When The Unthinkable Happens - They Don't Believe It's OCD and You're Dangerous

Episode 18

This week I'm sharing about an incident that has happened recently. People in my life found out about my OCD themes and all of a sudden questioned whether I'm 'safe' to be around. This was devastating for many reasons...but after the initial shock...I knew what I had to do. 

This is one of the biggest fears many of us have. To be misunderstood. To be not believed that this is unwanted. And unfortunately, many of us encounter it and then feel like we have to wear a mask to make OTHERS feel better about something that isn't our fault. I hope this episode helps you to see that if it ever does happen...you will get through it and you can act with resilience and empowerment to protect yourself in the face of people who are unwilling and incapable of understanding the facts. 

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 with them, and the common experiences so many of us share. I'm Christy Hodges, and I created this podcast to bring lived experience into the life 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 have this disorder. I want you to feel seen, understood, and accepted exactly as you are. Welcome to episode 18. Today I'm gonna do a little storytelling about when you have to wear a mask. When other people know what your theme is, and there's changes. This is a true story. I'm excited to share it, but I also know that this is a big fear when they have things happen. So I'm hoping that you'll be able to hear my story with the line. Or let's hear also wanted to give you a heads up. I am a full-time grad student this summer with three classes back in eight weeks. So I probably will upload an episode that is a lived experience storytelling every other week through the summer. Um, just to save some time on editing. Um, but know that I have a lot of awesome episodes coming your way over the coming months. I hope you enjoy the show. Today I want to talk about a mask that no one wants to wear when it comes to OCD intrusions. What if people don't understand OCD? And what if they believe that your themes are real? Now, as I share the story with you, I also want to protect the identity of the people involved here. And mainly because there is one person in the story, as you will see, who is an extreme ally of mine and definitely stood up for everything around who I am with my OCD. The story is important, but the relationship of this person is even more important to me. And so I just want to make sure they are protected while I'm able to share something that I think will be beneficial for those of you in the community. Now, many of you know that in my history, I live with sexual intrusive thoughts, harm intrusive thoughts, religious scrupulosity. I mean, I have just run the gamut of themes. My major themes before I got treatment was religious scrupulosity, metaphobia, and sexual orientation, OCD, but I had a flavor of just about everything in my teenage and adolescent years. And I talk about that a lot because I want to make sure that people understand that it can be normalized. I've had harm intrusions, I've had sexual intrusions in regards to bestiality, pedophilia, incest, all of those themes that we consider to be taboo. I'm not shy about sharing this stuff, obviously. Most of you are here because you've probably found some of my content on the internet where I'm just completely open. All of my advocacy is about how transparent I can be in order for people who are living with this to never have to feel like they're alone, to never have to feel like they're a monster, to know there's at least one other person, which of course we know that there's way more people, but at least you can see my face on a video, you can hear my voice on this podcast, and know somebody else knows what it's like to live in my brain. I will go to the depths, to the dark when it comes to exposing the content that OCD feels like you need to keep hidden. Why? It's the only way to deal with the shame that this disorder causes. I decided that years and years ago. I decided that in the face of you know, betraying people in my life that didn't want me to talk about it, that didn't think sharing my live experience was helpful to their reputation. And I could give zero fucks. Because to me, this is about you, and this is about me. This is about those of us who live with OCD day in and day out, and we know other people just can't get it, they don't understand, but I do, and I know you do too, and that's why I try to bring as many of us together as possible in a community where we can build self-compassion, self-esteem, and get our lives back. In my career, I have rarely encountered a situation that has made me do a double take about the facts that I share so much about my experience in being vulnerable about OCD and some of these deep and dark topics. Yeah, I get comments on the internet all the time, but I quickly harden to those and set boundaries and I just don't care. But I've rarely ever had anybody that said anything that has rattled me until recently. I live pretty much in a bubble. And I love it, by the way. I love my bubble. I love the people that I am around. I love that most of the people I interact with are people that have OCD or who are in psychology, so they understand this is a disorder. They're curious, they're excited to learn, they share their experience and I learn from them. But obviously, not everybody in this world has OCD, gets it, or wants to get it. And these are some of the fears and some of the challenges that we have to face when we aren't sharing our stories with people who get it, who have OCD or that are in the community. I've recently encountered a situation where somebody very important to me had someone very important to them question what it means for me to have OCD. The person close to me who completely understands OCD was very willing and wanted to share information about my disorder. They get it. From a psychological mindset, think, okay, if people just read this information or watch some videos, they're going to understand this. Upon having the curiosity about my disorder, they shared my content. They shared my