135. OCD, Alcohol & Memory Loss - How a Friend Saved My Life

Summary

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The OCD Whisperer Podcast with Kristina Orlova

Episode 135: "OCD, Alcohol & Memory Loss – How a Friend Saved My Life"
Date: May 20, 2025
Guests: Liam and Kirby (Shared Mind Podcast, Australia)

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Brief Overview

In this deeply personal and practical episode, Kristina Orlova welcomes Liam and Kirby from Australia’s Shared Mind Podcast to explore the intricate relationship between OCD, alcohol-induced memory gaps, and the essential role of supportive friendships. The episode weaves together Liam’s vulnerable account of living with “false memory OCD” and the compulsive search for reassurance, and Kirby’s insights on being the steadfast friend through Liam’s darkest moments. They discuss the ways OCD obsessions evolve, how maladaptive coping (like constant reassurance) can prolong suffering, and why “starving the monster” provides lasting relief. This episode is invaluable for those battling rumination and those supporting a loved one with OCD.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Liam’s OCD Journey & False Memory Obsessions

[01:36 – 09:09]

• Early Signs: Liam describes a childhood tic diagnosed as Tourette’s, but the pronounced OCD emerged in late teens.
• OCD and Alcohol: First major obsession triggered by a blackout during a night of drinking, leading to immense panic (“Did I cheat? I don’t remember.”).
  • “I remember in that moment having a full blown panic attack... I couldn’t deal with not remembering." – Liam [02:50]
• Alcohol as an Avoidance: Quit drinking for a year, but obsessions persisted, evolving to fears of harming others while drunk or even sober.
• Uncontrollable Rumination: Liam illustrates the relentless cycle—obsessions would transfer to new scenarios, haunting nearly every waking moment.
  • "That walk occupied 45 seconds of every minute of my life for that entire nine months." – Liam [04:45]
• Loss of Daily Life: Withdrawn from normal social activities; consumed by anxiety-driven analysis and isolation.

2. Seeking Help & The Pitfalls of Reassurance

[06:42 – 09:56]

• Therapy Missteps: First therapist inadvertently introduced new obsessions, and ERP (Exposure Response Prevention) was mishandled.
  • “He used to make me sit there on YouTube... watching people getting caught cheating, which just made it ten times worse.” – Liam [07:31]
• Compulsions Shift, Never Fully Resolve: Without fully resolving one obsession, another would spring up.
• Role of Support: Kirby, as Liam’s friend, becomes a key source of presence and stability but learns that reassurance can backfire.
  • “You didn't even have a life to destroy. No, it was like nothing.” – Kirby [09:26]

3. Breakthrough: "Starve the Monster" Analogy

[10:21 – 14:25]

• Turning Point: After months of suffering and missed joy, Liam stumbles upon the “Starve the Monster” TED Talk, and starts visualizing his intrusive thoughts as a monster that only grows with feeding (attention).
  • “Every time I had a bad thought, I realized that if I starved the thought and didn't give it any power, it was powerless.” – Liam [11:31]
  • “Every single time a negative thought impacted me, I would just think of that font... Starve the Monster.” – Liam [12:02]
• Kirby’s Analogy: Kirby expands with a dragon-in-the-cave metaphor:
  • “The dragon is the OCD and the compulsive thought, and the villagers are the thoughts, the anxiety... The dragon grows the more you feed it.” – Kirby [13:32]
• Shift to Acceptance: Letting thoughts sit without action, and redirecting to positive focus, gradually weakens the obsession.

