179. She Didn’t Give Up on Getting Help: Personal Story with Amber Vetitoe

Hello, OCD Warriors and welcome back to our summer series where we are sharing personal stories of people just like you that have wrestled immensely with OCD and are in a better place now Amber gets raw and vulnerable about her themes. It’s really a story about perseverance because it was not easy and she could have given up so many times, but really held onto hope and did not do that.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower wife and mother. Licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing. And helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you. Let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Amber, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being willing to share your story with everyone today.

Amber: Hi Carrie. So glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Carrie: What OCD symptoms seem to kind of first pop on your radar, or did you notice more so now? Obviously like when you look back at your childhood in adolescence

Amber: As a child, I did not recognize it as such. I had such a late life diagnosis. I’ve actually only been properly diagnosed for maybe the last three or four years. And part of that journey for me has been connecting that thread back through my entire life. And I actually noticed back my earliest memories of symptoms were in very early childhood. So anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia.

I didn’t realize that at the time. Obviously, I’m like a toddler in elementary age. Yeah. But looking back and with these healed eyes and seeing that child self, I’m like, oh, that was my first anxiety attack. Oh. That was my first panic attack. Oh. I was having an insomnia series going on. I wasn’t just a difficult child.

I wasn’t a sleep walker or hard to stay in bed, things like that. So enlightening to just look back on that now with these heeled eyes and having this awareness and seeing how that affected me and even carrying on into adolescence. That is where rumination set in and that led to depression and some suicidal ideation.

Things that I did not even realize were happening to me at the time that I look back on now, and I’m like, oh, kind of that realization. That’s what that was, and that’s why it was so disruptive to my life and my processes and my development and everything like that. So yeah, it started, I think my first memory, a vivid memory that I have of a anxiety, panic attack sort of situation.

I mean, I was probably early toddlerhood, like very, very early, three or four years old maybe. What

Carrie: OCD themes have you dealt with?

Amber: It’s kind of, uh, graduated a little bit, I think, but there have been some umbrella themes, I guess, that have their own strings. My umbrella themes, as I call them, have phased through a death phobia.

And that was in early childhood kind of preteen. I was very focused on like a fear of snakes. That was one of the earliest things that I remember. One of my earliest panic attacks that I remember was on a field trip in, I believe, kindergarten to the Nashville Zoo. I was getting ready to go into the little reptile house.

I now looking back on it with heed eyes, I realize I had an intrusive thought and the intrusive thought was, what if the glass is removed off of the rattlesnake cage and the rattlesnake jumps out and bites me and it kills me? Wow. That’s what caused my panic attack. I did not tap into that and realize that until I’m 35 years old receiving a proper diagnosis.

I’m like, oh, that’s what that was. That was an intrusive thought that I then made an obsession, which came with a compulsion, and I couldn’t control that. Having my tiny little kindergarten brain, and it resulted in a panic attack. I had similar situations with like storms. I was very, very terrified of not just thunderstorms, but tornadoes because I was convinced like we live in a mobile home and everybody tells you the worst place to be in a tornado is in a mobile home.

And if this tornado hits, you’re certainly gonna die if you’re in this mobile home. I’m like, oh, that fear makes sense. Now. That was some intrusive thoughts that I was then making a thought connection bridge and getting stuck in that bubble of, oh, this is gonna happen. I’m gonna die. My whole family’s gonna die.

And I carried those two, like specifically the fear of snakes and the fear of storms all the way through my childhood into my adulthood. I just now I’m starting to get a grip on them and deal with them. So then that graduated in my pretty early teens, probably early high school. I would say that I had a new theme, a new umbrella theme, develop scrupulosity.

Until I got into therapy, I did not even know scru was a thing. And to realize those religious themes of the intrusive thoughts and the obsessions and the compulsions. And it grew into something, looking back on it now, something that was kind of scary really, because I developed a fear of God. I saw God as this big bully with a magnifying glass sitting on that hill under the sun, and I was the aunt.

Wow. And that’s not healthy. That’s not what God, our God wants us to believe about him. But that was truly, that was my feeling and that was what my ruminations were centered around was I have to check these lists, I have to check these boxes. Did I read my Bible? Did I say my prayer today? Did I witness to someone?

I can remember specifically? One day I forgot to take my Bible with me to school and I could not focus in any of my classes. I mean, I had meltdowns throughout the day. When I think back on it, it ran so much deeper than that, and it’s hard for me to talk about now because being in a healed spiritual place and understanding that relationship, that it’s not transactional.

