When Your OCD Brain Tricks You | Ep. 477
This week’s episode is a heartfelt and practical conversation about how OCD can change shape over time, the ways it tricks the brain, and the grounding tools that can help you move through fear with more courage and self-compassion.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How OCD can look completely different from person to person, even within the same family
- The many ways OCD can shift themes over time, from visible compulsions to mental rituals
- What existential OCD and sexual orientation OCD can feel like from the inside
- The hidden ways anxiety and OCD can show up as confession, reassurance seeking, and panic
- A simple four-step pocket toolkit to help you respond to intrusive thoughts in real time
- Why living an “exposure lifestyle” can help you choose your values over fear, one small moment at a time
When OCD Tricks Your Brain: Tools We Wish We Had Learned Sooner
There are some podcast conversations that stay with me long after we finish recording. This was one of them.
In this episode, I sat down with Emily and Lindsay Stetzer, sisters and co-founders of Presently. They both live with OCD and anxiety, and they’ve turned their lived experience into something incredibly meaningful: tangible reminders, bracelets and accessories, that help people stay grounded in evidence-based CBT and mindfulness principles.
But what struck me most about this conversation was not just their advocacy, it was their honesty.
Today, they share how OCD tricked their brains, the forms their OCD took over time, and the simple but powerful tools they use every day to stay in recovery.
Let’s dive in.
Content
OCD Is a Chameleon: Lindsay’s Story
Lindsay described her OCD as something that constantly changed shape.
Like many people, her symptoms started in childhood with what we often think of as more “visible” compulsions.
She remembers thoughts like:
- “If I don’t line this up, something bad will happen to my family.”
- “If I don’t turn the light off a certain number of times, someone will die.”
These fears led to behaviors such as:
- Lining things up perfectly
- Repeating actions a specific number of times
- Avoiding stepping on certain parts of the sidewalk
Even as a child, Lindsay believed that if she didn’t complete the ritual, she might be responsible for someone dying.
As she grew older, though, something shifted.
Her compulsions became more internal.
Instead of visible behaviors, her OCD turned into mental rituals and intrusive thoughts, something that made it much harder to recognize what was happening.
When OCD Turns Existential
In high school, Lindsay experienced a sudden and terrifying shift in her OCD.
One day, while sitting in the bathroom, she had her first panic attack, and a flood of intrusive questions that felt impossible to answer:
- How do I know I’m alive right now?
- How do I know any of this is real?
- What if my family isn’t real?
This is often called existential OCD, where the mind gets stuck in endless philosophical questions about reality, existence, and consciousness.
But at the time, Lindsay didn’t know that.
She just knew she felt terrified.
The uncertainty was overwhelming, and she constantly sought reassurance from her parents to confirm that everything, and everyone, was real.
Eventually, through therapy, she learned that this experience had a name and a treatment path.
And that realization changed everything.
Emily’s OCD Looked Completely Different
Emily’s experience with OCD was almost the opposite of Lindsay’s.
As a child, she struggled primarily with anxiety and confession compulsions.
She remembers constantly feeling the urge to confess thoughts she believed made her a bad person.
For example:
- Confessing that she had a random thought about smoking someday
- Admitting she had watched an R-rated movie
- Telling her parents about intrusive thoughts she felt ashamed of
The urge to confess was so powerful that she would often sit in her room crying until she told someone.
At the time, her family simply thought she was:
- Very anxious
- Extremely honest
- A “good kid”
But in reality, her brain was trapped in a cycle of intrusive thoughts and compulsive confession.
OCD Can Hide in Plain Sight
Emily’s OCD continued into middle school and high school but showed up in different ways.
She became extremely rigid about:
- Schoolwork
- Studying schedules
- Rules and moral behavior
Later, in college, a new OCD theme emerged.
She began experiencing sexual orientation OCD, which led to constant questioning:
- What if I’m not attracted to the people I think I am?
- How do I know who I really am?
These questions felt so distressing that she kept them secret for years.
At her lowest point, she recalls sitting in the closet in her dorm room, overwhelmed and unsure how to stop the mental spiral.
Finally, after graduating, she sought therapy.
Within the first session, her therapist gently explained something that changed everything:
She likely had OCD.
Emily remembers thinking:
“That can’t be right. My sister has OCD. Mine looks nothing like hers.”
But that’s the tricky part.
OCD doesn’t always look the same, even within the same family.
How Advocacy Was Born
Years later, during the COVID pandemic, Emily had a realization.
She had been in therapy for years and had learned powerful tools, but when anxiety hit hard, she often struggled to remember them in the moment.
