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Hope for Anxiety and OCD Podcast – Not sure about Therapy?

Why Didn’t EMDR Work For Me?

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

There could be a variety of reasons why EMDR didn’t work such as lack of training from your therapist, lack of preparation prior to reprocessing, or blocking emotions and body sensations that need to be felt during the reprocessing. In my experience, most issues with EMDR stem from either a lack of training or lack of preparation. 

Your therapist wasn’t adequately trained or updated on their training.

EMDR is not an easy therapy to learn or apply. Therapists can be trained in EMDR protocol, yet not have the knowledge on how to apply the protocol to real life client situations. Further consultation is important and necessary once the therapist runs into real world issues that occur after training. This is especially true for clients who have complex PTSD presentations, dissociation, or have a co-occuring diagnosis like OCD.  

Some therapists were trained early in the development of EMDR when clients were asked to list their 10 best and 10 worst life events. When I was early in my training, a consultant recommended that I do this with my client. Let’s just say it didn’t go so well. Listing someone’s 10 worst life events can be rather overwhelming. Another therapist told me that she did not use the assessment form in the process of having the person access the memory. When asked why, she told me, “They did it differently back when I was trained.” 

One way to find an EMDR therapist is through the EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) website. EMDR practitioners can continue their training in EMDR and become Certified, which also requires using EMDR with a certain number of clients. With additional hours and training, they can become a Consultant as I have done. Here are some potential questions you can ask an EMDR therapist you are considering:

  • How long have you been using EMDR?
  • What percentage of your caseload do you use EMDR with? 
  • Have you sought continuing education or consultation in EMDR after your training?

As much as I enjoy EMDR, I understand all too well that the processing of a memory can get blocked to the point where intervention by the therapist is necessary. After years of consultation, additional training, and experience with clients, my practice of EMDR is much different than when I started out. By incorporating ego state therapy (parts or inner child work), I found a missing link that has helped many clients get unstuck. Other therapists incorporate Internal Family Systems (IFS), play therapy, or other modalities into EMDR. 

You were given treatment labeled as EMDR that wasn’t EMDR standard protocol. 

When people come to me saying they’ve received EMDR in the past, I’ve learned to ask more details regarding the process. One client told me she was handed tappers (a tool that provides alternating vibrations to the right and left hand) while she was talking in her first session. This is not EMDR! EMDR is more than receiving some type of Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) also referred to as Dual Attention Stimulation (DAS). This client was neither prepared properly (see next point) or given enough information to even consent to EMDR. Unfortunately, this negative experience with something the client was told was EMDR, turned her off to true EMDR therapy.

You were not adequately prepared to start reprocessing trauma.

EMDR has eight phases. The first two phases are history taking and preparation. Clients who are excited to start EMDR may become frustrated during the initial two phases if they have been told that EMDR is going to do amazing things for them. However, if surgeons have to determine that you are healthy enough for surgery, it only makes sense that a therapy involving your brain has a preparation process. 

The biggest mistake I’ve made as an EMDR therapist is moving too fast. When clients are not prepared adequately, they will either under-access or over-access traumatic material. When clients under-access traumatic material, they are not experiencing the pictures, emotions, and body sensations that were occurring at the time of the traumatic event. Clients cannot heal from something they are not accessing. On the other hand, when clients overacess traumatic material, they are overwhelmed by the pictures, emotions, and body sensations that come up for them during reprocessing. I have seen clients who no longer want to reprocess trauma again because they had a negative experience.  

Preparation activities may include mindfulness, feelings identification, developing a safe container to hold trauma, identifying a calm/safe place, or identifying nurturing or protective figures. These are just a few examples. It’s the therapist’s job to assess and identify what preparation materials a client might need prior to engaging in trauma reprocessing. 

You didn’t let go and trust the process

Proper preparation typically prevents this from being an issue. Some clients have difficulty allowing themselves to feel emotions due to invalidation or criticism they received as a child. Other clients may stay in thier head and not connect to their emotions or body sensations. Some clients are afraid on looking internally because they are afraid of what they will find or are afraid of being overwhelmed by it. Being fully imbodied and feeling comfortable enough to share your internal experiences with your therapist are key elements to effective EMDR therapy.

Letting go and trusting the process is an important aspect of EMDR. There is no need to try hard or try to specifically remember something. I encourage my clients to let their brain do all the work. Having a mindful awareness of what is coming up in the mind, body, and emotions and being able to relay this information is paramount. The brain knows how to move towards healing, but it is also important for the therapist to know strategies for getting it unstuck.  

What if EMDR didn’t work for me?

If EMDR was not helpful for you, you may want to pursue a therapist with more training in EMDR therapy or who incorporates other modalities with EMDR. You can also look into other modalities of counseling for trauma such as somatic experiencing, the flash technique, or brainspotting. There is no one size fits all when it comes to therapy. The important thing to understand is that the effects of trauma are highly treatable and not to give up in your healing journey.

94. Podcast Updates and a Mom’s View on God

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

In today’s episode, Carrie shares some of the lessons she has learned about God from being a mother and some important podcast updates.

Episode Highlights:

  • The recent loss of both of Carrie’s parents and the impact it has had on her life and the podcast.
  • How being a mother has helped her to understand God’s love and care for his children.
  • The joys and challenges of motherhood, and how it reflects God’s love for us.
  • Personal motherhood stories of Carrie’s best friends, Christen and Michelle.  (excerpts from Sending Hope and Love to the Not Yet Mothers) 

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Christian Faith and OCD, I want to share something deeply personal. Over the past year, I’ve faced significant losses, including the passing of both my parents. I had intended to talk about these events sooner, but the weight of my grief has made it challenging to find the right moment. I’m still navigating these emotions, and I’m not yet ready to fully unpack everything.

I’ve been reflecting on how grief impacts our mental health, especially when dealing with OCD. It’s a journey of trying to find balance between acknowledging our pain and continuing with our healing process. ss.

In this episode, I’ll also discuss how faith has been a crucial anchor for me during this period. Leaning into my spiritual beliefs has provided comfort and strength, helping me cope with the intense feelings of loss. I hope that by sharing my journey, I can offer support to others who may be going through similar struggles.

I appreciate your patience and understanding as I continue to work through these personal challenges. Your support means a lot to me, and I look forward to bringing more insights on integrating faith and mental health in upcoming episodes.

Explore Related Episode:

99. My Grief and Loss Journey

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD episode 94. I am your host, Carrie Bock and we are all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others.

I titled this podcast episode, Podcast Updates and a Mom’s View on God. I really strive to be transparent on this podcast and, and sometimes there’s things that I’m just not ready to talk about yet, and one of those things has been my mother’s death.

It hit me really hard. My mom died in September of pancreatic cancer, and it was a short time between her diagnosis and her death. Before the cancer, she’d always taken good care of herself, had no ongoing health conditions, so it was pretty shocking to lose her and what felt like so young. I had planned for this episode since it was gonna come out on Mother’s Day, to talk about my mother’s death.

I felt like I was going through the grieving process and ready to talk about what I experienced and learned through the process. Then in March my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and this set my grief process way back to square one. So I’m not ready to talk about my parents’ death yet because it’s something that I’m still working on processing myself.

The main reason that I’m sharing this with you now is because of how it will impact the podcast. If you’ve been listening for a while, I hope you know how much I’ve really enjoyed this work over the past two and a half years, and it has been work. None of it came overnight or was easy. There have been late nights, early mornings, lots of writing, editors I had to fire and assistant I had to hire. It’s been far from a cakewalk, yet. through all of that, I’ve been able to put out episodes consistently, and I’m very proud of that. I’m definitely in a different season right now and God is telling me to slow down, not stop, but slow down. If you’ve been through a major loss in your life, you know how exhausting it is and how much energy it takes just to get through everyday tasks.

My mind is foggy. My motivation is down. I am pretty weary from losing both parents in a six-month time span. And in this season of slow down, I stopped taking new clients for a bit and I’m now being selective about who I take on limited my schedule to be with my family more. I’ve also put a hold on the course I’ve been creating for Christians with OCD.

It’s painful for me to admit that because this is something I hoped would be out into the world already and available for people. I know that in the right time, the course will be out there and available for people when I’m able to finish it, and I look forward to telling you about that someday. I have been providing some one-time consultation sessions, for listeners that are outta state to help them either find a therapist in their area, guide them in their next steps, and I’ve been really enjoying that.

You’re welcome to contact me if that’s something that might interest you. I’ve also been enjoying the intensive work that I’m doing on Fridays with clients and absolutely want to do more of that. So if you have a desire to travel or aren’t too far away from me, from Middle Tennessee, I’d love to talk with you more about that opportunity if you think it might be right for you.

We have a prior episode on that, a bonus episode that you can listen to. In the spirit of taking care of myself, I need to stop recording podcast episodes for a bit until I have the mental and emotional bandwidth to do so. The next couple episodes, they are already recorded. Let me tell you. They are so good.

I’m super excited to share them with you. They are on developing a healthy theology around healing and suffering. My guests took on some tough questions and were vulnerable enough to share their own struggles. I really enjoyed interviewing them. After those episodes come out, I’m not sure. I may have my assistant compile some of the stories of hope into episodes.

I think those would be fantastic and encouraging for all of us, myself included. We may replay some of our more popular episodes and I can give you some of my own commentary on them as I listen to them later. It’s my desire to give you 100 tips for reducing anxiety on our 100th episode, which is coming up not too far away.

I think it’ll be a good review of some of the things we’ve already learned on the show. We will continue putting out episodes. It may be a little recycled at times, and for our friends who listen to the show on a regular basis, I felt it was important to let you know why. It’s not Carrie slacking off.

It’s Carrie practicing what she preaches, taking care of her body, mind and spirit. Going to bed on time, trying to eat well, getting movement, going to therapy, journaling. More than being tired. I feel weary and I need God to restore me. I’m going through the Psalms right now and doing my best to connect with God.

I will say that he doesn’t feel close right now, but in faith, I believe that he is. And the Bible tells us that God is near to the brokenhearted. On a much happier note. One thing I’m really excited about is that for the first time ever, Hope for Anxiety and OCD will have a booth at the American Association of Christian Counselors Conference or AACC in mid-September.

If you don’t know, the AACC conference is a really big deal. It’s attended not just by professional counselors, but also lay counselors and others in ministry. When I first saw the conference was going to be in Nashville this year, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get the podcast out in front of an audience who can share it with others who need support and encouragement.

If you happen to be a counselor listening to the podcast, who will be at the conference, please stop by our booth and say hello. I’ll be working on getting some pins made as well as more podcast promotional materials. I’m very excited to get the podcast in front of so many people in basically a short timeframe.

This is one of a few things that I am pretty energized about right now in honor of Mother’s Day. I wanted to share with you a few things I’ve learned about God from being a mother the last 14 months. My daughter knows that I love her, even though she doesn’t understand everything right now. Why won’t mom let me touch the outlet?

She doesn’t understand how serious some of these things could hurt her, and sometimes I have to get stern in my tone with her about not messing with certain things. God does the same thing with us in scripture about sin. He knows how destructive we can be when we’re just out here left to our own devices.

I have my daughter’s best intention at heart, even when she doesn’t realize it. Scripture says that God knows what we need before we even ask. Most of the time my daughter hates taking naps, but they are good for her. Sometimes she doesn’t wanna have her diaper changed, but I love her enough not to let her stay that way.

We’re all a work in progress and I wanna give my daughter everything she wants, but it wouldn’t be wise or good for her character development. I had some friends who adopted two little boys from foster care, and they had a lot of issues with their teeth because their biological mother never said no to candy or sweets..

She wanted to give her kids everything they wanted, and the result was cavities. Unfortunately, I have to realize that when God doesn’t give me what I want at this moment, it’s for my ultimate good. Perhaps it’s so I won’t develop the cavity of pride or greed or something else that sneaks up on you slowly, like a cavity, but can be a whole lot more destructive.

It’s pretty amazing that my daughter loves me, even though I’m not perfect. I don’t always know what she needs. I don’t always respond with patience and kindness. She’s still there with hugs and still learning how to give kisses. She’s a picture of God’s grace in my life for sure, and I’m so happy to have her here during this time in my life.

It doesn’t help me to ask God why he didn’t allow me to have more time with my parents, but I do trust that he still loves me and he has my best interest at heart. Some of you’re wondering why God hasn’t answered a prayer or healed you. I wanna encourage you that God’s always at work. Even if we don’t see it or can’t feel it right now, to all the mothers out there, you mean so much to your kids, even more than you probably know.

If you’ve lost your mother, I feel you. I miss mine daily, but I know that she would be proud of me and what I’m doing. I know if she was here and physically able, she’d be the first person to hop on a plane and help me with the AACC booth.

The first Mother’s Day episode for the show was Sending Hope to the Not Yet Mothers when I wasn’t a mother. It was two years ago before I had my daughter Faith, and I told you all how much my mom meant to me. I also told you about how much of a promoter of this show she was. She was passing out podcast promo cards, everybody at her church, on planes. And once I do some more grief work, I will tell you more about my mom.

Until then, check out these stories of Hope from our first Mother’s Day episode on how two of my friends became mothers after waiting a long time. All good things are worth the wait.

Christin’s Motherhood Journey

How did I become a mother? That’s a loaded question. Hi, my name is Christen Jasmine Wilson, and this is my story to motherhood.

I am 39 years old, and this is important because. Maybe like some of you, I wasn’t sure I would ever become a mother. I can remember from the earliest time, always loving being around kids, around babies. I grew up babysitting, starting at a very young age. Probably too young if you ask me, but I started babysitting as early as 11 for my next-door neighbor.

She had two beautiful kids that I used to watch on occasion, and I can even remember Connie and my mother into serving with me at the nursery during the second service at church just because I loved kids that much. You can say that this might be a God-given desire. I would say that had this idea in my mind that I would always be a mom, but in my mind, by age 25, I met the love of my life in college, fell madly, deeply in love, became a psychologist.

I even found a letter that I wrote to myself in high school. I wanted to become a psychologist and have three kids of my own. By 2011 or something crazy like that. However, sometimes life just takes you on a journey and that’s not necessarily how things go. For me, I went to high school and had two boyfriends maybe, all of which lasted two weeks, and my singleness was a really, really, hard thing.

I struggled with being single for a very long time. I went to college while I was in college, and decided to get involved in the church that was right across the street from our school. I, again, loved kids so much that I started volunteering. As a college student in the middle school ministry working with middle schoolers.

I know I’m a rare breed, but loved the naivety and the gullibility and just the welcoming nature of that age in working in the middle school ministry though. Remember college, I always thought I would meet the love of my life in college. I never did. In fact, after college, I started working for a ministry and for a non-profit that really just worked with middle school kids. All the while knowing that I wanted kids of my own, all the while really wanting to be married and not ever wanting to have. Kids without a partner in life.

I know I have had a lot of friends that have adopted or wanted to foster and have done that single-handedly and by themselves and my hat goes off to them. However, I knew for me this was not a journey. I wanted to enter a loan, just knowing my own personality. I knew I would need a partner and a friend, and so I prayed to God many nights that he would bring me not only a man of God, but somebody who I could have children with, and that we could raise children together.

I will say that, but it came not without tears, and not without many, many years of doubting God, of asking hard questions, of crying out to the Lord, of yet one more guy who I was attracted to and had feelings for, not return those feelings, not return that love. I can remember during college and a little after I spent some years during those college times in West Palm Beach in one of my places, I would really have heart-to-heart conversations with Jesus. I was on the beach and I can remember there was this one guy and I really just had fallen head over heels in love with him and he had no clue. I was good friends with his sister and I knew her, she could tell, but I just remember like really asking the Lord, “Why, just, why, why? I just remember asking, am I oblivious to guys?”

What is it that allowed me to not be seen by guys? Really, I look back now and I see that had those guys looked at me and seen me, I would’ve fallen head over heels with the wrong guy and really my heart is so honestly flippant and I fall in love with the drop of a hat. So it’s only the Lord’s grace and mercy that has allowed me in this. That really kept me for my husband of today. Again, college thought I would be married by 25. That was my cutoff date in my head. That did not happen. In fact, I remember I. At 25, I actually freaked out and was like, oh my gosh. I remember my mom had me at 25 and I’m really like far behind the timeline here cuz I wanted to have kids.

I thought by that time I would have them. However, that was not what was in the carts for me, and in fact it took me. A long time to even work through what it looked like to actually be in a relationship and what it looked like to actually start to date, which then led to motherhood. All the while working with kids, all the while though, taking care of other people’s kids. All the while knowing that I wanted to be a mother. I remember turning 30 and still being single, and I remember actually 29 going, I’m almost 30 the whole year, and grieving that. Of being single and turning 30, and I almost wish that whole year of 30 away. I think it was 32 or 33. When I was 32 or 33. I finally was like, if I ever want to have kids, then I need to actually seriously start dating some guys on through a few apps.

At first, I had really a hard time even wrapping my mind around if that was acceptable, how, and what I believed. And so again, this really challenged my own thinking, but kind of came to the conclusion that if I was ever going to get married, I needed to be around guys and talk to them and have conversations.

I went on a journey of having dates and chronically on all of those dates. Some were fun and some were really, really bad. I could probably tell you stories, but I don’t want to embarrass any of the guys that I went on dates with. Let’s just say there are a few that really still have me kind of chuckling today.

Fast forward to 2016, I was talking to a guy who happened to live in California and actually had a daughter. I knew that was going to be a little tricky, but I had been laid off. The organization I was working for had closed down and I didn’t have anything keeping me at my current location. So I decided to move to California and see if things would work out.

I honestly remember sacrificing a lot of my ethics and a lot of my morals for something that was only temporary something that wasn’t real and something, and for somebody that wasn’t authentic. I think in some of those, in that particular instance, I had really become so sick of being single and was trying to do things my own way and in my own timing, honestly, at 35, I was feeling like I was the only 35-year-old woman who had never been married. I was feeling I was the only 35-year-old woman who didn’t have kids by this time. I had high school friends that had babies. I’ve had college friends, got married and have babies. I had friends adopting babies, and I just for a long time felt like my life was on this pause track where I just had no control. So many people kept saying, well, why aren’t you married or, You’re a catch. Why are you still single? When are you going to start having babies of your own? I really hated those questions because I felt like it was my own fault that it was unable to be a mother at that time. So at 35, I got into this relationship and I just decided to try to make things happen of my own accord and was completely devastated.

When this guy only wanted to use me for certain things and then bit me back out. So with that, I packed up my bags and I moved back to my home in Chicago and warded off dating for a while actually. It was like, I’m done. This guy is stupid and really, my heart was broken into million pieces and it was partially my own fault for giving it to him without putting up boundaries to safeguard my own heart. Of course, during that time, My relationship with the Lord was nonexistent because at that point, I felt like I didn’t trust him and I was angry. I didn’t want anything to do with a God that didn’t love me enough to give me a husband and children by the time I was 35, knowing that most women go through menopause and are unable to bear children in their forties, so yeah, that was hard.

Sometimes the life that I’ve lived is great. I’ve gotten to do so many things as a single woman I’ve gotten to explore and gotten to travel and have had so many different experiences that I would not have had. If I had been married and had kids, maybe I would’ve, I don’t know. But at that point, I was just done with being a good girl and following the rules and thinking that, you know, God blesses you and you know, honors you if you X, Y, Z. I think if I were to put it into different words, I was trying to make myself follow this God in order to get the blessing. And so in other words, it wasn’t really about knowing God or trusting him, it was about I’m gonna do this.

In the end, I got this and ultimately that didn’t work. For a small little time, I said, I’m not dating anyone else. At the time, I did have a dating coach, um, just because I was like, if I’m gonna be dating and dating on an app, I’m going to need some extra advice. I was actually visiting her at the time and staying with her that weekend, and this guy popped up on my app and I was weary. I was not even sure I wanted to talk to him. She encouraged me. I showed her our conversation, and she encouraged me to start a conversation and so we did. And he was actually from Chicago. I was already planning to move back there after having my heart broken, wasn’t about to stay in California.

From there, I fell in love and met my husband, my current husband. We dated. That was in 2017. We dated for a couple of years, and got engaged on February 22nd, 2019. We were married on June 22nd, 2019, and I have also had a lot of friends that have gotten married later on in life as well. So I’ve had a lot of friends, but like some of the ones that had gotten married like late in their late thirties, they struggled with infertility and struggled with having babies.

