Danielle McDowell

In college, I minored in women's studies and went to grad school for social work. I felt like I was learning things that were important for society as a whole and for people as individuals. My desire to help people had me looking for where I could have the most impact. Initially, I worked at places where I was helping marginalized youth. From there, I went into private practice so I could work with people in my own community.

There is a huge disconnect in people being able to diagnose OCD and treat it appropriately. I feel like there's a huge need for proper treatment, and it feels really good to be able to fill that for people.

I have a lot of experience with autism and trauma. I love working with adolescents and their families. For five years, I worked with kids who are not able to be in a general education classroom because they were impacted by autism, trauma, or something else. I worked with those kids and helped them learn skills to transition back into a classroom comfortably.

ERP is really hard. But OCD is harder. ERP is by far the best treatment for OCD. It works because there are no answers to the questions OCD is asking. We have to learn how to sit with the unknown. Anxiety is all about this false illusion of control. We dispel the myth that people have control over much of anything. It's about learning how to ride the waves of the ocean instead of having them crash onto you.

Taboo thoughts are part of the human experience. Everybody who's alive will have a taboo thought. It's just that with OCD, it gets harder to live with them. I have lots of members who are struggling with the same things you are. You're not alone in this.