Common Problems I Help With

The common thread that runs between these three disorders (OCD, anxiety and ADHD) is that there is an experienced sense of chaos that people carry with them throughout the day. At a minimum it is an extra burden that needs to be lugged around, making daily tasks and stressors more difficult. At it's worse this chaos, limits our opportunities, makes us feel isolated and unable to create the life, goals and relationships we dream about.

Some of the most common symptoms my OCD and anxiety client seek me out with are intrusive thoughts. These could be thoughts or images that are continuing to intrude and invade in their day. It takes away from their ability to show up present and confident in everyday activities and continues to make them feel uncomfortable. They just have these thoughts of wishing, "Man, I wish these thoughts, I wish these images would go away. If I didn't have to deal with these things, I would be able to do more or life would be better. I would be more comfortable."

Number two is an overwhelmed nervous system. So this is especially true with my panic attack clients but true with OCD and anxiety disorders too, as client go around with this feeling that their nervous system is overwhelmed and just having some of those uncomfortable physical sensations; whether it be a tightness in their chest, or tightness in their jaw or a pit in their stomach or nausea or just this inability to focus because somehow there is this anxiety symptom that just continues to pervade their day, is a really big deal for them and just throws them off their game.

For my socially anxious clients, I work with a lot of people that show up in my office and say, "I don't feel comfortable being myself, I don't feel comfortable in my own shoes." They have a really difficult time walking in public spaces whether these are the halls of a public high school or college dorms or their own office or board meeting where they are not really doing anything significant. It just that they they are walking through hallways, they are sitting in meetings and they still feel like this spotlight is on them and they can't shake this feeling that everybody is watching them. On top of that, I have a lot of people that want deeper, more meaningful connections and relationships. They want to have vulnerability, they want experience depth and they have such a difficult time being able to initiate conversations, give opinions, risk disagreeing with people, setting up boundaries; all of which we know are just essential for healthy and deep connection.

I see a lot of client come to me and talk about second guessing themselves, so this can be a mental compulsion for sure, where they are dithering back and forth in their head, they feel like they cannot trust their own thoughts or own opinions and so their not really showing up present in everyday life as much as just living in their own head and constantly second guessing themselves.

Lastly with overt compulsions with my OCD clients this is people avoiding doing things, avoiding touching door knobs, avoiding shaking hands, avoiding doing different things. Or they are doing things like rewashing things, and really just hoping that no one notices them doing this embarrassing thing that they are really trying to avoid doing and really frustrated with themselves because they can't seem to stop this.

Some of the most common problems I address with my ADHD clients are a lack of motivation, they know that they should be doing something, they know they should be starting something earlier and yet they can't bring themselves to do it. There is disorganization in their internal world, meaning that their thoughts are disorganized. They might have forgotten deadlines and not remember when certain significant dates are or they might have difficulty being able to sort out where to start on an assignment or tackle a problems. Or their external world is disorganized, meaning that they can't find their car keys, they can't find those important papers that they know they really need and of course this causes them to be late and frustrated and frantically search around for things when them and can't push it off any longer.

And of course another really common pattern that I address with my clients is that pattern of procrastinating and then rushing. Knowing the deadline is weeks and weeks away and putting it off until the very last moment and then going into that panic mode all to just turn things in at the eleventh hour and then crash, recuperate and then repeat the process.

The reason that the vision for my company is helping people cope with ADHD, anxiety and OCD to calm the chaos of daily life is because I see that that is the common pattern or thread that runs between anxiety, OCD and ADHD. All of these clients experience a sense of chaos in their everyday living. OCD, ADHD and anxiety not only takes away these big things like being able to live out our full potential academically or at a job or be able to really get into the depths of enjoying true connection but that it just takes away from the experience of enjoying everyday life. It adds and extra burden onto the daily difficulties. So these are the common things I see with my clients with ADHD, OCD and anxiety is that there is this chaos, there's this feeling that I am not able to live out to my full potential, I am looking around and seeing that everyone seems to be having it easier than me and that all the attempts that I have made to address these problems either seem to be ineffective or worse, are actually making the problem worse. So if any of this resonates with you please go to my contact page and reach out. I'd love the chance to work with you.