An OCD Success Story (with Lydia Davies) | Ep 437

In this inspiring episode, Lydia Davies shares her powerful OCD recovery story—including how she faced fears around somatic OCD, scrupulosity, and intrusive thoughts with bravery, self-compassion, and evidence-based strategies.

What to expect from this episode:

• How Lydia learned she had OCD and the moment everything finally made sense
• The tools she used to navigate somatic fears and intrusive thoughts without white-knuckling
• What exposure therapy (ERP) looked like for her—and how she made it work in real life
• How breathwork and ice baths became part of her healing journey
• The emotional cost and value of sharing your OCD story publicly
• Why choosing your values over fear can change the entire trajectory of recovery

Facing OCD with Courage: Lydia Davies’ Story of Hope and Recovery

When Lydia Davies joined Kimberley Quinlan on the podcast, she offered a story that was not just inspiring—it was real. Honest. Vulnerable. And packed with hard-earned wisdom about facing OCD one brave step at a time.

From experiencing intrusive thoughts in early adulthood to navigating somatic OCD, scrupulosity, and compulsive skin picking, Lydia has walked through the fire. In this article, we explore her story, the strategies that helped her recover, and the values that guided her along the way.

A Late Diagnosis That Changed Everything

Though Lydia experienced symptoms from a young age, it wasn’t until her mid-20s—during a season of work stress—that she first opened up to a therapist. After revealing a history of disturbing intrusive thoughts, her therapist gently introduced her to the concept of OCD.

The lightbulb moment came when she realized OCD wasn’t just about handwashing or neatness. It could also involve:

• Intrusive sexual thoughts (which deeply conflicted with her values)
• Religious obsessions and fear of going to hell
• Just-right compulsions and body-focused behaviors like skin picking

The more she learned, the more it all began to make sense. And with that, Lydia felt relief and motivation—she finally had a name for her pain and a path forward.

Why Specialized OCD Treatment Matters

Although her first therapist helped her begin her healing journey, it wasn’t until Lydia began working with Dr. Emily O’Leary at the OCD Clinic in Brisbane that she received specialized treatment rooted in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP).

This shift in care made a dramatic difference. As Lydia puts it: “That’s when the real OCD treatment started.”

Learning to Face Fear Through ERP

One of the foundational tools in Lydia’s recovery was exposure and response prevention—a gold-standard treatment for OCD.

Here’s what that looked like for her:

Repeated Exposure to Feared Situations

One of Lydia’s fears involved getting whiplash in a car accident. Her therapist encouraged her to:

• Say out loud while driving: “I’m going to get whiplash.”
• Gradually level up the exposure: “I want to get whiplash.”
• Research the symptoms of whiplash online without reassurance-seeking

This helped Lydia confront the fear head-on—without performing compulsions to neutralize it.

Reframing the Anxiety Response

Rather than white-knuckling her way through exposures, Lydia learned to fully allow discomfort. She practiced staying present instead of waiting for the anxiety to pass, which deepened her ability to tolerate uncertainty.

Choosing Her Own Exposures: Breathwork as Therapy

Beyond traditional ERP assignments, Lydia began designing her own exposures—especially ones that aligned with her personal values.

One standout example was breathwork, which became both a trigger and a healing tool.

For someone with somatic OCD and fears around breathing “incorrectly”, breathwork was terrifying. But Lydia pushed herself to attend guided breathwork events where she practiced:

• Letting go of rigid breathing rules
• Sitting with intense physical sensations
• Using community support as a grounding anchor

Some sessions triggered panic-like symptoms or spiritual fears due to her religious upbringing. Still, she returned—again and again—leaning on her courage and values to guide her forward.

Facing Religious OCD with Compassion

As someone with a strong Christian faith, Lydia also struggled with scrupulosity—fears of sinning, being spiritually contaminated, or “welcoming in” unsafe energies. These fears intensified when participating in wellness communities that embraced spirituality outside her own belief system.

But Lydia leaned into her values:

• The value of connection
• The value of growth
• The value of living in alignment with truth, not fear

Her exposure wasn’t just to the situations themselves—but to the possibility of being misunderstood or judged.

Learning Not to White-Knuckle Through Anxiety

A key moment in Lydia’s treatment came when her therapist introduced the concept of not white-knuckling through exposures.

What does this mean?

Instead of gritting your teeth and surviving the experience, you:

• Slow down
• Breathe through it
• Soften your resistance
• Let go of control

One surprising teacher? Ice baths.
Lydia began using them as a way to train her nervous system—learning how to relax into discomfort rather than panic. Over time, this physical practice translated into her emotional recovery.

The Risk and Reward of Speaking Out

Lydia later chose to share her story publicly—including details about her intrusive thoughts. The response from some people in her community was hurtful. They misunderstood her diagnosis and questioned whether she should have spoken so openly.

