OCD Power Parenting: Recent Episodes
Dr. Vicki Rackner
Are you the parent of a teen or college-aged kid managing OCD? Here you will find the confidence that you as an OCD Power Parent are saying and doing the things that will open the doors of possibilities for your son or daughter as they launch into adulthood. The parenting ideas you find here are tweaked for the stage in which your kids have car keys and credit cards. This is the time when your role as a parent shifts from that of a boss to a consultant.
In this episode, Dr. Vicki highlights the therapeutic power of exercise and its potential to enhance your mental well-being. She shares practical tips on how to incorporate movement into your daily routine, whether you're an OCD warrior or a caregiver.
Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:
- Website: FreeMeFromOCD.org
- Social Media: Follow Dr. Rackner on Instagram and Facebook for more insights and resources on managing OCD.
OCD themes can morph and change over time. Listen to this episode to hear Dr. Vicki describe the common themes.
Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:
- Website: FreeMeFromOCD.org
- Social Media: Follow Dr. Rackner on Instagram and Facebook for more insights and resources on managing OCD.
It's a delight to welcome back Tracie Ibrahim. Tracie is an OCD/ERP therapist and practitioner. She also serves as the Chief Compliance Officer for NOCD.
In this episode, Tracie shares the story of spending over 8 years of her childhood in inpatient psych facilities, and NO ONE--not one treating practitioner--ever considered the diagnosis of OCD.
Don't miss this episode!
You can learn more about OCD and find an ERP practitioner here. https://www.treatmyocd.com
You can follow Tracie on Instagram @TabooTracie
Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:
- Website: FreeMeFromOCD.org
- Social Media: Follow Dr. Rackner on Instagram and Facebook for more insights and resources on managing OCD.
Could eliminating sugar from your help manage OCD? That's the topic for today.
Connect with Dr. Vicki Rackner:
- Website: FreeMeFromOCD.org
- Social Media: Follow Dr. Rackner on Instagram and Facebook for more insights and resources on managing OCD.
I was listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson reflect on the scientific method and his thinking process. He said something that made me listen a second time. “Do whatever it takes to make sure you are not fooled into thinking something is true that is not, or that something is not true when it is.”
This leads to the question, what is the truth of who you are? Who is the TrueYou? That’s what we will explore today.
Our greatest gifts and our greatest liabilities are usually flip side of the same coin. In this episode, we'll explore the secret powers of someone with OCD.
Your thoughts are powerful; your thoughts shape the results you get in life. In this podcast episode, Dr. Vicki Rackner, Principal of Free Me from OCD, helps you identify your thoughts and swap your thoughts.
Your experience with OCD proves to you the power of thoughts.
Listen to this podcast episode to explore:
1. Why your thoughts are so important,
2. Where your thoughts come from and
3. How your thoughts create the results in your life—with or without OCD.In this podca
Do you avoid difficult conversations? In this podcast episode, Dr. Vicki Rackner offers 6 simple steps to help you successfully navigate these conversations.
The best fuel to drive your efforts to be freed from OCD is a focus on what you want. In this episode, you will learn the three steps to getting what you want, and the powerful Freedom Formula self-coaching tool to make them happen.
Do you have a hard time getting what you want--especially when OCD enters your life? In this episode, Dr. Vicki shares the top three reasons it's so hard.
What is your OCD Story? Is it helping you or holding. you back? In this story, Dr. Vicki Rackner offers tips about how to retell you OCD story.
A decade of experience navigating the world of OCD has identified top tips. In this episode, you'll take away my top tips for helping a loved one with OCD in the most helpful way.
Click here to learn more about the OCD Freedom Formula Bootcamp. This 28 day program kicks off 5/7/24.
What do you say and what do you doo when your OCD Warrior—your loved one managing OCD—is in pain?
This may be the most challenging situation you face.
You may have the human urge to swoop in and make things better and easier for your OCD Warrior. You might organize your home and your families’s activities to avoid triggers for your OCD Warrior. In an effort to avid family drama, you may make it easier to perform compulsions. While all of this is done with the intention of making things better, these actions can actually grow OCD rather than shrink it.