4. Rituals, Rumination, and the Limits of Reassurance

[14:41 – 16:43]

• Recognizing Internal Compulsions: Kristina highlights that Liam’s rumination was a form of invisible (mental) compulsion.
  • “In OCD, we have compulsions we can't see... internal compulsions we can do.” – Kristina [14:41]
• Cycle of Reassurance: Both guest and host note how seeking ever more reassurance never satisfies OCD’s demands.
  • "We covered this 25 minutes ago, right?" – Kirby [16:05]
  • "He'd never answered the phone going, 'What do you want?' He'd always be like, 'What is it?'" – Liam [16:43]

5. From Support to Empowerment: How Friends Can Actually Help

[17:34 – 22:59]

• Balancing Support with Boundaries: Kirby describes learning to move away from non-stop reassurance by offering uncertainty—or humor and redirection.
  • “He'd ask me, ‘Did I kiss her?’ and I’d say, ‘Maybe,’ and you’d watch his brain go…” – Kirby [19:04]
  • “He just wouldn't [answer]. And it really worked.” – Liam [20:18]
• Using Humor and Logic: Sometimes defusing an obsession means highlighting its absurdity with playfulness.
  • “Did I kiss that girl in the blue? ...Why would you do that? That’s stupid. What would your partner think if you did that? ...Exactly.” – Kirby & Liam [21:06]
• Setting Up the Friendship: Advice for those seeking support—frame the situation for loved ones, specify that reassurance isn’t what’s needed, and ask for logic and compassionate redirection.
  • “Find someone, but pre-frame the conversation with them and say... I don't need you to tell me that I didn't do it. I need you to derail me and give me logic.” – Kirby [22:12]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the terror of OCD’s uncertainty:
  "If I don't remember speaking to that girl, I could have done anything." – Liam [01:56]
• The futility of compulsive confession:
  "I admitted to her that a girl tried to kiss me. But she never did. It never happened. But I just thought by admitting it, I might feel better even though it never happened." – Liam [03:07]
• Friendship & Support:
  "He didn't question it or go, what are you talking about? ... He's always been the voice of reason." – Liam, about Kirby [05:45]
• Cycle of fresh obsessions:
  "Have an obsession and then you pick up a new one and the last one just disappears and doesn't mean anything." – Liam [08:13]
• Practical analogy:
  "If you stop going in there and if you stop giving it thought and if you stop giving it attention, it will eventually just wither and die because it's got nothing to feed on." – Kirby [13:35]
• Advice for finding the right support:
  "Pre-frame the conversation ... ask for logic, not reassurance." – Kirby [22:12]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:36] – Liam’s background with OCD and initial compulsions
• [03:07] – The obsessive confession cycle and “false memory OCD”
• [06:42] – Ineffective OCD therapy and picking up new obsessions
• [09:26] – Kirby reflects on watching OCD “destroy a life”
• [11:31] – The “Starve the Monster” breakthrough; visualization technique
• [13:32] – Kirby’s “dragon in the cave” analogy for rumination
• [14:41] – Discussion of invisible (mental) compulsions
• [17:34] – Reassurance seeking: compulsion and its effect on friendship
• [20:08] – Kirby’s tactics: uncertainty, redirection, humor
• [21:06] – Diffusing with logic and in-jokes
• [22:12] – Advice to those seeking (and giving) support: pre-framing, boundaries

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Tone & Language

• Authentic, conversational, and empathetic: The guests speak openly about distress, using real examples and everyday language.
• Supportive, practical, sometimes humorous: Kirby’s logic and humor highlight how creative and human support can be.
• Informative: Kristina guides the discussion with clinical and lived-experience insight.

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Resources & Where to Find the Guests

• Shared Mind Podcast – Instagram, Facebook, Spotify
  "Type in Shared Minds Podcast and we'll be there." – (Kirby) [23:37]

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Takeaway

This episode powerfully explores the isolating and shape-shifting nature of OCD, the pitfalls of seeking certainty, and the healing potential of both targeted self-help (like “starving the monster”) and friendships rooted in logic, honesty, and patient compassion. Listeners will take away both practical tactics and a sense of hope.

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Transcript

[A]

And on the outside of the village is a cave, and in the cave is a dragon. The dragon's trapped in there. It's chained to the wall. It can't get out.

[B]

Hi, I'm Kristina Orlova, host of the OCD Whisperer podcast. As someone who lives with ocd, I understand the struggles firsthand. If you're here, you're not alone. Before we start, grab your free OCD survival [e-mail] to help you take control. That's K O R results.com now let's dive into today's episode.