But Lydia chose to continue speaking out.

She realized that silence breeds stigma—and that people are dying because they don’t know OCD can show up this way. If her story could save even one life, she knew it was worth sharing.

Staying Connected: Support Groups and Advocacy

Today, Lydia continues to support others by:

• Moderating a monthly OCD peer support group at paywhatyoucanpeersupport.com
• Creating helpful content on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/lydiadavies_creative/
• Sharing her story on podcasts and community platforms

Her mission is clear: To spread awareness, reduce shame, and help others find hope in OCD recovery.

Final Thoughts: You Are Capable of Recovery

Lydia’s story is a powerful reminder that OCD recovery isn’t linear. There are setbacks, triggers, fears—and also breakthroughs, creativity, and deep self-trust.

With specialized care, self-led exposure, and a strong connection to her values, Lydia proves that you can learn to live a full and meaningful life, even when OCD tries to convince you otherwise.

If you’re starting ERP or exploring treatment, let this be your encouragement:
You don’t have to do it perfectly. You just have to be willing. 

The podcast is made possible by NOCD. NOCD offers effective, convenient therapy available in the US and outside the US. To find out more about NOCD, their therapy plans and if they currently take your insurance head over to https://learn.nocd.com/youranxietytoolkit

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Transcription: An OCD Success Story (with Lydia Davies)

Kimberley: Welcome everybody. Today we are sharing a truly inspiring OCD success story that’s equal parts, honest, hopeful, and deeply relatable in this episode titled as an OCD Success Story with Lydia Davies. I’m so honored to bring you a conversation where we are gonna bring, of course, as always, all the beautiful virtual hugs.

And practical strategies so that you can face your fears and live each day with courage and compassion. Lydia Davies joins us from the Sunshine Coast of Australia, which is where my grandfather used to live. She experienced OCD symptoms from a very young age, but she did not receive a formal diagnosis until adulthood.

Since receiving specialized OCD treatment in 2021, Lydia has made incredible progress in her recovery. Her journey includes navigating somatic OCD Scrupulosity, just right OCD, compulsive skin picking, also known as dermatillomania and intrusive sexual thoughts, just to name a few. In this episode, Lydia is going to share the ups and downs of her recovery, the tools that helped her most, and how she continues to find healing through creative expression.

Let this be a reminder. Recovery from OCD is possible, and while the path may be bumpy, you don’t have to walk it alone. So let’s dive in. Welcome, Lydia.

Lydia: Hello. So good to be here. I’m so excited.

Kimberley: Okay, so I am so excited to talk with you about just recovery and your experience and what worked and what was hard and what was not so hard, and what was, you know, tell me about all the bumps and all the things.

So could you just share first about learning about having OCD? Where were you? What were you doing when you realized that that’s what you’re experiencing?

Lydia: Yeah. Okay. So this was about 12 years ago. Um, I was 24 years old. I had been in a job, which I loved, but I was having a lot of stress in that job, and I came to the point where I was crying at work and I had to stop the job for a while, and I, you know, I was encouraged to go and see a counselor or a, a therapist.

So luckily I was able to, I went to the pastor of my church and asked, is there any therapists that you would recommend me to? And he recommended me to a certain therapist called Lisa Andrews and. I went to her, first of all, um, she was lovely. Um, but I was talking to her about, you know, my stress with work and all those current things I was going through.

Um, so at that point I think she believed I had just generalized anxiety disorder. But then at the end of the first session, I felt like, okay, there’s something else I haven’t talked about that I should probably mention because. This is a bit weird. Um, so probably a year or two previously before that time, I’d gone through a time in my life where I started getting intrusive thoughts and about kids actually, and I was actually afraid at the time.

Oh my gosh, what if this means that I’m a pedophile or if I’m not careful? What if this means that I could turn into one if I’m, if I’m not careful and if I don’t handle this right. So I was getting these interest thoughts about kids kind of sexual in nature. They really disturbed me because that was the last thing in the world I want to think about or be.

And. You know, I’d really, throughout my life, I’d really valued my, um, sexual purity. I guess that’s what I called it. But, you know, from the age of 14, you know, back then there was a time when I was like, you know, touching myself sexually, but age 14, because I was so like into God and my faith, I decided, okay, let’s.

You know, I’m gonna stop this. So, I hadn’t touched myself sexually since I was 14 years old. And then I was, um, about 22. And, you know, I’d been really careful not to like, think lustful thoughts towards men, because I am straight. And, you know, I, I really tried that and I was going pretty well, and then all of a sudden I started getting these sexually intrusive thoughts about kids and it horrified me.

And, you know, the more, the more that I tried not to think about these things, the more that they would come in. So the more I tried to push the thought away. The more that it would come in and it would, you know, just horrify me every single time. So, um, I went through just about probably three months where I was dealing with that, and it was really, really tormenting.