book. They shared a video about the story of my life. And in that story, I shared several things about specific intrusions I'd had, probably, I didn't rewatch the video, but one in particular was when I was 13-ish, 12, 13, right around that time, I'd had intrusions about harming kids. And it was terrifying to me. It was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever had. That was before sexual orientation OCD. And I remember being shook at those thoughts and thinking, oh my God, what kind of monster am I? And this was just kind of a blip of the explanation of what it's like to live with harm and sexual intrusions. The person on the receiving end of this psychoeducation has children and decided that they did not want to push into understanding something that's disordered, and decided that I was a threat. So this was a relationship that was building with children and parents. And due to the information about my intrusions, I am no longer allowed around their kids. So this is very devastating for the person who shared the information because they were trying to help and it backfired. Isn't this our biggest fear? Our biggest fear is people won't understand that this is OCD. People won't understand that this is unwanted. This isn't who we are. We would give anything to not have these thoughts. And of course, like I've been around their kids. Honestly, I'm I was more worried about their kids barfing on me than anything else, in all honesty. Harming kids, harming animals, harming everything. Those are just, I mean, those are just natural thoughts. But oh my God, if someone's gonna barf around me, like the world is gonna stop. To me, it was less about that and more about other fears, but it didn't matter. Because this is what we worry about the most. People are not gonna believe that this is OCD. People are gonna believe that I'm a monster. So several days went by and I knew that something was going on. I knew something was up, and finally had to have the conversation about what had happened because I didn't know. And then that's when the information was shared with me. Okay, so I'm gonna walk you through how it felt. When I first heard it, the initial response was this shock. Oh my god, that gut-wrenching fear, this has actually happened. Someone thinks I'm a threat. Someone thinks that my intrusions are real. And it was kind of like the gut bomb haze when everything stops for a second and you are just looking around, like, is this real life? But all of a sudden, something cleared in my mind and went, wait a minute. It's not my fault that they don't want to utilize the information, A, that's provided by this person that's advocating for me, and B, that you could do a Google search in two seconds and find 20 different articles talking about harm-CD and sexual intrusions and everything else, and understand that this is a disorder. So it was this weird clearing of my mind. And then I started to feel defensive. Like, excuse me, I'm 49 years old. I have been living with this for 40 years. I have been advocating on a public platform for over 13, if not more, 14-ish years, talking about things, connecting with people, having to listen and watch the degree of suffering that others and myself have gone through. And you have the audacity to think that I don't belong around your children. You know what? Then fuck off. Y'all, this was a surprising reaction. Everything in my being felt programmed to feel like, oh my gosh, I can't believe someone would think this about me. Oh my gosh, what if somebody reports me to the police or this or this? But all of that really went to the wayside. And I thought, no. And here's why it wasn't about me. I don't care if people think that I'm a murderer or a pedophile or that I'm gonna harm my dogs or animals or whoever else. I don't care what people think about me. I know who I am, I know that this is a disorder, but you know what started to hurt was how I felt about you. I have lived with this disorder for a really long time, but I also have been saturated, like I said earlier, in my bubble for years. I am surrounded by advocates. I'm surrounded by therapists, I'm surrounded by you. I hear your stories, I get to go into my community and interact with you. I get to go into groups and I get to meet you one-on-one. I am normalized. My experience is normalized every day, but yours isn't. Not because you're not capable of it, but because this isn't your career. Andor maybe you haven't had the opportunity, or it's it, there's a lot of fear around sharing this with other people, which obviously, as I'm doing this episode, you can see that there's a reason why the defensiveness I felt was about you. And I knew I needed to sit on this for a few days. I knew I needed to think about whether I responded, what to do, because obviously I did not have to respond. I mean, who cares? Then I just don't see these people and I don't see their kids. It's not that big of a deal. But it was the principle of it. For me, who cares? For us, I cared. My role is to advocate, my role is to provide psychoeducation, my role is to stand up and say, you know what? This is intolerable. So I waited a few days. I wanted to let the emotion settle. I knew that I wanted to make a decision that was going to be the right way to represent our community, not in a way that was angry, not in a way that was just raging, which by the way, that still would have been justified. But I wanted to make sure this is me representing us. This is me advocating for us. And so I waited a few days and the sadness grew, the grief. And here's why it wasn't again, it wasn't about me. It was about the person out there who doesn't have friends, therapists that are friends, a community, the kind of ability to provide psychoeducation that would help them feel empowered. The sadness came from the possibility of this happening to someone else who was completely alone, who had no one, and whose future moving forward would be to wear a mask, to wear that mask of pretending everything is okay so no one is suspicious, making sure to overcompensate so no one would think that you're a danger, making sure to be syrupy, sweet, and amazing and and reassure everybody