Episode 14: Family Dynamics and OCD - A Thoughtful Conversation with Natasha Daniels

Episode 14:

Today we are talking with Natasha Daniels, therapist and advocate and educator for parents who have kids with OCD / anxiety. Natasha is a parent of kids living with disorders and she also lives with anxiety. Today we have a discussion that ranges from the emotional journey for the parents and obstacles they deal with, to attachment styles and how it can sometimes be difficult to understand each other's roles because often both the parents AND the child are suffering - and both silently because of shame and guilt. 

This is a very thoughtful and insightful conversation as always with Natasha! She is such a valuable resource for our community and is amazing at helping parents feel heard and seen in their struggle to try to do the best for their kids. 

To find out more about Natasha - find her on TikTok and Instagram at @childocdtherapist 

If you are in need of a community of people who can help you feel more accepted, less alone, and more connected to people who understand, please check out my online community for weekly support, monthly classes and events at https://the-ocd-support-community.co.mn

If this podcast inspires, supports, and gives you hope and you'd like to support us monthly or sponsor us, please visit our patreon page and become a member. Your contribution will help us continue the podcast and help us provide even more resources for our community! https://www.patreon.com/intrusivethoughtsunmasked

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Intrusive Thoughts Unmasked, the podcast where we explore what it's really like to live with intrusions, the emotional landscape that comes from them, and the common experiences so many of us share. I'm Chrissy Hodges, and I created this podcast to bring lived experience into the light for those navigating intrusions and mental rituals with OCD. My hope is that here you can finally take off the mask we so often wear to hide this disorder. I want you to feel seen, understood, and accepted exactly as you are. Welcome to episode 14. In today's episode, we talked to Natasha Daniels. Natasha Daniels is a licensed therapist and she also runs an online community and has many resources out there for parents with kids and teens with anxiety. You can find her work at AT Parenting Survival on YouTube and all over social media, including TikTok and Instagram where she has hilarious reels. I love watching them. Natasha is one of my favorite people. She's one of my best friends, and she's also been such a wonderful mentor to me in my career and especially the community I've built for individuals with OCD. We have so many great conversations because we definitely come to this topic with two different viewpoints. She is a mom with kids with anxiety and OCD, and she also has anxiety. I'm someone with OCD that had an upbringing that was not great when it comes to parents. I always love our conversations. I learned so much from her, and I love this conversation that we had today and the way it turned out. I hope you enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Um I am a child anxiety no CD therapist, and I'm the mom to three kids with those struggles, and I have a podcast. I provide global resources for parents, so and and parents of kids of any age, even adult kids, to help them support their loved one.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

So Natasha is one of my good friends and also kind of a mentor to me. Uh, we definitely have two different niche niches when it comes to support. You have this unique opportunity to hear the struggles that parents and families have when it comes to OCD. And then I have my own perspective of living with OCD and not having a lot of support from parents. I'm always very overwhelmed and surprised, and um, it's almost emotional when I see that parents really do care about their kids. So when we have talked about this before, I have this actual block of wow, parents really care.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

No, and I think I feel like we we help each other with that because you give me a perspective that I don't think I would have either. You know, that one, not every family is supportive, and I'm starting to see that in social media as like more people are watching my reels who are sufferers versus parents, getting a lot of comments of like, I wish my I wish my parents were like this, or I wish my parents cared enough to I'm sorry, I knew she was gonna start working. She's like we're gonna package delivered. Can you hear her? She's like, I hear that girl's voice. Comes to my house and tortures me. She's like, she tribes to dominate me. It's been eye-opening for me too, because I feel like I work with very loving, supportive parents who are trying their best. Like that's my world. I didn't have that growing up, you know, with my own anxiety. I didn't have, I think I had similar parents to you. Like my parents were abusive and not supportive. But it is interesting to look at it from two different perspectives and two different lenses.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

