Realistic Expectations of Your Mental Health & Recovery

Realistic Expectations of Your Mental Health & Recovery

Hey guys, uh we have another real talk sooner than we usually do. So, um so yeah, I think it’s Jim. The thing is it’s harder to get everyone together now because everyone is so fixed into their routines and also like you, Sam, and Elliot are of course in the same time zone. So, it might be easier to get one with you guys together, but then trying to have Nick or anyone else that it just like messes up the time zone. So, it’s quite um it can be quite a challenge. So, that’s why we’re doing solo ones, which is also which is also fine. We get to cover quite a bit in in different ways. Um, so we’re talking about fear of having setbacks because that’s like a thing that people think that, oh, but like why, like, how can I be okay and how can I not be unhappy if I know I’m going to have a setback at some point or I can have one? Why why can’t it be like a case of just recovering and then being like, okay, I’m good. So, um I and Jim, I think obviously you like I remember seeing some of your setbacks as well. So, yeah, they were bad. Yeah. Do you think it ever So, here’s the thing. So, aside from having setbacks themselves, did you have the awareness of the fact that you had a fear of the setback as well? Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely say that there was up until I would say as as little as like a year maybe two ago, there was even though I was doing much better in that period, there was always like a a little niggle in the back of my brain that was like, “Oh, but what if I go back to the way that I was?” And it’s understandable that people fear setbacks because OCD is extremely difficult to experience. OCD suffering every single day of your life feels so hard. And that is something that naturally you’re going to be afraid of. You know, if someone broke into your house with a gun, you’re going to be afraid. And the feeling of fear is a is a natural emotion. So it’s it’s not that we have to get to a point where we’re ever completely like if you said to me now you’re going to experience your maximum level of suffering again tomorrow and it’s going to last for a year. I’m not going to be okay with that. Like yes I I know I would deal with it and I know I would get up in the morning and I would go whoa that feels that feels a lot again. But I also know that I’m going to stick to the exact routine that I I’ve previously stuck to because I know that that’s the way to get through it. I have those tools to deal with that. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be like, “Oh god, not again.” Like I’ I’ve done this before. I don’t want to have to go through this again. But I would because I have no other option. And at the end of the day, even once recovered, you still have OCD. You’re always going to have OCD unless they develop these, you know, chips in the brain that they’re talking about one day. But right now as it stands, we’re always going to have OCD. So whilst you have it, there is an option for a setback. There’s there’s always going to be that possibility that you’re going to have a setback. The likelihood may be slim because I don’t have the belief system that would give me that setback. But that doesn’t mean if you something happened to one of my family members or something happened to me and I was in an accident and I lost use of like my bodily function, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t suddenly be hit with this extreme anxiety again because life circumstances happen. And I think for any of us to think that we’re completely foolproof and and it’s not going to happen to us, I think that’s when we’re a lot more susceptible to it because we’re that is us having this false sense of safety. And as we know, a false sense of safety with OCD is something that it thrives on. So I think as long as we’ve got that in the back of our minds that that could happen to us, that just makes us a lot more prepared for if it does happen. No, absolutely. And I think like if you take a bird’s eye view and you kind of like just zoom out a little bit from your own kind of like issues and stuff like that. If you just zoom out and if you look at society in general like I mean the world is really complicated right now and the world is like extremely difficult to navigate at times as well. um we’re overall I think we we’re just you know uh it it’s um the format of life itself is so different than what human beings have as societies experienced before uh it’s far more amplified and whatnot and I mean one of the most common things that everyone has read about you know analytical pieces or whatever it is is that anxiety and depression has become so so much more common right especially amongst young people right so if If you consider some of those things like you not having OCD, sure that I mean maybe it would you wouldn’t be dialed into the 100% catastrophicness of things but you are going to have not just like a moment but also periods of at times just feeling quite bad and quite bogged down by you know the pressures of life and whatnot. And so when you when you look at that you you understand that when you say that I’m going to recover from OCD and then I don’t have to think about having bad mental health ever again or should not have to think about bad mental health ever again is quite unrealistic. Yeah. You have I mean you you have to be very realistic about your mental health. Like I’m I always say this very openly in all my in my videos and my onetoone as well. I’m very realistic about my mental health. I am very realistic about the fact that one I have OCD. Number two is that I have a history of mental health from uh both my parents side because on both my parents’ side there’s quite a lot of depression. Um my parents themselves don’t have depression but they they can be quite anxious especially now. So I can see some of those tendencies there. Um and so and so when I when I combine all the factors, when