Summary
In our very first episode of Voices Unheard, we chat with Yasmin Arkinstall, an advocate for those with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), about what OCD is, how do we manage it, and how she’s giving those with OCD a voice.
Socials:
https://www.facebook.com/thatyasminkid/
https://www.instagram.com/theteaonocd/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/thatyasminkid/?hl=en
Resources talked about:
Home
https://www.etsy.com/shop/theocdopus
Transcript:
Hey guys! Welcome to the very first episode of Voices Unheard – a podcast that shares stories of change makers who are giving a voice to people or issues that are too often silenced. Joining me today for our very first episode is Yasmin Arkinstall. Yasmin is a classical soprano with a passion for OCD advocacy. Before we get started, please note that this episode contains deep conversations around mental illness and OCD, which some people may find distressing. Don’t worry – we won’t get into too much detail, but if you’re uncomfortable around this kind of conversation, you may want to skip to the second half of the episode. Now, without further ado, let’s get into it!
Jessie: Hey Yasmin! Thanks for coming along with us today. How are you going?
Yasmin: I’m well, how are you?
Jessie: I’m okay. I’m kind of coping.
Yasmin: I think exactly this way to describe 2020.
Jessie: (laughs) Anyway, thank you so much for agreeing to be featured on voices on her today. So to start off, could you please tell us what obsessive-compulsive disorder is for those of us who may not be so familiar with it?
Yasmin: So essentially obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder, where the sufferer feels that they need to do a bunch of rituals, in order to neutralise a feared thought or feeling. So, we basically call them intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are when you get a thought that is disturbing in some way, gives the sufferer of sense of disgust or horror or shame, or just some negative, an intense emotion. And then in order to get rid of that feeling or that thought, we had sufferers feel that we must do a, either a mental ritual, something in our head, or a physical ritual, to neutralize that fear and make it go away. But unfortunately, things rituals just make things worse and prolong the obsessive cycle.
Jessie: I see. Can you give us an example of what this whole process looks like then?
Yasmin: Yes. Okay. So, I’ll use, an example of one of my obsessions. I’ve got quite a few themes, but the one that has always kind of been the most triggering to me, the one that’s kind of stuck with me for the longest, I think because of my singing and, and, you know, performing familiar young age is the fear of my throat closing up. So that’s been, kind of a big theme for me. And so over the years in order to kind of navigate this, I’ve felt that I’ve needed to voluntarily swallow in order to make sure that I don’t gag or embarrass myself in front of other people. And, so this could look like: “Oh, I’m scared that I will gag in front of other people”. So now I’m going to do a bunch of swallowing compulsion’s to make sure that I don’t do that. And so then I get caught up in this cycle. I get a headache, I get very tired, because I’m involving myself in this kind of torturous process of trying to escape the initial fear of embarrassing myself. If that makes sense.
Jessie: Interesting. Very interesting. And what do you do personally to get out of this vicious cycle, so to say?
Yasmin: Yeah. So the therapy is to do what we call exposure, response prevention. We choose to do well to try. It’s very difficult at times, to do the opposite of the urge. So whatever the urge is to do, we have to work on in our own time, trying to resist, the ritual, and it can feel extremely difficult because everything in our body and our brain is saying, please do this thing right now. Otherwise you’re going to die or, you know, this terrible situation will happen, and there’s no going back. And so, you’ll feel really overwhelmed in your body to do these things and it feels like your life depends on it. And so, yeah, it’s a very visceral process, and, all you can do is your best and trying to resist.
Jessie: Wow. Do you have any kind of relaxation techniques that you use to resist the compulsions?
Yasmin: Yeah, I mean, I work a lot on meditation. I do yoga quite a bit, anything that allows me to kind of refocus to my breath, and you know, in for four counts out for four counts, that sort of thing. But I actually have a happy book, or relaxation box, really where I put all the little things that helped me to refocus or, get me through a difficult cycle.
Jessie: Wow. Interesting. I should really start one more myself.
Yasmin: I really recommend it! It’s really helped me because I can just go to the box and pick something out. And, I’ve also got a little bag where I can pick out, refocusing tools, so it can, it can be a mixture of refocusing tools, relaxation techniques, or just plain fun, just to help get out of the rumination and being stuck in this cycle basically.