In this episode, you’ll find out how to connect with your OCD warrior is a way that allows you to become part of the solution.
Click here to learn more about the upcoming OCD Caregiver Bootcamp. The Connection Prescription is part of the agenda.
This is the second of three episodes exploring how you can respond to pain more effectively.
Why is this important? OCD is associate with pain. The way you respond to pain makes a huge difference.
In the last episode, you learned to identify your pain personality.
In this episode, I’m distinguish between two kinds of pain: primary pain and poisonous pain.
In the next episode you’ll learn the Connection Prescription—how you can make a positive difference to someone in pain.
OCD is associated with different kinds of pain. Your experience is shaped by your Pain Personality. In this episode, you will:
- Learn Dr. Vicki's 5 Pain Personalities
- Discover how your Pain Personality shapes your experience with OCD
- Understand how you can modify your innate response to. pain so you get a better result
- See how different Pain Personalities contribute to family conflict about OCD.
Do you flaunt your perfectionism as a badge of honor? This podcast episode might change your mind, whether or not you have OCD!
You'll hear about the "On-purpose Mistakes" exercise.
Resources
Read the Gifts of Imperfection
Read Mindset
Watch the TED talk What I learned from 100 days of rejection.
Get a copy of the Explore Perfectionism worksheet.
In this podcast episode you'll take away one thought to swap to make it easier for you to be freed from OCD. It was inspired while watching the Super Bowl.
If you have OCD, you might arrive at a day when you say NO to treatment. What do you do then In this podcast episode, Dr. Vicki Rackner explains how and why people with OCD get stuck, and offers some thoughts about getting unstuck.
The Article: Letting Naomi Die.
Send in an OCD Confessions Postcard
Join the "Get Unstuck from OCD" Challenge
Learn about ERP
Reach out to NOCD to find an ERP practitioner
Disgust is one of the strongest, most common and most commonly misunderstood emotions we have. In this podcast episode, we’ll explore what disgust is, how it helps us and how it harms us. Specifically, let’s address how to manage disgust if it’s part of the OCD picture—or part of your life even if you don’t have OCD.
Click here to download the Exploring Disgust Worksheet
When you or someone you love is diagnoseds with OCD, you may have strong feelings. In this episode, Dr. Vicki Rackner shares common feelings, and offers ideas about how to manage them.
Click here to download a worksheet about your thoughts and feelings.
Feeling unsafe is woven into the fabric of OCD.
AND feeling unsafe makes it harder to manage OCD.
In this podcast, you'll get some tips for avoiding the dangers of the danger response, and seeking safety more safely.
Click here to download a worksheet to explore what contributes to your sense of safety.
If you are the parent of a child with neurodiverse brain wiring--OCD or ADHD or autism--you might lose your cool and yell at your child or partner or friend. You might even yell at yourself!. Do you want to yell less? Would you like to recover faster when you do? Dr. Vicki Rackner, physician founder of Free Me from OCD, offers some tips.
Click here to get on the waiting list to be notified when we open membership to the OCD Haven. It's a virtual online community for people with OCD-- and the people who love them. You'll find a safe place to become educated, share stories, get coached and know you are not alone!
Do you know someone with OCD who struggles with money? Join us as we reveal the financial challenges faced by individuals living with OCD and their families .
Click here to register for the upcoming webinar OCD, Neuro-divergent Brains and Money: How to Head to Financial Health
Sunday , November 26th at 1 PM Pacific
Click here to share your money story with the Free Me from OCD community..
What is trauma?
What's happening in the brains of people with trauma?
How do you know if you have it?
What's the connection between trauma and OCD?
What is intergenerational trauma?
In this podcast episode, Dr. Vicki Rackner offers some answers.
Click here to get on the waiting list to be notified when we open membership to the OCD Haven. It's a virtual online community for people with OCD-- and the people who love them. You'll find a safe place to become educated, share stories, get coached and know you are not alone!
In almost every podcast episode I mention ERP. Today I would like to share with you what ERP is, how it works and speculations about why it's so effective.
Click here to visit NOCD and find and ERP therapist.
