Hello, friend. Well, OCD is associated with many different kinds of pain. The pain of the anxiety that accompanies the obsessions, the pains of efforts to avoid unpleasant feelings, the pain that comes when you beat yourself up asking, what's wrong with me? The pain of watching somebody you love in pain. In the next 3 podcast episodes, I'll explore how you can respond to pain more effectively.

In this podcast, I'll help you identify your pain personality. In the next podcast, I'll lay out 3 kinds of OCD related pain. And then in the last episode, I'll talk about the connection prescription, how you can plug into a person with pain and not short out. You already know from your own experience that human connection is powerful medicine, and you don't have to be a doctor to deliver it. Welcome to the free me from OCD podcast.

We're here to offer educational resources, coaching, and community support to help you say yes to your life by saying no to OCD. I'm doctor Vicki Rackner, your podcast host and OCD coach. I call in my experience as the mother of a son diagnosed with OCD when he was in college, a surgeon, and a certified life coach to help you get in the driver's seat of your life. My vision is to help you move towards a future in which OCD is nothing more than the background noise of your full life. This information is intended as an adjunct and not a substitute for therapy.

So let's dive into today's episode. When I started working with families trying to be freed from OCD, I saw many different challenges. Each family was unique. They had a unique source of pain. However, as I spoke with more and more families, it was clear to me that there were maybe 10 specific circumstances that people struggled with.

And if you put 3 different people in identical circumstances, even people in the same family, they would respond differently. One of the factors that contributes to an individual's experience with OCD is something I call that individual's pain personality. Now this idea of a pain personality had its origins way back in observations I made over my surgical career. I got curious about something. I'd commonly be invited into the ER at 3 AM to evaluate a patient with appendicitis.

So everyone got the same diagnosis, everyone got the same operation, yet the recovery was very different. Some stayed in the hospital longer, some stayed on pain medicine longer, some took longer before they were actually off to work. Now I could understand that it would take longer for somebody with an underlying illness to take longer to heal than a young healthy athlete, but there was something else. And what I figured out was the part of the difference in the clinical course of illness and recovery had to do with the patient's relationship with pain. That relationship would influence how long it took for somebody to actually go in and get medical help and how they navigated their post operative courses.

So I identified 5 pain personalities and I've been watching the impact on the experience of pain for about 20 years. And here's what I've learned. 1st, pain is pain is pain. We respond to physical and emotional and even financial pain in very similar ways. Next, it seemed to me that you enter adulthood with a form pain personality, and it's pretty much fixed for life.

Now part of it is shaped by your genes. Redheads, for example, are known to be more sensitive to pain, but your family background, what your family teaches you also plays an important role. So here are the 5 pain personalities. The first one is the strong stoic. A woman of Scandinavian descent once told me, you needed to be near death's door before mother called the doctor.

Sure. Money was tight. I think the real reason we didn't go to the doctor was pride. Although mother never said it, we knew that being healthy and being tough were sources of pride. Illness and pain were shameful conditions that were to be hidden.

So strong stoics may try to manage OCD on their own as a matter of pride. Things have to be very, very serious before they actually reach out for help. So if you know a strong stoic, expect that when they call and ask for help, they really need that help. And if you are in a relationship with a strong stoic who refuses to go in for help, just emphasize the courage and strength of character required to seek advice and get some help. The 2nd pain personality is the worried well.

Maybe this is the person who's doing a great job of managing OCD or they see that their kit is doing really well managing his or her OCD, but they're haunted by the irrational fear that they could lose all this progress tomorrow. Every new thought or gesture could be the next compulsion that would crumble everyone's life. Often the worried well is not the person with OCD. It's the parent or the partner. The worried well often do well with regular check ins.

Some also assign a friend to help them with reality checks. Hey, I just wanted to check-in with you. You know, I saw my kid doing this thing and my fear is that the new compulsion is emerging. Obviously, being consumed by this worry is a painful condition in itself. The problem though, is that even a broken watch is right twice a day.

So, you know, things really can happen. The 3rd pain personality is the ostrich. Now we all need a healthy dose of denial to get on with our days. However, denial can go overboard and threaten health. So when I think of the ostrich, I think of a man sitting in a barcalander popping Tums for his heartburn that turns out to be his heart really burning.

He's having a heart attack. So if the ostrich knows somebody who has OCD, even if the diagnosis has been given by a professional, they may convince themselves and others that the compulsions are perfectly reasonable and normal after all you can't be too careful with COVID. The ostrich parent might say, leave the kid alone. There's nothing wrong with him. This is just your imagination.

See, the ostrich wants to live in the reality that everything is okay. And you can say, yes, everything will be okay. We just need to do a little work to get there. So support this with the authority or opinion or a story of a doctor or any other healthcare professional. The 4th pain personality is the victims.

Now some people experience themselves as victims of external circumstance. They appear powerless to change their reality. In fact, victims often dismiss ideas that could empower them because if they were no longer a victim, they would lose part of their identity. So this means that they might talk a good talk, but their actions say something very different. Often, victims really don't want to be freed from OCD.

The last pain personality is the ideal. This is the person who knows when a little thing is a little thing and a big thing is a big thing. They don't go to the doctor too early or too late. They tend to do it just right. Knowing your pain personality is like knowing your tennis swing.

If your swing naturally pulls to the right, then you can make adjustments to get the ball where you want it to go. Similarly, once you know your pain personality, you can make adjustments so you behave more like the ideal. Now, you can see how 2 people with different pain personalities can clash when there's a painful family situation like the presence of OCD. So imagine 2 parents of a child recently diagnosed with OCD. 1 parent is a worried well and another parent is the ostrich.

The worried well imagines a hopeless future with their child completely disabled by OCD and never being able to work or leave the house. The ostrich said, that's ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with this kid. Everyone has odd thoughts and rituals. You can see how they would butt heads, how each of them would feel very alone in this whole situation.

Now imagine how differently this scene would be played out If they had the awareness, oh, yes, I am a worried well. Oh, yes, I'm an ostrich. They could help each other come to the middle. So consider your own pain personality. What is it?

Can you see how your pain personality may have either made things worse or better as you free yourself and your family from OCD? How can you modify your response when you feel pain so that you're in a better position of getting the results you want? That's what I've got for you today. Well, thanks for stopping by. If you find value in this podcast, please subscribe, leave a review.

It makes it easier for others struggling with OCD to find these ideas. And if nobody has told you yet today, I admire your courage. Managing OCD may be the hardest job I've ever taken on. Whether you're an OCD warrior or an OCD champion, you are not alone. There's hope for a better tomorrow.

You've got this.