Luckily, I think through finding this job, it was a job in sales. I really loved the job and I was able to distract myself because the job was so high stress and you had to really work to make a sale. So I like. I distracted myself through that and luckily these constant, intrusive thoughts stopped because I was so, I, I, it’s like I got another obsession.

It was like not losing my job was my obsession. Obsession, yeah. Anyway, so. In my first psychology session, I mentioned that right at the end. I said, ah, a few years ago I was getting these thoughts about kids and I’m, I don’t wanna be a pedophile, but I’m afraid I’m, and it was right at the end of the session, my lovely psychologist was like, okay, thank you so much for sharing that.

We’ll talk more about this next week. And I was like, okay, we gonna talk about next week.

Kimberley: Like it’s gonna be a long week now until that session.

Lydia: Yeah, so I came back the next week and she was really lovely and she’d print out some paper, like some paper that would help me. It was a article by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz about the Four Steps, and it was about OCD. And so she was saying to me like, when you get these kind of thoughts, just relabel it and, and say, it’s not me, it’s my OCD.

And I was like. Uh, are you implying that I have OCD? And she’s like, yeah, kind of basically. Um, and I was like, ah, well that actually makes sense because, you know, I’ve always kind of related to this thing called OCD, but I never really wanted to claim it. Like I’d, I’d heard of, you know, OCD being that neatness and perfectionism and washing hands and being compulsive, and I kind of knew I struggled with that, but for a long time I was kind of in denial.

’cause like, I don’t wanna be one of those people. So I kind of knew in the back of my mind I might have it, but I didn’t really talk about it. So when she mentioned this might be OCD, I was like, that kind of makes sense. I wonder how she’ll worked that out. Um, but then I found out that with OCD you can get sexually intrusive thoughts like about things you don’t want to, and also violent, intrusive thoughts.

Mm-hmm. And also that the thoughts can be religious in nature. And for a lot of my life, I’d struggled so much with being. Like religious OCD and just really focusing on the Bible too much and being really, really afraid that I was going to hell. Um, so when I found out that these things could be OCD too, and it wasn’t just about neatness and hand washing, I was like, my mind was blown.

I was like, wow, this is a huge light bulb moment and suddenly almost everything I’ve struggled with through throughout my life makes sense and. You know, there was hope that, well, I’m not actually a creep I, well, or I wasn’t. I have this thing called OCD and it’s a diagnosis where it is very common to get these intrusive thoughts and there’s nothing wrong with me and I can actually treat this and get through this.

So that was huge, um, that illness. Mm,

Kimberley: yeah. Were you only happy or were, and like were you only relieved or did you feel other emotions as well when you got that diagnosis?

Lydia: Well, at the time I think I was mostly just relieved and kind of fascinated. I think, you know, I didn’t want to claim that stereotype of I’ve got OCD because I didn’t like the stereotype.

Mm-hmm. But when I found out that OCD was all these other things as well, I thought, oh wow. And it was almost like it is not that I went around telling everyone I’ve got this diagnosis called OCD, but it was like I was. Relieved I’d found out about it. And yeah, I think because I was, in a time in my life where I was into problem solving and self-improvement, it kind of just made me excited and made me wanna overcome this.

And yeah. So for me at the time it was mostly just kind of fascination and excitement and motivation to overcome it.

Kimberley: Great. Now, did you continue treatment with her? What was the treatment like from there?

Lydia: Yeah, so, um, I saw my lovely psychologist, Lisa for eight years. So we did do a little bit of work with OCD, but Liza wouldn’t fully call herself an OCD specialist.

So although she was helpful, um, in helping me with. My OCD. It wasn’t until years later when I started seeing Dr. Emily O’Leary from the OCD clinic in Brisbane. That was when like the real OCD treatment started. So, you know, like exposure and response, prevention, facing headache. What,

Kimberley: yeah. What made you decide to go for specific specialized care?

Was there an increase in symptoms or was there, what was that like for you?

Lydia: I think at the time I was dealing with a lot of obsessions related to my body, so it was kind of about fears of pain and injury and permanently damaging my body. And I did have some kind of pain and injuries that I was working through.

1. But it was kind of all consuming. Like I would put so much effort into trying to overcome this pain and injury. For example, I would get neck pain. So at the time I’d be constantly heating up heat backs to put around my neck to, you know, take away the pain or I was doing compulsively stretching or just a lot of compulsive activity to try and get rid of this pain and also to fix it.

Uh, and I think at the time, Lisa, she actually realized. I think we are coming to, like, we’re butting our head against the wall. I think that it might be time for Lydia to see someone else. You know, I had seen her for eight years, so that was lovely that she was willing to tell me that directly. Um, but yeah, one of the people that she’d recommended was Emily O’Leary from the OCD clinic.

