April 14, 2025 • 51 mins
OCD is often reduced to intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors, but let's be real—it’s so much more than that. These are just the surface-level symptoms of a much deeper survival mechanism rooted in childhood brain development and trauma stored in the nervous system. This limited view is part of what keeps so many stuck in the cycle of OCD, struggling to find true relief. But here’s the truth: if we address the root of OCD, we can begin to heal and, over time, reduce those protective outputs like intrusive thoughts and rituals.
In this episode, Elisabeth and Jennifer bring Matt Bush back to the podcast for a powerful conversation about how OCD is a protective mechanism and how we can treat it by working directly with the nervous system. They explore the brain structures involved in OCD, how it affects our nervous system, and where it all begins in childhood. They also dive into why OCD leads to compulsive behaviors and the emotions that fuel them. Plus, they’ll break down the latest scientific studies on OCD treatment and share why and how it forms.
What if we could start viewing OCD as a feature, not a flaw? By doing this, we can begin to strip away the shame and truly understand it as the protective response it is—one that’s embedded in our nervous system and can actually be worked with. It doesn’t have to be a life sentence. There’s a way through OCD, and we’re here to show you how.
If you or someone you know is struggling with OCD and is ready for answers, be sure to tune in and share this episode. Let’s break the stigma and take the first step toward healing together.
Topics discussed in this episode:
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Viewing OCD as a protective output
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Definition of OCD
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The impact of OCD on the brain and nervous system
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How deep brain stimulation affects OCD in children
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Key scientific studies and breakthroughs in understanding OCD
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Why OCD develops in the first place
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The connection between OCD and the freeze and fawn responses
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The role of shame in OCD
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Building emotional safety when processing OCD-related emotions
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What most healing and personal development programs don't tell you is that your
patterns, your behaviors, your emotional responses are outputs
of your nervous system trying to keep you safe. And changing your
thoughts won't change those deep rooted patterns. You have to go deeper
inside. Rewiretrial.com, you'll learn how to train your nervous system for
greater capacity so that you can navigate life with more ease,
(00:21):
more presence, more connection. We have five live classes a week
with expert instructors. We have an on demand library with
thousands of recorded neurosomatic training sessions. And we have an
incredible supportive, inclusive community of people just like
you doing this deep work together. You don't have to keep fighting
against your own nervous system. You can re pattern it. Start your two free
(00:44):
week trial now@rewiretrial.com One of the
biggest misconceptions I see around obsessive compulsive disorder
is that it's just about intrusive thoughts and compulsions. But
what I think a lot of people are missing is that there is this deep
connection between ocd, trauma and the nervous system and
how unresolved stress patterns actually shape the way our brain
(01:06):
creates the obsessive loops and the compulsions. For example, when the
nervous system is dysregulated because of past trauma, the brain shifts
into survival mode, triggering repetitive thoughts and behaviors as
a way to create that false sense of control and safety.
And that's why so many people with OCD also struggle
with hypervigilance, perfectionism, emotional
(01:29):
dysregulation. And it works the other way too. When we focus
on nervous system health and emotional processing, we can actually
start to reduce the compulsions and the intrusive
thoughts at their root. And today we're going to break down the science of
ocd, trauma and nervous system healing and what you need to
know to start re patterning the brain and the nervous system for
(01:51):
recovery. And this isn't just theory. Research backs this
up. As much as 82% of individuals with
OCD also have a history of trauma, According to a
2014 meta analysis examining trauma related
obsessive compulsive disorders. If you've been on the journey with
us this season, you know, we've been exploring mental health outputs from a
(02:13):
neurosomatic lens. We took a deep dive into Borderline with Molly
Adler, and today we're examining anxiety related disorders,
specifically ocd. With Matt Bush, founder of Next Level
Neuro and lead educator at Neurosomatic Intelligence, we will look at
the latest neurological research, the overlaps with trauma and the
Importance of nervous system health. In navigating the issue, we
(02:35):
are asking the question, what if your OCD
symptoms were more than just intrusive thoughts and compulsions?
What if they are your nervous system's attempt to protect you from
an unresolved past?
Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system,
(02:56):
how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your
co host, Elizabeth Kristoff, founder of Brainbase.com and the
Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification. And I'm your co host,
Jennifer Wallace. I'm a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and
integration guide. And I'm also one of the educators at the Neurosomatic
Intelligence Coaching certification. And Matt, we're so
(03:17):
excited to have you back. We love taking these deep dives with
you. And, Matt, will you please share with our listeners why this is an
important conversation for us to have through the lens of
nsi? Absolutely, and thanks for having me back. I always
love being here on Trauma Rewired. This is a super important
conversation to me from a neurological world
(03:39):
because this is one of those diagnoses, it's one of those
labels that. That our culture and people who struggle
with this have been convinced that they're gonna have forever. Like, this is
the way you are, and it's kind of a permanent
sentence when they get the diagnosis. Like, that's the way it is. We're never
gonna be able to help it. We can try to treat it through
(04:01):
medications or other modalities, but I don't think that's actually
the case. And now that's a bit of a blanket statement. I don't wanna
make promises I can't fulfill. But when we really dig into the science
behind ocd, we see that just like all of the
other neurological outputs that we've talked about on the
podcast, OCD falls right in line. And it's an
(04:23):
output to protect us more than anything else. So
I'm looking forward to talking about some of the brain areas involved and what we
can start to do about this. Yeah, yeah, me too. And as
always, when we're tackling these specific mental health diagnoses or
outputs, I just want to take a second to remind listeners that this
is just a conversation to bring information and examine the role of
(04:45):
nervous system health. There's never one answer. These are
multifactorial issues. Right? The nervous system is
a piece of the puzzle, and we're not giving medical advice or
diagnosing anyone here. This is an exploratory season and we're presenting you
with a compilation of research showing many different perspectives,
interviewing a range of experts on all kinds of different topics. So
(05:07):
we just want to show you what's out there and contribute our own understanding of
the role that the brain and the nervous system play, how it impacts this topic,
and share our experiences along the way. Let's start with a
clear definition, the clear tongue. Obsessive
compulsive disorder. OCD is classically characterized by persistent
intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and repetitive behaviors or
(05:29):
mental rituals, compulsions an individual feels compelled to
perform. From the perspective of neurosomatic intelligence, OCD
can be understood as a nervous system adaptation, a dysregulated
nervous system response where intrusive thoughts and compulsive
behaviors emerge as a way to create a sense of control and
safety. And these obsessions and compulsions can
(05:50):
significantly interfere with daily activities and cause considerable
distress. And there are multiple ways that this can show
up in someone's life. Classic OCD symptoms, such
as checking, counting, hand
washing, contamination fears. It can show up
in food issues and relationships to our body, like body
(06:12):
checking, food related rituals, disordered eating
patterns. It can be sensory driven.
Compulsions can be a way to regulate sensory
input, especially for individuals with different ways of
processing sensory information and people who are identifying
as neurodivergent. And emotional expression plays a
(06:33):
crucial role in addressing the underlying dysregulation
rather than just managing symptoms. There are studies
that are looking at OCD as an attempt to control
emotional overwhelm when the nervous system is dysregulated. So I'm
really excited to explore all of that today. When I was
looking over this outline for us, it really reminded me of our
(06:55):
conversation around narcissism and how
much the science really opened us up to have a different
way to look at this person's nervous system. Yeah. So working with
multiple clients who have struggled with OCD
over the years with a professional diagnosis, I've seen
all of those types of behaviors that you kind of listed there, Jennifer, and it's
(07:17):
not always that they're all compelling at the same
time. The nervous system is going to select the adaptive
behaviors that it believes will give the greatest sense of
safety and the greatest sense of predictability to the world. And we'll
talk about that a little bit more later. But one young lady that I worked
with had been through some adverse childhood events as
(07:39):
her parents split and siblings were separated
and some other things had happened and developed
some OCD tendencies around her personal environment.
So her room had to be Set a certain way, specific
lighting, everything had its place. So it's kind of the control
of the environmental situation. And then on another note,
(08:02):
worked with a young man who had been through very
unexpected accidental trauma that he witnessed. He
was not physically involved, but witnessed this thing take place.
And the ocd in his case, he
described it as being triggered by this awareness of,
like, how did I see this happen? And I'm
(08:24):
expected to go on in my daily life while everyone around
me seems to be ignoring what we all just
saw. And so he began to have more of an
emotional expression, or maybe we could say an emotional
adaptation where OCD became a way to avoid some of
the emotional distress, of becoming aware
(08:47):
of the dissociation caused great emotional
distress. And OCD was a way to keep that
under control rather than letting it spiral. So
very different presentations in these two clients,
but both very compelling cases of the nervous system
making an adaptation to try to make the world safe. Yeah,
(09:09):
same. I have so many different clients where this presents
differently, and I'm thinking of one where the dots are just very,
very clear. They grew up in a very chaotic household. There
was physical abuse and emotional neglect. And, you
know, it was a household where love wasn't expressed
very much. Praise love. And it was also very
(09:30):
unpredictable. Right. But the one place where they did
receive praise was when they did chores and cleaned the house.
And their family kept everything looking really good on the outside,
even though it was massively chaotic inside.
And that was a way that their entire family
maintained some sort of social safety in their community.