One day she thought:
“I wish I had something on my wrist that reminded me of what I learned in therapy.”
She started searching for jewelry with meaningful phrases rooted in mental health skills.
Instead, she found phrases like:
- “Good vibes only”
- “Hakuna Matata”
- “She believed she could, so she did”
While well-intentioned, they didn’t reflect real therapeutic tools.
So Emily ran downstairs to Lindsay and said:
“I think we have a problem we need to solve.”
That moment sparked the creation of Presently, a brand that turns therapy concepts into simple wearable reminders.
A Pocket Toolkit for OCD
During our conversation, Emily and Lindsay shared a four-step “pocket toolkit” they use whenever OCD shows up.
These steps are rooted in CBT and mindfulness skills.
Step 1: Observe
First, notice what’s happening.
Instead of fighting the thought, name it.
Examples:
- “I’m having an intrusive thought.”
- “My brain is telling me something bad might happen.”
This step brings the thought out into the open, instead of letting it hide and grow stronger.
For many people with OCD, even saying the thought out loud can feel incredibly uncomfortable, but it’s a powerful first step.
Step 2: Feel
Next, turn your attention to your body.
Ask yourself:
- Where do I feel this anxiety?
- Is it in my chest?
- My stomach?
- My legs?
Lindsay described how her therapist often asked this exact question during panic attacks.
By noticing the sensations instead of fighting them, you begin to make space for the feeling instead of resisting it.
Step 3: Accept
This is often the hardest step.
Acceptance doesn’t mean liking the thought or agreeing with it.
It means acknowledging uncertainty.
Examples might include:
- “Life includes uncertainty.”
- “I may never get 100% certainty about this.”
Lindsay shared a real-life example.
Her boyfriend made pasta using canned tomatoes, and years earlier she had heard something alarming about dented cans being dangerous.
Her OCD immediately started sounding alarms.
She had two options:
- Ask him to remake the meal (reassurance and avoidance)
- Eat the pasta and accept the uncertainty
She chose the second option.
That moment became an exposure, an opportunity to live according to her values instead of her fear.
Step 4: Align
The final step is about choosing your values over fear.
Ask yourself:
What would the version of me who isn’t controlled by OCD choose to do?
Emily shared a recent example.
After sitting on the subway, she picked up a pair of jeans and suddenly thought:
“My hand is contaminated.”
Instead of washing her hands, she walked through the toolkit:
- She observed the thought
- She felt the discomfort
- She accepted uncertainty about germs
- She aligned with her values by not washing her hands
The anxiety was uncomfortable, but she allowed it to exist without letting OCD take over.
Living an “Exposure Lifestyle”
One concept Lindsay shared that I loved was what she called an exposure lifestyle.
Recovery from OCD doesn’t mean never having intrusive thoughts again.
It means practicing skills every day.
Sometimes exposures are big.
Other times they’re tiny:
- Eating the pasta
- Touching the jeans
- Sitting with uncertainty
Each small moment builds resilience.
Each time you resist a compulsion, you strengthen your ability to live freely.
Thoughts Are Not Facts
Emily also shared one of her favorite reminders:
“My thoughts are passing clouds.”
Our brains generate thousands of thoughts every day.
For people with OCD, the challenge isn’t having the thoughts.
It’s getting stuck on them.
When you learn to observe thoughts like clouds moving across the sky, you no longer need to chase them or prove them wrong.
They can simply pass.
A Final Message for Anyone Struggling with OCD
If you’re early in your OCD recovery journey, here’s the message Emily and Lindsay want you to hear:
- Intrusive thoughts are normal
- Your mind may try to trick you
- You don’t need certainty to move forward
- Small exposures add up over time
Most importantly, recovery is possible.
You don’t have to eliminate every intrusive thought.
You simply need to learn how to respond differently when they appear.
If you’d like to learn more about Emily and Lindsay’s work, you can find them at Presently Bracelets on Instagram and at their website.
Their mission is simple but powerful:
to turn evidence-based mental health tools into everyday reminders you can carry with you.
And honestly, I think that’s a beautiful idea.
Transcription: When Your OCD Brain Tricks You
Kimberley: Welcome everybody. Today I am joined. We’re going to do a very different format today, but I think you guys are going to love it. I have with me today, Emily and Lindsay Stetzer. They are the co-founders of. Presently, which is two Sisters with lived experience and they have OCD and anxiety and they offer tangible reminders using accessories and jewelry to help people stay grounded in evidence-based CBT and mindfulness things form principles.