Our brains are obsessed with answer to a singular question: Right here and right now, am I safe?
In this podcast episode you'll hear a story about how the brain works, and how and why being safe is still a top priority.
Finally your healthcare professional delivers the three little words. Obsessive compulsive disorder.
You might have heard. “You have OCD.” Or “Your child has OCD.”
The diagnosis of OCD does not have magical powers. Your brain wiring is the same the day before and after a health care professional delivers the diagnosis.
However, the meaning you ascribe to the diagnosis and what you do with a diagnosis can radically transform your life.
So today, let’s discuss:
- Why a diagnosis is so important, especially when a diagnosis describes how neurodiverse brains work.
- What is the value of an accurate diagnosis?
- How and why do people use the diagnosis against themselves and do more harm than good?
Click here to learn more about ERP. Click here to go to NOCD and find an ERP practitioner.
We all face disappointment at some point in our lives, and it can be challenging to manage those feelings. In this podcast we will:
- Explore what disappointment is
- Identify common ways of managing disappointment that are NOT effective
- Lay out a process for effectively managing disappointment.
This is Part 1 in which we help you manage your own disappointment. In the next episode we'll talk about how to help your child manage his/her disappointment. We'll also address what you say and do when someone disappointment you, or someone expresses their disappointment in circumstances in which you are involved.
By the time parents of adult kids with OCD find me, they are almost uniformly burned out. In this podcast episode, you’ll find:
- A working definition of burnout
- The most common and most commonly overlooked cause of burnout
- What one thing you can do TODAY to break through burnout.
Welcoming a new baby into the family is a joy-filled event. However, human brains can pose challenges. You already know about postpartum depression. In this podcast episode you will learn about postpartum OCD. My guest, Jenna Overbaugh, is a licensed professional counselor and NOCD therapist. Jenna shares her own experience with postpartum OCD and demystifies this taboo condition.
Do you know someone who might be struggling with postpartum OCD? Here are some helpful resources.
- Contact NOCD to speak with a therapist who treats OCD--and postpartum OCD-- with the evidence-based clinical intervention ERP.
- Click here to learn more about ERP.
- Listen to Jenna's podcast All The Hard Things.
- Join Jenna's Facebook mom's support group Lake Country Moms of Wisconsin.
Has your child learning to manage OCD ever told you, “I’m broken?” Have you ever thought about your child as broken? This podcast is for you. We’ll explore the high cost of thinking of people as broken. Then I’ll show you a different path.
College application is the source of anxiety. In this podcast episode, you'll hear a conversation with our guest Dan Ulin. For the past 35 years, Dan has helped kids get into the college of their dreams and set them up for success in adult life through his company Elite Student Coach.
In this episode, Dan offers answers to the following questions:
- What do college admissions officers want?
- What are some tips to help a college applicant be successful?
- Should the diagnosis of OCD be disclosed on college applications?
- What if the student likes a college, but there are no resources for students with OCD?
Questions for Dan? He invites you to email him at dan@elitestudentcoach.com
Have you ever thought, “I’m to blame for my child’s OCD?”
It seems like such an innocent thought; however, it is not.
In this podcast episode I will help you understand the the high cost to hanging onto the thought, “I’m to blame for my child’s OCD.” Or any variation of “I’m a bad parent.” You’ll see why it’s downright dangerous.
You’ll also learn and what to do when you have this thought, or your in-laws tell you that you are responsible for your child’s OCD.
We’ll also explore what to do when your child blames you for their OCD.
Would you like an alternative to power struggles with your kids managing OCD? In this episode, you learn the third stage of the Relationship Reboot. Here you'll learn what to say to you kids instead of getting into an emotional tug-of-war about how your adult child managed OCD.
Have you ever been in an emotional tug-of-war with your child or other family members about how OCD is managed? In this episode, you'll learn to unplug from OCD-related power struggles with the Relationship Reboot. This is the second of a series of 3 podcasts.
Click here to listen to the first in the series.
