Kimberley: Welcome back, Ethan Smith. I love you. Tell me how you are. First, tell me who you are. For those who haven’t heard of your brilliance, tell us who you are. Ethan: I love you. My name is Ethan Smith, and I’m a national advocate for the International OCD Foundation and just an all-around warrior for OCD, letting people know that there’s help and there’s hope. That’s what I’ve dedicated my life to doing. Kimberley: You have done a very good job. I’m very, very impressed. Ethan: I appreciate that. It’s a work in progress. Kimberley: Well, that’s the whole point of today, right? It is a work in progress. For those of you who don’t know, we have several episodes with Ethan. This is a part two, almost part three, episode, just catching up on where you’re at. The last time we spoke, you were sharing about the journey of self-compassion that you’re on and your recovery in many areas. Do you want to briefly catch us up on where you’re at and what it’s been like since we met last? Ethan: Yeah, for sure. We’ll do a quick recap, like the first three minutes of a TV show where they’re like, “So, you’re here, and what happened before?”  Kimberley: Previously on. Ethan: Yeah, previously, on real Ethans of Coweta County, which sounds super country and rural. The last time we spoke, I was actually really vulnerable. I don’t mean that as touting myself, but I said for the first time publicly about a diagnosis of bipolar. At that time, when we spoke, I had really hit a low—a new low that came from a very hypomanic episode, and it was not related to OCD. I found myself in a really icky spot. Part of the reason for coming or reaching that bottom was when I got better from OCD into recovery and maintenance, navigating life for the first time, really for the first time as an adult man in Los Angeles, which isn’t an easy city, navigating the industry, which isn’t the nicest place, and having been born with OCD and really that comprising the majority of my life. The next 10 years were really about me growing and learning how to live. But I don’t know that I knew that at the time. I really thought it was about, okay, now we’re going to succeed, and I’m going to make money, live all my dreams, meet my partner, and stuff’s going to happen because OCD is not in the way. That isn’t to say that that can’t happen, and that wasn’t necessary. I had some amazing life experiences. It wasn’t like I had a horrible nine years. There were some wonderful things. But one of the things that I learned coming to this diagnosis and this conclusion was how hard I was being on myself by not “achieving” all the goals and the dreams that I set out to do for myself. It was the first time in a long time, really in my entire life, that I saw myself as a failure and that I didn’t have a mental illness to blame for that failure. I looked at the past nine years, and I went, “Okay, I worked so hard to get here, and I didn’t do it. I worked so hard to get here in a personal relationship, and I didn’t get there. I worked so hard to get here financially, and I didn’t even come close." In the past, I could always say, “Oh, OCD anxiety.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t finish it. I dropped out. That was always in the way. It was the first time I went, “Oh wow, okay, this is on Ethan. This is on me. I must not be creative enough, smart enough, good enough, strong enough, or brave enough.” That line of thinking really sent me down a really dark rabbit hole into a really tough state of depression and hypomania and just engaging in unhealthy activities and things like that until I just came crashing down. When we connected, I think I had just moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta and was resetting in a way. At that time, it very much felt like I was taking a step back. I had left Los Angeles. It just wasn’t a healthy plac