They are regularly recommended by therapists and mental health professionals. They have gifted me one with one beautiful bracelet and I love it. And again, I was just so thrilled and excited about them that I wanted to get them on. Today to talk about how their OCD brain tricked them and the tools that they wish they had been given sooner.
So they’re actually kinda going to give you a masterclass today of their lived experience and some practicals skills based, um, practices that they’ve used to get them through relapses and setbacks and recovery and all that. So thank you for being here, Emily and Lindsay,
Emily: thank you for having us. Thanks
Lindsay: for having us.
Kimberley: Who would like to go? Lindsay or Emily, who would like to go first in sharing your story of OCD and anxiety? Lindsay, you
Lindsay: want me to first? Yes. Okay.
Emily: Chronologically, it makes sense for Lindsay to go first.
Kimberley: Oh, okay. All right. So Lindsay is the eldest. Great. Lindsay, tell us about your story.
Lindsay: My OCD has changed and became a chameleon.
Like a lot of people know OCD, you know, changes through different forms in different. Types of OCD that can kind of come out. My OCD started at, when I was probably elementary school, I started noticing it with the, you know, the thoughts of if I don’t line this up, something will happen to my family. Or if I don’t turn the lights off a certain amount of times someone’s going to die, or it’ll be my responsibility that someone will die.
So is that kind of OCD? I don’t like saying they’re basic, but it’s kind of like
Emily: how most people,
Lindsay: the
Emily: OCD.
Lindsay: Yeah, but most people kind of like, not most people ’cause that usually OCD is. Shown in the media as like contamination, OCD or just cleanliness OCD. And it’s not that. It’s like there’s so much more to it.
So it started in, in those, that basic form, which I, I consider the basic form for me. So a lot of like lining things up, a lot of like making sure I did something a certain amount of time. It was more so visual, my OCD when I was younger, and I think it kind of took the form to be more hidden and more mental compulsions as I got older.
That was the hard thing to understand, you know? And when you see, and you, you have these compulsions to do something and line things up or do something a certain amount of times or not step on, you know, this part of the side. Because you’re afraid if you did that your mom’s gonna die. It was like all things then started to become internal, and so I didn’t know that that was part of OCD.
Okay, so I’ll take you guys through elementary school, through middle school, and then through high school. I, I would have these. Things that I had to do a certain amount of times or ask a certain question over and over again. It was more so like your, my, like I say my, the basic OCD and then in high school, my junior year of high school was when my OCD took another form that I never heard of, or never even saw, or never even knew about or learned, which is called existential, OCD, which is, if anyone is ever experiencing existential OCD, you know, that it doesn’t even, it doesn’t feel like OCD, it just feels.
Like this is happening to me and it feels very scary when, when it happened to me, I was sitting on the toilet and I had, you know, experienced like being in high school, right? And just like all the stresses and the anxieties of being in high school. But I think there was just a compilation of different things that I feared and things that happened to me from the past.
That kind of came to the present moment and kind of hit me all at once. And that was like the first time I actually experienced my first panic attack as well, sitting the toilet, which was like not fun, but also the thoughts of like, how do I know if, if I’m alive right now, or how do I know if I’m not dead or my parents aren’t dead or my siblings aren’t dead, or how do I, how do I know if all this is real?
Like how do I prove to myself that all this is real
Emily: or not real?
Lindsay: And I literally was left like dumbfounded. Just sitting on the toilet. And when you’re that age and you just like real life experiences that you’ve experienced and that kind of like shaped how I saw things. So for example, it’s, I had tried smoking pot for the first time and had a really bad experience with it.
I was feeling out of body experience similar to what I felt when I had smoked. And that scared the shit me, because first of all, well I hadn’t smoked. This was like months, months ago, and I was just going to the bathroom like why was I all of a sudden having this? This feeling that I had in the past come to the present and scare me and like start trying to like trick me in my mind of like, what, how do I know what is real and what is not?
So that is kind of where, how my existential OCD started. And from there it kind of, it manifested into unsure of like whether I was alive or dead or whether or not my parents were alive or dead and needing to get their reassurance. And that’s could scare anyone obviously to their core and like. I just, I didn’t realize that this was the same moment I experienced my first panic attack, which was so scary because you have that experience of like not knowing what’s real and then feeling all my insides like go numb, that anyone’s experienced a panic attack in their own ways.
It’s different for everyone, but everyone you know, feels it differently. And my legs just went numb and like I couldn’t really feel anything. So that was scary. And that’s kind of like where my OCD story. Took a turn for me because I didn’t know that that was part of OCD. And we later on, you know, were told when I went to therapy that that is actually existential OCD, there’s a label for that.