I. I get really sad when I think about that scared little girl who said the sin. Sure. Before she went to sleep every night, because what if I die while I’m sleeping and I wanna make sure that I’m saved and I have that salvation so that I’ll go to heaven. That became a compulsion, an obsessive compulsive flute, and I would have to do it every night before I could go to sleep to be assured that my salvation was intact just in case something happened through the night.

And another really weird thing, it may or may not be appropriate to talk about here, but I had this. Intrusive thought that I was somehow gonna fall pregnant, not sexually active at all. I actually had deemed that purity culture, I’m gonna save myself for my husband and not mess around. But there became this intrusive thought of, what if I somehow get contaminated in like swimming pool, a mixed sex swimming pool?

And some things get where they’re not supposed to be. And I mean, it was like, when I think back on it now, I’m like, there is no logic to that, but there is no logic.

Carrie: Right? Yeah.

Amber: You know, we talked about that a lot in my therapy. It’s like OCD doesn’t care about your logic. The logic didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I was not sexually active.

It didn’t matter that. There’s really only one way to make a baby, and I wasn’t doing it. I was convinced in my brain that that was going to happen to me, and that could be the worst thing in my life that ever happened to me because God would be so ashamed of me because sex was for marriage, and babies were for families and marriage, and it was a whole thing.

That’s actually

Carrie: a really common obsession. I.

Males can be concerned that somehow, like they’re gonna accidentally get a girl pregnant and girls can be convinced like, oh my goodness, what if I sit down here where this guy sat down and maybe I’m gonna get pregnant? And like you said, it completely defies common sense and. Logic, but OC D doesn’t care.

It’s still gonna make you terrified. And like, I think that’s the theme here, like you’re seeing is how terrifying is it to think you’re gonna be like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and get sucked up in a tornado, or you’re gonna somehow end up pregnant or God’s really gonna get you, like, somehow smite you and somehow maybe you’re gonna die tonight and not go to heaven.

It’s all very, it’s very terrifying.

Amber: And I laugh when I look back on it. Now I can laugh and I should be very grateful for that. I don’t wanna lose sight of that, but I just have a chuckle when I see how much through my lifetime without being properly diagnosed and treated, I. My OCD just kept leveling up.

It wasn’t enough. Yeah, because I went on and graduated from Scrupulosity to health focused OCD. That has been my most recent umbrella theme. I dare say it has been the most challenging logic defining, stunting theme that I’ve dealt with, especially because it all centered around. One event and I was on a work trip and I was on a medication that I had no business being on, but neither here nor there, and it caused me to fall very ill on an airplane ride.

When I was traveling back from the work trip that I had taken and I passed out on the airplane, they had no idea what was wrong with me. At heck At the time, I had no idea what was wrong with me, uh, but the medication had caused a dangerous drop in my blood glucose level. I had a hypo emia attack and it bottomed out my blood pressure and my pulse rate to the point that my body could not keep me conscious.

And that became the string with which OCD spiraled for the next decade of my life because it wasn’t just my blood sugar. Then I became focused on my blood pressure, and then I became focused on my resting heart rate and then enter the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carrie: And isn’t it wonderful now that we have all these little watches and rings and tools that can give us all of that health information that we didn’t used to have access to?

Amber: And bless my husband, God love him. He grounded me from my Fitbit, has regulated me on my half a watch, and I am so thankful for that. Looking back now, because at the time I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD and we didn’t know what was happening. But he was loving and caring and interested enough to see that I was causing my own suffering.

Carrie: Right. Yeah. And

Amber: he’s like, you’re doing nothing for yourself. Checking these things on your watch. You’re just spinning up this anxiety and causing these panic attacks, and it doesn’t have to be this way. And of course, like I said, we didn’t know why. We just knew that that wasn’t the answer. So forcefully removing that, it was hard.

I mean, it’s never easy to stop a compulsion, but eventually it started to weigh in a little bit and I’m like, okay, this isn’t so bad. And being able to reintroduce. And that was before I’d learned anything about OCD or effective treatment and therapy methods and things like that. To be able to look back now with everything that I have gone through and all the healing that has taken place and connect to that, oh, that’s why that works.