I think that this kind of started for me when we were talking about what your community must be like. And in my mind, I thought there's no way in this world I would ever want to work with parents because all the parents are gonna do is be in there complaining about their kids and how awful their kids are, yada yada yada. And you were like, What? That is not the deal. And and so you explaining some of the struggles that parents go through, you know, I definitely think it would be beneficial for listeners to hear.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, and I think it depends on the parent. I mean, I have a lot of parents in my community, and it's global, right? So a lot of them are in Australia or in the UK, and they don't have access to care, and their kids or adult children are literally like trapped in a bedroom. And, you know, some refuse to take medication and they're aggressive, and when the parents don't feed the OCD, you know, the the whole family is hijacked and are threatened, you know, by the violence or by the dysregulation. And the parents love their kids and they don't know what to do. You know, they're not gonna call law enforcement, you know, and so they're kind of trapped. But that's the extreme in my community, is parents who are just really hijacked. Overall, I think parents don't know how to help. There's like lots of different issues. One, they don't know how to find proper help, they have to understand OCD in order to find a provider that understands OCD because you don't know what you don't know. I was actually just talking to a friend about my son like not being in a program anymore and how it didn't work out, and she's like, You're so lucky that you know what to look for. She's like, Imagine a parent who didn't know what you know, how much longer would he have been in that program without the awareness? And so that's what I really try to do is help parents understand one, that OCD has many flavors, OCD needs specific treatment, and then their role in it, like they have to understand how to help someone and support them. There's just so many layers. How to support them without enabling OCD, but then how to not pull back too quickly where they're dysregulating the person and putting them in a dangerous situation, and how to pace themselves. Because I think sometimes parents own the struggle so much that they don't realize that this is a separate human being. If they're not ready, you can't force someone to be ready, and so you have to do things differently to meet them where they're at at that time. And for some parents, one, they feel guilty, like if I'm not doing enough, then I'm a bad parent. Two, they totally own it and they're like, I caused this, this is my fault. And three, I think the grief of my life isn't what I had thought it would be, which I a hundred percent get with my own struggles and my own kids, that it impacts your your life, and and there's not really a space to mourn that either. That must cause them some shame as well. Yeah, and they as a parent, you get shame everywhere. You get shame from relatives, you get shame from providers, professional, like doctors, you know, your pediatrician, and you get shame from the therapist, you can get shame, a lot of shame and pressure from the school. So there is a lot of pressure. And then, like, even on social media, when I post things about the parent and you know, the struggles of being a parent, there's comments on there of how they don't have a right to suffer because their child is suffering. And it's not about them, it's about their child, and they need to grow up. Like, I mean, there's some nasty comments where I'm like, they're having their own journey too, and it is really hard to love someone and watch them struggle and not be able to help them a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

How hard is it for parents to really understand the struggle of OCD?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

It depends on the parent. The apple does not fall far from the genetic tree, and so sometimes they have their own OCD issues, and so they get it. Some of them get it too much, where they over-identify. I've had clients like this in my practice where they over-identify to the point where they're uncomfortable with their child doing exposures because they're they're so stuck in their OCD that they're like, why would you do that? That's not safe, you know, or like, you know, and so that becomes an issue when they over-identify. But then you have parents on the other end of the continuum who don't get it at all. And so you've got parents who are like, more often dads, not to throw dads under the bus, but I'm just gonna call it how it is. A lot of times, disproportionately, it can be the male partner, a lot of times not. More often than not, if you're gonna have a struggle where it's like tough love, stop coddling them, we can punish this out of them, you know, we're causing this by enabling it, which I mean that there is a component of that, but just kind of a discipline issue, and so that becomes a problem where they don't get it. Um, and then you have other parents who don't understand OCD, and so they're trying to rationalize with their child. Well, I don't I don't understand. I told him that the food was cooked, so I don't know why he had to throw it away, or I don't understand why he has to shower for that long. I told him, you know, and so you're like you're talking to a disorder. Like it's not rational. You can't problem solve your way out. And so there's all different types of parents with different understanding. You can move the dial for some parents who some parents have really good intention, but they just need the right tools and education. And those are the parents that I love. Because they come into my community, I'm like, I can you want to understand, you don't get it, but I can teach you, and then you can become a much better parent and coach to your child.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

