August 7, 2025 • 59 mins
In one of our most raw and powerful episodes to date, I sit down with my dear friend Zoe Marshall - TV presenter, author, manifester, podcast host, and mental health advocate - for an unfiltered conversation about her journey through Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Together, we peel back the layers of what it's really like to live with intrusive thoughts, compulsions, and the mental gymnastics of emetophobia (fear of vomit) - a condition Zoe mistook for decades as just anxiety or a phobia.
We explore:
The moment Zoe realised her lifelong fear had a name
The four-hour lunch that changed her life
Her terrifying but transformative experience with Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy
The fluid fusion between her identity and OCD—and how she's learning to separate the two
How one word—maybe—has given her the freedom to live again
This conversation is deeply personal, sometimes confronting, often enlightening - and full of hope. Whether you live with OCD, love someone who does, or simply want to understand the inner world behind a smile, this episode is for you.
Zoe’s vulnerability is a gift. Her story is a mirror. And her healing is a reminder that even in the darkest confusion, trust and surrender can light the way.
👉 Connect with Zoe: @zoebmarshall | arise.com.au
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I use the word I, I, I, I kick a break.
We have an aversion to ourselvesand to what's happening inside
(00:21):
us, inside us. I've been very interested in
this. Problem for a long, long time.
Something settles. Miss Zoe Marshall, I know you
well. I'm lucky enough to call you a
friend. I have heard multiple parts of
(00:43):
your story. You have spoken publicly about
your experiences with a range ofmental health related things
from domestic violence, anxiety,depression, infertility,
miscarriages, grief, losing yourmom.
And I know that's a lot to hear in one sentence.
But what I'm really building toward with that intro is that
you are the kind of the consummate peanut person of what
(01:06):
we would consider with heart on my sleeve, where leading through
vulnerability, turning pain intopurpose and feeling powerful
from your experiences as opposedto being a kind of passive
character because of them. And so where I want to kind of
come into this story is OCD. It's not something you've really
(01:28):
spoken a lot about publicly. Obviously, you know that I've
experienced it since I was 7 years old.
And so together, I'm hoping thatthis episode will kind of bring
the listeners on the journey of what it's like to have, you
know, intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
And so my first question is, when was the first moment where
you thought this doesn't feel like anxiety, This could be
(01:53):
something more? How many lives do you think that
you've changed, Mitch? Like literally like how many
lives do you think I'm going to answer your question like 110?
Like how many do you think? Like it's a weird question.
It's a good question. It's something that we need to
(02:13):
get better at quantifying because, you know, impact is
something that I'm obsessed withmy, my genuine goal.
So when I wake up in the morningand I lose sight of what the
fuck I'm doing because like anyone you, you're kind of like,
I need to orientate. Particularly if you're in a four
purpose job or career, you're like, is this actually doing
(02:35):
anything? I come back to my OneNote, which
is my little note taking app, and I literally have a photo of
a person. Her name's Robin.
She lives in Canada. She reached out to me when I
first launched hard on my sleeveand she said like this saved my
life. And I and I come back to her
literal face with a piece of text above it that says,
remember when you forget you're doing it for this one person.
(02:57):
And if it's just for Robin, thenthat's more than enough.
So I hope it's millions. But if it's one, then I've done
my job and. That's interesting because my
question was change and you saidsaved, right?
And they're two different things.
When you're asking me when did Iknow it was OCD and it wasn't
just a phobia or anxiety becauseI never thought it was anxiety.
(03:21):
I thought I had a debilitating phobia and it wasn't until we
sat down for a four hour lunch where it was a very, it was a
profound experience for me because I was being reflected
someone you who had such a similar experience to me that I
(03:47):
had never found somebody that was able to articulate it in a
way that it was me. And when you were like, I, I
think you should explore whetherthis is OCD related.
And I knew I had OCD tendencies for sure, but I didn't think I
had OCDI thought I had a phobia when I got into that.
(04:11):
And you gave me so much valuableinformation on therapy and the
type of specific therapy that I there was potentially medicines
that could support that. There was, there was, it was
like a whole new world opened upfor me in a split second.
(04:33):
And I felt two things. I felt really sad because I was
40 years old and I'd never had access or knew that this was
perhaps what I had. I was kind of like searching
down the wrong Ave. And then I was like, I think
this is going to change my life.And we are now, I want to say
(04:55):
coming on 10 months from that lunch, perhaps.
And I immediately went into searching for a therapist, which
you know, in itself is a really tricky thing, right?
Like the first thing I said to this person, because I, I
interviewed quite a few of them and I was recommended highly
this one. And she was based in Melbourne
(05:19):
and I saw her photo and I judgedit immediately.
And I was like, she's too young.There's no way she can handle
what I've got going on. And I had a meeting with her and
I just said, listen, I am at theend of my ability to keep living
with this. Not that I was suicidal, but I
was so fed up. And with no disrespect, you do
(05:41):
not look like you can handle this.
It looks like you are the age that I've had this condition
for. I've been struggling for 30
years. You don't look like you can
manage. And she was like, that's a
really courageous thing to say to someone.
I said I don't have any more time to waste.
Like I've done every single therapy, I've seen every
psychologist, I've done every alternative thing, I've done
(06:04):
$1000 programmes in the UK for this emetophobia, which was the
phobia that I was dealing with. And within that session I knew
that she was the one and I felt very grateful.
And I've been working with her now for eight months and it has
been equally terrifying, like the floor being pulled from
(06:30):
underneath me, scary as well as empowering and refinding myself
in the world. And everything has changed.
Like I can't. The way I see the world, the way
I fall asleep, the intrusive thoughts, the impact on my
(06:51):
micromanagement, the every like the way that my cortisol, my
stress, everything has shifted. And that's because by the grace
of God, we got to have a conversation where it wasn't
just a phobia, it was an OCD. It's full blown obsessive
compulsive disorder, which anyone that has had that knows
(07:14):
how insidious that is because it's a shapeshifter.
It's so clever at being able to dominate and try and make you
safe, you know? And I love her, like I love the
part of me that survived with that for as long as it did.
Like it was complete safety mechanism, it was survival.
(07:36):
It got me through really difficult traumatic times.
So I truly appreciate I don't have shame around the OCD at
all. It's not gone.
I still have safety seeking behaviours.
I still do things and I just nowobserve rather than judge, you
(07:57):
know, and that's the ERP like ithas just, and, and we're
talking, you know, $10,000 worthof therapy.
It's a huge investment and it's worth every dollar because I
would have paid this. I would have paid whatever, I
would have re mortgaged the house to get to a place where I
have felt relief. I want to share back two things.
(08:24):
So the first is that I think what happened at our lunch was
you realised you didn't need to live like this anymore.
Well, I only realised that because you said there's a way,
there's another way. And I believed you because you
mirrored so many real experiences for me in my life
(08:46):
that had never been met for me with another human.
So I trusted you because you haddone it like you were the
evidence. And I think that moment is kind
of testament to everything we'retrying to do with this movement.
And heart on my sleeve, which isvulnerability can change lives,
sometimes save them. And it's when you feel fully
(09:10):
understood in connection to someone that it just unlocks
doors and avenues that can't be unlocked through any other
means. Like you couldn't have started
that search without a mirror. And I just was lucky enough to
be that mirror at that time. And you know, it kind of
coincides with a lot of your work that you do, you know, as
(09:32):
your main role in a lead manifesto and your incredible
book and your coaching programmes and your podcast
around deep and Deeper. It's all around manifesting that
in. So I think you know you
manifesting a life changing lunch isn't a surprise to me.
It isn't a surprise to me either.
It's just, and this is what's sohumbling about the Co creation
(09:56):
process. It's all in divine timing.
It had to be then that I was able to hear you, that I was
able to be open, that I was ableto be at, you know, breaking
point. Like it was divine.
Everything was divine about it. And I get upset because I'm
like, I wanted this 20 years earlier.
(10:17):
I wish I had this relief then itwouldn't have been received.
It wouldn't have landed in the way that it needed to then.
So even though I'm frustrated and somewhat sad when my husband
says you're 80% easier to live with, I mean, that was like a
such a gut punch because like what?
(10:37):
What an incredible human to havetolerated it for so long, but
also love me that hard. But for me to accept the journey
and I that's such a corny word. But like, it had to be then.
It had to be then. And I had to be willing to do
all of what was required in thiswork because it was really, it
(10:58):
was scary. ERP is scary.
And if I wasn't at a place of feeling safe enough in my life,
I wouldn't have been able to access that.
So I, I wanna now step through for the listeners and the
viewers, the garden of a few of the words we've been saying here
because there's so much rich, fertile plants that I wanna
(11:21):
start to, to grow. So let's talk about what is OCD
in your mind? How is it different from anxiety
and a phobia in plain English, not therapy words.
Yeah, for me as a layman, A normie, OCD feels like a, like a
(11:43):
cloak or an identity that isn't mine, that has kind of has
somehow taken over me, my body, my mind in a way to help me feel
safe. And lots of those behaviours and
(12:06):
thoughts perhaps at one time in my life were true.
And so that became an anchor. But what has happened is the
more unsafe the world has gotten, the more entrenched
these behaviours, intrusive thoughts, ticks, whatever you
want to call them, have become. And it's become so ingrained
(12:27):
with my identity that it is no longer like a cloak.
It's in, it's in my cells, you know, it's in my body and my
veins. And it's hard to tell which is
me and which is, I don't know ifI call it a disease, Is it a
disease? I don't know.
I don't know what that's called.I don't know what that is.
(12:47):
I, it's been hard for me to tellwhich is me and which is OCD.
And so that has been a really interesting experience because
it's been part of me for so, so,so long.
Yeah, there was a fusion. A such a fusion.
It's like that movie that Demi Moore was in, you know, that one
(13:09):
where the two bodies or whateverit was called.
It's like that. It's it's a very interesting
concept, the fusion of where I begin and where the OCD ends.
And this is what my therapist has been saying because I guess
she's wanting me to take, she's wanting me to take more
responsibility for how good it is.
And it's hard for me because I feel like, OK, but if I'm not in
(13:33):
practise and I'm not in constantly working on it, will I
regress back to the fusion? You know?
And I don't know because I'm, soI'm a baby in this experiment
like I haven't, it's been maybe 8 months that I'm nervous.
I'm nervous that if I stop the work, it will come back like a
(13:56):
disease, you know, like it will come back and it'll multiply and
it'll take over. So I'm not confident yet.
I just know that whatever we have been doing is working and I
want this type of life. I'm just, yeah, I I've got
trepidation around how much is made without the therapy.
(14:18):
Yeah, it's natural to be scared because we're in new territory
and we're trying to figure out, well, who am I on the other side
of this healthy relationship with what you've referred to a
couple of times as this protective part of you.
And it really does feel like a cloak.
