232. Postpartum Inpatient Stay to OCD Recovery: A Personal Story with Kathy Young 

Carrie: So I hope everyone has enjoyed our summer personal story series so far. And today we’re back at it with another story from Kathy Young. So I’m gonna let Cathy just introduce herself for a little bit here.

Kathy: Hi. I’m so excited to be here. My name’s Kathy Young, and as of now, I am a stay-at-home mom. I do have a background in writing, and I have run a copywriting business for a little bit of time and focused on marketing specifically, and that’s what I went to school for as well.

But right now, in this season of life, I’m just focusing on staying home and connecting online with other writers as well with OCD and who are also believers, and that’s a little bit about me and what I’m doing right now

Carrie: Well, that’s awesome. Sounds like a really good mission in life right now.

Kathy: Yeah, I’m loving it.

Carrie: Yeah. And how old is your daughter?

Kathy: Yes, I have one daughter, and she is… She’ll be two and a half next month. Well, she’ll be two and a half by the time that this comes out.

Carrie: Awesome. That’s a busy and cute age.

Kathy: It is.

Carrie: All right. We’re talking a little bit today about kind of a, a very dark season in your life, and so I just kinda wanna warn people about that.

And also that I think it’s just really important to talk about the things that can happen potentially to people’s mental health during postpartum. So tell us a little bit about the events that led you down this road, essentially to being assessed for postpartum psychosis.

Kathy: Yeah. So I can add a little context, too, with the season of life I’m in right now.

I had no intention to be a stay-at-home mom, and it was postpartum experiences that literally halted me and forced me to stop, reassess, and to kinda take a hiatus to focus on my mental health, and that was something, like I said, I hadn’t planned. It’s something that, as I explain a little bit more, you’ll see how it led to the postpartum psychosis in the first place.

So at the point when I was 12 weeks postpartum, that’s around the time that, at least for me, like hormones start to change. So my milk supply had dropped. I was pumping at the time, and my daughter was three months old, and it was like three to four month age is when they say that babies start to have like a sleep regression.

So that was happening. Because I was a freelancer and I owned a copywriting business, I had set aside maternity leave for myself, and it was around, around 12 week was around the time I had… It was the entire, like it was all that I had set aside, essentially, for my maternity leave. So three months, 12 weeks, I figured, you know, I’ll bounce back, totally easy.

Carrie: Lots of women do it. That’s just the expectation. Like, oh, you stay home for a few months, and then you go back to work.

Kathy: That’s it, and even some moms only have six weeks, and so I’m thinking, “Okay, 12 weeks is a good like buffer,” right? And so all these things were kinda swirling in my head, and I was stressing a lot about my daughter’s ability to like sleep and nap on demand, hyper-fixating and researching on like how to pay attention to her sleepy cues and how to keep her awake for certain wake windows and when to know how many naps she needs, and when she needs to drop a nap or like all the things that go into that and being a first-time mom, too.

So I was putting a lot of pressure on like, okay, if my baby can like sleep on demand, ’cause I was working from home, and I didn’t really have like plans for extensive support. I was like, “Then I can watch my baby, and then I can like work, and then it’ll be totally fine.” And so I was thinking it’s just a, a simple math equation, right?

Like, I’ll just figure it out. And it was on that week leading up to when I was supposed to go back to work, I had spent an afternoon at my in-laws just kind of practicing going out of the house for the first time, trying to navigate naps, and when she napped in the car seat, and when she transitioning naps, and once she wakes up from a nap, what to do after that, blah, blah, blah I didn’t know it at the time, but my family had mentioned to me after the fact that I was, like, starting to show a lot of hyperactivity in the sense of I was talking really fast, I was, like, telling people, “Hey, you need to do this,” or, like, “Make sure you get this.”

And also I was, like, getting really fat as well, and just, like, fatigued. And to me, I was like, “Oh, this is what moms do.” Like, I’m just running on adrenaline. This is normal. But it seemed to be a bit of a concern for my family, but not so much so that it was, they were thinking about postpartum mental health issues yet at that time.

Carrie: Yeah. They were just like, “We’re gonna monitor this and, like, see how it goes. She just seems a little rapid fire right now.”

