Daniel, it's ironic that as you have stopped practicing as a psychotherapist and focused on your own healing, you would now be such an effective psychotherapist in the modality of your choosing. You are amazing. Thanks for helping viewers by articulating your own insights and courageously sharing them. - From an Australian nurse.

100% agree. To me, all these compulsions stem from a need to control something to overcompensate for a time where big issues were out of our control

What a wonderful gift to humanity you are. Thank you

I suffered severe ocd for decades, and i did have a traumatic childhood, i feel like my ocd rituals gave me a sense of certainty in an uncertain environment, and gave me a strong distraction from having to process painful experiences on a daily basis… it really seems to be a coping mechanism for me, but like with any coping mechanism they turn into a curse very quickly

I have observed that OCD is simply the emotion of anxiety, stuck in the psyche because of unresolved trauma. It seems that all trauma causes a permanent misalignment of the emotional state, and in some cases it is hightened anxiety. People who feel this anxiety will try to find an explaination for it in their surroundings, which is the (unlocked) door, or the (unclean) hands. It's really as simple as that, and the amazing part is that western culture is entirely unable to understand (or admit) this simple mechanism. Of course the door and hands can also be metaphors, but anxiety is the root cause for the bahavior.

I had OCD as a child. I was told early on that it was a brain disorder and I would always have it. When I was 16 our family dog was also diagnosed with OCD (apparently that's a thing!) I remember smugly pointing this fact out to my mom. No one wanted to hear it. Interestingly I never had any rituals outside of the house. It seemed to be very contextual to the ongoing trauma of my childhood, but no one every looked deeply, or bothered to ask me what was going on at home.

Thank you for this, Daniel. I was diagnosed with OCD at 30 after many years of hell and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I finally found out about how trauma really works and the importance of the subconscious mind, that I realised where this endless suffering came from. A traumatic birth followed by a very traumatic hospital intervention 2 years later. The many years of neglect and gaslighting that came afterwards just made everything worse and left me, as you said, endlessly trying to solve a problem I couldn't identify and blaming myself for the anxiety, the compulsions and all the other symptoms that came with it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for speaking these truths that are so hard to hear for so many people.

Bravo man, bravo. I’ve gone through a decades long hell after being diagnosed with “pure” ocd in my teens. Only now do I see how screwed up my family was and still is, thanks to channels like this one. At no point in my life did a mental health “professional” or anyone else ever mention trauma or family problems. I was just medicated, stigmatized, and turned into the family scapegoat.

I was raised by 2 cruel narcissist, they were drug dealers, addicted to amphetamine and weed, constantly taking out their drug fueled rage on me and much more. Eventually they divorced when I was in elementary school and I stayed with my mother. She brought home new guys every couple of werks, went to techno parties for days on end leaving me and my sister alone to party, take drugs and fuck random man. When she was home she was either asleep when I came out of school or was still awake coming down from the amphetamine she took the night before and kicking in my door(which wasnt even locked) to throw a tantrum. Eventually I developed cleanliness related OCD and it became so bad that I literally had to take a shower everytime I left my room out of fear of "contaminating" it. And mind you I was showering 3 hours at a time which eventually led me to only eating one meal a day at 5 am, taking a shower and not coming out of my room until the next day 5 am just so I can avoid my mother. I was living like this for months but last tuesday I said enough is enough and became homeless. Funnily my OCD became much less severe away from my mother so I think it is 100% stress and trauma related.

Daniel, you are one of the few genuine psychotherapists who really tries to help others solve their problems! .. instead of pimping them out to big Pharma to make money off them

Thank you Daniel! You're a gift! At least I don't know anyone else who gives this kind of fantastically clear and sensible insight into human problems! 5 years ago, you saved my life from a deep hell of traumatic life. I'm thankful of you forever.

Trauma and abuse is so common in the world we live in, to the point where individuals are unaware of it. I think I want to "spread awarness" of this and "rock the boat..."

My life changed (for the better) when it dawned on me that OCD was giving me an illusion of safety and stability. Like my own "rules" for life, where everything made sense and was predictable (rather than not knowing if you were about to be hurt any moment), and I could make myself feel like "everything is OK". Of course, this was only an illusion, but an easy one for my mind to grasp onto. I've been slowly accepting since then that life in is unpredictable, and you can never guarantee anything, and though a tough pill to swallow, has really set me free of OCD prison. I hope this comment helps someone else struggling with OCD!