I see all the things that affect my life, I can see me being, you know, my mental health being a little bit prone or having chances of being affected. And a few months ago, I had a you know, like a like a few weeks where I was feeling a bit depressed. And I hadn’t experienced that in a very very long time. Mhm. But the reason I was able to get through that relatively smoothly and the reason it also didn’t last long is because there wasn’t the secondary layer on top which is yeah would be feeling depressed. Mhm. I should not that wasn’t there. So which is why I was able to also accept feeling depressed and be able to work on it with levelheadedness you know. Yeah. Otherwise, I would have probably spiraled even more because I’m like, “No, no, no. I need to get rid of this feeling like I work in mental health. I help other people. How can I be I can’t be depressed. It’s not possible for me to be depressed.” And then Yeah. And then all the emotion that comes with that as you say, the secondary emotion is always the problem because you can you can feel something. You’re allowed to have feelings. You’re a human being. It’s really important that you’ve said that as well actually because so many people look at us and think, “Oh, recovered from OCD. you your lives must be perfect. No, we we’re still allowed to have struggles. We still have things in our life that that create emotion and we we still have these emotions, but we’re just better prepared for dealing with them because, as you say, the secondary emotion doesn’t come because we don’t judge the way that we feel. We just feel it. And if if everyone were to do that, if everyone were to just feel their emotions rather than judging the their emotions, it wouldn’t last as long because the judging always outweighs the the actual initial emotion in the sense that you could feel depressed for a few weeks, but then you could spend months going, why did I feel like that? That was really bad. I shouldn’t have felt like that. And and that that just then creates so much more disturbance. So, it’s really really important. And then you’re kind of like walking on eggshells as well thinking, “Oh, I don’t want this to happen the next time again.” Yeah. Yeah. What if it happens again? So then you’re looking out for it like again I I experienced that. Um and then I felt good but I mean it could happen again at some point like I there are real life challenges as well and you know we all talk about our lives very openly with each other amongst us as well. So we we know of our life circumstances and whatnot. Um, so there I mean I could be hit with like a bit of a depression later on as well to be honest because you know thing things uh can be quite challenging and I’m okay with that too. Like I don’t I’m not expecting I think the one thing that changes though and it’s funny when you also accept that you can have a setback or you know just like generally bad mental health again. Mhm. I think the acceptance also comes with a bonus of confidence as well which is that you you have the confidence that you’ll be able to somehow deal with it uh in some shape or form like I don’t know what’s going to come in terms of bad mental health and I may not even have the tools for it but I’m also confident in the fact that okay I can deal with it even with no tools initially I can handle the the state of being clueless of how to deal with something. And well, you were like that before with OCD. You you you didn’t have the tools to deal with OCD when when that came and and and you were clueless about that. But e even in the state that you were in at the time, you still managed to find a way to get yourself better. So, you know, you have that confidence that that’s something that you’ve done before. So, it’s absolutely something you can do again. Yeah, 100%. And I think that’s that kind of like and it’s not I don’t feel invincible. There’s I think there’s a difference between like feeling invincible and feeling um confident, right? Um I don’t feel invincible but yeah, I definitely feel because invincible would be like life can do anything to me and I am like not going to be no like maybe life can do something that I’ll just my confidence can feel shattered as well. Who knows? Um but but yeah, I mean I think um like and this is a almost like a self-contradictory statement in itself, but part of recovering is also accepting that you might not recover. And I think that sounds so strange and that sounds so like almost defeist because it’s like if I accept that I can’t recover, then how the hell am I supposed to recover? Mhm. But I don’t think it’s one of those things that you can see until you actually experience it. 100%. Like, you know, I still get things that that go on in my mind now when it’s like, “Oh, is that something trying to latch in there?” But because I don’t judge it and I don’t jump on it and go, “Oh my god, what’s this? Is it coming back? Is it all coming back?” It it goes in and it goes out because there’s nothing there for it to latch to. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still experience that. Sometimes I just react to it. so much differently. And I think that a lot of people see people recovered and think, “Oh, they’re they’re robots. They don’t have emotion now.” I still have plenty of emotion. I still cry over YouTube videos sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So much emotion. One of my guilty pleasures is this show called I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It is a British show called Longlost Family. And no, but I can already I can already see that I’m going to sob. It’s like GMA. Okay. Please watch, please watch at least this one episode, right? Basically, it’s people who were, let’s say, um, abandoned as a baby or they were given up for adoption because their moms couldn’t take care of them or whatever. And, you know, when they grew up as adults, they found out they, you know, their parents weren’t actually their biological parents and eventually they tracked them down and then they eventually meet their absolute strawberry. Absolutely shock because it’s just the sweetest thing ever. So sometimes when I want like a you know sometimes you want self-indulgent thing. So I watch that and it’s the it’s the best thing ever. But I’m going to give it a go. What when was the last major setback you had? So my last major setback would have been the one that I talk about quite a lot with the whole um thought I was having a Yeah. Yeah, when I thought I was having the brain, I I was on the phone to you crying my eyes out, wasn’t I? I’m a scar all down my face. What’s happened? That was in when was that? That was 2022. 