I love this quote.
For years and years, I tried to delete doubt from my life,
tried to eliminate uncertainty.
But it turns out that my favorite poems don’t rhyme.
Delicious Ambiguity.
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Category Archives: doubt
OCD and writing
Recently, my friend Tina at the Bringing Along OCD blog wrote about “reading OCD” — which she had in an earlier post described this way:
Imagine opening up a book to begin reading it. Chapter one. You read a paragraph. Then you reread it. Then you move to the second paragraph, but you realize that you may not have read the first paragraph well enough. So you go back and read paragraph one again. Then you read and reread paragraph two several times. You finally make it to the end of the page, and in turning the page, you think, “I’ve read page one adequately.”
But you can’t be sure. Did you understand everything you read? Will you remember it?So you reread page one, reading and rereading the paragraphs again. After an hour of being on page one, you get tired and decide to put down the book. You’ll get through the book someday. It’s only the third time you’ve tried to read chapter one.
Tina said, “This makes reading laborious and sometimes unbearable. I find myself avoiding reading.”
I really, really hate OCD. I hate the way it tries to steal whatever is most important to us.
For me, it tried to steal (and for a time DID steal) my writing.
At the time, I was working on my first novel, which was all about OCD, and my OCD kept reminding me of the Bible verse that says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
My head snagged on the verse. I was writing about OCD … and OCD was not lovely; that I knew for sure. OCD was not pure or commendable. It was ugly, tyrannical … not worth of praise. And yet, I was spending all this time writing about it, all this time thinking about it.
I started to obsess that my writing was sinful.
Writing, which had always been a lovely release for me, a respite … even that was being stolen from me by OCD. This is the scene I ended up writing about it (eventually):
“Stella,” I said, reaching out and touching her hand.
She looked at me. “What’s up?”
“I think it’s wrong to write my poems.”
She frowned. “What.” It was an accusation, not a question.
I tried to explain my logic. “So I write about feeling scared about hell, for example, okay? And then other people read about it, and I’m causing them to sin.”
“Neely, the Bible talks about hell.” The brown eyes of Stella Bay-Blake were flashing—and looking dangerously similar to Trapper’s.
“There is that,” I said, pausing to think it through. Maybe Christ’s brief mentions of hell didn’t warrant people’s actual dwelling on it, whereas a poem would. In that case, I’d still be out of line. “I don’t know.”
“Neely, there is rape in the Bible. And adultery. And murder.”
“But maybe not really in a way so that the reader dwells on those things, you know?”
“No,” she said. She sounded angry, and with her curls falling forward into her face, she looked violent, like a lion. “This is the one way that you can healthily process your stupid OCD.”
“Maybe I could try to dwell on lovely things. Write about lovely things.”
“Yeah,” she said sarcastically. “You can write ‘Walking on a Rainbow to the King: Reprise.’ Because what I want to read are a hundred pages about sunshine and puppies.”
“Not sunshine and puppies, not necessarily,” I said. “But things like … like faith and confidence.” Father God, I love You.
“You have OCD,” she reminded me, “and you are going to write convincing poems about confidence?” She had a point. “My gosh, I will really blow a nut if you quit writing. I’m the writer who doesn’t write!”
But we sat in silence at the tiny table, my closed journal a symbol of all my failure.
OCD. Is. A. Thief. It will steal whatever you love best. It will warp your mind into believing things that are so far from the truth. It is a liar. I hate the bondage it keeps so many people in. I am so glad to no longer listen to and believe all those lies.
OCD and suicidal thoughts
Recently Janet at the OCDtalk blog posted about her friend whose obsessive-compulsive son had just committed suicide. The post broke my heart. It reminded me of earlier this fall in Boston where I met Denis Asselin, the winner of the International OCD Foundation Hero Award. Denis’s son Nathaniel, who suffered from intense body dysmorphic disorder (on the OCD spectrum), took his own life in 2011. It was beautiful but devastating to listen to him talk about his beloved son. My heart is heavy as I think about these families, now missing an important member, and about the horrific pain that these young men were experiencing that made them see no other way out.
It’s a dark, heavy topic, but tragically important to discuss.
OCD is so often thought of as simply being neat or orderly– or sometimes even anal retentive about certain things. Media portrays obsessive-compulsive disorder as a quirky, nitpicky, and sometimes comical disorder, but let me level with you: OCD is debilitating, devastating, and torturous.
Can you imagine feeling nothing but sheer, unadulterated terror for days, sometimes weeks, on end?
