Episode 3: Not Everybody’s Out Birdwatching

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Ec1r9p5vrKYF52wTx2sPd?si=e7fbde5048fa4b8e

I’ve mentioned that hearing other people’s OCD stories can help transform the painful emotions associated with the disorder, like guilt, shame, fear, and resentment. So I was running along the Charles River in Boston last summer while I was visiting my family—well, more than visiting, because I stayed for six months and worked at Trader Joe’s—and I was listening to Stuart Ralph’s “OCD Stories” podcast. A relapse following a period of relative freedom from severe symptoms had led me to plug into the extensive OCD community for the first time. In the past, I’d listened mostly to podcasts on things like balancing the vata dosha in Ayurveda, the magical powers of ghee, PMS, cortisol, attachment theory, Narcissistic abuse, near death experiences, and other related topics. However, I hadn’t found anything like Stuart Ralph’s “OCD Stories.” So in the episode I was listening to on that run, the guy Stuart was interviewing described how he used to have a particular contamination-related obsession exactly like the one troubling me at the time. His inner monologue and the behavior surrounding his intrusive thoughts were uncannily identical to mine.

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