So. I have OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). Not the cultural idea of OCD where I line my clothes up in the closet according to color and size and such, the one that people who aren’t very organized sometimes wish they had more of, but the actual mental disorder that tries to fill my life with anxiety and pretty much super sucks.
My obsessions largely fall into what has been called “scrupulosity” (excessive religious concern). My compulsions are mainly mental — thoughts and counterthoughts and more thoughts trying to turn this crazy alarm off in my head, to achieve a settled intangible feeling or sense that I thought it “right,” or it “counted,” or such. I don’t deal with the handwashing/germ thing, at least not now, and I’m really thankful for that. Nor am I stuck in checking rituals (is the door locked, did the iron get left on, etc.) but I definitely relate to that one and have had some forays into it over the years. I do note and am mildly troubled by thoughts like stabbing people in the eye or smashing them in the face, but stay out of related compulsions. But I DO have ugly and troubling thoughts about people burst unbidden (who would bid them? yuck!) into my head and I am unable to dismiss them. They sometimes even come with an unction/appeal that seem to indicate I am an incredibly depraved and gross person and they beckon me to leap into deep pits of shame, but it turns out that even this is or at least can be a feature of OCD.
There’s a whole story behind this, but as I look back, I realize that I’ve had OCD for a long time and it explains a LOT about a LOT. It explains my academic pursuit of not just getting A’s but not missing any points (and whoo boy, I developed a full-fledged compulsive checking and counter-checking ritual related to the way I took tests. Somewhat effective, but so ill.) My agony over wondering if I should stay in a relationship with my then-girlfriend/now-wife Jeanette was a TOTAL OCD episode. There were lots of other agonies as well. But I didn’t realize what was going on, so it became very dark and confusing — why do the things that other people do in relation to God work for them, but they just DON’T for me? Why on a drive to Topeka do I intend to pray for a number of things and only end up praying for two of them, with a terrible sense at the end that I didn’t even do that? It jacked with my Bible reading — (most other reading too) — I read everything at least twice, and sometimes many times more than twice, seeking the sense that I read it “right.” It totally ravaged my personal prayer life. It complicated close relationships. And on and on.
I am deeply thankful that in November of 2018 God showed me (there’s a story here, and I may tell it sometime, but I’m tired and this post is way longer than I intended it to be, and it’s not crucial now …) that I had OCD in a way that I actually began to attend to it. Lots more I could say about that, especially about the therapist I saw (he actually wrote the book that God used to show me I had OCD) and how God used him (along with some other things) to pull me out of the pit I was in.
But all I want to say for THIS post — the whole reason I said I had OCD — is to say that quite a few of my poems have been about OCD, and pretty much EVERY poem is a neurologically therapeutic technique to help my brain work/function better — to integrate. I NEED to keep writing … it’s so good for me.
So here’s a poem I wrote as I was reflecting on OCD and also as a way to get unstuck as I thought about it. (I get stuck in thought about a lot of things. I am tempted to become very frustrated about this. But I actually genuinely see my OCD now as a gift ala Paul’s thorn in 2 Cor. 12. Perhaps more on that later. Enough writing. It’s becoming compulsive … sheesh!)
(The poem’s title and a line in it is a reference to a song by Blindside. Great band.)