I remember some of my darkest, hardest, most terrifying days. I lived in the Brighton Village Apartments with Becky and Tricia. During the day, I was given the small grace of suspending my obsessions– at least enough to make it through work (most days– not all), for which I am grateful. In the evenings, I would return to our apartment, where I would drown in an ocean of terror. My soul felt untethered, lost, condemned; I felt the hot, ugly breath of hell on my neck all evening. I felt unforgiven and completely cut off from the God I wanted so desperately. (It is making me cry right now as I write about those dark days.) And the torture of not knowing— heaven or hell? saved or condemned? found or eternally lost? heard or ignored?– was the worst kind of mental anguish.
Those apartment buildings were built like an X, with the pool and laundry facilities at the center where all four wings came together. I remember– and this is not an isolated event but something that happened every time I was in that third-floor laundry room– I would look over the balcony down to the first-floor pool area, usually empty, and I would think, If I threw myself off this ledge head-first, I would finally know: heaven or hell. I would have my answer, instead of the torture of not knowing.
But what if the answer was hell? I couldn’t hurry that on. What I wanted even more was annihilation— to cease to exist. I craved oblivion. That is true pain for you.
I realized that I was already in hell– just of a different stripe. I was living like a condemned person, in TERROR and heartache and loneliness, and in constant combat with the blasphemous thoughts that plagued my mind.
Most people wouldn’t have guessed it. I smiled a lot at work. I even managed to fool those closest to me who knew the anguish I was experiencing. But I would look over that balcony at the hard floor, and I would think about it. OCD is that devastating. I believe obsessive-compulsives (even those who take their own lives) are some of the strongest people you will ever meet. They fight a constant war. It is no wonder to me that many want to lay down their weapons and surrender.
And yet, here I am, eight years later, happy and healthy and secure in my faith, enjoying life and friendships and a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. I am not tormented by my own thoughts, and uncertainty isn’t anguish any longer. I want to gently take the faces of the anguished obsessive-compulsives into my hands, stare them directly in the eye, and tell them, There is hope. There is help. It doesn’t have to stay this way. I would hug them and cry with them and personally drive them to my cognitive-behavioral therapist. I was once where you are. Follow me to freedom.
If you are struggling today with intrusive thoughts, obsessions that plague you, compulsions that take over your life, THERE IS HOPE. I promise you. This is a disorder– just a disorder, albeit a powerful, ugly, life-thieving one. Follow me to freedom. There is Truth, and it is not what you are hearing from your OCD. Rescue is possible. Follow me to freedom. Email me. Joy, happiness, laughter, truth, peace, safety– these may seem like impossibilities, but they can be yours too.
Socrates, alive and well and emailing me
I think it was Socrates who said, “The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.”
I have a very dear friend who is experiencing this same truth right now, and since she is just fantastic and brilliant and compassionate and humble, I wanted to share some of her thoughts with you. One thing you should know about my friend is that about a year ago, she underwent a painful divorce, a devastating experience that drove her right into the arms of God.
The following is essentially a series of emails she sent to me, edited to keep her anonymous:
This morning I was thinking about my life and where I was 4 years ago. I thought I had so much figured out at that point. There would be times throughout the past 4 years where I’d look back and think about how things were better back then, how I had a relationship with God, I was happy and stable and figured out, and I would regret so many of the mistakes I made. But today, I realized that…I didn’t really know God back then, or at least not how I know him NOW. Even back when I was [in Bible college], when I was surrounded by Christians and learning about the Bible, I didn’t know God the way I know God now. That if my life had not totally blown up (oh heck, if I hadn’t totally blown up my life), I never could have ended up where I am now. And I don’t mean “here” like “in this job/house/etc,” but “here” as in…being forced to look at the world we live in, to think about the God I thought I knew, and to look to the Bible and ask myself, “Have I ever really understood God?” There were times I thought I did; many more times when I knew I wasn’t living for him but threw his name around anyway; times when I desperately wanted to find him so I could know that I hadn’t screwed up to the point of no return; times when I wanted a quick fix of good feelings before going on my own path. Recently, I’ve had to throw away everything I used to think about God and start fresh. I never could have done that if I was still married. I wouldn’t have dared look at what I thought was right and asked, “Am I sure?” When I stopped asking questions about