90. My Experience with Faith, Church and OCD with Erika McCoy
On today’s episode, I’m joined by Erika McCoy, an IOCDF grassroots advocate to talk about her experience with Church, Faith and OCD.
How did her OCD develop and why it took a long time for her to get diagnosed
Traumatic experiences that triggered her OCD and how she coped with them
Dealing with her pastors’ and friends’ reactions to her OCD
What OCD taught her about life and her faith.
Her advocacy work at International OCD Foundation
Related links and Resources:
Transcript
Carrie: Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 90. I am your host, Carrie Bock and here we are all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others. A little note since we recorded this episode is at the date for the faith and OCD conference that Erika is gonna talk about today is actually on May the first, not May, the eighth, and we will put that link in the show notes for you guys if you’re interested in attending.
Today I’m very excited to be here with Erika McCoy from Kansas City, Missouri and she’s gonna talk with us about her personal story of dealing with OCD as a Christian and in the church, some unhelpful things that have happened and some later on, helpful things that have happened in support that she’s gotten at this point, and her advocacy with the International OCD Foundation.
Welcome.
How Erika’s OCD Developed and Why it Took a Long Time for Her to Get Diagnosed
Erika: Hi. Yes, I’m Erika and I’m from born in St. Louis, but my family moved here when I was three years old. So pretty much this is my hometown. And I remember having symptoms of OCD when I was about eight, just from my memory and I did not get diagnosed until I was 24.
Carrie: Wow.
Erika: And yeah, it was a long time.
Carrie: That’s a long time.
Erika: It took a long time. I think it’s about it’s almost average. I know, I think the statistics are anywhere from 11 to 17 years from people when they first start showing symptoms. But a lot of people I talk to now since getting better, they’re getting treatment a lot earlier. That is really exciting news to hear.
I was diagnosed about eight years ago and Kansas City is a pretty big metropolitan area. But there was not a lot of great treatment options. So I was hospitalized the first time when I was 14, but they did not diagnose me with OCD. I think it was a general panic disorder is what I was diagnosed with.
Carrie: Do you think they just didn’t ask all of the questions? Is that how they missed it, or were there certain thoughts or themes maybe, that you were scared to share and you were like, oh, I don’t wanna tell them that that’s really going on?
Erika: I mean, when I look back at it, I feel like it was pretty obvious. I mean, they asked me to put things on scale from one to 10, and my biggest thing was being late or being on time.
And then of course, that’s also when I went to a different high school, a private school. My parents were really big on making sure I was going to a Christian private school. And I went to a private school that was a different faith tradition and that is when the first time that somebody, a priest there told me that I was going to go to hell just because I was a different faith tradition than faith that I was at and that really just rocked my mind. I mean, I just could not believe that was my grand offense and I was gonna be doomed to hell for that. There were some other things that were going on with me at that time.
Carrie: Like a different denomination of Christianity. You went from one denomination to another and all of a sudden it was like, you’re going to hell. Because you don’t believe these exact things here.
Erika: Yes. My family didn’t think it was that big of a deal and I didn’t either, but I went from Luther to Catholic. But Martin Luther is the one that originally broke away from the Catholic church. I guess they’re kind of salty about that.
Carrie: They’re still upset about it.
Erika: Yeah. And they’re doctrine. I don’t know. I’m not trying to like put any other faith down or anything like that. That’s just what happened in.
Carrie: With your particular experience. Yeah.
Erica: There was a lot of other things happening at that time. My father, they said that he had six months left to live and I mean, it was just a lot of things happening at once. What sent me into like a total breakdown at that point in time was my therapist was late. I mean just like five minutes late. It wasn’t even a big deal, it was just five minutes. But that caused me to go down into like a total spiral. Thought the world was ending cause my therapist was late and that’s totally irrational.
And I just felt like I was gonna die. I just looking back on it, I’m just like, what’s going on? And then when I was in the hospital from a scale of one to 10, 10 is World War 3 and one is nothing. What is being on top? How important is, or what is the offense of being late? And I was like, oh, definitely World War 3. And I don’t know, I mean, to me that’s obvious that that’s like OCD, but they did not diagnose with it at that time.
Carrie: They just thought that you were really into punctuality and then that was just a high priority for you?
Erika: Yes. Just a high-priority thing.