And that what I was experiencing was this existential questions in my mind. And it wasn’t just the fact that I had smoked pot, it was just because. It was just something that I had remembered in the past that had the same similar experience as what I had felt sitting on the toilet, and it was just a crazy compilation of feelings that I felt
Kimberley: amazing.
Emily, what about for you? So your sisters, tell me about how you realized you had OCD.
Emily: So mine was very different than Lindsay’s. When I was a kid, and Lindsay can like add color to this story a little bit later, but I was super anxious. I had a lot of separation anxiety from my mom and from my dad, and I didn’t wanna go to school.
I would often confess to things that really didn’t. Need confessing. Like I would confess that, like I had a thought that like, what, what happens if I grew up and I started smoking cigarettes? Like, am I a bad person? And like things like that where like random thoughts would pop into my head and I’d have to like confess them out loud.
But again,
Lindsay: when, when she says confess, she had to literally, she would sit in her room and she would cry unconditionally. Like it was just everything in her body like was. Forcing her to tell this information out and it like was so hard for her. This happened every day.
Emily: Yeah. So this was all into middle school, same stuff.
And I guess in middle school, like I had the sort of like common thoughts that other middle schoolers have, I guess. But because of the way my brain was processing it, it like latched onto everything. And I was really struggling. Like at one point I think there was, I watched an R-rated movie and I had to confess to my parents or like I would sit there with my friends and be like, I can’t watch this.
And I’d literally sit there with my eyes covered because I didn’t wanna have to confess. And so that was like sort of my whole personality in middle school was just like goody two shoes. I needed to be with my parents. I didn’t like sleepovers. Then high school, it sort of toned down a little bit. I think it manifested more into my schoolwork.
Um, I was very regimented with my high school work and studying and, you know, sometimes I wouldn’t eat until I finished studying like a certain, you know, amount of time. And again, like this was not labeled it as OCDI was just. Anxious. I was just a very good student. I was just a sensitive person I guess.
And then when I got to college, sort of similar to when Lindsay was talking about how this like experience like came back to her after months, but this was like sort of after a year. So I was sitting in a psychology class in college and. All of a sudden, like, I guess we were talking about like adolescence and stuff, and I like remembered all the stuff that I had worried about or that I had gone through in middle school that I sort of just like blacked out, I guess.
In between that time, and I guess you could say it was a panic attack sort of thing. Like my, like I just like sort of panicked, like, I was like, oh my God. Like, you know, I remember being confused if I, you know, was into men or women and, you know, I guess I hadn’t thought of that in years. And then I was like, how do I know if I’m gay or if I’m straight or, and, and all that.
I kept inside. So it started with that. Then it went into, you know, when you’re in college, you start drinking, you start, you know, maybe you lose memory of some things of the night. So then your mind is like, oh my gosh, did I do something? Did someone hurt me? Things like that. That. You could say like a lot of people struggle with it at that age, but I think again, the way my mind was wired, I was attaching to every little thing.
And so a lot of the times I would like, for example, for this sexual orientation, OCD, which I now notice as I kept it inside for like all four years, I. Would ask my friends a lot of the times like, did this happen? Did that happen? I would go to the doctor often to get checked and you know, a lot of like, I feel some like weird sensation.
Does that mean I have like cancer? And I just remember like my lowest low is me like sitting in the closet in my dorm room. Like just hysterical. ’cause I just didn’t, I didn’t know what to do about it and I didn’t wanna go to therapy, I think because of this. Sexual orientation OCD stuff, because I didn’t wanna, I couldn’t say it out loud, just couldn’t.
And then finally, again, in my head, I am anxious. I have anxiety. I know I need to go to therapy, but you know, it’s not, I’m not right for that. So, um, when I graduated, took me until I graduated college to finally be like, I am. Struggling. Like, I, I need to go to therapy. In the first session I told, you know, I told all this stuff and she was like, so it sounds like you have OCD.
And I was like, no, I don’t. Like my sister has OCD. It’s totally different. There’s no way. Like, and then, you know, she starts explaining it all and how, like me confessing when I was younger, obviously textbook OCD, now that you think about it, but no idea until too many years later, even with Lindsay in the same house.
Our parents being well versed in OCD stuff, like we had no idea. So I think that’s sort of how we stepped into like advocacy and, you know, starting presently because we realized that. Even though we both have totally different types of OCD, like the tools that help us are exactly the same.
