EXPERT: When OCD Impacts the Whole Family with Dr. Jenn Rapkin

Hello Brave Friends! Welcome to today’s expert episode, #250, featuring Dr. Jenn Rapkin, who joins us for a powerful and clarifying conversation about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

These expert episodes are conversations with professionals whose work directly supports caregiving parents. In this episode, hosts Jessica Patay and Susanna Peace Lovell sit down with Dr. Rapkin to unpack the many misconceptions surrounding OCD and to offer deeper understanding for families navigating intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and compulsive behaviors.

Dr. Rapkin shares her perspective not only as a clinician, but also as someone who has personally experienced OCD and as a parent of a child with the condition. Together, they explore how OCD is often misunderstood and trivialized as simply being “neat” or “organized,” when in reality it can significantly disrupt daily life through intrusive thoughts and compulsions—including mental compulsions that may go unnoticed by others.

The conversation covers how OCD presents in children, the impact of trauma, and why early recognition and proper diagnosis are so important. Dr. Rapkin explains why Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is considered the gold standard treatment and what it truly means to sit with discomfort rather than allowing OCD to dictate behavior. She also emphasizes that managing OCD is often a lifelong journey—one that requires compassion, support, and informed care.

This episode replaces stigma with understanding and offers practical, hopeful insight for families seeking clarity around OCD.

Find more information about Dr. Jenn Rapkin here.

Find Jenn’s book, The Feeling Muscle here.

Find more information about Life Coach, Susanna Peace Lovell here.

Find Susanna’s book, Your True Self is Enough here.

Find our first book from We Are Brave Together here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Brave Together Podcast, an empowering resource for the parents of children with disabilities, neurodivergence, and all unique needs.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

One thing with OCD is it's very sneaky and it always changes the goalpost on you, right? So if you think, oh, I have to do that a certain number of times, the next time or the next day, it changes it and it just wants more and more. It wants more of your time, it wants more of your energy.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Hi, brave friends. I'm your host, Jessica Petet, Brave Mom and founder of the Nonprofit We Are Brave Together, and I'm joined by my lovely, lovely co-host, Susanna Pieslafell, author, life coach, and advocate for disability families. Today's episode number 250 is an expert conversation on a topic that is often misunderstood, minimized, or misrepresented. Obsessive, compulsive disorder or OCD. Our guest is Dr. Jim Rapkin, who joins us for a powerful and deeply personal discussion about OCD, not only as a clinician, but also as someone who has experienced it herself and as a parent of a child navigating the condition. In this conversation, Dr. Rapkin helps us uncommon misconceptions about OCD. It is not simply about maintenance organization. It can be profoundly disrupting the life through interestingness and compulsive behaviors that are often invisible to others. We explore the many ways OCD presents, including mental compulsions that can help and notice the impact of trauma and how to recognize science in children. Dr. Ripkin also shares why exposure and response prevention, or ERP, is considered the gold standard treatment and what it really means to sit with discomfort rather than allowing OCD to take the lead. This episode offers clarity, compassion, and practical insight for families who may be navigating anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or new diagnosis. We truly believe you're going to love this episode because it replaces stigma with understanding, with fear, with informed hope. Just a quick reminder to please rate and do this podcast, share episodes with your friends, follow us on social media, and check out our episodes posted weekly on our We Are Brave Together YouTube channel. And now please enjoy our conversation with Dr. Chen. Hi, Dr. Jen Rapkin. Welcome to Brave Together podcast. Suzanne and I are thrilled to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

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

SPEAKER_02 2:47

So we're going to talk about OCD today. And I would love for you to start off by please help our listeners understand what it really is. Because I know that many people will say, Oh, I'm having an OCD day, or I'm so OCD about the closet, or I'm so, and they use it so flippantly. I have changed my tune as I've learned more and also learned of more people around me who struggle and suffer with it. And even we've had guests on the podcast in the past. So I now have reined that in, but please explain for our listeners what it is and some of the different ways it shows up in people's lives.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, absolutely. OCD is actually, you're right, it's like it's woefully misunderstood and it is often trivialized as compulsive neatness. And it is not neatness, it can actually destroy somebody's life. Um, it can systematically take away all aspects of someone's life. Probably the best way for me to explain, because there are many types of OCD. Um, I have OCD and my son has OCD, and we both are we both have intrusive thoughts that tell us that we need to repeat behaviors, repeat touching things, repeat steps that we've taken. We have rituals around getting into bed at night, and our brain is telling us that we need to do these things. And our brains tell us that if we don't engage in these rituals, that something really bad is gonna happen. Maybe possibly something catastrophic. And so you're sort of fighting these feelings and thoughts all the time. Um, and your brain is telling you if you don't do this, something bad's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Wow. And what most people think of when they think of OCD is really more the behaviors versus the intrusive thoughts. Do you have any data on how many people struggle more with the behaviors? Obviously, it's probably yeah, like you described, it's a thought that's leading to that behavior versus just the intrusive thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