Carrie: So do you have any family members that were super, like, we gotta be on time? Was that a thing when you were growing up? You could get in big trouble for.
Erika: My dad. There’s a certain percentage, I don’t know, that have the genetics factor for OCD. My father had it. He passed away. My mother has it, my aunt on my maternal side who passed away as well, and my grandfather on my mom’s side as well.
Carrie: Okay. Yeah. So it’s definitely running through the family there.
Erika: Yes. But my dad was very big. He would always stay all the time that saying, if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. And if you’re late, you might as well not even show up at all and he would say that all the time to me. I don’t know that was just a big thing and my dad had a lot of things like that, and he was also in the military. It was very much a military run house.
Carrie: A lot of rigidity
Finding Help for Her OCD
Erika: When I grew up. I finally found a psychiatrist that got my diagnosis right when I was 24. And that was a sigh of relief, and I was hospitalized again at 24, and then I had to do three different intensive outpatient hospitalizations.
They didn’t do ERP, but the CBT cognitive behavioral therapy helped quite a bit for what it was. But as far as finding a therapist, my psychiatrist knew a lot about OCD. I had to work with my psychiatrist, not on a super regular basis because he’s psychiatrist and very busy, but he gave me the tools and he did psycho-analytical therapy on me to help with OCD.
He taught me what ERP was and then I got like the my OCD at workbook and I kind of had to do a lot of the exposure response stuff by myself, which I do not recommend. Do not do that.
Carrie: That was overwhelming for you to not have the support of therapists or somebody else to do it with you.
Erika: Yeah, like an actual trained clinician, like a weekly basis and do that. I mean, it was very touch and go for me. Because I could only meet, meet him once a month.
Carrie: But you’re not the only one I’ve heard that from. I’ve heard several other people say, oh, I tried to find a therapist in my area that was versed in OCD either didn’t have connection with that person, or I couldn’t find somebody that had some kind of proper training or proper experience level in order to help me through this. We had a guest on very early in the show, Mitzie Van Cleve. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of her. She’s done quite a bit of writing on OCD and Christianity’s Scrupulosity.
She had said, “I tried to find a therapist for a long time and essentially I looked online and watched videos and used workbooks” and kind of had to do a lot of the imaginable exposures on herself in order to get the help that she needed. I don’t think that your story is incredibly uncommon.
It’s a sad state of affairs, and I think that’s why we’re talking so much about this in terms of increasing awareness is people are literally suffering for years without help, without even knowing what they’re struggling with. And then when they do finally figure it out, it’s, there’s this uphill battle to try to get the help that they need. And I hate that for this community. It’s not good at all.
Erika: I was relieved when I got diagnosed, because honestly, at that point in time I thought I was really losing my mind going insane. I had this, I mean, it was irrational, but I really thought I was gonna end up locked away in some sort of 19.
Carrie: Institution or something.
Erika: Institution or something. Like, I really had no idea. I mean, I knew what OCD was. I have no idea it could get that bad. I was really relieved when I found out that I had OCD thankfully. But now though, in my area, it’s on the Kansas side, but there is a Kansas City Anxiety Institute or something like that. That just got accredited for OCD.
So I mean, making waves now, which I think is really great for the people that get diagnosed and I’m talking about eight years ago.
Carrie: Sure.
Erika: It’s, it’s been a long way. A lot of progress have been made.
Church and Community Response to OCD
Carrie: Yeah. Tell us about the church’s response to OCD. I’m sure there’s some people that kind of just, they just don’t really know how to respond when you share that with them.
What are some unhelpful and helpful things that you’ve experienced in terms of trying to connect with faith community as a Christian?
Erika: Sure. In my blog that I wrote, I didn’t totally stay away for 16 years, but I did not go to church for 16 years because I was having really intrusive, horrible thoughts.
These things that were happening in my life, my aunt going missing, being murdered, having to take care of my dad that had abused me my whole entire life. All these things that were happening were rightful punishments from God. For something that I’m not quite sure of what I did, I mean, I know we’re, I’m a sinner and I know I’ve done bad things.
I mean nothing like terribly bad because we’re all sinners. And so I kept wrestling with this fact that I know I’m not perfect. I know I haven’t done the right things all the time, but what have I done that’s so horrible for God just to keep punishing me with these things. Thing after thing after thing in that 16 year break when I was just really felt really scared and I didn’t know it was going on.