I have always wondered about your thoughts on OCD. I have had OCD symptoms since I was a child, which have continued to wax and wane throughout my life. Currently, my OCD symptoms are still fairly severe, even though I have been working on processing my childhood for a number of years now. Still, I am sure that there is more content to be sifted through that has maybe not yet been meaningfully integrated into the self that I am trying to heal. It is so painful to live with OCD. I have always been so afraid of everything for my entire life, and OCD mirrors my inner state of turmoil with such a shockingly blunt clarity. I think many with OCD grapple heavily with not only fear but guilt, shame, and an overall sense of powerlessness, feeling they hold virtually no agency over themselves or the direction their life takes. For years I felt I had no agency over myself, that I was merely a secondary character of my own life. I felt like a puppet while the various authority figures throughout my upbringing held the strings, contorting my being into what they projected onto me. I also feel like many who struggle with OCD are likely more sensitive to their environment than the vast majority, and may have dealt with emotional neglect in some way or another during their childhood. I have found that many people with OCD are bright, creative, thoughtful, deeply observant and perceptive… I am inclined to believe that it isn’t uncommon for a person with this kind of disposition to have experienced a fair degree of emotional misattunement as a child, of having their needs inadequately recognized and responded to by their caregivers in childhood. Editing to add that I think there are quite a number of facets to OCD, so I know I am probably forgetting other key components here, but another one I wanted to mention is that I think OCD feeds off of an immense amount of self-doubt, as well as a fundamental lack of self-trust and/or just a lack of trust in general. In my conceptualization of OCD, OCD plays a huge role in rendering a person fragmented, and perpetuating that fragmentation so that it can continue to proliferate. One way it manages to keep the status quo of “unresolvable” fragmentation is by persuading the individual in question (via a constant, unending inundation of self-doubt) that they should not and ultimately, “cannot” trust themselves. Of course, this, at its core, is little more than a cruel lie, but for someone in an incredibly vulnerable, fragmented state, the damage such a continuous lie does is extremely damaging. Or on second thought, regarding the nature of OCD’s intersection with fragmentation, it may be is more accurate to say that it is trauma which *first* fragments a person, and then OCD takes that as an opportunity to hijack the fragmented person, ensuring that they will remain in a fragmented state so that their dysfunctional ways of being persist indefinitely.

i have ocd and this is what i thought as well. Had a lot of things to be anxious about when i was little and it seems the only way me and my brain could distract myself from all the chaos happening in my childhood was to create and imaginary problem to solve haha. I think you are spot on in this video.

OCD has destroyed my life and I hate it so much. It is very tiresome when you have to check things over and over. And avoid going to certain areas because of contamination fears. It ruined my quality of life for the past decade and I’m so done…

You're right. I knew someone who did everything to avoid confronting his family problems in adulthood, when younger was diagnosed with OCD. He was afraid of dirt & disorder due to his mother. But he was caught in a trap because confronting them meant losing them. Later on he found other ways on top of that to avoid confronting his family problems, he went to ridiculous lengths.

I think it all comes down to reestablishing a feeling of safety. If we go through life with a chronic underlying feeling of danger due to some old trauma that's still in our system, it makes sense that the mind in all its infinite creativity can develop paranoia about things like germs, gas leaks etc. It's an adaptive response. Unfortunately doing compulsions to help our anxiety just creates a vicious circle where the anxiety gets worse. I think that Exposure Response Prevention can really empower people to break the vicious circle associated with a particular obsession, even solving that particular obsession, but it seems that OCD will simply re-emerge later in the form of some new obsession-compulsion loop that must then be identified and dealt with again. I think the only way to escape the core feeling of fear that generates the OCD to begin with is to work through one's traumas and return to a felt sense of safety so that the need to be hypervigilant, paranoid and ultimately, obsessive-compulsive, no longer exists.

Daniel , you're the ONLY THERAPIST ON KZfaq WHO ACTUALLY THINKS CRITICALLY AND DIGS DEEP INTO YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS.....❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR INSIGHTS.

I used to have very bad OCD after a traumatic loss. I showed subtle signs of it when I was young but it really got bad after my dad died I realize now that getting to my heart and dealing with the roots of the trauma things have improved dramatically. I once had a boyfriend tell me that I needed to connect the 18 in between my head and my heart. It was the most punching that got truth I ever heard. He also told me that I would never become the woman I meant to be unless I get away from my mom. He was right leaving my traumatizer of who my mother was one was a big part of healing.