I was not even sure that I would be able to conceive right away without some sort of help. And so we decided that when we got married and went on our honeymoon, we would not prevent, but not also like put a lot of pressure and not try. And lo and behold, we, uh, got pregnant within the first couple of months without even trying.

I remember laying in bed after finding out and after like looking at the pregnancy test and really coming to terms with it and, just hearing the song in Christ Alone play through my head. As like my song of coming really back to Christ and back to to relationship with Jesus. Like that was what had sealed and kind of redeemed and you know, kind of brought me back and brought forgiveness to who God was.

I think I was slowly coming back there with just the introduction of meeting my husband and there’s a lot of emotions, and hurt that had happened because of my own. Decisions in my own choices, but I think with my becoming pregnant, was my aha moment. It’s been a journey too. I’ll tell you that becoming a mom, especially at this S age, was not easy.

At 38 when I got pregnant with him, it was probably a lot harder than most people. I don’t know. I can’t say I was never married at 25, but did have a cousin who got pregnant around the same time and she was in her twenties. There’s a drastic dis difference of energy between a 20-year-old mom, a soon-to-be mom, and an almost 40-year-old, soon-to-be mom.

The gratefulness and the humility that I feel like the Lord offered and allowed us to name our son Ellis Jason, which means the kindness of God. Ellis means kindness, and I just really felt it was the Lord was kind in allowing me after all these years of struggling and wanting to become a mom and to have his kindness.

God giving us a son is truly a gift. If you were like me, maybe you have dreams of becoming a mom and having children. I would say it’s not too late. The Lord is good. He is kind. He gives life and brings us through things that only teach us lessons to then share and bring hope to others that might be in those same situations.

We are not without hope. We are not without life. It was really sweet to have Kristen share because I’ve seen her through this whole journey and this spiritual growth process that she’s been on. I know her story is gonna be encouraging for those of you maybe who are still single or have been through a long period of singleness.

Michelle’s Motherhood Journey

The next story is from a dear friend of mine that I have known since about 2014.

Hi guys. My name is Michelle. I’m here with you today to share my testimony as well as my infertility, foster care and adoption journey. I was married and divorced at a young age to my first husband. We did not have children together, and that was not something we had really tried to do, but when I met what would eventually be my second husband, I knew that I did want to have children. We were a little bit older when. We got married. My second husband and I, I was 35, and so immediately after we got married, we started trying to have our own child. Unfortunately, that was not happening for us, so we went to a fertility doctor and over the course of, I’d say about a three-year span, we had. Approximately nine procedures were done and close to $12,000 was spent, but that did not bear any fruit. At the end of those three years, I think we were both emotionally, I was physically spent and somewhat spiritually spent as well.

We both prayed and prayed over this journey and desperately wanted to have our child, and at that time we could not understand why the Lord was not providing that for us. The way I was looking at it is some so many people have children that don’t even want them, but God, why are you not providing us with a baby of our own? It made me feel unworthy of having a child the way I was looking at it. God, if you could let this person who is abusive to their child or neglectful or abandons their child, if you can let them have one, what does that say about me?

What does that say about the parenting you think that I would do? God and I went into a deep, dark depression. At the end of those three years, I began to resent my husband because I felt that I was the only one going through the emotional struggle, especially the physical struggle because all these procedures were happening to me and some of ’em were very painful.

I felt like he was doing a small fraction. Of the work and over time through scripture and prayer, I did grow to see that. That was very unfair of me to think that way, but human and I felt that I was, had been abandoned by the Lord during that period of time. I was also very resentful of other women who.

During this phase, we’re discovering they were pregnant and having healthy pregnancies and having these beautiful children. What makes it probably even worse is my career was in early childhood education, so my career was children and especially. Babies and toddlers and those early stages of life. That was my career.

Day in and day out, I was seeing and working with these babies and it really brought me to a low place. So my husband and I eventually decided that we would go through the foster care program through the PATH classes, but I told him that he would have to do all the legwork of getting us set up for the classes.

Basically, he would just tell me the time and place and I would show up. And so that’s what he did. We went through the path classes and through those classes I met other women who were in a very similar situation, who felt almost identical to how I felt. They felt worthless and useless. And the way I felt during that dark period was that I basically had one job to do.

The Lord made me a female, which meant I was supposed to have children. I couldn’t do the one job that God had given me to do, and I just felt so inadequate and so useless that some days I didn’t want to get out of bed. Luckily, through prayer and scripture, through family and friends who rallied around me, around us, my husband and I both and supported us, and a God who never, never gives up, he never fails us.

I began seeing how, even though those were the things that I wanted to have my own child, my own biological child, I wanted to know the joys of being able to tell family and friends that we were expecting a child to feel a life growing inside of me and seeing this beautiful baby when it was first born and caressing them against my chest having all those moments.

Through time and through prayer, God very gently showed me that he had a different plan for me, even though I kept questioning, God, what is this? What plan is this? Do you have one for me? I don’t understand. I don’t see it yet. God. He was just really patient with me and just showed me that I need to stay the course.

We finished the path classes. We sold our small house and bought a bigger house so that we could accommodate children, and we knew we probably wanted to have multiple.In 2015 we got our first sibling set. It was a brother and a sister, and we actually got them on my daughter, what is now my daughter’s sixth birthday.

My son Larry, was seven, about to turn eight. We went from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds. We had no kids and then we had two kids and it was the youngest child’s sixth birthday. Throw together a little party, and our lives changed from that day. Like we could have never imagined. We have been blessed beyond measure. Even in the rough times. We have been blessed because the Lord has stretched us. He has grown us. My husband and I have grown closer together. Uh, we have grown closer to the Lord. And God revealed to me pretty quickly into the foster care process that his plan for us was to adopt children who needed a family.

It took us three and a half years to be able to legally adopt our children. Then finally on January 30th, 2019, we were able to legally adopt Kimberly and Larry. Our journey has not always been an easy one. There have been days where I have. I wanted to pull my hair out and say, “God, what have I done?” and then immediately I was filled with all the love and joy that the Lord had put into our hearts when he brought us these kids. They are amazing. We knew pretty instantly that we were meant to be their parents, uh, that these kids were gonna be with us forever. And it has been such a journey and such a blessing. My husband and I both feel. That the, we just stayed the course with the Lord. He’s always sovereign. He’s always faithful to us.

He never leaves us. He never abandons us. He shows us what we need eventually in his time and not our own. So I just hope this fills you with some peace and some hope, and knowing you are not alone. If you’ve been in a similar situation and that God does have a plan for you, you may not see it at this moment, but, he will reveal it to you.

Just be faithful. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day, and I just push blessings upon you. God bless you all. I really appreciated the vulnerability and the spiritual wrestling that Michelle shared in her story because I believe that someone who’s listening is really going to be able to relate to those thoughts and questionings that she had and wrestled with God.

That’s all for today. Thank you for giving me the grace in this season to slow down. I love you all and I will be back with some interviews before you know it.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a 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. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

93. Incognito Christian Counselors with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode.

Join Carrie as she dives into an interesting conversation with Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT on Incognito Christian Counselors and the integration of faith into mental health counseling

Episode Highlights:

  • Why some counselors are hesitant to publicly identify as Christians.
  • How Christian counselors can provide evidence-based therapy while integrating faith and scripture.
  • Challenges of finding specialized treatment for conditions like OCD and navigating treatment outside of one’s faith.
  • Importance of asking questions and advocating for oneself in therapy.

Related links and Resources:

Ann Taylor McNiece, LMFT

More Episodes to Listen to:

14. How to Find a Therapist Who is Right for You

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD, Episode 93! I’m Carrie Bock, your host, and I’m so glad you’re here with us today.

Today’s episode features a special guest: Ann Taylor McNiece, a licensed marriage and family therapist and the host of the Soul Grit podcast. Ann and I dive deep into the topic of integrating faith with mental health counseling, something we’re both passionate about.

Ann shares her journey of blending theology and psychology, drawing from her own experiences with depression and her early aspirations to combine faith with counseling. We tackle the challenges some therapists face when incorporating their faith into their practice, including the constraints of legal and ethical guidelines.

We discuss why some counselors may be reluctant to publicly identify as Christian and the fear of potentially alienating clients. We also explore how combining Christian principles with evidence-based therapies can be incredibly beneficial for those struggling with OCD and other mental health issues.

For more insights from Ann, be sure to check out her podcast, Soul Grit, and visit her website at soulgritresources.com. There, you’ll find her free e-course on Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Scripture and other valuable resources.

Thank you for tuning in! I hope this episode inspires and supports you as you integrate your faith with your mental health journey.

Explore Related Episode:

33. What is it Like to be a Counselor? Steve Interviews Carrie

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faitn and OCD, Episode 93. I am your host, Carrie Bock, and I’m so glad that you are joining us today to listen to this show

Today on the show we have Ann Taylor McNiece, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and podcast host of Soul Grit. I am happy to have her here to talk with us about the integration of faith and Counseling.

_____________

Carrie: Welcome to the show. I think that we share a similar passion in regards to integration of faith into mental health counseling, and we both went to seminary, different seminaries, but how did this become a passion of yours? 

Ann: I can actually remember the early years of college just kind of dreaming about this marriage of theology and psychology, and I was just starting to learn more about it. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, but I had just recently started to struggle with depression and had my first experience of counseling in my senior year of high school. And just from there, I started having this dream in my heart that more people need to be aware that these two things fit together. God created our minds and God created helpers that understand the mind and wanna help people and just reach their fullness of life to get away from things like anxiety, depression, and other common health problems that we see.

Carrie: This is so prevalent in the church. There’s so many people who are struggling with common mental health issues, anxiety, depression, even things in the church, people who are struggling with ADHD or autism. There’s so much that’s going on that a lot of times we don’t talk about it enough, and so I’m glad that we’re able to talk about it.

Our faith can be fully integrated. I like to say we can have all of Jesus and all of really good psychological teachings because everything points us back to God. 

Ann: If it’s something good and true and it works and it’s healthy, and that’s coming from God. Humans didn’t create that stuff. 

Carrie: Absolutely, and I think there’s so much more that obviously that God knows than we do about these things because he created our brain and our mind and knows all the intricacies of how everything works. Why do you think some counselors are hesitant to publicly say that they’re a Christian?

Ann: I think it depends if you really are a Christ follower because being a Christian can mean a lot of things. You’re in a different area of the country than I am in Southern California. It might mean something different than it means in the Bible Belt or the South, just to say you’re Christian.

It’s not a very good descriptor of what the person’s actually bringing to the table for one thing. And then the other part is that some therapists are unsure about what are the actual legal and ethical guidelines for bringing your faith into the counseling room. So some people might think, “Oh, I went to grad school. I learned how to be a counselor. I got my license. And I’m never supposed to talk about religion or spirituality or Jesus ever again in my professional context,” and I think sometimes we might get that even from public school kinds of mentalities or separation of church and state. The thing is, there’s nothing about State in my private practice of counseling.

I don’t really have those same guidelines, like a teacher or a politician might have to try to keep those things separate. But I think it comes from people not knowing what are the guidelines and how much can I share with all concerned that will it be ethical for me to share. Will this client feel like I’m proselytizing or trying to evangelize them instead of attending with empathy to their concerns that they’re bringing into the counseling room.

There’s another fear that counselors have just if I put out on my website that I’m a Christian counselor or if I have like a little Jesus cross or a fish or something on my business card to identify me as a counselor or maybe like a scripture reference or something like, Christians are going to know that I’m for them, but am I going to alienate all the other people? Then it comes from this mindset of if I don’t advertise or market myself to everybody. I’m not going to be able to fill my practice and then I’m gonna suffer a financial loss because I won’t have enough clients.

Carrie: I think that’s a huge one. Just in terms of how I was trained. Like if you were trained with really great faith integration, but then you’re also trained as a professional to see everyone regardless of what their needs are. You have to put aside what your belief system is in terms of working with the client from their belief system.

For a long time, I think I fell into what I’m titling this episode, the Incognito Christian counselor standpoint. I wasn’t open about my faith, and it’s actually this podcast that has helped me more than anything step into true authenticity of who I am in my marketing as a therapist, because I thought, well, I never really saw myself as a Christian counselor because sometimes when I think of that, I think of some person that’s opening up a Bible and is, Hey, let’s talk about this scripture and how it applies to your life and your situation.

There certainly are opportunities that I may bring certain things up or ask clients, are you familiar with this Bible story? Or that type of thing. Based off of what they’re saying. But it’s not as, I think formal, maybe as I viewed it.  When I came out with this podcast, I thought, this makes no sense. I have a very Christian name if you understand the Bible because my name is By The Well Counseling.  People who are familiar with the John 4 story are like, “Oh, well okay. She gets it. She has a Bible.” I did have that and then I would say a little something about that on my website. I might check that I was Christian on Psychology today, and I might have a verse at the bottom. But I didn’t really go into like, Hey, my faith is a big passion of mine and I really believe that we can integrate really well.

I think it’s definitely been a big shift in my practice over the last couple of years as to having more Christian clients or clients seek me out because I am a Christian, especially since having the podcast for the last two years. I do think that some people in the community, even other therapists, probably think, oh, well, we’re not going send certain clients to her if they’re not Christian. I have to say, that’s okay how they’re going to view me and I really can’t control that. I think we spend so much time trying to control how other people see us in all contexts, not just in a professional context. 

Ann: I think that the clients I want to see are the ones that are going to want to see me. It’s not so much like you said, bringing out your Bible and telling them what verses are going to apply to their situation, or let’s just sit down and pray about it. All of those things are good things to do.

Those kinds of interventions might find themselves more in a pastoral or biblical counseling setting or where licensed therapists, who, we have a state licensure that’s vetted us. We have done our 3000 hours, we’ve done all the things that we need to be clinical providers, we are going to bring all of that. But what’s gonna underlie all of this as our foundation is a shared value and a shared hope. When it comes down to, I’m doing cognitive behavioral therapy with somebody and they can’t get to that part where they need to create an alternative thought. I’m gonna say, okay, well if you can’t get to it, let’s ask God, what would God say about this? And we’ll find a scripture to that matches what they need to do. And it’s not because I am, well just read the Bible and that’s cover everything that you’re going through. That informs everything that I do as a professional counselor.

Carrie: Another reason I wanted to have this episode too is I think especially for our folks who are struggling with OCD, they have a hard time finding someone who has that training in OCD  evidence-based therapies and treatments, while also having the value systems of Christianity. Part of that is because a lot of the OC D treatment has to do with behaviorism, and that’s not that it’s directly in conflict with Christianity. I think it’s just a little bit different way of looking at the world and we see people as more than just higher evolved animals, is a way to say it, but which is a lot of behaviorism is based on those kind of ideas.

I’m curious, for you as a Christian, do you feel like you would ever see a counselor who wasn’t a Christian? Maybe if you had a certain diagnosis that you needed treating or as you were seeking out a certain type of therapy, and how would you navigate that if you would?

Ann: Well, I certainly want to leave room for. Some of us need really specialized treatment and some of us lived in parts of the country where it’s harder to find providers. Like I said, I’m in Southern California, probably an hour’s drive. I can find a specialist in whatever I wanna be specialized in. Right? But if you live in a different part of the country, especially if you’re seeking in-person therapy versus on a screen like we all did for the pandemic.

Sometimes you want a person that you can be present in the room with and you need them to have a specialization is going to help you break through something and that person may or may not be a believer. There are gonna be times when that is necessary, but for me personally, what I struggle with is depression.

That’s a general thing. Sometimes just figuring out next steps in life, or I might go to marriage counseling or something like those things that I’m dealing with, I’m going to want to have Christian counselor because I know there are people who have faith in God who have similar values and similar understanding worldview that have the training that I need to get through the things that I’m dealing with. I think you have to allow room for both when you can see a Christian counselor and when there’s something that just needs specialists, go ahead and do that, and you just make the best of it.

Carrie: It’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to ask your therapist what their value system is. They may or may not want to answer that for you, just kind of depending on how they work, but it’s fully within your right to ask where someone is coming from or what type of treatment methods they use.

Know that you’re in an empowered place regardless of where you find yourself in treatment. I’m thinking that we may have a friends that listen to the show that have had to go to an in-patient treatment, or they’ve had to go to an IOP treatment, and it’s not something that’s covered by their insurance.

It’s probably not going to be a Christian-run facility most likely talking to the counselors about what your values are, these are things that are very important to me and I wanna make sure that we’re utilizing them in counseling in a healthy way, and I wanna make sure that you kind of understand where I’m coming from and what’s important to me. And ethically, whether your counselor is a Christian or not, they have to respect that. 

Ann: Exactly. What I really think that God is faithful in this area, that when you’re in a really bad place with your mental health condition, and you need to have some of these higher level of arrangement is made for you like he’s gonna be faithful.

Just be surprised that there’s going to be another patient there, or there’s going to be a nurse, or a therapist or a behavioral tech or something like that. You’re not going to know at first, but then you’re going to find out that person also loves God. And then God’s going to put those pieces together for you so that you can have an experience of getting the healing that you need with that kind of high level of specialty. He is also going be right there saying, “I see you. I know what you need.” As you move down from the higher level of care back into just regular weekly therapy with your therapist, like maybe that might be an opportunity to say, okay, I learned all these kind of technical skills in my IOP or whatever it might be, but now can you help me figure out how I integrate those things that I learned with what I know to be true in the Bible and what God’s doing in my life. And that’s a really good launching point for the next phase.

Carrie: Absolutely. I really like how you worded that. I do think that God is always with us in walking us through situations and just giving us those little glimpses of like, “Hey, I’m here for you. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be able to make it through. This is one of the reasons that you started your podcast because of your own mental health struggles. 

Ann: I think I got into counseling because of my own mental health struggles. But I started the podcast because I saw this need in my community. And yes, it’s Southern California, but my particular community is a little bit smaller and so I was looking for people that I could refer patients to when they were requesting a Christian counselor and I was either full or didn’t take their insurance or whatever, and I would reach out to people and a couple of times I got emails back that would say something like, yes, I’m personally a Christian, but I don’t offer Christian counseling. Why not? That just didn’t make sense to me.

I had to go back and think through all of those reasons why a person who had no faith in Jesus wouldn’t want to bring that into their professional setting. Carrie, you and I both had a seminary background. We had classes that specifically taught us, okay, you’ve had bible and theology. You’ve had clinical classes, here’s how you put them together, and here’s how you bring that into your career, into the room with your clients, but a lot of people who were trained either in a secular university or some other kind of program didn’t have that advantage. Maybe they just don’t know how to do it and don’t have the confidence to do that. I started creating resources that would help them learn how to integrate their personal faith into the practice that they already know how to do.

They’ve already licensed counselors or pre-licensed, and they want to be able to do good work clinically, but then there’s this whole part of themselves that they are leaving out. You just said when you started the podcast, you became more authentic in your work because now you’re bringing in this part of you. I wrote an e-course that was my 2020 pandemic project over the summer. 

Carrie: We all had one. 

Ann: Yes, I put out the E-course and then I thought, you know what? People need an easy on-ramp to find out just to get their toes in the water with this idea about integration. My podcast is for people who do this kind of work like you and I do, but also for people who are just interested in mental health and they want to know, “Is this okay that I’m a Christian and I want to do this therapy thing?”

I’ve done different special episodes on things like brain spotting or transcranial magnetic stimulation or different things where I want to get a Christian perspective on all those clinical things that are out there so I can understand more. I can get the help I need and I can pass on this information to other people that I see in my world or in my church that are needing the help as well.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I think there’s a really, a lack of conversation surrounding these things, which is one of the reasons that I started my podcast too. I had a blog for like a hot second and I realized writing’s a lot of work.

Ann: Yes, same .

Carrie: It’s easier for me to talk, so I decided, maybe podcasting route because it was a lot of work to try to get all these blog posts up there, and then I was like, is anybody rating this thing? But I think this is great. I’ve really definitely looked for a lot of resources and people who are bringing to the table really solid clinical skills and good Christian counseling.

I hope that people will check out your podcast, Soul Grit, and you’ve had a wide variety of episodes on there, different topics. It’s awesome. 

Ann: Yes, Carrie’s going to be on the podcast too. 

Carrie: Woohoo! Towards the end of every episode, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time of hope that you have from God or another person.

Ann: God has done a lot of amazing things like actual miracles in our family story. I’ll just share where I am right now. I actually had a stroke two months ago and that was very unexpected cuz I’m only 40. I exercise most days. I eat healthy. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t smoke or drink.