Kathy: Yeah, exactly. And so after I finished that afternoon with my in-laws, I’m driving home, and I just feel, like, a sudden panic in my nervous system of just, like, I’m not in control anymore.

Like, my brain was, like, going super fast, and my body was just kinda keeping up, and I’m, like, in the car with my baby in the backseat, and the first thing I think of is I call my sister-in-law, ’cause luckily she was, like, in the car behind me. She was gonna come to my house to pick up something. And I call her, and with, like, I don’t even start with pleasantries or anything.

I’m like, “Amanda, I have postpartum depression.” And I start, like, yelling it. And she’s like, “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Like, “Pull to the side of the road.” I’m like, “Yes, we do.” And so we pull to the side of the road. We’re safe, thank goodness, and that’s kinda when I started to really show a lot of hyperactivity in the sense of I’m saying everything I’m thinking, my subconscious is just, like, spewing out of me.

I’m not focused at all. I’m not really aware. I’m tethered to reality. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of what was going on, but I was, like, so in my head that I was not grounded in reality, if that makes sense.

Carrie: Were you just lacking a ton of sleep at this point? Was your sleep just really erratic because of the baby and when she would sleep and then you felt like you had to get other stuff done or?

Kathy: Oh, for sure, and that was a big part of diagnosis as well. At that time, I was lacking a lot of sleep, and when I had reached that afternoon, it was, like, several hours of me, like, having insomnia, and it was after several hours that my family had made the decision to Baker Act me, which I don’t know how it’s like in other states, but in Florida you’re involuntarily sent to a behavioral center just for your safety, and you can be discharged once you kind of show that you’re a little bit more in a mental frame, like a stable mental state of mind.

That’s essentially what happened. Even when I got to the center itself, like, I had no idea what was going on. Like, I saw these all, all these people in green scrubs, and I’m like, “What is happening? Where am I? Am I in a dream?” Luckily, they give you medication at the behavioral center, and they force you to sleep, and they’re really on top of your mental hygiene and stuff, and your physical hygiene too.

And it was after befriending a patient who said, “Hey, you should talk to a staff member.” Ask them why you’re here, ask if you have a diagnosis, and that’ll get you home. And I was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I’d like to go home.” I wasn’t even thinking. You know what I mean? I hadn’t even connected the-

Carrie: So you were just really disoriented and, like, really confused, and your family drove you there, and they were like, “You need to be here,” basically?

Kathy: Yeah, and they didn’t know how long I was gonna stay. Like, there wasn’t so much contact from the behavioral center, like allowing me to get contact with family, unless, like, I showed the initiation that, hey, I feel stable to, like, talk to family right now. But even at the time, I was like, “I don’t know why I’m here.

This is, like, a weird experience overall.” But yes, they were the ones that decided. They drove me to make sure I was safe, and then I was, like, put into a unit with other patients, and I stayed there for about, like, six days.

Carrie: When you figured out what your diagnosis was and why you were there and all of that, was it a surprise to you?

Was it a relief?

Kathy: It was a relief In the sense that I had always this feeling that my brain was just wired differently, and I couldn’t articulate. I did not know how to explain it to other people, and later, this ended up being a misdiagnosis for OCD, which has brought even more answers. But it was almost like a relief to be able to, like, explain to the people around me that I love, “Hey, I’ve been dealing with stuff.”

I did not know how to voice what I needed or how I needed, but this is how badly I needed it. And it was definitely, like, a relief to have just, like, an answer or something to, like, look to so that other people around who were helping could see, like, “Oh, okay, this is what led to it. This is what it involves,” and just understanding me a little bit more, too.

Carrie: Were you having certain intrusions, intrusive thoughts, like, at that point?

Kathy: At the behavioral center?

Carrie: Yeah, like, kind of leading up to going in there. Were a lot of your thoughts just surrounding kind of, like, “I’ve gotta keep this rigid schedule,” or something bad’s gonna happen, or, “I’m not gonna be able to go back to work,” or?

Kathy: Oh, yeah. So I had originally thought that I was pumping, and so that also led to a lot of anxiety and stress as well because I was on a strict pumping schedule. And so at the behavioral center, all of your personal items are kept in storage closet… not closets, but area somewhere. And if you need it, then as the patient, you have to be the one ask for it, and it’s the family that actually packs the bags and packs your essentials since you’re obviously being sent involuntarily.