There is a lot of literature relating OCD to trauma with Stanley Rachman being the pioneer in that observation. Carol Matthews has written a paper on showing connection and trauma occur in at least 50 percent of the cases. There is some thinking that OCD is related to strep infections, but my reading on that is limited. From personal experience, the people I know with OCD also had a lot of trauma from their childhood caregivers.

I've been dealing with OCD since last year when I discovered I cant even remember much from my childhood. I think you're onto something here. How can we better grasp memories that aren't really there?? I'm having such a hard time even getting to a theme of what happened

I’ve been using your videos and other trauma info sources to figure out my ocd. I realized that ERP the gold standard ocd therapy actually makes your ocd constantly worse. The more ruthless it is (such as in a residential program) the more quickly and horribly does it make the ocd worse. I realized that of all the people in my program, everyone badly relapsed after the program except for the one person who didn’t really do much of the erp. And the person who I think did it above and beyond, they relapsed maybe the worst. But I actually figured it out based on the trauma progression. When you do erp, it suppresses the ocd down so you’re more functional but you’ve gone backwards to dissociation. And by suppressing the ocd, you make it come back stronger. Just like psychosis that is suppressed, comes back worse. And so after 10 years of doing this ridiculous non therapy, you are so much worse than how you started. The other problem is the therapist. They are usually narcissists and their tactics exacerbate the ocd. They deny your reality and gaslight, which serves to fuel the ocd doubts about everything and even perceptions. They have impossible expectations that you constantly fail because they’re impossible and that fuels perfectionism. They claim that you shouldnt reassure but actually reassurance works if given by an empathetic person. Any interaction with a narcissist adds to the ocd trauma. Any narcisstist. Therapist, psych, neighbour, friend, ex, parents, doctors. Ocd is actually magical because provided you do trauma work and figure out where your trauma comes from, it will make you feel the horrible feelings all by itself. The insane compulsions build up and up and stress you out horribly but this makes the trauma come up and maybe even flashbacks. The ocd is making life debilitating but it helps you process and feel all the horrors. So actually, you should never suppress it, do everything it says that you can and you will get to the end. It’s a short term massive suffering for long term wellness and health. Once all the trauma is burnt through and resolved, it will stop and go away. And, it wouldn’t have to be that bad if people weren’t forced to do erp in the first place. Of course there are times when the ocd demands are more than your body can handle in which case you would skip things or reduce them but it would be only when absolutely necessary and never forced by any narcissist. It is brutal but I would say that ERP is more brutal. And Erp never lead me anywhere good. I’ve noticed that my obsessions relate back to my trauma in that they are about things that are similar to the feelings of the trauma. Like gaslighting your reality lead to doubting your perceptions. Checking if you saw something, heard something, touched something, over and over. Starting to think health anxiety and ocd are related to doctor and medical trauma. False memory ocd might relate to having parents claim something you remember happening didn’t happen. Many of the triggers contain clues too. If one thing bothers you but another doesn’t of the same kind, you need to figure out why. There’s a reason. There’s so much but this the best summary I could do. Thank you Daniel Mackler for the foundation knowledge. It helped me figure it all out. Edit: Hey commenter Ive tried a million times to reply but it wont work for some reason. So hoping you might see this and get your answer. Personally, I started with learning about trauma theory and narcissism. I watched a lot of Daniel Mackler’s content and Patrick Teahans’s which helped me see that my family was not as good as I thought. Start light and slow. This work is very overwhelming and painful and tiring. You can read trauma books (like The Body Keeps the Score) and you can check out Pinterest because theres a rabbit hole of trauma and narcissism content and random quotes and lines from actual trauma therapists. What kind of contamination do you have?

Thanks for the presentation. I had Ocd ( or was classified as) as a young person and was treated with Ssri meds for years. At the end of a long process I weaned myself off the Ssri meds and found myself in a curious state where I realized the meds only made me numb not well. On the surface I worked .Was Successful socially and people envied me and my achievements but inside I was as only a vacuum. When I woke up ,eventually ,I found allot of time went by and there was allot of loss. What I can say for myself is that I have been honest and did a good job at self awareness and retrospective self assessment. Unfortunately I was medicated for a intergenerational problem of my parents and their family. I'm lucky to have survived the entire mess.

