🎧 Inside the OCD Mind Loop: Valerie Breaks the Silence on Mental Health

[00:00:06] Hey there listeners, welcome to Shit That Goes Under Our Heads, the podcast where we normalize conversations around mental health. That's right. I'm Dirty Skittles and alongside my amazing co-host, G-Rex, we are here to share stories and tips from our incredible guests. Each episode, we deep dive into struggles and triumphs of mental health, offering practical advice and heartfelt support. Because no one should feel alone in their journey. Join us as we break the stigma and build a community of understanding and compassion.

[00:00:35] So tune in and let's start talking about the shit that goes on in our heads. Three, two, three, two. Welcome back to another episode of Shit That Goes On In Our Heads. I'm Dirty Skittles and today I'm joined by my amazing co-host, G-Rex.

[00:01:01] And I feel like you're like a veteran now to shit that goes on in our heads. We're here with Valerie. Welcome back. Do we need a drum roll? Thank you so much for having me again. Oh my gosh. I know. I do feel like I'm a veteran. Seriously, I saw your name and I'm like, oh yay! We could be talking again. I was so excited. I am so excited. And I was thinking like, when was the last time we recorded? It was almost like, I don't know, 18 months ago or so now.

[00:01:31] I think so. But time flies. And I have just been amazed at what you guys have been creating with your show. And I've been following y'all closely. You actually are on my running playlist. Like I always, to listen to your episodes when I'm running a few miles after I dropped my youngest off from school. I'm like, oh, let me see what G-Rex and Dirty Skittles has to say. And I just love it.

[00:01:57] And so I am so thrilled that I am back on the show to talk more about just really mental health topics. I think this is so important to talk about. And thank you again. Yeah. So what's changed? How's life since we've last spoken with you? Oh, life's been good. We've been doing a lot. I've been writing still. It takes a long time to write a book. I'll say. T-Rex knows, right? I'm all over that. Yep.

[00:02:26] I feel like I've been doing that every day in some capacity, even for 15 minutes a day, just trying to do something. Cause I have my three kids that I'm constantly being a driver for or a cook or a maid just, but in whatever little timeframe I can get.

[00:02:44] Like I'll either be writing or I'll be doing something related to like my platform, the two mom is to love platform and just trying to spread mental health awareness as well as just knowing that it's okay to not be perfect. I think that's something we all need to hear, not just as moms, but for everyone. But I had talked with Gretchen or G-Rex.

[00:03:06] I don't know when it was that we talked about it, but I have not talked much about my OCD journey. Like really, I write about it. I write a lot about it, but I haven't talked about it in my podcast or my writing that much. And I feel called to kind of talk more about that.

[00:03:26] And I was like, you know, this may be a good topic to talk about with you guys, because I think it's something that, you know, we know about, but I feel like more people need to learn more about what is OCD. Just kind of, I don't know. I actually don't have words yet for what I want to say, but just like bringing awareness to the topic. Yeah. I have tons of questions.

[00:03:51] Actually, this is something that I, there's somebody in my family who is undiagnosed, but in just kind of learning a little bit from that experience, I've never asked them questions. So you might be, if I asked you something that's completely off the wall and you're like, don't, I don't want to talk about it. Just let me know. Sure.

[00:04:16] Because I think it's more than just everything needs to be perfect, isn't it? There's more of a mental strain. Yeah, there's, you know, it's, there's more to it than that. And it's Andrew Huberman, and I don't remember his episode. I listened to a few years ago about the differences between the personality, like an OCD personality and an OCD diagnosis.

[00:04:41] And I've never been diagnosed with OCD, but I do know that I likely have it because of what I've experienced before. And he does a great job kind of breaking it down a bit because yeah, it's like wanting things orderly, wanting these things. But when I get in a real like OCD attack, I guess, I don't know what, I've never really put a label to it. But when the OCD alarm goes off, it's a loop that just, it like besieges your mind.

[00:05:10] And it is so difficult to get out of that loop. And it really is just this, like, almost like I have to take a different pathway in my brain and completely ignore whatever the obsession is or the compulsion is. And it's something that's just so frustrating because all you want to do is stop it. But the more you think about it, the more you think about stopping, the stronger it becomes. So if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:39] How young or old were you in this when you noticed it, I guess? Yeah. So I started writing about this. I was actually really young. So when I was, I don't know, like eight or nine, I would feel the need to do a compulsion. I didn't know it was a compulsion at the time, but feel the need to do something so something bad wouldn't happen. And I didn't know what the bad happening was.

[00:06:08] It was just this overall feeling of something bad is going to happen if I don't do X, Y, or Z. And that was for me turning the lights on and off in my room. And so I would turn on and off the lights five times. It was always a specific number. And so I would do that five times. And then I would do it for a couple of days. And then I'm like, okay, well, now I have to check the closet. I have to open up the closet door two times. And then I have to look under my bed one time. And it would kind of evolve. And it would wax and wane.