I would go to certain, sometimes it was Christian friend. Sometimes it was different pastors, different elders, stuff like that. And I would go to them and kind of, I mean, not tell them everything cause I knew that would probably be too much, but just a little bit of what was going on in my mind. And they were a little shocked.
I mean, the first reaction out of a lot of people is that I had some sort of spiritual battle going on with inside my mind or my prayer life wasn’t doing well, or I had some really bad experiences of people telling me I had demons inside my brain.
Carrie: Which of course is terrifying person to tell you that.
Erika: Absolutely terrifying. Because that was also one of my really horrible what ifs. When you have OCD people say, it’s also known as the doubting disorder. And for someone that has the religious scrupulosity theme to it. My mind, I was having these horrible thoughts of God punishing me, and then I was also worried that maybe Satan was taking over my life. When you go to a religious leader and then they are confirming.
Carrie: Your greatest fear at that point.
Erika: I don’t know how to explain that. Right? Oh, okay. Maybe I am, I don’t know. If this person that is really knowledgeable in these things confirms that to you. I mean, it’s, oh my goodness, maybe that is what’s happening.
I don’t know. That’s what really terrified me and scared me. And I would just try everything. I was praying. They were like, how’s your prayer life? Not knowing, obviously that prayer was a compulsion of mine. I would just keep praying more repeatedly. Are you reading your Bible right? I mean, I would read my Bible so much.
I was reading because reading my Bible is also compulsion. And I guess my thing is that I have a lot of empathy for faith leaders. Because I know that people come to them with outrageous amount of things, all problems, all the time. And I mean that is part of their job description.
That is part of their calling in life is to be there for people. I don’t want it to seem like I’m really coming down too hard on them and I don’t want them to be shut off when they hear these things because they can’t be a knowledgeable in all things with everything. Or they’d be God all knowing they just can’t be all those things. But I think a lot of, a little bit of knowledge can go a long way.
Carrie: Right
Erika: To me I sit around sometimes and listen to people talk, and when they start going a little too far, I’m just kinda like, “oh, maybe we need to investigate that a little bit, get a little bit further into that.” But I guess when I think about the things that I said to different faith leaders of my past, I just wish maybe they would’ve been like, “Hmm, maybe we don’t bring up statement in this situation.”
I haven’t been too seminary or anything like that, but maybe demon possession is real. Maybe it’s not. There’s that uncertainty there. Maybe, maybe not, but for me, I was born this way. It’s a genetic thing for me. That means that God made me this way. He knit me in the womb this way. He knew this was gonna happen.
We’re all made in his image. So there’s something about me and the people like me that deal with this. He’s wanting to bring delight and we all deserve. I mean, it’s just like the beatitude. We all deserve to have a beautiful, meaningful walk with Christ despite all these other things. And I wanna get across to faith leaders, other Christians, even though you don’t understand it.
Just a little bit of knowledge can go a long way and really help people get past their issues that they can’t control bring us all back to worshiping God.
Carrie: I think you just spoke to it right there. We’re on a journey with our faith. It’s a walk, and I think sometimes as Christians, we’re so concerned with getting people to a certain destination more so than we are of walking with them as they’re wrestling and as they’re going through the process.
And for some reason in the church, we’re terrified to say, I don’t know. I’m not sure why that is because I’m sure there were plenty of people in the Bible who at the end of the day, if you read the Psalms and you read the scripture, They didn’t know, they didn’t fully understand everything. And somehow in this context we go, okay, somebody has a problem.
I have the Bible, I have Jesus. There has to be a solution. Okay, let me give them a solution. And it’s this almost like this pressure that we put on ourselves. Instead of just saying like, Erica, I can see that you’re really struggling with this. Let me pray for you. I’m not even sure how to support you through this.
How can I support you through this? I don’t know that I have all the answers that you’re searching for, but I want you to know that I care about you and I love you. I think if we could get that response out of our faith leaders, that would be so much more helpful than trying to dig through all of the nuances of everything that’s going on.
And I think that’s why so many of the stories in the Bible bring me comfort because we forget. We know the end of their story. We know what happened to Joseph in the end. He didn’t know what was gonna happen to him in the middle when he’s in jail or when he’s a slave. He didn’t know that he was gonna have a beautiful ending and that he was gonna be reunited with his family in that same way.
