 Hey there, I'm Drew and you are listening to or maybe watching the anxious truth. This is the podcast that covers all things anxiety, anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery. So if you're struggling with issues like panic attacks or agoraphobia or OCD or health anxiety or body dysmorphic disorder, as you can see in the caption below me, if you're watching on YouTube, then this is the place for you. And I'm glad that you're here today today on the podcast. We have a special guest, Robin Stern is a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed psychotherapist here in New York and other states as well that specializes in treating body dysmorphic disorders and other related anxiety disorders. It's a really great conversation about a topic we've never covered before. I really enjoy doing it and I can't wait for you to hear it. So let's get to it right now. Hello, everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number two 49 recorded in mid February of 2023 in case you're listening or watching in the future. I am Drew Linsalata, creator and host of the anxious truth podcast. If this is your first time here, you've just stumbled upon the podcast or the YouTube channel. Welcome. I hope you find it helpful. And today's a great place to start because it's a really interesting topic. If you're a return viewer or return listener, of course, I'm happy that you're here. Thanks for coming back. So today on the podcast, we have my new friend, Robin Stern, who is a fellow Long Islander, just like me. And she is a practicing psychotherapist here in New York, also licensed in California and several other states. She focuses in her practice on body dysmorphic disorder and body focused repetitive behaviors and OCD. She is really niche down and she's become quite a advocate and a voice for body dysmorphic disorder and related disorders. She had a lot to say on this today. And I think that it actually ties in with the topics we're talking about all the time. So this is well worth 25 minutes of your time to listen to Robin talk. I learned a lot today. It was really a great interview. Before we get to it, I just want to remind you that The Anxious Truth is more than just this podcast episode. There are way more resources, including books that I've written. There are webinars and courses and workshops and all the other free podcast episodes and all my free social media content. All of that can be found on my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com. And if, in fact, you are following this work and it is helping you in some way, all the ways that you can support it can be found at TheAnxiousTruth.com slash support. You can buy something from my Etsy shop, a mug, or maybe if you want to buy one of my books or take one of my courses or workshops, all those things are there. But that is always appreciated, but never actually required. Even if you're just here to listen and learn and try to get better, I appreciate that you are here because that's also supporting the work. So thank you so much. So let's get into the interview with Robin. It's about 25 or 30 minutes long. It is well worth it because there's a ton of great information. Again, I learned a lot today. I really enjoyed it. Let's get to it. I will come back at the end to wrap it up and give you all the places that you can find Robin. So let's get to it. Hello, Robin. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here today. Yeah, I'm glad we got connected. Robin and I, I think I accidentally stumbled upon Robin like algorithms sometimes are good. And I found Robin on Instagram talking about body image issues and body dysmorphic disorder. And I'm like, this is a thing we have never talked about on the podcast and we really need to. So I reached out and she was gracious enough to say, sure, I'll come on and we'll talk about it. So here she is. It's great. I love it. Thank you. And we're both obviously from Long Island. So we share that commonality and that's very cool too. And obviously I love the platform you have and you reach so many people. So it's great to be here today. Thank you. Very good. So why don't you give us a quick, I'll give everybody the, you know, every way, the ways they can get you at the end of the podcast. Like I usually do, but give us the reader's digest version. Well, how did you come to where you are now? Treating BDD and body dysmorphic disorder? Very short-winded explanation. 