Conquer Your State of Anxiety with Inspirational insight"Her description of her escalating illness is irreverent, brutally honest, and compelling, her successes are inspiring." -Booklist Receive practical and insightful anxiety relief and comfort from someone with first hand experience struggling with a specific type of OCD. Discover what anxiety looks like. Kirstin Pagacz tells the riveting story of how she discovered her disorder. By high school, she was anorexic and a substance abuser-common "shadow syndromes" of OCD. By adulthood she was holding onto jobs and friends through sheer grit. Help came in the form of a miraculously well-timed public service announcement on NPR about OCD-at last, her illness had an identity. Learn what anxiety feels like. "It's like the meanest, wildest monkey running around my head, constantly looking for ways to bite me." That was how Kirsten Pagacz described her OCD to her therapist. After learning how to conquer her specific type of OCD, Pagacz wants to share her insight with you in hopes that you banish those intrusive thoughts, conquer your anxiety, and live a better life. Inside you'll gain insight into: The benefits of meditation and yoga Cognitive behavioral therapy Medication and exposure therapy If you learned from guides like Anxious for Nothing, The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, or The Anxiety and Worry Workbook, then you'll want to read Conquering Your State of Anxiety.

It s like the meanest, wildest monkey running around my head, constantly looking for ways to bite me. That was how Kirsten Pagacz described her OCD to her therapist on their first session when she was well into her 30s she d been following orders from this mean taskmaster for 20 years, without understanding why.

Initially the tapping and counting and cleaning and ordering brought her comfort and structure, two things lacking in her family life. But it never lasted; the loathsome self-talk only intensified, and the rituals she had to perform got more bizarre. By high school she was anorexic and a substance abuser common "shadow syndromes" of OCD. By adulthood, she could barely hide her problems and held on to jobs and friends through sheer grit. Help finally came in the form of a miraculously well-timed public service announcement on NPR about OCD at last her illness had an identity.

Leaving the OCD Circus reveals the story of Pagacz s traumatic childhood and the escalation of her disorder demonstrating how OCD works to misshape a life from a very young age and explains the various tools she used for healing including meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, exposure therapy, and medication. Pieces of her art scattered throughout the book add depth and humor to her stories.