I don’t have any risk factors, and all of a sudden I found myself in the hospital having suffered a stroke just in November. I didn’t know what that meant or what my life would look like, and it turns out it could have been a lot worse. I have all of my faculties available. I can walk, I can talk, I can think I can do cognitive tasks.

In the meantime, God had to remove me from a lot of the things as a professional mom, wife, all the roles in ministry. December could be like, this is the big time, right? , the week before December started this past year. God just said, no, actually your job is to lay on the couch. And I thought, but God, I’m the mom and I’m the podcaster and I’m the therapist and I lead a small group and I have to do holidays for my family and all those things.

God just made me rest and taking me through right now a journey of figuring out what is really important. And what is foundational? Do I have big ideas and big [00:18:00] goals for my practice or my e-course or my podcast or my other things that do in ministry or family, whatever. But come down to take care of yourself, rest, read the Bible, and spend time with the Lord. Be there with your family, work on your marriage, eat the right food. It’s come down to just very foundational basic things, and I’ll say, this is why, this is my story of hope because right now I don’t see what the result of that is gonna be, but I really have this sense that God has me in this place of the lane, a solid foundation.

Not that I wasn’t solid in my belief in God, or that I didn’t have a good marriage or anything before. But it’s like he’s laying this new layer of foundation that I need for whatever that launch is in the next season of life, and I have no idea what that might look like, but I have hope that if he’s asking me to slow down and rest right now and take care of these things, that means he has something for me then that’s gonna be worth it when I follow him in an obedience to that.

Carrie: Yes. It’s so hard for us in our cultural context to slow down and to rest, but it’s definitely so needed and so important, so I’m glad that God’s working with you on that. Have you kind of had a lot of reflections on just the sense of Sabbath in the Bible and what that really means to rest?

Ann: What’s really funny is in October I did a whole series on rest and ceasing from busyness and Sabbath. That was what the whole, the podcast in the fall was about. Then I had just moved into a new series that I was doing about the body and what God has to say about the body and how our body impacts our mental health and things like that.

It was almost like God said, “Well, you’re doing good work. I see the work that you’re doing, but I’m going to make this really real for you in short order. 

Carrie: Yes, He did. It’s like when the pastor has to preach the sermon to themselves before they give it to the congregation. That’s what they say. They’re like, I had to learn this for myself. Awesome. Tell us where people can find you and we’ll put links in the show notes too. 

Ann: My website is soulgritresources.com, and that’s where you can find the e-course. You can get links to the podcast, the blog that I used to write and for your listeners, I’m assuming a lot of people that listen to your podcast are interested in things like those evidence-based practices.

I have a freebie that pops up. It’s called Cognitive Behavior Therapy with scripture, and I’ll walk you through how to use the scripture to replace those thoughts that you’re needing some help with once you identify them, so they can find that there. I’m also on Instagram at Soul Grit Resources. 

Carrie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here today. 

92. When Ministry Becomes Toxic with Steve and Carrie Bock

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, Podcast Episode.

On today’s episode, I have an interesting conversation with my favorite guest, my husband Steve Bock about toxic church culture

Episode Highlights:

  • Warning signs your church is becoming toxic
  • The danger of putting church leaders on pedestals
  • The importance of knowing the difference between your calling and your desire
  • What happens if you lead your church as a micromanager

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD episode 92! I’m your host, Carrie Bock. If you’re new to the show, we’re all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others.

A few episodes ago, in episode 89, KJ Ramsey shared her story of spiritual abuse and how she and her husband left an unhealthy church where they both worked. I’ve been reflecting on that conversation and wondering: how do we know when ministry crosses the line from healthy to toxic? To dig deeper, I’ve brought my husband Steve back on the show.

We discuss five key warning signs that ministry might be becoming toxic. For instance, it’s crucial to recognize when someone might justify inappropriate behavior under the guise of ministry, or when the need for admiration and respect in leadership roles becomes problematic. We also touch on how focusing too much on numbers and external validation can lead to ego issues and unhealthy practices.

Join us as we delve into these topics and offer guidance on maintaining a healthy and balanced approach to ministry. Whether you’re involved in ministry or observing from the outside, these insights aim to help you navigate and address potential challenges effectively.

Related Podcast Episodes:

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD episode 92. I’m your host, Carrie Bock, and if you’re new to the show, we are all about reducing shame, increasing hope, and developing healthier connections with God and others. Back a few episodes ago, on episode 89, we had KJ Ramsey come on, talk about her story of spiritual abuse and how she and her husband left a church situation that was really unhealthy, where they were both working there.

I was thinking about that episode and processing, what are some warning signs, maybe, how do we know when ministry crosses this line from healthy to toxic? And I brought on the show back. On the show again, my amazing husband, Steve. Steve, welcome to the show. 

Steve: Hey, it’s good to be here. 

Carrie: Everybody, forgive Steve. He’s a little bit under the weather today, but he’s making sacrifices for me and is super supportive. In this podcast journey. You and I have been involved in various ministries. We also grew up in a context of our families being very involved in various ministries. I actually wrote all these, but I thought it would be good to get your feedback on it.

What you’ve seen experienced and what your thoughts are on this. I have five different things that I came up with on when ministry becomes toxic. For example, sometimes people will say, well, I just really believe that God is asking me to leave my wife and go have a relationship with this other woman, and obviously that is in complete contrast to the Bible. Anything biblical Or maybe it’s kind of not to that drastic level there, but someone you’re attracted to or you find yourself sharing things maybe you shouldn’t about your personal life or your marriage, and it’s getting to be some kind of slippery slope, but you’re saying, “Oh, well, you’re justifying it. This is a person I’m ministering too, and I need to be the one to minister to them because I have the relationship.” Have you seen this? You don’t have to go into specific examples of how people have justified sin in the name ministry. 

Steve: I have, I won’t say names because I don’t want to offend anyone, but I have seen that and it’s difficult because I don’t think that God’s going to tell somebody, Hey, leave your wife and get with this other woman that would go against what the Bible says. He wouldn’t go against himself. That just wouldn’t happened. I don’t know. That’s a really tough area. I have seen that and I’ve seen people leave the church because of it. So the downside of it is terrible. 

Carrie: We’ve both survived our share of moral failures, ministry, and fallouts. People that had to resign or got fired, and it’s just a tough situation for sure. Whenever that happens, these are kinda warning signs, not for people who are involved in ministry, but also if you see this happening in the ministry that you’re with. That’s why we’re wanting to talk about it today.

Steve: I think sometimes people, there’s your calling and your wants and desires and it’s great if the two all, if all that goes together, if God calls you to do something that’s also what you want, that’s wonderful. But sometimes I think there are people out there who they really want to be a pastor.

They like the idea of it, they like the prestige of it. They like something about it and they do it all in the name of, “Yeah, I’m called to do this.” But sometimes you wonder without being judgemental, are they called or is this something that again, they’re just, they like the concept of it. I don’t know if that fits what you’re saying.

Carrie: Yes and I’m curious about your perspective on how this is somewhat a weakness for men. I think more so than women like this need for admiration. Not that women don’t need that at times in validation, but for people to look up to them, I would say that’s more of a male need than a female need. 

Steve: Sure.  Absolutely, and I’ve known pastors who they really demanded that respect and you should respect your pastor. But I don’t know, sometimes the context of it made it difficult. 

Carrie: I think there’s this balance between we don’t wanna put someone on a complete pedestal because at the end of the day, they’re still a human being and they still have human struggles like we all do. But I think that is a very dangerous thing that can happen in ministry situations is where we elevate people almost too much and it’s interesting because I had a pastor share one time with the congregation that he was on LinkedIn and God really convicted him about being on LinkedIn because he realized that he’s like, this is for people who are looking for a job.

I’m not even looking for a job. But he was almost kind of getting this little high over people, like recommending him and the connections he was able to make on there. And that was just an interesting realization that he had and was able to kind of get himself in check and go, okay, I don’t even need to be on this website right now cuz it’s contributing to something that’s unhealthy.

I think for ministry you really have to dig deep and examine your motives. You’re giving a sermon or a talk, and you don’t get positive feedback. Do you feel still satisfied? Like, okay, well I did what God wanted me to do, or do you feel disappointed because you didn’t get like that? That pat on the back or that kudos of like, “Hey, you did a good job.”

Steve: Sure. I’ve seen where, and I’ve even had a pastor long time ago, he had an altar call, said I felt like God said, have this altar call and no one came forward. And he said once again, three or four times the music’s playing. And after like 15 minutes I’m thinking, I don’t think anybody’s going to come up, but that’s not my call. That’s not my place. I guess you wait as long as it takes for maybe that one, I don’t know, but afterward, he was so beaten up by it and he says, I don’t even know why I bothered. What was the point of that? And I remember thinking, you don’t know what God is going to do in somebody’s life, so they didn’t go forward. That doesn’t mean you didn’t reach them. I think it was really easy for them to kind of get their ego hurt a little bit. I’m not a pastor, but I would think for a pastor it would be really easy for your ego to get in the way and think, look at how many people I’ve saved. I do an alter call and all these people come down and look what I’ve done and just it gets to you.

I was at a leadership conference a couple years back and the guy who’s a pastor, I think that was leading the conference had said, if you’re a pastor, especially if you’re a pastor or in leadership, you have so many people coming to you with their burdens and you have so many things that you’re trying to lead and delegate and just you’re trying to be that sheperd.

If you don’t have a therapist, and I think you probably agree, if you don’t have a therapist in your life with that amount of pressure on you and all of that you’re dealing with, it’s very easy to let that ego get no way, to let the problems bring you down, sort those things out, because otherwise you begin to take over and you push the spirit out of the way.

Carrie: That’s definitely huge. It’s so hard because it’s kind of a slippery slope that I try to work with people on this, okay, well you don’t wanna be in this extreme of, “Whoa, I’m a sinner, I’m a horrible person, and how could God even use me?” You’re completely on one side of the thing. I do believe that we can have confidence in Christ and in what we are called to do.

I think it’s who do you give the credit to. Where does the credit go? Even how you say it, I get kind of nervous, I think like you do when church is focused too much on numbers, because it’s not really about that. If one person got saved, there’s a party in heaven, that’s awesome. But churches, a lot of times, you know, we had 1000 kids at VBS and 50 of them made a decision for Christ. And I’ve already cheered and we’re all excited, but I just almost wish that they would say, we really saw some kids that were impacted by the gospel and we did have some kids make decisions and we’re following up with them and making sure that this is something that’s gonna stick. And they weren’t just doing it because their friend wanted to or anything like. I think that some of the numbers, games and things can kind of feed into the ego. I see this podcast as my ministry, and even in the beginning I was remember being kind of frustrated or just not frustrated as much as just feeling kind of lost because I wasn’t really getting any feedback.

I was asking for people to contact me, and I was like, “Okay, what’s going on? Am I doing this right?” But obviously, like over time I’ve gotten that feedback and I do know that. It’s making a difference and people are appreciating it especially the things that we talk about with kind of a strong clinical focus and having a strong Christian focus that it’s making a difference. I have to be able to step back and say, This podcast is reaching so many people because God has allowed me to have it, and because God is the one that’s bringing them to be able to hear it, and he’s done just amazing things and done the work and put a lot of pieces together in order for this to happen and that I’m trying to stay in a place of humility because as I’m studying and doing this deep dive into Isaiah, there’s a lot of information in there about pride. The dangers of pride and how it can essentially lead you to down a negative path and destruction. It’s not good. So that’s something that I think especially ministry leaders can fall into.

Steve: I appreciate that you don’t let that get your head, that you don’t go around. “Hey everyone, I’m a podcaster” with your pinky in the air and your nose up and putting others down who are not podcasters or not as good as you or not as whatever, but you take a very humble approach and I appreciate something you said that you went to others to ask them questions. And I know that you do that. I know that you ask, Hey, how can I do better? What would you think of the podcast? Or would you listen to it or whatever? I appreciate that. I think that’s healthy because you’re not trying to do it all on your own. Sometimes we get thoughts in our heads that we’re better than we are.

I hate to put it like that, but I think we get that idea and we take the credit of what God’s done, but we take it. It shouldn’t be that way. So I appreciate the concept of, looking at what God has done. 

Carrie: Your quiet times with the Lord are all about preparation for a Bible study, teaching time, you’re not really taking that time to examine your heart. Seek confession for your sin, and apply the word for yourself. I can tell you, Steve, this is one I’ve been guilty of in the past for sure. 

Steve: Sure. I mean, I think everyone has, if we’re honest, and I think the best leaders are the ones who are honest. The ones who say, “Guys, I’ve messed up, or I’m not where I need to be with the Lord. I’ve got the series figured out. I’ve got the sermon figured out,” but you could talk all day long behind a podium or behind a mic or what have you, but people are at some point, they’re going to recognize your walk and who you are.

They’re going to begin to see the difference between what you did and are doing versus what God is doing through you. I think it has to be God doing it through you. 

Carrie: That connection to the Holy Spirit and what he wants you to share is important, but you have to preach it to yourself before you can teach it to anybody else.

I was thinking about a pastor, I’m trying to figure out how to explain this, but essentially due to being in college, I was in one part of Florida at one point and another part of the year because it was summer or Christmas break or whenever. I was in another part of Florida and I heard this man who was part of this denomination preach the exact same sermon twice and I thought, this must be something he can have passed in a file cabinet somewhere. He just kind of pulls it out and this is like my top 10 sermons and I think I’m going utilize this one. And it caused me to be like, there’s just something that feels inauthentic about that in terms of making sure that you’re bringing what God wants you to bring.

I could be judging this completely, inaccurately and he could be praying and connected to God and feels like that’s what God wants him to share. But I just thought, I just don’t know about that. I mean, to the point that it was the same sermon, there weren’t answers on it, and I was like, “Wow, this is very interesting.”

Carrie: This is one that we’ve definitely talked about this in the past.

Steve: Yes. I’ve got a lot of pastor friends and I think that’s probably one of their biggest struggles. They know the direction of the church somewhat. There’s a direction in their mind. To relinquish a duty to someone else, to let someone else do that, I think is very difficult. It’s hard. I, know pastors who may want to be in charge of the music, what’s going on in small groups and to the point where everything that’s said is controlled.

I think that to me, I’m struggling because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t want to call anybody out on your podcast here. I don’t think that would be right, but I just think that they have the best of intentions. I think sometimes you might want to pray about that and see if God put this person in this role, and I think God’s in control.

God can show them what he wants in you and what he wants in that small group for that whatever God has to control the foil. I think that’s the best way to say it. 

Carrie: Yes,

Steve: You can’t paddle all the little boats going the same way, if that makes sense. You can’t control everything. You can’t micromanage it all. God doesn’t need micromanagers, he needs leaders. 

Carrie: The reality is we’re supposed to be living in community and thriving off of other people’s strength. When a ministry leader or a pastor identifies like, “Hey, this piece is not my strength.”

Steve: Sure. 

Carrie: I need to hand that off to somebody else who is going to do a way better job because that’s more in their spiritual gifting and that’s just so important. 

Steve: Sometimes I think that the person that should be doing it isn’t even the most qualified, but the most called. 

Carrie: Yes. 

Steve: If you’re trying to control things, you get in the way of that. So a good example, if you open your Bible and you look at the story of David and Goliath. David certainly wasn’t the most qualified to sling that rock. There’s no way. 

Carrie: Yes. 

Steve: He was the smallest guy. We know that story most of us. So if the bigger guy, the more qualified person, the more whatever would’ve slung that rock. It wouldn’t have worked out the same, but David did it and it won the day.

I think you have to look at your church whatever it is the same way. Whatever you’re leading, I think you have to see it the same way. Don’t look at it solely as you got be in charging and no one else can do it, or I got to have this person because they’re way more qualified even though they don’t have the time or the want to do it. And then you got this other person who doesn’t seem as qualified, but they got a heart of God for it. Pray about it and let them do it. Let it go.

Carrie: I think we were just talking about pride, and for me personally, I feel like when I’m in that space of thinking, I can do it all myself or I should do it all myself.

I don’t need anybody else to do this. To me that’s pride, and I’ve certainly been guilty of my sense of trying to control things and we have to be able to know when to let things go. Especially, this is so crucial for preventing burnout in ministry. It’s easy to get into that place. And there was something that happened at a previous church where I was asked to take charge of something and that was going to take a lot of time. I said, “let me think about this. Let me pray about this. I’m not saying yes or no right now.” And I went down. I went back and I wrote down, okay, here’s everything I’m doing for the church and this ministry. And I said, “Okay, well if I’m gonna take on this other role, then some of this stuff needs to come off my place,” which was great because it allowed other people to get involved who had been sitting on the sidelines a little bit, and they wanted a task. They wanted more involvement. Mm-hmm. , they wanted more connections, so it was just a really great opportunity. Whereas we grew the ministry in the sense that we added people that were serving.

I didn’t get burnout and I was able to get some things delegated. Also, some things probably that I wasn’t as passionate about as this project, where I was pretty passionate about that project. I think that’s just a good example of when this can work out well for us. We talk about in churches all the time, what is it? 20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Steve: I’m just thinking about that. That’s funny. You got your 80-20 rule. I think that sometimes the 20% do it every single time because I don’t know if it’s because they’re the extroverts that stand up to do it, or if the 80%, a lot of them just aren’t asked to do it. They’re just waiting for someone to ask them, which doesn’t make them right, but maybe they need a little nudge. “Hey, I’ve got something. I want to entrust it to you.” It would be a good way to start that. I think on pastors, it’s a hard thing. I do have to give them some credit. In the past, I was a manager before and I’ve led other things, and it is easy to ask the same person all the time to do the same stuff because you know that they can do it. But in ministry, that’s not necessarily how that should work. God calls us, we have to do it. 

Carrie: Ultimately not sustainable for that person. I have had experiences in the past where I recruited some people for different tasks and at first they were funny like, “I don’t know if I can do that.” And I was like, “Well, these are the skills that I’ve seen that you bring to the table. You have some of these things that you’re doing in the context of your work, or you’ve been around the church a while, and so you have this level of being a Christian for a while. You have this level of experience and knowledge, and so forth.”

Sometimes people do need that little extra push of encouragement to get more involved and end up really enjoying the service in the ministry over time, once they can get in there and get their feet wet a little bit. People have two different perspectives. There’s some people that go, I have to do this because if I don’t do it, nobody else will do it. And then on the completely opposite side, you have people who say, they don’t need me, they’ve got this kind of under control, and I’m not really needed over here.

Steve: Yes and there’s that side too of similar to what you’re saying, where people will say, I’m too young to do it or I’m too old. I really hate to break this news to you, but there is no retirement plan in church ministry. It’s just, well, maybe there is, but when God calls you to do something, I don’t care if you’re five years old or 99 years old, you do it.

Carrie: I think my grandmother has been a good example of that through the years and when my grandfather died, she got involved in helping other widows as they were grieving the loss of their husbands thought that was kind of a beautiful thing about how she used that experience to help other people who are in a really sad place.

Carrie: Sabbath rest is definitely biblical. We see more pastors taking sabbaticals and we just need this rest to become mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. Have you seen some ministries? 

Steve: Oh my goodness. 

Carrie: That didn’t value rest?

Steve: Yes. Not to interrupt you, but Yes. I had one youth pastor one time that I knew that said, if I don’t do this, no one else will. And if I stop now, it’s all going to fade and go away. I’ve put too much work into this to stop. I just finally said, listen, if you don’t stop and get the rest that you need, even Jesus rested, right? If you don’t stop and do that, how are you hearing God? You’re putting all your time into doing the work. 

Carrie: Yes. That’s huge. 

Steve: How are you getting the energy up to continue? You become your own worst enemy. You’re just going through the motions, but you’re not listening to God and you’re not resting to get the energy up. It’s not a healthy thing to me.

Carrie: I have definitely seen situations and was in a smaller church context and had really challenged the pastor. “When do you get a Sunday off? Who’s able to preach for you?” I think a little bit of pushback of need to be here, need to be involved. And then later there was some other leadership that pretty much kind of forced some time off, I think, which is healthy.

It’s just we need that time away not just to recoup, but also to know. I think that the walls aren’t going to fall down when we’re not there. I feel like that’s really crucial for leaders to know if you raise up other leaders under you in your ministry as you should. You should be able to miss a Sunday and it not crash and burn or fall apart. You don’t need to be the glue that’s holding this whole ship together.