Lindsay: Wow. Even just you sharing that, Emily, like, I always like imagine my OCD is like, ’cause it, I mean you’re talking about like life or death, right?
But then like Emily’s describing it as like. Years long of just questionings in her head and I’m like, shit. Like this was a lot harder. Must have been a lot harder. And like I’m just realizing that now, not that it was harder, but different.
Kimberley: Yeah. I think they’re all versions of hellish experiences from my experiences.
A clinician of seeing them. Like there is no easy way to have OCD. They all. Suck. I think. I think it’s so interesting. So just so we get the, the time of that, so when you, Lindsay got diagnosed, you were getting treatment but not knowing that at the same time Emily was struggling with the same condition.
Emily: Correct. So we are five years apart. When I was, you know, confessing all those things and crying every night for my mom, I was. In like leaving elementary school, getting into middle school and Lindsay was in high school at that point. Wow. So both of us, we did make use of each other’s experience because I remember being in my room and listening to Lindsay, like asking my parents or repeat the answer, the same question over and over again.
Lindsay: It was like an endless night, like of just me constantly having to like having them to repeat something. And it was like, then Emily’s. Stuff would be like second to this, like
Kimberley: wow. And so it’s pretty cool though. I will say, as much as you guys have suffered that once you told somebody, the therapist got it pretty quick, like sometimes people don’t get a correct diagnosis, they get misdiagnosed.
It sounds like the clinician got you diagnosed pretty quickly. Yeah. Was it that you got, uh, like the correct treatment or did you guys have to go through years of not. Right treatment as well.
Lindsay: I’d have to say that our mom was pretty kickass and, and the fact that she basically gathered all the information that she could find online at the time and like got us the right help or put us in the right place that is able to give us.
The correct treatment. ’cause she immediately, like I didn’t, I only went until maybe like one, I think one or two therapists before I found the right therapist for me. And that was cognitive behavioral therapy and yeah. And there wasn’t a lot out there back then. Like there wasn’t a lot of. Not a lot of supporting groups, not a lot of like information.
So it just amazes me like how she was able to figure out and find, she had like a couple of books that, that came out for OCD and
Emily: Amazing. Oh, sorry. I was gonna say Lynn Lindsay was all set up with her therapy and she was, you know, making so much progress. And then her therapist referred me to another therapist.
So there, that’s.
Kimberley: Amazing. What a relief there. And so how did it move then to you now doing the advocacy that you do? What brought that on?
Emily: So this happened during COVID, which a lot of like new things started up during COVID when people were sitting in their houses, like having nothing less to do. Um, so Lindsay and I both moved back home.
We were, um, living in our house. I was personally struggling with the fact that my boyfriend was starting law school in DC so we were about to start a long distance relationship. And I remember like I have this vivid memory of me being upstairs in my room once he was downstairs doing work, and I was like, you know, just looking at my jewelry and I was like, I really wish I had something that could like remind me of.
Things that I learned in therapy because I was so frustrated with the fact that like I was in therapy. I’ve been in therapy at that point for four years, and I was like, why can’t I get myself out of these like loops? Like it’s very, it’s so frustrating. I know what to do. I know it’s like in my toolbox, but I couldn’t.
Bring it to the surface. When I was super, super anxious, I feel like I need like a reminder or something on my wrist. And all those beaded bracelets, you know, people were making those letter beaded bracelets came out and I was like, I don’t want that. I want a nice piece of jewelry with a phrase on it. So I was like, okay, I’ll get one, like custom.
But then I didn’t know what phrase to use. I was like, how do you get like, ugh. Big broad teaching into one little phrase that fits on a bracelet. And then I remembered, like before I even went to therapy, Lindsay obviously had given me like tools to use, um, when I was struggling. And the first thing she taught me was my thoughts or passing clouds, which is very much based in like mindfulness.
And I, I had just finished reading this mindfulness book pieces every step. I think it was like a Titch kn Han book. And that phrase, I was like, that’s the perfect phrase. But then like, I think I was Googling and I, and I realized that there weren’t any bracelets out there that had phrases that I would be looking for that my therapist would approve of.
A lot of the phrases were good vibes only, and like, especially during COVID, like everyone’s trying to cheer everyone up. So it was like good vibes only, um, Haku Matata. She believed she could. So she did. Like all those phrases were everywhere. And I was like, I don’t understand how, there’s not one phrase here that like reminds me of the things that I learned in therapy.
So I ran downstairs and I got,
Lindsay: I remember I have a vis visual of them like coming do stand, like in her pa, her matching pajama set. ’cause you know, that was the thing to have during. In the pandemic. Really hair in a bun. Very con.