God, he stopped answering. When I started asking questions, he started blessing me.Now I feel like I just get so much of him. Why did God ignore the “righteous” and look to the “sinners”? It’s not just that he is merciful and not just that the sinners needed him…it’s also that the sinners were the ones willing to ask the right questions. They were the ones to say, “Really, God? There’s room for me, too? Even though this is who I am?” So much of my life I lived like one of the Pharisees while thinking I was a lamb. HOW MUCH I’ve learned; HOW MUCH I’ve gained from realizing that I really never sat down and asked God about who he is, what he wants, what he thinks. I just listened to others, looked at some words in the Bible, and thought I knew it all. I knew nothing. Now, in doubting him and his plan, I’ve actually come to my greatest knowledge of who he really is.I can’t remember, but I think I told you a few weeks ago that I received the first EVER assurance of my salvation. How funny that it came at a time when I’m looking skeptically at the Bible and digging deeper to ask questions instead of accepting it at face value; funny that it came when I’m divorced instead of married; funny that it came when I’m more focused on being a strong, SINGLE career-woman instead of a wife and mother. My whole world has flipped upside down. I think it saved me….I think it (my sin, my knowledge of my sin, the loss of my marriage, the loss of my faith) actually saved my faith and my soul.I just can’t help but regret all the years I’ve wasted not really knowing God. That I sat at a [Christian college] and took in everything I was told about God, adopted beliefs because they were “God’s beliefs,” and never took advantage of the resources and community I had. That I was too afraid to say, “Yes, but what about…” and that any answers to tough questions were either dismissed with, “We just need to accept that’s who God is” or “we live in a fallen world, so that’s how it goes.”I know now that I’m way too radical for most mainstream Christians to take me seriously. I know that 4 years ago, I wouldn’t have taken me seriously. But now I can look back and know that when I thought I had all the answers, I really had none, and when I thought I knew God, he was a remote figure to me. Now I have REAL fath, REAL knowledge, REAL love, REAL security.You’ve said before that you think God allowed sin into the world because the Cross was just a better way. I read recently that someone suggested the fall occurred because all good stories need conflict to move the story forward. I think about these things and I can ask myself, “Why am I divorced?” and “How can I forgive myself?” and even, “How can GOD forgive me?!” But if the whole reason for all of this was for me to get to a place to really know God, and if I couldn’t have arrived there without all of this, then I am a very very lucky woman to have a God who loves me enough to put me through hell to get to heaven on the other side.
Wow. Just wow.
letting go of certainties
I thought this picture was particularly fascinating because you can replace “creativity” with “cognitive-behavioral therapy.” And those are two of the most important things in my life.
I always thought that certainty was the goal and that doubt was the adversary, but it was just another lie.
What do you think of this quote?
holidays are hard for some of us
Last year, I posted that Christmas isn’t fun for everyone, and today I am thinking again how that is true. And not only Christmas, but other holidays too.
Thanksgiving is just behind us, and to be honest, I am glad. Mine was fine, very lowkey– I spent it with my sister and brother, eating pizza and banana cream pie, watching the Dallas game and hushing my voice when the Cowboys fell behind the Redskins and my brother raged at the TV screen. It was fun, very chill, lazy, and we all met up at Mom and Dad’s house, even though the parents were in Missouri to see Grandma and the rest of Mom’s family.
But it’s these winter holidays that do me in. While everyone else is giddy with anticipation, I am anxious mostly for them to be OVER. Somehow there is an expectancy surrounding the actual holiday, something that stresses me out and makes me just want to return to normalcy.
I think, for me, it’s a combination of the cold weather (it snowed all afternoon in Minnesota on Thanksgiving), the claustrophobia of bundling up in jackets and scarves, real or imagined seasonal depression, and memories of high school, when the holidays were the hardest.
1997. Thanksgiving. It was the first real breakdown of my life. I can remember it like it was yesterday and not fifteen years ago. Was God real? How could anyone ever really know? And if I didn’t know, then wasn’t I hellbound? (Such a paradox, I know– if there was no God or heaven, then there would also be no hell.) I was in 10th grade, and OCD was swallowing me whole, and it would still be another seven years before it would even have a name.
I was in Missouri with the rest of the family, breaking away from the games and conversation and cooking upstairs to retreat to Grandma’s basement, lock myself in the bathroom, and sob. The ground had been taken from underneath my feet, and all I could do was weep– all while hiding it from the rest of the family, all those happy Christians upstairs, secure in their beliefs.