You know, that's a great question. And I wish I did, I wish I had numbers. I don't, but I I do know that there is people were at at one point sort of just thinking of OCD as more of these ritualistic behaviors, which is what my son and I have. But there is there's so many different types of OCD, and there's the mental compulsions, which are really hard because you don't see those, right? So somebody's mind is saying, I need to do this, or I need to say these things, or I need to count in my head, and I need to do this a number of different times. And when it's not a behavior, when it's more of a mental compulsion, it's actually less noticeable, and as a result, it can go misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

How and when did you identify it in yourself?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

So I was a teenager when my brain started, you know, telling me that I needed to repeat things, often in C in sequences of threes. But I will be very honest with you, I felt a lot of confusion, a lot of shame. And I grew up in the late 80s, early 90s. That was when I was a teenager, and um it wasn't well known, and I didn't tell anyone. I lived like silently in my complex brain for years until a therapist gave me, helped me put a name to the diagnosis. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

I'm curious, Dr. Jen, how did it actually play out for you? So you're having these thoughts in your brain and you're noticing, and are you conscious of like, this seems a little bit different? This is new for me. My brain is is acting differently than I recall it acting for the first 13 years, 14 years of my life. Or maybe you can identify pieces of it that are sort of connecting everything together. How did it play out for you? Like, how did you act that out, or did you just hold it all in? Did you scream into your pillow every night? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Well, it's such a great question because for me, I so I knew that obviously something was telling me to. I had to, I remember I had an alarm clock. This was the first ritual that I remembered. I had an alarm clock that blinked. So it's like two o'clock, two, and then there was like a semicolon or a yes, uh. And that colon would blink on and off, on and off. And I remember having to sit and watch it a certain number of times. And then as the days and months progressed, the number of times that I had to do it and watch it and it would change. And one thing with OCD is it's very sneaky, and it always changes the goalpost on you, right? So if you think, oh, I have to do that a certain number of times, the next time or the next day, it changes it and it just wants more and more. It wants more of your time, it wants more of your energy. And so that ritual just became something that grew and ballooned until the point that like I couldn't get out of my room. I had to come go back and check, go back and check. But I was able, and this is very different, and we'll talk about my son. My son has given me permission to talk about um his experience. My experience was very different in the sense that I was able to confine it, have a container for my OCD, and somehow I was able, I only had it in my room, my bedroom, at least for like the first like three or four years. I mean, I'm sure it popped up, but I was able to talk back to it and say, okay, no. Whereas my son's OCD was just so intense and strong that it just overflowed into every aspect of his life.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Do you think this is the most sort of common type? I'm wondering about other types of OCD that, you know, for our listeners out there who who aren't familiar, for example, me, the different types and how they can show up and how can you get a diagnosis? Is it through a psychologist?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Is it through a psychiatrist? Yeah, it would be a therapist or a psychologist can can diagnose it. There's, you know, for your listeners, you know, there's there's many subtypes of OCD. One of them that is common and can show up in different forms is contamination OCD. So there are people that are afraid of of um germs and or afraid of being dirty. Sometimes contamination OCD can be, you know, OCD is sneaky and it's also completely irrational and illogical. So in somebody's mind, one of their family members might be contaminated, and you see that um often, right? So for a young kid who's struggling, struggling with this, one of their parents might be contaminated. And again, it's irrational. And so they don't want to be near that parent, or they can't be near, or a sibling is contaminated, and they can't, and it can it can turn a family upside down.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

How would you advise parents about if maybe some parents aren't noticing something in their children? What are what are some telltale signs? Something that a child expresses or what they might be actually doing?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