(09:53):
And then the only way that they received love. And now in adulthood, for
this person, it's really difficult when the house is
disorganized, when there's even, like a. A crumb,
something out of place, something gets moved. A lot of
obsession around creating the perfect house environment, finding the right
furniture, finding the right thing, and really spiraling about
(10:15):
all of those decisions. And what I really see in. In
these cases is knowing, like being
able to see someone's nervous system communicating through their
posture and their patterns, is that when this person
is triggered by something very small and insignificant, it's not
just a cognitive experience. It's not just. I'm ruminating on this thought of
(10:37):
it, but I can see the real panic and the strong
dysregulation in the system, the changes in posture, the changes in
respiration. And then it makes complete sense to me that
someone would be hypervigilant around
allowing one of those triggers to occur, because the
dysregulation and the stress load is so high inside when it
(10:59):
happens. It's like, yeah, I'm going to work really, really hard to make sure that
my environment doesn't trigger me, because that's such a big ask of my
body and nervous system when it happens. So I'm really
excited to dive deeper into this. And we
can kind of see with these stories, the dots connecting, but a little bit more
about what is going on in our brain and our nervous system. Yeah, I think
(11:21):
that would be helpful. So we're going to talk a little bit about the brain
areas involved in ocd, at least according to the latest
research, what researchers believe is kind of driving this behavior.
So the number one area that we want to look at or
pathway is called a
corticostriato thalamo
(11:41):
cortical loop. Okay. We're going to abbreviate
that. It's the CSTC loop, because
corticostriatothalam or cortical was kind of a mouthful.
Right. And you may not know what any of those brain regions are. That's okay.
We're going to break it down really easy here. But essentially, this is a fundamental
brain circuit that's involved in various cognitive and motor
(12:03):
functions. And it's really. It's nicknamed the salience network,
which means it helps us decide what is important
to focus on. Okay. So the way this pathway works
is that the prefrontal cortex in our frontal lobe has a
thought about something that it wants to do or wants to pay attention to.
It sends that decision down to an area called the striatum, which
(12:26):
is part of the basal ganglia, and that is a subcortical area,
meaning it doesn't do any thinking. It simply activates the
attentional network. It's like plugging in the electricity for
an appliance. Right. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't have a little
computer chip in it. It's just the power cable, more or less, to turn on
the pathway. The striatum then activates the
(12:48):
thalamus. And remember, the thalamus is like the gatekeeper to our
cortex. It helps us decide of the incoming sensory
inputs that the brain is receiving, what is important for me to pay
attention to and what can be safely ignored, like, what
gets in, what has to stay out of my cognitive awareness.
So the thalamus is basically filtering through sensory
(13:10):
inputs as well as thoughts and feelings to decide
what my cortex will receive. And then the end
of the network is the connection from the thalamus back to the cortex,
specifically, again, the prefrontal cortex, where
now the Prefrontal cortex gets to analyze and
interpret the sensory input that it's receiving.
(13:32):
Right. So, for example, as we're here on the podcast and having a
conversation, my CSTC loop
says it's important to listen to what Elizabeth and Jennifer are
saying. So my prefrontal cortex makes that decision.
It tells the striatum to activate the network. Striatum tells the
thalamus, pay attention to the conversation. Ignore
(13:53):
anything else that you might hear. So the traffic going on outside my
window can be ignored. Any other noises from the house can be
ignored. Right. So I'm going to focus on the conversation, and then
as the conversation takes place and the auditory input comes
into my brain, my thalamus is going to go, yep, that's important. I need to
send that onto the cortex so that the cortex can hear it
(14:15):
and interpret meaning from what they're saying.
So that's the feedback loop that happens. Okay. But here's what's
really interesting. When we look at this CTSC loop in more
detail, it actually is comprised of five
different circuits. Okay. And I just wanted to label
these real quick, because as soon as we start unpacking these, it's not only
(14:37):
OCD that's affected by this particular pathway, but also
ADHD and learning difficulties. Okay. So this is
a huge pathway in neuroscience research.
So the first loop that's part of this is our sustained attention.
Can I hold my attention on something despite other
distractions? Number two is an emotional
(14:59):
circuit. Like, can I pay attention to my emotions and
understand what they are, and can they be applied appropriately to
a situation? Number three is a selective attention
circuit. That's like, when something comes up in my environment, like a
flash of light or a big sound or I know that something's
gonna be important in any of those things that go, hey, I have to,
(15:21):
like, reorient. I have to focus in on that thing that's happening
because it's actually more important than whatever I was paying attention to
before. That's where we're gonna actually pick up on the OCD conversation
in a second. Selective attention. Okay. Number four is the
hyperactive movement circuit to keep movement
happening all the time. And number five is an
(15:42):
impulsivity or compulsivity circuit, which
compels us to do certain actions or
engages us in impulsive activity. So
basically, what they're seeing in the research when they do, there's a study that
came out of Michigan Medical Centers, where they do this
analysis of brain scans and reveal that individuals
(16:04):
with OCD exhibit abnormalities in specific brain
regions. And we're talking about the ones that we just
described. What they mean is there's a structural change that occurs
over time. They can see on a brain scan that this area looks
different, that it's grown in size or shrunk in size, depending on what they're
looking at. A study out of Stanford highlights
(16:26):
that in brain imaging studies, they've actually created a
model for the pathology of ocd,
including hyperactivity in certain
subcortical regions. So basically, what happens
is when OCD is present, the last three circuits that we
talked about, selective attention, right? So it's going to pull my
(16:48):
attention to something. Hyperactivity and
impulsivity, Those three basically get hijacked. They
get spun up, and they're running on overdrive while
the sustained attention pathways and the emotional circuits
become less active, less accessible.
Okay, so that's what they're seeing in the Stanford study. And then there's an
(17:10):
awesome study from Texas Children's Hospital in Baylor medicine
that shows actual biomarkers. Like, they found the
biomarkers for OCD in these studies
with children. And this is so cool. They're
actually using the deep brain stimulation, which is an electrical
stimulus that's implanted into the brain. It's kind of like a
(17:31):
pacemaker that keeps the heart beating. But this deep brain
stimulator implants electrical stimulus into the brain.
And when they give the brain electrical
currents that are in the theta and gamma brain
wave frequencies, okay, Theta is
from 4 to 8 Hz. That means 4 to 8 cycles per
(17:53):
second. Gamma is from 8 to 12 Hz.
When they give those frequencies, they see a decrease in
ocd tendencies and behaviors. So I pulled a quote,
and I want to share it because it's just so cool. It says, before deep
brain stimulation, we saw an extremely predictable and
regular periodic neural activity associated with
(18:14):
OCD in all of the participants in the study. But after
deep brain stimulation, as individuals began responding and
improving symptomatically, this predictable pattern of OCD
broke down. So here's how they described it. Said
individuals with OCD have a limited repertoire of
responses to any given situation. Like,
(18:36):
meaning this network that we talked about is limiting
their possible reactions to a certain situation in
life. Okay, so it goes on to say they
often perform the same rituals repeatedly, and they seldom
vary their routines or engage in new activities which
might result in this behavior results in high predictability of
(18:58):
their activity. They know what's going to happen next.
Okay, but after deep brain stimulation, when the
OCD is reducing, their behavior
repertoire is expanded. They can be more flexible to
New situations and not just be driven by a
strong desire to avoid OCD triggers.
(19:20):
So what's in between the lines or like, beneath the surface of this quote in
these studies is that the brain is creating
these OCD behaviors as an
adaptability, as a protection
mechanism from unknown
or unpredictable or negative
(19:41):
experiences, either in the external environment
around us or within the internal environment of our body.
Okay. It's like keeping us safe by engaging these OCD
behaviors. And when they activate this brain circuit,
it's like that protective behavior all
starts to decrease greatly, and they can be more
(20:02):
open to different experiences. I find these fascinating.
These studies really fascinating. And I keep thinking
about a couple previous episodes
that I feel like are kind of foundational for this conversation,
Looking at how complex trauma impacts brain
development. And just this idea that we come back to all of the time,
(20:24):
that everything is a skill and every skill is trainable. And what are
the waters that we're swimming in that shape, how our
brain starts to function, and what circuits get stimulation
and myelination over time. And also that it really
shows the power of neuroplasticity there, right when we get
stimulation and activation, suddenly new things
(20:46):
are possible. That it's not necessarily fixed
or set in stone. And that I wasn't just also born this way, that
there is a protective role of the way that my
brain started to function this way to create safety. And I
think also it was really important when you talked about that internal safety
or that lack of safety could come from the external environment or
(21:08):
the internal environment. When interoceptive
signals, emotional sensations are too overwhelming,
that can also trigger that protective response. So it's not
just trying to create safety and control with the external environment,
but also with what's happening inside of us when we grow
up without emotional regulation and processing skills to be able
(21:31):
to feel and be safe with our internal
sensations. Those studies that I mentioned kind of leaned more
toward the structural changes. But there's just the
same level of awesome studies and research out there right now talking about
interoception and emotional dysregulation as it connects to
ocd. So I'm happy you brought that up. I don't want us to gloss
(21:52):
over that, because that's a really important point, that it does not have to be
external stimulus that drives the brain into protective
behavior. It can be internal stimulus from emotions or
interoception. That makes me think of another study that I want to
bring in here, because I think that also relates to the emotional
experience in ocd. And it was a study from nature early life stress and
(22:15):
OCD vulnerability, talking about how trauma alters
brain development and makes individuals more prone to compulsive patterns. And
they studied 48 people with OCD. So it was a smaller study who had never
taken medication and then 42 people without OCD.