I managed to 'control' my OCD back in my 20's (I'm now almost 40, I had it real bad) by forcibly doing the opposite of what my compulsion was, and saying to myself "I don't have OCD", it was difficult at first but I was fully in control after about a month. I learned that this doesn't truly make it go away, OCD is still inside me and it turns up every morning I make a cup of tea, when it tells me my teabag is poisoned and I must choose another - I know if I choose another, that one will be the same and so on and on - so I have my first tea bag and get on with the day, I deny the OCD and take control. If I let it one inch it would take a mile.

Daniel, thank you greatly for this video. I've been dealing with "OCD" for years now and have been waiting for someone to explain it simply to me. I relate to "washing hands until they're red raw Washing away an invisible disease." I'm medication free and am simply learning to combat the obsessive thoughts by positively affirming to myself that, "I don't have OCD. I am not my past. It is safe to be 'me'. I am overcoming whatever this is. My mind is strong and healthy. The thoughts are just thoughts and not facts. There is no problem with me that needs to be solved. I am enough just as I am." Endless gratitude for you and your profound insights. Thank you endlessly.

You offer a fresh perspective on many issues. Personally, I only take advice from people who understand trauma because they have experienced it themselves.

As a bad OCD sufferer I'm going to agree with you.

So interesting! Makes sense. And just a few weeks ago I was "chatting" w a woman online who mentioned that EMDR had helped her OCD symptoms tremendously. EMDR helps the brain process trauma, so it makes so much sense to me. I'm really looking forward to finding a therapist to work with. (Other forms of trauma-specific therapy would probably help as well as EMDR. The woman I was chatting w was also doing hypnotherapy for trauma; and somatic therapy - per Peter Levine - might also be useful) Love & support for everyone else here on a healing journey)

You are a godsend. The stuff that happened to me in middle school is too horrible to talk about, but it's tied directly to my intrusive thoughts. I've tortured myself in the same manner as what I was put through in middle school.

I'm new to your channel, and I really like your videos! My mom has severe and repeated traumas/violations when she was younger and is diagnosed with schizophrenia - it does all seem connected to her traumatic childhood though, it's really sad. For me it wasn't her psychosis that hurt me the most, it was the fact that she didn't love me once I wasn't acting as her caretaker/security blanket anymore. 💔 Anyways, thanks for your videos. ❤

I experienced life changing trauma at 4 years old. I hit the back of my head on the corner of a dresser and I'm sure it caused a concussion. When I told my Mom about it, she told me I deserved it. It was at that moment she made me the family scapegoat and 61 years later my family still treats me as the fall guy. I've suffered much cognitive dissociation (or trauma induced amnesia). When going through the healing process, I was very challenged with trying to figure out...is this really me or who I've become?. I wasn't able to remember the details of life in my mind, however my emotional self remembered and that's all I had to go by in the healing process. When the mind suffers emotional trauma and the skull suffers physical trauma, its a complicated set of difficulties. Thanks for all you do Daniel. You bring clarity to relief to the challenges of life.

I am mostly recovered from OCD no medications only symptoms now are some thought compulsions but no behavioral ones. I’ve had it from about 6/7 years to 30 now. The worst was about when I was 22. It was really bad then and thankfully for most of my life it was just small annoyances like all of a sudden and obsession with light, cleanliness, or order and mostly thought patterns and the thought patters is where I really suffered. Your car analogy is perfect. I healed because I started to work on my inner stress and heal my chronic feelings which a lot of time involved childhood trauma. All the time of course it led back to childhood trauma but sometimes I didn’t connect it with my childhood all I knew was I had to be honest with my emotions. The cornerstone to that healing for me was being honest with my feelings. I had learned that I needed to lower my mental and emotional resistance from a spiritual leader. I also have been really engaged in learning about psychology and spirituality since I was about 18 and was doing meditation too about 1-2 hours a day. That was also key in my healing, meditation. It’s gotten to the point where I can easily avoid the “itch” and even if I satisfy it it’s so easy to not “loop” my behavior. By the way I lived with my parents the whole time because exactly like you said I had so many problems and the biggest was an eating disorder so I couldn’t work because I couldn’t eat, was too weak and I was so skinny. So it definitely made it extra hard but I was able to do it by doing my best to have boundaries and especially mental and emotional boundaries and a lot of fighting. I also had the benefit I had parents who were also interested in healing their inner child so a lot of times, not all, they could validate my feelings. Anyways thought I would share this. OCD can be hell. I know it was so bad for me that at my peak I’d wake up straight into looping behavior and end the night with it. Couldn’t do anything else with my time but suffer with it. Because even though I was always meditating, which is amazing and still highly recommend, I wasn’t being real with myself. It’s like I had a mask on. It was unto I really dived into my feelings and dealt with the past and present was when those behaviors gradually stopped popping up and before I knew it I had literally conditioned myself to whenever an OCD behavioral compulsion came up I would immediately ask myself how do I really feel. And that was enough to stop the compulsion of course I always answered the question whether I did the behavior or not but in general the more I healed the more it was enough to answer that question. And to this day my OCD mostly shows up in thought forms and it easier to solve that but I don’t have any behavioral problems and if I did I know I would have compassion and sit down and evaluate how I have been lying to myself about how I truly feel and go down that path whether it took me to my child hood or not because like I said we don’t always remember but your feelings do. Hope this helped someone! Lots of love ❤