that your OCD is under control so their children aren't in danger. It makes me so mad. That people would be in that situation and not have anyone to come in and help them, advocate for them, put those people in their place because they refuse to just see the truth, which is a 10-second Google search away. Again, I am so lucky that I have a life surrounded by people, but I also have someone that was there advocating for me and that had my back when those other people didn't want to believe it. Not everyone has that. And that was the deep grief and sadness I experienced for days. That's why this work is so important. Bringing people onto this podcast, doing advocacy, doing videos, having a community, all of this work is so important. So that if this kind of stuff happens, you don't have to go out there and betray everything about yourself to try to convince other people that are unconvincible, whether that's a word or not, that this is a disorder and you're not a monster. You already have that struggle in your own head. You don't need it from other people. It took me a few days to know what to do to make sure that I was doing the right thing to my friend who had been advocating for me, but the right thing by us. And I did. I took the opportunity to address them head on and say this is not about me not being able to be around your kids. What this is about is you never being able to be around me again. Your kids are not the ones in danger. I am. I want you to hear this. I want you to understand that by setting that boundary, even if I felt grief around it, even if I felt misunderstood, even if I felt like it was unfair, and I may feel, may or may not feel resentment about that because of the unfairness of the situation, I still have agency. I still have control and power in my life. I can't help having OCD. And I had someone advocating for me, and I could advocate for myself and do, and it still wasn't enough. I was pushed to the point of creating a boundary, I was pushed to the point of protecting myself. You have that capability as well. You don't have to be put in a box, you don't have to be put in a situation where you have to overcompensate for who you are to make other people comfortable because of a disorder you didn't cause. That's not your fault. That to me was the driving force behind the boundary. I can still be sad about the boundary, I can still feel anger about the boundary, but at the end of the day, y'all, our life is short, and when people are incapable or unwilling to take the time to stretch their brain to understand, it's not our problem. I knew if I didn't create a boundary, I would have to wear a mask. Every time I saw these people, I would know they were watching me when there's no reason to watch me. I am safer than almost any other person on the planet around their kids. But they are incapable of believing that because they need to believe that OCD perhaps isn't real or that it makes them feel better to take that information and distort it. I am unwilling to wear a mask around people who are unwilling to face the facts. I know that's easier said than done. I know that my situation is different. I know that it is probably easier for me because I am surrounded by people who understand and who get it. But what I wanted to convey to you is this if this ever happens to you, you have agency, you have choices, and you have a community with me, with my online community, with other people who get it. You don't have to go through this alone. You cannot control how other people receive information about OCD, but you can control. Yourself and how you let them impact you. Y'all, this is a real disorder with tormenting themes that people just aren't gonna get. This is why I'm very particular about saying be careful who you share this information with because you never know how people are gonna take it and what their agenda is. You don't. But I can tell you this sharing it with people who have OCD, you won't go wrong. We are here and we understand. This was a jarring situation for me. But it was a no-brainer when it came to setting a boundary. It was a no-brainer when I thought about all of us, and I thought to myself, I am not going to subject myself to walking around someone and have to look at them and think, what are they thinking about me, and have to put on a mask and pretend I am someone I'm not. I am someone with OCD that has unwanted sexual, violent, religious, scrupulous, existential, irrelevant, everything else, OCD. I did not ask for this, and I will not spend my life being punished for it. And neither should you. Thank you so much for being here and unmasking with me today. I know this was a tough topic, but this is something that all of us fear. That people hear what we go through, they hear our themes, and all of a sudden it's you could be a monster. I wanted to share this with you today to show you that first of all, you can get to a place of resilience. You can get to a place where you are no longer needing the approval of others around OCD, but more so that you're calling the shots. You're making the decisions about who gets to be in your life because of OCD if this happens. I have rarely encountered this. So to have it happen now and have it happen with someone and their acquaintances who I really cared about was very difficult. But I hope that in hearing my story, if this happens to you, that you know I've been through this and I'm okay. And if you go through it, you can set boundaries. And you also have a community that will wrap around you and help you know that you do not have to wear a mask around people to make them feel better about your activity. If this podcast supports you, inspires you, or helps you feel a little less alone, I'd love for you to consider supporting it at Patreon. Your monthly pledge helps me to keep these conversations going and to create even more resources for this wonderful community. You can join us at patreon.com slash intrusive thoughts and masks. And remember, when you're here, you do not have to wear the mask. I never want you to wear the mask. When you're here, you're seen, you're understood, and you're accepted exactly as you are. We'll see you next week.