And they used brain scans to measure the activity levels
in different brain areas while participants were at rest. And they collected also
(22:37):
information about their OCD severity and their history of childhood
trauma. And they found that people with OCD had reduced activity
in specific brain areas, particularly the right cerebellum. And this
really makes me think back of our episode about newer
PTSD research and the role of cerebellum in emotional
processing. So we know our cerebellum helps
(22:58):
obviously regulate our movement accuracy, balance and coordination,
but also emotional processing. And then the right superior
occipital lobe linked to visual processing. And with more
severe OCD symptoms, there was lower activity in these
areas. And they found in the study that emotional abuse in
childhood was linked to reduced activity in the
(23:20):
cerebellum. And the more someone emotional abuse or emotional
neglect, the lower their cerebellar activity was. And
they found that changes in the cerebellar activity may act as a
bridge between childhood emotional abuse and the
manifestation of these OCD symptoms. So we can
really start to see another way that childhood trauma
(23:42):
and emotional neglect and emotional processing alters brain functions
that then start to produce these symptoms. And again, we
talked at length in this other episode about why it's important
to also include cerebellar training in our ability to regulate our
emotions. And as we start to develop that skill now, we have less
presentation of these symptoms, of these compulsions that are
(24:05):
trying to create safety. As a therapist, coach or
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chronic pain, stress and dysregulation. But what if pain
isn't just a symptom? What if it's an output from the brain
shaped by trauma, nervous system health and emotional regulation?
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chronicpain yeah, it also. Reminds me of the talks that we
did on early childhood development. And as the brain
is supposed to be going through these developmental windows,
if traumatic environment or any kind of physical,
emotional, other traumas cause a
(25:35):
dissociation and a disconnect in that developmental
timeframe, then that brain develops
along an entirely different trajectory than what might
have been. Right. But what I've seen in working with clients in the real world,
though, is that despite they've gone through early childhood traumas, they've gone
through physical traumas, they're still able
(25:57):
to improve these things even in their adult life.
So, you know, if you're listening, this is not kind of a
permanent sentence like we started off saying at the beginning. This is still
the brain's way of adapting. And it may have been adapting to this and
building on this skewed foundation for the last 30 years,
(26:17):
but it's still not done changing and adapting. It can
still be trained, no matter your age or
what you've been through. It's just a matter of finding the right
combination of inputs to work with
some of these cerebellar and subcortical areas to start
to activate them and connect them in a safe way.
(26:39):
You know, it was really interesting in preparing for this conversation.
I'm not someone who associates. I do not resonate at all. If
you said I have ocd, and that's really not true on
the spectrum of things. I know that when my stress
bucket overflows, I do have compulsive
behaviors. And I always looked at them actually as kind of
(27:02):
punishing behaviors. But through the lens of this research and these
articles and this outline that we're working through, I could really
see that when I shut down emotionally
and when the threat gets too high and I shut down emotionally, I will
pick. I will pull, like, hair out of
my. I will pick at my nails and do really to.
(27:25):
Sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing something until I catch myself
in the behavior. And I relate so
much to the reasons why someone would
develop o C D. It's kind of strange. I'm sitting here like, I can't believe
I don't have this too further on the spectrum, to be honest
with you. So I'm finding that, like, just really interesting as I'm
(27:47):
listening to this science because you know, like through all the episodes that you guys
mentioned, we know that chronic stress and early development, it
desensitizes some areas and it over sensitizes other
areas. And that we get primed for stress
responses like hyper vigilance, you know, and that
makes compulsions an adaptive strategy
(28:08):
to regain control. It just totally makes sense. And if, if
trauma is disrupting all of this other brain activity,
it can also reinforce repetitive behaviors as a way to self
regulate. So chronic stress, it impairs
our neuroplasticity and makes it harder for the brain to break free of
these really rigid thought patterns. And this is why
(28:30):
NSI is so brilliant. Because now we can regulate a threat
response, rewire compulsive patterns and restore
emotional expression. Yeah, I can
also really relate to some of this the deeper we
go. Jen and I think big
picture as we've been talking about this, we know
(28:52):
people with a trauma history feel chronically unsafe in their
bodies, Right. Whether that comes from patterns that were formed during
development, chronic dissociation, or
interoceptive issues like we talked about. How do I interpret the
sensations from in my body? Can I feel them? Can I interpret them
accurately? Sensory processing issues, right, where
(29:14):
stimulus starts to overwhelm our nervous system. And all of these
can be attempts to regulate an
overwhelmed nervous system through rituals, through movements,
through behaviors. These are tools for self regulation that provide
our brain and our nervous system with the stimulus that it needs to regulate
in the midst of that chronic stress. And I think many of
(29:36):
the outputs we talk about on here as well, it can become a loop.
Right. The behaviors are there as self
regulating, self soothing behaviors, but then they also
create more stress because I'm becoming fixated
on the cleanliness of my environment or
food patterns or whatever it is. And that's actually really
(29:58):
exacerbating my stress load because of the pressure, the
perfectionism, whatever it is that it puts in to myself. And so
then I rely more on the protective
behaviors and I'm driven more into those ways of brain
functioning that create the symptoms that then drives more stress.
And so it's really important to start to think about how we
(30:20):
can interrupt that loop. Like can I do things in these
moments to start to train myself in the skill of emotional
processing or to work with my interceptive system or to provide the stimulus in
a new way that starts to create a pattern, interrupt
there so that we can start creating that regulation and safety because
it can really compound on itself. Yeah. So one of the most
(30:42):
important things to take into consideration as we start talking about
moving forward, is making nervous system regulation
and nervous system tools part of a daily practice?
It's challenging to work through something this big.
When we adopt the mindset, like, I have to do my
drills three times a day. That's number one. That's
(31:05):
usually not enough exposure to the regulation drills to make a
big impact. It's kind of a drop in the bucket. But two,
it doesn't allow for. What does my nervous system need in the
moment? And so, like, I know obviously, the
listeners here, certain people have tried nervous system
training. You guys recommend a lot of stuff. I teach a lot of
(31:26):
tools. But more than any tool, it's not one single
tool. It's more mindset or a lifestyle of
beginning to regulate the nervous system throughout the different things
that it experiences. So I want to talk a little bit about why OCD
actually develops, if that's okay. So I want to talk really quickly
about why OCD develops for some people. And, like,
(31:49):
what can trigger that and what the brain is actually doing.
So the first idea is that OCD usually
begins as or with an experience of really
uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, or
physical sensations, like something that we were not expecting or
we thought we would never experience or didn't want to experience. It
(32:11):
happens. And then these experiences in our own mind get labeled as
unwanted or threatening. And once they're labeled as
threatening or perceived as threatening, then they start to trigger are
F responses. Fight, flight, freeze, flop, et cetera.
Okay, so what our brain does over time is
it stores the behavioral responses that
(32:33):
help to reduce threat. The ones that succeed in reducing threat, our brain
stores as adaptive responses that we can use
anytime we need to manage our threat level. Okay, and it goes, oh, that
one worked. I can go back to that in the future. Oh, that one didn't
work. I'm gonna discard that one. Okay, so then whenever
we're next in the presence of the threat, the brain is gonna
(32:55):
feel compelled to engage in the same behaviors to try to
manage the threat level by doing the very same response. Like
that worked in the past. I'm gonna try to do it again and see if
I can manage my threat. So it kind of becomes what we do in
a particular situation. Okay. And this action
is adaptive. And when our fears are rational,
(33:17):
it makes sense. Like, I'm going to do this thing to avoid what
might happen. But where OCD kind of kicks in
is when the fears are somewhat irrational or
unable to be articulated. Like, we can't even really explain what we're
afraid of or what we're trying to avoid. And
then the brain continues to do this action that it
(33:39):
said, this is helpful, this is helpful, this is helpful. But it runs that
action on repeat because it can't deal with whatever
is the ongoing fear. It's trying to reduce the
threat, but it's not able to. So it just continues to run the same
actions, same thoughts, the same protective
behaviors. Okay? So it's like a gravitational
(34:01):
pull on these actions. They just keep
on happening. In the article that this information comes from, one of
the examples they talk about is a young boy who developed
ocd. And he goes, I can remember a time before I
had this. He's like. But I remember when it occurred as well. He's
like, I was fairly young. I was standing in the kitchen, and I
(34:23):
saw a kitchen knife on the countertop just laying
out because someone was using it. He's like, I suddenly had
these thoughts that I could potentially use that in a very violent
way. And those thoughts really scared me. He's
like, they completely sent me into a panic spiral.
So as the thoughts scared him, he describes
(34:46):
doing anything he could to not have those thoughts.
It's like trying to not think about the pink elephant, right? And
we all know that's really not possible. As soon as we tell our brain not
to think about something, we are indeed thinking about that thing.
So the more he tried to avoid the thoughts, the more it drove him into
adaptive responses and protective responses
(35:09):
until eventually the protective behaviors became
compelling. Repeated behaviors that he was unable
to cognitively override because his
subconscious survival brain was just running on
overdrive to try to reduce the threat and reduce the thoughts.
It was doing all these other actions and behaviors. So
(35:31):
it's the same process, right? Like there was unexpected thought
labeled as very uncomfortable, very frightening. The brain tries to
avoid that in the future, and then eventually it adapts and runs behaviors on
repeat. So some people are going to go into that
pattern because of this brain network and
emotional stuff that we've been talking about. Some people
(35:53):
are not. Because when that brain network and their
interoception and emotional regulation are able
to control, they will shut down those unwanted thoughts
or feelings, and the repetitive protective behavior won't
be necessary. So it's very similar to what we talked about in our conversation
on ptsd. When the brain can shut down unwanted thoughts
(36:16):
and emotions, it does. And when it can't, it has to begin to
adapt. It's really fascinating. Like, some of the research that
I found most interesting and I think responded to personally was
looking at freeze and ocd Behaviors like
OCD as a way to regulate out of a freeze response.