You don’t know what you need and don’t need. And so they do your best to, like, pack clothes and, at the time, my pump. And so I was like, “Oh, my gosh, I need the pump. I need the pump. I need the pump.” And so I was, like, constantly asking the tech for my pump, and then they were like, “Okay, this is not, like, a medical need.

This is not, like, a physical need. This seems more like a irrational hyperfixation on you needing to pump even though you physically do not need the pump right now.” So that was just, like, one example. There was also a lot of, like, things that I was hyperfixating as well on my physical sensation. So I was thinking that I was soaking at some points and making this connection of, like, if I take care of my body, then my baby will be safe.

Like, I don’t know. It was a lot surrounded by, like… Because especially when you’re pumping, you’re providing nourishment for your kid. And so I took that idea and I ran with it, and I was like, “Okay, I’m really thirsty, so if I’m thirsty, that means my baby’s thirsty. I need to drink right now.” And I would, like, drink so much that I would, like, hurl it back out because obviously I didn’t need that much water.

So it was a lot of, like, really taking notice of, like, the cues of my physical body and assigning meaning to them in ways that obviously did not correspond to reality, if that makes sense.

Carrie: Yeah, it does, and I could see, too, so they misdiagnosed you this as postpartum psychosis, and they said, “Go home, get enough sleep,” prescribed you medication, and they set you up with therapy or anything of that nature?

Kathy: Yeah, they did. So the original therapy that they had set me up with, we had a insurance at the time that was not really best suited for mental health services. It was just very minimal, especially ’cause I was a freelancer. My husband’s an entrepreneur as well, and so we were just very, like, just preventative stuff, low maintenance.

‘Cause we were just… We didn’t really see the need for anything else. I was set up with a, just a generic therapist and a generic psychiatrist who just saw, like, a full range of different people, and not saying anything against them at all. Like, they were very helpful to get my foot in the door. Eventually found out that I did need a little bit more specialized care, ’cause it was six weeks later that I had, like, a relapsed episode, and then ended up back with the behavioral center.

Originally, I forget the medication they had put me on first, but the second time I was discharged, we sought out a little bit more specialized care. We looked for, like, women’s mental health psychiatrists who knew women’s postpartum situations and things like that. And it was with her, with that psychiatrist, that I was screened for OCD, and that it was very likely that I was not dealing with postpartum psychosis.

It’s more likely that I was dealing with aggravated OCD on top of, like, the lack of sleep.

Carrie: The hormonal changes, yeah, can exacerbate some of those OCD symptoms. And so it’s helpful for people to know that. And a lot of people don’t know that if you go without sleep for long periods, that you can even start to hallucinate.

Like, they’ve done studies on these things, and so it makes sense that certain things can look like psychosis that may be lack of sleep, hormonal imbalances, and OCD going on, especially some of the fixations that you had. I could see how people would misdiagnose that. OCD have also been misdiagnosed as being suicidal when they weren’t, or homicidal when they weren’t as well, because they have intrusive thoughts or violent thoughts about themselves or others, and I think the education piece is just really important there.

Obviously, was that a big hit to you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, when you had to go back? Were you like, “Oh, great. Here I am again, doing this all over again”?

Kathy: Yeah, definitely was. It threw me for a loop in the sense that, like, I almost had this chip on my shoulder, and I found that I had this… With all my episodes, ’cause I had three, two where I was involuntarily hospitalized, and then one where I was in the comfort of family’s house, and so I would stay and they would monitor it there.

With all three of my episodes, I had noticed a conflated confidence in just, like, my ability and just, like, my ability to see things. So for example, I would see other patients, like, dealing with their physical and, like, mental needs. And so I thought to myself, “Oh, well, I can heal them. I’m capable of healing them.

Like, I’ll just pray and then they’ll stop.” It was just like that And obviously, like, I would not think that, and I do not think that if, when I’m in a normal state of mind. I’ve never had that thought ever. And so it was definitely this over-inflated confidence of like, “This person just needs this, and then they’re gonna be okay.”