In fact, it feels sometimes so like it has its own properties
(14:41):
and like a foreign body that it almost feels like some type of
possession to the extent that you've referred to it as her,
like it's an alternative personality.
And I totally, I totally get that sentiment because.
I didn't even know I said that, by the way.
So that's a really nice key pullout, yeah.
Yeah, I mean it does, it does feel like it is an alien that's
(15:05):
kind of living inside you and and you're like, am I the alien
or is the alien separate and andwhat's it's intention and why?
What is it doing here? And that's what we've learned
with the with the therapy, right, is maybe that's why I'm
calling it her, is we've had to give different elements of it a
name, right? So we've got like hijacker and
we've got the one that worries and we've got the one that's
(15:27):
like super diligent and over thetop and triple cheques
everything. And now when I feel those things
happening, it's funny, it's because you know, this fusion,
there is space between now, so the hijack can still come in.
But I'm watching it, right? Like versus I'm just operating
(15:50):
as the hijacker and I can intercept elements of it.
And sometimes I can't, dependinghow limbic I am.
But it's a it's a true experiment.
Like I'm just figuring out all of these parts of myself.
It's fascinating. It is fascinating and the the
(16:13):
parts work is such a key elementto healing in general, one that
we need to speak about more because what you're talking
toward is a branch of psychologycalled internal family system.
Yes, I love IFS. Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah. And so your therapist is
obviously reading between the lines, fusing that mode of
(16:35):
psychology with also exposure and response prevention ERP,
which we'll click on in a second, and bringing that in for
healing. Now, if I was to ask myself the
same question as I asked you, what is OCD for me from a
clinical standpoint, and the difference between anxiety is 2
things. The first part is the thoughts
(16:56):
feel way more confronting and less able to wipe away like like
a foggy mirror or foggy piece ofglass than anxiety.
So for example, anxiety might say this could happen.
OCD thoughts is there's a 100% chance this is going to happen
and it's going to fuck up your whole life and mean that you're
(17:17):
a terrible person and nothing isgoing to be OK the moment that
it happens. So like the intensity is 11 out
of 10 as opposed to anxiety might feel like an 8 or a nine
out of 10. The second element of OCD that
stands true for me that separates it from anxiety is I
now need to urgently do something in order to mitigate
(17:37):
just how overwhelming that thought is.
Usually that that behaviour or that action can be related to
the thought. So for example, I have dirty
hands, I need to go wash my hands.
Or for me, which was even more of a head fuck, is that it had
nothing to do with the thought. So for example, mine was, my
(17:58):
mom's going to die of cancer tonight.
I now need to go and touch a light switch 150 times in order
for that not to happen. So the closest way to understand
OCD, it's like something that everyone can hold on to.
Imagine superstition that felt like it was a noose around your
neck if you didn't action that superstition immediately.
(18:18):
You've like very well explained that I'm, I'm happy that you're
a clinical, not a clinical psychologist that you are have a
master's because that was very well explained.
The, the thing that is so interesting and I wonder if you
can resonate with this is I'm inthis new world I love so much
(18:39):
where the intrusive thoughts andthe safety seeking, like I feel
very vulnerable sharing this, but I would like tap my head,
you know, like, you know, all ofthe, the really weird things
that it's not washing your handsto get rid of the germs.
It's AI have to do this behaviour.
I have to do this tick because then it won't happen.
Like we've made a rule and I have been able in the last eight
(19:04):
months to have the hand reachingfor the forehead and stopped it,
right? And to be able to go, OK, what
happens if we don't do this right now?
Like what happens? Do we have the capacity to
explore that? Sometimes, No, other times,
let's just say. And then what happens is I get
(19:26):
so forgetful that I didn't tap my head that it takes 2 days for
me to be like, Oh my God, we didn't all die or we didn't all,
whatever it is, right? And then the evidence is based,
but it's kind of like this splitbetween the brain where this
intrusive element is stopped, but the rational part can't
(19:47):
acknowledge that you did it straight away.
You know, it kind of needs this buffer in between time of making
the intrusive thought wrong. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I don't know what that's called
in psychology terms, but it's kind of like you'll do
something. Some of my ERP which I know
we'll get into. Pushing through my safety
(20:07):
seeking was like being with a group of friends and having
spent a day out coming, having acup of tea, a plate of biscuits,
not washing my hands just beforeI get the biscuit right, just
picking up the biscuit with dirty old fingers and eating it.
And I was able to do that. And the biscuits were so
(20:30):
delicious. I had three right?
And I felt like there was a partof me that was like, well, let's
see if you vomit tonight, right?Like, let's test it.
And then I forgot. And I woke up in the morning and
I was like, Oh my God, I did thebiscuit thing.
It's kind of, it's all compartmentalised.
We haven't merged them all. Does that make sense?
(20:53):
Yeah, it does. And I think for anyone listening
who's never experienced OCD, if you haven't ever experienced
anxiety, Lord help you because you're probably listening to us
being like, what a bunch of fucking cuckoos.
Yeah, I know, I know. How weird would we sound right
now? It's like we're in Inception the
movie. A lot of people, this is so.
(21:14):
So here's my definition of compassion.
And I and I, I call on everyone who's listening, who doesn't
understand to flex some compassion right now.
Because for me, compassion is letting someone have their
experience without an opinion, AB and B assuming that it's real
for them, even if you've never been through it before.
So for example, my mom walked into my room touching a light
(21:37):
switch 150 times. She didn't go, hey, you fucking
psychopath, what are you doing? She went, This must be I, I've
never been through OCD. This must be so real for you.
It's as if you can see an ambulance sitting in our
driveway ready to take us away. I don't.
I don't need to understand why Ihave to believe that this is in
your body as true as this is a piece of paper that I'm holding
(21:59):
up right now. You know, so often it's not
about needing to relate because I can't relate to you.
I've never had it. It's just allowing someone to
have this experience without judgement essentially.
And it's a really humbling thingbecause, you know, I opened up
(22:20):
to a friend about this experience that I'm currently in
and there's there is true vulnerability when I'm like and
I do this and this is a safety seeking thing.
And I know it all sounds mad. And she was able to tell me that
she has. And because she's in a highly
stressful life situation at the moment, she's had underlying OCD
(22:42):
since she was 9. I never knew this.
We're very close friends and that she was able to share with
me that her compulsions were something about like stepping
out the right foot has to touch the ground first or with a hug.
The right it's was her version, right?
And it sounded, this is the thing about having debilitating
(23:04):
OCD. Her version sounded mad to me,
like it. I could almost giggle and then I
was like, how humbling. It's exactly the same thing with
a different outfit, but we are also private about it.
This is why it's so interesting that we had had one conversation
kind of prior to our lunch that allowed this all to come to
(23:28):
light. Because you're right, if you
don't, if you haven't lived in this very weird world, it's hard
to have that compassion. It really, truly is.
And the fact that your mum did that and I don't know how long
she was watching you suffer, butwas able to do that without that
judgement, is it, I mean, like phenomenal.
(23:50):
Yeah, thank fucking God. Thank God.
Thing and, and for those that you kind of touched on it and I
don't expect nor need you to deep dive on it because I don't
want you to feel triggered in the moment, But to the extent
that you're willing, can you give some more detail around
what specific OCD you're experiencing?
(24:10):
Yeah, so I thought for the past 30 years that I had emetophobia,
which is the extreme phobia of vomit, and that's still real,
and I think that's a byproduct. But what I didn't realise, I
couldn't separate that the OCD was these very intimidating
(24:32):
intrusive thoughts hundreds and hundreds of times a day that
were impacting the way that I was living.
But the habits that I was picking up, the way in which I
was in relationship with people,my children, my husband, my
work. So to give detail on that, you
(24:54):
can just like helicopter mum with germs, right?
Because vomit is the outcome of that.
That if we can control small children and germs then they
will be safe and they will not vomit.
Right now, if I'm really honest,the OCD stopped me from having
(25:20):
children for a really long time.The fear, the inability to be
out of control. And thank God, I met someone
like Benj that had still perhapsdoesn't understand this, but was
able to step up to the bits thatI couldn't manage and support
(25:42):
not only me, but our family unit.
And that can come with, I mean, God, it's insidious in the way
that it plays out because it's trickery.
It it feels it's shapeshifts. So sometimes it's not just
germs, sometimes it's having a very intense conversation where
(26:04):
it just feels completely neurotic.
But until I feel more in controlof the conversation or I feel
safe in the environment, I can'tstop, you know?
It's so compulsive and obsessiveand exhausting, exhausting.
So it's hard for me to this. It does.
(26:25):
This whole conversation kind of feels like a Riddle if you're
not in it. But I have these compulsions
where I'll be flying somewhere and I'll remember that people
can get airsick. And so I will have to bump my
flight to business class and payexorbitant amounts of money
because the risk is lower. Or I will not ever take my kids
(26:49):
to a party at a play centre because of the germs.
Or I will never. There's just these blanket rules
of things we would never do. I never cut chicken in my house.
I still, that's one I have to do.
That's one of my ARP fucking hierarchy of things to try.
Yeah, it's. The amount of mental gymnastics.
(27:13):
All day, every day, all day, every day.
It's like having a computer harddrive that is constantly 90%
full and so you're just using 10% to human and adult and
mother and work and blah blah blah.
And, and the way in which like Iwas constantly in fight or
flight, right? Because I'm always on guard.
(27:34):
There's always a threat. Always.
So the way in which I would sleep, if I would hear my child
cough in the middle of the night, I would never be in a
deep enough sleep that I would be rested.
I would be awake and I would imagine that they're going to
vomit until they die and then we're all going to vomit and
then we're all going to die. It's so irrational.
Now I'm here, I'm like, we can handle things, We can cope with
(27:59):
things. We yes, it's not nice.
And this is the thing about it. And I think there's been such a
gift in the learning that there's no perfection in this,
right? It's like vomits, gross, right?
Shitting, pissing, pass blood, All of those things are really,
really gross. No one likes it.
We all have a discussed propensity to these things.
(28:19):
So it's not like I'm going to walk and change and become a
nurse that works in a gastro clinic, right?
We're not. I have an expectation of that.
The perfectionist in me is if you're not that you have failed,
right? We're now I'm like, actually,
it's not. It's a spectrum.
And right now I can survive. I thought of it last night
without the cycle and the spiralof thinking about the nausea and
(28:45):
the vomiting from every which direction thousands of times a
day. Like I don't, I don't have the
noise. Does that make sense?
The noise has like quietened down.
And if I hear a cough in the night, I know I can survive.
That's the part. It's not that I'll thrive in it,
perhaps even, but it's that I know that I can survive in a
situation that is disgusting andI won't, it won't kill me that
(29:11):
that shift in my neural pathway is everything.
Like I'm definitely not cured. I'm not whatever you want to
say. I still have different parts of
me that are activated through stress or circumstance, but I
I'm able. Oh, God, I'm just so much
(29:31):
easier. I'm so much more fluid.