A telltale sign, if you don't, so sometimes a parent will see repetitive behaviors that don't make sense, right? And that is a big sign, you know, that's a a red flag that this child may be maybe struggling with OCD. You see a child repeat something over again or have to redo something, right? But um getting frustrated in doing a behavior, so like my son, one of the first signs, and it wasn't, we didn't know what it was, is he was super frustrated doing his Legos. We thought it was just sort of like him having a tantrum because he couldn't do it or couldn't, you know, figure it out. Later on, he told us that this was the first time his brain was telling him to redo and then and it wasn't right. I have to redo, I have to put that on again and take it off and put it on again. And he would get so frustrated because it is so you feel so powerless to what your brain is saying that you melt down and you have an outburst. Um, my son has a particular type of OCD called just right OCD, which means that you have to repeat or do over or you know, do a particular type of behavior just right. And you do it over, and again, that just right is elusive, right? It can change. OCD changes it all the time. And so the rituals can become just elongated and can take over someone's life.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

And how old was was he when he was experiencing that as he's building the Legos? And are you noticing, is anything clicking with you initially? But I mean, you mentioned like, oh, it seems like a tantrum, and he just maybe he's a perfectionist, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

That is what I thought. And even though I have OCD, the frustration around Legos, I was not aware of it. We were living in Spain, in Barcelona, Spain, during um COVID. And so we were locked down. Spain had an incredibly restrictive uh lockdown. We were stuck in our apartment for three or four months, and that was when I started seeing repeating behaviors. Um, we had this really tiny little kind of like balcony where we we could only we the kids couldn't go outside at all for like two and a half months. It was awful. But we would go outside and I would see him struggle to get back in. He sort of jumped back and came, jumped back and would come in, and then and and I knew I knew pretty I knew immediately because I recognized the behavior from what I experienced. And I was like, oh, okay, this is this is OCD.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

And how old was he at the time? He was eight got it.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Do psychologists and psychiatrists recognize at any age that this can hit with a child? Whether it's five or ten, fifteen. Okay. Yeah. So like if you brought your, you know, five-year-old, six-year-old, they're not gonna say, they're too young to know this, this is too young to test. No, they can identify it, they can diagnose it. Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, I feel like with OCD comes so much uncertainty, and there's so much uncertainty that you're trying to like solve or you're trying to soothe that anxiety and uncertainty. Is that right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So a good friend of mine said in sort of the middle of you know, everything that was going on with my son, she said something to me that has always stuck with me. Because OCD is a mental illness. Um, it is a you know, a path pathology, so to speak. But she said to me, um, and it really calmed me down, she's like, he's just trying to make sense of an unpredictable world, right? His life was really unpredictable at the time. COVID, my my mother, his his grandmother, his favorite, one of his favorite people in the world had passed away. It is a way that you're trying to make sense of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Can it arise out of trauma like you described and loss and big changes?

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I experience OCD personally and through my son and through our treat the treatment that we've received. I'm not an expert on OCD, so to speak. But yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Maybe we can, maybe you can talk to us a little bit about treatment because I was thinking that I have a daughter who is autistic. She was diagnosed with ADD HD later. They wouldn't diagnose her until she was at least six or seven, sort of as a result. Side dish of, you know, sort of generalized anxiety disorder. You know, there were like set therapies very early on when she was diagnosed with autism at two and a half. So, you know, you have occupational therapy. She had some language things to work out. So then you have speech therapy. For OCD, there are different behaviors and there are different things happening in the brain. I'm just curious what the treatment plan could look like.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yeah. Yeah. So the gold standard treatment for OCD is called exposure and response prevention, ERP. And it is a cognitive behavioral therapy. And what it does is there's three aspects to it. The first is the exposure, facing the fear or the situation or the idea that you're afraid of, facing the object or the idea that triggers the rituals. So it's exposed being exposed to the trigger. And then disengaging is the second piece, disengaging from the ritual. So consciously disengaging from what your brain is telling you that you need to do and not do it. And then the third piece is sitting with the anxiety that that brings up, right? So your brain is saying you have to do this in order to ensure that something bad isn't going to happen. So in ERP, you disengage in the in the behavior and you have to sit with that unbearable anxiety that something terrible might happen to you, to someone you love, to the in the world. It's yeah, it's brutal.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