It's hypothesized that when the nervous system becomes stuck in a chronic
(36:37):
freeze state, which as we know, that's a highly parasympathetic
response, people may engage in compulsive behaviors as a
form of micro movement to regain a sense of control and
agency. These repetitive actions could be self
initiated stimuli to counteract the immobilization
associated with the freeze response and then provide
(36:59):
temporary relief to the underlying anxiety. And then
there's some real fascinating research that we're going to link to the show
notes because this would segue us into something completely different. But
there is also research that indicates phobias and obsessive
compulsive behaviors can be viewed as manifestations of the freeze
response. That OCD behaviors might function as
(37:21):
attempts to navigate or mitigate the immobilizing
effects of a nervous system locked in a state of fear induced
paralysis. Yeah, that is super interesting
because the freeze response is supposed to be momentary,
right? Like the way it's physiologically and neurologically wired in our body. It's
(37:41):
supposed to be freeze to flee or freeze to fight, not
freeze forever. Right. If you think of this
like in the animal world, the freeze forever makes an
animal become prey. So it's not a good adaptive
response. But sometimes we get stuck there. So I think there's some
real weight in this explanation and some real validity there
(38:04):
of ocd. Could be a way to mitigate a freeze
response, get us out of that. In doing so, it's going to
activate an area of the brain called the periaqueductal gray, which I think
we've talked about before. Lives in the midbrain. It's the area
of our survival network that kind of chooses when in the face
of threat, am I going to have a sympathetic response like fight or
(38:26):
flight, or am I going to have a parasympathetic response like
freeze? And if the periaqueductal gray has been
conditioned into that freeze response,
then we could view OCD as a way of that
CSTC loop that we talked about earlier trying to
break us out of the mold, right? Like, okay, let's move on, let's get
(38:48):
out of freeze, we gotta do something. And it starts to respond with
OCD tendencies because it's still a way to
regulate. It's still a way to control and make things more
predictable. So it's not just like, oh, I'm gonna dismiss the
freeze and go back to my normal actions. It's Like I'm going to
release the freeze slowly in a way that is highly controlled,
(39:10):
highly predictable, so that I continue to feel safe. That
really makes a lot of sense to me. And I think it is just
important. I think so much we hear about
sympathetic activation and people moving into fight and flight. But with
CPTs and childhood development, like freeze is such a
frequently occurring output because as kids we didn't have the
(39:31):
option to run or to fight. And so we
our go to protective mechanism is freeze. Chronic
freeze, chronic dissociation or flop. And
it is not what's meant to go on and on in that way. And
so finding ways to gradually move out of that
through rituals, behaviors, pattern
(39:53):
movements, it really does make a lot of sense. And I also think there's
a link here between OCD and
Fawn and some of the stuff we've talked about before as it relates
to perfectionism and social safety. So how some obsessive
behaviors can correlate with that need for social safety. And
we did an episode not too long ago with Piper looking at
(40:15):
rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, where individuals have
an extreme emotional response to perceived criticism.
And that can fuel obsessive thought loops and this big
dysregulation inside and lead to
compulsive checking, like checking in with people on
relationships, checking emails, checking, thinking about what I said, this
(40:36):
hyper vigilance around the way I word things, the way I show up.
And I think it's a little bit of a shift away,
but it is this form of compulsive
behavior in terms of
rituals for maintaining attachment and
creating social safety, when the nervous system is still stuck
(40:58):
in that state of chronically scanning for threat, it's just
more relational threat and social threat. And
that control of our appearance,
our connections, all of that perfectionism
becomes a subconscious strategy to prevent
rejection or conflict or perceived social
(41:20):
danger. Very much in the same way.
Yeah, really, creating false senses of safety, just like a trauma
response does. Like, I think Fawn really fits in well to the
OCD conversation and perfectionism conversation when we're talking
about compulsions as a strategy to maintain
connection and also to avoid
(41:42):
failure or rejection or judgment in some
way. But hyper vigilance and ocd, they keep that nervous system
in a constant state of threat detection. And then
rituals create a false sense of safety. And that is just how
the Fawn response is in a threat response. It creates
a false sense of safety. And so the brain
(42:04):
learns that maintaining these patterns keeps the nervous system from
spiraling into panic, even if it comes at the cost
of Ourselves, our exhaustion and
rigidity. And I was thinking about this recently, I have
a real example of this. But like, I think a lot of people will relate
to the compulsive email or text messages where
(42:26):
like, imagine you need to send an important message to someone, maybe
it's a boss, a client, a friend. And instead of writing it and
hitting send, you find yourselves rewriting it over and
over, obsessing over every word. So there's the
perfectionism in that, where we fear that the
message needs to be just right to avoid looking
(42:48):
incompetent, unprofessional, inconsistent. Consider it
and we might fixate on the tone, on the
punctuation, or whether there are wording could be
misinterpreted. There is the fear of rejection, and rejection,
sensitivity, dysphoria, because the imagination can get out
of control and we can imagine the recipient judging us harshly,
(43:09):
feeling disappointed in us, cutting ties with us.
Even just over a poorly phrased sentence, the thought
of this perceived danger or rejection danger, it
triggers a deep emotional response. And so then we have the fawn
response. So instead of trusting that the communication is
good enough, we over accommodate, over apologize, maybe
(43:31):
soften the language excessively to avoid any chance of upsetting
another person, and might even delete it entirely
just to keep the recipient happy. And then that leads us
into compulsion and false safety. So the act
of rewriting it temporarily reduces anxiety,
creating a false sense of control. But the relief is short lived
(43:53):
and the cycle repeats with the next communications,
reinforcing a belief that we must perform perfectly to be
accepted. I think when we're talking about this need for
social safety and the fawn response, and a huge
component of that is shame right underneath,
trying to avoid that shame reaction in our body
(44:16):
as a protective emotion to keep our attachment needs met.
But a lot of us have a very hyperactive shame response.
It's very immobilizing. It's linked with the freeze, it's linked with the fawn.
And so I do think that that reaction plays a big role
here as well. I think so too. I think shame is a
driving force behind compulsive loops and ocd. And it reinforces
(44:38):
the belief that something is inherently wrong or
defective about us. And it really keeps the I am
narrative, the I am bad narrative spiraling. And it fuels the
need for rituals to compensate for perceived inadequacies.
And the more someone engages in compulsions to neutralize
distress, the deeper the cycle of self judgment becomes,
(45:00):
creating an internal narrative of failure each time.
Relief is only temporary. This self perpetuating loop
of shame. And compulsive behavior makes it even harder to break free
from OCD patterns as the nervous system
becomes conditioned to seek momentary relief through ritualized
actions, rather than processing the deeper emotional wounds
(45:23):
that drive the disorder. And we did an episode recently on
the shame of carrying a label. The diagnosis.
And it all compounds when we know shame is in immobilizing
an emotion that keeps us from being able
to process and experience, express our emotions.
Anger, grief, fear, disappointment, rage.
(45:44):
Which all leads to more dysregulation because of the
emotional repression and more freeze. It just
becomes a vicious cycle. Yeah, agreed. This
is why emotional processing is so important. Shame is a
big one, but it can be any emotion that we're
walking around with that we've been unable to process and move
(46:07):
through. So these obsessive compulsive behaviors are like a
mechanism for emotional containment and control.
Right. Where they can serve to suppress or
redirect or regulate our overwhelming
emotions that feel unsafe to really experience.
So when they're unprocessed and stored in the nervous system, the
(46:29):
brain might turn to these rigid, repetitive behaviors as a way to
control and increase predictability. So learning how to
express, working to release those stored emotions
in nervous system training and emotional expression, that's the
key to doing that. The tricky part is doing it in a way
that is minimal effective dose and is
(46:51):
perceived as safe. Because if we do a big emotional
expression and we release so much
emotion that it is unsafe to feel, the brain just goes
back into its shell like a turtle hiding in its shell, and
the repetitive behaviors continue. So this really has to be a
small effective dose, not an overwhelming
(47:13):
emotional expression. Yeah, I think that's really important
because also too, not only do the behaviors still
occur, sometimes we can exacerbate them. Right. If we haven't
created the capacity for that experience. And that can actually be a really
good way to start to think about, am I
learning this skill of emotional processing in a way that
(47:34):
allows my nervous system and my brain to positively adapt?
Or am I finding that after I'm trying to do this, whether
that's through somatic therapy or cognitive therapy or
any other kind of practice that you have, do I find these behaviors flare up
with more intensity? Because if so, I'm exceeding my
capacity and not creating that safety in the body
(47:56):
and the nervous system, and now I'm perpetuating the same
well worn path and behaviors because
I haven't built that foundation of safety and moving through it in a
minimum effective dose. And I do want to Just
briefly hit onto what Jen mentioned about the shame that comes with
diagnosis. Right. And that that's why there's another really
(48:18):
important component of emotional processing.
Because even just hearing this
conversation and identifying that this diagnosis can carry
stigma and shame. And so it's really important
that this conversation hopefully just brings more
altitude to look at. This is a protective,
(48:39):
adaptive response of my system. There's nothing like broken
or inherently bad about me. And even as we just start
to shift to understand ourselves better, what's really going on inside
of me that's underneath these behaviors, perhaps that
can start to open up the door for a little bit more self compassion,
a little bit more emotional processing, a little bit different reaction,
(49:02):
rather than identifying as like a fixed way of being.
I also think too, before people go thinking that they have to
address all of their compulsions, it's really about finding a new
foundation of safety in the nervous system. And once you create
a baseline of foundation, like more safety in the body,
you can start to interrupt patterns. Look at them. Learn to regulate
(49:25):
your emotions. And it's just really important for people that
they bring their bodies into the conversation, because our bodies
are gonna detect threat before our minds do. And
if we have any compulsive behavior as an attempt to regulate,
there is another way to do that that is safer for the body
that will create honest relationships, you
(49:48):
know, where you don't have to fawn, where you can show up as yourself.