[00:06:37] I wouldn't do this every day of my childhood. It was just maybe a week or two it would happen. And then I'd almost forget about it or distract myself and I'd be fine. So I never told anyone about it, though, because I thought it was weird. And like, I didn't really want to say anything. And I'm like, that just seems kind of odd. But I feel like I need to do this because if I don't do it, then something bad is going to happen.

[00:07:03] So interesting to me because I'm like, I can't even imagine connecting the two for me. Like, so it's outside of like my ability to like, normally I can relate right away and be like, oh, no, I get that. But this one, I'm like, what? How does the two make sense and connect inside of there? But there's somebody in my family now, I feel horrible. So I'll tell you a quick little story.

[00:07:26] There's somebody in my family who, when we were kids, had these weird little quirks is what we would call them. Right. And she at the time, her mom had a couch that I swear was like a velvet couch. I know it sounds fucking crazy, but she had this velvet couch and velvet pillows. And this person in my family had to have if you know velvet, if you rub it the wrong way, at least kind of like a mark or whatever.

[00:07:55] Oh, why are you wiggling, do you realize? Because it gives me the heebies. Okay. Because I never, I don't know. Okay, I'm good. So this person in my family would have to run her arm or her hand or whatever it was across the entirety of the couch and the pillows. And they had to be positioned a certain way. And it became like a compulsion for her because it's a couch. So everybody is sitting in it. Somebody's going to walk by it. Somebody's going to touch it. And she would do it all the time.

[00:08:23] And I feel like a jerk now because I don't think she ever got over that. I think they just got rid of it. Right. Or like they would just remove whatever it was because she had that with the fringes on the carpet. And everything just had to be a certain way. And if you would walk by and mess it up, really upset her. But I didn't think that there could be this underlying mental, what you just said, if I don't do this, something bad's going to happen.

[00:08:47] And then you've got asshole dirty Skittles as a kid coming by and just riding on the velvet couch and moving the tassels like such a dick. I'm so sorry if you're listening. I apologize. I don't know if it works at all. I remember thinking in my room, you could see there was never any blinds in my room. I remember by this open country road. So there would be like people who would drive by. And I'm like, the people driving by are going to think I'm so weird because there were like some kind of strobe light show going on in my room.

[00:09:18] But I never really knew. I mean, I knew it was odd, but I was just like, whatever. I'm not going to say anything. But to be honest, though, I think for the longest time, like the thing with OCD and I think that it's almost like a friend. I don't know if I'd say friend. That sounds, but it's this part of me that I enjoy as well. I guess I should say where I am motivated to do a lot of things with my OCD.

[00:09:43] Where when the OCD is not overtaking my life, I can get a lot of stuff done. More so than I would say kind of the average person, which makes me feel, oh, the OCD can help me. It can be this thing that can help. But then sometimes it'll flip and then it's almost like you're a slave to your own thoughts, if that makes sense.

[00:10:06] And I know I'm not very eloquent with it, but I feel like this is something that we need to talk about to get out in the open. So I appreciate you guys giving me a speech. This is like the first time I've ever actually talked about it. I've written about it. If I was going to talk to anyone about it, I wanted it to be you guys. Okay, so I have a question. So now, you know, you're into your adult life. You have OCD. How do you calm your brain?

[00:10:32] Because with OCD, you are on all the time, right? And with me, so I have adult onset ADHD. I have the attention span of a two-year-old on crack. I really do. But I want to know how you, as an adult, deal with your OCD. I think that's a great question. So honestly, I think it waxes and winks.

[00:10:59] So I think that, and also it was different as an adult when I was pregnant and postpartum. And as an adult when I wasn't in that stage. But I would say for the longest time, I felt shame, I guess would be the right word for sometimes not feeling. So a lot of times, like my mind, my OCD as an adult would go to worst case scenario.

[00:11:30] It wasn't like something bad would happen as a child. That's what I would think. But as an adult, it was like worst case scenario is going to happen. I was anxiety girl. There's this drawing out there on the internet that says anxiety girl, able to jump to the worst case scenario in a single bound. That is me. But at the same time, it affected, sorry, I'm like trying to collect my thoughts with it. Like it affected what I, like I couldn't turn it off.

[00:11:58] It was this, like when I was working, oh, well, something bad may happen. I have to stay longer at work. I have to, you know, do whatever it is. So this worst case scenario doesn't happen. And the worst case scenarios were scary. My brain, I don't even know where it would come up from. It would just pop in my mind. And I wanted it to leave my mind.

[00:12:23] And this compulsion was almost like the safety mechanism of, okay, it's going to leave my mind if I do this. But then it really made it stronger. And so my, the first counselor I saw back in my 20s mentioned, oh, I think you have OCD or this sounds like OCD. So I, she recommended this really great book. It was called Brain Lock. And I can't remember the author, but he talked about it from a physiological standpoint.