Yeah, that's that's wild. So you mentioned before that you
the moment where you want to touch your head and you don't,
or the, the moment that you, your children are coughing and
then there's this absolute need to go and check in and make sure
(29:53):
that they're not actually sick or that is what I call the Rep.
So it's the Rep in the gym that is the bicep curl.
That is the, that's the work right there is having your
nervous system tell you there isa huge friggin problem right now
that must be actioned immediately to mitigate this
(30:15):
overwhelming sensation of fear. In order to be safe, Y needs to
happen. The distance in between the, the
further apart you can make X&Y and to the point where you no
longer need Y. That reassuring behaviour that's
actually keeping you in the loop, the better it is.
And so I don't think people understand just how heavy that
(30:36):
repetition can feel when you're in it, particularly when the
trigger is really loud. The loudness of needing to
complete that behaviour that's not serving you long term, but
serves to mitigate the OCD is sodeafening.
And so, you know, exposure response prevention, which is
the therapy that we use to alleviate OCD.
(30:59):
Quick therapist bridge. And then I'm going to come back
to your personal experience. So when you treat anxiety, you
treat it through something called cognitive behavioural
therapy, which is essentially OK.
I'm having this thought. You'll sit down with a therapist
who will rationally help you dissect the validity of that
thought. And so maybe it's I'm a failure
(31:21):
and I'm never going to be able to make it in the workforce.
And every time I have a deadline, I get anxious because
it reminds me that I'm going to fall behind.
No one's going to love me, right?
So then over the course of, you know, 10 sessions with a
psychologist, they will help youdetermine that maybe that's not
really that true. There's evidence against it.
And you can kind of come back tousing a prefrontal cortex, which
(31:42):
is the the kind of human thinking part of your mind.
OK, here's a better perspective.Now.
OCD is such a pure heroin form of anxiety that it's actually no
longer clustered in with the anxiety diagnosis within the DSM
5. It has its own standalone
chapter because cognitive behavioural therapy doesn't work
(32:05):
on it. It's like the fucking
cockroaches of a nuclear explosion.
It will thrive even in the midstof evidence to say, yeah, but
your child coughing doesn't meanthey're going to vomit, and you
vomiting doesn't mean you're going to die.
And cutting chicken in your house doesn't mean you're going
to get sick. There's actually less than 1%
chance that cutting chicken in your house.
It does not matter. You cannot convince that it's
(32:26):
that that thought that it's untrue.
So the goal of exposure responseprevention and how it's
different to treating regular anxiety is you actually have to
come in the other way, which is instead of disproving it, you
almost prove that it's true. And you have to get comfortable
with the most correct me a full worst outcome, correct.
So it's a motherfucker of a it'sthe worst way to heal.
(32:48):
Yeah. It's the worst.
And I for me, I had to feel safeenough to go into this work like
it was. I couldn't have a lot of
stresses in my life. I mean, life is stressful, but I
meant I really was in a positionwhere I could take the foot off
(33:09):
my work, ask for extra support in my home, that I was able to
do this because it required so much of me.
And I understand the deep privilege of being able to meet
this head on it. Like it's when we say it's not
(33:30):
easy. No, it was like, really fucking
terrifying. Like, I called you one day and I
was really not OK. I'd had a bigger spiral.
A bigger it, it, it was worse than any of the ways in which I
was surviving in. It had gone completely awry.
And I was scared I was never going to come back.
And if I didn't have you to tellme that it this was normal, oof.
(33:58):
Like you would regress, you would just go back to the way
things were because it was uncomfortable.
Yes, to live like that, but not as bad as this.
And so I, I feel really gratefulfor you, but I also feel like
this OCD thing that is so often misdiagnosed as anxiety or as
(34:19):
phobias or whatever needs space.We need to discuss it.
Because if I didn't know that this was actually what was under
the emetophobia, I wouldn't be able to have persisted with the
pain of this process. Horrific.
(34:41):
Because the process is so damn hard, you start to do a math
equation in your head where you're like, is this worth it?
And then you you kind of waded halfway into the dam where
you're so deep in the water and going back is as hard as going
forward. You're 5050 and you're like, I
don't know what to do. And everything is yelling.
Go back to at least what's familiar, because that's a hell
(35:02):
that we know when on the other side, it could be the most
spectacular island that you could ever dream of.
But it's do you want to roll thedice on it?
And I'm so proud of you for rolling the dice on what life
can be. And you kept going, and you kept
pushing forward. It's almost like I give it the
example of the transitional partof Birthright.
It's the very end part where we believe we're going to die as
(35:26):
mothers. Like it, it, your whole body
believes that it's going to burst or combust or split and
like you will not recover and, and you and you're terrified.
You think you're going to truly die.
It's, it's a genetic element of the birthing process, right?
And your partner looks at you terrified and you at that point
(35:51):
want all the help, all the drugs, all the intervention, all
of the things. And you've told them, no, even
if I say I'm going to die, don'tdo the thing that I said, OK?
Just just hold me in this space.But they're so scared.
You look so different. You look like you're going to
leave. And my husband in that process
of this situation with the ERP and the OCD, he was scared.
(36:18):
We sat at lunch and I was like, I feel like there are spiders
under my skin, on my skin. I can't.
There's no respite. I'm so limbic.
I'm not, I can't breathe. I just want to fuck or I want to
drink or I want to do something to get out of my body.
(36:39):
And he was like, we're not goingto do any of that stuff.
And I was, but he was scared. Like I could see how scared he
was. And I was like, I need to call
Mitch and thank God because he doesn't have any of us this
experience, just like birth. He is.
He's been prompted. He's been prompted with things
(37:00):
are going to get yucky, things are going to get messy, but he
doesn't actually know when it gets that rough.
He's like, I don't know if this is normal.
I don't know if this is worth it.
And then you're having that mirrored back and you're going,
I don't fucking know if this is worth it.
Which, by the way, on top of a disorganised attachment style.
Where? Where fear or confusion is a
(37:23):
more disorganizing experience for your internal family system.
You've got basically disintegration on
disintegration, which causes themost unsafe you've probably
ever. Felt.
Ever felt and then you don't help Mitch because you're like,
I can't give you a time. This is gonna pass.
And I was like. Oh yeah, Because that's The
(37:45):
thing is that you're looking forthe drug hit of certainty,
right? And so that's.
All I need in my OCD is my certainty.
I couldn't give you that, I said.
This will pass. Oh my God.
You're the one that got me here.And I'm like, this is your
fault, your time. And you're like, I was like, So
what do you mean, like hours? Do you mean minutes?
Do you mean days? And you're like, yeah, it could
(38:06):
be days, could be weeks. And I was like, absolutely
fucking not. Like, no, no, no.
And I think maybe it was anothertwo days.
And holy shit. And this is what I got so much
out of. That horrific experience was the
surrender and the not knowing. Because that is true kryptonite
of the OCD, the unknown is it. And so it was like the exposure
(38:30):
therapy in the discomfort of thenot knowing was like, OK, if I
can just sit with spiders in up around my body and physical
being and be the most horrible partner wife.
Like I needed to just not be in the world and have all of the
things, you know, all of the fucking ways in which we help
(38:55):
the limbic system, the hot and cold and the this and the muscle
stuff. And like, I'm so stuck.
I don't want to do any of it right.
I'm just fucking paralysed. And then knowing it passes and
being able to breathe a little bit the next day was like that
relief, even though it wasn't 100%, was like, OK, I'm not
(39:18):
going mad. Because that's the thing in it.
You're like, how far is Pandora's box open?
Am I ever going to recover? Like what have you done to me?
Am I going into the side unit to?
The left, yeah. It was, and This is why we need
to talk about it, because it's not a quick fix.
It's not a quick hit. Whether you've got meds, whether
you've got a therapist, like whatever it is, it's like you
(39:39):
are going through the fire truly.
But now having gone through the fire and being able to still do
the work. And I don't know if you felt
like this, but like, I haven't had therapy for this week and
she's let me do fortnightly now.And I'm kind of like, I don't
(40:01):
want to do it right now. Like I'm kind of like
comfortable, you know? And that's a trick.
That's a trick. Of course, it's like not wanting
to work out. You're like.
I feel good now, yeah. And you and you, you have a, a
week goes past, you don't go to the gym.
And then it's so hard to get that momentum going again.
(40:22):
But you know, just like the gym,once you get that first session
back under the belt, you're goodto go again.
You just need to remind yourselfof the momentum.
It's just, and it's like, that'sa lot of therapy, you know, I
don't know, can we have a little, When can I just have a
little break? And it's like, oh, sorry, not
yet. You know, it's, it's not yet.
(40:43):
But the humility and especially in the work that you and I do,
even though it's vastly different, how grateful I am to
be in this position of humannesswith the people that I get to
work with is vital, like, to keep me here, to keep me real.
There's no guru, do you know what I mean?
(41:04):
There's no like element of I am healed, I am better.
I am all of the things. It's like, no, we may have very
different elements of what's going on for us, but I'm
willing, like I am willing to participate in the discomfort of
this experience because I want to be the truest version of
(41:26):
myself without this fusion, you know?
And so now that you are startingto decouple in this beautiful
way, the protective OCD part andZoe as a healthy integrated
adult, knowing that they are separate, they are linked, it's
(41:47):
part of the same campfire. But you do not need to be OCD.
You can experience OCD as something that is designed to
keep you safe. It's just overactive and making
you feel unsafe and all the ironies.
You know, you've touched on thisfeeling of relief, but also this
kind of dichotomy of feeling upset that it took so long.
(42:10):
What part of you is grieving this place that you're arriving
at, and how can we speak to other people who might be
fearful of what's on the other side of the mountain?
Do I wait longer and feel the pain of regret or do I take it
on head head on and feel the pain of dealing with it?
It's it took me to the place of I really had to.
(42:33):
So every time I go into this isn't my first rodeo with hard
work, right? And before I do these things, I
have to talk to my husband. I have to give him everything
that is potentially going to unfold.
And I was on the fence for a long time because no one wants
to be truly uncomfortable. I was also sceptical.
(42:54):
That's a big OCD thing, right? Like you can't help me, I've got
this all covered. And he said let's give it three
months. Why don't you just have an
experiment? And that's I guess another thing
that put me through is when I was, gosh, when did we speak?
Maybe I was 8 weeks in or something and hating every fibre
(43:16):
of this experiment. I was able to know I had three
months and if I still hated it in three months, if there was no
benefits, if there was no evidence, then I could be done
with it for good. We could revert back and live
the way in suffering in which wedid.
And so I think for someone practical, that's a really
(43:37):
helpful thing to do is because when you want to give up is know
that you've made the commitment for this period of time because
it takes however long it takes to recalibrate these parts of
yourself. And not even three months like
that was just the beginning. But I guess the pain, the
discomfort is less post that notthat it's always going to be
(44:00):
like I was in discomfort all dayyesterday.