Just those little nuggets and those little glimmers is really cool to see those and to finally be getting this victory over all of these umbrellas. They’re still there. They never go away. And I just wanna hold space for that. If I could take the time. I wanna hold that space for people who feel like, oh, I’m so frustrated ’cause I’m not healed yet.

I have this thought. We can’t help intrusive thoughts. That’s OCD, that’s the core of OCT. It doesn’t mean that’s who you are or that’s what you believe is true. And one nugget I took from therapy that I just love, it’s like it’s a cloud in the sky. Just let it pass. You can stand there and you can put your whole life on pause and you can stare at it and wonder if it’s gonna rain on you, or you can just let it pass you by.

I’m finding so much room for grace and compassion for that old self, and I want to speak that into people who are in the middle of that battle right now.

Carrie: Yeah.

Amber: You get the tools in your toolbox to help you say, oh mm, nope. That’s just an intrusive thought. That’s not me. It’s okay. I can just let it pass on.

I like a cloud in the sky that’s really helping me ’cause these things are still there. I still fear death. I still have some religious things that I gotta work out and remind myself that God is not a big, ugly, scary guy in the sky that wants me. I gotta tell myself, COVID-19 gonna be around you just gotta go out there and live your life.

But yeah, keeping it all in perspective and understanding OCDs mechanisms, that’s where the power lies.

Carrie: How did you get to this point? You had all this like anxiety and panic and there was some OCD, but you didn’t really see it as that. How did you get to this point to like initially reach out for help?

Like what was that experience like?

Amber: My husband, I mean, at the time he was not my husband, but I had gone through a very abusive relationship and had gotten a divorce, and I was just starting to put myself back out there and try the whole relationship game again. And when I met my now current husband, we’d hang out some, go out to eat, go out to the movies, whatever.

The more time we would spend together, the more opportunity there was for triggers I was getting. So triggered by to him, bizarre things. He just did not understand how something so benign could make me spiral so hard. And he just looked at me one day and he was like, look, I like you and I think that we could be good together, but you have got some stuff going on that I do not have the ability.

To even begin to touch to work on, and that is not gonna be my place. I cannot do that. But I care about you enough to say that I enjoy what we have and I want to continue with what we have. But until you figure stuff out, he literally said, until you figure your crap out. We just can’t, like we’re gonna have to spend some time apart.

I need some time back to myself. You gotta figure out what’s going on. You gotta figure out what’s making you this way. And at the same time, I was having some really big work failures I had. Okay. Gotten a big girl job. I had become a billing director for a medical group and was overseeing a very large department.

I think I had over 40 employees that were directly reporting to me. I was not doing well, and I remember our CFO looked at me one day and she said, I don’t know if I made the right choice. I don’t know if you belong here. I don’t. Don’t think you’re gonna succeed in this role because things that you need to do, I can tell you are not equipped to do and we’re gonna have to make some changes if you don’t make some changes.

And I was like, oh, kind of one two punch. Okay. Here we go. That started at least making me think of, oh, what feels normal to me is not normal, and it’s one of those you only know what you know. Right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Amber: And that brought with it some shame and some guilt and some sadness, which turned into depression, which brought some suicidal ideation.

I was like, this is not going to be my life. I know there has to be a better way. So I reached out to a therapist and it was one of those, you know, go big or go home things because I’m like, if this is really meant for me, I had already failed therapy and been fired by four therapists. Whoa. Four therapists fired you what?

Yep. So I was like, you know what? Okay, I’m gonna give this one more shot and this is my hail Mary and I’m going bigger. Going home. I literally sent an email to this therapist that I found on Facebook ad. And I was like, I want a therapist who is a Christian and who loves God, but will not use the Bible or prayer or anything spiritual to try to treat me and to help me because I have run the gamut and it’s not working.

I need to try something else for a little while, it was the most freeing and liberating thing for me to receive back. I got you. Let’s set up a time to me, basically. And I was like, surely somebody, and they’re gonna be like, Nope, not touching her with a 10 foot pole. But I finally, somebody met me where I was and understood what I needed and was willing to roll up their sleeves and get in there and get dirty with me.

Because my previous therapist, as soon as the Harry scary thing started coming out of the closet, oh, we’re not equipped to deal with this. Oh, I don’t think we can handle that. Oh, surely you’re not telling me the full story. I’m like, okay, then help me. How? How do I get there? But it was a no, I’m gonna have to refer you to somebody else, blah, blah, blah.