[00:12:52] Or like a neuroscience standpoint. Of like there's literally a different part of your brain that is looping. And you have to identify that thought and say, this is an OCD thought. It's not me. It's the OCD. I can't remember him like saying that. Direct quote. It's not me. It's the OCD. And then you had a couple other steps. But essentially it was then distracting yourself. Like for at least 20 minutes. And just taking some other, just literally doing something else.

[00:13:21] So if I think of being, I'm doing a compulsion, I will then go and do the dishes. Or I will, sometimes I even have to go running or something. So now the more, and that's kind of like really a lot of what I started writing about was this, like the practice, you have to keep practicing it to get that to be stronger. The more I practice that, the more stronger it would get. But at the same time, it would wax and wane. There are certain things still to this day that I get really scared to even

[00:13:51] enter in a situation because I know the OCD will be back. And so I kind of just label it as, okay, this is an OCD thought. It's not a Valerie thought. It's an OCD thought. And then just leaving it alone. Like sometimes I'll tell that to my husband. I'm pretty sure this is the OCD if I'm getting into a kind of a thought spiral, worst case scenario. And usually, yeah, it's definitely the OCD. But like in my mind, I don't know. So I don't, sorry, I don't know if that answers your question, Gretchen.

[00:14:17] But it's, I think labeling it as such and then doing something different, if that makes sense. It does. And so I know that you're dipping your hands in a lot of different buckets right now. When you're dipping your hands in those different buckets, how does your OCD play into that? Right? I don't think I'm even asking the question right. Yeah. I know you're doing a lot of stuff with like summits and writing your book and raising a family

[00:14:47] and how you live your life and not go crazy. And so like, how does OCD play into all of that? Yeah. So I think that it was the start of all, like it was the start of all my writing. It was the start of everything that I had to do because I had to practice different ways of thinking with, if I was going to not think about worst case scenario, I had to take what

[00:15:16] I kind of call a mental background. I had to take a different thought loop and have to do something different. I realized with time that I could do that with other aspects of my life.

[00:15:39] And if I have negative self-talk, I can take a different thought loop and say, that's just a thought. A thought is a thought. And I don't have to believe that thought. So if I have, you know, I'm a bad person or I'm a whatever, I'm a failure, whatever that is, I can just ignore that thought. And some days are easier than others. Some hours are easier than others.

[00:16:05] But I think the fact that I was able to kind of do that a bit with OCD made me more aware that I could do that with other aspects, that I could, you know, I could practice any kind of brain pathway differently. I can work around any kind of just your, not weird, any kind of just sticky thought, if that makes sense.

[00:16:32] Like we all have sticky thoughts and which one is an OCD one versus which not, you know, it's hard to say. Sometimes they blur together. Sometimes they're obvious that they're one's OCD, one's not. But thoughts are really just thoughts. Like OCD maybe can exhibit itself in a loop. I mean, some things can be really kind of go overboard with OCD of like me thinking, you know, like when I have to go for a trip, for example, I have to do stuff with the stove, lock the door a couple of things. So I just have Matt do those things.

[00:16:58] I'm like, I know it's OCD, but it's the same thing of like, I have to say this is what it is. It's just a thought. I think Andrew Huberman describes it as like pop-ups on a screen. Like you can exit out. Like we give our thoughts too much credit. So I think in answer to your question, that's what started everything where I think it was this, I felt like a failure. Like I felt very kind of less than because like I had all these like, I don't know if

[00:17:25] it wasn't crazy thoughts, but it was just like constant onslaught of thoughts that like it just, if I was able to conquer that, I could do other things that can help other people. So I wanted to write about it. And like when I focused a lot of my platform on moms, but, and that's mostly because I think that's when I really started to understand that I needed to do something different with my thoughts, because if I don't, then I'm going to be passing it on to the next generation.

[00:17:54] And then, you know, how do I, the way I appear in my head versus the way I am on the outside is different. And so I can create new patterns. I can, you know, travel on these mental back roads, which I kind of, with my writing, we'll talk about gratitude or mindfulness or whatever. Those are really like, a lot of them are just distractions of, you know, of a negative thought, but over time you can build different pathways and those can be stronger and those can be highways.

[00:18:22] So that's what I would say to that, if that makes sense. Oh yeah. 100%. Yeah. I have a question. You mentioned you can get stuck in a loop. Is it just, well, not just, but are those loops what's going on inside your brain? Like the thought is the loop? It's a sensation. And like, I think that I really tried to educate myself a bit more, at least with my own OCD.

[00:18:50] Like I can't speak for other people's, but I know for me, it's the sensation. It's that fight or flight. It's like a fight or flight bomb goes off in my head. And so it's not really the thought itself. It's the feelings of this like immediate spiked heart rate, you know, and it's anxiety. That's what it is. It's anxiety. And like, we can say, you know, we can get anxiety from whatever stimulus or whatever it is, but it's just this. I wish I had words for it. I don't know if there's words in the English language for it, to be honest, but I would

[00:19:19] say, the one that I knew, or I guess that I know how to describe the most is when I was postpartum with my second. I was so scared that something bad was going to happen because we had the NICU experience with my first. And I was convinced that something was wrong. And I had doctors that weren't, I guess we had some amazing providers.