And you have a mix of all these types of parents in your community.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yes. Now, the the disciplinarian one doesn't stay long if they're in the community. A lot of times they are a partner of somebody in my community. Sometimes they might pop in and want to talk to me directly. And that's always fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So I have a question for you. We know that OCD is biological. You know where I'm going with this. At what point do you think that nurture does play a role in individuals experiencing OCD or maybe their themes or content? Or do you think it it all plays a role?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Well, I did see, and I wish I could have grabbed the research, but it was the it might have been a meta study. I don't know if you saw this. I saw this this past week. There's a doctor, and I don't even know her, on social media, and she was posting this reel of like, see, I told you, and it kind of bothered me because her her message was child abuse and child neglect causes OCD. That is what she was saying. And I was like, What are you saying? And then I looked into what she was talking about, and there was a correlation, not a causation, which is a very big difference. And what she was saying is, I think it was in a meta study that showed that a disproportionate amount of people with OCD have a history of child abuse and child neglect. They have certain themes attached, which I thought was interesting, related to harm OCD, intrusive taboo, intrusive thoughts. That all makes sense to me. However, I think it's still you've got that genetic predisposition to OCD, or I also think that you can have environmental factors, you know, like inflammation that impacts the same part of the brain that could possibly cause OCD. And then you have a trigger point. And of course, trauma is gonna be a trigger point, and child abuse and neglect is gonna be a trigger point because it's drama. Right. And then the theme of you know, OCD is so opportunistic, and so it's like this is like ripe for me to really bug you about this, and so that makes sense to me as well. But not everybody who's had child abuse or child neglect has OCD. I have had child neglect. I don't know if I'd really call it abuse. It was like 70s discipline. When I tell my kids they're like, no, that's abuse, mom. My mom would be like, Come here, come here. And I'd be like, No, you're gonna hit me. She's like, I'm not gonna hit you, come here. And then she'd like, she hit me. I guess that's maybe physical abuse. I have no idea. It's like 70s discipline, but that's called physical abuse. Yeah, yeah. But I did not develop OCD. I mean, I developed intense anxiety. Um, and I've worked with um, you know, it in my past life, I worked in child foster care, and my predominant work was working with severely abused children, and not all of them had OCD. In fact, most of them did not have OCD. And so I don't think you can say there's a causation, definitely a correlation. You and I have had the discussion around attachment. Yes, my favorite topic. I should be an attachment therapist because I love attachment.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I know, but I do think, especially after talking to you about a lot of this stuff, reconciling my own resentment that I did not have parents that were nurturing, that were that were the parents that were, would, would have been excited to join your community and find more resources to help me, you know, kind of reconciling all that, kind of looking from a parental standpoint of how hard it would be to find out that perhaps attachment has something to do with the development of OCD symptoms if they already were already predisposed, or that the nurture piece had something to do, what that would feel like, the shame that that would cause.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

You know, and I think sadly for a lot of parents who maybe, you know, were abusive or neglectful, sometimes they don't ever have the insight. Like I don't think my mom would my mom died early, like at 59, but I I think she would have gone to her grave, even if she died at 90, kicking and screaming that it was everybody else's fault. You know, I don't think there would have ever I don't know if deep down there was awareness, and that's where the defensiveness came in. But I do think there are people who have maybe personality disorders or their own mental health struggles or their own addiction issues, and they're never gonna see it, or they're never gonna outwardly admit that they see it. And then you have other parents, ironically, who are ridden with guilt and they're doing the best they can, and there's nothing more they can do. You know, I feel like there's just this level of burden that the other parent puts on. And I think as a sufferer and you grow up and you start to see that there are other parents that that do care, that has gotta hurt. I mean, I know I had my awareness of, and I'm sure you did too, of like, I had no idea that's what normal parenting is. Now I think about things that my parents did to me or said to me, and I could never even imagine saying or doing those things to my kids. Would their anxiety and OCD be far worse? I often think that. I think, oh my gosh, if my kids got the parents that I had, or the parents that you had, where would they be right now? They'd probably be either dead, honestly. I think that my son would probably be dead if he didn't have a compassionate parent like me, or institutionalized. And not because I did it, because if I'm a terrible parent, you know, it'd be like society was like, they need help, we're gonna who knows. So I do think that parenting plays a role and attachment plays a role in exacerbating something that's already a very, very hard disorder. Because you have to have the patience of a saint as a parent to raise a child with mental health issues.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

