Ever watched someone you love spiral and had no idea what to do — so you just… answered the question? Yeah. This week we're talking directly to the OCD support squad: partners, parents, siblings, and anyone else who's been accidentally colluding with OCD while trying to be a good human.

We cover why OCD feels the way it does (brain spam, basically), the sneaky reassurance traps even the most well-meaning loved ones fall into, what to actually say instead, and how to look after yourself in all of this. Warm, honest, occasionally chaotic, and featuring Laura's chunky rims and some words that made Jess blush.

Podcast by

Laura Mole, Adv. Dip, MBACP OCD specialist therapist

and

Jessica Hayes, Msc PGDip, BABCP Accred OCD and perinatal specialist therapist

Edited by Christian Nickson

Time stamps:

00:40 Introductions and chunky rims

02:30 What we are covering and upcoming episodes

03:50 Brain spam

07:20 Recap of the OCD cycle

10:15 How OCD feels to someone with it

13:46 An example of what OCD is like for the person

18:00 Example of the impact of OCD on their loved one

20:02 Family accommodation and reinforcing the OCD

22:15 Reducing reassurance in a gradual and supportive way

26:42 Expectations and time frames for dropping reassurance

27:45 The reassurance trap and sneaky reassurance

30:30 Phrases to use instead of reassurance

31:15 The reassurance book

33:42 Validating the emotion, not the thoughts

34:30 Reassuring the person, not the OCD phrases

35:45 Managing the shame of a 'failed' exposure

36:40 Balancing care vs colliding with OCD when you need to manage your own emotions

39:07 Attending a therapy session

41:19 How to support exposures or behavioural experiments

47:18 Helping to advocate for a loved one with OCD

49:50 Neurodivergent considerations

52:10 Support for the supporter

54:00 What if the loved one doesn't want help?

57:18 What people with OCD want you to know

1:00:15 Do's and dont's

1:02:48 OCD Wins of the Week

1:04:13 Exposure Lab

1:06:15 Goodbye!

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Convinced you'll be the one person who does Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) wrong? This one's for you. Jess Hayes and Laura Mole walk through how ERP actually works — who picks the exposures, how scary they need to be, and why you genuinely cannot fail — plus what happens when therapy ends.

Exposure and Response Prevention is all about exposing yourself to your OCD fears (exposure) and then making active choices in not engaging in compulsions and avoidance (response prevention) to challenge the OCD, and it is often referred to as the 'gold standard' of OCD treatment. This episode explores why it can be a helpful approach, and future episodes will discuss some alternatives.

Podcast by

Laura Mole, Adv. Dip, MBACP OCD specialist therapist

and

Jessica Hayes, Msc PGDip, BABCP Accred OCD and perinatal specialist therapist

Edited by Christian Nickson

Time stamps:

02:00 Brain spam

05:20 OCD brains need to obsess

07:20 Compassionate other voices

09:20 Erp as the gold standard, what is it?

10:45 Amygdala, the brain, and the threat response

15:44 How erp fits into cognitive behavioural therapy

18:40 Which cbt treatments are unhelpful for OCD

21:45 Brody and their contamination OCD

24:20 How might erp look like for Brody?

26:30 What we don't do with erp

27:10 Do you have to immediately do exposures?

27:30 Who picks the exposures?

28:30 You are in control and what to do if you aren't ready?

29:28 You can't fail your erp

31:15 How scary should exposures be? How Brody tackles erp

34:29 What to do to make erp work?

36:00 How family and other support can help

41:10 What comes after therapy?

43:00 When does erp not work?

46:34 Erp is imperfect

49:05 Questions from the listeners: Erp and medication

51:20 Key takeaways for erp for OCD

51:55 OCD Weekly Wins

52:56 Exposure Lab feedback

55:20 Exposure Lab for contamination OCD

56:20 Thank you and goodbyes

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Come with us, Laura Mole and Jess Hayes, as we explore the 'checking' in 'Just Checking'. You get to hear about a day in the life of Shenrique, as we talk all about how they check to make sure that they aren't a bad person, then take a lesson from vampire superstitions to break the OCD loop. As always, you also get a look into our brain spam, and get to shout out your weekly OCD wins too.

Time Stamps:

01:30: Dramas through our week

07:00: What OCD Doris has been up to

10:30: Interoceptive differences in neurodivergence and health anxiety

13:15: Brain spam

18:48: Our story telling about checking clients

23:00: Epstein files, me too and OCD

23:20: Shenrique's checking compulsions in case they are a bad person

27:50: What checking actually does

28:40: Shout out to Elyse Myers

30:00: The OCD cycle and what keeps it going

31:25: Vampires and OCD to show what to aim for

37:49: Hierarchies and values-based erp lists

40:40: Do we have to do an exposure to everything on the list?

43:55: How do we help Shenrique?

