Kindness and Patience: Nurturing Yourself Through Trauma Recovery

Struggling with PTSD or OCD?

You're not alone.

Disorders like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often stand out for their distinct characteristics. However, beneath the surface lies surprising similarities in the way they manifest and can affect you. Exploring these parallels not only improves our understanding of these conditions but also emphasizes the importance of tailored treatment approaches.

The Intrusive Nature of Thoughts and Memories

Both OCD and PTSD are marked by intrusive thoughts and memories that disrupt your daily life. In OCD, intrusive thoughts are typically centered around fears or obsessions, compelling you to engage in repetitive behaviors or mental acts (compulsions) to get anxiety relief. Similarly, people with PTSD experience intrusive memories related to past traumatic events, which can trigger intense emotional and physiological reactions.

Hyperarousal and Avoidance Behaviors

Hyperarousal and avoidance behaviors are common responses in both disorders. Hyperarousal means feeling overly alert or jittery. It's like when your body gets ready to react quickly to something scary or surprising. People who experience hyperarousal might feel jumpy, have a hard time relaxing, or feel like they're always on edge, even when there's no immediate danger around. This can happen in situations where someone feels very anxious or stressed, and their body stays in a state of high alert for a long time.

People with OCD often exhibit hyperarousal in response to their obsessions, leading to heightened anxiety and vigilance. This can manifest in behaviors like excessive checking or seeking reassurance. Similarly, people with PTSD may remain in a state of heightened arousal, characterized by hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response. Avoidance behaviors in both conditions serve as attempts to mitigate distressing symptoms, but ultimately reinforce the cycle of anxiety and fear.

Rituals and Safety Behaviors

Rituals and safety behaviors are core features of both OCD and PTSD. In OCD, rituals are repetitive behaviors or mental acts performed in response to obsessions, aiming to reduce anxiety or prevent perceived harm. These rituals can range from physical actions (like washing hands repeatedly) to mental rituals (like counting or praying). In PTSD, safety behaviors are actions taken to reduce the perceived threat of trauma recurrence, such as avoiding certain places or situations associated with the traumatic event.

Impact on Daily Functioning and Quality of Life

Both OCD and PTSD can significantly impair daily functioning and quality of life. You may struggle with difficulties in relationships, work, and social interactions due to their symptoms. Considering that these disorders can be chronic, it’s important to get early intervention and effective treatment to prevent long-term problems and complications.

Treatment Approaches: Overlapping Strategies

Despite their differences, treatment approaches for OCD and PTSD often share overlapping strategies. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), particularly Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is widely recognized as effective for OCD by exposing you to feared situations and preventing your usual responses/reactions.

Like OCD, trauma has a specialized treatment approach. Trauma-focused therapies, such as Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), helps you process traumatic memories and reduce associated symptoms. Trauma therapy and EMDR offers valuable tools and techniques to help you process and heal from traumatic experiences.

Grab your copy of a book by Deb Dana to learn more about the nervous system and the polyvagal theory. (I may get a kickback if you purchase after clicking at no additional cost to you.)

Conclusion

Understanding the parallels between OCD and PTSD highlights the complexity of these disorders and the need for personalized treatment approaches. By recognizing their shared features—such as intrusive thoughts, hyperarousal, and avoidance behaviors—you can be better supported by specialized professionals who specifically treat these conditions. Whether through therapy, medication, or a combination of approaches, addressing OCD and PTSD requires a comprehensive understanding of their impact and tailored interventions to promote recovery and improve quality of life.

In essence, while OCD and PTSD may present different challenges, their shared characteristics demonstrate the importance of compassionate and evidence-based care to empower you on your wellness journey.

Transcript:

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We're partnering with NOCD to raise awareness about OCD.

OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts and feelings. It's about your relationship stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away. That's relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting intrusive images, thoughts, and urges about your partner or loved one.

Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to NOCD. com to get evidence based treatment.

Thank you all for tuning in to another episode of Bossing Up Overcoming OCD. Today I'm talking with one of my friends, Brooke Bacote, and she works with people who primarily struggle with trauma, so I'm really excited for you all to hear the things she does for people who have experienced trauma.