[C]

Welcome to OCD Whisper podcast. Today with me, I have Liam and Kirby from Shared Mind Podcast, Australia's mental health podcast. Hi, guys.

[A]

Hello.

[D]

Hello. Thank you for having us.

[C]

Absolutely. So I reached out to the both of you when I saw that you are actually also starting up this podcast. Well, not even starting you. You're well into it. And, you know, you talk about OCD openly and, you know, really also I saw some videos on your Instagram account. Like, this is kind of what it can look like. Like, you know, somebody's, let's say, starting to ask a lot of the same questions or different questions. And, you know, I. What that kind of prompted me to want to talk about in my show is, you know, to share a little bit about your story. Kind of like what's going on with the OCD element that. That got you to this place where now, you know, there's this big motivation to want to do your own show. Right. And. And talk about mental health.

[D]

Yeah. So, great question. So it would go back to my childhood with the ocd. I. To be completely honest, I think I got diagnosed with Tourette's when I was younger. I used to do this really funny hand thing when I was a child. It didn't really go much further than that. They kind of just thought I had a little tick and. And that was about it. And then fast forward a few years to my. Around 19. It's when I had my first ever obsession. So me and my partner at the time just got back together when we were dating previous to that, we were younger. We're going out and partying. So we used to go out, get a little bit too carried away drinking, and you'd wake up the next day and have, you know, maybe just mucked up on each other. But we were young and silly. So anyway, we. We ended up breaking up for a little while and then we got back together. So when we got back together, I remember I won out. I went out one night drinking and I blacked out. And the next day I was on PlayStation with some friends and they said, oh, who was that girl you were speaking to last night? And I was like, which girl? And then they go, that girl. And I go, I don't remember speaking to a girl. And then I remember having the thought if I was, if I don't remember speaking to that girl, I could have done anything. And then I was like, did I cheat on my partner? So I remember in that moment having a full blown panic attack. I had the, the sweats throughout the entire body, the raised heart rate, the dry mouth, and I'm just frantically like walking around my house, just going back and forth, back and forth. And then I remember my partner was there at the time and it was about 3am and I woke my partner up and I admitted to her that a girl tried to kiss me. But she never did. It never happened. But I just thought by admitting it, I might feel better even though it never happened. So I at that point decided that I was no longer going drink. I couldn't deal with not remembering. So for context, mine's predominantly false memory ocd. So yeah, I, I didn't drink for about an entire year. Then I thought this, you know, I'm not really living my life. So I decided to, to try again. And then every single time I drank it, it evolved into did I accidentally punch someone or spike their drink or. The cheating one was the predominant one. So that went on for a long time. And then I finally got on top of the drinking one. I just didn't get carried away. And then it evolved into the sober life randomly one day I was. It was around the time that Kirby and I had met at a workplace and I was at work and I wasn't feeling the best and one of the girls in the office said, did you just want to go for a walk? And I was like, sure. So we went for a walk around the block and it went for about 30 seconds. And I remember at the time walking with her going like, imagine if we kissed or something. That would be random. And then we got back about two hours later. I remember having the thought of why did I have that thought about kissing her? Did she try and kiss me or did I try and kiss her? Was there a reason I thought that? So that actually kicked off a nine month long obsession that went from March till about October, November, maybe even into early December. And that walk occupied 45 seconds of every minute of my life for that entire nine months to a point where I didn't eat or sleep for about four or five days. I remember calling my mom, crying at about 7am I drove to work. I sat in the car park. I just had to get out of the house. I didn't know what was going on with me. And she ended up Googling. And she was like, I think you have, like, ocd. And I was like. And then she gave me an explanation. That was when somebody was out drinking and they were worried that they cheated. And I was like, yeah, but Mama wasn't drinking, so it doesn't make any sense. Like, why did it happen to me sober? So, yeah, I lived with that for about nine months. But Kirby was the first person that I'd opened up to about it.

[A]

And because you hadn't opened up to.

[D]

Him, I'd opened up to Mum at that point. But she was the only one first.