It sounds positively brutal. And if you do it enough times and realize that you don't die from the distress or the discomfort of that uncertainty and anxiety, it can it can lessen.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yeah. Yes. So that's so important. And I'm so glad you asked that question, is that there's no cure for OCD, right? I mean, it it gets quieter. The good news is that the more you fight it and the more that you can say no to it, the quieter it becomes. I'm I'm like egregiously oversimplifying treatment when I when I say this, but the key to treatment is to say no to the OCD. It's like to see to see the OCD as separate from who you are. That was one of the first. I have a good friend who's a psychologist, and when we were in Spain, I called her one night, panicked, like, what do I do? And she said to me, first thing I want you to do is have your son give his OCD a name. My son, you know, astutely called it annoying brain talk. Have your son give his OCD a name, because what that does is it begins to separate him from the thoughts. And if he can see his thoughts as something other than him, as external, then he can start saying no to them, start to reject them, start to fight them.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

I like that a lot. That feels really supportive and helpful because I feel like that's a tangible inspired action that someone can take. And when you are feeling so out of control in so many other areas of living with OCD, that feels like, yeah, A B T. I think that is that is excellent.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Right. I mean, think about it. Your brain, you know, if you believe your brain, right? Like if you're believing what it says, then you're just in it. Like for years, my son was very treatment resistant. He was really resistant to ERP. And for years, he believed everything that his OCD was telling him, and everything that it was telling him to do, right? So if we can, if we can begin to see the OCD as something separate, then like you said, yes, there's something tangible that you can push against.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

When you other it, so to speak, then it's not you, it's not you as a person, it's not your flaw or your brokenness or your uh it's not you, it's not the core of who you are, it's this thing over here that's bothering me, that's play, that's that's interfering with my life. I feel like that would really decrease the shame around it. Is that is that the case?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I will share with you just professionally. So I'm a naturopathic physician and I specialize in mind-body medicine. And so it was so, you know, there are no coincidences in this world, right? Like part of my um my passion and my profession is to help people sit with um uncomfortable feelings, and also to get people to live less in their minds and more in their bodies. So that's sort of where I come from as a physician. And so if you think about that, our minds do not always have our best interest at heart. Our minds do not always have our back. And what I mean by that is that our minds can tell us things that aren't true. And so that is a really important, especially with obsessive-compulsive disorder, is for us to realize that yes, our brains are telling us things that aren't true, and we have to begin to pick to know what is OCD and what is me, right? And for a kid, that is so hard. That is just so hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

The three step process of the ERP. I I was thinking about step number three. I felt it in my body, Dr. Jen, when you were talking about just sitting there in the discomfort of those, of those really challenging feelings. Like I Felt it in my body and almost to the point where I was like, I don't even breathe, right? I'm feeling my chest tighten up, and so that that just feels like a torture chamber to me. I'm also a very anxious person. I I think things in my head all the time. Well, if I don't put that shop shopping cart all the way back into its stall, like don't leave it on the side. I have this talk to myself inside my head every single time I go to the grocery store. You have to take it all the way back to the front of the store. Otherwise, something's gonna happen to one of your loved ones. I think this all the time. I'm only mentioning this right now because as you were talking about that, I was like, oh gosh, I do that every time I go to the grocery store. Talking about our feelings, if we can talk about, you know, you just wrote a book, The Feeling Muscle. And that that was one of the reasons why I was so couldn't wait to have this conversation with you today, because I have done so much work around like expressing, releasing, getting it out. I'm a Reiki practitioner. So I I feel things very, you know, energetically. I guess the part of the therapy is that you're doing it over and over and over and over again. So then, like you said, the noise becomes it becomes a little bit quieter. But that that feeling piece of in that your body wants to respond, right? Fight or flight. So, so how do we what are the tips? How can you how can you share?

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Let me just share with you sort of this connecting the dots for me. I I was I do body work in my practice. I was writing a book about feeling um emotions in the body and sitting with with hard emotions, but I was also going through this situation with my son, and I was in one of his um treatment sessions with one of his doctors, and his doctor drew a bell curve on a whiteboard, and he was trying to describe to my son what he had to do when he was resisting doing a ritual that he had to sit with his feeling of discomfort, and that meant letting it um you know come up crescendo and uh dissipate, right? And I saw in my son's uh face this just complete confusion. Like, what does that mean to sit with my discomfort? What does that mean? I also know that my son, like uh me and and many people, uh, experience feelings in their body in a really big way. And my son had just right OCD, which means it wasn't a narrative, it wasn't words that was going through his mind when he's repeating behaviors. He was waiting for a feeling in his body that he'd gotten it right, right? It was very much like you're saying, Susanna, it was a physical experience. He didn't, he I couldn't put words to it.

