Drinking Tea with Monsters: OCD, Mental Health, Pop Culture & Ghost Stories

The holiday season is beautiful, chaotic, and genuinely hard if you live with OCD. Let's build a toolkit. This week, Leela and Pri get real about what it's like to navigate OCD during the holidays. The triggers that spike, why this time of year can feel especially overwhelming, and the practical strategies that help you find peace amid the festive chaos. Plus: the holiday movie watchlist. From unl...

Magical thinking OCD: it's not cute witchy whimsy. Here's what it actually is. Magical thinking OCD involves illogical but overwhelming beliefs, the sense that your thoughts or actions can influence unrelated events, or that something terrible will happen if you don't perform a specific ritual. This week, Leela shares her experience with it, how it overlaps with other OCD subtypes, and what's help...

The OCD cycle: what it is, what triggers it, and, crucially, how to interrupt it. This week, Leela and Pri are joined by special guest April Grant, Resident Counselor at Authentic Connections Counseling and Founder of True North Therapy, specializing in ADHD and OCD. April walks them through the OCD cycle in fullL: the obsession, the anxiety, the compulsion, the temporary relief, and why the cycle...

The most exhausting OCD compulsions are the ones no one can see. Here's what they look like. This week, Leela and Pri explore the hidden side of OCD. The invisible mental compulsions that are just as powerful (and draining) as the ones you can observe. Ruminating, reviewing, reassurance-seeking, avoidance. The rituals that happen entirely inside your head, and why they're so hard to stop. Plus: di...

A Halloween special with folklorists, a rom-com obsession, and one guest's honest account of growing up with OCD. This week Leela and Pri welcome special guests Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman, folklorists and co-founders of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic. Brittany shares her lived experience of growing up with OCD, what triggered the onset, how she got help, and the t...

If someone you love has OCD, this episode is for you, and for them. This week, Pri shares her personal experience supporting Leela through OCD. What's actually helped? What should you never say? Why do you have to protect your own mental health as a supporter, too? And how do you help someone in a flare without accidentally making it worse? Plus: the Roy Kent spiral is real. Pri goes deep on Brett...

"You probably like your OCD though, right?" No. Let's fix that, and a few other myths while we're here. Think OCD is just being super neat? Think again. This week, Leela and Pri tackle the most common OCD misconceptions head-on: "I'm so OCD" "You probably like your OCD though, right?" "Why can't you just stop thinking about it?" They also walk through how to open up a conversation about OCD with y...

Living with OCD can feel isolating. Community changes that. Here's why it matters and how to find it. This week, Leela and Pri talk about the power of OCD community: why connection is essential to the healing journey, how the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) is building it through events like One Million Steps for OCD, and how you can get involved. Plus: Leela and Pri give their very necessary...

OCD compulsions: what they are, why they feel impossible to resist, and the tools that help reduce their grip. This week, Leela shares her experience with OCD compulsions, the rituals, the loops, the exhaustion, and the specific strategies that have helped her manage and reduce their intensity over time. Plus: it's fall reading season and Leela and Pri have the perfect witchy, magical list to get...

OCD flare-ups happen. Here's what triggers them, what makes them worse, and what you can actually do. This week, Leela and Pri dive deep into OCD flares, the sudden intensifications that feel like everything is getting worse at once. What sets them off? What accidentally fuels them? And what are some strategies to get through them without completely losing it? Plus: Leela is obsessed with the old...

Social media can be a resource for OCD, and a trap. Sometimes on the same day. This week, Leela and Pri take a close look at the plusses and pitfalls of social media when you live with OCD: from the mental health knowledge-sharing communities that genuinely help, to the triggers that sneak up on you, to the compulsive doomscroll that steals hours from your life. TikTok, we see you. But first: it's...

OCD doesn't have to be the defining part of your story. Here's proof, featuring some famous company. This week, Leela takes a hopeful look at OCD, sharing a calming exercise that has genuinely helped reduce anxiety in panic moments, and exploring the stories of celebrities who have thrived despite living with debilitating OCD themes. What triggered their symptoms? What helped? Plus: 90s heartthrob...

Therapy for OCD: the challenges, the breakthroughs, and why we're sticking with it. This week, Leela and Pri get real about their therapy journeys. The hard parts, the helpful parts, and the reason they've both kept going even when it's been difficult. What's worked, what hasn't, and what they wish they'd known at the start. But first: Pri is deep in  The Dish , a foodie podcast from the very...

Uncertainty is OCD's fuel. So how do you stop feeding it? This week, Leela unpacks uncertainty and discomfort, two of OCD's most powerful tools, and shares how she experiences and navigates them day to day. Enter: the Phoebe Buffay theory of OCD. But first: does Garth Brooks have a secret? Leela and Pri investigate the viral theory (and discover what comedian Tom Segura has to do with it). Plus: t...

OCD isn't one thing. There are themes and knowing yours changes everything. This week, Leela walks through the major OCD subtypes, from contamination and germs to harm and responsibility to false memory, sharing her own thematic experiences and what it actually feels like to live inside each one. Plus: Pri is obsessed with the upcoming Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan starrer  The Thursday Mur...

The healing journey with OCD is non-linear, and often harder than anyone tells you it will be. This week Leela and Pri dig into the OCD healing journey: why recovery doesn't follow a straight line, what to actually expect, and how to keep going when the path keeps changing. Plus: the millennial era reboot is fully upon us. The Princess Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, Joey and Pacey from Dawson's C...

Obsessions. Compulsions. Ruminations. Let's actually talk about what those words mean. This week, Leela and Pri break down OCD with help from mental health expert Omar Bazza. What exactly is OCD? How do obsessions work? What's a compulsion, and what's rumination? Leela shares her lived experience navigating all three. But first: the cosy, calming corner of TikTok and Instagram. The influencers mak...

What's it like to live with OCD for years before actually finding out it's OCD? Welcome to Drinking Tea with Monsters! In our very first episode, Leela shares her journey with anxious OCD, the early signs, what it feels like inside her brain, and the strategies that have helped her manage it. If you've ever wondered what OCD is really like beyond the stereotypes, this is the place to start. Plus:...

What if your anxiety support podcast also had ghost stories and pop culture? Welcome to Drinking Tea with Monsters. Each week, Leela and Pri unpack living with OCD and anxiety, the obsessions, the compulsions, the bits nobody talks about. But OCD is heavy, so they talk about some fun stuff too: every episode starts with something they're completely obsessed with, from pop culture to trends to what...