What Makes IOCDF Different

I sat down to write a recap of my experience at this year’s IOCDF Conference, assuming I would talk about the humbling response to the mental rituals panel I put together with Jeff Bell, Monnica Williams, and Elspeth Bell, the joy of presenting with friends Shala Nicely and Amy Jenks on self-compassion, the hilarity of me being trusted to entertain kids during the keynote address, running an ad-hoc family members only “GOAL” OCD support group, or watching my dad get carded at a karaoke bar. But I would just go on and on about how it was cool, I was into it, and I’ll be grateful to do it next year. Instead I’d like to share about why I think the IOCDF conference really is different from other professional conferences I attend.

In 2010 at the IOCDF conference in Washington DC, I volunteered for the first time to help Jonathan Grayson with his annual “virtual camping” event. The event is hard to describe, a circus of sorts in which anywhere from 100-200 conference attendees convene to practice exposures together around the hotel and the surrounding area. It’s organized chaos to put it lightly, with some dumpster touching, tire kicking, superstition baiting, and of course, some knife-play for the Harm OCDers. That particular year, Dr. Grayson accidently nicked his thumb on a knife, drawing a small amount of blood, and while many were laughing and some were gasping, one young woman wasn’t really breathing at all.

There she was, holding her breath tightly, desperately trying to stave off a full-fledged panic attack. Her OCD told her she might have somehow made contact with the blood. Quite commonly, people who are afraid of contact with contaminants are not always so concerned with getting sick or disgusted. Sure, that’s triggering enough, but what really causes panic to set in is the recognition that hours upon hours upon days upon weeks of ritualizing may lie ahead. How would she wash her clothes? What if her clothes touched items in the hotel room? What would she, what could she sleep on? What about her luggage, the plane, her home after the conference? How could she get certainty that there wasn’t, well, Grayson plasma on everything?

I sat with her for some time that night, trying not to be her unsolicited therapist, trying to be empathic, trying to just be there. I introduced her to another conference attendee, an OCD sufferer I knew had a similar way of experiencing these things. I wouldn’t know if I was helping or being an additional irritant for some time. But I saw her at this conference, Boston, 2015. She came right up to me after a presentation I was involved in, shook my hand, re-introduced herself. Thanked me. She now volunteers at a blood lab. This is not a story about me making a difference. Right place, wrong time for someone, and maybe not saying anything too stupid would do the trick. Really this is a story about a brave woman taking the reins back from OCD and turning her life around.

This year a friend of mine brought his adolescent son to the conference. It’s an undeniably overwhelming experience, lots of moving parts, lots of strangers. Lots of expectation for being asked personal questions and being vulnerable in public. This kid was smart enough to know that inside the hotel room was safer than outside. When my friend emailed me with concern about his son not coming downstairs, I happened to be chatting with a nice couple I met in the lobby. The guy was a former hockey star who suffered a terrible injury and then spiraled out of control with OCD until he got help. Then he wrote a book to inspire others. And his wife, she stood by him through it all and never gave up on him, both superheroes in every sense of the word.

Turns out Clint and Joanie Malarchuck were the keynote speakers this year (note to self: actually read the whole conference brochure). My friend’s email asked if there was anyone I might be able to send up to the hotel room, maybe help convince his son to take the leap and join the conference. Shortly thereafter I found myself in this family’s hotel room, alongside the conference keynote speakers, chatting casually about sports (which I know nothing about) and OCD (which I have more than heard of). Again, I don’t know if we made a difference exactly. Hard to tell. But I did see the kid walking around the lobby with purpose not long thereafter.  Then I heard through the grapevine that he found his way to a teen session and made some new friends.  Then his dad lost track of him, and in a good way.

So what is it that makes the IOCDF conference different than other mental health conferences? A young woman getting triggered while for the first time being surrounded by people who understand triggers? An anxious kid talking man-to-man to the foundation’s guests of honor without anyone knowing about it? A therapist being in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time, connecting people and witnessing sparks of liberation from OCD without really doing much of anything? That’s how it has seemed to me over the years; that just being a part of this conference system changes the larger system of suffering and growth. What will this young lady or this young man do next? Who will they share their experience with and what effect will it have? Who will those people go on to help?  There are many excellent conferences where I can learn more about mental health treatment and further develop competence within my profession.  This is the only one where simply being there seems to make some kind of difference in the lives of others.

Also, I now have enough pens to last me until Chicago, 2016.

Visit the International OCD Foundation at www.iocdf.org.

Jon Hershfield, MFT is a psychotherapist in private practice licensed in Maryland and California, specializing in the treatment of OCD.  Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.