And so it will be easier to work on it
with safety through the nervous system first. Yeah.
Last thing I want to add on this is your output or
any outputs are not the problem. Right? So a
diagnosis is not your identity. The outputs themselves are
(50:10):
not the problem. This, your brain is wired
and is doing exactly what it's supposed to do to keep you safe. When it's
developing these compulsive behaviors, it's functioning
perfectly. It's a feature, not a flaw. And
the key to moving through that is
starting to examine why it's protecting in a safe, controlled
(50:32):
way, and then starting to learn how to regulate all these things we've been talking
about. But just know, walking away from this episode, your brain's doing what
it's supposed to do, even though that might sound a little weird,
and the outputs are not the problem themselves. Awesome.
I think that's beautiful. This podcast is for
informational and educational purposes only and should not be
(50:53):
considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss
lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics
that deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma
that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast
is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are
in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental
(51:15):
health and is in immediate danger, please call 911. For
specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the
show. Notes.
What most healing and personal development programs don't tell you is that your
patterns, your behaviors, your emotional responses are outputs
of your nervous system trying to keep you safe. And changing your
thoughts won't change those deep rooted patterns. You have to go deeper
inside. Rewiretrial.com, you'll learn how to train your nervous system for
greater capacity so that you can navigate life with more ease,
(00:21):
more presence, more connection. We have five live classes a week
with expert instructors. We have an on demand library with
thousands of recorded neurosomatic training sessions. And we have an
incredible supportive, inclusive community of people just like
you doing this deep work together. You don't have to keep fighting
against your own nervous system. You can re pattern it. Start your two free
(00:44):
week trial now@rewiretrial.com One of the
biggest misconceptions I see around obsessive compulsive disorder
is that it's just about intrusive thoughts and compulsions. But
what I think a lot of people are missing is that there is this deep
connection between ocd, trauma and the nervous system and
how unresolved stress patterns actually shape the way our brain
(01:06):
creates the obsessive loops and the compulsions. For example, when the
nervous system is dysregulated because of past trauma, the brain shifts
into survival mode, triggering repetitive thoughts and behaviors as
a way to create that false sense of control and safety.
And that's why so many people with OCD also struggle
with hypervigilance, perfectionism, emotional
(01:29):
dysregulation. And it works the other way too. When we focus
on nervous system health and emotional processing, we can actually
start to reduce the compulsions and the intrusive
thoughts at their root. And today we're going to break down the science of
ocd, trauma and nervous system healing and what you need to
know to start re patterning the brain and the nervous system for
(01:51):
recovery. And this isn't just theory. Research backs this
up. As much as 82% of individuals with
OCD also have a history of trauma, According to a
2014 meta analysis examining trauma related
obsessive compulsive disorders. If you've been on the journey with
us this season, you know, we've been exploring mental health outputs from a
(02:13):
neurosomatic lens. We took a deep dive into Borderline with Molly
Adler, and today we're examining anxiety related disorders,
specifically ocd. With Matt Bush, founder of Next Level
Neuro and lead educator at Neurosomatic Intelligence, we will look at
the latest neurological research, the overlaps with trauma and the
Importance of nervous system health. In navigating the issue, we
(02:35):
are asking the question, what if your OCD
symptoms were more than just intrusive thoughts and compulsions?
What if they are your nervous system's attempt to protect you from
an unresolved past?
Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system,
(02:56):
how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your
co host, Elizabeth Kristoff, founder of Brainbase.com and the
Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching certification. And I'm your co host,
Jennifer Wallace. I'm a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and
integration guide. And I'm also one of the educators at the Neurosomatic
Intelligence Coaching certification. And Matt, we're so
(03:17):
excited to have you back. We love taking these deep dives with
you. And, Matt, will you please share with our listeners why this is an
important conversation for us to have through the lens of
nsi? Absolutely, and thanks for having me back. I always
love being here on Trauma Rewired. This is a super important
conversation to me from a neurological world
(03:39):
because this is one of those diagnoses, it's one of those
labels that. That our culture and people who struggle
with this have been convinced that they're gonna have forever. Like, this is
the way you are, and it's kind of a permanent
sentence when they get the diagnosis. Like, that's the way it is. We're never
gonna be able to help it. We can try to treat it through
(04:01):
medications or other modalities, but I don't think that's actually
the case. And now that's a bit of a blanket statement. I don't wanna
make promises I can't fulfill. But when we really dig into the science
behind ocd, we see that just like all of the
other neurological outputs that we've talked about on the
podcast, OCD falls right in line. And it's an
(04:23):
output to protect us more than anything else. So
I'm looking forward to talking about some of the brain areas involved and what we
can start to do about this. Yeah, yeah, me too. And as
always, when we're tackling these specific mental health diagnoses or
outputs, I just want to take a second to remind listeners that this
is just a conversation to bring information and examine the role of
(04:45):
nervous system health. There's never one answer. These are
multifactorial issues. Right? The nervous system is
a piece of the puzzle, and we're not giving medical advice or
diagnosing anyone here. This is an exploratory season and we're presenting you
with a compilation of research showing many different perspectives,
interviewing a range of experts on all kinds of different topics. So
(05:07):
we just want to show you what's out there and contribute our own understanding of
the role that the brain and the nervous system play, how it impacts this topic,
and share our experiences along the way. Let's start with a
clear definition, the clear tongue. Obsessive
compulsive disorder. OCD is classically characterized by persistent
intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and repetitive behaviors or
(05:29):
mental rituals, compulsions an individual feels compelled to
perform. From the perspective of neurosomatic intelligence, OCD
can be understood as a nervous system adaptation, a dysregulated
nervous system response where intrusive thoughts and compulsive
behaviors emerge as a way to create a sense of control and
safety. And these obsessions and compulsions can
(05:50):
significantly interfere with daily activities and cause considerable
distress. And there are multiple ways that this can show
up in someone's life. Classic OCD symptoms, such
as checking, counting, hand
washing, contamination fears. It can show up
in food issues and relationships to our body, like body
(06:12):
checking, food related rituals, disordered eating
patterns. It can be sensory driven.
Compulsions can be a way to regulate sensory
input, especially for individuals with different ways of
processing sensory information and people who are identifying
as neurodivergent. And emotional expression plays a
(06:33):
crucial role in addressing the underlying dysregulation
rather than just managing symptoms. There are studies
that are looking at OCD as an attempt to control
emotional overwhelm when the nervous system is dysregulated. So I'm
really excited to explore all of that today. When I was
looking over this outline for us, it really reminded me of our
(06:55):
conversation around narcissism and how
much the science really opened us up to have a different
way to look at this person's nervous system. Yeah. So working with
multiple clients who have struggled with OCD
over the years with a professional diagnosis, I've seen
all of those types of behaviors that you kind of listed there, Jennifer, and it's
(07:17):
not always that they're all compelling at the same
time. The nervous system is going to select the adaptive
behaviors that it believes will give the greatest sense of
safety and the greatest sense of predictability to the world. And we'll
talk about that a little bit more later. But one young lady that I worked
with had been through some adverse childhood events as
(07:39):
her parents split and siblings were separated
and some other things had happened and developed
some OCD tendencies around her personal environment.
So her room had to be Set a certain way, specific
lighting, everything had its place. So it's kind of the control
of the environmental situation. And then on another note,
(08:02):
worked with a young man who had been through very
unexpected accidental trauma that he witnessed. He
was not physically involved, but witnessed this thing take place.
And the ocd in his case, he
described it as being triggered by this awareness of,
like, how did I see this happen? And I'm
(08:24):
expected to go on in my daily life while everyone around
me seems to be ignoring what we all just
saw. And so he began to have more of an
emotional expression, or maybe we could say an emotional
adaptation where OCD became a way to avoid some of
the emotional distress, of becoming aware
(08:47):
of the dissociation caused great emotional
distress. And OCD was a way to keep that
under control rather than letting it spiral. So
very different presentations in these two clients,
but both very compelling cases of the nervous system
making an adaptation to try to make the world safe. Yeah,
(09:09):
same. I have so many different clients where this presents
differently, and I'm thinking of one where the dots are just very,
very clear. They grew up in a very chaotic household. There
was physical abuse and emotional neglect. And, you
know, it was a household where love wasn't expressed
very much. Praise love. And it was also very
(09:30):
unpredictable. Right. But the one place where they did
receive praise was when they did chores and cleaned the house.
And their family kept everything looking really good on the outside,
even though it was massively chaotic inside.
And that was a way that their entire family
maintained some sort of social safety in their community.
(09:53):
And then the only way that they received love. And now in adulthood, for
this person, it's really difficult when the house is
disorganized, when there's even, like a. A crumb,
something out of place, something gets moved. A lot of
obsession around creating the perfect house environment, finding the right
furniture, finding the right thing, and really spiraling about
(10:15):
all of those decisions. And what I really see in. In
these cases is knowing, like being
able to see someone's nervous system communicating through their
posture and their patterns, is that when this person
is triggered by something very small and insignificant, it's not
just a cognitive experience. It's not just. I'm ruminating on this thought of
(10:37):
it, but I can see the real panic and the strong
dysregulation in the system, the changes in posture, the changes in
respiration. And then it makes complete sense to me that
someone would be hypervigilant around
allowing one of those triggers to occur, because the
dysregulation and the stress load is so high inside when it
(10:59):
happens. It's like, yeah, I'm going to work really, really hard to make sure that
my environment doesn't trigger me, because that's such a big ask of my
body and nervous system when it happens. So I'm really
excited to dive deeper into this. And we
can kind of see with these stories, the dots connecting, but a little bit more
about what is going on in our brain and our nervous system. Yeah, I think
(11:21):
that would be helpful. So we're going to talk a little bit about the brain
areas involved in ocd, at least according to the latest
research, what researchers believe is kind of driving this behavior.