23. Yeah. End of 22, beginning of 23. That was um And I would say so it was a setback, but also probably the most intensely I’ve ever experienced OCD. So perhaps that was partially because I was doing so well and I had this like false sense of oh like I I I don’t think this is going to happen to me again. And I think so when it did hit that time it was like it was just like a freight train because I wasn’t expecting it. I think I had this false sense of like nothing can touch me now. Like I’m fine. I’m invincible. And because I’ve been feeling that way when it did get me it really got me. And I think that was it was good that I had that relapse because I think that one really taught me, you know, this can come up at any time. And that’s that’s not to be negative about it and be on edge and be like, oh, you know what? What if it comes tomorrow, but it’s just about giving you that realistic perspective of yes, I’m doing so much better now and yes, it hasn’t been there for a long time, but that doesn’t mean to say that it can’t happen. And I also I hadn’t realized that my behaviors were slowly building up again in that period. So I I thought, you know, oh, I’m doing well. I can have the odd conversation about this, you know, little sensation I’ve got in my head because this isn’t OCD because I haven’t experienced that in ages. And it’s almost like I was overly confident that I could just behave completely how I wanted to and that would have no impact. Even now I know if I start getting a sensation somewhere in my body, which does happen sometimes. Sometimes I’ll I’ll get a numb sensation somewhere or something. I have to do absolutely nothing. I have to treat it like this could be OCD. I don’t know. I have OCD. It could be OCD. And I have to treat it as such every single time. No matter how many years go by, I’m going to treat that sensation like it’s OCD. And by that I mean I’m going to give it time. I’m not going to engage in anything that previously I would have seen as a compulsion. and I’m just going to allow that to be there. And that is why nothing seems to latch for me anymore because there’s never a reaction to it. Whereas then when I thought I was invincible, I was like, oh, you know, I’ve got the sensation. I can just have a conversation about that because I don’t have OCD. Like I have but I don’t experience OCD. I I can talk about I think and that’s a really important point that you mentioned as well. Anyone watching this right now, I think this is a really good point for them. If you are thinking that, oh, this can’t affect me anymore. That’s a that’s kind of like a dangerous thought to have for OCD sufferers. If any OCD suffer is thinking this cannot affect me or I’m I’m good now. E you have to be careful of that because it’s almost like OCD knows exactly the things that it knows the perfect targets. So if you’re someone who’s thinking you’re foolproof and you know you’re you’re solid and you know nothing can really do you know do any damage you have to be careful of that and that’s not that you have to live in cynicism and constant 24/7 vigilance either like that’s not how we live but we have just a reality check in mind that the possibility of having a setback or relapse is not completely 0%. like it can it can happen. And so it’s like if you’re in that position right now, I think I’m not saying this in a uh in a in a scary scary way, but like that’s a warning for Yeah. Yeah. That’s a warning for you. You have to be careful of that and you have to try and and maybe maybe that’s also where you might need a bit more acceptance because if you’re like, “No, no, no.” Like why why are you making me afraid now? That in and of itself is that fear that oh like don’t tell me something that will make me scared again. That’s your classic fear of fear, you know, 100%. So like I can someone can tell me that hey by the way a year from now you’re going to have an OCD relapse. I’m like cool. Like sure I I mean that doesn’t sound great but I mean I can I can think about think about that. So yeah. Yeah, essentially like I’m like I did it before, I did it. I’ll do it again. I’ll maybe go back to the tools that I need. Uh I haven’t had to open any of the books or do any disputing or exposures or anything like that. But if I have to at that point again, okay, sure. And it’s a very another important point is that you don’t even realize how some of the behaviors are accumulating over time. Um when you’re just like, yeah, I don’t need to think about it. Some things are accumulating and that’s what results in the eventual kind of like eruption that happens. Exactly. It can just be like the smallest bit of avoidance like oh you know I do most things now but there’s still this one thing that I just really don’t want to do. that that kind of behavior could then result in a relapse because your brain is still there’s still this little background of oh this there could be this thing and something that I really struggled to accept at the time but I know I fully accept now is the fact that I’m never going to go back to preoCD where I don’t I have no awareness of the fact that I have OCD or I was like oh I want my brain to just be like fully clear fully like I know that nothing’s gonna happen and I it was unrealistic I went through a really difficult experience over many many years you know from the age of