Have you ever been in an emotional tug-of-war with your child or other family members about how OCD is managed? In the next series of 3 podcasts, I’ll uncover the origins of the most common conflict within families—which are usually power struggles— and show you how power struggles do more harm than good. Then I’ll lay out an alternative I call the Relationships Reboot.
Click here to listen to the podcast episode in which I interview NOCD's Tracy Ibrahim about EPR--the evidence-based treatment for OCD proven to work.
What do you do if OCD obsessions take the form of thoughts or urges of harming yourself or harming others?
In this podcast interview, Dr. Vicki interviews NOCD leader and therapist Tracie Ibrahim. Tracy helps us understand what harm OCD is--and what it is not.
Here are the main take-away messages:
1. People with OCD can have thoughts and urges about harming themselves or others.
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These thoughts about harm are usually obsessive thoughts or urges.
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Harm themes are managed in exactly the same way other OCD thoughts or urges are managed.
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It's critically important to be evaluated and treated by a therapist skilled at managing OCD harm themes. Reach out to NOCD to get connected with such a therapist.
NOTE: If you have any question about whether your child is suicidal, err on the side of safety and bring your child to the ER.
I would like to nominate OCD as one of the 5 most misunderstood condition in medicine.
Lack of information can lead to suffering as the OCD diagnosis and treatment are delayed.
In this podcast episode I will debunk the top 5 myths.
Click here to visit the International OCD Foundation.
Click here to listen to the podcast about ERP.
Click here to visit NOCD and find an ERP therapist.
Click here to get on the waiting list for The OCD Haven. This is a safe place to educate yourself, talk about your experiences with OCD, pose your questions and get support.
Have you ever tried to achieve a big goal and felt stuck? Maybe you're even moving backwards. What do you do?
In this podcast episode, Dr. Vicki offers a suggestion about how to get unstuck.
Click here to watch a video of Dr. Vicki's son deadlifting 550 lbs https://youtu.be/8wEjkQiFCAA
If your child has OCD, you might wonder, "My child is exhausted from responding to all the demands his 'OCD Monster' makes. He wants to get back in the driver's seat of his life. He knows what to do to manage OCD. Why isn't he doing it?"
There are good reasons. Here are the top three you will learn about in this episode:
- Your child's biology.
- Limits of medical science that make it difficult to get a diagnosis of OCD and then find the right treatment.
- Beliefs that transformation should be fast, easy and relatively free from discomfort.
Managing OCD is HARD WORK. The evidence-based treatment proven to work is ERP. To learn more, I invite you to visit NOCD.
Do you like the idea of creating a family culture in which members do hard things? You're invited to be a Founding Member our "Do Hard Things and Get Results" Community.
The goal of this community is to help you evolve into the best version of yourself--no matter what. We want to help you:
- Be who you are
- Know what you know and
- Do what you need to do.
Here you will:
- Set a goal--whether it's losing weight, or becoming more fit or stop overspending.
- Have a community who holds you accountable.
- Celebrate wins and overcome hurdles.
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Participate in training calls where we address specific topics like:
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How to resist urges
- What to do when you fall off the wagon
- How to manage hard feelings
- How to deal with perfectionism or people pleasing
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How to create a protocol that works for you.
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Join group coaching calls. You can get in the hot seat and get specific ideas about how to get unstuck.
Click here to learn more about becoming a Founding Member of the Do Hard Things and Get Real Results Community. The membership fee covers all members of your family. Each family member can set different goals.
Membership includes participation in the general community. We will also have breakout groups for:
- People who want to lose weight.
- People who want to get fit.
- People who want to respond to their kids with OCD more effectively .
We will open other topic-specific groups as the needs arise.
We look forward to working with you!
In this episode I have the pleasure of interviewing Tracie Ibrahim. Tracie is the Director of Clinical Risk Management at NOCD. She's also a therapist who uses ERP in her OCD toolbox.
You will hear Tracie's personal and professional journey with OCD. She will also share with you what ERP is, and why she uses it as she treats her clients with OCD.
Click HERE to visit the NOCD web site and learn more about using ERP to manage OCD .
What do you do when your child is in OCD crisis?
As a parent, you will have a longing to fix things so your child's pain goes away.