[A]

Out of, like, immediate family from Mum and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

[D]

So I told Kirby and he had never come across OCD or any mental health stuff. Like, Kirby's story is from the supportive side. He's the one that's helped me through it and always been there for me and the voice of reason to speak up and to speak out. So he, like, just took it like a champion. He didn't even, like, he didn't question it or go, what are you talking about? He's kind of like, yeah, I can connect the dots and see.

[A]

You can see how you would think that, but that's ridiculous.

[D]

Yeah, that went on. So, yeah, that. That obsession got me for about nine months. And then I finally got to the point where I said, I asked the girl point blank, and I said, did you and I kiss? And she looked at me and was like, no, I would never do that.

[A]

She wouldn't have even remembered the walk the day, remembered it, wouldn't have even known.

[D]

But a walk that I thought about every single day, she would have thought about once. And then she. So I had a sense of relief for about 10 minutes and I went, oh, thank goodness we didn't kiss, like, and go back to normal. 10 minutes later. I went, what if she was just lying to me?

[C]

Of course.

[D]

And then. And then I ended up going into therapy and I went to an OCD specialist. And then, unfortunately, he was a bit newer. So then he sort of opened me up and opened my eyes to ocd. And then, unfortunately, because he was a bit new, he probably used a couple of the wrong tactics. I kind of went to him about four times and then didn't pick it up again. I Then got really obsessed with ocd.

[A]

He told you all the things that could have been and sent you down all these new spirals.

[D]

Yeah, I think I picked up 10 new obsessions after going there. I remember doing ERP and he used to make me sit there on YouTube with an iPad watching people getting caught cheating, which just. Which just made it ten times worse. So I'll just leave there with more anxiety. And so then it evolved into every single woman I had a conversation with or walked past, I thought that I'd kissed or touched inappropriately or said something inappropriately to and.

[A]

But at that point, you'd never gotten over the past obsession. It kind of just evolved into this one.

[D]

Yeah. So I never actually got that moment of relief. It just evolved into the next one.

[A]

It's become worse.

[D]

Yeah. And I'm sure you know what it's like.

[C]

Oh, yeah, have.

[D]

Have an obsession and then you pick up a new one and the last one just disappears and doesn't mean anything. So, yeah, it just kept going. And then. Yeah, I couldn't go into shopping centers. I couldn't go out for drinks with my friends. I was just stuck at home for. For the better part of a year and a half, two years, and I was working full time, but I would never. After work hours, I'd go straight home. Weekends were spent sitting at home just ruminating, trying to figure out and get over the last obsession. But in the heat of that, in the heat of that, I remember thinking, I'm not going through this for no reason. And once I get through the other side of this, me and Kirby are going to start a podcast and we're going to help as many people as possible. So, yeah, I only got on top of it about. Yeah, I only got on top of it about June last year. And then, yeah, Kirby was like, we should start the podcast. And I was like, yeah, all right.

[A]

And like, I, we, like, we come at it from the two angles where Liam is the, like, he's experienced that he's gone through it all. But I've been here watching it and I've watched the effects and the impacts that OCD can have on someone's life. It can literally destroy a life. Like, it's. It sounds so far fetched to say that it can destroy a life, but it can. I watched like, you didn't even have a life to destroy. No, it was like nothing, so. And like I was helping you through that for the better half of two years and getting out the other side. I want to help more people who were going through the similar condition as you, but I didn't want it to take two years and 2am phone calls. I was like, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way. Yeah. And here we are.

[C]

So can you tell me a little bit about, like, what's something that. I mean, you mentioned a little bit of starting ERP Sounds like there was kind of some things there maybe that didn't quite set things up or set the stage up enough. And so kind of everything spiraled out. But what, what helped you kind of get a handle on this? Was it the 2am phone calls? Was it Googling? More like, what. What was it that actually helped you finally kind of make some changes?