I, I had to go to an event last night.
I, I hate, which is so funny because everyone thinks I'm
truly extroverted. I hate being out and with people
I don't know. And I get very overstimulated
and it's uncomfortable for me. And so all day I dreaded it all
day I made excuses. I anyway, I ended up going and I
(44:24):
sang all day. Just build evidence.
It's either going to be great orit's going to be true for what
you're feeling right now. And it ended up being
sensational. It was so brilliant.
And the thing around the OCD is,I said to my therapist, I want
to give up drinking. So what happened with me was my
OCD morphed it, it, it started to become obsessed with food or
(44:47):
with alcohol. It's clever, right?
Clever. And so I stopped drinking and I
was obsessed with stopping drinking and what that meant for
me and how in control I was because I wasn't drinking.
And then the therapist was like,I think you may need to have a
drink just and like push yourself through this if the
(45:09):
time comes up where it feels like you want 1.
And I had a whole story around it now, you know, being a
leading cause of cancer and my mum dying cancer and blah blah.
Anyway, last night I was out feeling kind of under the
weather and they had one of my favourite French champagnes.
And yes, I hadn't eaten much during that.
(45:30):
I had so many stories around nothaving a drink.
And I was like, yes, please. And I had this drink and it was
beautiful and it was bubbly and it was all of the things and it
made me feel good. And it was against everything I
wanted to do in the day. And it was also against anything
I wanted to do when I was there.And then I combatted 2 of the
things in one night. All the story around you don't
(45:54):
sleep well when you're drinking.You get so overstimulated you're
not going to sleep tonight. All of that when I got home was
true in my head. And I was like, well, let's just
lay here. Just say next minute, it's 7:50
this morning. My husband, beautiful husband
had me sleep in and we have moreevidence, you know, but it it's
required every day for me to be able to do the thing that I
(46:15):
don't want to do because I want to have control.
And then having now going, Oh mygosh, OK, one drink doesn't mean
this or going to that event withthose, you know, all of that
stuff. It's just it's I'm in the work
every single day, every single minute.
It's just become a lifestyle nowversus like heavy lifting.
(46:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is this is who I am and
this is what I do. I, I confront hard things.
I try and not live in extremes. I try and, you know, honour my
humanity. You know, it's funny.
I had a when I do your podcast again, we'll reverse the roles
and I'll talk more about my OCD.But just a quick kind of tip of
(46:58):
the hat as to exactly what you were explaining.
I've only ever had one or two videos go super viral on TikTok.
One of them was how I said, there's one word that, you know,
I intentionally was a bit hooky with it in order to get it to
scale. And I was like, that's a
worthwhile tax to pay if it's going to help someone.
And I said one word that cured my OCD.
(47:21):
And obviously OCD can't and shouldn't be cured because it's
part of you and it's amazing andhelpful.
But that word that I now have tattered on my arm here is
maybe. We talked about this at our
lunch. Tell me again.
And so, you know, it kind of is that whole OCD is constantly
knocking on your shoulder or, you know, speaking into your ear
(47:45):
where it's like, but what if? But what if, but what if?
And you can either go toe to toewith it and try and knock it out
with but it won't happen becauseor you can run away and
unfortunately that motherfucker will chase you down and find you
right. So I found that the best
response to it is just to validate like maybe maybe you're
(48:07):
right and that's the end of the conversation.
Maybe maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but I'm just going
to sit in the discomfort of not knowing and I'm going to wake up
at 7:50 because my beautiful husband said, hey, it's Thursday
now. That's the work.
He's going to sleep that night to be like, maybe, maybe you're
(48:29):
right. But right now I'm going to let
that be ambiguous. But can I, and I want to
acknowledge something is when you said this to me at lunch, it
did not land. It was like, I got your concept,
but it was kind of like, you're speaking Cantonese, you know?
Like it didn't land. Now I'm like, that's how I'm
(48:51):
living. Yeah, that's how I'm living.
But that was so far from where Iwas then.
Yeah, you know, and the maybe makes all of it OK.
And this is the thing about likeI'm able to access and this is
what's so fascinating now. Memory I've never been able to
(49:11):
access before. Dissociated it out.
Yeah, Like, there's levels of healing, there's levels of
grieving. There's so much beautiful work
underneath the surface because Ican access parts of myself that
have been so closed for so long and that maybe now has changed
(49:35):
everything for me because, I mean, this is so silly and I
shouldn't even probably say this.
My husband will kill me. But I didn't used to like being
intimate that night before bed because I would.
This is so much. I would get overstimulated, like
I would get too awake and then Icouldn't sleep.
And now the maybe has this freedom that I can do what I
(50:00):
want anytime. Maybe I will sleep, maybe I
won't and the maybe allows me tosleep.
That's what actually just layingthere and being like maybe, but
why don't we just rest versus the neurosis of sleep now sleep
now. I told you couldn't sleep.
Now this is what happens when you have sex and an orgasm at
this time. And I Deborah, I've always now
you're getting into sleeping tablet.
Now you're going to like that maybe has changed everything.
(50:26):
Tonight I have another thing, another social event, which is a
lot for me and yesterday I was like I can't do tonight and
tomorrow. Then where it was like maybe now
today I can go and support my friend.
That's really important. It's not this.
I can't tell you how much that'sshifted.
Everything shifted everything. And I guess my word that comes
(50:49):
into it is trust. There's an element now.
It's like this leading thing andmy son so beautifully when I was
my whole world was kind of breaking down in October last
year and very strange things with friendships and myself and
my work. And he was 6 and he wrote trust
on this piece of paper. And I've kept it with me because
I want it so badly tattooed, right?
(51:13):
And I just fall back into that word.
It's kind of like you're maybe just trust, like whatever is
going to happen is for the specific growth is for the the
moment in time is for the relationship is for the
connection is for all. The person I sat next to last
night was the VP of the company for the event, the global VP,
(51:35):
the most ah, incredible human. This woman we talked so deeply
about death, about recovery, about connection.
Absolutely not what I thought was going to happen at at beauty
event, right? I had one of the most hot
connected moments last night with a stranger because of maybe
(51:58):
because of trust. And that's like I would have
rubbed myself of that because ofthe OCD, you know, like what a
what else have I rubbed myself from?
We don't need to go back, right?We don't need to look at it, but
I'm like, wow, life. Life has so much more colour.
I think I said that to you. Yeah, colour.
(52:18):
Yeah. It's so I have so much more
ability. I have so much more access, so
much more opportunity. Like the way in which I would
drive myself crazy because of myrigid ways of eating, the way in
which I would stress myself because if there was a bit of
gluten, it's like, there's all these weird things we do, right?
Well, now I'm like at the dinner, there's a delicious
(52:39):
piece of focaccia. You're like, give me some of
that. I have fluidity and I have
option where before there was nooption, I was optionless.
So I hope some of this has made sense because I feel like you
get it and I get it, but I've jumped around, no.
No, no. I've.
(53:00):
Around the world. I absolutely think that most
importantly, your realness, yourvulnerability is what people
will take away from this. And your hope, the hope that you
give to people around feeling lost in the darkness, not being
able to hold on to anything and trust being the furthest thing
(53:22):
from their reality. And I think that it's in those
moments that we need to trust the most.
And for, you know, last one, I think, you know, let's leave it
here because we could deep dive on this for so long.
For me, faith plays a big part, right?
And you know, in some of my keynote talks, I say I'm jealous
(53:42):
of you if you don't believe in ahigher power because it means
that you've never been to hell. Because when you're in hell,
there's only one thing that you can hang on to, and it's
something more than yourself. And so like my belief in God has
been tested because it points I've hated this higher power so
much with everything in my soul I've gone.
(54:04):
You can't be real because there's no way you would let me,
an innocent little human soul, feel that.
And yet something echoed back inthose moments.
Keep holding on. If you have faith, you will be
rewarded. And that's on the other side of
this faith that we are able to celebrate in the glory that I
believe is God. And I want to put something in
(54:25):
here that's really important is I was doing a programme in the
Uki don't want to name and shamebut, and I won't, but their
philosophy was, you know, aroundlocus of control.
And if you put too much in faith, you lose the ability to
believe in your own. You can't depend on self, right?
(54:47):
And I understand that a little bit because I would batter with
God in times of crisis. But what that stall because I,
I, I within their, you know, process of the three months of
intensive therapy, I suspended my faith, right, because I was
all in and it what I realised isI can have, it's so valuable for
(55:16):
me to have my faith and my connection to God and source and
like it's everything. It's everything to me.
But I also know it's shifted from dealing like battering with
God. If you give me this, I will do
this into I know you've got me regardless of where I go.
It's shifted its relationship. I think taking faith away from
(55:40):
anybody to know that you can depend on self is a really
dangerous thing. You know, it has to be married
between the two. That's why I call things Co
creation, right? It's me, it's the self and it's
a higher power of God. And together we have this
incredible relationship and support and life is uncertain.
(56:01):
Like I've only, I only understand that now, you know,
and knowing I have God is like knowing I am in partnership with
whatever happens, the ebbs and flows.
We are held in a way where we can constantly surrender to it
(56:21):
because that's what we need to do rather than control, we need
to surrender, especially as beautiful OCD is, you know, and
without God, I have the most exquisite life.
And even though we've talked about a lot of pain today and a
lot of challenge, my life is exquisite.
It is exactly what I wanted whenI was in the depth of OCD,
(56:43):
phobia, fear, survival. Like I got to this week.
Just go take my picnic blanket under a tree and sit in the sun
with my Chai for three hours because that is my version of
success. Now to sleep until 7:50 because
my husband knows what I need without telling him.
To be able to connect with someone random at an event like
I'm living the Co creation doesn't mean it's not hard.
(57:07):
Doesn't mean I'm not challenged by ticks or phobic thoughts or
intrusive thoughts or whatever. I'm just there's a surrender and
there is a compassion, especially to myself, around
holding space for her, you know?For her, I think that's a
beautiful place for us to leave.It is like surrender and holding
(57:31):
space for her and it's been an absolute honour to hold space
for you. I hope that you feel you've
contributed meaningfully to someone's life.
I hope so. I hope so.
I know you have. If people want to follow along
your journey, where's the best place to find you?
I guess either at arise.com dot AU Double I or at Zoe B
(57:54):
Marshall. I'm always in the DMS and
there's been so many people since I've started to feel brave
enough discussing OCD and ERP that really are ready for this.
And so I feel like this is, yeah, it's just an evolution.
But I truly, I also want to honour you in the work that you
(58:14):
do because you changed my life. I saved my life, but you changed
it. You were able to give me access
to information that I so desperately needed.
And this, I hope gives people the same access.
It will. It has, it does, and thank you
for allowing me to be part of your journey.