So the number one area that we want to look at or
pathway is called a
corticostriato thalamo
(11:41):
cortical loop. Okay. We're going to abbreviate
that. It's the CSTC loop, because
corticostriatothalam or cortical was kind of a mouthful.
Right. And you may not know what any of those brain regions are. That's okay.
We're going to break it down really easy here. But essentially, this is a fundamental
brain circuit that's involved in various cognitive and motor
(12:03):
functions. And it's really. It's nicknamed the salience network,
which means it helps us decide what is important
to focus on. Okay. So the way this pathway works
is that the prefrontal cortex in our frontal lobe has a
thought about something that it wants to do or wants to pay attention to.
It sends that decision down to an area called the striatum, which
(12:26):
is part of the basal ganglia, and that is a subcortical area,
meaning it doesn't do any thinking. It simply activates the
attentional network. It's like plugging in the electricity for
an appliance. Right. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't have a little
computer chip in it. It's just the power cable, more or less, to turn on
the pathway. The striatum then activates the
(12:48):
thalamus. And remember, the thalamus is like the gatekeeper to our
cortex. It helps us decide of the incoming sensory
inputs that the brain is receiving, what is important for me to pay
attention to and what can be safely ignored, like, what
gets in, what has to stay out of my cognitive awareness.
So the thalamus is basically filtering through sensory
(13:10):
inputs as well as thoughts and feelings to decide
what my cortex will receive. And then the end
of the network is the connection from the thalamus back to the cortex,
specifically, again, the prefrontal cortex, where
now the Prefrontal cortex gets to analyze and
interpret the sensory input that it's receiving.
(13:32):
Right. So, for example, as we're here on the podcast and having a
conversation, my CSTC loop
says it's important to listen to what Elizabeth and Jennifer are
saying. So my prefrontal cortex makes that decision.
It tells the striatum to activate the network. Striatum tells the
thalamus, pay attention to the conversation. Ignore
(13:53):
anything else that you might hear. So the traffic going on outside my
window can be ignored. Any other noises from the house can be
ignored. Right. So I'm going to focus on the conversation, and then
as the conversation takes place and the auditory input comes
into my brain, my thalamus is going to go, yep, that's important. I need to
send that onto the cortex so that the cortex can hear it
(14:15):
and interpret meaning from what they're saying.
So that's the feedback loop that happens. Okay. But here's what's
really interesting. When we look at this CTSC loop in more
detail, it actually is comprised of five
different circuits. Okay. And I just wanted to label
these real quick, because as soon as we start unpacking these, it's not only
(14:37):
OCD that's affected by this particular pathway, but also
ADHD and learning difficulties. Okay. So this is
a huge pathway in neuroscience research.
So the first loop that's part of this is our sustained attention.
Can I hold my attention on something despite other
distractions? Number two is an emotional
(14:59):
circuit. Like, can I pay attention to my emotions and
understand what they are, and can they be applied appropriately to
a situation? Number three is a selective attention
circuit. That's like, when something comes up in my environment, like a
flash of light or a big sound or I know that something's
gonna be important in any of those things that go, hey, I have to,
(15:21):
like, reorient. I have to focus in on that thing that's happening
because it's actually more important than whatever I was paying attention to
before. That's where we're gonna actually pick up on the OCD conversation
in a second. Selective attention. Okay. Number four is the
hyperactive movement circuit to keep movement
happening all the time. And number five is an
(15:42):
impulsivity or compulsivity circuit, which
compels us to do certain actions or
engages us in impulsive activity. So
basically, what they're seeing in the research when they do, there's a study that
came out of Michigan Medical Centers, where they do this
analysis of brain scans and reveal that individuals
(16:04):
with OCD exhibit abnormalities in specific brain
regions. And we're talking about the ones that we just
described. What they mean is there's a structural change that occurs
over time. They can see on a brain scan that this area looks
different, that it's grown in size or shrunk in size, depending on what they're
looking at. A study out of Stanford highlights
(16:26):
that in brain imaging studies, they've actually created a
model for the pathology of ocd,
including hyperactivity in certain
subcortical regions. So basically, what happens
is when OCD is present, the last three circuits that we
talked about, selective attention, right? So it's going to pull my
(16:48):
attention to something. Hyperactivity and
impulsivity, Those three basically get hijacked. They
get spun up, and they're running on overdrive while
the sustained attention pathways and the emotional circuits
become less active, less accessible.
Okay, so that's what they're seeing in the Stanford study. And then there's an
(17:10):
awesome study from Texas Children's Hospital in Baylor medicine
that shows actual biomarkers. Like, they found the
biomarkers for OCD in these studies
with children. And this is so cool. They're
actually using the deep brain stimulation, which is an electrical
stimulus that's implanted into the brain. It's kind of like a
(17:31):
pacemaker that keeps the heart beating. But this deep brain
stimulator implants electrical stimulus into the brain.
And when they give the brain electrical
currents that are in the theta and gamma brain
wave frequencies, okay, Theta is
from 4 to 8 Hz. That means 4 to 8 cycles per
(17:53):
second. Gamma is from 8 to 12 Hz.
When they give those frequencies, they see a decrease in
ocd tendencies and behaviors. So I pulled a quote,
and I want to share it because it's just so cool. It says, before deep
brain stimulation, we saw an extremely predictable and
regular periodic neural activity associated with
(18:14):
OCD in all of the participants in the study. But after
deep brain stimulation, as individuals began responding and
improving symptomatically, this predictable pattern of OCD
broke down. So here's how they described it. Said
individuals with OCD have a limited repertoire of
responses to any given situation. Like,
(18:36):
meaning this network that we talked about is limiting
their possible reactions to a certain situation in
life. Okay, so it goes on to say they
often perform the same rituals repeatedly, and they seldom
vary their routines or engage in new activities which
might result in this behavior results in high predictability of
(18:58):
their activity. They know what's going to happen next.
Okay, but after deep brain stimulation, when the
OCD is reducing, their behavior
repertoire is expanded. They can be more flexible to
New situations and not just be driven by a
strong desire to avoid OCD triggers.
(19:20):
So what's in between the lines or like, beneath the surface of this quote in
these studies is that the brain is creating
these OCD behaviors as an
adaptability, as a protection
mechanism from unknown
or unpredictable or negative
(19:41):
experiences, either in the external environment
around us or within the internal environment of our body.
Okay. It's like keeping us safe by engaging these OCD
behaviors. And when they activate this brain circuit,
it's like that protective behavior all
starts to decrease greatly, and they can be more
(20:02):
open to different experiences. I find these fascinating.
These studies really fascinating. And I keep thinking
about a couple previous episodes
that I feel like are kind of foundational for this conversation,
Looking at how complex trauma impacts brain
development. And just this idea that we come back to all of the time,
(20:24):
that everything is a skill and every skill is trainable. And what are
the waters that we're swimming in that shape, how our
brain starts to function, and what circuits get stimulation
and myelination over time. And also that it really
shows the power of neuroplasticity there, right when we get
stimulation and activation, suddenly new things
(20:46):
are possible. That it's not necessarily fixed
or set in stone. And that I wasn't just also born this way, that
there is a protective role of the way that my
brain started to function this way to create safety. And I
think also it was really important when you talked about that internal safety
or that lack of safety could come from the external environment or
(21:08):
the internal environment. When interoceptive
signals, emotional sensations are too overwhelming,
that can also trigger that protective response. So it's not
just trying to create safety and control with the external environment,
but also with what's happening inside of us when we grow
up without emotional regulation and processing skills to be able
(21:31):
to feel and be safe with our internal
sensations. Those studies that I mentioned kind of leaned more
toward the structural changes. But there's just the
same level of awesome studies and research out there right now talking about
interoception and emotional dysregulation as it connects to
ocd. So I'm happy you brought that up. I don't want us to gloss
(21:52):
over that, because that's a really important point, that it does not have to be
external stimulus that drives the brain into protective
behavior. It can be internal stimulus from emotions or
interoception. That makes me think of another study that I want to
bring in here, because I think that also relates to the emotional
experience in ocd. And it was a study from nature early life stress and
(22:15):
OCD vulnerability, talking about how trauma alters
brain development and makes individuals more prone to compulsive patterns. And
they studied 48 people with OCD. So it was a smaller study who had never
taken medication and then 42 people without OCD.
And they used brain scans to measure the activity levels
in different brain areas while participants were at rest. And they collected also
(22:37):
information about their OCD severity and their history of childhood
trauma. And they found that people with OCD had reduced activity
in specific brain areas, particularly the right cerebellum. And this
really makes me think back of our episode about newer
PTSD research and the role of cerebellum in emotional
processing. So we know our cerebellum helps
(22:58):
obviously regulate our movement accuracy, balance and coordination,
but also emotional processing. And then the right superior
occipital lobe linked to visual processing. And with more
severe OCD symptoms, there was lower activity in these
areas. And they found in the study that emotional abuse in
childhood was linked to reduced activity in the
(23:20):
cerebellum. And the more someone emotional abuse or emotional
neglect, the lower their cerebellar activity was. And
they found that changes in the cerebellar activity may act as a
bridge between childhood emotional abuse and the
manifestation of these OCD symptoms. So we can
really start to see another way that childhood trauma
(23:42):
and emotional neglect and emotional processing alters brain functions
that then start to produce these symptoms. And again, we
talked at length in this other episode about why it's important
to also include cerebellar training in our ability to regulate our
emotions. And as we start to develop that skill now, we have less
presentation of these symptoms, of these compulsions that are
(24:05):
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chronicpain yeah, it also. Reminds me of the talks that we
did on early childhood development. And as the brain
is supposed to be going through these developmental windows,
if traumatic environment or any kind of physical,
emotional, other traumas cause a
(25:35):
dissociation and a disconnect in that developmental
timeframe, then that brain develops
along an entirely different trajectory than what might
have been. Right. But what I've seen in working with clients in the real world,
though, is that despite they've gone through early childhood traumas, they've gone
through physical traumas, they're still able
(25:57):
to improve these things even in their adult life.