Steve: It’s a leadership position. It’s not a dictator-type position where only you can do it and you tell everybody what they’re doing. God put you in charge of a flock. So help the flock, help them grow and listen. When there’s an area that’s struggling, your job as a leader isn’t necessarily to fill the void. It’s to help someone else grow into that void and fill it in a lot of cases there too. Like I said earlier, I don’t think being a pastor or a leader in church, it’s not easy. I think it’s very easy to fall into that, what we’re talking about today, those problems where you’re trying to do everything and you’re taking the credit for it like we talked about earlier.

I think you have that some point, step back and ask yourself, what is God doing what am I doing and how much can I step out of that and let God step in? I think it’s at that point you’ll find things are going to go a lot better with your church or your program or your whatever because you’re letting God do it, not you. We always fail.

Carrie: We’re so results-driven in our society. We want to put the effort in and see the results. What I’ve learned over years of ministry, not just in church, but in counseling situations, there are times where you’re going to follow the Lord and you’re going to put in the effort and you may not always get the results out that you’re wanting or that you’re hoping for. The obedience is the important piece, 

Steve: Right.

Carrie: That I would go back to, did you do what God asked you to do?

Steve: Yes.

Carrie: At the end of the day, can you rest and say, regardless of how the results came out, did I do what God asked me to do today? And if the answer is yes, then it’s okay. You can move forward, I talked about this on the podcast before with my friend Sarah Slade.

They brought on and we had an EMDR chat, but we were talking about when we were working in community mental health and we were going into homes and working with children that just had very severe emotional behavior problems. We’re getting kicked out of school, all kinds of things happening and going to juvenile detention. I know there were days that I went home and just felt like, oh my goodness, I did nothing worthwhile today, . I drove around in my car and I talked to some people, but I didn’t really make a difference or I wasn’t able to help these people, but I had to come to a place where it couldn’t all be about me, obviously, because I was only one piece of the puzzle in this child’s life, and so I couldn’t put all that pressure on myself to make those things happen and to make those results happened. But also I had to step back and leave room for God and others to be involved in the situation, to get parents on board, teachers, and whoever else was available to support these kids and adolescents. I think what we’re talking about, there’s going to come like a tough time in your ministry if you’re in it for a long time. There’s going to be a season where it’s not easy or it’s not enjoyable. 

Steve: Absolutely. I think if you’re focused on the amount of people in the seats over what the people in the seats are doing, as in how is God using them, you’ve missed the boat. You may need to go back and they have a heart check.

When you stand before God, I don’t think he’s going to say, all right, pastor or leader, how many butts were in the seats? I really don’t think that’s going to focus. I know that for me, looking at my own life, one big decision that I made for ministry was to go into mission work. And what got me there was a little church.

It wasn’t the church that was huge, it was the church that small. Now that’s not putting down the big churches. I’m not saying that, but that little church was more interested in where my heart was at, and that was the growth they were concerned with was my own personal growth, not what’s coming out my wallet and not what’s. 

How many people can I bring to church? Cuz we need a bigger church and let’s see if we can have this many baptisms and this many salvations. Those are all good things, but the focus shouldn’t be solely driven by numbers like we were talking about earlier. I think it’s important to check a person’s heart. Where’s that person’s heart at? What are they leading by? 

Carrie: Steve, is there anything else you would add to this list? Is there anything else that we didn’t cover that you think you might add of what’s kind of a warning sign or red flag of ministry potentially becoming toxic?

Steve: I think when a pastor or a leader, they can’t relax. They can’t be one of the group. I used to have a pastor that every single week he invited people over to his house. That’s a big deal. And it was a big church too, but he always invited people over and said, you know what? If we don’t have enough food, we’ll all chip in and get McDonald’s, whatever we got to get, but I want to have fellowship in our church. If you’re not coming to my house, take some months somewhere. Spend some time with your own family too. It wasn’t about going out to eat every single Sunday. It was more about time together. That was huge to him. I think that’s missed a lot of time. We work so much on the administrative side or the perfect sermon or the whatever, that we actually forget that there are humans out there that just want to grow as a community with us.

I would say relax, let your guard down. Let them see your flaws. That’s the best way to have growth, is to be transparent and to let them see what you can’t do and haven’t done, and then what can be done down the road as you grow as a person. I think that those following you, those in church would probably grow even more because then they would say, well, the pastor’s transparent. I guess maybe I ought to be as well. Transparency and relax. Those are my things I think, and I would add to that, 

Carrie: It’s hard I think for pastors and other ministry leaders to be transparent if they feel like there are these really high expectations of them. 

Steve: Sure. 

Carrie: I think there has to be a give-and-take supportive congregation environment for them to be in where they feel like it’s safe and it’s okay to say, Hey, let me raise my hand and say, I struggle with this too. Or I’m eradicating sin out of my own life through the help of the Lord, and this is how I’m doing it. These are my weak spots and these are things that God is working with me on. The pastor job or ministry leader job is kind of hard because you need to be able to have those good communication skills while at the same time having the relationship skills.

Sometimes there’s an imbalance between the ability to study, communicate, the intellectual side of things, and the ability to have like a warm touch and greet people be empathetic and compassionate. Sometimes it’s hard to find a balance between those two things because both are essentially important.

Steve: Sure. Absolutely. If they are honest and open about things and they have, people that are around them that will hold them up to that level and let them know, “Hey, we’re praying for you ” or, “Hey, you are a little harsh here.” I don’t just mean the pastor’s wife or the leader, spouse, whatever, but I mean having a group of people that will really, truly hold you accountable in those situations that you see, things you wouldn’t have seen on your own.

Your pride gets in the way or whatever, but to be called out a little bit in a nice loving way, not a, Hey man, you stink. Just quit. Why don’t, no, not like that, but in a loving way, say, I think maybe you handled this a little harshly. I think that helps to have those people there. 

Carrie: Being open to feedback is a very healthy trait to have for sure in ministry and in life.

I have a good friend that I meet with once a week, who always appreciates when I give her feedback, whether it’s on herself, how she’s interacting with her business or on her business. This is what I think of when you say, “Is that what you mean?” Or “I’ve noticed you have this pattern.” “What’s going on with that?” And she’s like, “Thank you because I don’t have other people who are willing to really be honest with me, and I appreciate your feedback. It’s helpful.”

Well, thank you for joining me on this episode. Even when you on a day you don’t feel the greatest , and I was wanting to think of if we had any stories of hope to share. I don’t know if you have any ideas, me or you or us. 

Steve: I think one that comes to mind, I felt my situation. Now I don’t drive, I don’t get out nearly as much, but I felt called to do some sort of a small group. Something and we’re involved in a small group already, but something that would allow me to feel useful and be a good tool. It’s not all about me. We decided via Zoom or what have you, to do a small group where individuals like myself could sit from home assuming they feel up to it. You don’t have to drive anywhere. You don’t have to go anywhere and connect online. We could talk to one another and we could do a study, and if you can’t show up, you don’t feel well, you can just text back and forth or email us or whatever. “Hey, this is where I’m at.”

It’s a guy’s group and it’s been good timing for us and it’s, it’s small and I’m okay with that. If it’s just myself and one other guy, that’s fine. There’s actually a few of us that are in it. Thus far, only me and one other person, one other guy, have really shown up, and that’s okay because we talk through text, and we hold each other accountable.

We have a topic. It’s everything you would want in a small group, really just not your traditional small group. It’s an odd fit in a way. It’s an odd situation. We don’t do the traditional thing. We’re not going to one another’s houses or things like that, but we don’t get to go out much or often. So it fits the need, and I feel it’s been a question like, how do I serve? How do I do that? I thought, this does feel hopeless because I can’t be dependent upon as easily as I used to be. I can’t just show up somewhere and say, all right, I got everything together, or have the energy for this long study. It’s kind of have to take it day by day, moment by moment. These guys are in the same situation, so it works out perfectly. A small example, but it’s kind of a big deal for me. 

Carrie: No, I think that’s great that you’re able to keep some healthy social connectedness and male accountability and things like that even within your current situation. Thank you everyone for tuning in and listening today to just kind of talk through some of these warning signs, and maybe you’d have one or two that you might even add to this list.

This was just something that I came up with quickly and I was glad to be able to talk with Steve about it since he’s had a good share of time in ministry situations as well. You can reach us anytime at hopeforanxietyandocd.com.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of Buy the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Opinions given by our guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or By the Well Counseling. Until next time, you maybe comforted by God’s great love for you.

91. Harm OCD in Pregnancy Sent me to the ER with author Amber Williams Van Zuyen

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

Amber Williams Van Zuyen, author of Pregnant and Drowning tells about her struggle with harm OCD during her pregnancy.

Episode Highlights:

  • How and when did her OCD symptoms start
  • What happened the first time she sought help for her OCD
  • How her OCD symptoms intensified during her pregnancy and after giving birth
  • What helped her during her process of overcoming her OCD
  • How God helped her get through her struggles
  • Amber’s book, Drowning and Pregnant 

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Episode 91 of Christian Faith and OCD. In this episode, I’m thrilled to share an insightful conversation with Amber Van Zuyen, the author of Pregnant and Drowning. Amber’s story is incredibly relatable for those who have struggled with anxiety and OCD.

Amber opens up about her personal journey with OCD, which began in childhood with compulsive rituals and obsessive fears. She recalls avoiding stepping on lines and constantly checking for lice. Her symptoms worsened in her twenties, especially after experiencing ocular migraines, which she feared were symptoms of a serious illness.

Amber’s story resonates deeply with anyone who has faced similar challenges. She describes her struggles with health anxiety, driven by fears related to her grandmother’s battle with MS and her own obsessive thoughts about having a serious disease.

Throughout her journey, Amber grapples with the stigma around mental health and the misconceptions within faith communities.

Amber’s reflections offer a poignant reminder that mental health issues are real and deserve compassion and understanding. Her story is a testament to the courage it takes to confront and manage these challenges while maintaining faith and hope.

Tune in to hear more about Amber’s journey and the insights she offers for those struggling with similar experiences.

Related Links and Resources:

Amber’s book: Pregnant & Drowning

Explore Related Episodes:

126. What if I Abuse My Child? Postpartum OCD Story with Sarah Brown

90. My Experience with Faith, Church and OCD with Erika McCoy

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 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.

Episode Highlights:

  • 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

Episode Summary:

In this Episode 90 of Christian Faith and OCD, I’m joined by Erika McCoy from Kansas City, Missouri, as she shares her personal journey with OCD and her advocacy work. Erika opens up about her struggles with OCD, from initial misdiagnoses to finding effective treatment, and the critical support she’s found through the International OCD Foundation.

Erika’s story sheds light on the challenges of dealing with OCD within faith communities, where misconceptions and unhelpful advice can often prevail. She contrasts these experiences with the supportive responses she’s encountered, emphasizing the need for understanding and compassion from faith leaders. Erika and I discuss how faith communities can be more supportive by recognizing their limitations and walking alongside individuals in their struggles, rather than rushing to offer solutions.

Our conversation also explores Erika’s personal experiences with uncertainty and trauma, including the prolonged illness of her father and the unresolved disappearance of her aunt. These experiences have taught her invaluable lessons in navigating uncertainty and finding peace amidst unanswered questions.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that underscores the importance of empathy, understanding, and perseverance in the journey with OCD and faith.

Related links and Resources:

Erika’s Instagram

IOCDF

More Episodes to Listen to:

108. OCD Personal Story with Michael Kheir

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. Until next time, may you be comforted

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.

89. Personal Story of Spiritual Abuse and Chronic Pain with K.J. Ramsey, M.A.

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, Counseling, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 89. Personal Story of Spiritual Abuse and Chronic Pain with K.J. Ramsey, M.A.

In this episode, Carrie interviews therapist and author K.J. Ramsey about her healing journey from spiritual abuse and chronic pain.

Episode Highlights:

  • How K.J. realized that she was in a spiritually abusive situation
  • Wrestling with questions about why God allowed her suffering
  • The importance of emotional safety in a church or community
  • Her process of leaving a spiritually toxic environment 
  • How connecting to her body helps in her healing
  • K.J.’s books, “The Lord is My Courage” and “The Book of Common Courage”

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD! K.J. Ramsey, author of The Book of Common Courage: Prayers and Poems to Find Strength in Small Moments. K.J. shares the powerful story behind her book, which emerged from her personal journey through religious trauma. What started as a means of self-help transformed into a heartfelt collection of prayers and poems designed to support those who feel overwhelmed and wordless in their faith.

K.J. shares how her book complements her earlier work, The Lord is My Courage. Both books offer a deep dive into Psalm 23, with The Book of Common Courage providing concise, trauma-informed prayers. These short prayers serve as a soothing balm for those difficult times when long, elaborate prayers can feel out of reach. The book acts as a source of comfort, entering the private spaces of readers’ lives and reminding them they’re not alone.

Our conversation also touches on the significant theme of integrating our physical experiences with our spiritual lives. K.J. emphasizes that our bodies are not betraying us but are integral to our spiritual journey.

I personally found K.J.’s insights profoundly impactful and am currently reading her first book. I hope you find this episode as enriching as I did.

Related links and Resources:

www.kjramsey.com

Explore Related Episodes:

129. Four Steps to Healing from Spiritual Abuse with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD  episode 89. I had the absolute privilege of interviewing K.J. Ramsey. This was a situation where I didn’t realize before the interview how much we had in common. We both have a background as trauma therapists with more of a somatic lens. We both graduated from the same seminary. It was very interesting to see her perspectives based on her own experiences and understanding of scripture.

Carrie: K.J., welcome to the podcast.

K.J.: Hey, thank you for having me.

Carrie: I know that with authors, you guys tend to have a lot of podcast interviews. It’s almost like you’re on a virtual book tour nowadays, right?

K.J.: Basically what it is, it’s an extensive virtual book tour, and I am an introvert.

Carrie: Oh, no. Well, at least you don’t have to meet as many people face-to-face then.

K.J.: I guess in a way, especially during cold and flu season, and there’s still COVID all around. It’s nice to minimize some of that, but it is good. I get to talk to a lot of really interesting people.

Carrie: My understanding from scoping out your website is that you talk about your personal story there, and I imagine that is what you write about as well. You’ve written a few books. Is it an autoimmune condition that you have or some issue that causes chronic pain?

K.J.: I have several autoimmune diseases, but I started with one, which is a way that it typically goes if you have one; it kind of blooms into more. I’ve had ankylosing spondylitis for 14 years, and AS is the shortened version of that, which is better on the tongue. Last year, I got COVID-19, which turned into several more diseases I will have for my life under intense treatment. I have a lot.

Carrie: You ended up with the long haul COVID symptoms?

K.J.: Yes. Because of it, I had long covid and new diseases, which is hard.

Carrie: I’m curious because you also talked in your story about spiritual abuse, and I’m processing, as well, a lot about healing just in general because my husband was just diagnosed last year with a permanent neurological condition, and there’s no cure for it.

I’m curious if you could share some of your thoughts on healing. I think it helps our audience with anxiety and OCD as well because there’s a lot of struggle in wrestling. Why am I having to deal with this? Why won’t God heal me? Why can’t he take this away from me? He’s all-powerful. He has the ability to do that. Can you tell us about maybe some of your wrestlings with that?

K.J.: I was 20 years old when I suddenly got sick and went from being a fully functional young adult to barely walking and could barely hold a pen or drive myself across campus. I was a college student at the time, and that persisted.

I entered adulthood wrestling with this question of why I have this suffering that doesn’t seem to go away. What is the point? And also, what does God care? What is God going to do about this? And really, my better answers are in the book, my first book, this Too Shall Last. I will say that I’m more a writer than anything else, but I’m a trauma therapist learning how to listen to my body and respond to my own sensations with kindness, compassion, and movement.

I do believe that there is healing in the way that I would say, the capacity to live as fully as we can, even for some things to be reversed. And that’s with me saying that with a person with a lot that’s wrong on my test results.

A lot of ongoing pain still in my life that I’ve seen things change, and I’ve seen my capacity to show up in my life grow massively as I’ve learned to listen to my body and what she has to say about how safe I feel on any given day or moment. From both a theological and a trauma perspective, I believe there is possible healing in how we face ourselves with compassion and face one another with compassion. And I caveat that by saying how I define healing might be different than sudden spontaneous removal of all of your symptoms. I think that pain prompts us to pay attention and bear witness to the pain in our lives. When I say pain, I mean all of it. Emotional pain too, struggles, the very inconvenient experience of having intrusive thoughts. That’s painful. Pain prompts us to pay attention and can point us to the places where parts of us still need to be unfolded with the care that needs to be held.

It’s in that process that we experience more fullness, more joy, that’s healing. There’s a difference between healing and curing. The difference is between good removal of all of your problems and experiencing wholeness, and I think we all can experience wholeness even in a body that continues to have a disease and a mental illness.

Carrie: That’s incredible. I don’t think that I could have phrased that better because I think that aligns with some of the process of what I’ve been thinking about with my husband. It’s like we haven’t gotten the healing from, or the cure, like you said, from the diagnosis, but we’ve been healed in the sense that we’ve been healed from isolation.

We have support and other people we’re connected to who are going through this. We have a support system outside of those that are going through it. We’ve been healed from the financial stress of paying for medical bills, and God has provided. That’s something that I want to write about a little bit more.

When we started this journey, it was kind; a lot of people were praying for him, and he was having eye issues, and they were praying for him for healing. That in itself is somewhat of a miracle because even though he has a degenerative condition, his eyes haven’t changed in a year, which we are just really celebrating; that, and so thankful that he hasn’t lost any more of his vision, but it’s been a process of, I think his eye doctor’s probably not a Christian and doesn’t know quite how to make sense of that. I thought when we first started going through this, God would take healing in any form that it comes in.

However you want to do this, if you’re going to heal him physically or if you want to heal him emotionally, and there’s the level where he’ll talk about how, even though he likes to be in the background, he has this walker now that puts him in the spotlight. People speak to him, and he’s able to encourage them. Or even people with mobility issues say, “Oh, tell me about this walker.” It’s just a little bit different from your typical walker. How do I get one of those? Those types of things. It’s been very interesting to see how God’s used him differently with this struggle and suffering because it’s definitely changed him a lot. It changed me a lot and drew us closer to God and each other and those things. I’m really thankful for it.

K.J: I love that you started that off office saying God has healed you of; I don’t know if you put it exactly like this, but your individualism. I think that’s one of the core things that we’re all being invited into, whether it’s with struggling with something like OCD or Ankylos Spondylitis or complex trauma, there’s this invitation to be more fully human, which means to be in relationship to others, to be connected. There’s something about our struggles that invites us in a way that is harder to decline, to be connected, and to be supported, to be seen. The way that my body works, I can’t do life on my own.

I can’t. There are many stretches where I can’t take care of myself fully; beyond that, I need the emotional support of the people around me. I don’t love experiencing that, and I love that my body pulls me into a story where I don’t have to be self-sufficient, and nobody else has to, either. And I think that is the healing in which we’re all being bound.

We’re all being invited into. It’s the space between each other. That’s where Joy is. That’s where wonder is through love; our struggles take us to go there.

Carrie: We’re entirely too isolated and disconnected from each other in our society. I’m really curious about this. It is kind of switching topics, but your story regarding how you discovered that you were in a spiritually abusive conversation. Just gives us a picture of the warning signs of that or when it starts to click like, “Oh, this isn’t healthy.”

K.J.: In my previous book, the Lord is My Courage, I share a lot of my husband and my story of waking up to the fact that we were in a spiritually abusive faith community in this church and choosing to leave it and trying to heal from it. Dealing with the ongoing effects of religious trauma is so hard about spiritual abuse that it’s often quite subtle.

Of course, there are going to be things that are not subtle. But I think the whole, does the fish know what the water is around them? It’s just, you’re in, you are swimming in the water, and that’s the water. For us, waking up to the fact that the water we were swimming in was toxic was a slow process of paying attention and sensing our pain.

For us, it was noticing how other people were being harmed. My husband was a pastor at this church, and his coworkers would come to him in tears after being yelled at in the pastor’s office. So hearing other people being belittled or overworked, noticing how people are subtly mocked in staff meetings, and being disturbed by that is part of what woke us up.