(58:36):
And thanks for taking my crazy phone calls.
Always my emotions have a natural tendency to dissipate
unless they get reinforced. And so if there's more thoughts,
more stories, more intentions that come along, so the act of
how am I leaving it alone is an act of not act, adding more
stories, adding fuel to it. So it might not go away in 2
(58:58):
minutes, but it begins to relax and dissipate.
And so rather than being the person who has to fix it, we've
become the person who makes space for the heart, the mind,
to relax and settle away itself.
All right, run it. I wonder what you mean when you
use the word I use the word I, I, I, I kick a break.
We have an aversion to ourselvesand to what's happening inside
(00:21):
us, inside us. I've been very interested in
this. Problem for a long, long time.
Something settles. Miss Zoe Marshall, I know you
well. I'm lucky enough to call you a
friend. I have heard multiple parts of
(00:43):
your story. You have spoken publicly about
your experiences with a range ofmental health related things
from domestic violence, anxiety,depression, infertility,
miscarriages, grief, losing yourmom.
And I know that's a lot to hear in one sentence.
But what I'm really building toward with that intro is that
you are the kind of the consummate peanut person of what
(01:06):
we would consider with heart on my sleeve, where leading through
vulnerability, turning pain intopurpose and feeling powerful
from your experiences as opposedto being a kind of passive
character because of them. And so where I want to kind of
come into this story is OCD. It's not something you've really
(01:28):
spoken a lot about publicly. Obviously, you know that I've
experienced it since I was 7 years old.
And so together, I'm hoping thatthis episode will kind of bring
the listeners on the journey of what it's like to have, you
know, intrusive thoughts and compulsions.
And so my first question is, when was the first moment where
you thought this doesn't feel like anxiety, This could be
(01:53):
something more? How many lives do you think that
you've changed, Mitch? Like literally like how many
lives do you think I'm going to answer your question like 110?
Like how many do you think? Like it's a weird question.
It's a good question. It's something that we need to
(02:13):
get better at quantifying because, you know, impact is
something that I'm obsessed withmy, my genuine goal.
So when I wake up in the morningand I lose sight of what the
fuck I'm doing because like anyone you, you're kind of like,
I need to orientate. Particularly if you're in a four
purpose job or career, you're like, is this actually doing
(02:35):
anything? I come back to my OneNote, which
is my little note taking app, and I literally have a photo of
a person. Her name's Robin.
She lives in Canada. She reached out to me when I
first launched hard on my sleeveand she said like this saved my
life. And I and I come back to her
literal face with a piece of text above it that says,
remember when you forget you're doing it for this one person.
(02:57):
And if it's just for Robin, thenthat's more than enough.
So I hope it's millions. But if it's one, then I've done
my job and. That's interesting because my
question was change and you saidsaved, right?
And they're two different things.
When you're asking me when did Iknow it was OCD and it wasn't
just a phobia or anxiety becauseI never thought it was anxiety.
(03:21):
I thought I had a debilitating phobia and it wasn't until we
sat down for a four hour lunch where it was a very, it was a
profound experience for me because I was being reflected
someone you who had such a similar experience to me that I
(03:47):
had never found somebody that was able to articulate it in a
way that it was me. And when you were like, I, I
think you should explore whetherthis is OCD related.
And I knew I had OCD tendencies for sure, but I didn't think I
had OCDI thought I had a phobia when I got into that.
(04:11):
And you gave me so much valuableinformation on therapy and the
type of specific therapy that I there was potentially medicines
that could support that. There was, there was, it was
like a whole new world opened upfor me in a split second.
(04:33):
And I felt two things. I felt really sad because I was
40 years old and I'd never had access or knew that this was
perhaps what I had. I was kind of like searching
down the wrong Ave. And then I was like, I think
this is going to change my life.And we are now, I want to say
(04:55):
coming on 10 months from that lunch, perhaps.
And I immediately went into searching for a therapist, which
you know, in itself is a really tricky thing, right?
Like the first thing I said to this person, because I, I
interviewed quite a few of them and I was recommended highly
this one. And she was based in Melbourne
(05:19):
and I saw her photo and I judgedit immediately.
And I was like, she's too young.There's no way she can handle
what I've got going on. And I had a meeting with her and
I just said, listen, I am at theend of my ability to keep living
with this. Not that I was suicidal, but I
was so fed up. And with no disrespect, you do
(05:41):
not look like you can handle this.
It looks like you are the age that I've had this condition
for. I've been struggling for 30
years. You don't look like you can
manage. And she was like, that's a
really courageous thing to say to someone.
I said I don't have any more time to waste.
Like I've done every single therapy, I've seen every
psychologist, I've done every alternative thing, I've done
(06:04):
$1000 programmes in the UK for this emetophobia, which was the
phobia that I was dealing with. And within that session I knew
that she was the one and I felt very grateful.
And I've been working with her now for eight months and it has
been equally terrifying, like the floor being pulled from
(06:30):
underneath me, scary as well as empowering and refinding myself
in the world. And everything has changed.
Like I can't. The way I see the world, the way
I fall asleep, the intrusive thoughts, the impact on my
(06:51):
micromanagement, the every like the way that my cortisol, my
stress, everything has shifted. And that's because by the grace
of God, we got to have a conversation where it wasn't
just a phobia, it was an OCD. It's full blown obsessive
compulsive disorder, which anyone that has had that knows
(07:14):
how insidious that is because it's a shapeshifter.
It's so clever at being able to dominate and try and make you
safe, you know? And I love her, like I love the
part of me that survived with that for as long as it did.
Like it was complete safety mechanism, it was survival.
(07:36):
It got me through really difficult traumatic times.
So I truly appreciate I don't have shame around the OCD at
all. It's not gone.
I still have safety seeking behaviours.
I still do things and I just nowobserve rather than judge, you
(07:57):
know, and that's the ERP like ithas just, and, and we're
talking, you know, $10,000 worthof therapy.
It's a huge investment and it's worth every dollar because I
would have paid this. I would have paid whatever, I
would have re mortgaged the house to get to a place where I
have felt relief. I want to share back two things.
(08:24):
So the first is that I think what happened at our lunch was
you realised you didn't need to live like this anymore.
Well, I only realised that because you said there's a way,
there's another way. And I believed you because you
mirrored so many real experiences for me in my life
(08:46):
that had never been met for me with another human.
So I trusted you because you haddone it like you were the
evidence. And I think that moment is kind
of testament to everything we'retrying to do with this movement.
And heart on my sleeve, which isvulnerability can change lives,
sometimes save them. And it's when you feel fully
(09:10):
understood in connection to someone that it just unlocks
doors and avenues that can't be unlocked through any other
means. Like you couldn't have started
that search without a mirror. And I just was lucky enough to
be that mirror at that time. And you know, it kind of
coincides with a lot of your work that you do, you know, as
(09:32):
your main role in a lead manifesto and your incredible
book and your coaching programmes and your podcast
around deep and Deeper. It's all around manifesting that
in. So I think you know you
manifesting a life changing lunch isn't a surprise to me.
It isn't a surprise to me either.
It's just, and this is what's sohumbling about the Co creation
(09:56):
process. It's all in divine timing.
It had to be then that I was able to hear you, that I was
able to be open, that I was ableto be at, you know, breaking
point. Like it was divine.
Everything was divine about it. And I get upset because I'm
like, I wanted this 20 years earlier.
(10:17):
I wish I had this relief then itwouldn't have been received.
It wouldn't have landed in the way that it needed to then.
So even though I'm frustrated and somewhat sad when my husband
says you're 80% easier to live with, I mean, that was like a
such a gut punch because like what?
(10:37):
What an incredible human to havetolerated it for so long, but
also love me that hard. But for me to accept the journey
and I that's such a corny word. But like, it had to be then.
It had to be then. And I had to be willing to do
all of what was required in thiswork because it was really, it
(10:58):
was scary. ERP is scary.
And if I wasn't at a place of feeling safe enough in my life,
I wouldn't have been able to access that.
So I, I wanna now step through for the listeners and the
viewers, the garden of a few of the words we've been saying here
because there's so much rich, fertile plants that I wanna
(11:21):
start to, to grow. So let's talk about what is OCD
in your mind? How is it different from anxiety
and a phobia in plain English, not therapy words.
Yeah, for me as a layman, A normie, OCD feels like a, like a
(11:43):
cloak or an identity that isn't mine, that has kind of has
somehow taken over me, my body, my mind in a way to help me feel
safe. And lots of those behaviours and
(12:06):
thoughts perhaps at one time in my life were true.
And so that became an anchor. But what has happened is the
more unsafe the world has gotten, the more entrenched
these behaviours, intrusive thoughts, ticks, whatever you
want to call them, have become. And it's become so ingrained
(12:27):
with my identity that it is no longer like a cloak.
It's in, it's in my cells, you know, it's in my body and my
veins. And it's hard to tell which is
me and which is, I don't know ifI call it a disease, Is it a
disease? I don't know.
I don't know what that's called.I don't know what that is.
(12:47):
I, it's been hard for me to tellwhich is me and which is OCD.
And so that has been a really interesting experience because
it's been part of me for so, so,so long.
Yeah, there was a fusion. A such a fusion.
It's like that movie that Demi Moore was in, you know, that one
(13:09):
where the two bodies or whateverit was called.
It's like that. It's it's a very interesting
concept, the fusion of where I begin and where the OCD ends.
And this is what my therapist has been saying because I guess
she's wanting me to take, she's wanting me to take more
responsibility for how good it is.
And it's hard for me because I feel like, OK, but if I'm not in
(13:33):
practise and I'm not in constantly working on it, will I
regress back to the fusion? You know?
And I don't know because I'm, soI'm a baby in this experiment
like I haven't, it's been maybe 8 months that I'm nervous.
I'm nervous that if I stop the work, it will come back like a
(13:56):
disease, you know, like it will come back and it'll multiply and
it'll take over. So I'm not confident yet.
I just know that whatever we have been doing is working and I
want this type of life. I'm just, yeah, I I've got
trepidation around how much is made without the therapy.
(14:18):
Yeah, it's natural to be scared because we're in new territory
and we're trying to figure out, well, who am I on the other side
of this healthy relationship with what you've referred to a
couple of times as this protective part of you.
And it really does feel like a cloak.
In fact, it feels sometimes so like it has its own properties
(14:41):
and like a foreign body that it almost feels like some type of
possession to the extent that you've referred to it as her,
like it's an alternative personality.
And I totally, I totally get that sentiment because.
I didn't even know I said that, by the way.
So that's a really nice key pullout, yeah.
Yeah, I mean it does, it does feel like it is an alien that's
(15:05):
kind of living inside you and and you're like, am I the alien
or is the alien separate and andwhat's it's intention and why?