So, you know, if you're listening, this is not kind of a
permanent sentence like we started off saying at the beginning. This is still
the brain's way of adapting. And it may have been adapting to this and
building on this skewed foundation for the last 30 years,
(26:17):
but it's still not done changing and adapting. It can
still be trained, no matter your age or
what you've been through. It's just a matter of finding the right
combination of inputs to work with
some of these cerebellar and subcortical areas to start
to activate them and connect them in a safe way.
(26:39):
You know, it was really interesting in preparing for this conversation.
I'm not someone who associates. I do not resonate at all. If
you said I have ocd, and that's really not true on
the spectrum of things. I know that when my stress
bucket overflows, I do have compulsive
behaviors. And I always looked at them actually as kind of
(27:02):
punishing behaviors. But through the lens of this research and these
articles and this outline that we're working through, I could really
see that when I shut down emotionally
and when the threat gets too high and I shut down emotionally, I will
pick. I will pull, like, hair out of
my. I will pick at my nails and do really to.
(27:25):
Sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing something until I catch myself
in the behavior. And I relate so
much to the reasons why someone would
develop o C D. It's kind of strange. I'm sitting here like, I can't believe
I don't have this too further on the spectrum, to be honest
with you. So I'm finding that, like, just really interesting as I'm
(27:47):
listening to this science because you know, like through all the episodes that you guys
mentioned, we know that chronic stress and early development, it
desensitizes some areas and it over sensitizes other
areas. And that we get primed for stress
responses like hyper vigilance, you know, and that
makes compulsions an adaptive strategy
(28:08):
to regain control. It just totally makes sense. And if, if
trauma is disrupting all of this other brain activity,
it can also reinforce repetitive behaviors as a way to self
regulate. So chronic stress, it impairs
our neuroplasticity and makes it harder for the brain to break free of
these really rigid thought patterns. And this is why
(28:30):
NSI is so brilliant. Because now we can regulate a threat
response, rewire compulsive patterns and restore
emotional expression. Yeah, I can
also really relate to some of this the deeper we
go. Jen and I think big
picture as we've been talking about this, we know
(28:52):
people with a trauma history feel chronically unsafe in their
bodies, Right. Whether that comes from patterns that were formed during
development, chronic dissociation, or
interoceptive issues like we talked about. How do I interpret the
sensations from in my body? Can I feel them? Can I interpret them
accurately? Sensory processing issues, right, where
(29:14):
stimulus starts to overwhelm our nervous system. And all of these
can be attempts to regulate an
overwhelmed nervous system through rituals, through movements,
through behaviors. These are tools for self regulation that provide
our brain and our nervous system with the stimulus that it needs to regulate
in the midst of that chronic stress. And I think many of
(29:36):
the outputs we talk about on here as well, it can become a loop.
Right. The behaviors are there as self
regulating, self soothing behaviors, but then they also
create more stress because I'm becoming fixated
on the cleanliness of my environment or
food patterns or whatever it is. And that's actually really
(29:58):
exacerbating my stress load because of the pressure, the
perfectionism, whatever it is that it puts in to myself. And so
then I rely more on the protective
behaviors and I'm driven more into those ways of brain
functioning that create the symptoms that then drives more stress.
And so it's really important to start to think about how we
(30:20):
can interrupt that loop. Like can I do things in these
moments to start to train myself in the skill of emotional
processing or to work with my interceptive system or to provide the stimulus in
a new way that starts to create a pattern, interrupt
there so that we can start creating that regulation and safety because
it can really compound on itself. Yeah. So one of the most
(30:42):
important things to take into consideration as we start talking about
moving forward, is making nervous system regulation
and nervous system tools part of a daily practice?
It's challenging to work through something this big.
When we adopt the mindset, like, I have to do my
drills three times a day. That's number one. That's
(31:05):
usually not enough exposure to the regulation drills to make a
big impact. It's kind of a drop in the bucket. But two,
it doesn't allow for. What does my nervous system need in the
moment? And so, like, I know obviously, the
listeners here, certain people have tried nervous system
training. You guys recommend a lot of stuff. I teach a lot of
(31:26):
tools. But more than any tool, it's not one single
tool. It's more mindset or a lifestyle of
beginning to regulate the nervous system throughout the different things
that it experiences. So I want to talk a little bit about why OCD
actually develops, if that's okay. So I want to talk really quickly
about why OCD develops for some people. And, like,
(31:49):
what can trigger that and what the brain is actually doing.
So the first idea is that OCD usually
begins as or with an experience of really
uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, or
physical sensations, like something that we were not expecting or
we thought we would never experience or didn't want to experience. It
(32:11):
happens. And then these experiences in our own mind get labeled as
unwanted or threatening. And once they're labeled as
threatening or perceived as threatening, then they start to trigger are
F responses. Fight, flight, freeze, flop, et cetera.
Okay, so what our brain does over time is
it stores the behavioral responses that
(32:33):
help to reduce threat. The ones that succeed in reducing threat, our brain
stores as adaptive responses that we can use
anytime we need to manage our threat level. Okay, and it goes, oh, that
one worked. I can go back to that in the future. Oh, that one didn't
work. I'm gonna discard that one. Okay, so then whenever
we're next in the presence of the threat, the brain is gonna
(32:55):
feel compelled to engage in the same behaviors to try to
manage the threat level by doing the very same response. Like
that worked in the past. I'm gonna try to do it again and see if
I can manage my threat. So it kind of becomes what we do in
a particular situation. Okay. And this action
is adaptive. And when our fears are rational,
(33:17):
it makes sense. Like, I'm going to do this thing to avoid what
might happen. But where OCD kind of kicks in
is when the fears are somewhat irrational or
unable to be articulated. Like, we can't even really explain what we're
afraid of or what we're trying to avoid. And
then the brain continues to do this action that it
(33:39):
said, this is helpful, this is helpful, this is helpful. But it runs that
action on repeat because it can't deal with whatever
is the ongoing fear. It's trying to reduce the
threat, but it's not able to. So it just continues to run the same
actions, same thoughts, the same protective
behaviors. Okay? So it's like a gravitational
(34:01):
pull on these actions. They just keep
on happening. In the article that this information comes from, one of
the examples they talk about is a young boy who developed
ocd. And he goes, I can remember a time before I
had this. He's like. But I remember when it occurred as well. He's
like, I was fairly young. I was standing in the kitchen, and I
(34:23):
saw a kitchen knife on the countertop just laying
out because someone was using it. He's like, I suddenly had
these thoughts that I could potentially use that in a very violent
way. And those thoughts really scared me. He's
like, they completely sent me into a panic spiral.
So as the thoughts scared him, he describes
(34:46):
doing anything he could to not have those thoughts.
It's like trying to not think about the pink elephant, right? And
we all know that's really not possible. As soon as we tell our brain not
to think about something, we are indeed thinking about that thing.
So the more he tried to avoid the thoughts, the more it drove him into
adaptive responses and protective responses
(35:09):
until eventually the protective behaviors became
compelling. Repeated behaviors that he was unable
to cognitively override because his
subconscious survival brain was just running on
overdrive to try to reduce the threat and reduce the thoughts.
It was doing all these other actions and behaviors. So
(35:31):
it's the same process, right? Like there was unexpected thought
labeled as very uncomfortable, very frightening. The brain tries to
avoid that in the future, and then eventually it adapts and runs behaviors on
repeat. So some people are going to go into that
pattern because of this brain network and
emotional stuff that we've been talking about. Some people
(35:53):
are not. Because when that brain network and their
interoception and emotional regulation are able
to control, they will shut down those unwanted thoughts
or feelings, and the repetitive protective behavior won't
be necessary. So it's very similar to what we talked about in our conversation
on ptsd. When the brain can shut down unwanted thoughts
(36:16):
and emotions, it does. And when it can't, it has to begin to
adapt. It's really fascinating. Like, some of the research that
I found most interesting and I think responded to personally was
looking at freeze and ocd Behaviors like
OCD as a way to regulate out of a freeze response.