So luckily I, there was a wait list, but I was able to get in much sooner than a lot of other people were able to. So I was very lucky with that. Yeah. So that, that’s, that’s how I decided I need to switch to Emily.

Kimberley: Yeah. Amazing. So for the listeners who might be early, let’s say in their decision to start ERP, whether they’re with a, a therapist or some kind of self-led program.

What was that learning curve like for you? So it sounds like you had some education in it. What was your, you know, if, if you were meeting ERP for the first time, what was that like?

Lydia: Well, luckily for a few years then I’d already been listening to the OCD Stories podcast. Mm-hmm. So I had learned a lot about ERP and what it really takes to overcome OCD.

Okay. I’d also been listening to York Podcast, Kimberly, which I absolutely loved, and it was very inspiring. So yeah, I was really learning a lot through listening to podcasts and at certain points with my old therapist, Lisa, I was kind of. Almost questioning her kind of being like, hold, right. I’ve heard through the OCD stories that they say this, but you are saying this,

Kimberley: right?

Lydia: So yeah, I think at that point I was ready to actually face it head on. Mm-hmm. It did take me a long time to get there though, right. So at least I was ready for it. Yeah, and so, and I knew, I knew it wouldn’t be easy and I knew I’d have to do terrifying things.

Kimberley: Right. Okay. So you started ERP, and can you share like a little bit about, did you have to do exposures?

Were you doing more response prevention? Mm-hmm. Tell us a little bit about what that looked like. I’d love also to know like was there a moment where you didn’t think you could do it, and what did you do to sort of navigate that?

Lydia: Yeah, right. Well, there’s one exposure in particular that I remember at the time I was really afraid that in my car I would have a car crash and that I would get whiplash, and that that would of course ramp up my neck pain, and I’d have to struggle with that for years.

So I was really afraid of getting whiplash. So Emily encouraged me that while I was driving and around in my car to say aloud, I’m going to get whiplash. I am going to get whiplash. I’m going to have a terrible crash and get whiplash. And then she said, and if that doesn’t bring too much of an anxiety response, then maybe ramp it up and say, I want to get whiplash.

So she Alright. She also encouraged me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She also encouraged me to Google whiplash and, and find out what happens when you get whiplash. So I went home and I did that and I was like, oh, I’m gonna be triggered. Surprisingly though, I Googled it and I was like, ah, whiplash isn’t as bad as I thought it was.

Kimberley: You weren’t compulsively Googling.

Lydia: No, I knew. I knew that that wouldn’t be a good idea.

Kimberley: Yeah. Interesting. And so if you, so you’re driving around you, so obviously you didn’t stop driving. It’s not like you were avoiding it, but it was very anxiety provoking for you.

Yeah,

Kimberley: yeah, yeah. And you were driving from the Sunshine Coast down to Brisbane, which is a little bit of a drive. Were you.

Lydia: Oh, not to Brisbane. Sorry, just, I was just driving around on the Sunshine Coast.

Kimberley: All right. So you, okay, I see. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, oh, sorry. I was seeing Emily over Zoom. I didn’t, I understand now because I’m from like my, my family are in Brisbane, so I’m like thinking out loud, like, okay, so yeah, you’re driving around in the Sunshine Coast and you’re saying, I either will get whiplash or I want to get whiplash.

Yeah. What happened? What, what was it like for you in that moment to navigate? Was that like a 10 out of 10 for you? Anxiety wise? What? How, how difficult was that?

Lydia: I think surprisingly, it wasn’t so difficult. Like it was a little bit uncomfortable saying it and to like imagine myself getting whiplash, but surprisingly it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.

Mm. Spoiler alert. I’ve never gotten whiplash, so it didn’t happen.

Kimberley: How long did that take for you to practice that ERP? Was that like something you just did once? Did you do it on repeat For how long? Like, we know that with, with ERP, it’s a lot of homework assigned activities. How long were you asked to do that for?

Lydia: I can’t remember how long I was asked to do it for, but I think I probably did it for a few weeks.

I think though it wasn’t hugely triggering, like I, it didn’t take too much for me to be like, okay, I’m through this. So maybe it was like lower on the exposure hierarchy. Yeah. But that, but I did other exposures as well. Later down the track there was probably some more that were much harder. So I think at this point I may have even stopped seeing Emily and started seeing another OCD therapist, but I’d, I’d learn about ERP and how it works and how to do it.

So I kind of knew how to treat it myself somewhat. Okay. So I. At the time I started going to these breath work events on the beach, and at the time I was actually really afraid of incorrect breathing technique ’cause I had, um, OCD about my breathing and about breathing correctly, what, whatever that means.