What is it doing here? And that's what we've learned
with the with the therapy, right, is maybe that's why I'm
calling it her, is we've had to give different elements of it a
name, right? So we've got like hijacker and
we've got the one that worries and we've got the one that's
(15:27):
like super diligent and over thetop and triple cheques
everything. And now when I feel those things
happening, it's funny, it's because you know, this fusion,
there is space between now, so the hijack can still come in.
But I'm watching it, right? Like versus I'm just operating
(15:50):
as the hijacker and I can intercept elements of it.
And sometimes I can't, dependinghow limbic I am.
But it's a it's a true experiment.
Like I'm just figuring out all of these parts of myself.
It's fascinating. It is fascinating and the the
(16:13):
parts work is such a key elementto healing in general, one that
we need to speak about more because what you're talking
toward is a branch of psychologycalled internal family system.
Yes, I love IFS. Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah. And so your therapist is
obviously reading between the lines, fusing that mode of
(16:35):
psychology with also exposure and response prevention ERP,
which we'll click on in a second, and bringing that in for
healing. Now, if I was to ask myself the
same question as I asked you, what is OCD for me from a
clinical standpoint, and the difference between anxiety is 2
things. The first part is the thoughts
(16:56):
feel way more confronting and less able to wipe away like like
a foggy mirror or foggy piece ofglass than anxiety.
So for example, anxiety might say this could happen.
OCD thoughts is there's a 100% chance this is going to happen
and it's going to fuck up your whole life and mean that you're
(17:17):
a terrible person and nothing isgoing to be OK the moment that
it happens. So like the intensity is 11 out
of 10 as opposed to anxiety might feel like an 8 or a nine
out of 10. The second element of OCD that
stands true for me that separates it from anxiety is I
now need to urgently do something in order to mitigate
(17:37):
just how overwhelming that thought is.
Usually that that behaviour or that action can be related to
the thought. So for example, I have dirty
hands, I need to go wash my hands.
Or for me, which was even more of a head fuck, is that it had
nothing to do with the thought. So for example, mine was, my
(17:58):
mom's going to die of cancer tonight.
I now need to go and touch a light switch 150 times in order
for that not to happen. So the closest way to understand
OCD, it's like something that everyone can hold on to.
Imagine superstition that felt like it was a noose around your
neck if you didn't action that superstition immediately.
(18:18):
You've like very well explained that I'm, I'm happy that you're
a clinical, not a clinical psychologist that you are have a
master's because that was very well explained.
The, the thing that is so interesting and I wonder if you
can resonate with this is I'm inthis new world I love so much
(18:39):
where the intrusive thoughts andthe safety seeking, like I feel
very vulnerable sharing this, but I would like tap my head,
you know, like, you know, all ofthe, the really weird things
that it's not washing your handsto get rid of the germs.
It's AI have to do this behaviour.
I have to do this tick because then it won't happen.
Like we've made a rule and I have been able in the last eight
(19:04):
months to have the hand reachingfor the forehead and stopped it,
right? And to be able to go, OK, what
happens if we don't do this right now?
Like what happens? Do we have the capacity to
explore that? Sometimes, No, other times,
let's just say. And then what happens is I get
(19:26):
so forgetful that I didn't tap my head that it takes 2 days for
me to be like, Oh my God, we didn't all die or we didn't all,
whatever it is, right? And then the evidence is based,
but it's kind of like this splitbetween the brain where this
intrusive element is stopped, but the rational part can't
(19:47):
acknowledge that you did it straight away.
You know, it kind of needs this buffer in between time of making
the intrusive thought wrong. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I don't know what that's called
in psychology terms, but it's kind of like you'll do
something. Some of my ERP which I know
we'll get into. Pushing through my safety
(20:07):
seeking was like being with a group of friends and having
spent a day out coming, having acup of tea, a plate of biscuits,
not washing my hands just beforeI get the biscuit right, just
picking up the biscuit with dirty old fingers and eating it.
And I was able to do that. And the biscuits were so
(20:30):
delicious. I had three right?
And I felt like there was a partof me that was like, well, let's
see if you vomit tonight, right?Like, let's test it.
And then I forgot. And I woke up in the morning and
I was like, Oh my God, I did thebiscuit thing.
It's kind of, it's all compartmentalised.
We haven't merged them all. Does that make sense?
(20:53):
Yeah, it does. And I think for anyone listening
who's never experienced OCD, if you haven't ever experienced
anxiety, Lord help you because you're probably listening to us
being like, what a bunch of fucking cuckoos.
Yeah, I know, I know. How weird would we sound right
now? It's like we're in Inception the
movie. A lot of people, this is so.
(21:14):
So here's my definition of compassion.
And I and I, I call on everyone who's listening, who doesn't
understand to flex some compassion right now.
Because for me, compassion is letting someone have their
experience without an opinion, AB and B assuming that it's real
for them, even if you've never been through it before.
So for example, my mom walked into my room touching a light
(21:37):
switch 150 times. She didn't go, hey, you fucking
psychopath, what are you doing? She went, This must be I, I've
never been through OCD. This must be so real for you.
It's as if you can see an ambulance sitting in our
driveway ready to take us away. I don't.
I don't need to understand why Ihave to believe that this is in
your body as true as this is a piece of paper that I'm holding
(21:59):
up right now. You know, so often it's not
about needing to relate because I can't relate to you.
I've never had it. It's just allowing someone to
have this experience without judgement essentially.
And it's a really humbling thingbecause, you know, I opened up
(22:20):
to a friend about this experience that I'm currently in
and there's there is true vulnerability when I'm like and
I do this and this is a safety seeking thing.
And I know it all sounds mad. And she was able to tell me that
she has. And because she's in a highly
stressful life situation at the moment, she's had underlying OCD
(22:42):
since she was 9. I never knew this.
We're very close friends and that she was able to share with
me that her compulsions were something about like stepping
out the right foot has to touch the ground first or with a hug.
The right it's was her version, right?
And it sounded, this is the thing about having debilitating
(23:04):
OCD. Her version sounded mad to me,
like it. I could almost giggle and then I
was like, how humbling. It's exactly the same thing with
a different outfit, but we are also private about it.
This is why it's so interesting that we had had one conversation
kind of prior to our lunch that allowed this all to come to
(23:28):
light. Because you're right, if you
don't, if you haven't lived in this very weird world, it's hard
to have that compassion. It really, truly is.
And the fact that your mum did that and I don't know how long
she was watching you suffer, butwas able to do that without that
judgement, is it, I mean, like phenomenal.
(23:50):
Yeah, thank fucking God. Thank God.
Thing and, and for those that you kind of touched on it and I
don't expect nor need you to deep dive on it because I don't
want you to feel triggered in the moment, But to the extent
that you're willing, can you give some more detail around
what specific OCD you're experiencing?
(24:10):
Yeah, so I thought for the past 30 years that I had emetophobia,
which is the extreme phobia of vomit, and that's still real,
and I think that's a byproduct. But what I didn't realise, I
couldn't separate that the OCD was these very intimidating
(24:32):
intrusive thoughts hundreds and hundreds of times a day that
were impacting the way that I was living.
But the habits that I was picking up, the way in which I
was in relationship with people,my children, my husband, my
work. So to give detail on that, you
(24:54):
can just like helicopter mum with germs, right?
Because vomit is the outcome of that.
That if we can control small children and germs then they
will be safe and they will not vomit.
Right now, if I'm really honest,the OCD stopped me from having
(25:20):
children for a really long time.The fear, the inability to be
out of control. And thank God, I met someone
like Benj that had still perhapsdoesn't understand this, but was
able to step up to the bits thatI couldn't manage and support
(25:42):
not only me, but our family unit.
And that can come with, I mean, God, it's insidious in the way
that it plays out because it's trickery.
It it feels it's shapeshifts. So sometimes it's not just
germs, sometimes it's having a very intense conversation where
(26:04):
it just feels completely neurotic.
But until I feel more in controlof the conversation or I feel
safe in the environment, I can'tstop, you know?
It's so compulsive and obsessiveand exhausting, exhausting.
So it's hard for me to this. It does.
(26:25):
This whole conversation kind of feels like a Riddle if you're
not in it. But I have these compulsions
where I'll be flying somewhere and I'll remember that people
can get airsick. And so I will have to bump my
flight to business class and payexorbitant amounts of money
because the risk is lower. Or I will not ever take my kids
(26:49):
to a party at a play centre because of the germs.
Or I will never. There's just these blanket rules
of things we would never do. I never cut chicken in my house.
I still, that's one I have to do.
That's one of my ARP fucking hierarchy of things to try.
Yeah, it's. The amount of mental gymnastics.
(27:13):
All day, every day, all day, every day.
It's like having a computer harddrive that is constantly 90%
full and so you're just using 10% to human and adult and
mother and work and blah blah blah.
And, and the way in which like Iwas constantly in fight or
flight, right? Because I'm always on guard.
(27:34):
There's always a threat. Always.
So the way in which I would sleep, if I would hear my child
cough in the middle of the night, I would never be in a
deep enough sleep that I would be rested.
I would be awake and I would imagine that they're going to
vomit until they die and then we're all going to vomit and
then we're all going to die. It's so irrational.
Now I'm here, I'm like, we can handle things, We can cope with
(27:59):
things. We yes, it's not nice.
And this is the thing about it. And I think there's been such a
gift in the learning that there's no perfection in this,
right? It's like vomits, gross, right?
Shitting, pissing, pass blood, All of those things are really,
really gross. No one likes it.
We all have a discussed propensity to these things.
(28:19):
So it's not like I'm going to walk and change and become a
nurse that works in a gastro clinic, right?
We're not. I have an expectation of that.
The perfectionist in me is if you're not that you have failed,
right? We're now I'm like, actually,
it's not. It's a spectrum.
And right now I can survive. I thought of it last night
without the cycle and the spiralof thinking about the nausea and
(28:45):
the vomiting from every which direction thousands of times a
day. Like I don't, I don't have the
noise. Does that make sense?
The noise has like quietened down.
And if I hear a cough in the night, I know I can survive.
That's the part. It's not that I'll thrive in it,
perhaps even, but it's that I know that I can survive in a
situation that is disgusting andI won't, it won't kill me that
(29:11):
that shift in my neural pathway is everything.
Like I'm definitely not cured. I'm not whatever you want to
say. I still have different parts of
me that are activated through stress or circumstance, but I
I'm able. Oh, God, I'm just so much
(29:31):
easier. I'm so much more fluid.
Yeah, that's that's wild. So you mentioned before that you
the moment where you want to touch your head and you don't,
or the, the moment that you, your children are coughing and
then there's this absolute need to go and check in and make sure
(29:53):
that they're not actually sick or that is what I call the Rep.
So it's the Rep in the gym that is the bicep curl.