We’re all in the middle of our story somewhere and we don’t know how things are gonna work out a lot of times. Talk with us about how you learned to maybe sit with some of the uncertainties or the mysteries of your faith that you experienced.
What Erika Learned from Her OCD and Her Life Experiences
Erika: Well, yeah, for sure. I think whether you have OCD or not, what I’ve learned is a lot of people have a hard time, just like you said, not knowing they want answers and they want them now.
I think life has just taught me along with having to go through the therapy that treats OCD or at least make living with life with OCD easier to live. That helped me. And then also just the experiences of my life. Nobody has an easy life. I’m not gonna pretend that is the case. There’s just been some circumstances in my life that is just, Or when I look back, it’s just like, “Why? What is happening here? Even with my father, the doctors told us when I was 14, he had six months to live. My dad did not end up passing away. I was 24.
Carrie: Wow. That’s a big discrepancy from what they originally told you.
Erika: For a long time, all of us were just always so constantly worried and we need to spend all the time we can. We have to do everything we can for him cause he is right at this door. Constantly. Every surgery he went into, we had to say goodbye to him as if it was the last time we were gonna see him. And I can’t even tell you how many surgeries he had between 14 to 25. I mean, we had to go and say goodbye to him, and that is not what happened.
That taught me a lot about sitting with uncertainty and not knowing when someone’s gonna go in that case. And then with my aunt, we actually were having a fight when this happened. I had not talked to her for eight months before she went missing. I think people, they disconnect from family members for all sorts of different reasons, right?
That’s a normal thing when, dynamics become unhealthy, sometimes we have to put boundaries in and disconnect. And that’s a healthy thing. One would never think that your loved one would go missing during that time. But that is what happened with my Aunt. And then it took seven months to find her body. And then normally how it goes when you find your missing loved one’s body, you get answers right away. At least some answers.
Carrie: This is what we think happened or this is who we suspect may have been involved or something.
Erika: Something like that. And that did not come and has not come and it’s been eight years. In May it’ll be eight years. That’s another thing that has, I’ve just been, I’m gonna say forced and I did a lot of things to try to find answers. I mean, I was always sharing her information, passing out fires constantly. I did a lot of things to try to bring awareness to that, and no matter what her other friends or other family members. Those answers have not come no matter how much we would like them to.
It’s just not the time and we’re just gonna have to wait it out and that took me a long time to be, I mean, I’m not okay with it, but just kind of like it is what it is.
Carrie: You’ve had to make peace with that at some level?
Connecting to God and Going Back to Church
Erika: Yeah, on some level. I mean, I can talk so I’m blue in the face and knock on doors and do all those sorts of things, and maybe it would make a difference, I don’t know. But at this point in time, I feel like I know the process and it’s gonna take whoever has intimate knowledge to come forward. And that is on them and God and the Holy Spirit working through them to wanna come forward with that. And it’s just outta my control. I don’t have anything to do with that. And then when it comes to my faith with all these different experiences in life, I was really scared when I first went back to church about two years ago because of the interactions I’ve had.
I just really didn’t with Christians and my Christian friends and stuff like that, and faith leaders. But you know, I just thought, been through all these crazy things. I’m still here and that’s gotta be for a reason. There’s gotta be a reason that I’m still here through all these things, and I’m still relatively unscathed.
I’m still attacked and I’m still doing pretty good here. I just really wanted me and my family to really have a connection with God, and I just went ahead and I was like, I’m just gonna do this. And the first church I went back to was actually really great in lots of ways. They gotta help plan Easter and help with their Facebook.
I mean, I did a lot of things that really brought a lot of value and that was the first time I prayed out, in front of a church. Let me tell you, it was not a great prayer. I was so scared to get up there and do that prayer. I think at the end I said, “well, anyway. Amen.”
Carrie: That’s okay.
Erika: It was an awkward prayer.
Carrie: God understands. It’s alright.
Erika: But I did it. It was a great place for me to practice a lot of exposures and I was really thankful for that personally. There’s some problems, but that’s okay. It showed me that there was just a lot of, still a lot of things with OCD and misunderstandings. But I’m still really thankful cause I got to exposures and a smaller place of worship and just be who I am.