[D]

Well, yeah, it's funny because I, I, yeah, I went down the rabbit hole of Googling. And Kirby at the time didn't know, like. And I didn't know that giving reassurance does nothing. Like, it just makes it worse. So. But I remember I was on YouTube and I used to get down, down the rabbit hole, and I remember coming across this YouTube video and it was called Starve the Monster. And it was a TED talk from a mother that's daughter whose daughter had OCD. So I'd watched this TED talk about 9 months to 12 months before actually utilizing anything of it. So I was in America in June. I think it was like actually in San Francisco, where I actually started getting on top of it. And it had ruined my entire life. Every good moment. The OCD just completely ruined my life. Like, the biggest sales in my real estate career were just destroyed by ocd. I couldn't enjoy anything. And I was like, I'm going on this trip to America and I am not going to sit there stuck on an obsession the entire time, ruining this trip that's cost $30,000 and we've waited 12 months for. I was like, you know what? I'm not doing it. So we went to la and I had an obsession while I was drinking at a concert. And for some reason, I woke up one morning and just remembered that video of the Starve the monster. And Kirby's got a great analogy for it that he'll probably tell in a second. But every single time I had a bad thought, I realized that if I starved the thought and didn't give it any power, it was powerless. So if the anxiety wasn't attached to the thought, this thought was just a thought. It wasn't anything more than that. So I just started visualizing every single time that I had an obsessive thought, a black background in my mind with white writing saying, starve the monster. So every single time a negative thought impacted me, I would just think of that font. And it didn't work overnight, but after a few days, I really noticed that every single time I had a bad thought and utilized that, that background and white font saying, starve the monster, I would slowly be able to veer my mind off into a positive thought. So when I thought of that, I think of, okay, I'm excited today to go to dinner with my fiance at the time. I'm excited because we're going to be doing this tomorrow, and then I'll just have that initial thought say, starve it, and then I'll just think of a positive thought. And that really, really worked. But, yeah, Kirby has a really good.

[A]

Analogy for it, the way that I think about it. So let's say that you've got, like, a village, and on the outside of the village is a cave, and in the cave is a dragon. The dragon's trapped in there. It's chained to the wall. It can't get out. When the villagers figure out that there's this dragon in the cave, they send villagers in one at a time to go in and kill the dragon. But they go in, the dragon eats the villagers. The dragon grows bigger and bigger and bigger. Eventually, after losing way too many villagers to this dragon, they say, let's just not go in the cave anymore. We can't sacrifice anyone else. After about a month or two, they go in the cave and the dragon's dead because it's actually stopped eating people. So it stopped feeding. So the dragon is the OCD and the compulsive thought, and the villagers are.

[D]

The thoughts, the anxiety or.

[A]

Yeah, the anxiety towards the thought. So if you stop going in there and if you stop giving it thought and if you stop giving it attention, it will eventually just wither and die because it's got nothing to feed on. So by. By sitting there and thinking, oh, did I do this? I don't know. Did I do this? And sitting there and giving it consistent thought, because where focus goes, energy flows. So whatever you give your energy to and your focus to, you will give it power. So if you give these thoughts way too much energy, way too much thought, if it occupies all your brain, it's not going to do any good for you. You've just got to. I know. It's. It's.

[D]

It's harder said. Just forget about it.

[A]

Yeah, easy. But if you just, yeah, think of starve. The monster and just think, I'm not going to feed this. I'm not going to let this thing grow and just then try and preoccupy your mind with something else.

[D]

Yeah. And it's something that doesn't happen overnight, but once you start to recognize the negative thought, think of the star of the monster and think of the monster as gaining power every time you give it thought, you will eventually utilize that day by day, and then it'll. It'll have some effect, which is good.