It's hypothesized that when the nervous system becomes stuck in a chronic
(36:37):
freeze state, which as we know, that's a highly parasympathetic
response, people may engage in compulsive behaviors as a
form of micro movement to regain a sense of control and
agency. These repetitive actions could be self
initiated stimuli to counteract the immobilization
associated with the freeze response and then provide
(36:59):
temporary relief to the underlying anxiety. And then
there's some real fascinating research that we're going to link to the show
notes because this would segue us into something completely different. But
there is also research that indicates phobias and obsessive
compulsive behaviors can be viewed as manifestations of the freeze
response. That OCD behaviors might function as
(37:21):
attempts to navigate or mitigate the immobilizing
effects of a nervous system locked in a state of fear induced
paralysis. Yeah, that is super interesting
because the freeze response is supposed to be momentary,
right? Like the way it's physiologically and neurologically wired in our body. It's
(37:41):
supposed to be freeze to flee or freeze to fight, not
freeze forever. Right. If you think of this
like in the animal world, the freeze forever makes an
animal become prey. So it's not a good adaptive
response. But sometimes we get stuck there. So I think there's some
real weight in this explanation and some real validity there
(38:04):
of ocd. Could be a way to mitigate a freeze
response, get us out of that. In doing so, it's going to
activate an area of the brain called the periaqueductal gray, which I think
we've talked about before. Lives in the midbrain. It's the area
of our survival network that kind of chooses when in the face
of threat, am I going to have a sympathetic response like fight or
(38:26):
flight, or am I going to have a parasympathetic response like
freeze? And if the periaqueductal gray has been
conditioned into that freeze response,
then we could view OCD as a way of that
CSTC loop that we talked about earlier trying to
break us out of the mold, right? Like, okay, let's move on, let's get
(38:48):
out of freeze, we gotta do something. And it starts to respond with
OCD tendencies because it's still a way to
regulate. It's still a way to control and make things more
predictable. So it's not just like, oh, I'm gonna dismiss the
freeze and go back to my normal actions. It's Like I'm going to
release the freeze slowly in a way that is highly controlled,
(39:10):
highly predictable, so that I continue to feel safe. That
really makes a lot of sense to me. And I think it is just
important. I think so much we hear about
sympathetic activation and people moving into fight and flight. But with
CPTs and childhood development, like freeze is such a
frequently occurring output because as kids we didn't have the
(39:31):
option to run or to fight. And so we
our go to protective mechanism is freeze. Chronic
freeze, chronic dissociation or flop. And
it is not what's meant to go on and on in that way. And
so finding ways to gradually move out of that
through rituals, behaviors, pattern
(39:53):
movements, it really does make a lot of sense. And I also think there's
a link here between OCD and
Fawn and some of the stuff we've talked about before as it relates
to perfectionism and social safety. So how some obsessive
behaviors can correlate with that need for social safety. And
we did an episode not too long ago with Piper looking at
(40:15):
rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, where individuals have
an extreme emotional response to perceived criticism.
And that can fuel obsessive thought loops and this big
dysregulation inside and lead to
compulsive checking, like checking in with people on
relationships, checking emails, checking, thinking about what I said, this
(40:36):
hyper vigilance around the way I word things, the way I show up.
And I think it's a little bit of a shift away,
but it is this form of compulsive
behavior in terms of
rituals for maintaining attachment and
creating social safety, when the nervous system is still stuck
(40:58):
in that state of chronically scanning for threat, it's just
more relational threat and social threat. And
that control of our appearance,
our connections, all of that perfectionism
becomes a subconscious strategy to prevent
rejection or conflict or perceived social
(41:20):
danger. Very much in the same way.
Yeah, really, creating false senses of safety, just like a trauma
response does. Like, I think Fawn really fits in well to the
OCD conversation and perfectionism conversation when we're talking
about compulsions as a strategy to maintain
connection and also to avoid
(41:42):
failure or rejection or judgment in some
way. But hyper vigilance and ocd, they keep that nervous system
in a constant state of threat detection. And then
rituals create a false sense of safety. And that is just how
the Fawn response is in a threat response. It creates
a false sense of safety. And so the brain
(42:04):
learns that maintaining these patterns keeps the nervous system from
spiraling into panic, even if it comes at the cost
of Ourselves, our exhaustion and
rigidity. And I was thinking about this recently, I have
a real example of this. But like, I think a lot of people will relate
to the compulsive email or text messages where
(42:26):
like, imagine you need to send an important message to someone, maybe
it's a boss, a client, a friend. And instead of writing it and
hitting send, you find yourselves rewriting it over and
over, obsessing over every word. So there's the
perfectionism in that, where we fear that the
message needs to be just right to avoid looking
(42:48):
incompetent, unprofessional, inconsistent. Consider it
and we might fixate on the tone, on the
punctuation, or whether there are wording could be
misinterpreted. There is the fear of rejection, and rejection,
sensitivity, dysphoria, because the imagination can get out
of control and we can imagine the recipient judging us harshly,
(43:09):
feeling disappointed in us, cutting ties with us.
Even just over a poorly phrased sentence, the thought
of this perceived danger or rejection danger, it
triggers a deep emotional response. And so then we have the fawn
response. So instead of trusting that the communication is
good enough, we over accommodate, over apologize, maybe
(43:31):
soften the language excessively to avoid any chance of upsetting
another person, and might even delete it entirely
just to keep the recipient happy. And then that leads us
into compulsion and false safety. So the act
of rewriting it temporarily reduces anxiety,
creating a false sense of control. But the relief is short lived
(43:53):
and the cycle repeats with the next communications,
reinforcing a belief that we must perform perfectly to be
accepted. I think when we're talking about this need for
social safety and the fawn response, and a huge
component of that is shame right underneath,
trying to avoid that shame reaction in our body
(44:16):
as a protective emotion to keep our attachment needs met.
But a lot of us have a very hyperactive shame response.
It's very immobilizing. It's linked with the freeze, it's linked with the fawn.
And so I do think that that reaction plays a big role
here as well. I think so too. I think shame is a
driving force behind compulsive loops and ocd. And it reinforces
(44:38):
the belief that something is inherently wrong or
defective about us. And it really keeps the I am
narrative, the I am bad narrative spiraling. And it fuels the
need for rituals to compensate for perceived inadequacies.
And the more someone engages in compulsions to neutralize
distress, the deeper the cycle of self judgment becomes,
(45:00):
creating an internal narrative of failure each time.
Relief is only temporary. This self perpetuating loop
of shame. And compulsive behavior makes it even harder to break free
from OCD patterns as the nervous system
becomes conditioned to seek momentary relief through ritualized
actions, rather than processing the deeper emotional wounds
(45:23):
that drive the disorder. And we did an episode recently on
the shame of carrying a label. The diagnosis.
And it all compounds when we know shame is in immobilizing
an emotion that keeps us from being able
to process and experience, express our emotions.
Anger, grief, fear, disappointment, rage.
(45:44):
Which all leads to more dysregulation because of the
emotional repression and more freeze. It just
becomes a vicious cycle. Yeah, agreed. This
is why emotional processing is so important. Shame is a
big one, but it can be any emotion that we're
walking around with that we've been unable to process and move
(46:07):
through. So these obsessive compulsive behaviors are like a
mechanism for emotional containment and control.
Right. Where they can serve to suppress or
redirect or regulate our overwhelming
emotions that feel unsafe to really experience.
So when they're unprocessed and stored in the nervous system, the
(46:29):
brain might turn to these rigid, repetitive behaviors as a way to
control and increase predictability. So learning how to
express, working to release those stored emotions
in nervous system training and emotional expression, that's the
key to doing that. The tricky part is doing it in a way
that is minimal effective dose and is
(46:51):
perceived as safe. Because if we do a big emotional
expression and we release so much
emotion that it is unsafe to feel, the brain just goes
back into its shell like a turtle hiding in its shell, and
the repetitive behaviors continue. So this really has to be a
small effective dose, not an overwhelming
(47:13):
emotional expression. Yeah, I think that's really important
because also too, not only do the behaviors still
occur, sometimes we can exacerbate them. Right. If we haven't
created the capacity for that experience. And that can actually be a really
good way to start to think about, am I
learning this skill of emotional processing in a way that
(47:34):
allows my nervous system and my brain to positively adapt?
Or am I finding that after I'm trying to do this, whether
that's through somatic therapy or cognitive therapy or
any other kind of practice that you have, do I find these behaviors flare up
with more intensity? Because if so, I'm exceeding my
capacity and not creating that safety in the body
(47:56):
and the nervous system, and now I'm perpetuating the same
well worn path and behaviors because
I haven't built that foundation of safety and moving through it in a
minimum effective dose. And I do want to Just
briefly hit onto what Jen mentioned about the shame that comes with
diagnosis. Right. And that that's why there's another really
(48:18):
important component of emotional processing.
Because even just hearing this
conversation and identifying that this diagnosis can carry
stigma and shame. And so it's really important
that this conversation hopefully just brings more
altitude to look at. This is a protective,
(48:39):
adaptive response of my system. There's nothing like broken
or inherently bad about me. And even as we just start
to shift to understand ourselves better, what's really going on inside
of me that's underneath these behaviors, perhaps that
can start to open up the door for a little bit more self compassion,
a little bit more emotional processing, a little bit different reaction,
(49:02):
rather than identifying as like a fixed way of being.
I also think too, before people go thinking that they have to
address all of their compulsions, it's really about finding a new
foundation of safety in the nervous system. And once you create
a baseline of foundation, like more safety in the body,
you can start to interrupt patterns. Look at them. Learn to regulate
(49:25):
your emotions. And it's just really important for people that
they bring their bodies into the conversation, because our bodies
are gonna detect threat before our minds do. And
if we have any compulsive behavior as an attempt to regulate,
there is another way to do that that is safer for the body
that will create honest relationships, you
(49:48):
know, where you don't have to fawn, where you can show up as yourself.
And so it will be easier to work on it
with safety through the nervous system first. Yeah.
Last thing I want to add on this is your output or
any outputs are not the problem. Right? So a
diagnosis is not your identity. The outputs themselves are
(50:10):
not the problem. This, your brain is wired
and is doing exactly what it's supposed to do to keep you safe. When it's
developing these compulsive behaviors, it's functioning
perfectly. It's a feature, not a flaw. And
the key to moving through that is
starting to examine why it's protecting in a safe, controlled
(50:32):
way, and then starting to learn how to regulate all these things we've been talking
about. But just know, walking away from this episode, your brain's doing what
it's supposed to do, even though that might sound a little weird,
and the outputs are not the problem themselves. Awesome.
I think that's beautiful. This podcast is for
informational and educational purposes only and should not be
(50:53):
considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss
lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics
that deal with complex developmental and systemic trauma
that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast
is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are
in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental
(51:15):
health and is in immediate danger, please call 911. For
specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the
show. Notes.
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