Real Event OCD (Episode 95)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
BUT THIS REALLY HAPPENED!
You have an event in your past that you just can't stop thinking about and ruminating on, and the feelings you are getting about that event are incredibly intense and feel overpowering. Those feelings might include guilt, shame, embarrassment, anxiety, or worry about your status as a good person. But no matter how much you replay the event in your head or seek reassurance that it wasn't' as bad as you think, that never lasts and the cycle continues.
Welcome to Real Event OCD. This OCD variant is particularly stubborn because when we are struggling with REOCD your anxious mind will insist that all the most effective approaches to OCD are not applicable because "it really happened!"
This week we're talking about Real Event OCD. While it is true that the event you are fixated on really did happen, that does not change the rules of engagement .... or more accurately non-engagement. Sometimes things happen that aren't what we want. Sometimes events occur that make us afraid, unsure, worried, or very uncomfortable. In this episode we're chatting about this, and why the path through REOCD is to recognize that you're trying to solve a feeling that can't be - and doesn't need to be - solved.
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Struggling with worry and rumination that you feel you can't stop or control? Check out Worry and Rumination Explained, a two hour pre-recorded workshop produced by Josh and Drew. The workshop takes a deep dive into the mechanics of worrying and ruminating, offering some helpful ways to approach the seemingly unsolvable problem of trying to solve seemingly unsolveable problems.
https://bit.ly/worryrumination
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Real event OCD is usually associated with pure O. |
| 0:05.0 | People who compulsively ruminate, seek reassurance, |
| 0:10.0 | often intertwines with a feeling of guilt. |
| 0:13.0 | The same pang or trigger as anyone else with OCD, |
| 0:16.0 | but in this case, it's an intrusive memory, |
| 0:19.0 | a real event that actually happened. Your compulsions are meant |
| 0:23.2 | to alleviate the distress you feel about that event. With real event OCD, the threat response |
| 0:29.1 | has some great ammunition. It goes, yeah, but it did happen. Maybe the nonsense part in REOCD is the |
| 0:35.2 | idea or the belief that you can somehow find enough correct thinking or ruminating or like reframing or replaying that will somehow make you be okay with the fact that this thing happened. |
| 0:53.3 | Welcome to episode 95 of Disordered. |
| 0:57.0 | This week we are talking about real event OCD, sometimes called REOCD, if you're into the whole abbreviation thing. |
| 1:04.0 | I'm Drew Linzalada. I am a therapist practicing under supervision in the state of New York, specializing the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders. |
| 1:11.3 | Also a former sufferer of anxiety disorders and depression for many years of my life, but doing better now and an author, a podcaster, clearly, because I'm sitting behind this mic again, social media dude, advocate, you know, general like anxiety gadfly. |
| 1:25.1 | Mike on anxiety bar gadfly. |
| 1:27.4 | Well, what does that? Bar bar fly that's what it would be |
| 1:29.1 | called anyway i'm joined today on episode 95 by i'm joshua fletcher also known as anxiety josh and |
| 1:36.1 | i'm a therapist based in manchester in the uk i'm an author specializing in anxiety disorders |
| 1:41.6 | i've had several anxiety disorders co-hosts of this wonderful podcast, |
| 1:46.3 | and yeah, thanks for tuning in for another episode on Real Event OCD. This is a good topic. It is a good one. |
| 1:53.9 | It's a branch of OCD. If you're listening and you're like, well, that doesn't apply to me. Do listen |
| 2:00.7 | because the mechanics and the principles, as we know, are the same. There is a little nuance with this tricky subtype of OCD. And for anyone who does have real event OCD, strap in, hopefully we'll give you some nice advice. |
| 2:15.0 | What I think is good about this topic, real event OCD is even if you don't have necessarily |
... |
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