Or like, “Oh, I think that God must be, like, trying to tell me a specific message to tell you,” kind of thing. And I know it gets really tricky because people have different spiritual experiences, and I don’t wanna take away from that. But I know for me, it was coming from a place, like I was lacking sleep. I was not taking care of myself.

OCD was taking the things that I love, which is what it does, like, which is my faith, and, like, misconstruing it and twisting it in a way that made me think reality was something else when it wasn’t. And so that was something that I ended up having to stop when I was stopped the second time, and the third time I had the episode as well, something that I had to wrestle with in terms of I know that I should be depending on God for this thing, and I know this is like a dark valley.

But also, I’m thinking these things that I probably shouldn’t be thinking, that I know are not biblically sound or accurate and not based in the gospel. And so it was just like ping-pong conversations back and forth with myself, trying to engage with my faith at that time.

Carrie: That makes sense, and I’m sure this was probably, like, pretty scary for your family, too, just feeling like the unknowns and what’s gonna happen next.

Were you still trying to work through this period as well after you’d gotten out of the hospital the first time?

Kathy: Oh, after the first time, my husband and I made the call of like, “I just need to not work right now.” It wasn’t really that we had a plan for me to go back to work. It was more of like, “We’re going to just have you not work for now, and then we’ll see in the future if that ever changes.

But for right now, that’s not gonna be the case.” Luckily, I had a savings in my bank account, and so we basically were able to use a lot of those funds to help with, like, the medical bills and kind of transitioning us into, like, me being able to stay home. And I was able to have a lot of support as well, too, before I was able to watch my daughter on my own, and that was so, so, so helpful and crucial for me as well.

It was definitely thrust upon me of like, “Okay, we’re not gonna have you work. We’re not gonna risk it. We’re not gonna try. We’re not gonna play with fire. We’d just rather be safe.” And so I think that was the right call at the time.

Carrie: How do you feel about it when you look back now? How do you reflect on those times, like, differently, being over two years from that?

Kathy: Yeah. I think I just wanna give myself, like, a big hug because it’s just, a lot of it was legitimate concerns and fears that I had, just, like, grappling with my identity as a new mom and what it would be like to work and what kind of mom I’m gonna be and just putting so much pressure on trying to be the mom I’ve always wanted to be, even though I was only less than a year in.

And I look at myself with just such grace and compassion and a little bit of humor because some of the things that I thought I just think are really silly, or the things that I did, at least to me it was. It’s almost like I’m able to look back and see how far the Lord has brought me and how I’m not perfect.

I have a better understanding life and motherhood is not, you figure it out and you’re done, like, you check the box and you move on. Like, as much as I thought it would be- It’s very humbling in the sense that I’m able to look back at that time and think, “Man, I really thought I was God.” I thought that I could just have everything in my control perfectly, and then everything would turn out how I wanted it to.

Like, if my baby would just sleep, if I would just get back to work at a certain time, whatever the case may be.

Carrie: It was like this illusion that I could be in control of all these things. I just wanna point out, I think it’s, like, harder for moms now because we have too many voices in our ears, really. There are so many different influencers on Instagram and other places that, “Oh, you should do this, and you should do that.

This can help with this, and that’ll help with that,” and just almost, like, too much information versus, like, trying to filter that all through and learn your specific child and what they actually need. And I can remember, like, when I was a first-time mom, like, trying to read the books and go, like, I’m reading the book, and I’m like, “Okay,” like, “I think I can do this.”

I’m feeling a little, like, semi-confident. And then you get the kid, and of course, it doesn’t go the way the book tells you it was gonna go. And then you’re like, “Oh, no. What do I do now? Help. Somebody come get me.” I mean, I, I guess I just wanna, you know, normalize that for everybody out there is, like, yeah, there’s a lot of parenting information on the internet.

You could read some good books, and none of that’s bad. But just know that, like, it’s not gonna go textbook according to plan. I’ve known moms where, that have had two different experiences with their kids where, like, one kid was a great napper and slept really well, and then the next one just, like, never slept and was up all the night and had just really rough times.

Each person’s story and situation, and even from kid to kid, is a different experience, and you really have… I mean, it’s an opportunity, I think, to lean on God and to say, like, “Okay, I don’t know what to do about this here. I’m just doing the best I can. Like, please enter in and help me through the craziness that is parenting.”

