← The OCD Whisperer Podcast with Kristina Orlova
The OCD Whisperer Podcast with Kristina Orlova
159. How One Man Turned OCD Pain Into 60,000 Followers
00:28:34
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to OCD Whisperer podcast, guys, with Mia today I have Lucas. And before we dive into today's episode, please remember to subscribe and hit that notification bell on so that you don't miss an episode. So today we're going to be getting into Lucas's story. And so online, he's known as Intrusive OCD Memes. He's now at, I think, 60,000 followers and truly has some funny and great memes for ocd. But today we're going to talk a little bit about his story. Story. And also what's unique about it is that he's from Poland, so I'm going to turn it over to him to introduce himself and have us dive right in. So welcome to the show.
- [00:38]
B
Yeah. Hello. Hello. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so excited and so happy to see you again. So my name is Lukas and I'm from Poland. Yeah, I created intrusive OCD memes, but maybe I will start from the beginning.
- [00:58]
A
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 kit at www.corresults.com to help you take control. That's K O R results dot com. Now let's dive into today's episode.
- [01:27]
B
I can remember that first symptoms of OCD I had when I was 10. But after my diagnosis in 2023 in the. In November, I had to find some space when. Where I can share my personal stories, personal experience. That's why I created intrinsic OCD memes to share my own experience in a really specific way. But it is my personal way to share my feelings.
- [02:01]
A
That's awesome. And so when. And I love that accounts can get started because of a personal experience we have. Right. And seeing that maybe there's a lack of that. But for you, I want to know a little bit about kind of how. How what led you to even going to seek out a diagnosis and something as recent as you said, 20.
- [02:24]
B
If.
- [02:24]
A
You'Re okay, just to share a little bit of that story, because it sounds like you've lived with this for a long time and not maybe totally sure, which is really common. So, yeah, if you could tell us a little bit about that.
- [02:37]
B
Yeah, it was really, really hard. Three years when Pandemic starts and all this stuff with COVID So I was struggling with OCD since I was 10 years old, but in Poland, there is not a lot of awareness about OCD. And 30 years ago, there was no awareness about mental health in general, I think. And my first really hard episode of OCD was when I was 18. I was with my. With my girlfriend and I had a really, really scary, really terrific intrusive thoughts about her. And I was scared about that. And I told her about this, that I have a really vulgar thoughts about her. And I decided to go to psychiatrist when I was 18 and psychiatrist told me, yeah, you have. You have anxiety disorder or something like that. You have to take SSRIs. And for, you know, for 18 years old, boy, it was. It was something crazy. I decided to not take SSRIs. And my girlfriend told me that ukash, you can just control what you have in your mind. And I decided to go through life without any therapy because I was not aware that OCD will not disappear like that. And I think I was. I was. I was struggling with. With intrusive thoughts, with compulsions, but it doesn't. It didn't affect my life as much as after pandemic start. So when. When in. In 2019, when pandemic starts, I decided to change my life a bit. Or maybe not a bit. My lifestyle. And I started doing workouts in the garage in my home. And I started counting calories. I started counting everything. I started checking windows, doors, light. And I had feeling that I know this. This urge somewhere inside me. And I can remember that many years ago I had the same scary, scary, intrusive thoughts and feeling, but I was really scared and ashamed to tell anyone. So I decided to go through this by myself because I was really scared that, you know, my wife can leave me or everyone around me can judge me. So I decided to go through my workouts and try to figure it out. And I thought everything will be okay. But it was not true. For. For three years, for over three years, I was doing my workouts for three hours a day because I was counting everything. I was counting weight on the barbell and I was spending a lot of time on this. And my wife was really angry because I spending. I was spending over three hours in garage doing workouts, but I also was checking everything. I had mental compulsions and my life has changed and my OCD was getting worse when ROCD started hitting me and my values and my relationship. So for over three years, I was struggling with rocd. I was asking my wife for many, many questions. I was looking for reassurance. She was frustrated. And after three years, when our relationship almost was almost Destroyed. I told her that I can't fix myself by my, you know, by my own and I have to find professional help because something is wrong. And this point was a really game changing point in my life because this was part of my recovery journey. So I decided to go to therapist and therapist. I had luck because this was my first therapist in my life and I'm still in therapy with her. And she is really amazing. And she diagnosed me immediately. She told me, yeah, this is OCD and we should start our work together. But the most work is by my side. So that was my journey to start therapy. But also really carry is that it took a long, long time to realize that I really need help.
- [08:33]
A
Well, and you said that it started when you were 10. So how did you figure that out? Was that after you started therapy that you started to go back and think about and, and kind of, that was the kind of memory you could remember when you were doing something a little different or strange?