42 years old and I myself have body dysmorphic disorder undiagnosed probably for, I don't know, five to eight years, but got the diagnosis at 22, went into therapy, got the gold standard treatment for body dysmorphic disorder, was originally a guidance counselor and sort of knew I wanted to go back into the fields and get therapists and decided that I wanted to focus on body dysmorphic disorder, body focused repetitive behaviors like skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, and then also obsessive compulsive disorder. So that has sort of been my trajectory. And when I decided to go back to get my second master's to be a therapist, it wasn't necessarily intention of me sharing my story. And that was necessarily how I felt that I could help people, but it sort of was something that sort of snowballed off of losing a therapist of mine who actually wrote the OCD workbook, Dr. Bruce Hyman. And when he passed away in 2015, it was sort of like this next step of like, okay, I think part of my journey is not going to just be a therapist. It's sort of going to be an advocate and a speaker and sort of put a face to something because I think with OCD, there's definitely a face to it. There are many people that speak, but you'll find that there's less of a face to people with body dysmorphic disorder. So it's sort of something that has become a passion of mine and has evolved over the last eight years. So it was not necessarily my trajectory initially, but it has definitely felt something that is very close to home to me and something that I'm super passionate about and always feel like I want to give my time and donate my time to talk about it because I think it's really important. Yeah, you're right. 100%, there's a lot of talk about OCD, which there should be, but there isn't a lot of talk about BDD and BFRBs. So it's great to have somebody like you really kind of in that niche because I'm sure it's a niche, but there's a lot of people in the world. So the niche is, even though it's a niche, it's big. I'm sure a lot of people are impacted here. Yeah, and I think, especially in today's world where we're so media focused and we're so focused on sort of this notion of perfection. I mean, I think while we're going to talk about body dysmorphic disorder, it does lay into body image issues that don't necessarily meet criteria for BDD, but it's like, we need to have these conversations because it's really detrimental to people and it really is impacting their quality of life. And so having this honest conversation, I think it's just been super helpful to people, whether it's clients of mine, people that see it and whether or not they sort of feel like, okay, I have body dysmorphic disorder or this is a body image concern, they sort of have this like aha moment. And I think we don't have these conversations. I think that we should, and I think again, social media definitely has its place. And I mean, I'm aging myself from 42 and I liked what initially social media offered us, which was like sort of connection with family and friends. I'm not loving what it offers now. I really struggle myself with keeping a profile up because I just think social media could be very dangerous to people and promote the wrong things. And so whether or not you meet the true diagnostic criteria for body dysmorphic disorder, if you're struggling with body image, it's just across the realm for any gender. It's a scary place right now. And so it's important to have these conversations so people know how to navigate these platforms. I never wanna say like you shouldn't be on it. So my approach is coming from like, how do you navigate if you struggle with these things? How do you navigate these places so that you can use them in the most healthy way possible? Which is really, I think that's so useful because it's really practical. It's easy. Everybody can stand up and say, oh, the message is horrible, we're harming people, but the practical advice in terms of how to actually navigate through that is really great. And I think in terms of the listenership of this particular podcast, many of them are gonna be focused on things like panic disorder or agoraphobia, OCD. But one of the things I talk about often is how there are often other issues and self-esteem issues and self-image issues can be real obstacles. They can make it harder to do those hard and scary recovery things sometimes. And I gotta believe that body image issues and BDD would be right in that wheelhouse. Well, what's interesting is that probably back in the day, and we're talking maybe even just as, like this 10 to 15 years ago, I think people would be less likely to wanna divulge like the taboo themes of OCD, right? So like harm OCD, you know, pedophilia OCD, sexuality OCD, those themes were less likely to be themes that people would wanna talk about. And it was sort of more of like, oh, we can talk about like this just right feeling or the contamination, because that's sort of acceptable. And I think now we're in a place within the OCD community where like, everybody talks about everything. And I think we could thank the OCD foundation in a podcast like yourself that like really bring people to talk about it and allow us to desigmatize the various things. I still believe to this day, even though BDD has been around, because I've been diagnosed for 20 years and it's been around since I think the late 80s that it is something that a lot of people still to this day do not walk into a therapist or psychiatrist's office and talk about. So I would also go back to possibly your listeners who listen to it who may not even realize, they may not necessarily have the full-blown disorder, but they may not even realize that they have issues of body image that impact them. And I think that really kind of goes hands in hands with