Kathy: Yeah. Absolutely. And I am so grateful that I have learned that lesson and that I closed the chapter on that book, or I’ve closed that book, and I’m like, “Okay, I’m done. I don’t have to re-learn that again.” I’m sure I will have to re-learn that in the future, but I think it was exactly what I needed in order for me to just start to look up and focus more on the Lord and who He is and trusting in Him rather than trying to figure out the puzzle pieces of, like, what’s going to happen next?

What does this mean? Will I be the mom I want to be? All of these, like, what-ifs and things like that, I’ve been able to learn to just sit with that discomfort a little bit of, like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. It’s definitely the tender space for me in my heart, like with moms in my community and in my church, and just people online as well, kind of encouraging them.

Oh, it’s okay to not know. You won’t know, and you’re gonna make a plan, and it’s not gonna work out the way you want it to. And even if it does, something else will. But it’s– I’m learning to be more okay with or accepting uncertainty, the unknown, and discomfort, and I think that’s a lot of what OCD, like, struggles with in terms of wanting that control, wanting to know, wanting a vision of, like, security in knowledge or whatever the case may be.

Carrie: Yeah, and I can see where perfectionism can really get attached to parenting and wanting to do things right because, oh, there’s some kind of belief that I’m gonna mess up my kid. And what I’ve learned working with a lot of people, a lot of kids, a lot of families, is you can be a really good parent and still mess up a lot, and learn how to make repairs and learn how to do things differently.

And you don’t have to be perfect, ’cause there is no perfect parent. So that’s an impossible standard. So tell us about your OCD therapy journey and what that’s been like for you. What kind of things have you done?

Kathy: Yeah. So a lot of my OCD therapy has been, I did start a little bit with, like, CBT therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, and then I had slowly transitioned into fear exposure.

And I know especially with mental compulsions, a little bit harder to, like, expose yourself, those types of things. Because I’m a writer and therapist knows that I’m a writer, too, it’s just been a lot of journaling and considering and reflecting on the what-ifs give me anxiety, and kinda sitting with that and writing about it and reflecting on it and not trying to…

Just being okay with, again, sitting with that discomfort. That has been really helpful for me. And obviously, I’m still on medication. I’m not sure when I will stop, just because I am still in a season wanting to grow my family, and so I’d like to be on the safe side and just continue to keep the medication for now for when that next season comes.

That’s something that has been helpful as well. And if I do find that I have trouble sleeping or things like that, like, I have methods and things that I do to kinda wind me down, whether it’s, like, physically or mentally. So that has been the majority of, like, what my OCD recovery has looked like.

Carrie: Do you feel like you have a different relationship, I guess, with managing stress?

Did you really have to bring in a lot of tools to help you manage, like, physical, emotional stress?

Kathy: Yeah, a lot of stress came from maybe not having clear communication with my husband about expectations of what parenthood will look like, what my role will be, my responsibilities, his role. Truthfully, a lot of it was just, like, having these conversations of just, like…

‘Cause he had his own experience, too, with taking care of me and becoming a parent for the first time and trying to take care of the daughter while taking care of his wife. And so a lot of the stress that we would harbor, we wouldn’t bring to each other, and we would just kinda keep it to ourselves.

We’ve definitely learned to be more open with our stress, even if it’s, like, small, even if it’s, like, little microaggressions or things like that, things that are just, like, bugging us. We’ve learned to just bring it up rather than just hide it, and that has helped a lot with stress. But also, like, physically with stress, I have learned the things that I normally love to do anyway help me a lot with stress.

So I love to color, I love to walk, listen to music, and read, and just kind of, like, engage in those very quiet activities. Um, and that usually grounds me as well. I find that if I’m in my head, I need to be grounded, and so I need to, like, engage physically with something, whether that’s walking or even exercise.

Exercise has been really helpful for me, too.

Carrie: Yeah. No, I think all of those are good things, and it’s important for people to remember that stress exacerbates OCD symptoms. So being able to have just, like, overall coping skills to lower that stress level a little bit. We can’t completely eliminate stress from our lives, right?