’cause there’s so many different opinions about how to breathe and thinking about breathing or practicing breathing techniques would just cause me anxiety. So it was easier not to do it, but then it was causing me a lot of stress and it was causing my chest to get tighten and the pain would continue, et cetera.

So someone invited me to a breath work event on the beach and I decided to go along. I thought it would be like, you know, slow, deep breathing, but it wasn’t. It was like different. It was, um, so this is the holotropic breathing technique. They call it conscious connected breathing. So. Skin through the mouth and out through the mouth with no pause at the top of the breath and no pause at the bottom.

And so you’re lying there on the beach doing that, trying to breathe into your belly and your chest. So taking a lot it, a lot of breath and it’s kind of like slow hyperventilating. So it’s kind of about 10 minutes was how long we did it for. Anyway, I was lying there and I was like, okay, this. Isn’t correct breathing technique.

First of all, it’s mouth breathing. I was taught to breathe in through the nose. Second of all, it’s like breathing in the chest and the belly, so it’s like it’s chest breathing. That’s bad, right? And thirdly, it was like slow hyperventilating. And of course hyperventilating is kind of what you do when you’re having a panic attack.

So I’m like, I was kind of like, why are we doing this? Yeah, but I’m like, I knew that this would be a good exposure for me, so I decided to do it. I kind of held back somewhat, but I was lying there. I was so triggered. My feet were like clenching up and luckily the, the facilitators on the beach, one of them was really supportive and I felt kind of seen and like safe and at least there was a supportive person around me.

But I. Yeah, I got through that. I was really triggered at the time, but then, you know, um, later, the guy on the beach, he gave me the most beautiful hug afterwards and he was so supportive. And then my mood just shifted. Like, I was just like, I feel great now. And at the time I was surfing and, um, I went for a surf afterwards.

I had the most fun surf. So even though that experience was really triggering. The rest of the day was awesome. So, and there is some truth in that with breath work, it kind of induces a sympathetic response, so it, it induces the fight or flights. It’s a bit, the fight or flight response in the body allows you to discharge.

Nervous energy. And then normally when you go back to the nasal breathing afterwards, it, it brings you into more of a parasympathetic state and more of a meditative state. So that’s part of the reason why I felt awful during the breath work. But then later I was like, oh, I feel great. Um,

Kimberley: right.

Lydia: Thats it.

That doesn’t always happen. I still do breath work to this day. Um, I have a different experience every time. Just keeping on going to those events and doing that. There was one time that I decided to go and go all in, so I’d been kind of holding back and not breathing too deeply, but this time I’m like, okay, I’m just gonna do it how they say?

So I committed and I, I was thinking, okay, even if I get a panic attack, I’m just gonna like, keep going because you know, there’s supportive facilitators around me and they’ll support me and I’ll be okay. Plus I had a massage booked in the next day because, you know, I, I was compulsively getting massages at that point to take away the pain, but I thought if I get all my chest gets tight and all that, I will just go and see my massage therapist.

Right. And he’ll fix me. Right? Yeah. So, but I went all in and I breathed and I felt like it was like one of the most intense exposures of my life, I think. I felt like my OCD was like, get me outta here. This is incorrect breathing technique. I wanted to run away like, and like my legs started kind of shaking and kicking a little bit.

’cause I had so much like kind of nervous energy, right? Going through my body. I. And, um, I was starting to get this thing in my hands called tey, where the hands kind of start to seize up and it’s kind of like a bit like T-Rex hands, which they tell you that can happen. You can get tingles, you can get, or also I was getting tension in my temples.

It kind of felt like I was wearing sunglasses, but I wasn’t wearing sunglasses. It’s like I was getting pressure in all different parts of my face. It was so weird. So my somatic CD was like, what is going myself? But I kept going and I didn’t have a panic attack. And then when we, after the 10 minutes, we went back to the normal nasal breathing and then soon after that the tension left my hands and I went back to normal.

And then I was lying there and I started kind of like laugh, like kind of smiling a little bit. And just being like, I can’t believe I just did that. I’m such a badass.

Kimberley: You really were. I’ve done a little bit of breath work and it actually did feel like I was inducing a panic attack. It was. Like hyperventilation.

I was dizzy, I was sweating. I felt sick, but I did feel exhausted afterwards. Like I’d had a panic attack. Yeah. You know, even though I technically wasn’t, but my, I think my brain thought I was, so That’s really interesting. Yeah. Okay, so if you are looking for effective OCD or BFRB treatment that’s covered by insurance.

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If you think you might have OCD or a struggling to manage symptoms, there is hope. Book a free call@nocd.com. You don’t have to struggle alone. Big hugs. And now let’s get back to the show. So what was it that made you raise your hand to face that fear you could have just not gone. You could have just practiced, like why would you have done that?