even how I like sort of came into going to therapy and never thought to bring up the notion of like what I look like equals how I felt because I didn't think that that was a mental health issue. So it's sort of like, I think that this is also a conversation of like most people aren't necessarily like running into a therapist's office. I know for me, and I said this before we recorded, a lot of people that have come to me, it's because they've heard the podcast and they were like, oh my God, like this is what I have. And I didn't even realize this was a thing. I was sort of diagnosed with even OCD because there is such an OCD tendency where I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And I didn't even realize that this was an actual disorder. And then as soon as you spoke about it, it was just like light bulbs went off. So I think, like I said, I think this is a good conversation because I think people that suffer with agoraphobia, panic or all those things, you don't know, like there could be a component that could be related to why they don't like to be in big places could be because of how they perceive themselves to look, why they get anxious or concerned could be how they feel in their own body. And they may have not even touched upon it or thought like those two things correlated. Because within body dysmorphic disorder, just that disorder itself, people can be agoraphobic, can suffer from panic, can have social anxiety, have depression and anxiety. So there's so many different things that come along with it and then can have comorbid conditions such as OCD and body-focused repetitive behaviors. So we're in eating disorder. So I think sometimes people don't even realize that this is impacting them because they sort of don't put it with a mental health issue all the time. Yeah, that makes sense, I think. And you're right, like, you know, the comorbidities are really high when you mix all these together. And then you get that sort of stew of symptomology that crosses lines and things get blurry. But I would bet that sometimes for people who, again, maybe they don't meet the diagnosable criteria, but even if they have body image issues, that may have just seemed like you're normal. Like, well, this is just how I look. This is what I think, is this a problem? I don't even know that's a problem. That makes sense when you say that. You wouldn't even know that this could be a problem for you. So, excellent. Let's talk for a second about what's the difference between somebody who has some body image issues and body dysmorphic disorder? What is body dysmorphic disorder? It's funny. I keep always, and I guess, because 70% of my practice is BDD, which I love. And I think that I constantly, so there is the DSM diagnosis, but I constantly kind of evolve the separation between what body image is and what BDD is. So where I sort of come to play right now is the definition, according to the DSM-5, I do not like the word defect, but that's in the definition, is a person with body dysmorphic disorder sees and perceives a small or non-existent defect in their appearance where other people do not see it. So the biggest thing with people with BDD is that to the person that struggles with it, they see it. It's not only they see it, it is so overwhelming to the point where they feel like that's all they are. But objectively, other people don't notice what it is that they see. So that is the definition of BDD. Whereas with body image, usually body image, it's not to say people are like, wow, I see these things that are wrong with you, but objectively you could see could be a little bit overweight, where objectively you could see maybe their skin's not as amazing. Again, people aren't necessarily like target that and saying you need to do something, but usually with body image concerns, it is something more that people may notice. And I think that's the difference with BDD, no one sees it with body image. It may be something other people notice, but the big difference is people with body dysmorphic disorder, it impacts their quality of life and their level of functioning. Their insight is often poor, so it's hard for them to see it. Where someone with body image concerns, it may not like what it is they see, but it's not stopping them from functioning. Like they'll be like, oh, I have this pimple today, but they're going about their day and they're doing everything as possible. They're not necessarily stopping, they're not equating it with their value, with their self-worth, with their sense of being. And so that is the real sort of clear distinction is that the level of functioning is disrupted in a person with body dysmorphic disorder. And you'll hear oftentimes with people with BDD, 90% of what they see and their identity is solely based upon how they perceive their image. And I want to be very clear, this is not a disorder of vanity. It's a disorder of a misperception, of a distortion that we've seen neurologically on functional MRI scans. It's a disorder where a person just feels it's effective to the core of their being. And it is really a devastating disorder. And it is