But we can– Like you said, I think there’s too many people trying to run at, like, this really high octane, go, go, go, I can do all the things and be Superman, Superwoman, and it’s just not healthy for us physically and emotionally. God didn’t create our bodies to run at that like a cheetah all the time.

Maybe some short sprints, but then we need to come back down and relax, like, is good for– That balance is important for our nervous system. What encouragement would you maybe provide to some other moms? Or we have a lot of women, I think, on the podcast who listen and they want to become a mom. Maybe they’re not married yet, or maybe they’re married, but really kind of trying to figure out, how does this being a mom fit in with my OCD recovery?

What encouragement or support would you give to them?

Kathy: Yeah. So I kinda mentioned a little bit before, but really being okay with uncertainty. And my husband follows this guy named Jocko Willink, and he is an ex-Navy, retired Navy SEAL. And he has this quote that says, “Have a tight ship and loose plans.” We love that, and so we kinda try to abide by that because sometimes we think, “Oh, if I’m okay with uncertainty, then I’m irresponsible.

Life planning, then I’m not– I’m just, like, going on a whim and not really knowing what I’m doing.” And I don’t think that’s necessarily true. And so obviously, you plan as best as you can, and you leave the outcome open, and that is something that I’m learning as a lesson over and over again with every interaction with my daughter.

And so that is one thing, I guess, just an encouragement being accepting the uncertainty of it and knowing that it’s okay. And then also, I think that with postpartum specifically, we focus a lot on the physical support of postpartum, and there’s a lot of humility, we’re involved with, like, getting help with showers and having people bring you meals and getting out of bed and going to the bathroom.

And I think that the humility that we have to, like, ask and need, we don’t even ask. We need the help, right? We need the physical help. I think we should have that same posture with our spiritual healing and our emotional healing as well in postpartum I don’t know, just learn to be a little bit more radically honest with yourself and, like, how you need support and what that looks like for you and not being afraid to voice it, and knowing that other people are probably dealing with the same things.

Or, like, you might hear stories from your in-laws or from your own parents that, “Hey, we had this experience, too.” And then you would’ve had no idea if you hadn’t voiced it. And so I think that there needs to be more of an awareness of, like, taking the time to just sit and, like, and reflecting and meditating on that transition, because it’s a huge transition, especially the first time.

I know as you grow your family, you have different challenges as well, but I do know after talking with a few moms, it’s really the zero to one that they get sticker shock, I feel like. Taking the time to have a support plan. I guess having a plan for what that emotional support will look like for you and having the humility to accept it.

And then I guess when it comes to, like, practical, ’cause I know I love practical things, ’cause it sounds like, “Oh, it’s so nice. Great. What do I do right now?” It was really helpful for me, at least in hindsight and moving forward now, especially being in toddlerhood, thinking about from pregnancy to, like, that first year, just, like, thinking about the first three months and, like, not thinking about anything else.

Like, just focus on short long-term goals of, what do I need to focus on in these next three months to take care of my body, to take care of my mind, prepare for baby, and when baby gets here, what do I need to do for these next three months? ‘Cause it’s nice that the Lord gives us this huge buffer of time between pregnancy and when we have the baby.

And even when we have the baby, to, as they continue to grow, like, it takes so much time for them to, like, develop these new skills and things. And so it’s helpful to just kind of focus on, like, okay, what is one thing I need to do in this season? And everything else can go to the wayside, that’s fine, but, like, I choose to focus on this.

And that was something that I was taught in behavioral center, too. Like, just focusing on, like, if you really have to get down to it, just like, what do I need to do today?

Carrie: It may look like taking a shower, you know?

Kathy: Yes.

Carrie: I’ve gotta figure out how to get a shower today.

Kathy: And that is such a win. It’s not even a luxury.

And then I guess the last thing is, and you mentioned this, too, is just, like, doing what works for your family and, like, not being influenced by other voices, even if it’s voices in your own family or, like, meaning, like, extended family or people that you may know, like, in work or in faith circles, whatever the case may be.

Like, everyone has a different circumstance with how they need to navigate work and feeding and transitions and all the things. And Everyone will have a different opinion. Everyone will do it differently. You just have to do what works for you and your family, and that sounds so cliché, but it’s something I continue to latch onto and cling to whenever I start to question myself like, “Why are we doing this?”