That is the, that's the work right there is having your
nervous system tell you there isa huge friggin problem right now
that must be actioned immediately to mitigate this
(30:15):
overwhelming sensation of fear. In order to be safe, Y needs to
happen. The distance in between the, the
further apart you can make X&Y and to the point where you no
longer need Y. That reassuring behaviour that's
actually keeping you in the loop, the better it is.
And so I don't think people understand just how heavy that
(30:36):
repetition can feel when you're in it, particularly when the
trigger is really loud. The loudness of needing to
complete that behaviour that's not serving you long term, but
serves to mitigate the OCD is sodeafening.
And so, you know, exposure response prevention, which is
the therapy that we use to alleviate OCD.
(30:59):
Quick therapist bridge. And then I'm going to come back
to your personal experience. So when you treat anxiety, you
treat it through something called cognitive behavioural
therapy, which is essentially OK.
I'm having this thought. You'll sit down with a therapist
who will rationally help you dissect the validity of that
thought. And so maybe it's I'm a failure
(31:21):
and I'm never going to be able to make it in the workforce.
And every time I have a deadline, I get anxious because
it reminds me that I'm going to fall behind.
No one's going to love me, right?
So then over the course of, you know, 10 sessions with a
psychologist, they will help youdetermine that maybe that's not
really that true. There's evidence against it.
And you can kind of come back tousing a prefrontal cortex, which
(31:42):
is the the kind of human thinking part of your mind.
OK, here's a better perspective.Now.
OCD is such a pure heroin form of anxiety that it's actually no
longer clustered in with the anxiety diagnosis within the DSM
5. It has its own standalone
chapter because cognitive behavioural therapy doesn't work
(32:05):
on it. It's like the fucking
cockroaches of a nuclear explosion.
It will thrive even in the midstof evidence to say, yeah, but
your child coughing doesn't meanthey're going to vomit, and you
vomiting doesn't mean you're going to die.
And cutting chicken in your house doesn't mean you're going
to get sick. There's actually less than 1%
chance that cutting chicken in your house.
It does not matter. You cannot convince that it's
(32:26):
that that thought that it's untrue.
So the goal of exposure responseprevention and how it's
different to treating regular anxiety is you actually have to
come in the other way, which is instead of disproving it, you
almost prove that it's true. And you have to get comfortable
with the most correct me a full worst outcome, correct.
So it's a motherfucker of a it'sthe worst way to heal.
(32:48):
Yeah. It's the worst.
And I for me, I had to feel safeenough to go into this work like
it was. I couldn't have a lot of
stresses in my life. I mean, life is stressful, but I
meant I really was in a positionwhere I could take the foot off
(33:09):
my work, ask for extra support in my home, that I was able to
do this because it required so much of me.
And I understand the deep privilege of being able to meet
this head on it. Like it's when we say it's not
(33:30):
easy. No, it was like, really fucking
terrifying. Like, I called you one day and I
was really not OK. I'd had a bigger spiral.
A bigger it, it, it was worse than any of the ways in which I
was surviving in. It had gone completely awry.
And I was scared I was never going to come back.
And if I didn't have you to tellme that it this was normal, oof.
(33:58):
Like you would regress, you would just go back to the way
things were because it was uncomfortable.
Yes, to live like that, but not as bad as this.
And so I, I feel really gratefulfor you, but I also feel like
this OCD thing that is so often misdiagnosed as anxiety or as
(34:19):
phobias or whatever needs space.We need to discuss it.
Because if I didn't know that this was actually what was under
the emetophobia, I wouldn't be able to have persisted with the
pain of this process. Horrific.
(34:41):
Because the process is so damn hard, you start to do a math
equation in your head where you're like, is this worth it?
And then you you kind of waded halfway into the dam where
you're so deep in the water and going back is as hard as going
forward. You're 5050 and you're like, I
don't know what to do. And everything is yelling.
Go back to at least what's familiar, because that's a hell
(35:02):
that we know when on the other side, it could be the most
spectacular island that you could ever dream of.
But it's do you want to roll thedice on it?
And I'm so proud of you for rolling the dice on what life
can be. And you kept going, and you kept
pushing forward. It's almost like I give it the
example of the transitional partof Birthright.
It's the very end part where we believe we're going to die as
(35:26):
mothers. Like it, it, your whole body
believes that it's going to burst or combust or split and
like you will not recover and, and you and you're terrified.
You think you're going to truly die.
It's, it's a genetic element of the birthing process, right?
And your partner looks at you terrified and you at that point
(35:51):
want all the help, all the drugs, all the intervention, all
of the things. And you've told them, no, even
if I say I'm going to die, don'tdo the thing that I said, OK?
Just just hold me in this space.But they're so scared.
You look so different. You look like you're going to
leave. And my husband in that process
of this situation with the ERP and the OCD, he was scared.
(36:18):
We sat at lunch and I was like, I feel like there are spiders
under my skin, on my skin. I can't.
There's no respite. I'm so limbic.
I'm not, I can't breathe. I just want to fuck or I want to
drink or I want to do something to get out of my body.
(36:39):
And he was like, we're not goingto do any of that stuff.
And I was, but he was scared. Like I could see how scared he
was. And I was like, I need to call
Mitch and thank God because he doesn't have any of us this
experience, just like birth. He is.
He's been prompted. He's been prompted with things
(37:00):
are going to get yucky, things are going to get messy, but he
doesn't actually know when it gets that rough.
He's like, I don't know if this is normal.
I don't know if this is worth it.
And then you're having that mirrored back and you're going,
I don't fucking know if this is worth it.
Which, by the way, on top of a disorganised attachment style.
Where? Where fear or confusion is a
(37:23):
more disorganizing experience for your internal family system.
You've got basically disintegration on
disintegration, which causes themost unsafe you've probably
ever. Felt.
Ever felt and then you don't help Mitch because you're like,
I can't give you a time. This is gonna pass.
And I was like. Oh yeah, Because that's The
(37:45):
thing is that you're looking forthe drug hit of certainty,
right? And so that's.
All I need in my OCD is my certainty.
I couldn't give you that, I said.
This will pass. Oh my God.
You're the one that got me here.And I'm like, this is your
fault, your time. And you're like, I was like, So
what do you mean, like hours? Do you mean minutes?
Do you mean days? And you're like, yeah, it could
(38:06):
be days, could be weeks. And I was like, absolutely
fucking not. Like, no, no, no.
And I think maybe it was anothertwo days.
And holy shit. And this is what I got so much
out of. That horrific experience was the
surrender and the not knowing. Because that is true kryptonite
of the OCD, the unknown is it. And so it was like the exposure
(38:30):
therapy in the discomfort of thenot knowing was like, OK, if I
can just sit with spiders in up around my body and physical
being and be the most horrible partner wife.
Like I needed to just not be in the world and have all of the
things, you know, all of the fucking ways in which we help
(38:55):
the limbic system, the hot and cold and the this and the muscle
stuff. And like, I'm so stuck.
I don't want to do any of it right.
I'm just fucking paralysed. And then knowing it passes and
being able to breathe a little bit the next day was like that
relief, even though it wasn't 100%, was like, OK, I'm not
(39:18):
going mad. Because that's the thing in it.
You're like, how far is Pandora's box open?
Am I ever going to recover? Like what have you done to me?
Am I going into the side unit to?
The left, yeah. It was, and This is why we need
to talk about it, because it's not a quick fix.
It's not a quick hit. Whether you've got meds, whether
you've got a therapist, like whatever it is, it's like you
(39:39):
are going through the fire truly.
But now having gone through the fire and being able to still do
the work. And I don't know if you felt
like this, but like, I haven't had therapy for this week and
she's let me do fortnightly now.And I'm kind of like, I don't
(40:01):
want to do it right now. Like I'm kind of like
comfortable, you know? And that's a trick.
That's a trick. Of course, it's like not wanting
to work out. You're like.
I feel good now, yeah. And you and you, you have a, a
week goes past, you don't go to the gym.
And then it's so hard to get that momentum going again.
(40:22):
But you know, just like the gym,once you get that first session
back under the belt, you're goodto go again.
You just need to remind yourselfof the momentum.
It's just, and it's like, that'sa lot of therapy, you know, I
don't know, can we have a little, When can I just have a
little break? And it's like, oh, sorry, not
yet. You know, it's, it's not yet.
(40:43):
But the humility and especially in the work that you and I do,
even though it's vastly different, how grateful I am to
be in this position of humannesswith the people that I get to
work with is vital, like, to keep me here, to keep me real.
There's no guru, do you know what I mean?
(41:04):
There's no like element of I am healed, I am better.
I am all of the things. It's like, no, we may have very
different elements of what's going on for us, but I'm
willing, like I am willing to participate in the discomfort of
this experience because I want to be the truest version of
(41:26):
myself without this fusion, you know?
And so now that you are startingto decouple in this beautiful
way, the protective OCD part andZoe as a healthy integrated
adult, knowing that they are separate, they are linked, it's
(41:47):
part of the same campfire. But you do not need to be OCD.
You can experience OCD as something that is designed to
keep you safe. It's just overactive and making
you feel unsafe and all the ironies.
You know, you've touched on thisfeeling of relief, but also this
kind of dichotomy of feeling upset that it took so long.
(42:10):
What part of you is grieving this place that you're arriving
at, and how can we speak to other people who might be
fearful of what's on the other side of the mountain?
Do I wait longer and feel the pain of regret or do I take it
on head head on and feel the pain of dealing with it?
It's it took me to the place of I really had to.
(42:33):
So every time I go into this isn't my first rodeo with hard
work, right? And before I do these things, I
have to talk to my husband. I have to give him everything
that is potentially going to unfold.
And I was on the fence for a long time because no one wants
to be truly uncomfortable. I was also sceptical.
(42:54):
That's a big OCD thing, right? Like you can't help me, I've got
this all covered. And he said let's give it three
months. Why don't you just have an
experiment? And that's I guess another thing
that put me through is when I was, gosh, when did we speak?
Maybe I was 8 weeks in or something and hating every fibre
(43:16):
of this experiment. I was able to know I had three
months and if I still hated it in three months, if there was no
benefits, if there was no evidence, then I could be done
with it for good. We could revert back and live
the way in suffering in which wedid.
And so I think for someone practical, that's a really
(43:37):
helpful thing to do is because when you want to give up is know
that you've made the commitment for this period of time because
it takes however long it takes to recalibrate these parts of
yourself. And not even three months like
that was just the beginning. But I guess the pain, the
discomfort is less post that notthat it's always going to be
(44:00):
like I was in discomfort all dayyesterday.
I, I had to go to an event last night.
I, I hate, which is so funny because everyone thinks I'm
truly extroverted. I hate being out and with people
I don't know. And I get very overstimulated
and it's uncomfortable for me. And so all day I dreaded it all
day I made excuses. I anyway, I ended up going and I
(44:24):
sang all day. Just build evidence.