Jessie: I see. I see. Wow. And I’m just, I’m just kind of wondering. Does having an OCD affect your everyday life then?
Yasmin: Yes. Well, some days they’re more quiet than others, other days can be very loud. The OCD is very loud and it’s kind of begging you to do these rituals, and those days are really hard and exhausting. What they can look like for me, if I’m really struggling is to kind of let the lights out, you know, lay back down in bed, tension, headache, you know, tension elsewhere in the body. And all you can do is just take care of yourself and be kind to yourself. It’s, it’s a hard process.
Jessie: Yes, for sure. For sure.
Yasmin: I mean, like with anything, there are good days and there are bad days. So as long as you kind of know that you’re trying your hardest, that’s kind of the most you can do.
Jessie: Absolutely. For sure. I’m also kind of just wondering, so I feel like OCD is something, like other anxiety disorders, are kind of just thrown around in pop culture. And so I’m wondering, what do you say to people who are like: “Oh, I’m so OCD” and things like that? Because that kind of thing really angers me. So I’m wondering what someone who actually has an OCD would say to someone else who says something like that.
Yasmin: Yeah! You know, that’s a big thing in the community. A lot of people in the community get really hurt when people say things like that. Cause it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to OCD sufferers who face this kind of struggle each day. They are trying their best all the time to not do the rituals, you know? And so, I sometimes I just, well in the past, because I’ve been a shy person, I’ve just kind of let it go. But, these days I try and educate, like in a kind polite way. I try and say: “Look, that isn’t what OCD actually is”. And I put them in the picture and I explain what OCD actually is. And usually there’ll be really understanding. Sometimes there’ll be defensive, and I guess, you know, they’re working through their own stuff. And so we’ve kind of just got to, you know, accept that not everybody is going to be accepting and understanding of our story and what we have to bring to the table, if that makes sense.
Jessie: Yeah! Wow – I guess it’s kind of like the onus is on all of us to start educating people about mental health. If we have kind of extra knowledge and experience about it.
Yasmin: Absolutely. It’s very important that we speak up and advocate for different mental health disorders, because I feel that so many of them are OCD very much included in that a very misunderstood [category], and there are a lot of people who I’ve spoken to over the years who have said: “I didn’t even know that that was OCD! I thought OCD would purely be wanting to be really neat and tidy and fastidious!” You know, all these sorts of words that they use, but it’s, it’s more so that, we get this really, triggering intrusive thought and we feel we need to do something about it. And that’s what the whole torturous process of it is. And it can leave you bedridden and, doing rituals over and over all day sometimes. We’ll have OCD all day and it just won’t go away. And what we can do on those days is do our therapy, do our exposures, try not to do the ritual, and be kind to ourselves when we do as well. ‘Cause, we will fall into the OCD troubles. It happens, but what we can do is be kind to ourselves and try not to do the rituals.
Jessie: Exactly! That’s so true. I remember one of my psychology lecturers from uni was talking about how it’s not really like a relapse when you experience the symptoms again. It’s more just, okay. Relapses are normal. So you’re kind of, you’re just on the journey to recovery, even if you are experiencing the symptoms, but as long as you kind of keep reminding yourself that the symptoms are way less and way less severe and probably way less often than before, then you are kind of giving yourself a motivation to keep going and get better.
Yasmin: Absolutely. Yeah, I think what I’ve found is self-compassion is so important in the process because I used to just beat myself up whenever I was in a cycle, whenever I was doing rituals and I felt I couldn’t stop. And I’d just be so mean to myself, but you know, we’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s not our fault that we have this disorder. It’s not our fault that, you know, genetically we were just more prone to this disorder and all we can do is our therapy and work towards getting better in a slow kind way.
Jessie: Yeah, I see. I see. And just kind of getting on your point about genetics, because I feel like a lot of people think that there are specific factors that would influence whether someone has a kind of anxiety disorder or not. So what is your opinion on that?