[00:19:49] There were other providers that did not have the best bedside manner. And, um, that's a topic for another discussion, but I was convinced that the doctors were missing something. So I would go, I couldn't stop going to doctors or to other healthcare providers. Like there is something wrong and I, there you are missing it. And then the doctors or the healthcare providers would be like, I don't know why you're so worried. Everything's fine.

[00:20:15] I don't know why there was a lot of that, but it's, it was just this sticky thought. I couldn't get. So I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, no, it does. I think for somebody like me who doesn't know much about it and like just basically basing everything I know off of it from what I've seen on TV or in movies and stuff, it's usually, you know, what you see, it's what you can't see, I guess. That's literally the point.

[00:20:43] And these are the things I can see that I, you know, know to be OCD, but the mental side of it, you don't see that. And I'm learning that there's more to it than just the physicality of what, however, presents, right? I can't imagine, especially as a mom, anybody telling me that my thought or what I believe is not true, right? I can only imagine how difficult that must have been to, to get out of that.

[00:21:09] And because you're identifying it, this is an OCD thought. I can't even, that blows my mind just to think about the turmoil of that, you know? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It's definitely, it's been a process to kind of understand and to understand that I know that BrainLoft did such a great job of giving the reader grace with, because there's so much shame wrapped up in a lot of the thoughts. And it's like, why can't I stop thinking or why can't my brain stop?

[00:21:38] And, but saying like that, it's not you, like it's whatever this is and recognizing things that make it worse. If I lack sleep or I know like what I was saying, like with the traveling, it's like, I know that I'll do it. And to be honest, there's other situations that like really will ramp it up, especially like doctor's offices, stuff like that, like medical things in general. I don't know if there's like a trauma component with it, with an IQ or who knows, but like,

[00:22:06] I'm almost like too scared to even talk about it. And I can do lives, I can do all sorts of stuff on stage, but to talk about the OCD, it gets so scary. There's this very scary thing to it. And that's why it's like, gosh, I feel like more people struggle with it than I think we really realize, but we're just, there's so many people so scared to talk about it, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So I have another question.

[00:22:33] So when you're going through like a episode of OCD-ness, right? Yeah. How do you ground yourself? I will distract myself. And for me, distracting myself is going outside. It is sometimes cleaning. It is literally doing something completely unrelated to what I'm thinking about.

[00:22:57] So I have talked about, and this is not really specific to OCD, but like with mental negative talk, for example, like if you are thinking of a negative thought, you know, comparing it to John. So John Gottman, he's a marriage researcher. He talks about five positives to one negative. And so like couples who have relationships that are not having issues, usually they will

[00:23:27] counteract a negative thought. I have to look up exactly how he describes it, but it's something similar to that. But the relationship with yourself, relationship with your own mind is such an important relationship that I feel like you can kind of apply it to your own mind. And so I try to, like, I talk about that. I don't necessarily do it as much as I should, but I want to practice it more. If I have a negative thought or if I have a thought of something worst case scenario,

[00:23:54] I try to counteract that with five positives, with a sticky thought, like, okay, well, you know, for example, if I say I'm a failure, well, here's what I did today. Like I was able to, you know, go outside. I'm grateful for that. I just trying to counteract it. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Please tell me if this is too triggering, but are you able to give an example of a sticky thought?

[00:24:24] With OCD in particular? Yeah. Only if it's safe. I don't want you to like, you know, dig into something. It's good practice for me. So this was a long time ago. I haven't had this sticky thought in a while, but it is something that I know some people with OCD will struggle with. And I struggled with it a while ago. When I got really stressed out one time, it's almost like there's this threshold where you can, you're fine. And then you hit this OCD threshold and then the floodgates open up and your thoughts get obsessive and it just gets bizarre.

[00:24:53] So anyways, I hit that threshold and I couldn't drive because I kept thinking that I hit someone. I could not drive a car. It was very hard to, I remember at the time, like it was before I was married, I was striving to see Matt, like when we were still dating. And I was convinced every, like I could, that every car that I passed, I hit.

[00:25:19] And I didn't, I never did, but was so scared of that. And so I would call my dad and Matt a lot. Yeah. Like when I would get a thought like that, I would call probably five or 10 times at least saying, what would happen if I hit a car? Would I, would I know, would I hear a sound? Would I feel something? And they were so annoyed. Like they were so annoyed, which understandably so. This is ridiculous.

[00:25:48] And I keep calling and it's like that shame of, I know this is so ridiculous of a thought, but it got to the point where I would turn around sometimes and look to see, is there any, are there any cars like to, like what? So I would say that was a big one when I knew something was not right because other people weren't, wasn't happening to other people. And, and Matt and my dad, like they, they would say this isn't normal, but like, they didn't know either, like it was OCD.