Was it ’cause you were trying to overcome OCB or did you have a value mm-hmm. That you were trying to lean towards? Like what was it that, it sounds like you were doing that kind of based on your own decision, not that a therapist had advised you to, you came up with that exposure on your own. Why did you make that decision?

Lydia: I think at the time I realized my fear of correcting breathing technique was like taking over my life, and it was, it was making it hard for me to recover from my pain issues because, um, every time, like as in I. Me being afraid of my chest getting tight would actually cause stress in itself and make my chest tight.

Yeah. So it was just like this official cycle and, you know, I couldn’t do relaxing breathing techniques ’cause it would stress me out too much. But at that point I was just like, I think if I, if I do this, I’m eventually going to overcome this. Fear of incorrect breathing technique and I will be free. So I think that’s what motivated me.

Also, the people from the breath workplace was super lovely, really supportive. And that made me wanna come back. Right? Like that’s, that’s half of it, honestly.

Kimberley: So the, the connection and the community were also going and longing for.

Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. And I also found out that breath work is a great way to release difficult emotions.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, sometimes in a breath work session, emotion would come up and I would end up crying, and then I would be supported by someone and it was just a really good release. So after that I’d be like, oh, I feel better now. I’ve released that emotion. So it was kind of like therapy. To me as well, even, even kind of almost like it can help you release trauma, trauma that’s stored in the body.

And I was, I was feeling like it was helping me process and release past trauma. But then also another fear came up. So, because I’ve been a Christian most of my life and I was taught by my parents and by a lot of the church, like don’t do anything that’s like slightly spiritual, that’s outside of Christianity.

Mm. So. Like don’t, don’t do yoga because yoga has Hindu roots. Right. And you know, it’s spiritually dangerous. So at these breath work events, the practices themselves weren’t necessarily spiritual, but the people who went there were kind of more of the kind of new age philosophy. Yeah. And so. I was just more exposed to that.

And then I started going to a different breathwork company, which was a little bit more on the spiritual side. So at that point I was like, Ooh, I’ve been taught that this is spiritually unsafe. If I go to these events and you know, I. Put myself in a vulnerable position by doing breath work and then open myself up like I might be welcoming something in that is spiritually unsafe.

So that was a secondary fear I ended up facing, and that was in ways even scarier than the first fear.

Kimberley: Yeah. And would you say that that was a part of your OCD or was that just more religious fears you had been taught? I think it was both.

Lydia: It was definitely religiou, just fears I’d been taught, but also throughout a lot of my life.

Uh, for example, if I was like at the markets and there was like a store that had crystals or like, you know, maybe like someone who’s reading tarot cards or more spiritual things, I’d kind of like walk past quickly and kind of like, you know, not get too close and maybe like pray for God to protect me.

’cause you know, I’d been taught that was spiritually unsafe. So yeah, there was that part of me that kind of. Avoided that. And also if I met someone who is a little bit more of the new age philosophy, I wouldn’t easily let down my guard. And um, yeah, just a, a lot of avoidance and um, you know, I’ve never done yoga actually.

I don’t think I’ve ever, still to this day, I haven’t really done much yoga. But that’s not because I don’t want to, it’s just ’cause I haven’t had the opportunity. Right. Um, but so it was both my religious upbringing and my own. Religious OCD. Right. And like my fear of being spiritually contaminated. Right.

Kimberley: Yeah. When you were getting treatment at like more specialized OCD treatment, were there any skills that they taught you that you found particularly helpful as you went through that treatment program?

Lydia: I think one thing that comes to mind is that my therapist taught me not to white knuckle. Mm. So when I’m doing an exposure, don’t just like grit your teeth and wait for it to be over.

So at the time I was, I, I was actually getting the COVID vaccine because I was afraid of getting the COVID vaccine. My family was telling me it was going to kill me. And, um, so me going to get the COVID vaccine was a huge exposure at the time. My psychologist was kind of encouraging me to do that, but then I, then I talked to her and said, Emily, I just feel like I’m not a hundred percent sure I wanna get the COVID vaccine.

Because if I go and then I end up getting a health condition, then I will be like, ah, I wanna blame you Emily, because you made me get this COVID vaccine and I wanna blame you. And, and, and I’m just kind of like planning on going, but I’m just like, just wait for it to be over. And, and so Emily’s like, okay, I don’t want you to not white knuckle this.

If you do get the COVID vaccine, I want you to do it mindfully. And if you don’t wanna get it, if it’s not your choice, if you’re not ready, don’t get it. Only do it when it’s purely your choice. So. I, um, canceled that appointment for the vaccine, but then later I was like, actually, I’m kind of disappointed.

I canceled that appointment. I wanted to get the vaccine. Mm-hmm. So I got it and I, I learned not to white knuckle and not to just grit my teeth and wait for it to be over to do it all mindfully. And also I was doing it at my own risk. I wasn’t doing it because the therapist had told me I had to, I was like, yeah, you know what?