When someone says OCD is biological or genetic, they are out of their mind or they have an agenda. OCD is a result of traumas. I can say with my own life experiences.

This guy is a literal genius. I just am amazed and impressed. Stumbling upon his videos is very refreshing. It reconfirms what I already thought to be true. Bandaids are not the cure for scars. Shortcuts are not the solution.

I also think there are trauma triggers that cause the OCD rituals because once the original trauma is forgotten from your mind, multiple trauma triggers messes with your thoughts and now that becomes your trauma. and you tend to avoid multiple triggers So treating the trauma trigger that becomes your new traumas is in my opinion is the way to heal the OCD. All you need to do is write in a safe way of all the things you avoid and makes you do rituals. Start from small triggers to the biggest. Do it in a safe way that won't trigger you either do it with someone next to you by using words that won't trigger you. After that go and do trauma healing therapies with a physiologist targeting one by one.

This along with some personal breakthroughs has made me realize that compulsions and obsessions truly are metaphors. The things that I fear, I don’t really fear. I fear a lack of safety that comes from nothing to obsess over. I feel unsafe. I feel like if my obsession happens then I will lose everything. It will impact more than it realistically does. Metaphors. This realization has helped me hugely, and I feel like I can effectively address this now. Thank you for your kindness and your help.

Thank you,Daniel. You have been so helpful to me. It's wonderful to hear a calm explanation where I don't feel like I am being baffled with bullshit intentionally.

Some time compulsions are connected. Checking doors, became a way, making myself secure. People came into our house, cult dragged us out. There are links with your inner self

Thank you for this. I haven't heard this explanation before but it really seems to resonate with me.

Thanks for this video Daniel

Thank you Daniel! Very very helpful!

Do you know about Kai the hitchiker his message was Before I say anything else, I wanna say, no matter what you've done, you deserve respect. Even if you make mistakes, you're lovable, and it doesn't matter your looks, skills, or age, size, or anything, you're worthwhile.

Very interesting perspective...thanks for the video

Thanks for this, Daniel. I couldn't agree more

Daniel, I found out recently that some people have no inner monologue. I had heard of aphantasia, the inability to see pictures in your mind, but this -- being unable to think in words...I can't imagine how anyone can have a relationship with themselves without talking in their head. Have you ever had patients who said they can't talk to themselves in words? Everything I've found on this just chalks it up to people thinking differently, but the first thing that popped into my mind was the possibility that these people are severely dissociated. Of course, I have no idea if that's true or not. Maybe it really is just people being diverse. Do you know anything about it? Thank you for making these videos! You are amazing.

Thank you so much for your work and words..❤

Thats exactly right and its crazy that people cant see this. Its like rationality means nothing anymore, or else its just inconvenient because it gets in the way of making money

Thanks for this, D. As with many (or most) of your videos, this branches out into so many issues, and I got a lot from it.

This is beautifully explained and makes so much sense. Thank you.

I missed your videos. Thank you, this is greatly informative. ❤️🙏

As always, keenly insightful and very much appreciated. Thank you, Daniel.

l am so glad to have found your channel Daniel.

Thank you for your work Daniel. I really appreciate you. Warmest from australia

You make it all make sense ❤❤❤ Thank you Daniel 👊🏻🎯☀️🤩

Daniel your a help to people across the Globe keep up the great work brotha and good luck on your own personal healing aswell

Thank u so much! This is a very helpful video! 🙌🏽

I made peace with an early childhood trauma and named what happened to me. Immediately after i got better with two of my weird compulsions. You are really good at this please never stop.