It's either going to be great orit's going to be true for what
you're feeling right now. And it ended up being
sensational. It was so brilliant.
And the thing around the OCD is,I said to my therapist, I want
to give up drinking. So what happened with me was my
OCD morphed it, it, it started to become obsessed with food or
(44:47):
with alcohol. It's clever, right?
Clever. And so I stopped drinking and I
was obsessed with stopping drinking and what that meant for
me and how in control I was because I wasn't drinking.
And then the therapist was like,I think you may need to have a
drink just and like push yourself through this if the
(45:09):
time comes up where it feels like you want 1.
And I had a whole story around it now, you know, being a
leading cause of cancer and my mum dying cancer and blah blah.
Anyway, last night I was out feeling kind of under the
weather and they had one of my favourite French champagnes.
And yes, I hadn't eaten much during that.
(45:30):
I had so many stories around nothaving a drink.
And I was like, yes, please. And I had this drink and it was
beautiful and it was bubbly and it was all of the things and it
made me feel good. And it was against everything I
wanted to do in the day. And it was also against anything
I wanted to do when I was there.And then I combatted 2 of the
things in one night. All the story around you don't
(45:54):
sleep well when you're drinking.You get so overstimulated you're
not going to sleep tonight. All of that when I got home was
true in my head. And I was like, well, let's just
lay here. Just say next minute, it's 7:50
this morning. My husband, beautiful husband
had me sleep in and we have moreevidence, you know, but it it's
required every day for me to be able to do the thing that I
(46:15):
don't want to do because I want to have control.
And then having now going, Oh mygosh, OK, one drink doesn't mean
this or going to that event withthose, you know, all of that
stuff. It's just it's I'm in the work
every single day, every single minute.
It's just become a lifestyle nowversus like heavy lifting.
(46:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is this is who I am and
this is what I do. I, I confront hard things.
I try and not live in extremes. I try and, you know, honour my
humanity. You know, it's funny.
I had a when I do your podcast again, we'll reverse the roles
and I'll talk more about my OCD.But just a quick kind of tip of
(46:58):
the hat as to exactly what you were explaining.
I've only ever had one or two videos go super viral on TikTok.
One of them was how I said, there's one word that, you know,
I intentionally was a bit hooky with it in order to get it to
scale. And I was like, that's a
worthwhile tax to pay if it's going to help someone.
And I said one word that cured my OCD.
(47:21):
And obviously OCD can't and shouldn't be cured because it's
part of you and it's amazing andhelpful.
But that word that I now have tattered on my arm here is
maybe. We talked about this at our
lunch. Tell me again.
And so, you know, it kind of is that whole OCD is constantly
knocking on your shoulder or, you know, speaking into your ear
(47:45):
where it's like, but what if? But what if, but what if?
And you can either go toe to toewith it and try and knock it out
with but it won't happen becauseor you can run away and
unfortunately that motherfucker will chase you down and find you
right. So I found that the best
response to it is just to validate like maybe maybe you're
(48:07):
right and that's the end of the conversation.
Maybe maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but I'm just going
to sit in the discomfort of not knowing and I'm going to wake up
at 7:50 because my beautiful husband said, hey, it's Thursday
now. That's the work.
He's going to sleep that night to be like, maybe, maybe you're
(48:29):
right. But right now I'm going to let
that be ambiguous. But can I, and I want to
acknowledge something is when you said this to me at lunch, it
did not land. It was like, I got your concept,
but it was kind of like, you're speaking Cantonese, you know?
Like it didn't land. Now I'm like, that's how I'm
(48:51):
living. Yeah, that's how I'm living.
But that was so far from where Iwas then.
Yeah, you know, and the maybe makes all of it OK.
And this is the thing about likeI'm able to access and this is
what's so fascinating now. Memory I've never been able to
(49:11):
access before. Dissociated it out.
Yeah, Like, there's levels of healing, there's levels of
grieving. There's so much beautiful work
underneath the surface because Ican access parts of myself that
have been so closed for so long and that maybe now has changed
(49:35):
everything for me because, I mean, this is so silly and I
shouldn't even probably say this.
My husband will kill me. But I didn't used to like being
intimate that night before bed because I would.
This is so much. I would get overstimulated, like
I would get too awake and then Icouldn't sleep.
And now the maybe has this freedom that I can do what I
(50:00):
want anytime. Maybe I will sleep, maybe I
won't and the maybe allows me tosleep.
That's what actually just layingthere and being like maybe, but
why don't we just rest versus the neurosis of sleep now sleep
now. I told you couldn't sleep.
Now this is what happens when you have sex and an orgasm at
this time. And I Deborah, I've always now
you're getting into sleeping tablet.
Now you're going to like that maybe has changed everything.
(50:26):
Tonight I have another thing, another social event, which is a
lot for me and yesterday I was like I can't do tonight and
tomorrow. Then where it was like maybe now
today I can go and support my friend.
That's really important. It's not this.
I can't tell you how much that'sshifted.
Everything shifted everything. And I guess my word that comes
(50:49):
into it is trust. There's an element now.
It's like this leading thing andmy son so beautifully when I was
my whole world was kind of breaking down in October last
year and very strange things with friendships and myself and
my work. And he was 6 and he wrote trust
on this piece of paper. And I've kept it with me because
I want it so badly tattooed, right?
(51:13):
And I just fall back into that word.
It's kind of like you're maybe just trust, like whatever is
going to happen is for the specific growth is for the the
moment in time is for the relationship is for the
connection is for all. The person I sat next to last
night was the VP of the company for the event, the global VP,
(51:35):
the most ah, incredible human. This woman we talked so deeply
about death, about recovery, about connection.
Absolutely not what I thought was going to happen at at beauty
event, right? I had one of the most hot
connected moments last night with a stranger because of maybe
(51:58):
because of trust. And that's like I would have
rubbed myself of that because ofthe OCD, you know, like what a
what else have I rubbed myself from?
We don't need to go back, right?We don't need to look at it, but
I'm like, wow, life. Life has so much more colour.
I think I said that to you. Yeah, colour.
(52:18):
Yeah. It's so I have so much more
ability. I have so much more access, so
much more opportunity. Like the way in which I would
drive myself crazy because of myrigid ways of eating, the way in
which I would stress myself because if there was a bit of
gluten, it's like, there's all these weird things we do, right?
Well, now I'm like at the dinner, there's a delicious
(52:39):
piece of focaccia. You're like, give me some of
that. I have fluidity and I have
option where before there was nooption, I was optionless.
So I hope some of this has made sense because I feel like you
get it and I get it, but I've jumped around, no.
No, no. I've.
(53:00):
Around the world. I absolutely think that most
importantly, your realness, yourvulnerability is what people
will take away from this. And your hope, the hope that you
give to people around feeling lost in the darkness, not being
able to hold on to anything and trust being the furthest thing
(53:22):
from their reality. And I think that it's in those
moments that we need to trust the most.
And for, you know, last one, I think, you know, let's leave it
here because we could deep dive on this for so long.
For me, faith plays a big part, right?
And you know, in some of my keynote talks, I say I'm jealous
(53:42):
of you if you don't believe in ahigher power because it means
that you've never been to hell. Because when you're in hell,
there's only one thing that you can hang on to, and it's
something more than yourself. And so like my belief in God has
been tested because it points I've hated this higher power so
much with everything in my soul I've gone.
(54:04):
You can't be real because there's no way you would let me,
an innocent little human soul, feel that.
And yet something echoed back inthose moments.
Keep holding on. If you have faith, you will be
rewarded. And that's on the other side of
this faith that we are able to celebrate in the glory that I
believe is God. And I want to put something in
(54:25):
here that's really important is I was doing a programme in the
Uki don't want to name and shamebut, and I won't, but their
philosophy was, you know, aroundlocus of control.
And if you put too much in faith, you lose the ability to
believe in your own. You can't depend on self, right?
(54:47):
And I understand that a little bit because I would batter with
God in times of crisis. But what that stall because I,
I, I within their, you know, process of the three months of
intensive therapy, I suspended my faith, right, because I was
all in and it what I realised isI can have, it's so valuable for
(55:16):
me to have my faith and my connection to God and source and
like it's everything. It's everything to me.
But I also know it's shifted from dealing like battering with
God. If you give me this, I will do
this into I know you've got me regardless of where I go.
It's shifted its relationship. I think taking faith away from
(55:40):
anybody to know that you can depend on self is a really
dangerous thing. You know, it has to be married
between the two. That's why I call things Co
creation, right? It's me, it's the self and it's
a higher power of God. And together we have this
incredible relationship and support and life is uncertain.
(56:01):
Like I've only, I only understand that now, you know,
and knowing I have God is like knowing I am in partnership with
whatever happens, the ebbs and flows.
We are held in a way where we can constantly surrender to it
(56:21):
because that's what we need to do rather than control, we need
to surrender, especially as beautiful OCD is, you know, and
without God, I have the most exquisite life.
And even though we've talked about a lot of pain today and a
lot of challenge, my life is exquisite.
It is exactly what I wanted whenI was in the depth of OCD,
(56:43):
phobia, fear, survival. Like I got to this week.
Just go take my picnic blanket under a tree and sit in the sun
with my Chai for three hours because that is my version of
success. Now to sleep until 7:50 because
my husband knows what I need without telling him.
To be able to connect with someone random at an event like
I'm living the Co creation doesn't mean it's not hard.
(57:07):
Doesn't mean I'm not challenged by ticks or phobic thoughts or
intrusive thoughts or whatever. I'm just there's a surrender and
there is a compassion, especially to myself, around
holding space for her, you know?For her, I think that's a
beautiful place for us to leave.It is like surrender and holding
(57:31):
space for her and it's been an absolute honour to hold space
for you. I hope that you feel you've
contributed meaningfully to someone's life.
I hope so. I hope so.
I know you have. If people want to follow along
your journey, where's the best place to find you?
I guess either at arise.com dot AU Double I or at Zoe B
(57:54):
Marshall. I'm always in the DMS and
there's been so many people since I've started to feel brave
enough discussing OCD and ERP that really are ready for this.
And so I feel like this is, yeah, it's just an evolution.
But I truly, I also want to honour you in the work that you
(58:14):
do because you changed my life. I saved my life, but you changed
it. You were able to give me access
to information that I so desperately needed.
And this, I hope gives people the same access.
It will. It has, it does, and thank you
for allowing me to be part of your journey.
(58:36):
And thanks for taking my crazy phone calls.
Always my emotions have a natural tendency to dissipate
unless they get reinforced. And so if there's more thoughts,
more stories, more intentions that come along, so the act of
how am I leaving it alone is an act of not act, adding more
stories, adding fuel to it. So it might not go away in 2
(58:58):
minutes, but it begins to relax and dissipate.
And so rather than being the person who has to fix it, we've
become the person who makes space for the heart, the mind,
to relax and settle away itself.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!