Emily: And then so I came down and I was like, first of all I was like, Lindsay, I need you to make a bracelet.
’cause she was doing beading at the time and I don’t know, she had like cooler beads. And then I was like, I think like there’s a problem. I just realized that we need to like solve maybe. So yeah, we started, you know, thinking of all the different things we learned in therapy and breaking them down and finding these phrases that we could put on bracelets that look really nice.
And are helpful too.
Kimberley: Yeah, you’re right. And I, it’s beautiful and this, I’m not sponsored by you guys either, so no one listeners to think that you, this is a sponsored episode. Like it, they are beautiful. They are beautiful pieces of jewelry, so, okay. This is amazing and you guys have such a unique story and you’ve done some such a cool way to advocate.
You had shared that you had sort of like a pocket toolkit that you guys use that you wanted to share because you had said like. You guys have been through the ringer, you’ve obviously gotten good therapy. Of course. You know, do you still struggle or do you both consider yourselves, um, in recovery? Where are you in regards to that?
Lindsay: That’s a daily, like I get reminded of like how much I need to open my toolbox and use it and look at my bracelets when I have them on, and really remind myself that like I just, it’s just like every day there’s always something new. It’s like, you know, OCD doesn’t go away and don’t expect it to go away.
You just have to learn how to like sit with it and just live with it. And that’s kind of what we’ve been doing since then. It’s just like sitting with it, letting it be in the room, but not giving it too much. Attention
Emily: and living anyway, regardless of the discomfort. And yeah, so I think same, same. For me.
It’s like, it’s funny because a lot of the times I’ll be like, I feel like I am like an imposter of having OCD because I don’t feel like I have as much like as many like symptoms as I did before sort of thing. So I’m like, am I even qualified to be talking about this stuff?
Lindsay: Ask this all the time
Emily: because I’m like, do I even have o CD?
Anyway, that’s just another, another thing. But as you like, start to really think about it, like there are things every single day that I do that you know, back then would have been extremely debilitating, but now I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s an OCD thought. I’m, I’m just gonna like let that be here and. Sit with the discomfort, sit with the uncertainty, and not let it ruin my day or like what I’m doing in that moment.
And I think that it’s not so much getting rid of those symptoms or those intrusive thoughts, but learning to pivot faster away from it.
Kimberley: It’s so true that it’s so common that I hear, and I just want listeners to know that people with OCD always question whether they have OCD. It’s a part of the condition.
Like one of the, one of the characteristics of having it. So that makes total sense to me. Okay. Tell me, you guys, you have brought with you a pocket toolkit. You’ve talked about these sort of core phrases or exercises that listeners can practice between therapy or during the day when they’re struggling.
Do you guys wanna walk me through that pocket toolkit that they could use or, and I think you even shared like these are tools that you have used and wished that you had have had earlier.
Emily: Yeah. So our pocket toolkit is a four step process. So the first one is observe.
Lindsay: It started off with a whiteboard that we purchased online.
Emily: Yes. Tell me. So we, we purchased a whiteboard and we had a good march and brainstorming session, and this is what we came up with. So step one is observe. It’s, I’m having a thought, I’m having an anxious thought I’m having an intrusive thought that X, y, z. So you’re just naming what it is that you’re thinking about or, or the thing that you’re feeling
Lindsay: putting it on the table and like letting it be in the room.
Emily: The second is to feel, so you’re calling out, you’re really paying attention to how you’re feeling in that moment. Are you feeling it in your stomach? Are you feeling it in your chest? Are you feeling it in your fingertips? Like, like where exactly are you feeling this? And what is it that you’re feeling?
So you could say, maybe this is uncomfortable. And I, you know, I feel like I am in danger. Or I feel this was something that I, like my therapist
Lindsay: would always ask me is like, okay, now where do you feel it? Like truly, where do you feel it inside your body? Because then if you stop for a second, you take a moment to just like observe what you just.
Said out loud, and then you feel it, like where do you feel it? Do you feel it in your stomach? Do you feel it in your heart? Do you feel it? Is it just a tingling feeling like, like that’s how I felt it when I had my first panic attack. It was like tingling in my legs.
Kimberley: Yeah. May I ask a couple questions about that?
So when you had to observe and you had to feel. Was that an easy learning process for you? What was the process of, of you adapting and adopting those pr that practice in specific for, for folks who are, maybe they’ve heard it on the podcast, but they want your lived experience, like what was that like to.