The problem is that this does not work.
In this podcast episode, you will find an alternative. It's called the ABLE Protocol. The name communicates the reality that you have what it takes to make a positive difference when your child is in crisis. ABLE is also an acronym for the four steps of the process.
Click here to join the waiting list to learn when we open membership to The OCD Haven. You never have to be alone as you navigate the OCD journey.
If you live with someone with OCD, embarrassment is part of your life. In this podcast episode you will learn how to manage embarrassment more effectively.
Here are action steps mentioned in the podcast:
Send an OCD Confession Postcard to this address:
Vicki Rackner MD
2355 Fairview Ave N #219
Roseville, MN 55113
If you or your child are interested in joining our private community, please send an email to DrVicki@OCDParenting.com.
Click here to get on the waiting list to learn when our upcoming OCD PowerParenting course is live.
Click here to get on Dr. Vicki's calendar.
We all have a deep longing to be seen and accepted for who we are.
If you have a child learning to manage OCD, you know this is a tall order. One of the big worries is, “What would people think about me if they could see my life?“
Your child might wonder: Would you be my friend— even if you knew about my dark thoughts and crazy rituals? Would you hire me— even if you knew about my OCD?
As a parent, you might wonder: Would you see me as a competent parent—even if you saw the chaos in my home?
In the next podcast episodes, I’ll offer tips to help you and your child more effectively manage embarrassment, blame, guilt and shame.
Click here to grab a spot on my calendar.
Click here to get on the waiting list for the OCD PowerParenting training.
There are reasons that it's hard for parents to understand what life is like for a child learning to manage OCD. In this podcast episode, Dr. Vick Rackner shares 5 messages she's extracted from conversation with young adults who have learned to manage OCD. Here they are:
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"I'm in the fight of my life!"
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"I have a hard job."
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"See me, not the OCD."
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"You're the most important person in my life."
5. "I'm going to do this my way. Let me make my own choices. And my own mistakes."
You will take away some ideas to put this insight into action.
At any given moment in time, there is a power balance between your child and the OCD Terrorist. I find it helpful to think about different OCD Zones.
In the BLUE OCD ZONE, your child is completely in charge. It’s as if OCD went into a deep sleep.
In the GREEN OCD ZONE, your child has just waged a war on OCD and triumphed. They recognized the obsessive thought for what it was , resisted the urge to perform the compulsion and lived through their anxiety and discomfort.
In the YELLOW OCD ZONE, your child has the awareness that a thought COULD be OCD, but they’re not sure. I often got calls from my son that went something like this, “I have a thought and I’m not sure if it’s real or it’s OCD.” Almost every time he asked the question he was right.
In the ORANGE OCD ZONE, your child and your child’s OCD are wrestling for power. Part of our child’s awareness includes the possibility that this is most likely an obsessive thought, but the OCD may be very cunning. My son’s OCD says “This time it’s different. I’m telling you the truth.” Your child might be sleepwalking through OCD Land.
When your child is in the RED OCD ZONE, OCD has taken complete control. Your child is in the midst of their OCD nightmare, and they're asleep to their reality.
In any moment in time, your child is in one of these zones. However, they can shift zones in the course of minutes. The goal is always to help them spend more time in the BLUE and GREEN and Yellow Zones and less time in the RED and ORANGE Zones.
Is OCD real, or is it a hashtag description for people who organize things? In this podcast episode, OCD PowerParenting Coach Dr. Vicki Rackner offers answer to these questions:
- What is OCD?
- How is OCD diagnosed?
- What is the value of a diagnosis?
- What do you do when people think that OCD is a hashtag fad?
Would you like a complimentary 15-minute consultation to help you gain clarity about an issue you face as you parent your child with OCD? Click here to schedule your consultation with Dr. Vicki.
In this podcast episode, I share 4 lessons dog trainers taught me as they helped my manage my dogs' anxiety and fear. They have direct applications to you as you help your child get to the other side of OCD.
Click here to watch Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk My Stroke of Insight.
Would you like help parenting your child? Click here to set up a complimentary consultation with me--Dr. Vicki Rackner.