[C]

Yeah. And like what I'm hearing is really that that's a compulsion, Right. Because in ocd, we have compulsions that are behavioral vis. We can't see and that we have internal compulsions we can do. Because as humans, I mean, none of us want to be judged or shamed. And so for out somewhere, we are as humans, very adaptable. So we will absolutely figure out some way to do whatever we feel to do to try to neutralize this or to try to make it go away or to try to make sure this bad thing doesn't happen. So whether in your case, sounds like a lot of rumination and analysis and figuring it out, Right. Some people, like, like I used to trace letters, counting, tapping, touching, whatever. Right. It's like so many things that we can do. But to your point, right, if you. The biggest thing I kind of heard is like, I suddenly realized, right. And I think that's a big piece of it is having a moment of awareness of like, wait a second. If I keep attending to this and try to solve this, first of all, that should technically work. It generally works in other situations, but like, it's not working here. And I'm going deeper into the abyss of something where now I'm coming up with more. More stuff that I could have done or could have happened. So like, okay, something isn't right, Right. And like here you are, Kirby on the side, kind of witnessing all this, getting those 2am phone calls. I'm sure, like, man, dude, we covered this. Like, but not knowing that. Okay, the reassurance.

[A]

We covered this 25 minutes ago, right?

[C]

Yeah. Here we go again. Like. Like, dude, we talked about it, right? And so as somebody who's, you know, like clearly an amazing friend, you know, I'm sure you've had your own moments of frustration. Like, ah, like I. Like I love you, bro. But like we talk about it.

[D]

I don't know how, right. I don't know how. So it was annoying me. I don't know how he put up. He never complained. Sometimes he'd just be like, there would be really dumb ones. And he'd just go, like. He'd look at me and just be like, bro, all right, bro. Come on. Like, really? Other than that, he never answered the phone going, what do you want? He'd always be like, what is it?

[A]

What does it mean?

[C]

Exactly? And then. But like, that's the piece, right? Is that realization, right? Because when we're first in and we don't know what's going on, and then it sounds like you had that moment of clarity and kind of started to put it together, and then, you know, you have an. Again, an awesome friend who's able to support that and go, okay, wait a second. So, like, when you put that picture together and you realize, okay, if I stop compulsing around it, stop attending, figuring it out and all that stuff and kind of let it be unanswered. Let it hang out there in the ether, feel that discomfort. What did you. Kirby, like, what did you have to adjust or do when you are supporting him? Because it sounds like you also learned, like, wait a minute. Me constantly answering your questions 25 minutes later and indefinitely incessantly is like, it's not doing anything. So how did you adjust?

[A]

So there's two points that I'll make there. So, firstly, people who. Who have had OCD or live with ocd, they think that they're crazy. They wake up every day thinking that, you know, I'm crazy. I don't want to share this with people. I don't want to tell people. I don't want to do this. And it's completely understandable, because within human evolution, you look back to when humans first began. If you stood out in the pack, you were eaten. Like, if you were the lone one over there, it was danger. So people want to not share the things that are going on in their head because they don't want to be seen as the lone one out the target, the thing that the animal's going to eat. So humans by nature are pack animals. So you want to blend in with the crowd and just think, I'm just going to go along and cruise with everyone. If you're not good, don't hide it. Let people know. So, and then this is where it segues into. Liam was telling me, and then he got very comfortable in telling me and started telling other people. The problem became, when you tell everyone, you then think that you have a constant reassurance chain. Oh, did I kiss her, Kirby? Did I kiss her? I say no. Okay, great. Then he rings his next Mate, did I kiss it? No. Okay. Then he rings his mum. Did I kiss her? No. Okay, great. Then he's gone. Fantastic. I've got 10 people tell me it didn't happen. But I'll go back and ask Kirby again from the start, just in case. So, yes, you've got to be very selective in who you tell, but also, you, like, you've got to tell people, but you can't tell everyone. You've got to tell the people that you. That you kind of trust. What I end up finding is, no matter how many times I told Liam no or that didn't happen, it wouldn't stop him coming back and asking it again. So we eventually learned. And it's something that I did, like going back. Now, if I could do it all again, I would. Because I was feeding him reassurance. He'd be like, did I kiss it? No, you didn't. I was there the whole time. You didn't do it by me saying, I was there the whole time. I've given him permission to relive the entire day, come back and ask me every section of the day, because I said I was there. So I just eventually started when he'd asked me, did I kiss him? Maybe. And you'd watch his brain go. You'd watch him go, oh. And he goes, but. But did I. I said, do you remember? He'd be like, no, I don't know. Well, there we go. And like, it never ended. So I would never actually give him an answer.

