{"id":249465,"date":"2025-10-30T05:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249465\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T05:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T05:55:10","slug":"experts-encourage-conversation-and-education-during-ocd-awareness-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249465\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts encourage conversation and education during OCD Awareness Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 Brian Coombs, founder of the OCD Foundation of Utah<\/a>, started his journey with obsessive-compulsive disorder when he was just five years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the strong urge to run back into home, and I felt the need to check lights, outlets, anything that could be on,\u201d he said. “I felt like if I was the last one to see it and I had not checked it, perhaps it was my responsibility to make sure the house wouldn\u2019t burn down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Symptoms lessened when he was a teenager, but came back full force in his 20s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was serving an LDS mission, and struggled intensely during that time,\u201d Coombs said. \u201cUnfortunately, my mind was on this OCD that I couldn’t stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when he realized he needed help.<\/p>\n

\u201cIronically, right here in this office is where I came to therapy with the gal next to me, who’s now in her mid-80s, and I received therapy from her,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of misconceptions around OCD.<\/p>\n

\u201c[One misconception is] everyone who has OCD is like the cleanest person on the planet. For some reason, that’s a very common thing where everyone’s like, ‘Oh, but you’re not that clean. I mean, there’s clothes on your floor,’\u201d said 24-year-old Alex Johnson. “I’m like, that’s not what it is, though. That doesn’t bother me. It would bother other OCD people, but for me, I could care less.” <\/p>\n

That, along with OCD itself, is what Johnson has also dealt with from a young age.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a very painful itch, and no matter how much you scratch at it, it doesn’t stop itching,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could come in the form of really obsessive thoughts that are interrupting that person’s ability to function on a daily basis,\u201d said Dr. Matthew B Checketts with University of Utah Health.<\/p>\n

OCD often targets something people care about, such as relationships or their health. People with OCD might perform a compulsion that offers them temporary relief from an intrusive thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do the compulsion, which unfortunately maintains the disorder, keeps it telling the brain when I see this or this happens, or I feel this way, I must perform this behavior, and if I don’t, the consequences can be catastrophic,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n

In order to combat it, however, you need to treat the brain like a bully.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, maybe I did touch that thing. Oh, well,\u201d Coombs said. “Once you address a bully, bullies don’t like that. They want that control, and OCD is very similar. It wants control, and so if you can accept the urge to perform a compulsion, push back by leaning into it, that bully starts to cower.\u201d<\/p>\n

OCD often goes undiagnosed, and Coombs wants parents to be aware if their children are constantly asking for reassurance or performing repetitive behaviors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets frustrating when they’re asking for reassurance. So much so, we just kind of throw them a bone and give them the answer. The problem with that is it comes back each time the brain wants that answer, so education is key,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n

While OCD is a big obstacle, Coombs would tackle it again to meet all the people who have come into his life since.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the world’s ending and there’s a team that I would put together, it would be from my clients. They are the type of people that do most anything for anybody; they feel so deeply,\u201d Coombs said through tears.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the OCD Foundation of Utah, visit: brian-coombs.squarespace.com<\/p>\n

Additional information about OCD and resources can be found on the OCD Foundation of Utah’s website,<\/a> treatmyocd.com<\/a> or iocdf.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 Brian Coombs, founder of the OCD Foundation of Utah, started his journey with obsessive-compulsive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394,1895],"class_list":{"0":"post-249465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth","13":"tag-utah"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}