Hi, I'm Erin, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and OCD Specialist. [00:01:00] I'm also a wife, mom to three, and small business owner, helping those who are spiraling from intrusive thoughts to come out of that valley with long term recovery and self awareness. Reheat your coffee and pop in your AirPods to learn how to Boss Up to OCD.

Brooke. Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

And so Brooke, can you tell the audience a little bit about What you do and what your work is like in working with trauma victims.

Sure. Yeah. So I've been working with trauma survivors for maybe seven years now. My first internship in undergrad was working at a crisis center for survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault or abuse. And I just fell in love and that sounds weird, but I fell in love with working with people who have experienced trauma.

From there, I just continued to. work in different settings with people who've experienced [00:02:00] trauma. A lot of my background has been with intimate partner violence and sexual abuse.

So, Brooke, my podcast primarily centers around getting the right kind of treatment for OCD because I get so bent out of shape when people say they treat OCD when they really don't.

So I'm sure you've come across this in your work with trauma victims, how some people maybe have tried therapy and it didn't work. Trauma is such a complex issue with some people. Deep psychological scars, and I'm wondering in your experience, how does PTSD manifest from these traumatic experiences that people go through?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that it shows up differently and the same for people. Oftentimes with trauma, it can take sometimes years for, like you said, scars to maybe start Showing up or maybe people are ready to [00:03:00] rip that band aid off and look at that. So sometimes the effects can take a while for people to maybe start to really want to look at that and sometimes they're more immediate.

I think often with trauma it can be stored in the body and have physical reactions that come up from traumatic experiences. So it's like mental and body centered as well.

Gotcha.

And that, especially with physical, if there's any physical abuse, I think that can manifest in that way maybe even more. If it's psychological or mental, which is just as detrimental, the chronic stress of that, especially if it's years and years of trauma, can really have an impact on somebody's body.

So, the way that PTSD really manifests through depression, anxiety, OCD, memory loss, like blanking of periods of time, intrusive [00:04:00] thoughts, which kind of is connected to OCD, and a lot of avoidance. And that's not a comprehensive list, but that's just some of the, uh, Definitely some of the ways that it pops up for people.

Yeah. And I love hearing how, well, I just love having this conversation with you because a few weeks ago, just for listeners awareness, Brooke and I had coffee and it was like, we were talking about our different specialties and it's like, there's such a parallel between PTSD and OCD because it builds over time and then before you know it, you're in a full blown episode where you're like, Oh my gosh, what do I do?

Where do I turn? Yeah, it is. It's so tough.

Yeah. So tough.

And both are about feeling helpless, right? There's this helplessness aspect to it. And I think a lot of people are trying to find control. And so OCD and trauma are oftentimes very linked and it is like a way that people can try to cope.

I know some of this question wasn't really [00:05:00] scripted.

With OCD, the control that they, the individual tries to take is through the compulsions. And so with PTSD, how is someone trying to take control? What does that look like? That's a really good question.

I think it's probably similar in maybe even avoidance, right? I can control my environment by not going somewhere or by avoiding the stimulus altogether.

Seems like that would be a great way to maybe solve it. Never confront it and you're good. The thing about trauma and OCD is that it can snowball and become bigger and by not facing it, it does. So I think that the, the avoidance piece, and your question

was, Uh, so like, how do people, PTSD or trauma survivors try to take control?

I like the idea of avoidance because [00:06:00] avoidance is so huge with any anxiety disorder. And the more we avoid, the bigger the issue gets. But what were, were there other thoughts you had about how, Um, Survivors try to take control.

I think that we, they, all of us try to protect ourselves so much from getting hurt.

And so some of that control is I'm going to not be in a relationship or I'm going to control every aspect of this relationship so that I don't get hurt.

Yeah. And so. With trauma and PTSD, one of the evidence based treatments for trauma is using EMDR. And so that's eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

With EMDR, can you explain what EMDR is and how it's different from your traditional talk therapy? Yes.

And I will say that I'm green in adding this modality [00:07:00] to my repertoire, which I think is a great place to be in because I'm, I'm just soaping up information and seeing how it works with my clients.

There's a little blurb that the Institute, the EMDR Institute gave us, which is a great way to explain it. So I'll say that here, and then maybe that will explain a little bit how it works. It doesn't necessarily go quite into the nitty gritty of it, but it gives like an idea of maybe how it works. So it says when a disturbing event occurs, it gets locked in the brain with the images, sounds, thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.