If I get illness or if I die. I’ve, I will like, but I, I’m taking that risk. Like I will deal with the consequences no matter what that is. Um, yes. Yeah. Yes. So I learned not to white knuckle.

Kimberley: Yeah, yeah. Which is so great. ’cause it’s something we always share in our, you know, in informed consent in the beginning of therapy, like.

That we’ll never have you do anything that we, you don’t wanna do that. We’d never have you do anything that we wouldn’t do ourselves, that this must be based on your values. So I’m so glad that you had that conversation. What did you do specifically instead of white knuckling? Because I know a lot of people don’t even know what to do.

Like if I’m not white knuckling, what am I doing? What would you, what would you say to that?

Lydia: Well. I’m not sure that this relates to my experience with the COVID vaccine, but later, after I was doing the breath work events, I also started testing out ice baths. Ice baths were a thing that really taught me how not to white knuckle.

So, um, yeah, so I, I started going in ice baths that were like, you know, close to. Zero degrees Celsius, like so close to freezing, and I learned to just surrender to the ice. So when you are in there, you like put almost your whole body in there and just don’t try to fight. Fight the ice, just surrender.

Relax those muscles as best you can, of course. And also do the slow breathing. So in through the nose for four seconds and out through the mouth for eight seconds. So that’s really slow breathing with a longer breath out through the mouth. So being in ice, which puts your body into a fight or flight state and tells you you’ve gotta get out of here, you are gonna die.

Yes. If you stay in here, that’s what the body’s telling you. Yes. But if you choose to stay there and breathe through it and breathe slowly, then after about a minute, the body will adjust and be like, okay, okay, I got this. Think I do this. And yeah, so I just, and I also, I, at the time I was putting my hands under the ice.

Nowadays I wouldn’t recommend that ’cause I ended up getting an injury called ice burn. Anyway, long story, but um, but I was putting my hands under the Yeah, yeah, I know.

Kimberley: But you got an injury, like that’s, that was your fear.

Lydia: Yep. Yeah. It’s like ice burn is when the water inside the fingertips freezes into ice crystals. Um, so I think that happened to me. Yeah. Anyway, that’s another story. But at the time when I was facing my fears, I was putting my fingers under the ice and I was just making sure, I really felt the cold in my fingertips.

So I was just really feeling it and rather than resisting it, just being like, how does it feel to be cold? Anyway, ice SPS was something that really taught me to physically. Surrender not white knuckle. And so nowadays when I’m facing anxiety, I’m kind of like, just pretend it’s an ice bath.

Kimberley: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And I, I like that because number one, I hate our ice bath, so it’s not I, I what I, but I have done them. But what I love about it is you’re practicing when you’re not in an anxious state. Often. Mm-hmm. Which gives you a chance to actually practice it on something other than anxiety. When I did it, it was the same as when I had to do it when I was delivering a baby.

Like learning how to relax your hands while trying to push every other part of your body that. Taught me how to not white knuckle. Like I thought I had done a lot of work until I had to take that class when I was having a baby and that actually really did like the not white knuckling was a huge piece for me as well.

So I love that you brought that up about the ice bath because I do agree that it does train you how to not white knuckle it. Yeah, absolutely. I know you and I, you know, we’ve been friends for a while and you had an experience where you shared a part of your OCD and a lot of people ask how to navigate sharing about your OCD.

How would you, like, do you wanna share your story or do you wanna give people advice on how to navigate the process of sharing personal details about themselves?

Lydia: Yeah, so, um, I’ve been lucky enough to be on two other podcasts now. The first one was the OCD stories, but then the second one was, um, the two B podcast with a friend of mine.

But in that podcast it was a non OCD kind of podcast. It was just for the general public, I guess maybe more of the conscious community. So more of the like breath work crowd. Uh, in that one, uh, he let me share my OCD story, but then I realized that maybe he doesn’t fully understand what OCD is, as a lot of people don’t.

You know, there’s this stereotype that OCD is just full neat freaks and, um, cleaning. But, um, there’s this all. Intrusive thoughts. A lot of the general public don’t know that that is OCD. So I chose to get really vulnerable in that podcast, and I shared that when I was 22 years old, there was a time that I was really afraid that I was a pedophile because I was getting these sexually intrusive thoughts and.

It horrified me, so I shared that on the podcast and some, um, friends of mine actually ended up listening to it, and unfortunately they didn’t have the best response. So they were kind of telling me that maybe I was unwise in sharing that, that maybe people would listen and assume that I actually am a pedophile.

And almost like, because they were Christians, um, and I’m a Christian as well, but they kind of said, you mentioned that you’re a Christian. And that you, you, you dealt with those thoughts about children. What if, you know, people who aren’t Christians? Listen and then they, they hear that and then they think, oh no, Christians are weird.