[00:26:14] And I think a lot of it, like I worked, I mean, I'm a healthcare provider and I, no one really ever even, I mean, I guess I didn't really talk about that either because it was kind of embarrassing at the time, but still, I mean, I would do other things like just checking the charts so obsessively. I would just keep being like, okay, well, let me double check to see if I, what I wrote did it, did I have a period at the end of that? Did I have a comma at the end of that?

[00:26:40] Just kind of things like that, that, but no one really ever said, oh, like maybe you should see someone for the OCD. It was almost like I had to finally admit that to myself. And I think not to say that my dad or Matt should have been like telling me that, but I think that's what I think is important about spreading awareness because like sometimes with OCD, you can only do so much with thought practice. Like we've been talking about, like, I'm proud of myself that I've been able to do as much

[00:27:08] as I could, but there's a certain point where like you almost have to, I don't know if I would say have to, but for me, at least I had to start medication because it just, you can only do so much. I think for me, it was, and I can say like, I know that's not the case for everyone, but once I started medicine for it, I, it just felt so, it was like when you put on, well,

[00:27:32] I have glasses and I'm so, my eyes are so bad, but I remember when I was in second grade and remember thinking before I had glasses, like, that's how you saw. Yeah. That's like how chalkboard, chalkboard should be blurry. I think I'm dating chalkboard, but. You're not totally get it. You don't realize. Yeah. I'm like, you don't realize how crisp and clean everything is until you get glasses and

[00:27:59] then you're like, oh, this is what y'all were seeing this whole time. Yeah. I mean, that's really so much of how I felt after like I started on medicine. I was like, this is how people think or not even think, but this is how you can live life. Like you don't have to be a slave to your thoughts. Not that it was perfect by any means, but like it took that edge off. And I really think like, I was like to say, this is hard.

[00:28:27] I don't like to say the word of suffering because I don't think I don't, that's not what I was doing, but I almost feel like other people can suffer from these thoughts. And if I can raise awareness for someone to say, you know, if you're experiencing something like that, talk to your healthcare provider to see maybe it is OCD or there's things that you do that are particular. I remember one therapy had great intentions, but he almost made the OCD worse because talk therapy wasn't really helping.

[00:28:55] It was making it worse when we kept talking and talking about the obsession as opposed to just saying, oh, we need to label this as an OCD thought and move on and distract ourselves because that's really what the coping of it all. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That totally makes sense. So you mentioned take the medication for it and it takes the edge off. Yeah. But does that mean that you're still able or not able, you're still identifying obsessive thoughts, even with the medication?

[00:29:24] It doesn't just silence the echoes of all the thoughts that are happening. It's they're still there. I mean, I would say I can only speak for myself with this, but I would say, yeah, I don't, the OCD doesn't happen all the time. So I can go once at a time without having it, but it's usually around medical things. If I go to a doctor's office, like that's for me, that'll be a, yeah, it'll take the edge off.

[00:29:49] So like when I can fairly easily, not easily, but I can recognize it's like a old friend, a good old friend that shows up. It's that ex that calls you again. Hey girl. Remember me? And I think before I knew that was the OCD, it was just more shaming. It's like, Oh, this is this annoying part of me that let's won't stop. But now it's, you know, it's just, it makes it not as shaming, I guess.

[00:30:19] So to answer your question, yeah, I would say for me, it takes the edge off when I do experience an OCD attack, but the attacks aren't very frequent now because I know other lifestyle things. Like I know sleep can help. I know, you know, keeping busy, but not, I have to make sure that I don't go above that threshold. And that's where I think kind of that blurry line of OCD personality versus disorder. There is kind of this threshold of, I just want to keep doing stuff. And I know a lot of people are like that, where I'm like multitasking.

[00:30:49] Like I'm trying to post something on social media and running at the same time. I felt like I cracked my phone the other day. Oh no. Maybe I should calm it down a little. And so I think that's some of that personality, but it's not necessarily, you know, yeah, like the besieging thoughts. And I remember one of the first things I wrote when I started actually becoming serious about, okay, I'm going to write a book about four years ago.

[00:31:15] So I wrote anxiety and anxiety can come in so many forms. OCD is just like one form of it or one. What's the word? I'm blanking on the word, but different types of anxiety. But I looked up where does the word anxiety and it comes from, well, worry, I guess. Worry comes from the word. And why Graham literally translates to seized by the throat and tear. Like when I read that, I'm like, that is how I feel. I was like pretty accurate actually. Right.

[00:31:45] When you're getting anxious, like not even like whenever there's that anxiety, because it's the same, like when you have an OCD thing or anxiety panic, it's all that fight, flight or freeze response. Like you can have a thought loop wherever it's coming from or a trigger, you know, from something, but it's that amygdala. It's that fear center. That was the Y brand. And it's just when you experience it, but how do we get out of it? Recognizing.

