You're listening to The OCD Stories podcast, hosted by me, Stuart Ralph.

The OCD Stories is a podcast dedicated to raising awareness and understanding around obsessive,

compulsive symptoms. I do this for interviewing inspired therapists, psychologists, and people

who have experienced OCD. Welcome to the OCD Stories. And welcome to episode 331. And in this one I chat with Amanda Arulanadum.

And in particular we talk about her OCD story. She talks about growing up Catholic, having sexual intrusive thoughts, fears of sinning, seeking help from her priest, some of her compulsions, hitting rock bottom

and considering suicide, doing exposure and response prevention therapy, how her grandmother

helped her, her grandmother's own struggles, what else helps her, and much more. I really enjoyed

chatting with Amanda and I hope you guys enjoy the conversation and find it

helpful and thank you to NoCD for support in the podcast. NoCD offers affordable, effective and

convenient therapy available in the US and outside the US. To find out more about NoCD, their therapy plans,

if they currently take your insurance or to download their free app, head

over to go.treatmyocD.com forward slash the OCD stories or the link will be in the episode

description. And thank you as always to you guys for listening. I deeply appreciate it. About

for ever do, here is Amanda. Welcome to the show, Amanda. Hi, Stuart. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate

you having me because I've watched your show or listened to your show rather for many years and it's

been so helpful to me. So to be here to talk to you is amazing. Thank you. Yeah, that means a lot. So I'm

looking forward to hearing your story and adding it to that

collection of other stories and episodes. So, you know, you can start in as little as much detail as you want to share.

Sure. So maybe I'll start by giving a little bit of background on myself. So I was born and raised in Toronto and I still live here.

And my parents are immigrants from Sri Lanka.

And I had a pretty ordinary childhood.

My family was, you know, materially, we were secure.

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