Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

These next two episodes were recorded at the very beginning of the COVID pandemic,

just as things were starting to get a little scary.

And I think this is an important note, as Aaron's story is one of a contamination OCD,

and her primary obsessional fear was focused on a virus.

When I asked Aaron if she was okay with coming to my office to record, given this emerging fear of the coronavirus,

she was both excited and adamant that she felt totally comfortable leaving her house and meeting with me,

at a six foot minimum distance, of course. As you will hear, this was an astounding accomplishment,

given that when she and I first met five years ago,

she was so gripped by fear of a certain virus that she couldn't even leave her house.

She struggled to touch and care for her new baby, and she spent nearly every minute of her day trying to stay safe.

Yet Aaron was not just able, but actually eager, to leave the safety of her home to record this episode.

I hadn't seen her in a long, long time, as in recent years she's primarily worked with Dr. Amy Indermule,

an OCD expert here in Colorado, who is going to join me for the next episode

to discuss both the treatment of OCD and her work with Aaron in particular.

This is the first time that we've done a two-part episode where another therapist and I meet up

to discuss the hows and wise of a storyteller's treatment.

And I think you're going to find this follow-up episode with Dr. Amy to be totally fascinating.

While Erin has lifelong, low-grade waxing and waning OCD symptoms,

her fears were never overwhelming and her compulsions took little time out of her day.

But shortly after her first baby was born, her OCD exploded,

first with intrusive violent obsessions, then transitioning to constant dread of viral

...