[00:32:14] And that's kind of where like my whole platform comes where it's not specific to OCD, but it's recognizing, okay, I'm having a reaction. I'm having this anxious, this worry response. Let me time out, lengthen my space and do something else and do something different and choose gratitude, choose mindfulness. Kindness, maybe just choose kindness, go smile at someone, think of, you know, do something that's not whatever this worry.

[00:32:48] See, I have to say this and I don't know if G-Rex can guess what I'm about to talk about because I've mentioned it so many fucking times. Inside Out 2. Have you seen Inside Out 2? You know what? I need to watch the whole thing. I've watched, I have, but just so I haven't watched the full thing. So the reason I keep going back to this fucking film, G-Rex, did you watch it yet? No, I'll watch it this one. God damn it. I'll watch it tonight. Okay, you need to.

[00:33:13] Okay, so the reason why I keep going back to this film is I took my son to the theater to watch it and for our listeners, you should go back and listen to the last couple of seasons and anytime I talk about this, take a shot. So we're in the theaters, we're watching it and I struggle with anxiety. I have very, it can be triggered, right? So I struggle with anxiety a lot and we're in this movie watching it and I loved Inside

[00:33:41] Out 1, didn't expect to cry in Inside Out 2, but there is this fucking scene because one of the emotions is anxiety. And as an adult, I'm watching this film and I've never been able to really articulate what it feels like to have anxiety and to have an anxiety attack. And this film fucking nailed it so good at the end of the movie with anxiety and I'll just try it for anybody who hasn't seen it.

[00:34:10] And I know, you know, G-Rex might not watch it tonight, but anxiety long and short basically has caused a storm, a tornado. To happen because of all the things that she kept trying to do to get to be on this team, right? Like she is fucking, it's a storm, it's a literal tornado and it's windy and it's quiet. And Joy is trying to get into the tornado to fucking stop anxiety.

[00:34:38] And you just see the storm crazy and you go inside the tornado and anxiety is just still. And I was like, oh, I was like, that's exactly what the fuck it is. But I bring it up and I have to give like the happy side of it is I love that these movies exist because as an adult, now I can identify and say, oh, this is exactly what it feels like. But my child is watching it.

[00:35:02] So I'm like, oh, I just hope that if he ever has that feeling as he gets older, he can identify it's not anything wrong with me. I have anxiety and I fucking cannot wait for that. I mean, I don't want it to happen. But the fact that we're educating children nowadays to know what these emotions are and that they're not, there's nothing wrong with you. I read that. So sorry.

[00:35:30] 100% because I can tell you when I was going to school, we didn't talk about this. Okay. We didn't talk about emotions. We talked about emotional intelligence. We didn't talk about anything. Right. And I think that if I'd had that education, maybe, you know, when, you know, Christmas day 2022 rolled around, that I might've been able to handle things a little bit better than I did.

[00:35:55] I mean, I'm thankful for what I did do, but I didn't like all the feelings that went into that. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that I, and I guess it's that Pixar that does. Yeah. I swear, whoever's on the writing team for those, they are geniuses. Like with Disney, like some, like I'm just thinking of some other shows, as you mentioned

[00:36:19] that, like with Frozen, with Elsa and the snow, when she says, Anna's in the background saying we can fix this together. It's together. Quieter. And she has snow. Yes. The tornado. And then she's just not even listening and she's covering up her ears. Oh my gosh. And then I don't know. There's so much. That scene literally, because her thoughts are so much louder than Anna in the background. Oh, I got it too. I love that shit.

[00:36:46] I'm like, I just so happy that it's out there for children to learn. Yeah. I agree. I think that's so important for that emotional intelligence. I think that, you know, yeah, depending on what I can get out with the history of all that kind of stuff of what do we value in a generation of, and I feel like with our generation, it was so much of this cognitive, which you know, nothing wrong with, but there was like all this, the Mozart effect, smart, let's be smart, blah, blah, blah.

[00:37:14] And now it's refreshing to see that it's okay. Then just being, there's more than just like the cognitive aspect. There's emotions. There's all these other things that can play into our wellbeing. And so much of the time, like if you don't feel safe and I feel safe when there's a tornado, like I just don't. And if you don't feel safe, you can't do anything else. And so it's like, that is really the foundation of everything.

[00:37:39] And that's why we need to be spreading awareness of this, because if you're having a tornado or I don't know what kind of visual I'm thinking with depression, but I don't know, an abyss, I'm just trying to think of something. Literally an abyss. A swamp, an abyss. Quiet. You know what it is? It's quick sand. You're right. Quick sand. You nailed it. Yeah. There's these visuals that I think like a picture can say a thousand words, right?