unknown 24:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And when the his doctor drew the spell curve, I I realized like what he's saying is that my son has to sit with the discomfort in his body of not doing this ritual until it dissipates. And if he could do that, then he learns and he trusts that he can do this, that he can outlast this. And I don't, that was a really long-winded answer. And I don't even know if I answer answered your question, but it to me, all the pieces of the puzzle fit together because there's so many of us out in the world that feel so much in their bodies, and it's not so much the cognitive piece for it's it's it's the physical experience that that we're feeling.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

I feel like our bodies are always letting us know. Um one of my favorite books, you know, The Body Keeps the Score, right? It's I I just feel like sometimes we know before our brain can catch up to the knowing. Yeah, I I also, you know, my daughter, whose name is Arizona, has has had big, big, big, big, big feelings since the second that she was, you know, came out of the birth canal, you know, just big, big, big feelings about everything. So I know that this has been an opportunity for me to lean in how to work through my big feelings, which by the way, I squashed, you know, deep down when I was a kid, right? Because it wasn't appropriate. It wasn't the right thing to do. I wasn't following the rules, I wasn't being a lady, I wasn't, you know, whatever, cultural insert, whatever. I love this story of you and your son experiencing this parallel journey together. And then, like you said, like nothing is coincidental. I mean, now it's like it's your living, it's also your work, you're able to support others. I was reading about your bodywork and your and your table, and I want it to be so badly on that table.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Tell us more. Sure, sure. So the work that I do is really to bring voice to our inner experience, right? So, for people I work with, I have a number of therapists and psychologists that refer to me. And a typical patient that would be referred to me as somebody who a therapist might identify as somatic, right? Meaning that they experience their feelings and emotions and their life through their body and within their body, and that they have big feelings. And so the work that I do with folks is actually help them not only, you know, give themselves permission to feel, right? Because like you said, Susanna, we're given messages throughout our entire life to put a you know, grin and bear it, you know, put put it, pull yourself together. Boys don't cry, right? So we're we're we've had these messages. Part of my work is to give people permission to validate who they are. I'm a big feeler. I feel feelings in my body, but then to go even a step deeper and to give that a vocabulary, right? So that we can talk about, oh, so I feel my fear, and it's different for everybody, but I feel my fear in my heart and in my lungs, and it feels like a you know, a rock, you know, it might feel like a rock expanding. And so to give to give our emotions a voice and a vocabulary, and then to go even a step further, once we can identify and experience a feeling and express it, we actually have something to sit with. Like we have something tangible. So, oh, so I can sit with this feeling of fear rather than grab my phone or grab a chocolate bar or grab a glass of wine. Like we there's actually we have like a hat uh something to hang our hat on when we can feel something tangibly in our body.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Can we just tell the whole world that instead of like shoving it down or numbing it away or running to the phone so you don't have to sit with your feelings or thoughts? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

I will say too, is that I don't want to come off um as being like, you know, judgy about just uh the world that we live in. I actually have like a lot of compassion and empathy for for the predicament we find ourselves in. You know, we go through a lot of hard, hard stuff. It's very our world is very stressful, and our it is filled with things to keep us away from ourselves, right? I mean, uh, you know, when we get off uh the podcast, we'll go to our phones and we'll have endless numbers of beeping, buzzing notifications. It's there's just there's so much to keep us away from ourselves. And so what I see my work as doing is actually giving somebody an opportunity to go towards themselves.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

I love how you said that. Well, I will be re-listening and writing that down. That's beautiful. Can I ask you, how is it with you and your son? Are there waves where it's like, oh no, here we go, here's the wave, like where it's like it rears up larger, bigger, and then it settles and and it sues, and you have like a week or months or whatever where it just seems very manageable, and like, oh no, here we go, here's the wave of OCD again. How does it play out? Or is it always kind of the same and you've learned to keep it at bay? Or does it does it rise and fall in like intensity and severity?