At first, we weren’t the people being directly attacked because we were doing the stuff that the pastor didn’t want to do himself. My husband was over pastoral care and counseling, and I ran my counseling practice at the church. This pastor wanted to preach, so we were in good graces because we did something that made the church look good and took stuff off his plate. That favor you can get with a leader can blind you for a while to how they might be treating other people. But as soon as we started to confront, I don’t love how you yelled at that person; that’s when you become the problem, too. I don’t so much to categorize warning signs or red flags.

The most important thing is that we should know, especially in white evangelicalism, that we have been taught to dismiss our own bodies’ signals about how safe we are in our environment. We call it definitely faithfulness that you should serve no matter what, volunteer, and believe the best of your leaders because of so many things.

The inheritance of Nastheism down to the more recent effects of purity culture. We have internalized and ingested a spirituality that says the body is bad and your emotions are untrustworthy. I’m here to say that’s not scripturally true, theologically true, or physiologically helpful.

Carrie: Yes, it drives me bonkers.

K.J.: Yes. It’s terrible. That in itself is, those are the seeds of religious trauma right there, but your emotions and your sensations about being in church and being around other Christians are actually telling you really important things about how safe you are and how safe everybody is in that community, and learning to listen to your own sense of distress and being disturbed by something is actually what helps you move into more safety.

Sometimes, your body has wise things to point out about whether somebody’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Our bodies helped us over time. Very slowly, our bodies begged us to listen. I know it was listening that got us free.

Carrie: This is something that really bothers me, that when people comment in church, and I’ve heard it repeatedly with pastors, you have to choose faith over your feelings. Those are interacting with each other all the time. God gave us a body and emotions for a reason, and God has a wide range of emotions. That statement, to me, I feel is very unhealthy, but it’s something that I’ve heard repetitively.

K.J.: You can walk around in public and see people wearing shirts that say faith over fear. It’s so prevalent that we don’t even need to understand how it’s been co-opted by certain political movements. But faith over fear is self-harm because fear is your body’s wise response to show you that you don’t feel safe and help you move into safety and connection. And I know this is bold to say on a podcast, especially about OCD.

Fear is not the enemy. Fear is there to move you somewhere. All emotion is energy meant to move you. Emotion, energy, and motion. It’s intended to prompt you to pay attention to yourself as somebody who deserves safety, connection, fear, and faith. Fear drives you to treat yourself as a friend of God. Fear doesn’t have to be something that we fight.

It can be something that wakes us up. Fear makes you quite alert, and often for those of us with mental illness. It might prompt us to be way more observant than we wish we were all the time. The experience of hypervigilance is not necessarily pleasant, but it is a prompt. It is not the problem; I think it’s the space that goes back to talking about healing.

That’s the space I love seeing people get to make a shift because when you start to treat your fear, which is part of your body’s physiological response to danger and the perception of danger. You start treating your fear as a friend with something important to tell you. Your life changes. There’s room for things not to feel as terrible as they do when you’re fighting part of yourself.

Carrie: It’s so rare that I get to have conversations with somebody that’s this mindful because essentially what you’re talking about is mindfulness. This sense of being curious about our emotional state instead of trying to judge it and say, oh, I shouldn’t be afraid. The Bible says, fear not, so I have to cut that piece off and go with God’s given me love and power to sound mind. And it’s this bizarre Christian CBT, is what I call it, where we try to do some thought replacement, and we’re all going to feel better now, and it just doesn’t work.

K.J.: I would say, what I’m saying more than mindfulness is that embodiment is the practice of non-judgmentally paying attention to and responding to our sensations.

I take it one step further because I think that even with mindfulness, we can stay detached from our physical experience. What’s happening? I’m making this little movement you can’t see me. You keep making this movement with my hand, like cutting ourselves off at the neck. Basically, what happens when we feel afraid, or when we feel overwhelmed, we feel ashamed?

Any of these activating big feelings that come up is that the way your body works, you’re temporarily cut off from the regulating power of your prefrontal cortex. So your brainstem is very active, your limbic system and your brain is very active, and your body is quickly mobilizing you to seek safety, and you can’t access the part of you that’s, well, God is love, and Christ dwells in me. Therefore, I am actually okay. You can’t access that. We’re talking about a bottom-up approach to belief, which is that response to the sensation happening in your body; that’s what I mean by bottom. So, the lower half of you, starting with your body, responds to this sensation with curiosity and compassion.

That is what brings your body and mind back together so that you can return to that place of faith, of mentally accepting an ascent and receiving that Christ is with you. Embodiment this non-judgmental, which is easier said than done, paying attention to what’s happening inside your body.

Carrie: When you were leaving the spiritually toxic environment because essentially you both had to leave your jobs, it sounds like that’s a significant shift. How did you recover from that trauma to become more embodied? Was that through your therapy process?

K.J.: The recovery began, I would say, I think something that feels in this moment important to point out is part of why we don’t leave is because we are so afraid of losing our livelihood and our sense of belonging; that’s why we took us so long to leave. Truthfully, the fear of how we will pay our bills and how we will afford insurance. That kept us extended our stay in the land of toxicity for years. And a lot of people don’t talk about the practicality of that. Having money to pay for your groceries and pay for your rent is pretty important. And whether you’re working for a church or maybe realizing maybe my community is unhealthy and you don’t work there.

The fear of losing your belongings is massive. Most of these kinds of churches prompt like they are ordered around the church should be your whole life. This is where you go multiple times a week. Your small group is your community. So what happens when you have to leave? You lose everything. And I no longer think your life should be ordered around an institution, but that’s a separate conversation.

Healing was started by leaving, and that was terrifying. And it was a rescue in many ways that God would lead us out into a broader place. It was once we were out my body got even more vocal. And I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and tremors in my arms. I was falling. I thought I had had so many mysterious health symptoms over the years with my disease, and I’ve been tested for MS before.

I had a lot of tests done. I had at one point this whole brain and spine MRI done and saw this neurologist, and this was such a moment of grace, of God’s kindness. He showed me the pictures of my brain and spine and said, your brain is beautiful. There is no evidence of disease here. “My wife is a complex trauma survivor,” and I think what’s happening is he had asked us questions about what’s been going on in your life.

“My wife is a complex trauma survivor.” I think what’s happening here is trauma. The further you escape this situation, the better your body will feel; some of these symptoms will disappear. At that point, I was just a therapist. I hadn’t started to specialize in trauma, but to hear somebody named that for me was incredibly helpful because you feel it’s not; what I’m going through is not that bad.

It’s hard to even get to the point of letting yourself call something spiritual abuse. Because we’re so conditioned to be deferential to pastors, to leaders, and we want to be kind. We think that it is not gracious to say something or use a word like that, but grace and truth go together. The truth is my body reacted with such violent, intense shows and displays of a lack of safety because I had been so gaslit, demeaned, and pushed out because I had been treated less than human.

My body was responding in kind, saying this is not okay. That was my body’s protest. I started there because I think it was my physical experience of such extreme distress of feeling terrible. That prompted me to seek more help to get into therapy again. I believe that, more than anything, put me on a path of studying somatics and beginning as a therapist myself into great somatics into my practice, and that’s now the foundation of everything I do. But I start there; I just gave you the version of if we would have this conversation for three hours. I always trust that you know what; sometimes, in these conversations, there’s always a reason that what comes to my mind first is what there’s an invitation to say. And so that’s where we went.

Carrie: How wise of that neurologist to be admitting. “Hey, there’s some psychological things going on.” But not make it, “Well, it’s all in your head because you’re kind of crazy.: There’s this balance where some have had either of those extremes.

K.J: Yes, I’ve been told it’s psychosomatic. It’s all in your head dismissively and blames me like I am too broken. And I’m sure so many people listening have experienced this too, and maybe your husband did far before getting his diagnosis. There’s a vast difference between an acknowledgement of how our brains and bodies are connected that says your symptoms are real and they make sense based on what you’ve experienced.

This is psychosomatic; if you can fix your mental problems, your body will feel better. That’s the sin right there of individualism. That kind of medical model that blames people’s symptomology on their struggle is why they feel these symptoms when our bodies are begging us to hear the truth about the broader systems that we’re a part of, our family systems, our church systems, our society.

I think the point is that these things we feel are such problems or separate us from those who don’t have struggles as much as we do. I say this as a disabled woman. I think there’s some fierce wisdom in the ways that we struggle that our bodies are trying to tell us. You and those around you deserve more love and support than you have received. All of the symptoms of stress that we experience in how they manifest are shouting to tell us we deserve to be seen, held and helped.

Carrie: Very interesting and definitely brought up some things I haven’t considered. I’m curious for you to tell us about the Book of Common Courage: Prayers and Poem to Find Strength in Small Moments. How this book came about and the importance of it. Why does it need to be out in the world?

K.J: We have been talking about trauma and part of what happens when we’re experiencing trauma. Also, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, we talked about how your body is strongly mobilizing. Energy to keep you safe, but that is sinking you further away from your being able to access the language centers of your brain, for example.

The point is when life is hard, it’s hard to have words, and the Book of Common Courage is really my offering of words for the moments in our lives and the seasons in our lives when we feel wordless and when we don’t have words to pray, and we wish we did. When we are struggling to make sense of our lives, when we don’t feel strength, and we don’t feel seen. We want to that it’s an offering of presence, as I think that books are portable presence in so many ways that there’s something about a book that can enter into the private place of your home, your bedside, your living room and be with you and make you feel less alone in your life and story.

I think we all need the reminder that we are not the only ones with questions and confusion about God. And when it comes to whether our stories are excellent. So this is just my offering to bridge that gap between belief and the body, between your hard day and the hope that’s yours.

I wrote it, not meaning to write a book. When I was writing the Lord as my courage when I was processing my own story of religious trauma. I started to write poetry and prayers for myself. Just to process the intensity of the story and really to help myself. There’s poetry is a really distilled form of language, so to help myself distill down, what I am trying to say in this chapter.

What’s the most important thing and what’s just for me and my spouse, and what needs to be out there for thousands and thousands of people to read? Poetry helped me find my way, and then, over time, I just shared it and shared some pieces on social media, mostly because I was tired while writing a manuscript and needed something easy to share.

People felt seen by the poems and the prayers. It was before I called it poetry because I didn’t even feel I could give myself that label. It was through other people’s responses to the words that I was like; I guess maybe this would be encouraging for people, not just for me. And it became a book.

Carrie: I love it. It’s based on Psalm 23.

K.J: Both The Lord is My Courage and the Book of Common Courage walk through the exact breakdown of phrase by phrase through Psalm 23. The book of Common Courage is an exploration. It’s praying through the Psalm, but it’s also praying through getting to receive, being in dialogue with Christ as the good shepherd. Who is the person who that Psalm was pointing towards? Most of the prayers in the book are a colic, short form of prayer, which is intentional. It’s my trauma-informed way of doing less is more. We don’t need long prayers and lots and lots of words when we’re struggling. We need small, and we need a little bit of containment. They are structured, and they are a little bit of containment to help you feel held. But they’re mostly appointed at Christ to dialogue with Christ as the good shepherd who still is seeking you.

Carrie: I love less is more. We did an episode not too long back on breath prayers. That’s something that I’ve just been able to incorporate in my life at different times or seasons, and those are very short but very helpful. If you could go back in time, what would you tell your younger self who is dealing with chronic pain or spiritual abuse?

K.J: I think that I would tell her your body is not bad. Your body is not betraying you by feeling all this pain and struggling so much. Your body has wise things to say, and I dare you to listen. Please listen to her. I think that’s what I would tell her.

Carrie: That’s definitely good. Your body is not bad. The people hear nothing else from this episode. I hope they receive that piece because, as you said, it’s somewhat so ingrained in our Christian culture to almost be scared. To be embodied, something like you’re getting too new age or something like that is not what we’re doing. And it’s not scriptural to be disconnected from ourselves.

K.J: It’s an expression of faith in God who put on flesh to dwell among us. When I treat my body with reverence, I worship Christ, who decided to become human in a body and still reigns in a body. This is worship.

Carrie: Thank you so much for being on the show today. Share your words of wisdom. I think this is going to be relevant and helpful to a lot of people.

K.J: Thanks for having me.

______________________

Carrie: I am currently reading KJ’s first book. I went ahead and picked up a copy after I did the interview, and I’m enjoying it. As always, thank you so much for listening.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a 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.

88. Relationship OCD and Anxiety with Samara Lane

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Anxiety, OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

On today’s episode, Samara Lane, shares her healing journey through relationship OCD. We also talk about how to overcome anxiety and OCD in relationships.

Episode Highlights:

  • How does OCD manifest in relationships?
  • How to distinguish OCD from real feelings?
  • What can cause OCD to develop in relationships?
  • Some helpful ways to help you cope with anxiety and OCD in your relationship. 

Episode Summary:

In Episode 88 of Christian Faith and OCD, released just in time for Valentine’s Day, I sit down with Samara Lane, a relationship anxiety and ROCD coach, to dive into a topic that often goes unnoticed—relationship OCD (ROCD). This episode sheds light on how obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors can show up in relationships, like constantly seeking reassurance from your partner or endlessly Googling whether your relationship is “right.”

Samara shares her personal battle with ROCD, which became especially intense during her engagement. Even though she was in a healthy relationship, she found herself overwhelmed by doubts and intrusive thoughts that made decision-making incredibly difficult. Her story is one of perseverance—after years of trial and error, she developed a system to manage her ROCD and now coaches others who are going through the same struggles.

Samara also shares how childhood wounds, insecure attachment styles, and relationship trauma can contribute to ROCD. We touch on how OCD is often rooted in a desire for safety, and how past hurts can lead us to project our fears onto current relationships.

If you’ve ever dealt with relationship anxiety or wonder if you might be struggling with ROCD, this episode is packed with helpful insights and practical advice to help you break free from the cycle of doubt.

Related Links and Resources:

www.samaralane.com

More Episodes To Listen To:

118. How Do I know if this Thought is an OCD Obsession? with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcript

Carrie: Welcome to Hope for Anxiety and OCD episode 88. I didn’t plan it this way, but it just so happens that this episode is coming out around Valentine’s Day, and it’s on anxiety and relationship OCD, so that seemed to gel together well. I have on the show with me today Samara Lane, who is a relationship anxiety and ROCD coach.

Been wanting to, for a little while, have this episode about relationship OCD because it’s a very hot topic. First of all, a lot of people don’t even know that it exists. Am I correct?

Samara: That is very correct, including the people who start experiencing all the symptoms and wondering what’s wrong with them.

Carrie: Right. There’s this very stereotypical view of OCD that it’s somebody like Monk that you see on TV concerned about germs and concerned with order and cleanliness of things, but that’s really only one subtype of OCD. There are several different subtypes, so it’s often that people will believe, “Hey, I have anxiety,” and certainly, anxiety in OCD is very related.

But often, I have people come to me and say, “Hey, I have this anxiety.” They start telling their story, and then I realize, do you know that you’re actually having obsessions? These types of thoughts and, do you know that what you’re doing, intense Googling on the internet that’s actually a compulsion or seeking reassurance from your partner all the time is a compulsion, and they don’t realize that until somebody kind of puts a name and a label to things and it helps so much being able to know kind of how to move forward with that.

Samara’s Personal Relationship Story

You have your own personal relationship story about what led you to become an anxiety and relationship OCD coach. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Samara: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was my own journey through Helen back, really, because I’ve never experienced suffering as much as I have with really intense spikes of OCD.

I’m sure all of your listeners can relate to that. For me, it comes on differently for everyone. It came on the worst; the biggest initial spike that made me realize something was going on here was right before and during my partner’s proposal. I could tell, I just knew that he was about to propose, and I had this wave of anxiety.

We were at this beautiful, lovely dinner he’d planned for us. Many years ago, I remember being flooded with thoughts like, oh no, I have to decide the rest of my life right now, and what if this is the wrong choice? Or what if I’m settling? There are some things that aren’t perfect in the relationship—so much pressure.

I felt I was hyperventilating, going to have a panic attack, while he pulled out the ring and popped the question, and I said yes at the moment. And I think also because the anxiety was so intense now in hindsight, the OCD thoughts were so intense, I felt really guilty and like I was faking it when I said yes because so many doubts were coming up.

So I felt like I was lying and just saying what he wanted to hear, but I was like, yes, and then I was like, I need to go home and sit down. It really our engagement; our proposal ended with both of us sitting on the kitchen floor, and I was crying and doing all the compulsions without realizing it, seeking reassurance, confessing everything, telling him all of my nitpicking, intrusive thoughts, all of my doubt.

That, of course, didn’t feel good to him. I don’t recommend doing that. And it wasn’t really the romantic engagement experience that either of us had planned on, and up until this point, we’d been together for over two years and lived together. And the relationship was great, right? We wanted to be together, but it felt such; it just whew flooded me with most people.

Yes, it was an unconscious compulsion. I just started Googling. I was like, what the heck is wrong with? Fortunately, at least the one good thing that can come from our initial Googling is finding help and education and realizing that we’re not crazy; we’re not alone. This is a thing. Relationship anxiety and relationship OCD are a thing.

I’m so grateful that relationship OCD is now even a term and is even recognized by so many more people as a subtype because for me, this was 12 or more years ago, I don’t even remember, 13 years ago, maybe now, I didn’t see anything on relationship OCD back then. It was one person was talking about relationship anxiety and had a blog, and that was it.

But yeah, that really started my journey, and I cut a long story short, I felt like I tried everything under the sun to feel better. I read books, and I saw therapy and counseling. I took courses and really was through trial and error because I didn’t have a set system that was proven that I knew would work. And frankly, I didn’t know what resources were available to me, even if there were any back then.

So, just doing my best, I pieced together a system that really freed me. It takes time, of course, and it takes a lot of practice cause we’ve been having these OCD tendencies for so long. But that’s the practice I now teach my clients. I certainly wish that I had known then what I know now, right? It would’ve saved me years of suffering because it was years; it was many years that I suffered without really knowing how to handle it. And now it’s night and day different, of course, but it was really hard.

How Does OCD Show Up in Relationships?

Carrie: I’m curious: before this manifested in terms of your relationship with your fiance, did you have other concerns about other relationships? Like close friends, teachers, or family members?

Samara: Yeah, like anxiety with other types of relationships? Great question, and one that I’ve done a lot of reflection on, and in hindsight, absolutely. I never thought of it this way because I think it stayed mild or moderate enough that I just kind of coped and worked, tried to cope, if that makes sense. But yeah, I look back and see now there have always been tendencies to, like, oh, my best friend gets me really angry.

Well, maybe I don’t want to be her friend anymore. Running away and avoiding the things that are triggering, upsetting, or make me feel bad. And I also did this in many romantic relationships with past partners.

Carrie: Avoidance is definitely a big piece of anxiety and OCD that people have to work through. And it’s hard because the natural tendency when we feel discomfort is to say, “Hey, let me pull away from that.” But it only feeds and heightens anxiety and OCD more to avoid things. I call it the avoidance cycle. It’s like the avoidance confirms that you really do have something to be afraid of versus facing that fear and walking into it, even though you feel uncomfortable, helps you know, I really can do this.

I can handle this situation that I don’t feel I can handle. I’m curious as far as when you’re talking with somebody because it’s normal. Everyone who’s been in a romantic relationship knows that maybe if you’re looking at getting married, it’s normal to have what people cold feet before the wedding and have some trepidation.

It is a big commitment, and we should take that seriously. Now, how does somebody know? Is it at a level where it’s problematic versus this is just kind of normal relationship concerns that everybody goes through?

Samara: Such a good question and one that we really struggle with when we’re trying to discern what’s the anxiety and what are legitimate issues or challenges that we’re having.

I think you’re absolutely correct when making a big life choice, especially for those of us who are prone to OCD tendencies or anxiety. of course we tend to overthink, but even anyone without OCD or anxiety is going to possibly, potentially have a cold feet, like you said there. And all relationships have challenges.

My partner and I have had to work a lot on communication and how to navigate a relationship and a partnership. How do we navigate conflict? So those are really common challenges that aren’t red flags. They’re just part of being in a relationship, and it tends to happen when there’s anxiety triggers us.

It spikes something within us. It could be thoughts without sensations. It could be sensations without thoughts. It could be both together—sensations, meaning facing heart, panic, fear, and things like that. Our body is different in the sense of how we respond to it. It’s not just like, oh yeah, we had an argument earlier.

I think we’ll revisit that soon and maybe continue talking about it and working through it together. The average non-OCD mind might think it’s more common if we’re in the ROCD to go immediately into, oh, it’s a bad sign. Maybe I don’t love them anymore, or maybe we’ll never make it work.

Maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake. Maybe I’ve already wasted the best years of my life trying to be with the wrong person. Maybe we need to break up, even though I don’t want to. There’s a part of me that really doesn’t want to, even though there’s also a part of me that feels that the only answer is to break up.

And so it’s this back and forth, this inner war within ourselves. I hate to use the word red flag because I think that alone can be overused, misconstrued, and highly triggering. The things we would want to take really seriously are untreated addiction, any kind of true abuse, ongoing, repeated dishonesty or cheating or something like that, of course, and anyone would want to take those seriously. But those aren’t the things that relationship anxiety glows onto the minutiae. Another thing I can share about this real quick is that there are two sides to the relationship anxiety to the ROCD coin. One side is the I’m not enough, and that’s how it’s expressed. It’s a little more obvious, in a way, easier to tell. This is a “me” thing. This is about my relationship with myself.

For those who have ever experienced it, my partner hasn’t texted me back. Do they like me? Do they love me? Something changed. For example, on the other side of the relationship, the anxiety coin expresses itself as What if my partner’s not enough? Or what if my relationship isn’t enough? What if this life choice isn’t enough?

And at the root of it, it still actually is an us thing, and it’s very clever how the ROCD is expressing itself, but that’s when we have intrusive thoughts like, am I settling? Is there someone I’d be a better match with? Am I really attracted to them? Do I really love them? I don’t feel the way I thought I should feel courageous enough to keep going within and practicing our mindfulness and our awareness; we’ll see underneath this is really, again, the same, oftentimes the same core issue. Am I enough? Is my choice enough? Am I safe? Is there danger? I must protect myself.

How People with OCD View Conflict in Relationships

Carrie: The need for safety, getting down to the root of the issue, and feeling unsafe. Not necessarily because your relationship is unsafe like you talked about; we’re not talking about abusive and unsafe relationships. We’re talking about safe relationships, but our perception due to intrusive thoughts can get that shaken up and make it feel unsafe when it’s okay. For example, conflict, all relationships have conflict, but if you have this high level of anxiety and intrusive thoughts, conflict can feel 10 times more threatening than it does to the average person. So you have to learn how to deal with those things and how to navigate them.

How long have you been together with your husband now?

Samara: It’s starting to be easy to lose count. We became a couple 13 years ago, almost 12 and a half years ago. We’ve been married for over eight of those years now.

Carrie: Was it a big learning curve for him to learn kind of how to navigate some of these issues?

Samara: Oh yes, absolutely. And bless him. Not everyone has his experience, but he was so confident in us and remained so confident and committed to us that even if I was in the early days of it, seeking reassurance or doubts.

“I don’t know about this. Are you sure he’d? Oh, I’m positive. We’re great. We’re going to do wonderful.” And of course, then my OCD just, instead of feeling grateful, it was just, well, he’s too confident. I don’t really trust his judgment. But he has been such really forgiving.

There have been times when what I expressed was really hurtful and really hurt him deeply and emotionally, and he has just stayed committed. I’ve done a beautiful job of just trying not to take it personally, acknowledging this is a thing, and being honest with me about his feelings and how it affects him, right?

I definitely learned early on not to divulge all the things anymore.

Carrie: I’m curious about your process, and I also have some thoughts about this. How do you feel this develops, or where does it come from, the bent towards relationship OCD specifically and anxiety?

Samara: Totally. Yes. I would say I have a predisposition to OCD. Not all of my clients, but I know for me, as an example, when I was little, in hindsight, I didn’t know what was going on, but I was ruminating and , really worried about moral scrupulosity if I’m saying that term correctly, something wrong, oh, I have to confess to my mom right away, and then I’d get immediate relief from it.

So, I see those tendencies in me from a young age. So, just in general, it can be a predisposition to OCD. In general, oftentimes people have had other OCD themes, and then it switches to ROCD or vice versa, or maybe they just always had social anxiety, and now suddenly it’s expressing as a more severe form of OCD or more noticeable form, other things that it can come from.

So again, just like biology, how are we wired right? Do we have anxiety in our history? Do we have any predisposition to this? I also often see that there is some wounding, some emotional wounding, that could be trauma, big or small, even things that we don’t necessarily think of as trauma. Sometimes, they’re very clear-cut and dry, but it could be when you got teased on the school bus, and that is still this unhealed part of our shadow self, right?

Our inner child really needs that love, compassion, and healing. It can also be wounds in our adulthood if our last relationship or one of our prior relationships ended badly or painfully. That can certainly affect things: attachment styles, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, disorganized, and any kind of insecure attachment.

We sometimes see it as a factor. Also, just general life stressors, right? If we have a predisposition to OCD, then if we’re in college and it’s really stressful, or we’re moving or switching careers. Life stressors can bring up this feeling of being unsafe, unsettled, or in limbo. And then, often, it just wants to glom onto something outside of ourselves.

Oh, it’s the relationship. I know it is. It must be the relationship. I’ve had a moment of clarity. So there’s a lot of different things. And then, even when we are struggling with our self-esteem, self-trust, or self-worth, I have seen that play a role in it. It could be one, it could be a variety of those things.

Carrie: I’m glad that you brought up a few different things there in terms of working with many people with OCD and a trauma overlap connection. Yes, there is that propensity towards OCD, but then there are also these wounding childhood experiences. Sometimes it’s not as dramatic as abuse, or sometimes it is.

Sometimes, it’s not as big as being physically or emotionally abused or something like that. Sometimes, it’s more what you didn’t get. It’s more the lack of somewhat of emotional neglect or the lack of engagement by caregivers or others when you need it the most. And we’re looking at not just what people received but what they did not receive in relationships.

And there can be a fear of vulnerability of getting too close to somebody. And then, if I have to find a way, my brain’s trying to protect me and find a way that I won’t get hurt again. So I’ve gotta kind of push back against that and, oh, there must be something wrong or must be something nitpicky about this relationship that needs to be fixed or worked on. It also can be a perfectionistic tendency because we think, oh, well, this happened, or they did this small thing to hurt us, and they may hurt us in a really big way. Or maybe it means they’re not faithful in the future because of this one little thing they did to hurt my feelings. That type of thing kind of blows up. So, I think we have to conceptualize that anxiety in any form is trying to keep us safe from hurt. And that’s especially true in the relationship OCD aspect and past romantic relationships, whether it was a divorce. Whether it was a bad breakup or a toxic, narcissistic relationship you got out of. Those deep wounds can last for much longer than we would like them to.

That needs some healing and needs some attention. We can’t just gloss over that and say, well, now I’m with Joe over here, and he’s nothing like Bob. He’s not hurting me, or he’s not abusing me. You can tell your brain that, but your body may still be going haywire. This is unsafe. I know from our conversations before you said I’m not a Christian, but I have a lot of coaching clients who are Christian.

What have you seen in Christian clients, specifically those struggling with this relationship? Anxiety, OCD?

Samara: It can feel; the number one that comes to mind is this fear and this feeling or belief that this is God saying that they’re not the right person. And how do you know? Sometimes, there can also be a lot of guilt.

I seem to have lots of clients that find me, not all, but some of them may be exploring. They’re doing their religion, they’re practicing their faith maybe a little differently than how they were raised. They can also feel this guilt and shame, and is this relationship bad? Or if they have premarital sex.

Then, they can really feel a lot of guilt and shame around that. It can really fuel a lot of the OCD if that’s not something that they believe is right. But the number one that I see is, how do I discern between is this God telling me this isn’t my person, versus this is just anxiety.

Carrie: That’s a really huge one that I run into and hear a lot is people say, is this God, or is this OCD, or is it the devil?

What is this that’s going on in my mind? How do you help people discern some of that?

Samara: I think each of us, it’s really coming to our own discernment and understanding and what resonates with us, what my clients have found most helpful, and what I personally believe is God doesn’t communicate through OCD.

Carrie: That’s not God.

Samara: It is different. And the more we learn about the OCD mind, as I’m sure so many amazing listeners here learn from you all the time and how it works and the signs that we’re having intrusive thoughts, signs that we’re doing compulsions and feeding the cycle, the more easily it’s we’re able to identify this is the pattern, this is the thing, and that’s not God.

I believe that God communicates. God can communicate in a firm way sometimes, but not through riddling us with crippling fear. And I believe that God is a really loving being and forces there to meet us with compassion as we go through these things, not to beat ourselves up. That’s really the mind.

Carrie: Absolutely. I like how you put that. I know you mentioned mindfulness a little bit earlier. Is that something that you practiced as part of your process?

Samara: Absolutely. Yes. It’s such a critical part of it. The way that I love to think about it and describe it is when we’re in active OCD thoughts and panic, it’s we have forgotten that there’s just a story playing in our mind.

It might as well be a movie that we’re watching, but we’ve gotten so sucked in and hooked by it that we feel like we’re a character. We think the movie is real, right? It’s like a bad dream. Like, oh no, all these bad things are true or might be happening or might happen in the future, and we forget that we’ve just fallen into this story that’s totally made up.

It’s just a story, and we have the choice and the ability to step back and really look at the thoughts, watch what the mind is doing, observe the judgments that it’s making, observe the sensations and emotions in our bodies and just let the movie play without hooking into it.

Carrie: Almost like you fall down into this Alice Wonderland world, but everything feels super real when you’re in the midst of the OCD thought storm. That’s definitely relatable, I think, to a lot of our listeners who have experienced that. I think this has been very informative for us because a lot of people may be listening to this and realizing I didn’t realize that those were OCD obsessions that I was actually having about my relationship, and now this will be able to help them kind of find a pathway towards healing as I think is really important.

Samara: Absolutely. I mean, I suppose the good news, if there is any, is ROCD is a subtype of OCD like you said, and so we heal it in a lot of ways, just like we would other types of OCD. It can, and I think one of the trickier parts about it is all the societal conditioning that is so perpetuated and prevalent in movies and media, Hollywood and fairytale stories that we grew up with, and social media memes all over the place.

So weeding through the relationship myths and unlearning and debunking those along with, like you said, any trauma or wounding, whether around relationships or anything that’s coming up around this. Usually, it is related to other people. In my opinion, these are what make ROCD one of the most, if not the most, complex OCD subtypes to weed through because we’re also sent all these messages that no doubt mean don’t you really do have to leave. You should leave. I would leave, right?

And that’s a lot to weed through, but it’s a beautiful invitation and doorway to breaking free, recognizing and breaking free from the OCD cycle, and practicing deeper and greater levels of self-trust because no one knows what’s best for you, better than you do.

Carrie: At the end of the podcast, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person since we’re called Hope for Anxiety and OCD.

Samara: I’d be happy to share. I’m sure there are so many that I could, but the one that’s coming to my mind really has to do with my relationship, but not necessarily the ROCD because it happened after I had really come to a level of mastery around the ROCD.

But a while back, my husband was diagnosed with OCD and ADHD. We’re a fun bunch over here sometimes, and he had a really rough mental health year after just a trying time in his life, and his mental health was really struggling. I noticed the toll it was taking on me and our family, and there was a point at which I just felt some hopelessness as a part of me knew.

Of course, we’re going to get through this. Of course, as a resilient human, everything will work out and be okay. But it’s almost it was more of a surrender. I don’t know how to solve this. I’ve tried everything I can. It’s really many ways out of my control. And I wrote a letter to God, and I just journaled and wrote out in present tense words like how I was deciding my life was now, and the ease around it and the joy around it.

Not that it was perfect at all, but there was a lot of connection, and it felt healthy and grounded for me, him, and a kid for everyone. I believe that this wasn’t a coincidence. Literally, two or three weeks later, his prescription had changed. This was a prescription that was really common.

It’s always been known about his psychiatrist already knew about it. And he just got on this prescription that managed it to the extent that it was night and day different. He was then able to, and the tools he used to manage and regulate himself finally worked. I’m not saying medication is for everyone, but I felt my letter had been received and then just kind of forgot I even wrote the letter.

The energy of practicing that surrender and being it’s, I can’t do this alone. I need help. Our family needs help. My husband is in pain and struggling, and just seeing the difference night and day and feeling so much better. It’s been a gift and a blessing.

Carrie: Thank you for sharing that.

Glad that your husband is doing better, too. Well, it was great having you on the show today, sharing your wisdom, and having a dialogue about this. I think it’s an important conversation. And what better time to put it out than around Valentine’s Day?

Samara: Exactly. A triggering time here for many.

Carrie: Yes.

I’m glad we were able to have this episode because relationship OCD doesn’t get talked about enough, and probably more people struggle with it than they actually realize.

Regardless of your relationship status this Valentine’s Day, I want you to know that you are fully and completely loved by God regardless of what you’re struggling with or how you feel about yourself. He’s absolutely crazy in love with you.

As always, thank you so much for listening. If you haven’t received our free download yet, Five Things Every Christian Struggling with OCD Needs to Know, please check it out at hopeforanxietyandocd/free.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a 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.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

87. OCD FAQ with Carrie and Dr. Kelley Kleppinger

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by my friend Dr. Kelley Kleppinger in a Frequently Ask Questions (FAQ) session on OCD.

Episode Highlights:

Here are some of the questions we tackled:

  • What exactly is OCD
  • What is the difference between anxiety and OCD?
  • How long does it take for someone to get diagnosed with OCD?
  • Why can’t we seem to take our thoughts captive?
  • How does someone know if it’s the Holy Spirit or OCD?
  • How can we help someone with OCD?

Episode Summary:

Welcome to episode 87 of Christian Faith and OCD! I’m your host, Carrie Bock, and today, we have a special episode where Dr. Kelley Kleppinger joins me to tackle some of the most common questions people have about OCD. Dr. Kelley and I connected through a mutual friend and have enjoyed developing a meaningful friendship alongside our husbands.

I’m excited for today’s conversation because Kelley will be asking me some questions—questions many of you might have about what OCD looks like, how it intertwines with faith, and how we can find hope through it all.

This is going to be an insightful conversation where we’ll dive deep into topics like scrupulosity, mental compulsions, and how to separate intrusive thoughts from sin. We’ll also explore what it looks like to walk through OCD as a Christian and how trusting in God’s grace plays a pivotal role in the healing process.

I hope you enjoy today’s conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it! Don’t forget to check out the free resource at carriebock.com/resources/.

Explore Related Episode:

139. Is There a Test for OCD?

Transcript

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD, episode 87. I am your host, Carrie Bock, and we have decided at the beginning of the year to take things back to the basics a little bit. So we’re doing an OCD FAQ episode with my friend Dr. Kelley Kleppinger. Kelley and I have been friends for a little while, we were introduced by a mutual friend of ours.

We’ve had fun and going on some double dates with our husbands and things like that. I also wanted to let everyone know that I have a course called Get Out of My Head, coming out in about a month, and I’m very excited about this. It’s specifically designed for Christians who are struggling with OCD.

There’s lots of misinformation out there when it comes to the church and OCD people trying to apply general principles of anxiety to OCD treatment maybe that is found in the Bible, and we’ll talk about that a little bit today. If you guys would be interested in a free download of some things that every Christian with O C D needs to know, you can go to hope for anxiety and ocd.com/free.

And that will also make sure that you are getting updates about the course coming out. Kelley, tell us a little bit about yourself and what caused you to be interested in doing this episode with me because I kind of put out an SOS on there.

Dr. Kelley: I have been in education for 18 years and in those 18 years I have had a lot of children with a lot of different issues. And anxiety is the number one thing that I see in my children right now. So dealing with that on a daily basis definitely made me curious about your podcast and what you do and how you can help people. And also just in general, I think we all deal with a level of anxiety at times. I know I do.

We all did during the pandemic, and your strategies are great for people across that spectrum as well. It is comforting to know that you’re not in it by yourself and that there are things that you can do. Just curious to learn more about it.

Carrie: Awesome. I have recruited Kelley because we’ve decided that Steve has been my Fillin person enough, and so I do much better having people ask me questions or dialogue with me than just solo episodes.

My solo episodes, if you all have listened to them, tend to be very short. It’s just kind of like I get the information out there and I’m done, but I can provide a lot more information and talk more when I’m dialoguing with people. It’s just my nature and what’s a little bit easier for me, I’ve found. What’s the first question that you have? The list today? I kind of gave some questions of things that are frequently asked about OCD.

What is OCD?

Dr. Kelley: Well, the first one is down to the basics. What is OCD?

Carrie: OCD is a mental health disorder that is characterized by someone who has obsessions and compulsions. We can break that down a little bit more.

Obsessions, we use that word sometimes, you might say, I’m obsessed about Kentucky sports. Or someone might say, I’m really obsessed with this musician or musical artist. But when we’re talking about obsessions in an OCD sense, we’re talking about intrusive thoughts. That you can’t seem to get outta your mind.

It’s like they’re stuck in there like chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe that you can’t get off, and they’re very repetitive, or they have repetitive themes. People can have a variety of different obsessions. It can be obsessed about germs. That’s what people commonly refer to or know about with OCD.

They’re a Hollywood picture, it’s someone like Monk that’s going around and he can’t touch the door handle. He is gotta use a handkerchief or something like that. Things have to be in a certain order in his house. That’s not really, OCD is much broader than that. So you can have obsessions about cleanliness, or sometimes it’ll be referred to as contamination.

You can also have obsessions about relationships, and we’re gonna talk about that more in-depth on the next podcast that comes out around Valentine’s Day, relationship OCD and anxiety. And those look more, am I with the right person? What if I marry the wrong person? Do these flaws mean that we’re not meant to be together when really it’s just kind of normal?

Maybe miscommunications, mishaps. And they’re kind of stereotypical relationships if you would look at them from the outside in. It may look like in friendships, having obsessions about, did I upset somebody? Did I offend someone with what I said? The compulsive piece of that would be replaying conversations over and over and over again.

People can have obsessions about God, Jesus, religion, moral sets called scrupulosity. And we’ve had some guests that have shared some personal stories on the show. I encourage you guys to go back and maybe listen to some of those with Mitzi Van Cleve was on our show talking about that a little bit.

Typically, OCD gets attached to, what you are most passionate about. People can have obsessions also about sexual things, homosexuality. They’ll be like being concerned about if they’re homosexual or not. Being concerned about abusing children harm OCD is really common, even like pedophilia OCD, where people are concerned that they’re gonna sexually abuse a child.

That doesn’t mean that they want to do those things. So there’s a difference between an intrusive thought and a desire. But obviously, these things can be very shameful and scary, so people don’t want to talk about it, especially in the context of the church. Who wants to go say like, oh, hey, I’ve been having thoughts about harming children. And then somebody would probably say, okay, let’s not put you in the nurse. Or even though it could be a person that really loves kids, and they may have their own kids and care very much about them, but live in a constant state of fear of harming those children. When we talk about obsessions and compulsions. Compulsions tend to be things like checking door locks, or I gotta make sure go back in and make sure I unplug the curling iron because the house might burn down.

I’ve gotta make sure that the stove turned off and the TV’s unplugged. Sometimes we would call them rituals that someone may get involved in just to leave their house. So I’ve had clients who come to see me because they’re late to work repetitively, and obviously that’s causing problems with their job because they’re taking 30 minutes to check everything, or they’re leaving the house and then actually coming back and going in the house and checking and make sure all this stuff is turned off.

Sometimes with harm OCD people are afraid that they’ve hit somebody. Like they’ve actually accidentally hit a pedestrian and they will circle their car back around and go check to make sure that they didn’t hit anybody. So that’s another form of checking. Obviously these things are very distressful.

Unfortunately, sometimes we use OCD a little bit more lightly in our society. Like, oh, that person’s so OCD. And what we really mean is they’re particular or they like things a certain way. They’re not actually living with a high level of distress. When you’ve been diagnosed with OCD, you’re typically spending about an hour on some of this stuff, or more I think is the cutoff for the D SM diagnosis.

And some compulsions can be mental. We don’t always see them, and that can really lead to OCD going undiagnosed for a while because there may be certain words that people will repeat in their head to reduce this sense of anxiety brought on by the obsession. They will pray certain prayers, especially confessing.

Confessing can be another compulsion that happens with people, especially happens in children feel the need to go up to you and tell you something bad that they did, and that’s the obsession they’re having in their head. I did something wrong. I have to go tell somebody and get this out of my head. And even reassurance-seeking can be a compulsion in itself, which a lot of people have who have OCD and don’t realize that this is what they’re doing.