I mean I had it since I was a small child but when it was really severe that was you know from the ages of 16 to 28 or whatever that’s a long period of time to go through quite heavy suffering I’m not going to be the same after I I’m not going to be the same because I’m not a teenager but I’m also not going to be the same mentally after that that was that was a lot to experience And you know, I don’t like to go into the whole trauma whe it it was a lot for my brain to process and a lot for it to go through. And I’m naturally not going to be the same person after that. Even if it’s only a couple of years that you’ve gone through OCD for, you’re naturally not going to be the same person. But the thing is, you don’t want to be the same person because the person you were before is the person that got you into that situation in the first place with your belief system. So the the person you come out of it as is a much more improved version of yourself because you’re the person that’s managed to get you through all of that. So if you and if you were to go through some uh something of a similar nature again um your ability to deal with that would be like far far better anyway this time. I mean, the reason that it got you in such a like it got you to such a dark and low place in the first place was because they were these probably beliefs that you weren’t even aware of. Right. Right. I mean there silently there but they only come to the surface when you start suffering. And so this time around like not saying that there won’t be any suffering. Yes, there probably will be. But perhaps it won’t be at the level to which it was um at the time. Yeah. because you you have the tools to deal with it. Now, when you’re when you’re speaking to people and they’re going through a setback, like what do you find now what do you find challenging about perhaps giving them advice about like a setback? So, I I find it challenging that people can’t be in my brain sometimes and see what I’ve what I’ve experienced with it and they’re like, “Oh, but I’m not sure that’ll work.” I’m like, “No, please listen to me. you have to do nothing and they’re like yeah you know I I am doing most things I’m like no all things we need to do all thing in like I need you to wake up in the morning and do the exact same thing that you were doing before your setback I’m talking to to the letter like nothing is missed out not oh yeah so you know I I’m doing most things but I have stopped going to the gym because that feels too hard I’m like no that’s not how it it has to be everything it has to be all of it because it’s so so important that you don’t you don’t let OCD see that this has impacted you in any way whatsoever because as soon as you as soon as you stop stop stop doing anything any little thing it it’s just going to spiral it’s going to snowball and it has to be consistent you have to keep going with exactly what you were doing before and I just I want people to see like what the end result of doing that is and obviously you can’t show them the end result of doing that yes you can tell them but having someone tell you the end result is so much different to actually seeing it yourself. Yeah. No, I mean I think I think the part that I find challenging is like I also have to have the the humility I guess that I can’t it’s some I I can I I say I I I take this like you know uh analogy that I can give you like a 20page booklet on this is what you need to do but unfortunately until you actually don’t go through it yourself you’re just not going to get it. And I also have to have that humility as well because of course like you can feel like hey no there is hope no like this is what will happen and you can get better but I have to understand that no matter how much I say that they probably just have to walk through the steps on their own and and kind of like and and the other thing I find is that people probably don’t like hearing this but I’m like look if you’re having a setback because when people start having a setback they also go into complete rejection mode of like no no no like this setback can’t be happening and they’re trying to like grasp for straws to be like okay just like just tell me what I can think of or what I can do to kind of like slightly put that switch back on where I was just thinking more rationally and I was more accepting and and I have to say let yourself free fall like you have to let yourself free fall because if you’re going to just be like no I want to hang on to the cliff by just my fingernail and just still like grab on I’m like let go. Like just let yourself be lawful. And that’s a part that I I mean I know it’s it’s the right advice to give, but it’s sometimes hard to say that to people because you don’t want to break someone’s heart in a way want them leaving feeling defeated. But sometimes you have to do you want to give them a tool. Like you want to give them I’d love to be able to say I’ve I’ve said to people before I’d love to just get in your brain to be honest and do it for you. Like that’s how I feel about it sometimes. I’m like I know the end result so I know what you need to do. So if I could just like get into your brain, I would do it for you at this point. Um but something and I’m going to plug this book pretty much every single video and it was the book that you told me to read when I was reread while I was going through my last setback which is Paul David at Last Alive. That is when those principles are the most that’s all you need at that point. All you need when you’re going through a setback, you’ve already read all the books. You’ve already done all the stuff. You know everything. You don’t need any more knowledge. All you need is a little reminder to do absolutely nothing. And and that book is where that will really really come in handy because the principles in that book were just they were the only thing I needed at that point is a reminder that I don’t need to do anything here. There’s no changes needed. I don’t need to jump. If I’d