something that while it's being talked about, is also sort of thrown around with this word body dysmorphia, which I for the first few years was trying to like get the word thrown out and realize it's never gonna be thrown out. So it's just my job as someone who has it and specializes in it to sort of say, okay, there's a difference between the two. Body, probably people who are hashtagging body dysmorphia on a social media app, it's probably more related to body image concerns than BDD because people with body dysmorphic disorder have more of a shameful internal sort of defect about themselves and that's how they perceive themselves. And so they're not gonna be sitting there posting about it on social media. So I think that those, again, the biggest different thing is a person with BDD, what they see no one else does and their level of functioning is completely disrupted. Yeah, that's a great, that is a really great explanation. It's not one that I would have expected, but it makes a lot of sense and I appreciate it. So when you say, and that's always the hallmark of all of these disorders in the end, yeah, there's this symptomology or whatever this cognitive function, but then there's always the impact on lifestyle that we care about that's gonna be part of the diagnosis. What's the impact of lifestyle? What are those maladaptive adjustments that somebody with BDD is gonna make? The list is probably long, I'm sure. So I'm gonna just say, over-encompassing, it affects every aspect of a person's functioning and we can break it down. And of course there's a continuum, right? So people with BDD, it's all across the board. I mean, I always say it was really devastating to me but the outsider, I'm not so sure people saw that I was struggling, why? I went away to college, that's sort of when the BDD was like really peaking. And then all of a sudden, like around, after college, I went straight into my master's degree. So I feel like for people, they wouldn't have objectively known I was struggling because I essentially went from undergrad to grad school and moved to LA. And so there were so many things that I think objectively on the outside, nobody would know, but they didn't know the inner turmoil and conflict I had. I would say for a lot of people, it could just be as basic functioning of not being able to leave their home, having really hard, especially with people with BDD, it's like different lighting. So having a hard time maybe leaving during the day or in the sunshine or going into bright places. It could be having a hard time being consistent, going to school or holding a job, having relationships and being present in family functions and with their family, having relationships, whether platonic, romantic or intimate, all those things are sort of like you're unable to do it. And like a colleague of mine, Scott Granite out of Northern California has said, and it's true, he goes, how can you have a relationship with another person when you're actively in a relationship with your body part? And it's really true. It's so over encompassing. It's sort of hard to step up into your life when you're so amashed in this relationship you have with the perception of distortion of your physical appearance. And so it really hits across the board. There is actually nothing it doesn't touch. And I'm not saying with OCD, you don't find that, but there's sort of sometimes with OCD, there's a sense of relief going, certain things or doing certain things. And with BDD, it's a sense you never escape yourself. So there's never these, like when you're actively symptomatic and you're not receiving support and therapy, there's sort of this never this place where you have any sense of relief with BDD. And that's what's scary about it. There is no moment of like, people would like to think, okay, if I moved here, if I did this, but there is no sense of relief. And so really the work has to be done to begin to unravel the relationship that one has given their appearance and how that has related to their sense of identity and self worth. Yeah, I could see that being tremendously impactful. It sounds like, again, it's that pattern of avoidance that I'm gonna avoid any situations where this might be really bubbling up for me and make me uncomfortable and I don't wanna be in that, which we get. So I would guess, in a way, what you're describing, some of those avoidances could look like things like social anxiety disorder. They could look like agoraphobia. Like they could look like a lot of different things, but if you know that the basis of it is driven by this feeling of a physical defect, is it always a physical defect with BDD? I mean, body is probably hint, but. Yeah, I mean, so actually the statistics have shown and it doesn't mean people can't have it from the neck down, but usually it is the neck up. It's common areas of concern are the skin, the nose, the hair, symmetrical features. It doesn't mean it's not from the neck down because what tends to happen is that we need to really differentiate, and it is a differentiation between an eating disorder and BDD. So just because you have an eating disorder