Spread the light: Andrew Barr's journey with OCD

Dear community,

Our first episode of Spread the light with Dr Devika B is here!

💫Spread the light with Dr Devika B. First-person accounts of living with mental illness that dispel stigma and stereotypes and instead, spread hope and light — also a YouTube channel and podcast called Spread the light with Dr Devika B (wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple and Spotify)

Because stigma festers in the dark and scatters in the light

Our first episode features my friend, Andrew Barr, a mental health-focused venture capitalist, sharing incredible insights from his experiences with OCD.

Andrew Barr is a founding partner of GreyMatter, a mental health-focused venture capital firm. Previously, he advised a range of mental health startups and non-profits. Before his work in the mental field, he was a co-founder of Prefer, a Benchmark-backed startup and a venture capitalist at Institutional Venture Partners. He has lived experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Trigger warning: In this conversation, we talk about anxiety, obsessions, and compulsions.

Above, you’ll find the audio recording of the podcast episode and below, a transcript. The written version of the conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

If you’d prefer to watch this conversation, please click here.

If you or a loved one needs help for a mental health crisis, don’t hesitate to call or text 988 at anytime — or reach them online here. Find other resources here, search for a US treatment facility here, and find a US-based therapist here.

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DB: How did your mental health journey begin?

AB: When I was twelve, I started to become extremely anxious — it was overwhelming and seemed to be getting worse.  I was starting to behave strangely —I had many of the classic obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) compulsions, like avoiding the cracks on sidewalks, hand washing, and checking everything many times. But even worse, I was constantly being distracted by the anxious thoughts in my head, my schoolwork was suffering, and it was hard to be present.  

I knew something must be wrong and instinctively tried to hide it. 

Fortunately, my parents noticed relatively quickly and worked to figure out what was wrong.  I recall it taking a few months to find out that we should be talking to a psychologist, but luckily, they found a great therapist who diagnosed me with OCD and used a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) called exposure and response prevention therapy to treat it — which happened to work very well for me in the long run. 

But it wasn’t an instant cure, and it was really hard — and in many ways, the process of starting to challenge your thoughts makes you even more anxious.  I remember it taking months to start seeing major results; there were plenty of weeks that felt like backward progress, but ultimately, we were able to bring it fully under control in the first year.

Only now do I know how unusual it is to get treatment in months (not years) and to have that initial treatment modality work for you. That absolutely changed my life.

DB: What’s been the hardest part of your journey? Knowing what you know now, what would you want to tell yourself back then? 

AB: The beginning was so scary — because I didn’t know what was going on. It felt like I had two lives, an inner one of paralyzing anxiety with looping thoughts, worrying about all manner of terrible things that never actually happened — and an external world that was just floating by, that I was only half participating in. 

I think middle school would have been a hard enough time even without actively struggling with mental illness. The path to improvement wasn’t linear. There were setbacks and periods of stagnation, but once I had an idea of what was going on, it was far less terrifying.  

If there’s one thing I could back and tell myself, it’s being willing to share with people you trust where you’re at or what’s going on. The part that could have gone so differently is if my parents hadn’t noticed — if I had been able to keep this a secret for longer. Because the earlier you can get on top of it, the easier the process.

DB: How has stigma affected you?

AB: I historically felt a lot of shame around my journey with OCD. In middle school, it made me feel different and isolated from the other kids, that there was something ‘wrong’ with me.

In my adult life, I was afraid people would judge or think less of me because of it.  Before I started working in this field, I had only told a few people about it. One of my closest friends and I didn’t realize until years into our friendship that we both had struggled with OCD. To his credit, he took the leap and shared first. 

Stigma also prevented me from fully engaging with, processing, and accepting this part of my personal story, ultimately making it harder to see the powerful benefits that came from the journey.  I’ve come a long way today, but I’d be lying if I say I never feel self-conscious about sharing, but the practice of telling my story makes it easier each time — sort of its own form of exposure therapy.

DB: What are you most proud of in your life so far?

AB: I’m most proud of being able to overcome OCD and the resulting path this has unlocked for me in terms of a commitment to personal growth.

It was the hardest thing I’ve had to face. And through that, I’ve been able to build up more and more courage over time — being comfortable taking on risks and facing fears in order to live a full life.  As someone who trends toward the anxious side of the spectrum, I’m very proud of this.  This growth has enabled me to be much closer to the person I want to be.

DB: How do you see your mental health journey as having molded your unique abilities or superpowers?

AB: I think my mental health journey has unquestionably changed who I am for the better.  The process has given me a level of courage, resilience, and an unusually high level of comfort with discomfort.  

In a more subtle way, the journey has given me a greater awareness of the inner lives of others. It made me more tuned in to what people are going through, or at least more compassionate with it. It gave me a visceral understanding that we all have a private world inside of us, and that our internal struggles can be really intense.  It taught me to give others the benefit of the doubt, since you can’t know what’s going on for them.

Had I not been forced to go on this journey, I wouldn’t have these traits that serve as the engine behind many of the best parts of my life, both personally with the relationships I’ve been able to build and professionally with the ability to take risks in charting a meaningful career.

DB: What are your top three hacks for staying well?

AB: Diet and exercise aren’t controversial tools for staying well, but I’ve found that intense exercise is very helpful for me personally. The kind of workout that gets you out of your head, where you can’t focus on anything but the present moment, seems to improve my mental state for days to come.

Second, it might sound trite, but mindfulness (even just a couple of moments of awareness in breathing) has been a complete game-changer for me. Traditional meditation might not be the right thing for everyone, but there are dozens of other effective mindfulness techniques to get space from your thoughts. 

Third, community and connection with others are critical for my well-being. In my experience, anxiety can take many forms and crop up in many places. Finding the time to look inward and realize what’s going on makes it much easier to deal with. Having friends I can be open and vulnerable with provides a lens for reflection and keeping tabs on myself. 

DB: What are your hopes for our collective future? 

AB: I hope for a world where access to high-quality mental health treatment is the norm, not the exception, ultimately avoiding the ten years (on average) of suffering between onset and diagnosis.  

In the longer term, I hope we can proactively and preventatively manage mental health so that we dramatically reduce the rate of mental illness in the first place. In doing so, we can give everyone the tools to engage with their own mind, and ultimately help not only avoid illness, but help people live more full and rich lives.  

I know it will take a combination of social change, policy change, and substantial innovation across clinical and commercial approaches to achieve this, but I’m optimistic that we’re at a unique moment to drive progress.

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