Oh, yeah, ’cause it brings us peace. Like, even if other people don’t think it makes sense or vice versa, like-

Carrie: Everyone’s gonna have an opinion about what you do, especially when it comes to parenting or having children or other things. So you feel more positive kind of next time around, like, that things will go better for you now that you’ve put some of these things into place to help your physical and mental health, and know what you need and how to advocate for what you need, like the support that you need

Kathy: Yeah, I absolutely do.

I feel hopeful. I feel grateful for how I was able to learn these lessons, like dark as that season was for me and for my family. It’s just the Lord definitely brought beauty from ashes, and he just took care of me and ministered to me in the ways that I didn’t even think I needed. It makes me hopeful for how I want to continue to create that space and create that sense of hope in my own home, like now that I’m a mom and now I am a little past that season of life.

And stepping into potentially growing our family as well, like seeing how much I can just enjoy it instead of worry, meditating on how good God is instead of meditating on the worry of like what if, what if, what if.

Carrie: Right. What does recovery look like for you today? Do you find you’re having to journal and sit with those uncertainties a lot less?

Do you find you’re maybe easier able to dismiss certain intrusive thoughts? What does it look like today for you?

Kathy: Yeah, I think I had this unnecessary– Or I, I had this false narrative that like, oh, after I take medication and I’m in therapy, like these intrusive mental compulsion– or like mental compulsions, intrusive thoughts, they will go away entirely.

And for me, that has not been the case. And so I think it’s been more of a sense of noticing quicker as opposed to it happening less. If I start to hear things in my head, I know whether it’s something that I can actually trust or if it’s based in truth, or if it’s something that OCD is trying to like distract me from.

And so if I do find myself having those thoughts, I’ll know, “Hey, honey, like I need a, a second just to journal a little bit,” or, “I’m gonna go take a walk,” or like, “I’m gonna work out for a little bit.” Like I know how to advocate for when I need to like ground myself a little bit again. So I think a lot of practicing communication for like what I need and how I need to just kinda deal with when those things pop up, and they do, truthfully.

And being okay with knowing that like they won’t necessarily like stop, at least for me. It’s not one of those things. It’s something like being okay with how the Lord made me instead of trying to fight it, but trying to work with it.

Carrie: No, I think that’s great, and I think it just shows like you can have a certain level of peace without having to completely eliminate all these thoughts.

And I think that’s good for people to hear and to know.

Kathy: Yeah, absolutely.

Carrie: Yeah. Thanks so much for being brave and sharing your story today.

Kathy: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, and I’m just so grateful to-

Carrie: I really appreciate Cathy’s vulnerability in this episode. While no one wants to go to an inpatient treatment center for their mental health, if that’s what you’re needing at the time, there shouldn’t be any shame in getting that type of help.

So I think it’s, uh, really important for us to reduce the stigma and the shame surrounding going to inpatient treatment, whether it’s for OCD or for other mental health conditions. And there may be a time where you don’t need inpatient treatment, but you need some type of more intensive treatment, like an intensive outpatient program where you go for a few hours a day, several days a week, or you attend online, depending on the program.

These types of programs can be really helpful if you’re having a hard time functioning in your day-to-day life. I think there has been some confusion surrounding my intensive therapy services and the type of person that’s for. And sometimes we have people who are reaching out who really need more of a hospital setting or an intensive outpatient setting.

Just know that if I feel like that’s what you’re needing, that’s the services I’m gonna direct you towards. And people who would benefit from, like, an intensive therapy retreat-type setting typically have some type of base-level coping skills. They have some ability to regulate emotions when they come up.

They’ve either been to therapy before or done some significant self-help work on their own. They kind of have a certain level of awareness and motivation towards treatment. So I wanted to say a little bit about that just to provide some distinction for those of you maybe who have seen the intensive services on my website.

They’re not meant to be a replacement for intensive outpatient care, but more so for people who have been in treatment a while and just feel stuck. Maybe you’ve done some workbooks, self-help, done a little bit of individual therapy that maybe wasn’t fully effective. So if that’s you or you’re not sure if it’s you, feel free to check out the intensive therapy retreat services on the website at CarrieBock.com, and you can always send us a contact form as well.