doesn't necessarily mean you meet criteria for BDD. In fact, if the only concern is your body size and it is related to restriction of food, binging and purging, or like exercise bulimia, and not as your only concern, you would not meet criteria for body dysmorphic disorder, but they're often comorbidities, which means I've had clients that are both anorexic, binging, purging, and then they have concerns, let's say about facial features and things related to BDD, so then they would meet criteria for both. So we sort of get into this thing, especially within the eating disorder world, I definitely treat eating disorders, but I'm not a more active in the OCD community, I'm not active in the eating disorder community, where I've definitely noticed people within the eating disorder community sort of make this just assumption, oh, eating disorder, BDD, and it's like, no, it's not. It's not cut and dry, it's not the same, and you need to sort of see the distinction. I think people with eating disorders definitely have a disturbance in how they see themselves, but it's not the same disorder as body dysmorphic disorder. That's not to say people can't have both, as people can also have OCD and BDD. I think the biggest thing that I wanna say, especially people who are listening to it, there are a lot of OCD specialists that sort of see BDD as appearance-related OCD, and it is not that either. So I think it's about understanding that BDD sort of has its own place, and I think at one point in time, we will have our own home, meaning that right now our home is within the OCD spectrum disorder, as so is body-focused repetitive behaviors. But at some point, I think we'll all have our own homes, and I think that will be a better thing because I think even in terms of mental health professionals, we'll see it as distinctly different disorders. There are things that coexist, but that's the same with any disorder, right? So if you see bipolar, there's senses of depression within that, but bipolar is different from major depression. So I think for right now, OCD is under the OCD spectrum disorder, but I think it sort of can be a little bit dicey because I think it leads a lot of professionals to treat it the same, and I'll be 100% honest. If you treat it exactly the same, you're not gonna get into recovery. Yeah, this is great. You have to go deeper. You need the CBT exposure response prevention for BDD as you do for OCD, but you also need more in-depth psychotherapy, and what we've realized over the last few years is that 80% of people with body dysmorphic disorder have had some traumatic experience, and I'm gonna say 100% of my clients, including myself, all have experienced trauma in their childhood that have directly linked to the development and presentation of body dysmorphic disorder. We know that there's biological components, but that trauma is sort of what lights it off. And so that's not to say with OCD, you never experienced the trauma, but it's not as common, and it's not as cut and dry as, and so what ends up happening is OCD recovery is more linear. If you have participation within this cognitive behavioral therapy exposure response, you'll see a lot more recovery pretty quickly back to a great baseline and functioning, whereas with body dysmorphic disorder, it's not that you don't get that same bang for your buck. You need to go deeper. You get a bit of relief, but you sort of, because you still walk around feeling defective, so you stop the mirror-checking, you stop the avoidance, but you're still walking around with those same faulty core beliefs that still have to be addressed and changed, and you have to go back into when did that develop in your life? So right now, there's no evidence-based treatment for that. It's more just an in-depth psychotherapy where I come from a trauma-focused background, and that's sort of where I sort of continue to work with clients from that realm. Yeah, this makes so much sense, and you actually, it's funny because you headed off my question at the past, which I really appreciated, like, boy, it sort of sounds like body-focused OCD, but I love when that you say no, it's really not, and it needs its own home. There's two different points I would make here. It's hard. It is hard, but I think here's what I love. Number one, anybody who's in the diagnosis game should be saying, listen, this is an evolving thing. Diagnosis is not perfect, it's always changing. I mean, the entire preface to the DSM-5 is about how it's flawed, so you take it with a grain of salt, but we need people like you, clinicians in the field, who contribute to this, who evolve it over time, where you build a home for this particular problem that maybe it doesn't have right now, but you'll get there. But what I kind of dig about the way you're talking about BDD is, in the other disorders, especially here, like panic disorder, graphobia, even OCD, that's a process-focused thing. We try and disregard the content, but you care about the content, because the content does matter. And the same thing can be said in social anxiety. Can I just say that? Yeah. No, so- Yeah, I would