Lee Gaston speaks about OCD

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a crazy-making disorder because it causes you to have thoughts in your head and behaviors that you might very well recognize as this is not rational but I can’t stop it and you know when something is messing with your thinking that gets real personal. So OCD is another one it can be debilitating I think it becoming better recognized but people still feel like they have to hide so I don’t know how many people are in their homes hiding trying to hide the symptoms when their treatment is available medication and therapy, family support but it is not a character flaw it’s not you know a lack of self-control it’s a brain glitch and it says as much about the person as an allergy or diabetes you know it not but learning how to push it away and say that not me you know that really important to treatment but when you are thinking it a lot harder to do than an allergy or diabetes yes skills are very valuable but treatment actually apparently changes the brain so it not just learning how to live with it more effectively but it like changing those neuropathways so that the symptoms stop arising at least strongly. It is a treatable disorder and you know it is amazing that therapy is learning how to change people’s brains and understanding what needs to happen we’ve come a long way and you know it is not just the neuroscientist but everybody is contributing new medicines, the culture, therapists. we are moving into, we have the potential to move into a new phase of treating mental wellbeing problems.