They’ll go to their spouse, say if they’re having relationship obsessions and go, honey, do you still really love me? If you were gonna marry me again, would you still do that? Are we okay? Like is our relationship good. And the spouse will be going, yeah. Oh, what’s going on with you? And then they’re probably thinking, is everything good?

I thought it was, but not sure. That’s what you said. That’s the very long explanation of what OCD is. And I went into a lot of different examples because there are so many people who are probably even listening to this and think, well, I just have anxiety. But really when we start to peel back the layers, they have OCD characteristic.

Dr. Kelley: , I just learned a lot. I had no idea there were that many layers and ways that it can go. Just like you said, I’ve had the Hollywood version in my head of what OCD is because people just throw it around so loosely. It is not what we think of all the time. So that was an explanation, obviously, with that explanation, anxiety goes along with that. So what is the difference between OCD and anxiety?

What is the Difference OCD and Anxiety?

Carrie: There’s a lot of overlap. I think just in terms of body sensations, people with OCD still get some of the same, discomfort in terms of their body. They may have body tension, heart rate may increase, they may feel off.

They don’t necessarily always are as tuned in or as honed in on what’s happening in their body as people with anxiety because they’re so used to going in their head and thinking through. And that’s a lot of times the way they solve problems is kind of going in their head. So that’s why sometimes the somatic therapy can really help them kind of sit with some of the body distress.

Learning mindfulness practices, which is one thing I’m gonna talk about in the OCD course as well. What really is mindfulness breaking that down, and how do you practice it? How do you learn to tolerate that distress that comes up with OCD? I would say with anxiety. Anxiety tends to respond at times to thought challenges.

I can sit with a person with anxiety and we can work through certain things mentally, where I’ll say, okay, so you’re afraid of that. You’re afraid of losing your job. What’s the worst case scenario if you lose your job? Okay, if I lose my job, I’m gonna lose my house. I’m gonna become homeless. Next thing you know, they’re on the side of the street begging for money, and then you’re like, “Okay, how likely is that that’s going to happen?” Because you’ve told me you have some support in your life and other people you can depend on, and people that would help you out if you were really in a bad spot. And they’ll be able to kind of rationalize and realize, yeah, you’re probably right. You probably don’t need to be afraid of losing my job.

And then we’ll go through and we’ll talk about, well, you have some pretty marketable skills, in your field. You’ve been in your field for 10 years is what you’ve told me, so you probably could get another job, right? And they’re like, oh yeah, I could. But if somebody had some kind of intrusive thought it, probably wouldn’t be like, oh, maybe I’ll lose my job.

It probably would be more like, I think I’ve offended my boss. and you could talk with them and you could say some of those same things. Well, you’ve told me that you and your boss have a good relationship. Yeah, I know. What if I just said the wrong thing and he’s really upset and he’s really mad with me right now.

They can’t ever get off of it with the logical reasoning. It’s just not gonna happen because they’ll go back into that loop and almost it can make it stronger. It’s like arguing with back and forth with OCD or trying to rationalize with it can actually increase it and cause more problems. Whereas in a CBT type therapy, cognitive behavioral with anxiety, we can say, okay, tell me about your thought and how that influences your feelings and your behavior whereas with OCD, it’s just kind of, they can’t really thought challenge the same way. It just doesn’t seem to work. And then they get kind of more distressed when you try to do that. That’s one of the main differences. And then I would say too, with anxiety versus OCD, just treatment-wise with anxiety, you’re teaching people really to calm down in the moment.

You can teach them relaxation skills someone with OCD, you’re more kind of teaching them to ride the wave a little bit. You can do that some with anxiety, there’s some overlap, but it’s more about learning to tolerate that distress and knowing that you don’t have to act on it so that you can get out of that loop.

I think there’s some avoidance is overlap. Both people with anxiety and OCD tend to avoid things. There’s definitely are some similarities and differences.

Dr. Kelley: Obviously, therapy can help both OCD and anxiety. You said teach people to learn to ride the wave or push through or tell them that they’re okay.

If someone’s living with it and they don’t know it, you know, to me it’s really sad that obviously, it takes so long for them to get diagnosed. Why is that the case?

Carrie: I think about an average of seven years for an individual to be diagnosed with OCD. What I really believe that is due to lack of education, where we have these Hollywood models, and even people that are famous that have OCD look at, like Howie Mandel won’t shake hands with people. And he’s been great about being open about his OCD, but once again, that’s kind of a stereotype. I don’t know if anybody knows that Mark Summers who did Double Dare actually had OCD and it had to do with cleanliness.

He wrote a book about it. I don’t remember the book, but we’ll put it in the show notes for you. He used to comb the fringes of his rug. I mean, that’s how distressed he was about having to have things clean. And when he was on Double Dare, obviously it was a messy show. Anybody remembers that old Nickelodeon show?

I think he takes his shirt off at the end of every show, and the producers hated that he did that. He talks about that in his book as well. So these are pictures that we have out in public. But nobody famous maybe is talking about their relationship obsessions or about their sexual obsessions that they’ve had.

Some people have definitely talked about scrupulosity in the Christian realm. We have some personal stories like I said before, especially with some of the more shameful thoughts. People aren’t talking about it. It’s not on parents and teacher’s radar because a lot of times kids and teens will start to show symptoms.

And even when I talk with adults, they didn’t necessarily realize that it’s a time, but they’ll be able to go back and say, oh yeah, when I was in school. I used to have all my work perfectly or really bubble in the answers just the right way, or there were certain things that they used to redo work or erase holes in the paper because they erased so much.

Some of those things have occurred or they confessed a lot to their parents, and their parents just thought, why is my child doing this? But they didn’t know that was a symptom of OCD, so they didn’t know to necessarily connect to that. I think people haven’t picked up on it as much and what the signs and symptoms are. And then the other piece is that, unfortunately, and this is a sad piece to me as well, is that even counselors who treat anxiety don’t always know how to distinguish when it’s anxiety versus when it’s OCD. I just talked to kind of a local therapist recently because she had a situation. She said I think this person might be showing signs of OCD and can I just consult with you?

And we did that over the phone, just like, Hey, tell me what’s going on. And I can tell you if this lines up with what I’ve seen or signs or symptoms because it is a little bit different. And so most commonly what will happen is people will say, I’m anxious who have OCD? I’m anxious, they’ll go to therapy and tell their therapist, I’m anxious, right?

So then they’ll start to give them suggestions or treatment for anxiety. I had one client who told me that she was in therapy for two years and she goes, now that I look back on it, all I was doing was reassurance. Seeking from the therapist, you basically tell me I’m gonna be okay. I have all these worries and all these concerns, so that’s a sad scenario to me, which is why it’s important if people do have OCD to ask a therapist that you’re looking at seeing.

What’s your experience level been? How often do you see people with OCD? What’s your training like? What’s your approach? Ask a lot of questions because unfortunately there are people out there who will say “Yes, oh, I deal with OCD,” but they really don’t, unfortunately. We don’t get a ton of training in graduate school on this.

We get kind of the broad overview, the large brushstrokes, and then what happens after you get a school is your experience level. And your continuing education really help you narrow down what your focus is and the types of clients that you end up wanting to see or attracting or end up working with.

I think a lot of people think that we all do the same thing, and that’s not really true.

Why Do I Need Help? Why Can’t I Take My Thoughts Captive

Dr. Kelley: If I’m putting myself in the shoes of someone that has OCD or thinks that they may have OCD when they’re thinking, why can’t I just take care of this myself? Why do I need help? Why can’t I seem to take my thoughts captive?

Carrie: I think this is a common question for Christians because, they’ve gone to church and said, Hey, I’m worried about this. And people have told them just common things that we tell people for anxiety in the church. “Cast your cares on the Lord, pray about this. And the God of peace will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.”

 Take your thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. So there’s this shame that comes when someone tries to apply that to their OCD and is like, oh no, like it’s not working. I guess one of the things I wanna do with the show is really reduce shame and say, “That’s not you, that’s not your fault.” That’s your brain malfunctioning actually, and that was something I meant to bring up earlier. We were talking about what is OCD is that there are certain parts of the brain that they can actually see on scans that are overactive. That’s just a function of a fallen body that none of our bodies are perfect.

Sometimes things go wrong with our brain, unfortunately, and we’re not able to take that thought captive. And I think with OCD it’s recognizing, “Hey, that’s an intrusion.” And some people will even think too, oh, this is spiritual warfare. This is the devil telling me I’m gonna harm children. Or this is the devil telling me that I’m homosexual when I’m really not, and causing this high level of distress internally.”

I don’t know. You could make arguments about what’s spiritual and what’s not spiritual, and I certainly will leave that for people to judge themselves. But we are looking at a brain condition and we shouldn’t feel bad if you’re struggling with this brain condition.

Dr. Kelley: You were talking about the spiritual connection and what the church says. How does someone know if it’s the Holy Spirit or OCD? Because I can see people getting that blurred.

Carrie: Absolutely. That’s probably one of the biggest questions that I get from Christian clients is how do I know if this thought that’s entering my head is something the Holy Spirit is telling me to do or wants me to question? Or is it something that’s OCD related? What I would say for that is you have to look at, based on the Bible, how is it that God speaks to us? We talk about the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, that even in the Old Testament when God said he was gonna speak to Moses and there was all this big stuff that happened.

There was a lot of thunder or lightning. I can’t remember all the things, but, and God was not in that. But then there was a still small voice, and that’s where God was. OCD tends to be very loud and obnoxious. You need to listen to me. You need to listen to me now, and you need to go do something and you have to do it right now, whereas when you learn to discern God’s voice comes from a place of love and kindness, there’s a verse that says, it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. If God is pointing out something, for example, that we need to confess, that’s a very gentle and loving way that he would do that. “Hey, you hurt that person’s feelings and you need to go to them and apologize.” And then from that conviction, if we did go and apologize, ask for forgiveness. We would expect to feel better. Whereas somebody that’s confessing because they have OCD, that’s not gonna make them feel better. So that’s kind of another indication. If you’re feeling, I think God wants me to pray more, but then you pray more and you don’t feel a sense of relief or you don’t feel that you’re following God still.

Then that’s an indication that might be OCD. If it’s loud, obnoxious, you gotta do it now it’s probably most likely OCD. If you’re in a quiet still moment with the Lord and you feel like he’s telling you something and there is a sense of belief when you do it, then that’s probably an indication that it’s God.

God doesn’t speak to us through OCD. God speaks to us through his spirit. I just wanna jump in here and say too, before, it sounds like I’m talking too much about trusting your feelings related to the Holy Spirit. You do have to make sure that what you believe you’re being told by the Holy Spirit is aligned with scripture and with things that God has clearly commanded us knowing that the Holy Spirit is not gonna ask you to do something in opposition to those things.

How Can We Help Students Who Have These Tendencies?

Dr. Kelley: One question I’ve had throughout the interview as an educator is, how can I help my students who have these tendencies? Because the student population I work with, we do have a lot of anxiety. I don’t have any diagnosed OCD at this time, but I’m definitely seeing some of these tendencies.

So what can I do as an educator to help my students succeed if I see these characteristic?

Carrie: Is your school kind of familiar with the growth mindset versus, I can’t remember what the other piece is?

Dr. Kelley: We’re very much a growth mindset campus.

Carrie: I think that is really helpful. Helping kids know that mistakes often are how we learn, especially when you’re young, it’s okay to make mistakes.

Normalizing that because there is some perfectionism that can come with anxiety and OCD. I think I’m a bit of a recovering perfectionist myself. I want things to be done right and I want it to be done right the first time. I can definitely empathize with that kid that asked for another piece of paper because they messed up on their drawing.

Maybe teaching them, it’s still gonna be a great drawing even if you don’t feel like it came out the way that you wanted it to. Or maybe limiting them. If they’re the kid that wants five pieces of paper, say, I’m only gonna give you two. That’s gonna be it. I’ll give you one extra piece of paper. Or that kid that doesn’t wanna start, maybe because they don’t think they can do it, or they don’t think it’s gonna be perfect.

Just really encouraging them like, “Hey, let’s just get started and see where this goes,” or sometimes you kind of, depending on the kid and what motivates them and those types of things, because sometimes kids with OCD can look more defiant than they actually are. They’re not intentionally trying to be defiant. They’re just really distressed internally. And so if you find a way to validate that, I think that’s important. I’ve noticed that it upsets you or that it really bothers you when you don’t feel like your paper is perfect, or I noticed that you don’t like touching the substance because it just feels too sticky.

Then that will help feel like, “Oh, okay, she gets it, and we have the assignment with the sticky substance. So how can we help you be able to work through this concern? Essentially what we’re trying to do, either with anxiety and OCD is not push people to the brink of panic. We’re trying to push people to the brink of discomfort because a lot of times what we do is when we start to feel discomfort as humans, we just back up and we go, no thank you.

Check out. I don’t wanna do that. That’s uncomfortable. I was working on something for the course and talking about physical therapy. One of the things that I learned going through physical therapy that they told me is that a tight muscle is a weak muscle. So if you’ve had a tight muscle in your body and you know what that feels like, you go, “I’m moving that, no thank you.

I don’t wanna stretch that out. I don’t want to, wait you’re asking me to lift my leg, but my leg hurts right now.” Well, your leg hurts because it’s weak. So can we do five repetitions with no weight to strengthen your leg? But if we put some weight on there and we expect you to lift 10 pounds, then you are gonna be in pain and it’s not gonna be good for you.

So maybe just the physical therapy analogy helps a little bit with kind of, and you have to be really good as the teacher or the parent or the spouse or whoever to know what’s gonna be a little bit of a push. And what’s gonna be, oh no, we’re now having like a full-blown panic attack.

Dr. Kelley: Excellent advice.

Carrie: Does that help?

Dr. Kelley: It really does especially the physical therapy analogy. And like you said too, just validating them saying, I see this. And even the way we say it makes a difference because I think over time in education, the way we talk to children has changed. Some of us are still stuck in that old mindset when we have to push forward into the new, to really better understand our kids now and what they are experiencing in their minds because we want them to be successful.

Carrie: Realistically, when you have 20 plus kids in a class and you just need to get it done, there are times where you don’t have all the time to sit down and maybe give the one-on-one attention and you just wanna say, just sit down, just do what I thought you didn’t do.

Dr. Kelley: We all definitely have those days, but there’s also those windows of opportunity where we can cause we want to see them all be successful.

Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Kelley has listened to our show before. She knows that at the end of every episode, we like to share a story of hope. Which is a time that you have received hope from God or another person. What do you have for us today?

Dr. Kelley: There’s so many to pick from, I have to say because if you sit down and think about all the ways that God touches your life every single day, that list should be miles long. But the ones coming to mind right now. Is it from work at work In December, we do Secret Santa, which is fun. We’re trying to run around and be sneaky and not find out who has our names.

And December is tough in the educational world. We’re tired. Anytime we get close to a break, we’re tired, we’re exhausted because the kids amp up and our energy is down. My secret Santa giving me perfect stuff and I was like, wow, this is really cool. But the end was what really got me. It turned out to be one of my friends, which I did not know.

But in her final gift when she revealed herself. She wrote the nicest note I think I’ve ever received, and talked about how much I love others and how much I give, and I was just floored. I took it home and I showed it to my husband and I said, this is not me. Why is she saying these things about me? Because I feel like my job is to pour into other people and give to other people all the time.

So it’s nice and very humbling when God gives you that moment of, but wait, you’re doing good things and people appreciate it, and I see you. And it was just one of those nice moments. I still have the cards sitting on my desk because it’s one of the things I like to do at school is write cards to people because we all need encouragement.

So it was just nice to receive that back and God just going, it’s okay. You’re good. You’re gonna make it till Christmas break, and I did. So something small, but still a reminder that he’s there and he uses us all the time to encourage each other.

Carrie: Yeah, that’s really cool because we have a hard time. We don’t have objectivity, right?

This is why people go to therapy because when you’re in the middle of your stuff, whatever your stuff is, a lot of times you can’t see the forest for the trees. So when you’re in the middle of stressful work situation, it’s nice for somebody else to say , okay, but this is my perspective of it and this is what I see you doing.

So that’s really nice that she was able to do that for you. Also because she was your friend. She knew what gifts to give you, so that made it easier for her.

Dr. Kelley: Yes. My pastor was talking about last Sunday, if your God lays it on your heart, if you think, oh, I should call this person, I should write this note. Just do it.

Don’t think about it. Just do it. And I feel like that was a great example and a great reminder of just be there for each other and show my love to everyone.

Carrie: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on our show and relieving Steve of having to be the fill-in person all the time. He doesn’t mind. I just figure people might get sick of hearing from Steve. I don’t know.

Dr. Kelley: What was great to be here. I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun and I learned a lot.

Carrie: If you are new to our show, I want you all to know where you can find us. Head over to Hope for anxiety and ocd.com. You can hit me up on the contact form if you have any show suggestions, guests you really want me to interview, or just wanna tell me what you think about the show and anything that we can improve on, or questions that you have about OCD that maybe we didn’t cover today, maybe I can stick those in the course for you, or we can have another episode sometime before too long. Thank you so much for listening everybody.

Christian Faith 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.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

86. How to Catch Your Teens Anxiety Before it Gets Out of Control with Gina Nelson, LCSW, CDW

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

In this episode, I’m joined by Gina Nelson,  a licensed clinical social worker and creator of Combating Teen Anxiety–her proven 10-step method to reduce anxiety in teens. She shares insights on recognizing and addressing teen anxiety before it spirals out of control. We explore how addressing anxiety early can lead to healthier coping mechanisms and improved overall well-being for young people.

Episode Highlights:

  • How Gina got involved in working with teens and parents
  • The difference in anxiety in children and adults
  • Common causes of anxiety in teens
  • How does social media contribute to anxiety and distress in teens
  • How perfectionism affects children and teens
  • Things that parents do that are not helpful for their teen’s mental health
  •  Signs that a teen may need professional help with their anxiety

Episode Summary:

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Gina Nelson, a licensed clinical social worker with over 22 years of experience. She specializes in working with anxiety and trauma, particularly among perfectionistic, high-achieving teens and adults.

During our conversation, Gina emphasizes the impact of parental anxiety on teens. Many of her clients come from high-achieving families, facing immense pressure to perform academically and athletically. This pressure often leads to a cycle of shame and anxiety, where teens feel they must meet unrealistic expectations. Social media compounds these feelings, as teens grapple with constant comparisons and the fear of rejection, exacerbating their mental health struggles.

Gina advocates for a family systems approach, recognizing that anxious parents can create anxious environments for their children. She aims to help teens address their feelings early on, preventing them from carrying these burdens into adulthood. By fostering open communication and emotional awareness, she seeks to change the trajectory of her young clients’ lives.

Tune in to hear more about Gina’s insights on anxiety in teens and practical strategies to support them. Let’s dive into the interview!

Related resources:

www.combatingteenanxiety.com

Explore Related Episodes:

57. Parenting A Teen in Crisis with Aaron Huey

Transcript

Carrie: Hope for Anxiety and OCD, episode 86. I’m your host, Carrie Bock. This month’s episodes are about anxiety, and next months are gonna be about OCD. So today on the show we have an interview with Gina Nelson on how to catch your teen’s anxiety before it gets out of control. Before we get into the interview, we want to give away a t-shirt. Drum roll please!

We give away t-shirts randomly to our email subscribers. Today’s winner is number 40, and that happens to be Sasha. So it doesn’t look like Sasha has been opening our emails, but hopefully when we email her personally and remind her that she’s on the email list and see what size T-shirt she wants, hopefully our emails will be capturing her attention a little bit more.

We’ll see. So Sasha, you have won a Hope for Anxiety, and OCD T-shirt. This is not a scam. It’s for real.

All right, let’s dive into the interview now.

Gina Nelson’s Background and Areas of Expertise

Carrie: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Gina: Gina Nelson. I’ve been a licensed clinical social worker for 22 years now and practicing both California and in Idaho, native to California, and I’m certified in EMDR.

So I do a lot of work with anxiety and kind of some trauma work with people. And probably the majority of my practice is actually perfectionistic high achievement-driven adults and teens. And I’m also certified in the Daring Way, which is Brene Brown’s curriculum for the Daring Way which it’s all about shame, resilience, and working with parents and teens or adults and teens just on how to manage shame and deal with vulnerability and how that comes out in anxiety.

Discussion on Anxiety and Perfectionism

Carrie: Yes. There’s a lot of perfectionists out there.