They’ve got like pedophilic tendencies. So they said that, and I was kind of like, because it almost. Also my, my friends, they didn’t really understand that this wasn’t something current I was going through. It was something I dealt with when I was 22, just for a few months. And then nowadays I don’t deal with it at all.

But my, my friend said that that wasn’t clear in the podcast and people might assume I still deal with that. So basically they were saying, you know, it’s unwise to share that. And you know, like you could put yourself at risk. And also basically like, basically making Christians look bad. That’s how I interpreted what they said anyway, so that really rocks me.

It was really hard hearing that and also just knowing that my friends had listened and that they’d had that perspective. I felt so I. Ashamed and just like, like just even though I knew that I’m not that person, I felt like, oh, they perceive me to be maybe kind of almost like if I wasn’t careful. They thought that maybe I could turn into that.

So yeah, that was really hard and probably for a few months I. Battled with that and just was like, was I wise sharing that was I, was I silly? Also, I remember Kimberly, we were on a Zoom call together. It was an OCD in Australia Zoom call, which I love, but at the time I was having a big trigger with, um, my friends and I was, I was in tears, um, on the, on the Zoom call and I know that you saw me visually very, very triggered.

So, yeah, so. Luckily since then, I’ve been able to talk to a few people who’ve been really supportive and who’ve encouraged me, and it’s kind of, it’s taken a while to heal it, but I think I’m getting there. But even like in, in, in sharing this episode, like with you, I was thinking, should I mention this again?

’cause you know, this is, this will probably go on YouTube. Like if people look up Lydia Davies, they’ll probably find me. And you know, this will be there for the rest of my life. So what do I do? But I decided, you know what? I really, really think that this needs to be talked about. The reason people don’t know what OCD truly is, because a lot of people don’t talk about this because they don’t wanna be, you know, canceled.

And yeah, I felt some, like, I don’t think I was canceled, but I felt some effects of shame when someone reacted. Not in the best way. But then I came to the point where I’m like, you know what? One of my biggest values is helping others who have OCD get better from OCD to spread awareness. So I wanna keep doing this because this is important to me.

And like, you know, I would hate it if, if it caused me to struggle to get jobs in the future because people misunderstood my story. But more than that, I really wanna help people with OCD. And almost like I feel like if someone listened, then they found out, oh my gosh. I’m dealing with OCD that could potentially prevent a suicide because you know, unfortunately, sometimes people struggle with these intrusive thoughts and they.

Assume that they’re a horrible person and that, that the world would be better without them. So that would be an absolute tragedy if people kept on doing that just because they didn’t realize that they had OCD. Yeah. So that’s why I wanna share.

Kimberley: Yeah. Mm. Makes me teary and I’m so, and I’m, I’m just so proud of you.

’cause there, and I will tell the listeners, like, as we were prepping for this, you’re like, I think I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it. And I’m, I really believe in it. Mm-hmm. And I was, I’m just so proud of you. Like you’re really so incredible and brave, and. Walking the walk and talk, not just talking the talk. And so I, I’m just so grateful.

That is a perfect segue for you to share with us about how people can hear about you. Mm-hmm. Because I know you do help so many people with OCD, so will you tell us about the work that you do and how they can get to hold of you before we finish up?

Lydia: Yeah, absolutely. Well, firstly, you can find me on my Instagram.

My Instagram is @lydiadavies_creative, and my name Davies is spelled D-A-V-I-E-S. And also I manage a support group once a month. So I’m moderator support group. It’s for people living with OCD. I love that. I’ve done that for a few years now. It’s through the company paywhatyoucanpeersupport.com.

So if you go on that website and you scroll down to the support group, OCD and intrusive thoughts, you can book into the Friday night one. It’s Friday 7:00 PM US Eastern Time, and I get to moderate that once a month. So I, I normally attend most other weeks and someone moderates it, but I get to moderate once a month, but.

I’m just saying if anyone wants to join me on that support group vote. Absolutely. Love that. So, um, you most welcome or you’re welcome to reach out to me on Instagram.

Kimberley: I love it. And that’s how I sort of met you. And we are doing our group for the OCD. You’re always coming in off of that. Support group and it’s so, you’re, you’re, you’re so, you’re like glowing and sparkling after those calls.

I could tell it’s something that you’re really passionate about. So thank you so much. I am so grateful for you to be here. I know for people who are navigating. ERP. It’s scary and you really do a beautiful job of sharing like how you did it with support of specialists, but also by yourself. Like you made a lot of those decisions.

You just decided on recovery over and over and over and over again. So thank you so much for sharing your story here.

Lydia: Mm. Thank you so much for having me on. You’ve been wonderful.

Kimberley: Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool.com should not replace professional mental health care.

If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.