That was like my cycle. And I’m like, okay, great. But I finally found this person who met me where I was and. Understood that I needed some kid gloves for a little while, and I really needed to work on this layer by layer because it was so deep for me. I didn’t realize how complex my issues were. And in the therapy journey, I needed multiple avenues of therapy to help many, I mean EMDR, group therapy, top therapy, just so many different things to work through all of these different layers.

And I’ll just pause there ’cause I mean, yeah, it’s really to think about that journey and that was the impetus behind the biggest change in my whole life is just somebody loving me enough to say you’re not okay. You need to get help and then reaching out to somebody to get help and they’re like, yep, I got you.

Like

Carrie: changed my whole life. I hope that gives somebody hope, because I know that I’ve talked to people who have said, Hey, I’ve tried therapy before, or I went to this therapist and I just didn’t really feel like they got, like they understood what I was trying to say and or. They didn’t know how to help my OCD.

You know, I hear that a lot. Like I had a really nice therapist, but they were just kind of clueless on how to help me and ended up kind of like your story. Well, you’ve gotta really go see somebody for the OCD. And then I think for the client’s perspective, it’s gotta feel a little rejecting because you’re like, oh no, I’m too much for somebody, or I’m overwhelming these people.

For somebody to say, you’re not telling me the whole story. I mean, that’s really hurtful. It’s like, wait a minute, I’m burying my soul. Like trying to be truthful here. What’s going on? You didn’t give up on that journey, and I think that that’s important for somebody here today that’s listening is like, if you don’t find the right fit on the first, second, third, try, keep going.

’cause there’s somebody, God has somebody out there for you. So that’s awesome. I think

Amber: that’s where my perseverance came from is. I knew at my core I was made for more than this. Yeah. I knew I was living a very dimmed life and until I got inspired by those people who love me enough to call me out on my.

Yes. I don’t wanna be emotional, but I believe that tiny little voice in the back of my mind that said, you are a burden. So that kind of unearthed something when you said that earlier is like feeling that from a therapist of, oh, I’m too much for you. I felt too much for everybody in my whole life, for my parents, for my prior relationships, for my friends, I felt like I was too much and too loud and too big, and I took up too much space, and to have that all seemingly validated, that was really hard, and I was at my lowest of low points.

But I just felt so deeply that I wanted to be a vessel for good that could leave a positive ripple effect. I’m not gonna do that. Living a deluded life. Yeah. And I can remember reading a quote somewhere and it said, if I’m too much for you, go find less. Mm-hmm. I’m not going to dilute myself or water myself down to make myself more digestible for you.

You can choke. And I didn’t feel that. There was no part of me that felt either of those things. But they were tools in my perseverance toolbox of I can get there. Like that’s a goal. I wanna care so little about what other people think of me, that I am living my favorite life as my favorite self. And so I kept showing up every time I was like.

Oh, my therapist gutted me today. Oh, therapy was so hard today. Oh, I can’t get over this concept in therapy. I just kept going back, even treating symptoms for years and years and years. I mean, we were treating the anxiety, the depression, the rumination, the suicidal ideation, the panic attacks, the PTSD flashbacks.

We were treating all of those things. For years and years and years with an unknown root cause. Yeah, like we had no idea that OCD was just chilling in the background, puppeteering pulling all his string. But I’m so glad that I didn’t give up on me, that my husband didn’t give up on me and that my therapist didn’t give up on me.

Because I was ready to throw in the towel over and over. I don’t want anybody who’s hearing this to be validated, that feeling, oh my gosh, it is legitimate and it is hard to push past that discomfort.

Carrie: Yeah. But

Amber: just keep casting a vote every day for yourself because nobody else is gonna cast it for you.

You have to want to cast that vote for yourself, and you have to want to get better. And nobody can do that for you. Nobody can make you do that.

Carrie: Yeah. I think sometimes people have this perception like, oh, I’m gonna go to therapy. I’m gonna unload my burden and I’m gonna walk out feeling better. And like there’s times where you do that and then there’s times where you just cry the whole entire session and you still feel bad when you leave and you’re like, well, crap, what do I do now?

I got a whole. And like if something else gets triggered up and you’re like, oh, I was dealing with this problem and I was doing better and now this other thing came up, or this other life stressor happened. Yeah, it does. It takes a lot of perseverance to keep going, like when things get hard. But what I’m hearing you say too is like I knew, like I think there was something God put inside of you to say like, Hey, there’s more like.