Gina: Yes. I like to call myself a recovering one, but it’s one of those things I have to work on, on a regular basis as well and be mindful of.

Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. Tell us how you got involved in working with teens and parents.

Gina: Sure. I told you, I’m gonna give you my cliff version of it, but essentially, I mean, I was an anxious teen.

I grew up in a house with a mom who was pretty anxious, although the word anxiety was never used. And she was really good at kind of masking her perfectionism and things with alcohol, which was kind of her version of how to tame it because the idea of mental health wasn’t an acceptable topic in our house, and it was more probably of a shame trigger now looking back to even identify anxiety as a problem, if you will.

Carrie: Right.

Gina: And so I didn’t really know how to cope with that. And in fact, there was so much going on just in my own house and my own perfectionism and achievement-driven characteristics in school that actually about my sophomore year, I lost a chunk of hair in the back of my head, it was larger than a silver dollar and I kind of became this kind of like identified like, what’s wrong with you?

How come you can’t manage things? I kind of took on that sense of, wow, what’s wrong? And so, you know, it wasn’t until like my college years when I got out of that home and I started thinking, okay, I’m gonna manage this anxiety in a different way. And like many of my clients today, I became kind of more the perfectionistic, task-driven achievement goal seeker who just kept, I managed that anxiety in that way.

And when I worked as a social worker initially, the first 20 years I spent in hospitals working in trauma ICU with medical crisis, that my own anxiety in those settings was completely like it disappear. I used to call myself the calm in the storm, and I thought, this is so strange. Like I can sit around all this chaos and trauma and be with people when people are dying in a code.

And I didn’t have anxiety in that. I was calm, but in my own home life, that wasn’t necessarily the case. And so it was starting to show up in that kind of frenetic energy that I remembered as a kid. And I thought, oh, this is not what I want from my kids. And I had to recognize that I had to start doing something to manage my own anxiety because it was kind of being reflected on their behaviors and within the home.

How Gina Got Involved in Working with Teens and Parents

And quite frankly, I think we all tried to swing the pendulum a different way from some of the stuff in our parent world. So I thought, okay, I’m not gonna be like this anxious person, but in turn, I actually had my own anxiety and I just was managing it differently. When I got certified in Brene’s work in 2017 and really, you know, had first read her work in 2013 with Darren Greatly, it really was the first time the word shame and the recognition of how I managed anxiety was normalized by somebody like me.

So it was, that was kind of the beginning of this journey. And so I thought when I opened my practice in 2017 and was pulling away from more than medical and doing more practice, of course, attracted people that were like me, right? I attracted a lot of corporate professionals and people who were trying to manage their anxiety or thought they were managing their anxiety until they couldn’t, and they also got teens that were in that same scenario.

And when I started working with the teens. There was just such this aha of,” “Oh my gosh!” These adults who are in their forties and fifties are now coming to terms with it. What if we could catch these teens in their high school years or their middle school years when all the shame stuff is happening and all these issues?

And so it kind of was this, sense of these kids were coming from perfectionistic parents. A lot of ’em were, at least the ones in my practice were high achievement kids. And they had a lot of pressure on themselves. And so with that, I thought, okay, I’m gonna be working with them and with these adults, and we’re gonna see if we can kind of really change the trajectory of these teens course so that they don’t end up in their forties and fifties going, oh my gosh, I’ve spent all these years of my life trying to manage this anxiety and I’m not living in peace or accessing that real calm.

Carrie: Working from the family system approach, like you’re talking about with working from the parent side and the teen side is so helpful because you near round someone that’s anxious, you’re more likely to be anxious yourself. It’s like that energy is already in the room.

Gina: I call it that frenetic energy, right? That everybody is trying to balance that whoever that phonetically anxious person is and however that manifest for them, whether it’s anger or you know, screaming or just control whatever it is, everybody else in the environment is trying to adapt to that.

Similarities and Differences in Anxiety between Teens and Adults

Carrie: How does anxiety look similar and different in terms of, because a lot of times when we’re talking about mental health disorders, it’ll look different in kids and teens than it does in adults.

So what have you seen as far as how it usually presents in teenagers versus adults? I mean, I’m sure there’s some overlap in similarity, but some differences.

Gina: Yes. I mean, obviously, the similarities are that, from my perspective, not dealing with shame and not acknowledging kind of the shame that’s behind some of the emotions that lead to the thoughts and the perception of what’s happening in the environment is really kind of the cause for both teens and adults that everybody’s trying to run from the feelings they don’t wanna sit with them.

And the commonality I see with both teens and adults is just that they don’t know how to access that kind of parasympathetic or ventral vagal, if you will, in my polyvagal theory work. It’s just that sense of relaxation and sitting with the emotions. For the teens, of course, there’s a couple different things.

There’s the manifestation of what they’re seeing in their home with their parents. There’s a lot of high expectations that the teens that I’m seeing now, most of them are coming from parents who are highly successful, very busy, have them in an extraordinary amount of stimulation with all of the external extracurriculars, I should say, activities.

And so there’s so much pressure to perform, whether it’s athletic or it’s coming from the academic side. And so the kids are not talking about their feelings and there’s this kind of expectation, hi, you know, mom and dad are doing great. Look it. They do all of these things. They never sit. A lot of my teens will say, mom and dad never rest.

The Impact of Social Media on Teen Anxiety

They’re always busy. They’re always buzzing around doing something, and that’s what it looks like to be successful. So they’re taking on some of that same kind of energy, and then the other thing, of course, with teens right now, obviously, there’s such a different environment with access to social media and what’s out there.

I think everybody really wants to belong and to connect. But for teens right now, that sense of connection and belonging is such a struggle, and covid, just exacerbated that for so many of them when they were more isolated and alone. Working with my teens, a lot of ’em will say things like Snapchat is a real problem for them because they might say, maybe invite a friend to go do something, and their friend says no, or they get rejected, and then they’ll see, they’ll track them because I guess you know, they can track on these apps and so then they’ll say, oh, their friend actually was with these other friends.

Then the story that they make up is, I’m being rejected. They don’t like me. There’s something wrong with me. And so it just kind of is festering in that space. So I think there’s a lot of that extra stimulation and exposure for kids. And I guess the other thing that I do see, it’s not the most common, but it’s certainly something I’ve seen quite a bit, is that parents who haven’t dealt with their own shame, If their teen becomes anxious or their teen actually gets vulnerable enough or brave enough to actually express what’s happening.

If a parent turns that and becomes more the victim in that and says things like, oh, I know I’m just a horrible parent, or I can’t do anything right for you, and then they become more of the identified patient, if you will, in the family, then the team now feels like I can’t express myself. Beacause now I’ve gotta take care of mom, or now I’ve gotta take care of dad because they can’t handle what I’m saying.

Carrie: A bit about the social media. You said you talked about being able to see what. Your friends are doing at different points or pictures being posted online or on Snapchat that wasn’t going on. When you and I were a teenager, we didn’t know what our friends were doing.

They could probably lie to us, and unless somebody else told us and ratted them out, we wouldn’t have known. But now also there’s this heavy sense of comparison that social media brings up like, oh, look at that person in my class that maybe has more than me or that person that’s, they’re more successful, they’re doing better in school, whatever the case is.

How do you see those types of things play out in terms of causing a lot of like worry and distress?

Gina: I would say they’re probably the top issue that I see with teens. I mean, we can talk about family stuff, but what’s happening in their current environment, in that social environment is their biggest pressure right now.

Yes, they are. That comparison that the not good enough is such a big piece, but it goes even deeper. I tell it’s like the onion, right? I mean, you understand that with emdr, but it’s like not good enough is here and then underneath that is I’m stupid, or I’m this, or I’m all bad or nobody likes me. I’m bad.

It just gets deeper. Something’s wrong with me. And so once they, a lot of these teens, they don’t know how to connect with their bodies. They don’t like when they say they’re anxious, I say, where do you feel that? And they can’t, A lot of ’em can’t even connect to that until we really do some body work to acknowledge that.

The sense of, don’t even know what’s going on in their body. They just use this term anxiety cuz it’s kind of the buzzword. Then with that, the thoughts just get really loud and they get to a place where they get so overwhelmed that they can’t even function. And so for some of those teens, you know now, now they’re at this space where they’re withdrawing.

The thoughts are getting really bad. I don’t fit in. I’m not good enough. I’m not this, I’m not that. And they just get stuck in this negative feedback loop. And so the social media just amplifies that depending on where they are and what story they tell themselves about what their friends really think, and the ability to go back and actually have a conversation with their friends is really hard.

Even as I’m teaching them some of these skills, that doesn’t mean the people that they’re trying to implement those skills with have any ability to hold space for that. I think that they practice skills and come out and try to be vulnerable with their friends and it doesn’t go well, or at least their perception is that their friends think they’re even more different or they’re needy or there’s something else happening, and so that just causes them to be less able to express themselves or less wanting, I guess, to really express themselves.

High Achieving Families and Running from Anxiety

Carrie: That makes a lot of sense. And I think what you’re talking about in terms of these high achieving families, where the parents are very successful and they’re very driven in their careers, and then there’s this expectation that the kids will be successful, that they’ll be taking the advanced placement classes, which require a lot more work, and then they’re involved in a sport which meets several nights a week for practice, and you have games on the weekends.

There’s not a lot. Margin in people’s lives if you’re constantly like going, going, going. And in a sense, that’s also like a way to run from the anxiety, right?

Gina: Absolutely. Again, that’s a learned behavior most likely by how the parents are managing their own anxiety. Stay busy, so I don’t have to sit again.

That is one of the things that I noticed the most is. All of my anxious clients really have a hard time sitting with relaxation, and so when even try to teach some basic things like deep breathing or connection to that parasympathetic, it’s so foreign and it’s so uncomfortable, and so they manage it by doing these other things.

In the work I do end daring way, we have this term of superpower versus kryptonite, and I like that analogy because I think for a lot of anxious people, especially the parents of my anxious teens, they might not be having panic attacks. They might not be having some of the classic symptoms that people might caught or they might not be having some of the, the same symptoms that people who are really struggling with anxiety have, so they don’t see anxiety as necessary. They kinda see anxiety as a motivator, I guess, is kind of what I hear from them. And so they see it as a little anxiety, just keeps me being successful.

It kind of becomes my superpower that I can do all these things. I can manage everything and I can be like the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect employee, all of those things. And if they get validation from that, it just kind of reinforces that bar of, okay, what’s next? But the kryptonite part of it is what’s the impact of that?

What’s the impact of managing and thinking that you’ve got it all together and managing all those things when you can’t rest, when your nervous system stays in that fight and flight all the time, and those around you are experiencing that frenetic energy. So learning to be able to go, okay, how is this useful for me?

And then what’s the kryptonite? What’s the part that I need to be watchful or mindful of so that I can recognize it’s not all good? And some of it also causes problems in my social life or how I perceive myself in relation to other people.

Strategies for Managing Teen Anxiety

Carrie: Yeah, sometimes we call those survival skills. Those things that helped us get through difficult situations, helped us survive.

They also can cause problems at the same time in our life, or like you had talked about before, the things that you used to do that worked. Now all of a sudden they don’t work. I think that this is really helpful in terms of talking about clients who have been through complex trauma. A lot of times those are clients that I end up seeing.

It doesn’t feel safe to relax, so then when you try to get to that like relaxed state, this part of self comes up. That’s like uhoh danger, danger, like this is not okay. So it takes time to really be able to work through, through some of those things. Let’s talk about, I know that you see parents that really love their children that wanna help their children, and so what are some things that the parents do that are really well-meaning and good intention, but they just aren’t necessarily helpful for their teen that’s struggling with anxiety?

Gina: I think we live in a kind of fix it society, and so I think for a lot of parents, they just want to give them the how to like do this, do that. Just go be more social when they’ve got social anxiety. You just need to be exposed to more social settings and you’ll get more comfortable. What the parents are missing is just being able to sit with the emotion with the kids and like talk about where do they feel this, and what are they experiencing.

What are the thoughts that are coming up in this moment, and can we just sit there and just support them versus trying to fix it. And again, I think parents, we all want to help our kids, but it’s that sense of we have to help them by modeling how to sit with it. And so parents who can’t sit with their own discomfort or can’t even tolerate their teen’s anxiety are gonna be.

Struggling more to be able to sit and model that behavior for them of what does relaxation look like? What does it mean to look at something other than just achievement or productivity as your measure of success? What are some of those other things that we need to bring in to calm our nervous system?

Carrie: What are some signs that a teen may need professional help with their anxiety?

Gina: I think it’s showing up in a lot of different ways, but certainly the negative self-talk, if teens are really judgemental of themselves, if their parents are noticing that they put so much pressure on themselves to perform and to achieve, like for instance, I’ll work with teens if they don’t get a hundred per cent.

Then that’s not good enough. They could get 98, but it’s still not good enough and they beat themselves up and they use shame language like, “I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I made that mistake.” Those are kids that I would be more cautious about just from that kind of high perfectionistic side, but certainly, the social withdrawal kids that have decided that they’re not good enough or they don’t fit in, and the depression side is kind of coming in with those real negative thoughts.

They’re withdrawing and they’re not engaging or they’re not feeling invited or connected. And I think parents really need to be mindful of some of that. There is separation in teens where they don’t wanna be around the family, but we also have to pay attention to what are they looking at? What are their thoughts? What are the emotions?

Addressing Stigma and Seeking Help for Teen Anxiety

Because if they’re really bad, negative thoughts, you know, we wanna be paying attention to suicidality and we wanna, what is it that, what, how dark is it for them? And what are those thoughts so that parents are actually being able to connect more and go, okay, this is not your typical anxiety. This is something that we need some additional help with. Or maybe it’s not so significant, but the parent recognizes they can’t offer their team what their teen needs and their teen just needs a safe place to talk about whatever’s happening, even if it’s what’s happening in the home. So if your teen is expressing, I want some help, or they’re trying to be vulnerable and expressing these things, I think that parents need to be mindful of all of that, that sometimes their own shame triggers get in the way of, oh gosh, you know, we don’t have mental health in our family, or there’s religious or cultural dynamics that play a role that says we don’t talk about anxiety, everybody just suck it up and handle it. I want parents to be more mindful of some of these signs and be able to help their teen just kind of talk about it a little bit more or write about it. And that’s where kind of this communication journal will, I hope be effective for parents and teens so that even if you can’t verbally sit in front of each other and talk, it’s a cute version for them to be able to have some prompts and actually.

Talk about where they feel things in their body and what is upsetting them so that parents can have a better understanding of what’s happening.

Carrie: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.

Gina: Well, one of the things that I noticed so much with teens is that they really struggle to articulate how they feel or what’s happening, and I think in today’s world, the buzzword anxiety is like the safe word to say.

Everybody’s got anxiety. Okay, what does that mean? Where do you feel that in your body? What does that look like? What are the symptoms? How do you stop it? How do you learn to control it? For a lot of teens, just the bodywork of understanding what that actually feels like. And being able to label it as something other than anxiety can be helpful because maybe it’s, they’re saying I’m anxious, but really there’s some grief.

They’re disappointed or they’re expressing it as anger, but it’s really something deeper underneath that, like the grief or disappointment that they can’t really articulate. So the goal of the journal is that it gives some prompts and it lets the teen with things like “I” message and proper communication identify from a body chart where they feel that in their body.

Why is that important? What are the thoughts or the story that they’re making up as a result of these feelings? Then they can communicate that to a parent. And then the parent gets the kind of the same props on the other side of the journal, and they can respond back and say, I feel this way, and I feel it in my body too.

And the parents are learning to communicate the same way as the teen, but it’s a safer way, I think, for the teens to really express more of what’s going on for them and to help the parents get a better grasp. Without just saying I’m anxious, I’m anxious. I don’t know about you, but a lot of my teens will say I’m anxious.

And tell me about that. I don’t know. I’m anxious. I don’t know. Those are like the two.

Carrie: Goes together. That’s interesting. Like what you’re talking about, about anxiety is a buzzword and it’s almost like it’s been accepted as normal and Okay. And like, yes, of course, we talk on the show about reducing shame.

And yes, it’s okay to struggle with things, but what I’m saying is we shouldn’t be running around with chickens with our heads cut off all over the place. Like that in a sense is not healthy for us like we were meant to rest. We were meant to be able to pause and take breaks and have margin in our lives to not be constantly on the go.

And so because we’ve normalized that piece. It’s almost like we’ve normalized the anxiety that comes with that rushing around piece.

Gina: Absolutely. In fact, some of my teens will even tell me, they look at their parents and their parents’ careers and how hard they work and they’re like, I don’t want any part of that.

Like what they do. I don’t want any part of that because that doesn’t look like joy. That doesn’t look like fun. I don’t know. We’ll see a big shift with, certainly the millennials have taught us something different about work-life balance and they’re looking for something different. My generation for sure was with the corporate scene.

Carrie: Tell us about how people can find and get in touch with you.

Gina: Yeah, so on Facebook, I’m at Authentic Gains, just altogether a lowercase. And then on Instagram, it’s at Authentic underscore gains. Boy, that’s my business name. And then again, one of the best ways for parents are really just looking for some really fast tools that can help them.

I wanna give a free gift of this mini course that I have out there, and so parents can go to www.combatingteenanxiety.com, and by going to that website, it’ll take them to a prompt that will start to feed in the different modules for the free minicourse, for them to get some tools.

Gina Nelson’s Story of Hope

Carrie: Okay, great. At the end of every podcast, I like to ask our guests to share the Story of Hope, which is a time in which you received hope from God or another person.

Gina: Great question. This probably relates more to my anxiety as a parent, but one of the things that I recognized, we try to control as much as we can of our kids, and at some point we recognize that they grow up and we don’t have control over their lives anymore. Two weeks before my son’s 18th birthday, he had been toying with the idea that he wanted to join the army, which was not my expectation for him.

I had a plan for him to go play lacrosse and go to college and all of those. And I came home from work and there was a sergeant in his full attire in my kitchen having a conversation with my husband, myself, about my son’s desire to go into the Army. Anyway, it was really a rough conversation and after a bunch of ma’am and the sergeant turned to me and says, ma’am, he said, There’s two ways we can do this.

He said, you and your husband can sign him in tonight while he’s 17 or in two weeks, he’s gonna come back and sign himself in. And either way, he’s joining the army. And it was just this like, oh wow, I don’t have control over this and there’s nothing I can do. And I just remember being a woman of faith, I was just like, okay, God.

Like help me through this conversation. Like give me some strength. And I just remember looking at my son and still get emotional. He’s 24 now, but I just remember looking at him and saying, if you can shake this man’s hand and look him straight in the eyes and tell him you wanna be a member of the US Army. So I have got to deal with my anxiety to get rid of that and my fear of what might happen to you. And that just became kind of a God journey because within a few weeks of me just wrestling with that going, Ugh, I don’t like any part of this. And everybody of course loved it. They’re like, oh, he is going into the military. Congratulations. Thank you for his service. And I’m thinking, no, I’ve worked with vets.

I know the other side of this and I’m scared to death. And so I really just one day at church just kind of put my hands up and said, God, I can’t hold this anymore. You’ve gotta take this away from me. And it was like this rush of just peace and relaxation and I got behind him and three and a half years later, he was unscathed, untouched, never saw any combat, and is now on the GI Bill finishing a construction management degree.

Carrie: Great. That’s awesome.

Gina: God had to hold me through that.

Carrie: Yeah, that’s amazing. And how rare that kids that young nowadays know what they want to do it sounds like he was set on that path.

Gina: It was. But that’s, I think that moment, and so when I work with parents now, even the empty nest and watching their teens make choices or things that maybe weren’t their expectation, it’s really a matter of, Hey parents, you gotta do your work too.

Oh, we have to learn how to grieve our expectations to be able to allow them to fly and to individuate and do those things on their own.

Carrie: Yeah. Accepting things that are outside of your control is such a big piece in anxiety. Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that story with us and we’ll put the links, to your information in the show notes for people and where they can find the mini-course and the journal.

Gina: Yeah, very excited. Thank you so much for having me. I love the work that you’re doing and getting the message out there about anxiety for everybody, whether they’re parents or teens, or just people struggling.

Carrie: If you know a teen who is struggling with anxiety, I hope that this interview and the information shared was helpful to you to receive ongoing, supportive encouragement and updates about our show. You can always follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Hope for Anxiety and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. Our show is hosted by me, Carrie Bock, a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect of using myself or By the Well Counseling.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.