It's interesting because I think because this isn't talked about enough, I'm not talking about the parents that are caring and loving and and are there really looking for resources, but I do think it's a lot of the people that I have and that I work with who maybe go to therapy and resolve symptoms, resolve symptoms, but are still struggling past maybe the grief of OCD or whatever. There is a lot of childhood stuff that's unresolved that did go hand in hand with the OCD. And I think that's so hard for people with OCD to see because a lot of us are fawners and we're people pleasers, and it it feels wrong to look at what what may have happened to them from their parents because they're supposed to love their parents and their parents, and we feel like such a burden on our parents. I'm such a burden because of what I put my family through when in reality, when I finally saw it in my 40s, I was like, oh my God, this was so much worse because of my my parents in my childhood. Um, and reconciling that has been the biggest piece of healing in my life, but look how long it took.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, well, and probably because you know, you're gaslit your entire childhood, and so you don't know that you're not a horrible person, that you're not a burden, and that you are enough. I think you only know what you know in childhood, and and that is your norm. You have nothing to compare it to. You might go to your friend's house and be like, oh my gosh, you have the nicest parents. Like they fed you and you like they tucked you in. I mean, I remember having that awareness of like, wow, like your mom made breakfast in the morning. Like, I had a friend and like her mom like put out boxes of cereal and bowls in the morning at night, like prepared it. And I remember saying to my friend, she goes, Oh, I'm so sorry, my mom doesn't make breakfast on Saturdays. She like sleeps in. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, she made us breakfast. Like the bowls are out and the cereal is out. Because to me, that wasn't like I didn't know that that parents took care of meals on any level. I think that no wonder why you're in your 40s and you're like, oh wait, I'm not a bad person. They should have responded in this way. I think it speeds up a little bit when you become a parent yourself, because there is this epiphany of like you're in the middle of doing something, and then you're like, wait, I was that age when this happened, and I would never do that to my kid. I feel like I just had a conversation with with Alex about that, my daughter yesterday. We were talking about what's normal. I think we were talking about you for some reason. Because I was like, just listen to your memoir again. And I was saying something about like, oh my gosh, your parents, man. I think I was like venting, and she's like, she's like, Mom, your parents were bad too. You know, and I was like, well, they weren't as bad, you know, and she's like, and then she was pointing out different things. And I think when you're so close to it, it's hard to like reconcile that that isn't normal. Because on some level, I think then you have to deal with the shame of like you weren't enough for your parents, you know, for them to rise to the occasion and love you the way that a parent should love you unconditionally no matter what. And that that's kind of wrapped into the disorder, I think. It's baked into anxiety and OCD of like this shame and this guilt, and I'm a burden, and I'm not enough. And then when you have parents who double down and they like they reiterate that message, either literally in their in how they speak to you, or by their actions, because they don't care enough to get you right treatment, or like my mom and dad like would forget to pick me up from school. And so it was like a very blatant, we don't remember you on a daily basis. That's hard. That's hard to reconcile as an adult and have your own self-worth. It's like you have to create your own self-worth from nothing.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

And anxiety, which you experience, and OCD, they're both just riddled with what's wrong with me. What you know, I can't trust myself, I can't trust my senses. The world is terrifying. You know, I have to ruminate 24 hours a day to try to figure out what could happen or what's going to happen because I'm never safe in my body, in my skin, in my environment. How hard is it to transfer that from it has to be my fault to actually something happened to me to cause this? That was the hardest thing for me. It's still the hardest thing for me. Yeah, especially when we pull in like my struggle with alcohol, the self-compassion piece is what is addiction used for to escape.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And so when I'm overwhelmed with these feelings of inadequacy, or if I'm having a trauma response to something which typically has to do with inadequacy, my own inadequacy, then that's my means of escape.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah. Which makes sense because really we get our self-worth initially from our parents. We learn if we're of value or not from a very young age, from like infancy.