How many times did you have to practice it? How long did it take for you to get that? Did you hate it? Like kind of give me a little bit of feedback.
Lindsay: For me that was like the rudimentary basics of like what I learned was like observing what was going on in your mind, like observing what you’re feeling, calling it out in front of you.
And then I think that first was such a weird. Concept to me because one, like Emily was saying that she never even like told us about those thoughts that she had. You know, so it’s all these things that kind of people keep internally and kind of keep it to themselves and keep it as secrets, you know? And calling it out out loud is something that like you’re not, no one typically does.
So it’s very weird assignment when you’re kind of in therapy and, and that’s kind of like the first thing is like, observe all these thoughts and all your feelings and. I just remember also like having to like say it out loud was a big, that was a big challenge because I think saying it out loud so that everyone can hear it, you know, not just myself, you’re giving it like a platform to stand on and kind of not letting it just hide in the corner.
Yeah. I think was something that was. Important for me.
Kimberley: What about for you, Emily? How was it to practice that?
Emily: Yeah, that was definitely tough because that was one of the reasons why I didn’t wanna go to therapy was because I didn’t wanna say these things out loud or like admit that these thoughts were happening.
But I think you know, it, it does take time and it takes practice, but the first time you do it is the hardest. Like, after that it just gets easier and easier because you learn that. This is a normal human response like, like we, one thing I learned that I wish I had learned sooner was that we have like, I probably got the number wrong, like six, 6,000 thoughts a day.
Like everyone has these random thoughts and it’s just that with OCD, you tend to just like. Cling onto them and like somehow morph them and attach them to things that you care about and things that you love. So I think observing that this is what you’re going through is just like, it’s just step number one and it’s again, like the first time is the hardest.
So once you do it once, then you get better and better at it. Um, and I think Lindsay was right, like you do have to like observe how you’re feeling and that, I think that is part of, part of step one. And then step two with feel, it’s like. Can you feel those feelings and you sit with those feelings?
Lindsay: It’s very, it’s very difficult to like separate that.
Like observing it and saying it out loud is different than like where you actually feeling it inside?
Kimberley: Amazing, amazing.
Emily: The second hardest thing to do is to like actually like sit with your feelings and like physically and emotionally, like just feel like what are you feeling? And then the next step would be to accept.
So accept is also something really difficult. It’s all very difficult, but it, it works if you can get it down. And so accept is, this is like, I think this is like the, the one step that like pivots it all because it’s the one thing that you’re like learning was different than what you. Would normally like believe.
So if for, to like accept, for example could be like life is filled with uncertainty. Like you’re accepting that uncertainty exists and that getting a hundred percent certainty is not really possible. And so it helps you like sort of figure out what to do next in a way.
Lindsay: And I can give an example, um, if that maybe it would be easy or I don’t know.
Let’s see. No. But I was just, I just came back from vacation and my boyfriend had made me pasta, which was great the day before, and was using canned red, um, not red sauce, like red tomatoes. ’cause he had had to make the sauce. Yeah. And I was told, this was like years and years ago that like, you shouldn’t use dentist cans.
So that being something that I’ve had in the back of my mind after we purchased this can, I didn’t do anything about it. I just kind of accepted it and forgot about it, to be honest, until the day that he needed the meat pasta with Fred Sauce, which was the day before leaving for a vacation, and I had to figure out like what I was gonna do.
Was I gonna ask him to remake the red sauce and remake the pasta, or was I going to eat it and accept? Whatever happens and kind of live according to my values of like, I want to enjoy this night before we go on vacations, have this moment together and not have OCD steal the show. So this is something that like I kind of had to accept.
So I basically like. All this was in my head and I was like, okay, I literally can just not eat the pasta. And you know what? I, I can give myself reassurance in that moment because I know that I’d be okay because I didn’t eat the red sauce. But I’m not living how I wanna live my life, which is I don’t wanna live under OCD control.
I wanna like live it for my own control. I wanna like make my own decisions. I wanna live my life. Have the experiences that I experienced and I had to accept that, like, okay, maybe the can was ended. Maybe, maybe it’s not great that I ate it. But what else is there for me to do? What else would I have done?
And I did the right thing, which was I just accepted it and you know, knew that like I made the right choice. And it’s crazy because like the first time you do it is the scariest moment. How am I gonna convince myself that this makes sense to do? And it’s like you keep practicing this and you keep using it on a daily basis, which you always do, which is.
I’m just giving this explanation or this example right before vacation is something that I had to deal with, you know, and it’s like something that, it was so hard the first time I had to do it, but it was so easy choosing to accept it and choosing to align with what I believe and what I feel that I was okay.
