcast. That's amazing. Obviously, we lived together many years ago and I saw the genesis of the OCD stories. I saw everything that came before, and it was a very wonderful experience to finally see you find your passion, find your genius, and really, like, unlock your unique ability. Firstly, obviously, solving your own challenges and then just throwing yourself into the mission to help others manage and resolve all things OCD related. Obviously, since you've embarked on this, I've derived massive value from your podcast. Certain episodes you sent me were really impactful, really helped me.
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Overcome my own challenges and improve my own mental health. So I really appreciate that and obviously, I really appreciate your friendship and the.
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Help you've given me over the years related to what you've become so good at. And yeah, just want to say congratulations. And you have literally changed the lives and impacted the lives of. I mean, must be hundreds of thousands, maybe in the millions by now, right? Which is an incredible life achievement. You should be really proud. And yeah, congratulations. And here's to the next act. Ten years of the OCD stories is an incredible milestone for this entire community. But thinking specifically about people now and in the future, this is already 10 plus years of perspectives and experience that people can refer to, look at, and try to understand and allow themselves a little bit more perspective into what this journey is all about. And I'm so grateful to have found this as a resource to support for me. Stuart, you're a legend. Thanks so much for being so reliable and consistent with the podcast and putting out so many great stories, resources, and really helping folks with OCD feel related to it certainly helped me.
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Years ago when I was stuck in an ocd, you know, that awful OCD whirlpool.
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And I'm very grateful to you. This podcast has helped me learn a lot more about OCD and hear about a lot of people's OCD recovery journeys, and I really appreciate that because it's been really inspiring to hear. There's something about knowing that somewhere in the world there are other people who are fighting the same fight that you are that kind of pushes you not to give up. That's. That's exactly what OCD stories is. It's a trail of hope, encouragement. So to Stuart and everyone who comes on every week to share their stories, thank you and may we find music in the noise. Thank you, everyone, for sharing your stories. It's helped me and my wife that was recently diagnosed with OCD at 47 years old. We've lost our business due to it, but because of her recent diagnosis we have grown stronger and our one Billboard message would be live uncertain. So I'd been struggling with OCD for many years, especially around themes of Real Event and false memory. Of course I didn't know that at the time, I just thought I was a horrible evil person. One of the earliest episodes I listened to was on Real Event and that just completely changed everything for for me. It really gave me the courage to begin my own recovery journey. So I'd just like to thank the STD Stories podcast for making that possible. The podcast was a lifeline for me back in 2015 when I was working on my own recovery, feeling less alone and connected to a community. And then it's been incredible as I've become a therapist to hear how many people the podcast has supported and helped and it's continual mission to raise awareness and education around OCD and ultimately help reduce suffering in this world. It's such an awesome resource. Thank you for listening to this week's podcast and thank you to our patrons who helped make this episode possible. And if you would like to find out more about Patreon and the rewards and benefits, then there will be a link in the episode description. If you enjoy the OCD Stories podcast and would like to support us, please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to the podcast. And thank you to NOCD for supporting our work. If you want to find out more about nocd, you can click the link in the episode description and quick disclaimer Guys, this podcast is not therapy. It is not a replacement for therapy. Please seek treatment from a trained professional and until we speak, take care.