I can picture myself now, doubled over on the bathroom floor, lost and sad and scared and not understanding that God Himself could supercede my disbelief and make Himself known to me. It was a dark year that followed. I was scared of everything, especially of dying without knowing that God was real. I held my breath when I’d pass a car on the highway, knowing I was inches from my death– and maybe eternal death.
OCD, you thief. I hate you with such intensity.
For years after that, I could not return to Missouri without being triggered into a complete relapse which would take weeks to recover from. Once I went to college, I refused to return. I wonder what my mom’s side of the family thought– if they wondered if I was stuck-up or selfish for not making that 11-hour drive to see them. It was only once a year, for goodness sakes. They didn’t know any of the background, didn’t know the way that just crossing that state border into Missouri had become the instant switch for me to question my faith.
Christmas stumbled along after Thanksgiving, and it was just as hard. And so, these holidays over the years cemented themselves into difficult seasons that I would have to survive. And even though November and December are nothing like they were even ten years ago, those memories are strong.
I know there are a lot of people out there who will have such a hard time this season, those of you who have Christmas hang over you like a stormcloud, who will breath a sigh of relief when you return to “life as usual” on the day after New Years. I’m so sorry, and I totally understand. I hope that this year will be different for you– that God will supernaturally supercede your painful memories and depression and general feelings of wrongness, and that He will give you joy in your hearts instead of these.
As Christmas approaches, my prayer for you is this: Jesus Christ, You are the Word that became flesh, a holy incarnation that blows my mind every time I stop to consider it. Please overwhelm us with the sacred mystery of it all in ways that memories, depression, OCD, anxiety, and other mental illnesses can’t defeat. Jesus, be the mighty redeemer that You have been and continue to be and REDEEM this holiday season for those of us who need a rescue. Hold us in real ways that we can feel. Amen.
such a novice
Even though I have been writing since I was a kid …
Even though I have a degree in creative writing …
Even though I have written almost every day for the last four years …
I sometimes still feel as if I have no idea what I am doing. Once a month, I meet with a group of talented women writers who read my work and give me ideas on how to improve my work, and I leave these meetings doubting myself, wondering if I should go to grad school to learn more, if I should be reading other books than what I am, if I should throw in the towel.
I won’t. I love writing too much to do that. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t go home wondering if I am wasting everyone’s time with the scratches and jottings that I bring to the table every month.
My knowledge of the craft is still so limited. My stories lack essential ingredients that I’ve known about since grade school. My scenes go nowhere. My characters are hard to believe. I am thirty years old, and sometimes I feel as if I know nothing.
This is not the fault of the women in my writing group. This is a lack of confidence in myself and in my work.
And yet, when I consider it, I know that I have grown as a writer in the years since undergrad. I know that, draft after draft, I am improving. I have a fierce dedication, such that I would write even if I were guaranteed to not find success.
Any ideas or encouragement for this doubtful girl today? Please share.
the doubting disease
OCD is sometimes known as “the doubting disease.” I hate it. So, so much.
I am so grateful to have endured cognitive-behavioral therapy and no longer bow at that ugly throne.
hearing your story on someone else’s lips
The week after OCD Awareness Week, I am going to be a part of a breakout chapel service at the university where I work. (I am employed by Northwestern College, the most wonderful Christian college in the world … as an alumnus, I’m a little biased. Ha!) I am going to be interviewed by one of the campus therapists, and I am just so eager to tell my story.
I think one of the most helpful things for OCs is to hear their own story on someone else’s lips.
It makes us feel less alone.
I remember my first conversation with another obsessive-compulsive. I was sitting on a dock underneath a sky of summer stars, and as we talked, it was like shrugging off a giant sheath that had separated me from everyone else. I was not alone; this person had the same experiences.
And when I read Kissing Doorknobs by Terri Spencer Hesser, it was like reading my own biography. It stole power from OCD, just reading that, because it showed me how not creative the disorder is … sure, it has a variety of manifestations, but at their core, they are really very similar.
And that is what I am hoping will happen for someone in the audience on October 17th. For that person to say, That sounds just like me! I am not an anomoly.
eternal life
Price: “Eternal life is not a substance, it is a Person, and it is enjoyed by knowing the Person. It is knowing God and knowing Christ.”
I remember reading this in college and having something click inside of me. It’s not about Heaven. It’s about JESUS. Which is why my favorite verse is now John 17:3, which says, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
It reminds me that my eternal life has already begun, since I know Jesus now and will continue to know him forever.
For someone who has religious-themed OCD and scrupulosity, this is like a rock beneath my feet.
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 