There’s abundance, there’s a plan for you, like there’s love for you. And it also sounds too like you had a good support system. You had the guy that became your husband being like, Hey, I’m rooting for you and I’m rooting for our relationship, and so like, let’s walk this journey together. If you’re willing to dig in.

I mean, that’s incredible. I think it is important for everybody to have. Not just their professional supports, but their personal supports. That helps us as therapists so much better when people have those. If we’re working with somebody and they have a really low social support system, it’s always like an encouragement like, Hey, I can’t be the only supportive person in your life.

You know? You gotta connect with people somewhere like in your community and your church and your job somewhere, or you can get some support. You ended up joining the first round that I ever did of Christians learning ICBT. And influence based cognitive behavioral therapy. If y’all haven’t heard us talk about that, how was ICB T helpful for you?

What was that process like? Learning those skills?

Amber: Yeah. I joined because I was so tired. Just like you said, I was so tired of getting stuck in the loops and I’m like, oh, I thought I dealt with this in therapy already. And I’m dealing with the same issues over and over and over again, and I’m tired of these obsessions becoming compulsions and leveling up and getting out of control.

And it was kind of that lifeline like, okay, I finally have this diagnosis. I have been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. I can look back over my life. I can see that it has been present in my whole life. And I cannot keep my brain out of the past. It was, I should have, I got in this loop of, I should have done that.

I should have done that. Yeah, looking back with very healed eyes on it, very broken self. Not fair at all. And I saw the ICBT course as a lifeline. I think that was the first feeling that I had. It’s like, okay, here’s this thing. It’s like this monster that has been living in my head my whole life, that I have been unwittingly feeding and strengthening and just building him up into this big, scary, hairy thing.

I need some tools to. A this big monster down in this lily little teddy bear because I mean, we know OCD is not gonna go away. And I mention too because feel like I choose now to live my life unmedicated. But I want to advocate for anyone right here right now who’s struggling with deciding to get on medication.

Medication played a huge role as a tool in my life. For a period of time, everything was so loud in my mind that I needed to mute it. Yeah, to be able to survive. I knew at the time and was very resistant about getting on medications because. An addiction gene kind of runs in my family. Sure. I’ve watched that go through and negatively affect me and people that I love.

I lost my sister to a drug addiction a few years back and I didn’t wanna become that statistic. I did not want to get addicted and dependent on something. But my gosh, I am so glad for the few years that I did spend on medications to aid me. Because I would not have been brave enough to jump into something like the ICBT course without it.

Carrie: Yeah,

Amber: because that helped me see that it is possible to slow down the thoughts, to calm them down, to mute them. It is possible. And now in my more healed state, I choose to be unmedicated, but I’m still really struggling and really suffering, and I found myself desiring getting back to that therapeutic medicated state.

Yeah. ’cause sometimes I just needed the noise to be quiet and I didn’t have the ability to do that because of how big some of the things had gotten and how loud the monster was sometimes. So I kind of saw that ICBT course as a lifeline with the way that it was presented of, we’re gonna teach you about the OCD bubble and learning these themes and learning about your true self and your feared self, and calming that down.

And I’m like, oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. Point check, check, check. That’s exactly what I need. Just to be completely frank with you, I attended the weekly sessions and I downloaded the materials. I didn’t do much of the homework because I was so overwhelmed by it at the time, like being live in person with the events, I didn’t wanna miss that opportunity, but I knew my brain wasn’t in a state to receive the teaching.

Yeah, and to really apply the therapy concepts. So I did the course after it was already over. I kind of circled back and went through like the workbook things myself, and revisited the modules and the videos and everything when my brain was in a state to digest it because I knew at the time I enrolled in the course.

I was outside of my window of tolerance, like more than I even care to admit, but I knew how helpful it would be, and it was kind of that lifeline to keep me from getting back on medication because I didn’t desire that for myself. But I knew if I couldn’t find another way around, there was no choice, because my life was very, very hindered by how loud the OCD had gotten again.

So to be able to slow those processes down so that I could take that outside looking in approach and find the roots of things to deal with them. One of my favorite things that I brought out of that course was popping the bubble. I literally will physically like pop a bubble.

Carrie: The imaginary bubble. Yeah.

Amber: Yes. I’m like, oh, nope. That’s an OCD bubble. I’m gonna pop that now so that my brain understands I’m not gonna cross over that bridge and go down that spiral with you. We are not doing this. It has helped so much more than anything I could have ever thought or imagined because it’s allowed me to release the guilt and shame that I had about all of those.