- [08:49]
B
Yeah, I realized, and I, I can remember what I did when I was a kid and I was really scared of being contaminated when I was walking with my parents or with my grandmother and I saw. Met on the floor or something like that. I was mentally checking if I could touch this or something like that. And, and everything started, you know, showing me that it was OCD when I was, when I was younger. Yeah, but as a kid I was not aware of that.
- [09:32]
A
Of course. Yeah, I mean, you were just doing what you were doing. But I mean, it's pretty incredible that like, once you knew, right, that you could go back and suddenly remember, wait a second, I had something like this when I was much younger. And to your point, how many people with OCD just don't know it's OCD and live with this thing for so long? And I think in different cultures, I mean, I'm Eastern European, I come from Ukraine and I just know there for the longest time, like, you don't talk about mental health. It's like, we don't have mental health issues. We might have alcoholism or schizophrenia. It's like the two options. Right. But I think things are evolving and changing. So I'd love to hear from you. You know, being in Poland, from Poland, you know, what is that like? What was that like going with your culture and the norms there and kind of where was it growing up with that and how much did that impact this process and where do you think it is now? Do you think it's getting better? Do you think it's.
- [10:35]
B
It's.
- [10:36]
A
There's More education.
- [10:39]
B
Yeah, this is, this is a really important point for me because I know how hard is to find the right therapist in Poland and also how hard is being diagnosed especially with other disorders like ocd, bipolar, because about, about depression. There are a lot of conversations here in Poland about alcoholism also. But when I, when I got diagnosed in 2023 and I told my closest friends that I have OCD, they had no idea what it is and I had to explain. And then when I started with my memes and I showed my memes to them, they started understanding what really OCD is. Because there is a lot to do in Poland because I met so many people after I created intrusive OCD memes. And even adults have no idea that intrusive thoughts, compulsions and OCD is a problem because I met their families and their families told me that. For example, I met one mom last time and she told me I have 21 years old son and he thinks that everything is okay with him, but everyone around are against him.
- [12:26]
A
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- [13:57]
B
Yeah.
- [13:57]
A
And if you don't have any places to kind of get the right education if you will, you really can feel deeply like you're not understood or like you're losing your mind, is what I often hear too. And so you're going to want to shut down, but the truth is it's like, no, no, we can actually address this, but, you know, getting somebody to understand what it is is, you know, always the first step.
- [14:24]
B
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing with my account. And, you know, first thing after my diagnosis and after telling my wife that I have ocd, we both decided to not speak about my OCD because it was really hard for her. I decided to create my own space to share my feelings. And for a few months, it was only just for me. I. I created this as for a self therapy or self support. But then I realized that I can help others, I can educate people because I know how I felt. For many years, I felt alone. I felt that no one can understand me and I had no support. So I want to change this, not only in Poland, but in general. I want to see speak out loud about mental health, about ocd, because I know that everything begins from awareness and education.
- [15:43]
A
So how do you think it is now in Poland? Do you think that, that it's, it's improving a bit, do you think, in all this time and since you've been diagnosed officially, but also, you know, just living there, do you think in that area it's, it's getting better or it's going in that direction?
- [16:00]
B
I think it's getting better, but really slowly. And there is a lot, a lot to do. And now, as IOCDF advocate, I have many options to make an impact here in Poland. And I feel that I can change something. I can help others to find good treatment and to educate people and society that OCD is disorder and it is not something that we should be scared of as society. So last time I made a really huge step because I work also in a company with 9,000 people and I made webinar about OCD for this company. So I'm really, really happy because, you know, there is a lot of people, their close ones, their children and employees who are struggling with ocd. And from this little, these small steps, we can make a really big difference.
- [17:19]
A
Absolutely. I mean, I think it takes all of us really to, you know, keep sharing and talking, to continue to kind of provide that information. And I'm just curious, you know, your experience there. I mean, is there still a lot of stigma or shame or kind of like it being looked down upon, you know, in terms of like oh no, no, we, we don't talk about this stuff or no, no, we don't have mental health issues. Like just because I know in different parts of the world that is very much a reality.
- [17:51]
B
Yeah, I think in Poland there is many, many awesome organizations when people talk about mental health. But also there is a lot of stigma and I have also people in my close family who don't understand this and don't understand that therapy is not weakness and, and your recovery isn't linear. R. And you know, I heard sometimes that after two years of therapy I should know everything about healing, about ocd, what to do and why I have to pay for the next therapy appointment. And I want to change this in Poland also because, you know, as many people with different disorders, as many possibilities, so maybe therapy could be two years long, but also 10 years long or even longer.