[00:38:08] And like when anger, like with Moana and like how there's that, whatever, I don't remember the name, but like the one who got a heart. A heart of dafitti. Yes. I had to say it. Yeah. But she says something that this has been my most like, I don't know, I've been thinking about recently of like, she's like coming at Moana at like all. Yeah. Yeah. And Moana says they've stolen the heart inside you. Yeah.

[00:38:37] Does not have to define you. I know. You have trigger warnings for parents, all these fucking movies. I'll tell you, I still have not been able to go through. I mean, this is for another conversation as well, but I have just, I'm all about talking about mental health, but like with, what is it? Tangled. I still haven't been able to go through Tangled all the way. Cause that just. Yeah. I can't. Tangled is the one that. That's a trigger one for me with the mom relationship.

[00:39:07] Yes. Yeah. Okay. But Disney, if anyone from Disney is, as our geniuses, I haven't gone to Disney. Now I feel like I need to because. And I love it because when we, well, when I was growing up, all of the movies were like Prince Charming and the fairy tale, and he's going to save you like all the fucking Disney princesses being saved by men. Yeah. Fucks you up because then you grow up thinking that's your role.

[00:39:36] A man will come and he will save you. And not really. What did Cinderella prepare us for? Honestly, I'm like, what did I fucking learn from Cinderella? Not nothing. What did I learn from inside out too? That I can identify my emotions and I don't have to hide any of them, but they can all work together. Just don't get my shit together. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, yes. Disney. Bless your hearts. Yeah. For turning it around. I agree.

[00:40:02] And even like, I think about even in the nineties or like early nineties, like with Beauty and not really Beauty and the Beast, well, I guess Beauty and the Beast, but like Aladdin. Yeah. Beauty and the Beast, like in the beginning scene, they want to go to a faraway world. There's a lot of that too. And I think there was so much of you can do anything, which is great. You can do anything, but also you've got to deal with your emotional battles first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. What happens? Let's talk about Beauty and the Beast. I'm just kidding. We should do like an episode though of Disney movies because. We should.

[00:40:31] That would be a lot of fun. Mm-hmm. Y'all need to do your homework. And apparently I need to go watch a few movies. Okay. Watch Inside Out too. I will do it today. As many times as I have mentioned that fucking movie. I will do it. I'm getting yelled at by my co-host. Yeah. If anybody can tell, it really made an impact on me. It changed my life forever. I need to watch it all the way through. Yeah. That's. It's really deep. Yeah. No, I. That's. Yeah. Those visuals are so, so powerful.

[00:41:02] Yeah. The other movie. That's an old one, but I will give Disney again, just turned into a Disney episode, but Disney a lot of credit for Mary Poppins because, oh my God. Yeah. I did not. I mean, there's so many levels of just amazement with the music, all this stuff, but I was listening essentially yesterday. I don't know. I was heard that feed the birds, which is like my, one of my favorite songs where I like just cry every time.

[00:41:30] I used to sing it to my oldest when she was a baby. But then I was thinking, what does it mean by feed the birds? And they mean this acts of kindness and Tuppence. And I was looking this up to see, I mean, I don't know, I guess it's probably open to interpretation or whatever. The next song is about Tuppence at the bank account and how, oh, here's what you should use your money for. You shouldn't save it, do all this.

[00:41:55] But then the guy at the end, he sings about, you know, flying a kite and here's what you buy your Tuppence for. And instead of soaring high with whatever else it is, it's soaring into the sky with a kite and the simplicity. And I was like, Disney, you've been doing this for decades. You missed the mark on Cinderella though. I'm not backing down. It's true. Because I don't think I learned a whole lot other than I did like- No. Like poor Cinderella.

[00:42:24] No, let me not get it. Yeah. That Prince was quite a kook. I don't know if you remember him jumping up in the bed. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Sleeping Beauty, horrible. I'm just kidding. We're just going to go for the old ones. But yeah, no, I, maybe they'll do one for OCD to kind of bring us back to where we started. Like seriously though, because that, I mean, literally speaking with you today, I'm starting to understand the complexity that can be associated with that. Right.

[00:42:53] And I think I did kind of fall into that, that audience of if I can't see it, I don't, or I'm only understanding what I can see. And that's not the way to do it. Cause like I talk about depression and anxiety and how nobody knows, cause it's not like a broken leg. And yeah, it's hard. I think to pinpoint how it feels or what it's like to go through something when you haven't had, there's nothing around us to talk to us about this stuff, like in a movie or. Absolutely.

[00:43:22] I think there is, there's, yeah, there's not much and there's not many that, you know, yeah, you can say depressed, you can say anxious, you can say worried, but there's not many words out there. There's not like a gauge of like how, how worried versus what kind of worry. Like there's just not, and maybe someday there will be, but it's almost. And I do feel like the Wiesel van der Kolk with the body keeps score that, that just isn't about drawing.