EMDR seems to stimulate the information and allows the brain to process the experience. That may be what is happening in REM or dream sleep. The eye movements may help to process the material. It is your own brain that will be doing the healing and you are the one in control. I really liked that last part.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it takes eye movements and helps to change maladaptively [00:08:00] stored memory networks and change it to adaptive. Taking those distressing memories and making them less distressing. And those distressing memories are connected to our negative beliefs about ourselves. So it also helps to process those so that your own kind of connection with this trauma can be shifted and changed.

That's awesome. So it's with the EMDR work in session, you're doing like an in vivo or imaginary exposure of like, we're going back to this memory. We're going to reprocess it and we're going to work through those negative beliefs that you have about yourself.

Yeah. So it's eight phases and there's no kind of like timeline of that, but yeah, it's you set the client up.

To have a history taking, and then you go into almost creating a table of contents, if you will, of the memories that are coming up for them. And then you can go into each memory and yeah, [00:09:00] process each memory and how it's connected to you. And then by doing that, it allows this memory to be reprocessed and no longer, yeah, no longer disturbing.

Okay.

And with this table of contents, would you consider it like a hierarchy? So they're going from maybe a smaller, less intrusive memory to a more complex memory? That's a

great question. No, actually. What we typically start with, and I say typically because, EMDR is a very fluid modality. There's a lot of structure to it, and it's also fluid.

It's, it's interesting like that, but in the phase where you're figuring out which memory to start with, you do what's called a float back technique. You start with a recent experience and then you figure out the connections of that, which is like, how did your body feel or the emotions coming up? What is a negative belief that's connected to that?

And then you [00:10:00] float back in your mind, and I don't recommend people do this on their own, I recommend them doing this with. A professional.

No kidding, right?

A little caveat to that. To float, I ask them to float back to earlier times in their life when they may have felt this way. And then that's where we go back and say, okay, so there's this memory, are there other times in your life where you may have felt this way?

And typically it's most helpful to start with the earliest memory that somebody has of that experience. And the reason for that is because when you start with the memory that's the earliest, it often can be generalized to those other memories in that memory network. And those memories can move a little bit easier when you're starting to process those.

Because you've processed that core, maybe not core memory, but like that memory that Maybe started that feeling

gotcha, so you're going to the source to that root cause memory that has [00:11:00] manifested and Built itself and steamrolled over the years or whatever time period

and that doesn't mean that sometimes I don't we don't go into the most distressing or the thing that is most present because Sometimes, it doesn't make sense to go back to this memory that was the first memory because there's this memory that is so glaring that there is no kind of moving without processing that memory first.

Yeah. Okay, so we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from the sponsor. We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD. OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationships stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make them go away.

That's Relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting, intrusive images, thoughts, and urges about your partner or loved one. If you think you may be struggling with Relationship OCD, there's hope. [00:12:00] NOCD offers effective, affordable, and convenient OCD therapy. NoCD therapists are trained in exposure response prevention therapy, the gold standard treatment for OCD.

With NoCD, you can do virtual, live, face to face video sessions with one of their licensed specialty trained therapists. It's affordable and they accept most major insurance plans. Breaking the relationship OCD cycle takes effective treatment. To get started with NoCD, go to nocd. com slash savage. Okay.

And again, I love hearing the parallels of the work that you're doing with PTSD and how it is with OCD because with OCD, I'm helping someone. Go through some experiences and have what's called a corrective experience. So it's like, instead of hanging on to this intrusive thought and avoiding it or doing compulsions to try to neutralize it, we're like doing things to [00:13:00] help them learn and help their brain process so that their body's not physically reacting mentally, emotionally, they're not as reactive.

And it's like, they're learning that. Oh, I can handle this. It's not so bad. And anyway, and I was asking about that table of contents because with the work in OCD, we do a hierarchy. So we start with the least threatening and work our way up to the most threatening. And it's so fascinating though. And I'm sure it's very rewarding for you to even see people get better because by the time we get to that More distressing or high distress situation.