say that it's not, so let me be clear. Right. The content matters with the emotion response. Right. How you feel about yourself, how you sort of feel defective, unworthy, unlovable, different, that content matters. Yeah. What content doesn't matter similar to OCD is, oh, you don't like your nose, or you don't like your face. That's sort of less important. We might be worried concerns of like, how does that relate to maybe the traumatic time? Because if it was associated with being bullied for that specific feature, then we would want to process through that. But usually we're not as concerned with the area of what they see as a defect, but we are concerned with the content of how it makes it feel, and we do not minimize it. And I think with OCD, I know when I'm working with clients, it's sort of like content out the window, to the client, content is everything, right? It's everything. Whatever their OCD subtype is, it's life. That's what they want to know about. And I think going back to this notion of like, I don't want to say the DSM is archaic, but I don't know what I was looking at yesterday. We're an article where someone was even talking about the BMI and how the BMI is archaic. That this notion of us using BMI is not real. That's not to say like, it sort of doesn't tell you overweight or not, but sort of like we look at other things. We look at cholesterol. We look at kind of like your blood work. We look at things that are functioning, your heart and other things. And it's like, if you're a few pounds overweight or you're overweight, all your other things are like healthy and normal. We're focusing on the wrong thing. Like you're sort of focusing, which can lead to issues like this number that you need to get to when in reality, your entire profile is healthy. And I think, you know, again, I think the DSM is sort of, it's a guide. It's made for a few reasons. One, it gives somebody a guide to be able to be like, okay, this is a label. This is where you fall into. And then the other thing, which whether good, bad or indifferent is because it allows you to bill insurance companies. It allows you to have a diagnosis. No insurance company is just gonna be paying back therapy. You don't have to have a diagnosis. And that's really, you know, where it comes down to. And that's why, you know, we have it, but I do think it's ever-evolving, ever-changing. And you know, it's interesting to me because in a lot of diagnosis that I see today, people aren't even following it. They'll diagnose somebody with something and they don't even meet criteria for it. And it's just like, wait a second. You know, I see this with like autism. It's like, oh, you're on the spectrum. And I'm like, it literally says if you look in the DSM-5, there's five categories you must meet. And somehow a person meets one, they're on the spectrum. And I'm like, what happened to the other five where it has to be pervasive and they're not meeting it? I think a lot of it comes from people wanting support, people wanting services, but again, you know, it's sort of, we're sort of in this limbo of it's not like the end all be all. You know, the DSM is there sort of as like a blueprint, but it's sort of not the end all be all. And I hope one day we'll sort of go back to a drawing board and look at it a little bit different. Yeah, yeah, I get it. It makes sense. I mean, we need some sort of common language. I guess it's an attempt at that. I get it, but yeah. I mean, this is fascinating. We're at about the 25 minute mark. We can't possibly cover all the things about BDD in this just a short little podcast there, but I'll be going another hour with you just listening. This is so great. So let's bring it back to, I wanna cover two things. So for people who are listening now, I think this is that thing where not everything is accepting and floating and tolerating. You don't accept and float through the fact that you kind of hate yourself, which is over simplification and harsh, but you're gonna have to deal with that to a certain extent in a different way. So I like how you talk about different types of psychotherapy that might be needed alongside the exposure in the ERP stuff, which is great. So now somebody suspects that I might have this problem. What would their next step be? Boy, this is Robin saying things that really, I mean, they're resonating with me. What should I do now? Okay, so I think like the biggest thing I always tell people is like, look, we live in an appearance obsessed world. So I almost can guarantee you that every single person in this world has something they don't like about themselves. And I think what you first start to see is, okay, are you doing sort of compulsive behavior surrounding it? Do you notice you're doing a lot of mirror checking? Do you notice you're avoiding things? Do you notice like you're kind of dipping out from plans because you don't like how you look? I always go to impact of functioning. So do you see like a change in your life? Like is things shifting and changing because you don't like how you're looking? And I think at that point, if you really start to see that, I