SPEAKER_01 30:50

So for me, it's very what you said initially, a very wave-like. I can tell it comes it. My OCD talks to me when I'm stressed, talks to me when I haven't gotten enough sleep. You know, I uh it it's definitely wave-like. For my son, we spent four years, and I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but it was, we spent four years fighting his OCD. I mean, it took over our lives, it was nonstop. Um, and so he um finally was able to talk back to his OCD when he went into intensive treatment when he was 12 years old. And it was sort of, it collided, these these moments collided in his life where intensive treatment was was available to him. He was on um the right medication because medication doesn't take it away, and some medications don't help some people, but he had found some medication that helped him tolerate exposures. Um he also had gotten to the point he was old enough and he was impaired enough, right? Like his life was impaired and he was ready to fight. So it was like those three pieces came together. Um, he's now in high school and he is, you know, doing amazing, he's doing just so well. Um, I'm so I'm so proud of him. We're so happy to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

But it was a long road. It was a long road, and I'm sure that there are listeners out there um who are going through this with theirs themselves or their kids. Um and it it can be, it's not always the case, but but OCD can can really impair someone's life and the family's life. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

I'm curious about the overall impact because you have another child also, right? So your son has a sibling. Um tell us about the whole family dynamic and and how that, and especially, you know, starting off in COVID, where you're just, I mean, there's nowhere to breathe, really.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

No, it was it was it was it was really hard. My daughter is um at the time, my son was eight, and she was about nine and a half, almost ten. You know, you can imagine our attention was just endlessly on our son for for four years. I mean, clearly we tried to make you know find find time and space for her. Of course. But it's it it it really, and our marriage, I mean, we would argue all the time, sometimes about real stuff, sometimes just because we were just exhausted and angry and resentful, right? Um it just it's really hard. And we were looking for the right treatment, going from doctor to doctor because he was so resistant. Again, he was so resistant to sitting with that anxiety, he wouldn't do it. And it's understandable. You know, I I say this. It's understandable. It's understandable. The exposures, ERP asked, was asking of my son what we as adults struggle to do on a daily basis, right? Which is sit with the anxiety and the discomfort that comes up for us, right? So we're asking an eight, nine, ten, eleven-year-old boy to sit with that discomfort. It's understandable that he was treatment resistant. I get it. It just all the pieces had to fall together so that he because the power is within him. He was the only one that could talk back to his OCD. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

I don't I don't want to go without talking about your book, The Feeling Muscle. So please tell our listeners all about that and where they can find it.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Oh, sure, sure. So the feeling muscle is it's both a sort of a there's a little bit of theory around sitting with difficult emotions. There's a lot of stories around patient stories, a lot of personal stories, client um experiences. And there's also at the end of each chapter, there's um it's filled with mind-body uh concepts, uh, writing prompts, visualizations, mindfulness exercises, lots of good, good like tools to begin to go into your body, to get to know your body, and to be able to stay with uh feelings within you. And so it's a it's a great tool. Um, it's available right now on Amazon. I have a pair of a paperback and an ebook, and hopefully an audio book will come out. You can also order it, special order it from bookstores. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

That's so great. Is there anything you want to make sure that our listeners hear about OCD, OCD and children navigating your own struggles alongside your kids' struggles? Anything else, Dr. Jen, that we have not discussed yet that would be so valuable for parents listening?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I'll be honest with you. I think the most uh valuable piece of advice or that I could share is that ERP, exposure and response prevention, is the gold standard for OCD. Because what there's a lot of uh misinformation out there, and people can go down a road of getting therapy that's not helpful. So sort of like traditional talk therapy can actually aggravate OCD. So I think the most important thing is um, you know, if you if you suspect that something's going on with your child, you know, get them diagnosed by a professional, but also just know that ERP is the is the appropriate treatment because not everybody knows that, and not everybody will send you in the right direction.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

And then I I've also heard that DBT alongside ERP, because DBT dialectical behavior therapy, which for our listeners, honestly, I think there should be a class required in junior high, high school, and college. I mean, everybody feels, and we all go through periods of feeling high intense feelings, and how do we handle the distress? You know, they teach you distress tolerance in DBT, and there's so much distress tolerance when you're having to sit with that anxiety as part of the ERP. So I've heard that that is also can be taught alongside.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Absolutely. I mean, the the distress tolerance is is it's exactly sort of what we're talking about. I see things through the body, like the lens of the body. So I I see it as sitting with a discomfort in the body, because for some people that's helpful. But yes, so distress tolerance is is sitting with the discomfort and the emotional distress 100%.