You know? And I. I kept going and I kept doing the things that I wanted to do. Went on vacation and now I’m discussing it now, just to give an example. So just showing that like those moments do come up and you have to pivot.
Kimberley: Yeah.
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I am honored to partner with no cd. I want to remind you that recovery is possible. Please do not forget that now, big hugs, and let’s get back to the show. Emily, do you have a recent example of going through those steps as well?
Emily: Yes, I do. I would say that just this morning, or no, sorry, that was last night.
Just last night. My room is a mess. There are clothes everywhere, and I was picking up a pair of jeans that I had previously sat on the subway with, so the back of my jeans, the back pocket, and I picked it up from that. Same position, and I observed that. My thought was now my hand is contaminated and I need to clean it and feel was I was noticing my thought, my feelings, and I let the feelings rise and what I felt was super uncomfortable, um, knowing that I had just touched this germ infested pair of pants that I had.
Because I sat on the subway and just for some context, which is probably something I should be working on, but I don’t normally sit on the subway in New York City. I normally, I surf on the subway. I don’t to hold onto the poles, I hold onto my boyfriend and yeah, that’s something I’m still working on. Um, just to give you the idea that like we’re also working on things like it’s, you’re never just fully cured.
And so I let that feeling rise of the uncomfortable of the discomfort. And then the accept part of that was I need to accept that like, in order for me to get better with OCD, I need to not give into it, and I need to accept that I may have picked up a germ or I may not have picked up a germ. And then like the aligned part is like choosing values over fear.
It’s like my values are, I don’t wanna keep, I don’t wanna have to keep washing my hands. I don’t wanna have to start this cycle again with something so small as a pair of jeans. So I chose to put the pair of pants in the hamper and not go to the bathroom, wash my hands, and I went right into bed and I, you know, I felt, you know.
I, I noticed how I was noticing me, like touching the sheets and touching everything else and just like needing to let those feelings be there. Let the uncomfortableness be there, but allowing the uncertainty to also be there and accepting that maybe there are germs, maybe there aren’t. Maybe I’m dirty and maybe I’m,
Lindsay: maybe they’re still in your bed.
Emily: Right. That, that, and choosing values over fear is like choosing to like, keep going and not let OCD take over because the, the one time you give in, then the rest starts spiraling again.
Kimberley: Well, that’s really powerful. I’m so grateful. You guys gave me two really wonderful examples of that. We’re talking today about like how your OCD tricks us and the tools we wish we did have sooner.
What message would you maybe have given to yourself or somebody who’s early in this process? Okay.
Lindsay: Um, I have one that my therapist shared with me Right now, I feel like I’m, I’m living and adopting an exposure lifestyle, which means that I’m constantly. Doing exposures and that is something I’m really proud of myself because it keeps pushing me to like take on these little challenges and bigger challenges and do the exposure of like eating the pasta even though it could have killed me or maybe it killed me, I don’t know.
We don’t know. But like doing the exposure lifestyle, always making sure you put time into doing these small exposures and whether it being the smallest. Littlest thing propels you forward. Just the smallest act of like doing exposure and not allowing the OCD to win and giving yourself the win goes a long way.
Kimberley: Amazing. What about you, Emily?
Emily: I would say, I think I always go back to this idea of, you know, my thoughts are passing clouds or like separating myself from my mind because a lot of my thoughts. A lot of my OCD history was based on random thoughts that pop in my head and like putting a lot of weight to that.
And I think for this is probably more for someone who is just starting to get into this. Treatment and hopefully getting, you know, the right kind of therapy. But it’s just reminding yourself that like, this is normal. You are normal. The thoughts you have are normal. The thoughts are not facts. You don’t need to give weight to them.
You don’t need to hold onto them. You can just imagine them floating by like clouds in the sky and you don’t, it doesn’t matter where they came from or where they’re going, but like. Being able to observe them as like an outside person, like not as, this is Emily’s thought, this is, this is an OCD thought.
That really just like helps, I think
Kimberley: so powerful. Can you tell us where people can learn about you and presently, where can they go to get in touch with you?
Emily: Yeah, so we are at presently bracelets on Instagram. We are presently bracelets.com. And yeah, everything’s pretty much presently bracelets. If you Google, you’ll, so I worked very hard.I worked very hard on that. Uh, SEO.
Kimberley: Good. We’ll make sure to have it in the show notes. Thank you both so much for being here. It’s been such an honor to spend some time with you both.
Emily: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having.
Kimberley: Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbt school.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.