I was able to meet a lot of great people that are very loving and kind, and it really was a good place to the stepping stone. It also taught me to stick with it because honestly, if you would’ve talked to me, I don’t even know how long in my, I don’t wanna say my former self, but in the. If I would’ve done that and went through that, I would’ve been like, okay, we’re done here.
I’m never trying it again. Prior to treatment, I would’ve been, we’re done here. I tried. I gave it a good effort, but nope, I would’ve taken that as a sign that God doesn’t want me to be in church or something ridiculous. But because of the tools where I am in my mental health journey, where I am in my faith journey, I knew that I just had to keep going and eventually, even if it wasn’t the next one, I would find a place that would be where I’m supposed to be. No church is gonna be perfect. Okay we know that we’re all people. There’s lots of people interacting and that’s another thing to keep in mind to, but thankfully it was just one other church that I stopped at and it’s been a beautiful thing.
There’s a lot of really understanding people. At least all the people I’ve come across are very encouraging. They might not understand exactly what I’m talking about or what I’m going through, but they’re very encouraging, loving. I’ve even got some questions about what it is that I’m talking about. Not in like a weird, judgmental way or anything like that.
Carrie: Healthy curiosity.
Erika: It’s just a healthy curiosity. It’s just such an amazing feeling to go into a place after all the things, preconceptions, being scared and all those things. And to finally find a place that you can just be who you are and just be able to work on your relationship with God. Even if that means that you do some weird OCD things while you’re working on your ERP and not have to be worried about the judgment of others, and you can just focus on growing the relationship between you and God.
Carrie: I appreciate that message. I think for a lot of people who are disconnected from the church right now because they’ve experienced spiritual hurt or even abuse in some cases, and I appreciate that. Don’t give up on the body of Christ and don’t give up on yourself and the community. That could be really healthy in supporting you, and we’ve talked about that in various episodes on the show.
I think supportive faith communities can be really transformational, like you’re saying. I think we weren’t meant to kind of do this whole walk and journey alone. We need other people surrounding us and to know that God’s with you in guiding you and leading you to that place where he wants you to be. So that’s, I think that’s really encouraging to a lot of people.
Tell us a little bit about your advocacy work with, the International OCD foundation.
Erika’s Advocacy Work
Erika: With the International OCD Foundation. Do most of my work in the special interest group of faith and OCD. That’s where my passion is for sure. We have meetings. It’s been a little crazy right now because we’re leading up to the conference, the Faith and OCD Conference in May 8th. So we’ve been having a couple of extra meetings to plan out each month. So in January the theme was it’s not about faith, it’s OCD and so that’s where my article came out of. And then February, we’re gonna be highlighting having the healthy amount of doubt versus certainty because you know, in faith it’s okay to have doubt. It’s how that can be challenging with people with OCD to understand that healthy amount of doubt versus getting in the loop of uncertainties. That we’re working on that and they’ll be themes every month leading up to May.
And I am really excited about the conference for Faith in OCD. I haven’t gone to one in the past. Here’s the crazy thing, so I’ve technically been an advocate almost eight years. I was in such a bad place. I’ve just been following all these things, but I haven’t really been doing much. One of the other advocates said to me like, so crazy.
You’ve known about all this stuff for eight years and you haven’t gone yet. And I’m like, no, but this year is the year. Okay, I’m gonna do these conferences. I’m gonna go to the.
Carrie: And that’s online isn’t it?
Erika: Yeah, it’s a Zoom, a virtual one. The Faith in OCD website via the International OCD Foundation has a lot of great information on it. It even breaks down per faith tradition. There’s one for Protestants, Judaism, I believe. I don’t know, it just breaks it down for a whole bunch of different faith traditions for people to get information, which I think is great. I don’t know that much about interfaith. I’m a Christian and that’s where I have most of my knowledge in, but their website’s really great. There’s a lot of great resources for Christian. Lots of slides and also really great ways for faith leaders. You can print off different things and if you’re kinda less vocal or more shy, you can just print it off and hand it to your faith leader, which I love that because like not everyone is as vocal or want to have face-to-face conversations so you can just put in their mailbox and go upon your way. They definitely recommend that if anybody wants to spread knowledge to their faith leaders, you can just print that off and sign it under their door or whatever, and then just walk along your way and they might not even know where it came from.
So then what I’m doing for this month and the months coming up to May is that I’m doing a rocking your values, navigating faith and OCD in the community painting workshop. I like to paint rocks.
Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s a lot of fun.
Erika: I like to paint just about anything really, but last OCD week in 2022, I came up with this OCD advocacy initiative where teal is the color for OCD awareness. You paint the base of the rock teal, and then basically you can write OCD facts on it, or you can paint. I mean, I can pretty much see anything in a creative picture type of way, so I paint lots of little pictures, on mine. Some people are more left or right brain. I don’t know which one’s more analytical.
Carrie: Whatever works for people. Do what works for you, whether it’s like writing something on the rock or, I did some of that during the pandemic because let’s face it, we were all at home. I ordered a few supplies on Amazon and see what I can do with some rocks here that’s from a rock place near me.
They were like, “you can just have some of these.” And I was, “Are you serious? That’s great.”
Erika: I know I got 200 rocks donated to me. So I have plenty I can do plenty of these rocks. You paint them, you put your OCD facts on them to make it like an advocacy thing. I mean, you’re more than welcome to keep them if you want to, but I’ve done quite a few of them.
The last time I went on a road trip, every place I stopped, I left the rock. And then on the back it has, it says at International OCD Foundation. So if they Google that, it brings up the International OCD Foundation. It also has my Instagram tag on it, but people, not everyone wants that kind of information out there, but my Instagram tag is specific enough where if you Google that, it’ll bring up screw velocity.
So that brings up knowledge and then it also has the hashtag rocking your values, but also bring up different things. That’s something that I start in, but if more people get into it, it’s a great way to advocate. And you can be kind of introverted about it too. Cause you can just paint your rock and then just drop it somewhere and then a random person can, whether they know about OCD or not, can pick it up and get some knowledge about it.
Carrie: I love options for introverts because a lot of times they feel they’re not out there, they can’t make a difference, but there’s plenty of small ways that they could make a difference by just dropping something off by their pastor or by painting a rock and leaving it somewhere and directing it to some helpful information.
Sure, yes, introverts unite. That’s awesome.
Erika: I’m an introverted extrovert.
Carrie: I would consider myself that a little bit too. Yeah, I can have some extrovert tendencies when I need to, but then I also need to like hold off and recharge sometimes and not see anybody or talk to anybody. This has been a really great conversation.
I probably feel we could go on for forever and ever, but one thing I like to ask my guests that are sharing a personal story is if you could go back and tell your younger self something, even your teenage self, something who is in the midst of all these difficult situations, what would you want her to know?
Erika: I guess the biggest thing would be that God loves you. Jesus loves you and the expectation to be perfect is not achievable, and just to have some compassion for yourself in the really hard times to come.
Carrie: Jesus was perfect. So we don’t have to be. That’s a nice realization for all of us, I think, that put pressure on ourselves or unrealistic expectations to achieve certain things.
We’ll put links to your article about your story and where people can find you on Instagram and so forth. If they wanna connect and find out more about painting rocks with you. That’s really cool.
Erica: Yes. I love that. Some people are like, “But I’m not a good artist.” Okay, well, one, I’m a firm believer that all art is good art. Okay. Even if you just make a little stick figure, or, I don’t even know what I remember art therapy was one of the big things that, well, it can be ERP I will say that, but art therapy is just so, so much for me when I was younger. And therapy doing collages and all these things. So for me, if you think you’re the worst artist ever, just trust the process, put a brush down on something and just let it go or make a collage, I don’t know. Just try it once. And just see how it feels. Just let it go and just try it once.
Carrie: Roll with it.
Erika: Yeah, roll with it.
Carrie: Erika and I had a short conversation off mic because I didn’t have a lot of time to ask her this when I was interviewing her about the connection between trauma and OCD since she mentioned several different traumatic events in the course of her talk. And it’s interesting to me, the more and more that I work with clients who have this overlap of childhood, also adulthood trauma and OCD symptoms is it seems like the trauma symptoms exacerbate the OCD symptoms which would make sense because when people are under stress, their OCD symptoms tend to flare up more.
So it’s just something to think about. If you’ve noticed in your own life that overlap between trauma and OCD, that getting some help for that trauma may help you as you’re trying to work through the OCD symptoms as well.
Hope for anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, licensed professional counselor in Tennessee.
Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the use of myself or By the Well Counseling. Our original music is by Brandon Maingrum. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.
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