Articles by Chris Trondsen

Published

Join Us This Saturday (11/14/20) For OCD SoCal’s Event, “Support For Families: Part 2!” (Zoom Link Included)

We are excited to hold another virtual event to support family members and loved ones of an individual with OCD. The event will be taking place this Saturday, November 14th, from 11am to 1pm PST.  The start of the event will feature presentations from clinicians who specialize in the treatment of OCD and related disorders, and the remainder of the event will offer attendees to ask questions and receive support! 

The event, “Support For Families: Part 2,” will feature the following presentations:

You would not have to had attended part 1 of this event to follow along with these presentations. If you have any questions leading up to the event, please email us at: Info@OCDSoCal.org.

Below is the link you will click on to join the event this Saturday, including the meeting ID:

OCD Southern California is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: OCD SoCal Presents “Support For Families: Part 2!”
Time: Nov 14, 2020 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/97563049266?pwd=OXdqVHg1eDNuSnVHZDFyMGtGdDJhZz09

Meeting ID: 975 6304 9266
Passcode: 159356

If you downloaded Zoom, you will simply click on the link and join. We strongly encourage people to utilize the Zoom link and join us that way for the best overall experience. If you would like to be seen, as well as talk and share, remember to use a computer that has video and audio capabilities.

If you have any questions or are overwhelmed around the technology aspect of our event, you have a couple options! Tiffany Vicencio, LMFT, one of the event facilitators, is more than happy to walk you through it. You can email her: Tiffany@GatewayOCD.com. Also, she will be logged into the meeting at 10:30am, 30 minutes prior to the start time this Saturday, to troubleshoot. We hope this helps and we look forward to seeing you this upcoming Saturday at 11am!

If you prefer to call in, where you will be able to hear the meeting (and can share and ask questions using audio only), we are excited to have you join that way as well. Below are a series of numbers Zoom created for our meeting. All of them work and since there is no cost difference between local or non-local phone numbers, so we suggest just using the first phone number from the list.


One tap mobile
+16699006833,,97563049266#,,,,,,0#,,159356# US (San Jose)
+12532158782,,97563049266#,,,,,,0#,,159356# US (Tacoma)

Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington D.C)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 975 6304 9266
Passcode: 159356
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abBzNrSx8h

 We look forward to seeing you this Saturday, November 14th, at 11am!

Published

As OCD Awareness Week 2020 Concludes, We Leave You With A Message Regarding Advocacy.

A message from our Vice President, Chris Trondsen, M.S., AMFT, APCC

What is advocacy? It is defined as ‘public support for or recommendation of a particular cause or policy.’ Many individuals in the OCD community believe that to be an advocate, they have to publicly share their story about OCD on a large forum, including opening up about personal details.

However, OCD Awareness Week is designed to allow EVERYONE to become an advocate. The goal of OCD Awareness Week is to get the word out about what OCD really is. Not the ‘I like to organize my sock drawer by color’ OCD that makes it seem like a funny and quirky habit that the public may know. But instead, educating them on the REAL OCD: ‘constant and torturous taboo and intrusive thoughts that force individuals to engage in time-consuming and laborious physical and mental compulsions.’

So how do we get the general public to properly understand OCD? More than that, how do we ensure that doctors and other medical and mental health staff properly diagnose OCD? Or that insurance companies compensate for OCD treatment, laws protect those with mental disorders, and money is raised for OCD research? That answer is to get out the message of what OCD truly is and why it deserves more attention.

That is where you come in.

Although OCD Awareness Week, a week dedicated to raising awareness of obsessive-compulsive disorder, has concluded, we must continue to educate the public on this debilitating disorder. The public includes your family, friends, and acquaintances! It is okay if you are not comfortable with publicly sharing your story on a national level–you can still advocate in the spirit of OCD Awareness Week by sharing with a parent, friend, sibling, classmate, co-worker, or your romantic partner about OCD. Tell them what OCD really is and how much it affects a person with the disorder. Make sure that you feel comfortable or safe sharing with this person. You can share as little or as much as you want about your story. Remember, you are not required to open up and share more than you are ready to. This will educate more and more people about OCD, and this helps spread awareness. If you are not comfortable sharing your personal story, you can educate them on what OCD is using general facts and statements without opening up that you have it.

As this year’s OCD Awareness Week concludes, the spirit of advocacy and awareness continues, and we hope that you will keep that alive! We look forward to (hopefully) having our OCD Awareness Week 2021 event in-person and until then, we are here to support you and those in your life affected by the disorder. Email us with any questions: Info@OCDSoCal.org.

Take care!

Chris Trondsen, M.S., AMFT, APCC

Vice President, OCD Southern California, an official affiliate of the IOCDF

Published

NEW BLOG POST OFFERING HOPE FOR THOSE WITH BODY DYSMORPHIC DISORDER (BDD), AN OCD RELATED DISORDER!

OCD Southern California’s Vice President, Chris Trondsen, opens up about his journey to recovery with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Chris, who also has obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), wrote a recent blog post for the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) in an entry titled “From Struggle to Success: My BDD Journey from Childhood To Today.”

Go to: https://bdd.iocdf.org/blog/2020/10/09/from-struggle-to-success-my-bdd-journey-from-childhood-to-today/

In the blog post, Chris shares how BDD shaped and negatively impacted his life from age 8 until now. Chris has included pictures representing each stage of the BDD as well. The blog post is found on the IOCDF’s BDD website here: https://bdd.iocdf.org/blog/2020/10/09/from-struggle-to-success-my-bdd-journey-from-childhood-to-today/. Here are some excerpts from the blog post:

Make sure to read this recovery journey from BDD that will educate, inspire, and provide hope for those with BDD and their loved ones! Click the link to read the blog post: https://bdd.iocdf.org/blog/2020/10/09/from-struggle-to-success-my-bdd-journey-from-childhood-to-today/

Published

The PowerPoint Slides from “OCD SoCal Presents: Support For Families,” – OCD Southern California’s Event for OCD Awareness Week 2020 on October 10th!

Thank you so much for the incredible turnout for October 10th, 2020’s OCD Awareness Week kick-off event! We were excited to bring you the event—“OCD So Cal Presents: Support For Families,” in conjunction with our monthly Family and Loved One’s OCD Support Group.

Two of the presentations had PowerPoint slides, “Family Accommodation,” by Barbara Van Noppen, Ph.D., LCSW, and “Medications,” by Sean Sassano-Higgins, M.D. They are available below to either read or download; the download button is directly below the final slide in the PowerPoint. If you have any questions about the slides, please email us at: info@OCDSoCal.org.

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Download the "Family Accommodation" Slides

Download the "Pharmacotherapy of OCD" Slides [794.55 KB]