stop disputing at that point, I don’t need to jump back into disputing. if I haven’t been doing exposure, I don’t need to jump back it. I just need to be and just allow it to be there at that point. That book was instrumental for me and also in understanding that um because I wasn’t I mean obviously there I was doing outward things as well to try and fix my anxiety and my and trying to constantly induce relaxation um and restfulness in me. But I think that book was instrumental for me in just also stopping the internal solving and and and using that principle of doing nothing into being like okay I don’t need to go into like a deep dive uh thesis analysis of this feeling that I had yesterday out of nowhere and trying to understand where it’s coming from and how is it affecting me and what do I need to do but I don’t need to do that. And I and I distinctly remember also the moment like the first time ever where I was actually able to stop myself from I was again we were just talking about this. I think better when I’m pacing back and forth, right? So when I was really ruminating and I was trying to solve something or whatever, I would be pacing back and forth in my room and just like, you know, really trying to solve something and think on my feet and and I and I remember, you know, I I was doing that and then I had a thought about, ooh, there’s this feeling that I haven’t analyzed or I haven’t really unpacked. Maybe let me do that. And conversely, actually, I sat on on the edge of my bed to be like, “Okay, let me sit on my bed and really try and think about it.” And then I was like, “Wait, I don’t need to do this. I actually don’t I actually don’t need to solve this anymore. Why am I doing this? I’ve been doing this for so many years.” And obviously, it was the result of putting in other work as well and breaking down my beliefs and everything that eventually led to this moment of realizing I don’t need to do this. And then I just got up and I got went to the bathroom. I took a shower. I I think I had to get ready and go somewhere or whatever. I just did that and got on with my day. And Mhm. And I was like, oh I actually don’t need to solve it. Solve this. So that book was really helpful for me on that front. The problem is always people waiting for a feeling like I’ll do this when I feel better. I’ll do You’re never going to feel better if you wait to feel better before doing something. You have to do it scared. You have to do it anxious. You have to do it upset. You You have to do it with all the emotion there and then feelings will follow. You can’t rely on feelings to guide what you’re doing. You have to just do what you’re doing and then feelings will change in time. Which is so hard because it it’s like saying to someone, “Oh, you know, this this might happen, but it also might not.” And I understand why that really disheartens people because it really disheartened me as well. Like, oh, what do you mean? I I might get better and I might not. Well, yes, but also you you you’re guaranteed not to get better if you don’t do it. So, you may as well do something that’s giving you a chance. No matter how small the chance is, do something that will give you that chance. The time’s going to pass whether you’re working on it or not. So, you may as well be working on it. Yeah. And I also say to people as well that you’ve probably been trying to deal with it in a uh in in a certain kind of manner for quite a while and clearly that’s not working. So, why not try something different? Even if you don’t believe in it right now, that’s fine. I don’t I’m not asking you to like be like, “Okay, I’m going to put my full my full faith in it.” Sure, don’t do that. But at least give it a shot. Give it like a proper shot. Not just like for one day, for a week or whatever, for a few months, try to give it a shot. In the larger span of your life, giving something a shot for a few months is not like too much of a bad idea if it can if it if if it has even just a 5% chance of perhaps working out for you long term. Um, and sometimes that can really help people give them a push of, okay, maybe let me try and do things a bit differently than I have so far. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and that’s it, isn’t it? It’s it’s giving it that actual period of time and not just saying, “Oh, it’s been a week. It’s not working. I’m going to go back to all my old behaviors.” Like, you can’t expect your feelings to change that quickly. You can’t expect to change beliefs that you’ve had your entire life within the span of a week. It’s it’s just not possible. And anyone that’s promising a quick fix is is lying because if there was a quick fix, we’d have found it by now. Yeah. I I wish there was because I it would help take people’s suffering away like you know it would be like I don’t know Jesus or something of just me. But like but obviously we can’t do that. But I mean um anyone watching this video and if you’ve made it this far till the end in of this video because you’ve had all the knowledge from the conversation we’ve had, you will never have a setback. Now, just saying you’re not going to have a setback. You’re good. You’re invincible. You’re invincible. You’re foolproof. You have an armor. Nothing can penetrate that armor. You’re amazing. Um, but you could have a setback tomorrow, just so you know. Yeah, just by the way, that can also happen. But no, I think I think this was a this this was surely like a good topic to cover. I’ll cut that off my list now. And uh if you guys have any other recommendations for real talk uh conversations uh let us know and we’d be we’d be happy to cover that. But guys, thank you for joining and Gemma, thanks for joining as well and we’ll do another one pretty soon. Perfect. Thank you. Bye.

Gemma and Momin have an open conversation about their lives after recovering from OCD. Key perspectives to remember when breaking down the fear of having setbacks and relapses.

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