Just came across your channel recently and I just want to say thank you. You have helped me understand some different things in my life and it’s much appreciated. Keep up the good work my friend! 👍

Your videos are a goldmine, truly. Thank you for sharing all this stuff with us :) Wishing you all the best!

I was asking myself this question so it is a coincidence that you just released this video

I just wanna say that your videos are very good

Yeah Daniel ty for your work and content. Your approach and honesty is the best way I've heard these subjects discussed. Very good work. Thanks again 👍

Such a great insight

I am so glad your channel came into my feed. Your channel is true gem. I can relate so much to your traumas you have suffered.. Keep on going .. you are a true gift to childhood trauma survivors ❤

Daniel i have been binge watching your videos for the last few days. Every one of them resonates with me and makes me feel so grateful that there is someone else in the world with the same insights that i have. I am so happy you exist and so happy to have met you albeit not personally. I admire your courage for the difficult path you have chosen by expressing the truth on topics that most people shun and I wish you all the best in your life and hope you find someone like- minded to share it with. Much love 💕

Hey, Daniel, I would like to thank you for the videos you've been sharing with us. Ytb recently recommended one of your videos to me and I was glad when I found that you are still sending new ones. Wish you all the best! Thank you once again.

I bought your pdf for the twelve steps and thank you so much for creating this system to help direct my self healing. So grateful Daniel

So glad I found you can't believe your actually still active to I really feel like we are on the same wave length everything you talk about just resonates with me so much

This was amazing.. Thank you so much for sharing this video-It was confirmation that I needed to hear that what I am working to do-will help heal. Keep the videos coming you have no idea how much this helps-I know I am not the only one seeking guidance. May God Bless you.

The best description of OCD I have ever heard. Thank you Daniel ! 💞

This is so good about the disease to be cleaned! Great content Daniel, you are needed!. You rock ❤😊

Wow I didn't realize you gained so many subs over the past 1-2 years. That's amazing!

Daniel, I only discovered your channel recently but I already love it. I am applying to clinical psych programs soon and you are making me think A LOT harder about how I would want to practice or whether or not I even want to in the first place. Thanks!

I have never heard a more clear and direct answer for what has tormented me my whole life. Thank you, Daniel, for your wisdom and efforts in bringing light to the mysteries that ail us. I will try to do the work of unraveling my own, personal trauma and solve it once and for all. All the best.

Hi Daniel I'm new to the channel and love it! I'm 30y old male and have struggled from the age of 18 to build myself conditions to heal. And now I have them, in a physical and a financial manner. And slowly I am starting to open myself up and heal and that is how I found your channel. Thank you very much, you have helped me a lot to formulate some thoughts and feelings that I have started to recognize. Keep up the good work and thanks again. Cheers from Croatia

I’m so glad I found this channel. I’m young and very interested in psychology but don’t know anyone who’s as obsessed. I love your unconventional approach and story, it’s very relatable. Truly a gem on KZfaq

Thank you for your clarity and your focus on the distillation of the truth of what we go through as humans - energetic beings that have existed here on Earth long long before the invention of intellectual frameworks designed to confine and control our reality

Great to hear some insight into this. I'd love to hear more as it's so poorly understood. Long term sufferer here

Dr. Daniel please make a video on incels

I can feel the truth in his words and I’m grateful to hear him say what many already know 🙏🏽healthcare is a business.❤

Interesting! Many thanks for sharing.❤

Daniel I really hope you get this , you are such an unique amazing man your life stories I’ve lived everyday and I’m foster care since 5 til adulthood now 37 and healing everyday from my past trauma for the last three years it’s not easy but it’s providing so much clarity I’m new to your channel and man these last two days have really changed some thoughts you are a game changer keep being amazing and being you a true gift for us that hide due to not knowing what we have and are experiencing thanks for being a connection we can put together our thoughts …..

I've watched your old videos and had a little bit of confusion, because although you had seemed to know the soul very well, you still seemed like you clung onto your suffering, but as of now I think that you're finally beginning to let go of that pain, although there is still a little bit of that. I wish you well and to heal further, because you have many accurate criticisms of modern insanity of society.

Your spot on

Wow. What you are saying makes so much sense.