Yasmin: Yeah, I definitely agree with that statement. I mean, I think there’s overwhelming evidence that there is some genetic basis for even a baby to be born with the right sort of conditions to develop one. It’s not always onsetting from childhood. For me it onsetted, well really, as a child, I’ve got to say. It got really bad when I was like 11-years-old, but there were signs earlier than that. When I was about five or six, I was having really severe separation anxiety from my parents, and I was doing a lot of rituals to try and make sure that they were okay when we were apart. So I’d call over and over and I’d ruminate all day. That’s another mental ritual rumination – trying to work things out. And it tends to onset in childhood, but not always. I mean, some adults will develop OCD out of nowhere – they call it adult onset OCD. So it’s just the way it is. But there is definitely a genetic basis for sure. I don’t quite recall all the scientific words for the parts of the brain that are a bit more hyperactive for us, but there’s definitely some, some beats in there that are lit up like a Christmas tree, whereas other people’s [brains] are a lot more chilled.
Jessie: Interesting. Wow. I guess that’s so awesome. You said that because it kind of makes you realise that, you know, there’s still so much research to be done in this field as well. There’s so much we don’t know about it.
Yasmin: Absolutely. I was, I was watching the OCD International Conference online. Because of COVID, they couldn’t actually do the conference in-person, so I bought a ticket to watch it online. And they were talking about how there is just so much that we still don’t know, there’s so much research to be done about OCD, and yeah, it’s a work in progress for sure. I hope that we can get a lot more funding to look into this disorder because so many people are struggling. I think more than 2% – they say that 2% of the world’s population –have OCD, but I would argue with that, I think that there would be more than that.
Jessie: Wow. I mean, even if it is 2%, it’s still a lot of people.
Yasmin: That is yeah, absolutely. A lot of people. And the sad thing is that a lot of psychologists don’t recognise if a sufferer is experiencing OCD. A lot of people, including myself, get misdiagnosed. I was misdiagnosed for 10 years. I didn’t know. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), but it always felt like the diagnosis felt off, because of the obsessional nature of the thoughts that I was having. And so I just thought that there was something more, and 10 years later, yes – an OCD diagnosis. So it’s a real shame because the average, I was looking the other day, the average time for a sufferer to get diagnosed, it’s 11 to 14 years, which is such a shame because, you know, we suffer in silence for so, so long. Well, not even in silence as we go to see people and we get misdiagnosed, and it’s a shame that there’s not more awareness of what this disorder actually is. There’s still a lot of misconception even in the psychology community.
Jessie: Yeah, for sure. For sure. Wow. Speaking about that now, like, what do you do to actively educate people about OCD?
Yasmin: Well, I have an Instagram account, it’s called The Tea On OCD. And, I started off doing a lot of different posts about raising awareness of wonderful psychologist, psychiatrist, advocates around the world. I did a lot of amazing quotes from, these people I liked, I reshared things. I uploaded a lot of helpful refocusing tools that have been really great for me. And, yeah, I just uploaded, a lot of things to kind of raise more awareness about the disorder, but that has shifted quite a lot in the last, let’s say throughout lockdown – it’s become TikTok about my experience as a sufferer and they’re kind of meant to be funny, but obviously sometimes, you know, it feels like a torturous condition at times, and it’s just completely debilitating. But I’ve wanted to kind of take the power away from OCD by laughing at myself and what I go through and what the crazy things my brain tells me. ‘Cause I’ve got a lot of different themes. I’ve experienced a lot of different themes over the years, about all sorts of weird and wonderful. Well… not wonderful, but we had wacky sort of ideas. So I just thought, you know, this could, this could help people. This could, you know, make other sufferers recognise what we go through. When it doesn’t feel funny, you know, there are days where nothing feels finding, but if we can have something, something is better than nothing. So I just lip-sync to different sounds on TikTok and upload myself but with a caption like: “Me, in different situations.” But yeah, it’s quite fun. I’ve really enjoyed going on there and doing that. It’s been great. But I’ll try and think of an example. Like today I uploaded myself lip-syncing to a guy screaming and saying he was fine. And I just said: “Me after 2020,” that’s the kind of the content. I really enjoy that.
Jessie: That’s hilarious. I should get TikTok.