SPEAKER_03 37:41

That's a very uncomfortable topic for me. No, I I just people are watching the video on our YouTube channel or whatever, but I might I'm like cringing because it and I'm getting full-body chills like every time there's I mean, there's absolutely something here for me, you, Dr. Jen, my daughter Arizona and I, it's like we were met, like she came through me to we we are here. I like the all of the challenges and the struggle. I know all of it, I know, I feel is an opportunity for us to both just evolve and grow and transform and share with the world. I I know this and I understand this, and I'm still like cringe, cringe, cringe. Like so I just know that's a message for me. Chills again. I love when I can feel this sense of like, okay, I'm being guided into some more knowing of something that can be so supportive for me and all of the caregivers that I support in my work. This has been very eye-opening.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

It's not something that's cured or goes away, but it can decrease its power and control over your life. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yes, absolutely. Yes. I want to, I want to be hopeful about it. I don't want to when I say that there's no cure, what I mean is that OCD will talk to you throughout your your life, right? Like if you have it, it's kind of there. But the more so for like my son, for example, I mean, he has gotten so good at fighting and talk and talking back to it and not listening to it and saying no. And so if something pops up and he doesn't engage in it, what's interesting is that OCD gets quiet and can and can go away for you know a while. And so the more that you talk back, the more that you say no, the quieter and quieter and quieter it becomes.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Doesn't that feel so therapeutic, Jessica? Like this is you have permission to talk back, you have permission to express and release and rage, throw things at it, you know what I mean? Swear bomb, like whatever you want, right? You have the permission to do that. That feels very, very releasing.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

And I mean, I think it can be applied to the inner bully that all of us face, that we can talk back to it, you know, look at it as if it's going by. It's a person going by, give that inner bully a name, you know, and talk back to it.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Jessica, I I I I love that, Jessica, because and you'll see if you look at, you know, if you're if people are interested in OCD and there's there's books for kids, they use the word bully, bully or monster, or you know, because it is, it's it's a it's a it's a bully. OCD bullies you it does bullies you into believing things that aren't true, um, and to doing things that take time, take oh, take your life away, right? Yeah.

unknown 40:48

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Jen, where can everybody find you?

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So I am it's interesting, and I I've been very honest about my experience with my son. I took um time off from my practice to to because my son's stuff was was a lot and he had to go um away for some treatment, and I went with him. And so right now I have I finished the book. So what I did was, you know, I I didn't have I wasn't able to see cloud patients and clients, but I was able to write to finish the book. And so right now I'm just promoting my book and I'll be back um seeing patients hopefully in Connecticut um soon. My website, drjenrapkin.com. As soon as I'm, you know, up and running, it'll be on my website.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, we will direct everyone to you, to your book. I'm gonna go buy it myself, or actually, maybe could you send me a signed copy? I would love to.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

I would absolutely, I'd absolutely sign you one. Yeah, that would be wonderful. I would I'd love to send you both. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Oh, yay. Thank you. Thank you. Susanna, do you have anything else before we go?

SPEAKER_03 41:55

I love how you are giving readers tools, some guidance, some writing prompts. I love anecdotal stories. To me, that is so supportive. And I so I just, you know, want to say thank you for that offering. And um, I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, and I would I just want to thank you both for creating this community. I I've I've always really in awe of people that have created a community like you have and bring people together and educate them. And it's just I I'm I'm so grateful for for what you've what you've created and what you put out in the world.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

I can speak for both of us. It's it's our joy, it's our honor, right, Susanna? Yes. 5,000 percent. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, thank you everyone for being with us today. And remember, as always, we see you and we love you. Thanks so much for listening today. Do us a favor and leave us a review and a rating so that this podcast can get into the ears and the hearts of more and more moms. Did you know that Brave Together Podcast is an extension of our nonprofit organization? We are Brave Together. We are Brave Together serves an international community of caregiving moms, offering support groups with our virtual and in-person educational resources and low-cost weekend retreats. And we have published our first anthology of caregiving stories entitled Becoming Brave Together. Heroic Extraordinary Caregiving Stories from Mothers Hidden in Plain Sight. It will encourage and validate every parent caregiver. To join us today, go to wearebravetogether.org. Our support and sisterhood wait to. Be relied on for medical or mental health advice. The use of any content on our podcast, links, show notes, or on our website is to be done at your own personal risk. Please seek out a professional to assess your own medical or mental health concerns because we are all beautifully complex, and the content of this podcast is for a broad audience.