think the International OCD Foundation has a BDD section. So that gives you a lot of information. So that would be like the first place to go or the BDD Foundation of the UK sort of gives you more like, those are the two places. I don't suggest you Google. I don't accept, you know, you could definitely go on my Instagram and go on my link tree. I've done a lot of presentations and podcasts that you can kind of learn more. And that would be to sort of look for a therapist at that point to see if you meet the diagnostic criteria. And I don't think you should just go on. I mean, and this is the thing in today's world which I didn't have when I was diagnosed is that we actually have access as a lay person to just go on and get diagnostic assessments. And I wouldn't suggest doing that. I would suggest really meeting with a clinician because you don't necessarily think a diagnostic assessment is enough for a diagnosis. I think you need to meet with a clinician and be able to determine, okay, like where is this at? And then having the conversation. And again, I think, you know, the major goal that I have with clients is obviously reduction in the behaviors or avoidance or all of that. But ultimately for especially people with BDD and maybe even for people with body images realizing definitely with body dysmorphic disorder, a distortion in appearance and you're never gonna know what it is you look like. So there's a grief component to that. But sort of what the end goal to kind of like wrap it up, the goal of treatment is to be able to be like, I am more than just what I physically see. And in order to do that, I have to bring other attributes about myself to be as important. Because most clients that come into therapy are at 90% how they look is who they are. Well, that means if the day, which is more often than not, not liking what they look like, their day is shot. So for me, it's about sort of that puzzle piece of being like, okay, like it's important that you're a parent. It's important you're a sibling. It's important about your career. If you know, whatever it is that you as a friend and all the things that you do, those starts to become attributes about yourself that sort of you value and become part of your self identity and self worth. And that is sort of the goal in addition to relinquishing this notion of what you see as who you are. And it's a lot harder for BDD because you're never going to. And that is something to this day. I sort of have this like overarching understanding of myself. And obviously because I have it kind of shapes how I work with people. And I think most people who don't have body dysmorphic disorder are able to sort of understand and see what they look like on some degree or another. And somebody with body dysmorphic disorder just doesn't get that luxury. But that doesn't mean they can't live fully. And that's the message I wanna relay. You can live fully. You can live a beautiful life where you have value. That's also where acceptance commitment therapy comes in where I use that a lot to really motivate clients to wanna engage in behavioral work. But the message I wanna give is that regardless of this disorder and how difficult and how shameful one feels and how alone one feels there is support, there is help and there is recovery. And it's chronic just like all the disorders you had mentioned earlier, but it's we live and we thrive. And it's there, it's real. And it's not, you know, my trajectory of it has shifted and changed and what it has looked like. But I sort of feel like I get it now and I understand it now. And I embrace it. I used to nod. It used to be something I was shameful of. It used to be like when I got better. I don't have this anymore. And that was my, I have body dysmorphic disorder. I am not saying I don't. It doesn't define me. It doesn't take me out of my life like it did 15 years ago. But it's something I've learned to coexist with and I've learned how to manage it. And I've learned how to not let it defy me and people can do the same. So maybe chronic, but not necessarily chronically debilitating. Two different things. Right, and especially if you do the work. If you don't do the work, it is you could hope that you'll have moments and I've had clients where it sort of just disappears for a minute and then it will always come back. And we see that like with OCD or any of that, like that game of whack-a-mole. But if you really get the tools and truly understand it and really work with it, you can get moments of triggers, but like I do and I just keep it going. Like I don't, it doesn't stop me. I mean, and if you would have told me this 20 years ago, I wouldn't have bought it. Yeah, I wouldn't have believed it. Like I would have been like never gonna happen. You have a look at you now. But I see it and it's been through lived experience and doing different things to get as healthy as I can from this. And that's the most important thing. I want people to know there is help, there is hope, and there is life to be lived and you can live amazingly with it. Thank you, Robin. That's such a great way to wrap that up. Now, ironically, here