I should have. I should have, well, I would have done this. I’ve been able to let go of all that because it was just me looking back at a broken girl and judging her with healed eyes. That was not fair. I

Carrie: did

Amber: the best that I could with what I had at the time, and one level up from that. Again, getting a little emotional here, but it helped me to extend forgiveness where it was needed.

Carrie: Yeah, because

Amber: I harbored a lot of hurt in my heart for some like childhood traumas that happened and some mother father wounds, some sibling wounds, some past relationship wounds. Things that became these big T traumas for me. And here I was, a 36-year-old grown woman stalling my healing journey because I hadn’t received an apology from these people.

I’m not gonna heal until so and so apologizes to me for such and such ’cause that was so traumatic. No. If I can forgive myself and release myself from the guilt and shame for doing the best that I could with what I had at the time, why can I not extend that same grace to them? Yeah. ’cause I guarantee they were doing the very best they could with what they had at the time.

’cause they had their own traumas, coloring their own lives. Nobody knew I had obsessive compulsive disorder. Nobody knew how to help it. I was just this atomic bomb getting triggered and blowing up all the time, and then having to go and clean up all the messes, and I just look back on that child and that teen and that wife, and I’m like, oh, okay.

Yeah. I was not always the victim. Sometimes I was the aggressor and I didn’t realize it. Yeah, so that course really helped me when I was ready to receive it. That ICBT course really helped me to level up my healing. We had talked a lot through my therapy journey about how it’s like an onion and you just peel away layer by layer.

Mm-hmm. And it’s not necessarily that you’re circling back and doing the same thing again. You’re experiencing a deeper level of healing on the same themes. And that I, CCBT course really helped me to hammer for that point home is, oh, here’s this thing. And I feel like I keep circling back to it, but the ICBT course helped me find the root and dig it out.

That’s great. And that piece. And to find that feared self to put a label on that feared self, which I alluded to earlier, it was my earliest formed core memory that I was a burden on people. Mm-hmm. So my death phobia OCD theme was, I’m gonna be a bourbon if I die and everybody has to come to my funeral.

My scrupulosity burden was, oh, God’s having to wrangle me around again. I’m just such an inconvenient little Christian child. Oh, how dare I The hell thing, oh, these hospitals are already overrun and I’m gonna be irresponsible and go out here and get COVID and overwhelm them even more, and call these doctors to go into burnout.

I would’ve never, ever been able to backtrack into that feared self of being a burden without something like that ICBT course and putting a label on that. It doesn’t make it easy. Obviously, I’ve teared up a few times talking about it doesn’t make it easy. That wound is still raw and fresh when I scratch on it, but it is just another signal.

It is informational. And it’s like, oh, this situation right now is probably being colored because of that feared self. Yeah. That wound that you have really deeply. And who’s the

Carrie: real amber?

Amber: Yeah. I am exploring and building that right now because I get up every morning and I tell myself who the real me is.

I go outside and I stand in the trees and I let the sun shine on my face. I tell myself every day that I am content, and I am happy, and I am strong, and I am brave, and I am confident, and I am competent, and I am capable of doing extraordinary things. And I also have to tell myself that I deserve good things in this life because I’m giving and generous, and loving, and loyal, and kind and caring, and compassionate, and charitable, and faithful, and patient, and thoughtful and trustworthy.

And I asked every day to be used as a vessel for good and to leave a positive ripple effect. I spent 36 years of my life believing I was the antithesis of that, believing I was a burden, believing that I was stupid and worthless and good for nothing. And. Didn’t deserve anything because I hadn’t put anything good into this world.

But that of course helped me see, like I built my mindfulness and meditation script out of that course and what I wanted to believe about myself.

Carrie: Yeah,

Amber: and it’s kind of like self-fulfilling prophecy now. My brain has that confirmation bias gene, and it’s gonna believe what I tell it. Mm-hmm. So instead of continuing to tell it, oh, I’m this, oh, I’m that.

Oh, okay, I’m gonna feed you some positive things. Now we’re gonna build some new neural pathways because we’re gonna believe that we’re awesome because I truly believe, like I said earlier, I was made for more than this. And I am a good person and I am not a sum of my traumas. I am a sum of my triumphs.