They're like leaps and bounds ahead because once they've done probably like a level one, level two, they can handle the level 10. Yeah. Yeah. So it

sounds like it's similar in just, yeah, it's like the desensitization piece of it. Right. Where it's, we are like allowing space for the distress and the discomfort, but [00:14:00] we're doing it in a way to where there's this.

With like they're inside their zone of tolerance. Right? Like they're not outside like panicking and they're not shut down. They're like in this zone.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so with doing EMDR, so the EMDR, you're moving your hands to get the client's eyes moving, right? Yes,

what essentially it is and some people, some clinicians use like a light bar and the light will move back and forth and back and forth

hand paddles.

Have you seen those like vibrating hand paddles?

Yes. Yes. I have seen those. Yeah. I think that whatever. A clinician is using that, that does that same stimulation of eye movements, as long as that's there. Right. And I don't know, I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of all the different tools that people use.

I use my hands. It's free. So [00:15:00] that's the best form for me right now. Yeah. So I asked somebody to bring up the experience. We use eye movements and do one set and then I say, let it go. Take a breath. What are you noticing now? We're gonna go with literally whatever's coming up. If that means that they say the carpet is purple, I'm gonna say go with that, and we're gonna go with it.

If I go with it, move my fingers back and forth, and they follow with their eyes. And don't move their head. And that's the spontaneous eye movement, rapid eye movements that helps somebody to reprocess something.

Wow. And how is EMDR so successful in treating trauma?

It's a great question, but I don't know if I fully have the answer to.

I think that it definitely connects to, connects with the way that our body kind of processes in sleep. Right. Like that REM cycle. And I think it just allows for space. Yeah. To just [00:16:00] shift from that memory network that somebody's always had with that memory and just allows a transition to something different.

Yeah. And I'm sure there's research, tons of research out there to support.

Oh my, there's a ton of research and that could probably answer that question way better than I ever would, because I am not a. Um, scientist or someone who does clinical trials, but there are, there's a lot of evidence to say that this works.

And my own experience, I've done EMDR myself through this process. And I will say that as somebody who did it, I don't have all the answers of why it worked for me. It just did. It just helped.

Yes. Yes. And sometimes that's all people are looking for. They don't care. Why it works. They just want to know that it works.

Yeah, and if people really want to better understand that I can give some, some articles or some provide [00:17:00] information on maybe where they could better understand exactly what's happening.

Information being put out there now about the polyvagal theory and in doing like deep breathing work, I know that sometimes that can activate the vagus nerve and that, Signals to our body that it's time to calm down and relax because we don't have a lion, tiger, or bear chasing after us.

Yeah. Yeah. So what is your knowledge and experience about the polyvagal theory? Yeah. I took

a, a course in polyvagal theory, maybe. Three, three or four years ago. And I really clung to it because I loved how it helps explain why people have certain reactions when they've had traumatic experiences. So I like to use the polyvagal theory to, [00:18:00] before introducing EMDR as a way to allow people to better understand their, how they regulate their body and their mind.

So I'd explain that this theory looks at our nervous system and how our nervous system takes in safety and danger cues in our world. And. And when trauma gets put in the mix of that, it makes these reactions more intense and extreme. So it changes and shifts the way that somebody might automatically respond to something.

Gotcha. So the polyvagal theory is just an explanation about the nervous system. And then if you're looking at it from a trauma lens, it's incorporating how you might have an exaggerated or a. A higher startle response, maybe with your stress or a nervous system.

Yeah. I like to give the analogy of, of a house.

So there's [00:19:00] three kinds of responses that we have, which is the ventral, which is safe and connected. There's the sympathetic, which is the like doing something fight or flight. And then there's the dorsal, which is the shutdown. So looking at it through the context of a house. The dorsal is the house, the generator is running, like nothing else is going on at the house.

Your body is keeping your organs alive. That's it. That's the only thing. And then with the sympathetic, that's when the alarm bells are going and are going off in the house. And then in the ventral, the house, the alarm bells are set, the generator's going, you've exist in this house and feel safe, social, and connected.

So that's how I like to explain it to people, give a better idea of how your, how the nervous system responds at times.

Yeah. And I can totally see that because I think we've all been there when we're so stressed out that we just shut down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Brooke, in [00:20:00] working with PTSD and using EMDR, Are there times when people have like a misconception or they come into treatment with some kind of myth?