Thank you very much for this video. It's very interesting to hear your thoughts about OCD, and the video made me feel very acknowledged ❤ I have been thinking a lot about the nature and nurture part of OCD. I have an identical twin sister and we both have it (since we were around 6/7), from stories it seems very clear that my grandmother had OCD, my mom seems to have ocd-like tendencies, and my half-brother who is related to me via my mother's side of the family, seems to have it as well. It would be easy to attribute it completely to genetics but it might very well be the case that unresolved problems and difficulty dealing with and expressing emotions has left its marks on all of us. My grandmother had a difficult youth, marked by an alcoholic parent. She became an alcoholic herself and was abusive to my mother and her brother. My mom broke the cycle in many ways, which I am incredibly thankful for. She nevertheless was very hurt, and always had to hide her emotions when she was younger. Even though I have felt very loved, the manner of communicating and dealing with emotion wasn't ideal and even unhealthy at times. For me the OCD is very much tied to an elusive feeling of having control, and related to a fear of losing it, of not being able anymore to be in charge of my thoughts and actions. Losing my sense of self and losing traits that are important to me, like empathy, is one of my main obsessions and fears. I don't know if it's interesting, but for me the OCD pattern of thought was at the root of, and I always see it as the blueprint of, an eating disorder I had when I was 14. I felt like a lot of things were changing, as if I had to make choices that I wasn't ready to make and I wanted to freeze time in a way, to take control of it. I wanted myself to remain the same, to not change in ways I couldn't oversee. The compulsion to deal with this was to withhold myself from doing something. I started restricting my food intake. It luckily only lasted for about half a year and it's been about 11 years now.

Just found you. Thank you Daniel.

This is brilliant

I used to be extremely germophobic. I remember it taking over me all of the sudden during the summer of 2004, when I was 12/13 years old. When I was 18, I got a job as a dishwasher because I was desperate for money. The dishwasher would get clogged often and would upchuck food in my face, my hair, inside my ears, clothes, and my shoes. After a few weeks I got used to it and it didn't bother me. I always kept in my mind that as soon as I got home that I would take a shower. I had to train myself into being more patient and tolerant. Overtime I trained myself to able to reduce worrying about cleaning everything and only focused on the things that I cared about the most, which I can count in one hand. I was able to control it in a way where it does not hinder my life but it will always be a part of my life.

My daughter has OCD and I do too. I've been trying to undo my trauma to help her. Her counselor is amazing and supportive and tries to help her to overcome it.

In the field of Commercial Driver Training there is a saying: " 'Accidents' are caused by *people.* " Trauma is caused by people. In the former, you do it to yourself. But in the latter, others do unto you as they were done unto them. I'm happy being a 'clean freak.' I figure if that's the worst I got broken, I can deal with it - especially when *death* has been an option. And I have ways I can partition it so I don't drive myself crazy. In my life I can see I've endured four major events of trauma. And guess what they were *caused* by ? I've also had great grief and loss, emotional and economic, and eventually a years-long introspection into multiple spheres of understanding. As a biological introvert, who turned socialized-extrovert to function in the world, out of all of this I came full circle. I'm happy now to be the archetypal 'lone rider', and continue my inner journey in neo-stoic and DGAF philosophies. What they've done to me, and what their 'civilization' has done to me, continuing to be rationalized by *their problems* and their money and their pill solutions, are reason enough. I really like myself, in fact am even more intrigued by myself, every day. To maintain that wholeness, I stay TF away from people, and I don't give AF what they think. You can really see them for what they truly are out here on the road every day. Irredeemable - and I want no part of that. My needs are now simple enough that I don't want them - in any way, shape, or form. I tried their 'program', for much of my life, and now I am just ... *strong.* You seem like a really sweet person, who also went thru a lot. But you give 'humanity' way too much credit. Btw: People are basically filthy too.

YOU ARE GREAT . NEVER STOP SAYNG WHAT U THINK

You are brilliant!!!

You make so much sense

I really appreciate your videos Daniel. Could you do one on panic attacks? What's your opinion on this.

I wish you would come out of retirement and be my therapist. But I have definitely connected with your teachings, for which I am thankful.

Daniel’s channel is growing fast

I can't believe you there I thought you were from years ago and there is four days ago that's a good thing thank you for your support and living it's wonderful to know that when you can pick up the phone and there you go it's your problem is going on somebody has some answers for you

Boy, do I appreciate your concept that it’s all metaphorical. Based on real life, but manifesting in symbol form. My pattern making creative self is so happy for the chance to open up this line of inquiry about causes and solutions. No wonder we humans love and respond to stories and narrative. Cool.