- [19:00]
A
Well, and I think too when you say that, kind of what comes to my mind, you know, like again living in the States, but then also like going back when I go visit or talk to my family back home, like over time I also see that things are really looked through a medical model which is, you know, you have some disease, you know, you take, you know, antibiotics, you take, you know, Advil, or you take a certain prescription or something, you take it for X amount of time or you go to physical therapy and within, you know, some, some finite time there is some conclusion and it's done or you might maybe need a follow up at some point. When it comes to mental health, I mean we're always growing and changing and, and you know, things move. We're not static individual, not robots. So you know, learn the tools and the skills. But then something else might be happening or a different situation season in your life. Or like in my case, I've been open like I lost my mom a little over a year ago and that was just, you know, a big kind of recalibration of things, you know, so like stuff like that, things will come up. So it's not like it's this, you.
- [20:19]
B
Know, this is so complicated and, and, and absolutely this is not like, you know, so people can think I can go to therapy and after two weeks or two months I will be totally fine and OCD will disappear. It's not working like that because we know that even when we have a really, really good month or two months or even year and something happened, we can make step backward and we can have, we can need to go to therapy again.
- [21:07]
A
Well, right, because you can learn the skills. Right. Like for example, if we're talking, let's say exposure response prevention and some acceptance commitment therapy. You learn about like identify your values, understand kind of what that means and how to make decisions based on that, not your fear and anxiety. You can learn exposure skills, you can learn response prevention skills. So you can learn the skills and you know those. But that's different than actually like getting good at applying it, right? Because learning how to actually do it is very different than, okay, I read the recipe. Like me reading the recipe, I could tell you, okay, here's what you need to make apple pieces. But that's not the same as making that apple pie many times over and over time. You learn and you learn, oh, I can play with this or I can do that and you get better. And that does take time for humans.
- [22:02]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And if you are going to the different country and you have totally different ingredients, it is totally different. And the same is with our lives. We can feel good where we are now, but then we can go. For example, when I was in Chicago at the IOCDF conference and I was in the USA for the first time, I felt so overwhelmed because of the city, because of the people, because of everything that I think that was a panic attack because of new situation. And this is life. We will have the new situations. Sometimes it's really good, sometimes really hard and tough and we can't control everything and we can be prepared for everything.
- [23:05]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [23:08]
B
Yeah. And this is about mental health. This is not linear and we should not be ashamed of reaching for help anytime we need this. And yeah, and I also think that self compassion plays a really important role here because you know, we as humans want to make step forward every time and we want to see progress. And about mental health, it's totally different because we, we, we are making progress, but also we can make a failure or steps backward because this is, this is life.
- [23:55]
A
Well, yeah, and that's also I love, there's a compassion, you know, being kind to yourself.
- [24:00]
B
Right.
- [24:00]
A
But also patience, you know, to understand that this is, this is the long game. This is not like a, I'm learning a quick little something like I see the guitar there, let's say I'm learning how to play, you know, the guitar and learning how to play certain kind of notes and I can play it. It's, it's not that this is, this is a really long term. I'm learning how to play, you know, in a whole big part of an orchestra, if you will, or part of this whole big pitch picture. And, and that does, you know, Require patience. You are going to have some setbacks. Life changes. And I mean, I think as we're talking too, what comes to mind again, right? Cultures, different parts of the world, also different expectations, you know, from males or females or, you know, other. Other people in different identifications. I mean, you have these. All these different layers and variables that are present, and some things, like expectations that are not even spoken, they're just these kind of quiet background things. And you're like, oh, okay, wait a minute. And you have to kind of maneuver those, right?
- [25:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, right. That's. That's why I'm so happy that we can speak about this, because we can educate people how to be aware of those situations, of these differences between cultures, and we can really make a huge impact and help people and, and show them that this is not easy way, but all the effort is, Is. Is needed because we want to live with our lives, with our values. And this is what I want, and this is what I want to do for others. Because we. We know if we. If we speak, if we. If we will speak about mental health and about ocd, about awareness, we can save lives.
- [26:05]
A
Absolutely. And I guess with that, that's a great kind of segue to ask you, you know, for those that are listening today that are in other parts of the world, what would be, you know, a message of hope, inspiration, or something you'd like to leave the audience with? I think.
- [26:23]
B
I can show people the really important thing that I have and memory that I bring to Poland from Chicago, that you are not alone. And we know how the community is important and how amazing it is. And this showed me that I am not alone. I can be myself. I can go through this fight with my people. And this is so, so important to me. And I want that everyone who is struggling alone to know that you are not alone. We are here to help. We are here to support or even just to be by other side, just to be there.
- [27:24]
A
So on that note then, because I think that's a really powerful message of community, connection and that there are others like yourself. If folks that are listening today and they feel inspired and they would like to find you, how can they find you?
- [27:39]
B
So the best way to find me is through Instagram intrusive OCD memes. But also at the beginning of my journey, I. I started doing live streams with therapies with people suffering with ocd, with psychiatry. So I can also. I have also my account on YouTube. So if you want to look at education, educational stuff, you can find me also on YouTube intro the OCD memes also awesome.
- [28:16]
A
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [28:19]
B
Thank you so much for having me.
- [28:23]
A
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 masterclass classes 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.