Like, why can't I just get over this and things like that. Do you encounter some misconceptions along those lines and how do you address it?

Oh yes, of course. I think one of the biggest ones is my trauma isn't big enough for EMDR. My trauma really isn't big enough for therapy or for anything. For my reactions and the way that I kind of address that is it's not necessarily about how intense it was, but how it's stored, how you're the information is stored in your mind and your body is more it's more about that than the intensity of the event.

I think the other one is like you said that comes to mind is especially with EMDR. I'm doing it wrong. I'm going to do it wrong. I am going to mess it up. I'm going to be the one person that it's [00:21:00] not going to work on. I'm going to be that person. And I think that the way that I try to help people in that space is that belief is very much part of me.

tied to their traumatic experiences most likely. The, I'm not good enough. I'm not going to be able to do this is tied to that experience that we're probably trying to focus on in EMDR. I think those are two of the ones that come up a lot and stick out to me right now.

We're partnering with NoCD to raise awareness about OCD.

OCD is more than what you see on TV and in the movies. Imagine having unwanted thoughts about your relationship. Stuck in your head all day, no matter how hard you try to make him go away. That's relationship OCD. It comes with unrelenting interest of images, thoughts, and urges about your partner or loved one.

Breaking the OCD cycle takes effective treatment. Go to NOCD. [00:22:00] com.

And so Brooke, before we wrap up, do you have any advice or special tips or resources of trauma survivors or people who have experienced a traumatic event? Yeah. Is there any sort of advice or takeaways that you have for those listeners?

Yeah, I hesitate to give advice because I feel like everybody's experience is so different.

What I will say is I think survivors of trauma or people who've experienced trauma often beat themselves up over the experiences or their reaction to these experiences, like Why can't I just get over this? It's been a year. I shouldn't be reacting like this, or somebody just touched me on the shoulder.

I shouldn't have had this reaction, right? The shoulds. I think I would encourage people to recognize that [00:23:00] those patterns are patterns of protection that they've, that have kept them alive and have helped them survive. So it's really a strength to be able to know that your mind and your body can protect itself in that type of way.

Okay.

Yeah. So basically it's like kind of that mindfulness approach of don't put judgment on yourself, just show appreciation and gratitude. And even though it's hard, even though it's hard and no one knows how to handle a traumatic event is you're never prepared for that. So just being kind to yourself and recognizing that like, it's okay.

You're. Mind in your body and on your brain do things out of survival instincts to protect you. Exactly. Yeah,

and if people want more resources on like the polyvagal theory, there's some good books out there. There's exercises that Deb Dana is someone I have a couple books here with [00:24:00] me that she's written some books.

And so if people want more information about polyvagal, then She's somebody that I could recommend that they read some stuff by her.

Excellent. I'll put a link to that book and any other books you recommend in the show notes so then the listeners can click on the link and go right to that resource. So I appreciate that.

Thank you Brooke for being here and this was a lot of fun and I hope everyone enjoyed learning more about trauma work and getting the right kind of treatment for trauma.

Awesome! Yeah! Thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.

I'll get you the next round of coffee.

Sounds good. Sounds good.

Alright, and what a great conversation with Brooke today where we talked about the parallels between OCD and PTSD. Come back next week where I'm going to be talking about tornadoes and how that can look like a phobia and also [00:25:00] how it can show up as a theme in OCD.

So if you struggle with worrying about the weather and encountering a tornado. Next week's episode is for you. Be sure to check out all the links in the show notes and remember, Soul Sync is debuting real soon, y'all. So be sure to grab your pre sale price by going to valuedriventherapy. com slash shop.

Okay. See you next Friday. Thank you for listening to another episode of Foing Up Overcoming OCD. This information is intended to be helpful and not a substitute for professional counseling. If you're struggling with any mental health challenges, I encourage you to seek help from a qualified therapist or healthcare professional.

If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and don't forget to check out the affiliate links in the show notes. For handpicked recommendations that can brighten your day. [00:26:00] Your support through these links helps keep the show running and provide valuable content.

You're not alone in your journey. Stay strong, stay resilient and keep bossing up. See you next time.