[D]

And he'd also derail it, too. So I'd be like, did I kiss her? And then he'd be like, I don't know. What do you want for lunch? And I'm like, kirby, no, that's not.

[C]

What I want you to do.

[A]

I'm hungry. I'm hungry.

[D]

He's like, what are we doing this afternoon? I'm like, no, Kirby, go back to the. And then he just wouldn't. And it really worked.

[A]

Well, yeah, because it's, as we said, like, it's everything that. That. That we learn. If you starve it, if you don't give it attention, If I just be like, no, there's your answer. We're moving on with this now. It's like, oh, the brain follows where you take the conversation, so. And then adding humor and a lot of logic to it as well. So there'd be times where Liam couldn't even go to the shopping center. He'd be like, can you come to the shops? I gotta get smokes. I'm like, oh, fine, whatever. Just to have that reassurance bubble of he didn't do anything. And we're walking through the shops one day and just randomly out of the blue, I went, liam, did I kiss that girl in the blue? And he turns at me and he goes, why would you do that? That's stupid. What would your partner think if you did that? And I'm like, exactly.

[C]

Like, it's so.

[A]

It's so silly, out of character. It wouldn't happen. So you don't do it either.

[D]

And you're like, oh, I'll never forget. I remember looking at him going, good point.

[C]

Yeah. Well, it also speaks to your relationship, right? Like, you have trust, you have this connection. And I think that's another element of this. Right? And what I'm hearing you say is a lot of also lear. In ERP world, we would say you basically learn how to do response prevention. Well, how to, you know, do response prevention for yourself and also for the supportive loved ones. Like learning how to accommodate in a way that works by setting some limits. Because of CD brain, there's no limits. Like, you've both just pointed it out. It'll be this incessant, ongoing. But wait, what about this? Because we can come up with infinite possibilities of. But maybe I missed it, maybe somebody else missed it. But how do you really know? Are you sure? What about this day? What about that moment? Right. There's literally no end to that process. So it sounds like you both learned that, right? How to set that limit and say, actually, like, no, we're not going to answer that. And we're going to even entertain, like, I don't know. What do you think?

[A]

Yeah. So just quickly, before we move on from that point, is for people wondering how to find a friend like me or how to find someone to nurture with. It's don't go out and tell everyone. Find someone, but pre frame the conversation with them and say, look, this is what I go through. This is what I suffer with. I'm gonna ask you to be a part of this world. It's a big ask. I'm gonna be coming at you asking you ridiculous questions about, did I potentially hit someone? Did I kiss someone? Did I make out with someone? I don't need you to tell me that I didn't do it. I need you to derail me and give me logic and go, why would you do something like that? Because if you go to someone and say, oh, mom, I think I hit someone on the way here. Like, motherly instincts.

[D]

No, no, no, you didn't do that.

[A]

You didn't do that. So what you need, you need to frame the conversation with the person prior and tell them what you actually require from that friendship.

[C]

Love it. That's a really great point. And actually that brings us to our time. So I want to say thank you so much for being on the show, for sharing your story, for sharing how you supported Liam, and also the reason why you started your own podcast. So if people would like to find you, how can they find you?

[D]

We got an Instagram, the Shared Minds podcast. We've got Facebook as well, and Spotify. Yep. Kirby's all across that, though. Is that everything? Yeah, yeah, that's all the Shared Minds podcast.

[A]

They're talking in on anything and we'll be there.

[D]

So.

[C]

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

Thanks for listening to the OCD Whisperer podcast. Remember, freedom from OCD is a journey and you're not alone. Visit www.coraresults.com to explore self help masterclasses like Sneaky Rituals with Jenna Overbaugh or ICBT Masterclass with Christina and Abe. Don't forget to grab your OCD CBT journal tracker and planner while you're there. If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe, share and leave a five star review to help others find the podcast. Together we can make a difference. Keep going and I'll see you in the next episode.