unknown 21:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

You know, are we swaddled when we cry? Do we get picked up? Are we fed? You know, when we hurt ourselves, is someone there? Like, I mean, like that, we intrinsically get our value from our caregivers from the get-go. And we also gauge our the safety of our world and the safety of our own perceptions and our gut from our parents or our caregivers. It's the gut check. And like you can literally see this with kids. You know, they did a study, I don't know, it was back in the 70s or 80s, you know, where they I don't know if you've ever seen this video where they have like plexiglass and they have a mom on one side and they have a baby on the other, and the mom is either coaxing the child to come. Across and go over the threshold where it would look like they're gonna fall off the counter, but there's plexiglass there. And the baby gauges its behavior on the mom. And so if the mom is like, come on, you can do it, you can do it. The baby will crawl off the counter and to the mom because it is referencing the mom. I told you I'm way big into attachment. This is attachment stuff. But I find that fascinating that literally on a concrete level as infants, we trusted our caregiver and overrode our senses, or that's how we developed our own sense of self was from that caregiver. And so if we have an abusive caregiver who's giving us mixed messages from the get-go, we're gonna have a mixed attachment, we're gonna be dysregulated, we're not gonna trust our gut, even if we don't have anxiety and OCD. Then you sprinkle in that genetic predisposition to anxiety and OCD, and you are a mess because now you don't have an anchor, you don't have a model, and you can't trust yourself, you can't trust them, you can't trust anything. That's overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Here we are, right back to attachment, and it's which is why I think it's it's so important, and I I couldn't agree more. If you have a caregiver even right out of the womb, and you don't know what you're going to get when you need your needs met, you learn to survive from that moment on. I think what's hard about that too is that our inability to remember as adults, our inability to know what those when I talk to people about their parents, sometimes they're ambivalent. Oftentimes I'll say to people, you don't know what your mom was going through in the first year. What if your mom had postpartum depression? This is obviously not her fault, but couldn't be there for you. That doesn't mean you have to hate your mom. That doesn't mean that you have to blame your mom. There are things that we could never recollect. Things that maybe the parents don't recollect or feel shame about that could have caused some sort of attachment issue.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, and I don't think it has to be there for anxiety no CD. I think it is a spark, you know, it's an accelerator. You know, I think it's like a sure way if you got that genetic predisposition to just light up. You're gonna light up. But I think there are parents who are very aware that they either have this genetic predisposition, they know that their kids are right for it, and they're cognizant of it from the get-go, and your kids still struggle. I mean, like I knew out of the womb my kids were genetically doomed, and I was very aware, you know. Like it's rampant in my family, all mental health issues, you know, a father with bipolar psychosis, me with panic disorder and generalized anxiety and social anxiety disorder, you know, multiple sisters who were undiagnosed, but diagnosed by me as definitely clear-cut OCD. It was just gonna happen. And I was an infant and toddler specialist when I had my first child in an infant and toddler clinic. Eventually they were like, you should probably get her seen, you know, which was very offensive. And there was that must have caused shame for you. Oh, it was mortifying. No, it was mortifying because then a team came into my house and they were I it was a big organization that I worked for, and so they didn't know who I was. Um it was part of like early intervention, and they didn't know I was on another team. I felt like they talked down to me, and then a week later I'm doing a home assessment with somebody else, and they were part of the team that came to my house. And all of a sudden she was like, Oh wait, you look familiar. And I recognized her and I wanted to just die because I felt like the message was how can you be, how can you help other people if you're you can't even help your own daughter? And there is this shame that comes from it. And so I do think that there, and I have three kids who had three very different births, and two kids have a different dad, and they all have across the board mental health struggles. So I know the two younger ones had a very very secure childhood. Like I was not stressed, and I was, you know, I had a great husband, I was home all the time, I like practice wasn't very overwhelming. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. I think they would be far worse. So I don't think there's always something, but I think that it is definitely an accelerant.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

I work with a lot of clients who have kids or are planning on having kids, and their biggest fear is their children being predisposed and their children suffering. And I often say to them, if they develop OCD or if they have developed OCD, they're so lucky to have you. First of all, you could identify it, you can talk to your kids before it even shows up. Like I said earlier, even if there are certain things or traumatic events or whatever happens and the OCD shows up, there is room to say, you know what, my genes lent to this. You know, I do feel some shame about that, but I can still be an amazing parent. And I can still walk alongside my child so they didn't suffer as long as I did.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And I do think there is a difference in blindly having a child with anxiety or CD and not having the tools and maybe having your own struggles and being a horrible parent versus going in it with intention and saying, This may happen, and I'm gonna keep a lookout and I'm gonna be educated. It does make a huge difference. I think like the the long-term prognosis for a person, for a child who has loving parents who are educated and want to do everything is very good or better than what it would be. And there is a big chance that they may not have anything at all. You know, and my oldest daughter is like, she's doing great, you know. And if I was like, Oh, I don't want to have kids because what if, you know, that would just rob me of the opportunity of of having that experience and bringing people into this world. I do also think that, you know, we carry all sorts of stuff. My kids could be diabetic. Diabetes is rampant in my family. And I could say, well, I don't want to have any kids because I don't want them to have diabetes. But I'm gonna roll the dice and take that chance.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I think in general, it in general, it's been important for me to step outside of my own experience with my parents to see that it isn't always this way. People don't grow up the way that I did. Not that I don't know that, but it like we've said, it's it's hard when you grew up a certain way to imagine growing up differently, to imagine having parents that were loving that would go, Natasha Daniels is this wonderful person with this community, and I'm gonna join and get the support I need so I can support my daughter. I mean, that's it's so hard for me to grasp. For a long time when I first started doing peer support, and I would talk to people and they would say, Oh, I have a great family and I have a loving family, I would get this visceral resentment, but and then have this confusion around, well, how could their childhood be okay and they still have OCD?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Or like maybe their parents aren't as great as they think.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