45:40: More tolerance, not more certainty

46:40: OCD wins of the week

51:00: Questions from the listeners: OCD diagnosis

53:00: Exposure lab feedback from imaginal exposure

54:50: Exposure lab for checking

56:40: OCD being a big anxiety diverter

58:00: Goodbyes

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Join us, Laura Mole and Jessica Hayes, to really pick apart an OCD subtype that isn't talked about much. False memories and real-event OCD gets explored in this episode, you'll get to understand mental and invisible compulsions, and you even get a look into Jess' dog frustrations and Laura's big brain fails to get to know us more. We hope you have as much fun with it as we did.

Time stamps:

00:30 Jess talks Dobby the house elf

02:30 Introduction to real-event OCD

02:58 Exposure feedback from our self-care

09:10 Using our support systems

10:00 Spoon theory

12:30 How we felt releasing the podcast

13:50 Brain spam

19:00 Real event OCD and false memories, how it works

19:50 Why memory is unreliable, despite what your OCD says

24:00 Sexual shame memories

25:30 Mental compulsions and what they do

26:40 Laura starts buffering

30:45 Cancel culture and real-event OCD

32:40 Why is guilt there?

35:00 Perfect morals and values

37:00 Over-apologising and OCD

39:00 Mental compulsions vs just thinking

44:20 What is pure O?

44:58 Can erp work for mental compulsions?

46:20 The mental load of OCD

48:10 What we aim for in therapy for OCD

49:15 Dropping anchor to help with rumination

53:47 OCD wins of the week

55:00 Exposure lab

100:00 Goodbyes

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

In this episode, we go through some of the wider factors that can make someone more susceptible to OCD, and some things that might have made previous therapy unsuccessful. Laura Mole talks through a way to build some self-compassion and Jessica Hayes shares some tips for those who are neurodivergent too. As always, we talk things through with a bit of humour and a whole lot of validation. So grab a brew, settle in, and listen to some friends get passionate about OCD.

In this episode:

00:40 Introduction and hello

01:20 Exposure lab feedback

05:30 Brain spam- our intrusive thoughts feature

13:40 Jess' book for children to protect people from OCD

15:55 Coping skills to tolerate exposures

18:04 Laura gets lost

18:35 Window of tolerance and why erp is sometimes too hard

20:25 How self-care fits into OCD therapy

22:32 Responsive self-care vs self-care compulsions

30:00 A list for when your amygdala is driving the bus and how loved ones can help

32:40 Self-esteem and how this plays into OCD

35:00 Neurodivergent self-regulation and sensory needs

41:20 Building self-compassion to help OCD

44:20 Laura's self-compassion exercise

49:40 OCD Wins of the Week

52 :00 Exposure Lab

54:30 Goodbyes

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Join us, Laura Mole and Jessica Hayes, as we start to challenge myths around OCD and share some tips around what help can look like. Just two friends having a chat about something we are passionate about, hopefully in a way that makes you feel heard. You can listen to Laura pranking Jess and come along for the ride while we firm up some new features, and give you some food for thought around OCD too.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro and Laura's prank

03:26 Our training and approaches

07:12 Things our d*ckead brains have said this week

11:28 Resources for you

12:00 Exposure feedback

13:30 Therapist competencies and OCD help

17:35 You have to be tidy to have OCD, right? And other myths

24:35 OCD and the thousand chamber gun

27:50 OCD risk assessing, trust and personality traits

36:00 What if, just in case

37:20 Useful questionnaires

40:25 Helpful places to start challenging OCD

41:00 When things can be helpful vs reinforce the OCD

47:20 Exposures for the week

52:00 Goodbyes

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

An episode where you get to know us, Jess Hayes and Laura Mole, and our wonderful guest host, Jess Marriner. Grab a coffee and listen to three friends and therapists talk all things OCD and let us share some interesting insights you might not have considered. Prepare for some swearing, tangents, and genuinely useful knowledge too.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro and theme

03:00 Things our d*ckhead brains said this week

09:30 Visualising differences in OCD

15:00 Dreams in OCD, important?

16:30 Manifestation and other social media trends

19:10 Life as an OCD therapist

23:15 OCD search for certainty

24:00 How to know if it is OCD

34:30 What compulsions do we see?

36:15 What we want to hear from you

39:50 Taboo topics and Jess H's inappropriate surveys

42:30 Exposures from us

45:00 Goodbyes

Disclaimer

This podcast provides educational content only and is not a substitute for professional mental health support, please contact a mental health professional for advice and support.

Get in Touch:

Got intrusive thoughts to share or questions for us:

Email us at ocdcollectiveuk@gmail.com

Follow us on Instagram: @justcheckingpod

Please check out our privacy policy https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YJZ4Sdh4OpxjRR9twGY6dOMH9n55Mq6qTqLBxOtN3Fw/edit?usp=sharing

Content Warnings:

We do reference some thoughts that people may find distressing so please listen with caution if this is you, and take a break if you need to.