comes the ironic part. We started talking about maybe a little criticism of social media, but if you're watching on YouTube on the bottom of the screen, I have Robin's Instagram account up there at BDDOCDtherapist. She's great, you should follow along. And also, where else can people find you? At the end, I will wrap up as I always do. And in the show notes for this episode, I'll put all your links in, but where would you prefer? Absolutely, so I, do you have a website? I need to probably put my link tree on it because my link tree really just goes through every podcast and everything I've done. But you can go on my website, which is rlsterntherapy.com and it just gives some information about myself. And I've realized, you know, again, I wanna be clear. I do specialize in treating OCD and body focus repetitive behaviors, but it just turns out that all the stuff that I speak about tends to be about body dysmorphic disorder. So, and that's probably because it personally hit me and so that just seems to be where kind of my speaking comes into play, but I do, my practice also does treat body focus repetitive behaviors such as hair pulling, skin poking, nail biting, cheek biting and obsessive compulsive disorder utilizing all evidence based treatment. Sure, makes sense. Well, you know what? If BDD has to have a voice, I'm glad it's yours. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. If you guys go to up on the screen now, you'll see at the bottom of the screen, the anxioustreat.com slash 249 will be the show notes for this episode and I'll put all Robin's links and stuff there. So if you need to go there because you're listening to your podcast, I will make sure you get over to her. Thank you so much. You're invited on any time. I will talk about this with you any time or whatever else you wanna bring. You just let me know when you have something to say and we'll do it again. They won't talk about body image one time, just talking about that. Yeah, that would be great. We were talking about that before we started recording. That's a whole other topic, which I think is important too. So yeah, that'll be our next conversation for sure. I'm there. So thank you, Robin, appreciate it. So I will come back with a wrap up as I usually do. So you guys hang in there. I'm gonna awkwardly stop the recording now but stay with me for a minute and I will wrap it up in a minute. Thanks. Okay, we are back. How great was that? Like, I actually really enjoyed it because I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to things like anxiety disorders and cognition and therapeutic methods. So I learned a lot today from Robin and I'm definitely gonna have her back on the podcast. We'll talk a little bit more about just body image issues as opposed to diagnosable BDD. So she'll be back for sure. If you want to find Robin and connect with her, you can find her on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is BDDOCDtherapist. In fact, I'll put it up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube. If you want to find Robin's website, you will find her at rlsterntherapy.com but you can just go to theanxiestruth.com slash 249. I will have full show notes on this episode and I will put all of Robin's links there to make it easy for you to find her. I would strongly suggest that you follow along with her because if nothing else, she is a compassionate and vocal advocate for mental health issues and the more of those we have in the world, the better off we are. So that's episode 249 of The Anxious Truth an introduction brief though it may be to body dysmorphic disorder and some body image issues. I hope you guys got something out of it. You know that it's over because the music is playing. That music as always is Afterglow by Ben Drake who is a friend of mine and who wrote that song a few years ago inspired at least in part by words that I've said on this podcast at some point and he lets me use the song, which I really appreciate. You can find more about Ben and his music on his website at bendrakemusic.com. So go check that out. If in fact you are listening to this podcast on Apple podcast or Spotify or some platform that lets you rate and review the podcast, leave a five star rating if you dig it and even better maybe take a minute and write a review of the podcast because the more of you do that the more people find the podcast and the more people we can help which is why I do this to begin with. And of course if you're watching on YouTube hit the subscribe button, hit the notification bell so you know that I've uploaded new content like the video and leave a comment at least twice a week. I run through my YouTube comments and interact with you guys there and that's always fun. Plus we do live streams on YouTube every Monday so it's easier to find me there if you subscribe and that's it, I am out. Again, episode 249 in the books. Hopefully it was helpful. I will be back next week with another podcast. I don't know what I'm gonna be talking about but I will be here and remember as always, this is the way. I've been fast, no looking back or sweating on the past.