I wasn't gonna say that out loud, but you said it for me. I know, because I know, I know you. Yeah, and I think that it's good. I mean, that's why it's good to have friends that help you grow and give you a different perspective because yeah, I could see why you would think that with your own experience. And I think the trigger point, the accelerator, can be different things for different people. For my daughter, like for my youngest daughter, she was later diagnosed. Well, one, she was diagnosed with celiac, which, you know, her her starting thing was emetophobia. She was she was genuinely nauseous, but she had that genetic predisposition. So I think anxiety and OCD was like, this is a great topic, we'll do this one. And then she was diagnosed recently in the last year with Modi diabetes, which is a genetic type of diabetes that, um, which is really bizarre. And the type of moody diabetes she has is is pretty innocuous, like she's not gonna need insulin. They think she's gonna be it's just a low level. But the main symptoms are the need to to pee all the time. Well, what was her first two themes? Sensory motor OCD and emetophobia. Wow. And I think that was because she had a medical issue. Now, can people have Mody diabetes and not develop sensory motor OCD? Of course. But I think OCD is opportunistic, and I think that was I mean, at five and six, that was the first thing. She couldn't go to school because what if she threw up? What if she needed a pee? It was that constantly over and over. And then eventually pee became contaminated. What if she smells like pee? She's got disgust stuff. She got all sorts at 14, she's got other stuff going on, but that was her trigger point. And so I think abusive or neglectful childhood, that's a trigger point. I think medical issues could be a trigger point, infections can be a trigger point, just like a divorce or grief, or you know, I think the body responds and it's like this is a great opportunity to like water that seed.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah. One of the things I really have learned through the years, and especially learned from you in talking to you about, you know, the the wonderful parents that you have that are constantly seeking support and resources uh for their kids. Um, I've had I am a certified peer and family sport specialist, so I have actually gotten to meet with families and parents who just want to ask me questions, which I always find, again, I feel jealous about. I do. I'm just being fair. Like jealousy is a real emotion. I always feel jealous. These people care so much about their kid, and they're genuinely wanting to know what is your experience so we can know how to meet our child where they are at. And it's, you know, it just goes to show that OCD is a disorder that impacts not just the sufferer, but the family, the parents, the spouse, the partners, the siblings. It it impacts everybody and to have a family unit or a you know a partnership where you know your loved ones are really wanting to walk alongside you, meet you where you're at, it it makes such a difference to us. Um, and I do want to thank you for what you do, being a parent, but also understanding anxiety and then providing all these resources. Like we as people with OCD are lucky to have you in our community.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Oh, well, I appreciate that. And we're lucky to have you. Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Any final thoughts on our topic today? I we never know where the topic is gonna go, but I thought this was such a good one.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah. I mean, we went we went deep into all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah, I have no I have no last things. I'm like, I think everyone's just trying to do the best they can. I think starting to understand things from another perspective. I mean, I'm always trying to get my son to see things from my perspective, you know, how like it's driven from love, you know, like I'm I'm bothering you and I'm trying to get you support because I love you, not because I want to micromanage you or because I want to nag you. And I think for those people that are listening that do have loving families, because that does definitely exist, you know, to realize to sometimes maybe pause and look at it from the other perspective and the other lens of what is this like for my partner? What is this like for my kids, maybe who are dealing with me as a parent who has OCD, or what is this like for my parents who are trying to help me? And I think that it's always good for us to look at from the other perspective. There's a learning opportunity there.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

And I think bringing some of those emotions to light, like we talked about earlier, it can be helpful in that. Even even if it if it's hard to imagine, you know, I'm not a parent and never will be, it isn't that hard for me to imagine what shame feels like.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Like or resentment. Um, and so maybe that's a starting point for all of us as as we try to move forward with our loved ones and and make this a collective journey instead of individualistic.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Thank you, Natasha. Always a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Thank you so much for being here and unmasking with me today. I really hope that you enjoyed the conversation that I had with Natasha. I never really know where the conversation is gonna go, and I think that's what I love about her the most, is that we can get into really deep topics and talk about things that are really meaningful from the parental perspective and also from the sufferer perspective. So I thought that this conversation was a great, well-rounded to be able to talk about the importance of what parents go through and also the importance of what we as sufferers go through. I really love the way that this came out and I can't wait to have Natasha on again. I hope you enjoyed it as well. If this podcast supports you, inspires you, or helps you feel a little less alone, I'd love for you to consider supporting it on Patreon. Your monthly pledge helps you to keep these conversations going and create even more resources for our wonderful community. You can join us at patreon.com slash intrusive thoughts and masked. And remember, when you're here, you do not have to wear the mask. You are seen, you're understood, and accepted exactly as you are. We'll see you next week.