And just being able to get to that place of peace and release still have very, very hard days. Mm-hmm. And I’m kind of a comorbid neurodivergent. I don’t just have obsessive compulsive disorder. I also struggle with A DHD, and I do swing back into like the anxious episodes sometimes when my OCD isn’t well controlled.

So I have to kind of handle myself with kid gloves every now and again, especially trying to be a productive member of society and be out in the community and helping and being involved with my family and my friends and everything like that. But learning how to hold that space for the bad days.

Carrie: Yeah.

Amber: Because they’re going to come and I shamed myself and I had a lot of guilt a lot of times because I’m like, oh, I’m ruminating so much today. Or, oh, I have. Insomnia and I was just beating myself up because what’s all that therapy for? What’s all this reading for that you’ve done? But the answer is just today.

You don’t have to let this one moment in time ruin the future. Just let it be today. Hold this face forward today, release it, and move on.

Carrie: I’ve thought about recovery from some of these mental health issues. I think about it differently now than I used to because I would have people come and say, well, I don’t wanna have anxiety anymore.

I don’t wanna have PTSD anymore. I don’t wanna have OCD anymore. And I’m like, okay, that’s cool. I realized over time, and especially doing this OCD work has been so huge for me and realizing it’s like we all have this proverbial flower garden and people come into therapy and it’s just like overrun with weeds and there’s no flowers in there.

And they say, pull out the weeds for me. But if you pull out just the weeds of the flower garden, you’re gonna have just empty soil. And then what happens? The weeds are gonna come back up. But it’s like we have to actually get in there and not just pull up the weeds. We have to plant the flowers. We have to help people find an identity outside of just like, oh, I have this diagnosis, I have this, and that’s really like, what’s going on with me?

It’s like, well, no, that’s not a totality of who you are. You are a human being. Created by God very loved. And he has a purpose and a plan for your life, regardless of what you’re struggling with. And so if we’re able to get in there and dig up around that soil and it’s a messy process, and get out some weeds and plant some flowers and then continue, like we’re all in process of still kind of pulling out those weeds because none of us are perfect, they come back, they sprout back up a little bit and we sw the soil, you know, pull ’em out.

Okay, lemme plant another flower here. But eventually the goal is that you have more flowers in the flower bed than weeds. I think your story is so inspiring to see just like how far you’ve come in your process. In that you had a, you used a variety of different things to help you get here. It wasn’t just a one thing, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Oh, just go do this and you’ll be fine. You had to do a lot of different things. Take medication, go to therapy, do groups, do this and that. But you’ve made it. You’re here and you’re just living proof that it’s possible for so many people listening to this. So I think that’s awesome, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story today.

Amber: Of course, yeah. And I love that analogy you just used about the flowerbed ’cause of another thing that I saw, it was a quote that I saw. You don’t plant a seed. And then dig it up every day and ask it why it’s not growing. Plant the seed. You water it, you give it sunlight, you feed it, you nourish it, and then it grows.

I couldn’t just go to therapy. I couldn’t just take my meds. Like you said, it was like this combination of things and when something wouldn’t work, we tried something else.

Carrie: Right. Yeah, and

Amber: I appreciate so much being allowed to have the space today to share my journey because that’s part of the positive ripple effect I want to leave is I don’t want to just take my story with me when I go.

Because I almost died in silence. So I’m choosing to heal out loud and I talk when my voice shakes and I stand up for the people that I feel like have no voice because I wanna show them that just like me. I started out silent and alone and afraid, and I just surrounded myself with people who met me where I was, and loved me enough to help me find my voice and help me keep talking and help me keep fighting.

And here I am today, just an absolute poster child for don’t stop until you get to the root. And then when you find that route, keep going. It’s not over just because you discover the route, keep going, keep growing, and just appreciate being given that space. I love the work that you’re doing with this podcast and bringing the awareness to such a silent disease.

I think so many people suffer from this OCD mental illness that they don’t even realize there is another way. There are supports and tools that. You just gotta know. You just gotta reach out and take them. I’m living proof of that.

Carrie: I was definitely encouraged hearing Amber’s story, and I hope that you were as well.

I’m not recording any interviews this summer to really just soak in and spend a little extra time with my daughter. But if you are interested in sharing your story, you can always contact me via carey bach.com and would love to just chat with you about what that might look like. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Christian faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling opinions given by our guest are their own and do not necessarily. Reflect the views of myself or By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.