[00:43:49] And sometimes I guess like with those visuals we were talking about earlier, sometimes if if I draw out my thoughts or I draw out my feeling, it makes more sense that way that I can remember. I don't know. And then when, and even with my book writing too, with this whole process, there is therapy in itself. I feel like with just journaling, because it is kind of like a form of journaling when I'm

[00:44:16] writing, but what I do sometimes, and maybe I'll do this with you guys too. I will put in, so I'll write about the NICU for example, and about the OCD, but then I'll put in a nurse doing a conversation or a doctor putting in conversation, but I changed the name and I put the name to someone that I look up to someone that has comforted me. And my brain is almost tricked because it's, I can put in a different name.

[00:44:44] I could put in a NICU nurse that I talked to on the podcast that I love what she's doing. She didn't actually, she wasn't my nurse, but in my book, she's my nurse. And then I'm able to then reprogram a thought differently, you know, and that in itself has been so there really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was just this kind of, and so now that I'm like going through and editing my book, I'm like, who else can I put names in? So if you guys are in there, put in G-Rex dirty Skittles. Dirty Skittles. Whatever.

[00:45:14] I picked up some Skittles. Skittles, right. Yeah. And then there was Skittles on the floor now. And then they were freeze-dried Skittles by the time she got to them. The dry freeze. Oh. She was, did you tell anybody about your freeze-dried Skittles? Okay. These are, wait. These are awesome. That's fine. You can't see them. No, it's okay though. They're freeze-dried Skittles. They're the best.

[00:45:43] They really are. They're addicting. I'll have to check them out. Don't eat a whole lot of them at the same time because they exit tric acid. And if you have like a reaction to that, you get like cracked lips. But don't ask me how I know that. Not from experience or anything. Yeah. So I have just a couple more questions. What else do you got going on these days? Oh gosh. What else do I have going on these days?

[00:46:11] I mean, I think other than just the book and the book launch, I would say, you know, we're really, I've been just trying to connect with people that are making a difference. So in addition to you guys, like there's also Ambreen Nadim that I've been working a lot with. We've created this impact activator movement where we just both kind of share this vision of changing the world. And I know you guys do too.

[00:46:38] Like of just amplifying voices, creating ripples, joining hands, doing things that create change. Like with mental health, with Ambreen and I, we have this education summit coming up, the healthcare summit, just talking about things that need to be talked about that I think, you know, they're just, but in ways that make, that have people listen, I think in just different ways. Like we did back in October, Gretchen was part of this, for G-Rex, like a mental health summit.

[00:47:05] So we had, it was almost like 48 hours of talk for every 30 minutes. We had someone from around the globe talking about some mental health topic, just to show our listeners that we're more alike than different. Like we all share the same goals. And so that was super cool. I really enjoyed doing that. I enjoyed like talking with, well, Ambreen's in Saudi Arabia and then Andrea was our other leader and she was in Singapore.

[00:47:34] So just seeing like the sunset and one place, sunrise, the other, and we're all talking about the same thing and we're all coming together, which is so cool. So doing that and then just a variety of other things, just trying to lift each other up however we can. So I'd say that's what I have going on. And then in addition to my, my chasing my three kids around, which I have found that, you

[00:48:01] I try to, it's been really enjoyable with the people that I've met and also trying to figure out how, because I don't have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. I think there's, I have so many ideas, but like when I focus, like the thing is that like the people, I kind of curate my feed, I guess, if that makes sense. I try to surround myself with people that are empowering, that are giving like positive

[00:48:27] information and positive things that I can, I can then take about my day. So what I've been doing is I'll walk with the kids to school every day and be mindful for 15 minutes. Like I will put my phone away. Like I'm trying to be intentional, you know, and not just, I don't know. I think there's so much of this like consuming with social media, but if I can learn with social media, I can curate my feed and just trying to do these little things here and there

[00:48:53] because yeah, my time is like only so many hours in the day I can do things. I'm trying to at least do what I can. And, but some days are easier than others and also giving myself that grace too, that I also need to relax too. Yeah. Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate you sharing this with us and I can't wait to hear more about your book and how you're finding your way through that and describing it and sharing it with everybody. And thank you so much.

[00:49:22] And thank you for teaching me about OCD because like Dirty Skittles, I didn't, I don't know a lot about it, but now I want to go out and learn more. And yes. And I, thank you so much, you guys. And I am kind of just, it's my own story I share, but there's so many people doing incredible things. Like someone I've recently met is this Melissa, which I'm blanking on her last name, Melissa, but she's with New Orleans OCD Rise. They have an OCD camp.

[00:49:50] Like they have one of my good friends, Hannah, she does OCD for postpartum international. So there's so many sources out there. So yeah, it's my money to raise awareness for it. And thank you for giving me the space to be able to do that. I truly appreciate that. Well, you're welcome. We love you. And thank you so much. Hi, all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm G-Rex. And I'm Dirty Skittles. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. We'd love to listen to your feedback.

[00:50:20] We can't do this without you guys. It's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking to someone. Bye. Bye. Bye.