Yasmin: If you want. I mean, it’s a bit of fun. It’s nearly got 3000 followers. I’m really happy about that. I’ve had it for a while now, and it’s taken a while to kind of, you know, pick up a following, but I’m really thankful. And you know, I’m talking to people every day from all around the world, even from the IOCDF, which is the International OCD Foundation. And it’s just really, it’s really amazing to talk to fellow suffers and relate to these beautiful, beautiful people. A lot of people don’t realise how lovely OCD suffers are. So many of them have heightened empathy. We’re very bright because we have to face our fears every day. We’re very supportive because we know how hard it is to face our fears every day. So the community I tend to be with have really beautiful people. So it’s felt really special to connect with these amazing people from around the world.
Jessie: Oh, that’s amazing. I feel like, I feel like I should get TikTok. I’ve been saying this for ages, but hearing a wholesome story like this just makes me want to get it, even if I’m only following you.
Yasmin: It would be really fun. So I do a lot of talks as well around different themes. I mean, there are a lot of taboo themes, which tend to be more of a sexual nature as well. So, you know, fear of having intrusive thoughts about someone walking down the street, or even someone that you know, or even someone in your family. So having thoughts about: “what if I am in love with my dad” even though the person is not, but the thought was so triggering to them that it keeps looping. And so they’re doing things mentally to try and figure it out, and make sure that they’re not in love with their dad. And so, anything can become an obsession, anything, as long as it’s triggering to the sufferer, it can be an obsession. And so, you know, I’ll go for sexual sort of themes. I’ll upload something where I tend to have me as Yasmin and then OCD with that hair back. So you can tell who’s me, you can tell her too. And then I’ll be just like sitting there, and then, you know, I’ll turn into the OCD, and I’ll lip-sync some lyrics from warp or some song that’s very sexual. And it’ll talk back to me and it’ll just show the dichotomy between the two figures, I guess.
Jessie: That’s awesome. And I feel like it’s something like that really highlights the fact that, you know, as someone who identifies as someone with a mental illness, that’s not them, like they’re kind of two separate entities, if anything. So that’s really awesome that you have that in your profile as well. That’s really cool. You make me want to get a TikTok. That’s homework for next time! So I guess, like, we’re kind of getting to the end of our podcast episode, and I’m just wondering, what do you think a layperson like you and I can do to help those with OCD? ‘Cause I think most people would be like: “Well, okay, great. Like. I have more knowledge about OCD now, but what can I actually do about it?” So what would you say to people who ask you: “What can I actually do to better support those with OCD?”
Yasmin: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think family accommodation in OCD is a really big thing. So families are unknowingly helping their kids ritualise or helping even their partner ritualise. So I think first and foremost, it’s very important that they become as knowledgeable about the disorder as they can be. So they don’t help their loved ones do compulsions, because that’s that the trap that many, my parents included, have gotten into –that you want to help your child or your loved one and their suffering. You see them suffering. And unfortunately, just helping them ritualise is gonna make things worse. It might seem like the right thing to do and that you’re being kind and supportive, but it’s actually detrimental to the sufferer. So I’d say learn as much as you can about how to resist that urge to help them do the rituals. Donating is always an option too, to the IOCDF for example. Even following accounts, you know, to help, I guess. Helping out small businesses, for example, I have a friend from New Jersey, who I found on TikTok. She’s awesome. Her name’s The Ocdopus, and she makes cool things. For example, she made like a sweater with: “OCD is not obsessive Christmas disorder”. And, she sells those on Etsy. So I guess just helping out small businesses like that. But yeah, there are loads of things you can do.
Jessie: Wow. That’s awesome. Cool. So thank so much again for coming along on this journey. And even though, you know, I have a psychology background and everything, I’m still always learning and very thankful.
Yasmin: Thank you for having me and for allowing me to think about this topic. It’s very important to me.
Jessie: Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for tuning in to our very first episode again, and we should be expecting an episode very soon. The next episode will be a conversation around community mental health, so if you want to be notified when it’s out, make sure to subscribe to Voices Unheard on Spotify, Google Podcasts, iTunes, or whatever it is you listen to your podcast on. Additionally, make sure you check out all the links and resources in this episode’s description, as well as a transcription of this episode. That’s all for this episode guys, see you next time!
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