Category Archives: overcoming

Lunch with Faith: discussing OCD with children

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I had the privilege of visiting with Faith over lunch last week.  Faith is a nine-year-old third-grader, and she is the cutest nine-year-old in the world, all eyes and sweet, sweet smile.  Not kidding, you look at this little girl and think, Oh my gosh, a hug from this child could change the world.

Faith is the strongest, bravest nine-year-old I know.  She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and she is dealing AT NINE with obsessions that buckled me in my 20s.  My heart just breaks when I think about the daily battles she fights, and it makes me hate OCD even more than I already do (with the passion of a thousand and one suns) for the way it could dare to target such innocence and loveliness.

How do you talk about OCD with a third-grader?

That was the question that I grappled with in the week leading up to this lunch.  My OCD first appeared when I was seven, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to really discuss it until after my diagnosis, which didn’t come until after college.  I am such a huge advocate for cognitive-behavioral therapy, but I’m so ignorant as to whether this is even possible or appropriate for a child to tackle.  When it nearly snapped me in half at age 26, is it even reasonable to expect someone one-third of that age to try something like it?

What we ended up talking about was the narrative therapy that I practiced on myself and my OCD.  Narrative therapy reminds us that the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem.  I chose to separate myself from my OCD by imagining it as a black dot that followed me around … and I got the upper-hand by belittling it.  Most often, I would “dress” it in a pink tutu and make it twirl around.  My OCD hated this.

Perhaps this sounds crazy to you, but it was a good strategy for me … and hopefully for children too.  Faith was intrigued by the idea of the black dot, and I told her, “It’s okay to bully the black dot because it’s so mean and it’s a liar.  So you get to bully it back.”  (Please, Jesus, don’t let me be teaching her bad life lessons … can’t you just picture her telling a teacher, “I bullied the kindergartener because he was mean to me first, and this girl I met told me that was okay!”  Oh gosh.  Ha!)  But I think she understood that we were talking specifically about the disorder, the black dot.

And we sort of talked about CBT elements too.  I told her, “When the black dot tells you that you have to have your locker clean before you go to your next class, you can ignore it because it’s a liar.  And when you feel like you need to wash your hands again, just to be safe, you can ignore the black dot because it’s a liar and a bully.  Instead …”

“… I tell it to put on its tutu!” she said, giggling.

“Exactly!”

So … there is the element of response prevention.  Hopefully introduced in a way she can understand.

I hope it helps her.  I know it helped me, but I was also going through intense CBT at the time.  What I do know is that I hate OCD, which could dare to steal joy from this sweetest little girl, who should be enjoying third grade, best friends, recess, pencil collections (or was that just me in third grade? ha!), and Jesus, her Savior, whom she loves, and about whom her OCD whispers lies to her.

I remember being that young, remembering overthinking every thing, remember the obsessions and the intrusive thoughts and wondering why no one else my age thought about these same kinds of things.  I am so glad that Faith has a name for OCD at such a young age, but I am deeply saddened that she has to struggle.  My heart hurts for all obsessive-compulsives but today especially for the young ones, who are so confused, who feel so guilty, who are so scared.

I wish I could tear through the lies and fear for them, show them truth.  I am trying.

Does anyone know of tools for obsessive-compulsive children?  Is CBT an option?

sad girl3

OCD and writing

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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.

brave

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When I think of words to describe myself, brave is not one that comes quickly to mind.  In fact, I think I’m actually kind of a wimp.  A chicken.  I read books about crazy adventures because quite often I’m too scared to tackle them myself.

If I’d have gotten my letter for Hogwarts, I’d so desperately have wanted the Sorting Hat to put me into Gryffindor House.  But, let’s be honest, I’d have probably been in Ravenclaw.  Or Hufflepuff (gasp!).

hufflepuff

Movies scare me … sometimes even when they’re not supposed to be scary.  Change scares me.  Public speaking scares me (although not as much as it used to!).  I’m scared of needles, writing criticism, driving in the snow, and going to parties alone.

But last week I was emailing my friend Kyle about various opportunities in my life, and he wrote to me: “It will be a brave decision to stay, or a brave one to go, and for different reasons. You’re a brave person.”

Really?

But I thought about it more.  I am scared of change … but I am willing to take risks I feel called to take.  I am scared of public speaking … but I force myself to accept opportunities to share with crowds (and have really honed my skills!).  I’m scared of needles, but I get shots.  Of writing criticism, but I invite it, ask for feedback all the time.  Of going places alone, but I suck it up, paste on a smile, and meet new people.

Driving in the snow … yeah, okay, I avoid that and just stay in. 🙂

But even more than all of this, I lived for over fifteen years under the tyranny of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I stood up to it.  I tackled cognitive-behavioral therapy, which was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and came out with OCD under my foot instead of the other way around.

Know how I feel?

Brave.

brave

enabling OCD and telling the truth

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I have not written about this in the past because this is not an area that I have a good grasp on.  To me, there is a fine line between enabling an obsessive-compulsive and just being a helpful supporter of that person.  When I was going through cognitive-behavioral therapy, my therapist had me tell my roommate and friends that they were no longer able to reassure me about anything silly.  I was instructed to tell them that if they did this, it would interfere with my therapy and decrease its opportunity for success.

So, all those times when I would ask, “Do you think that is okay?  Is this sinful?  Do you think I’m going to hell?” … they were supposed to answer it with something like, “I’m not allowed to answer that question.”  Or “I don’t answer silly questions.”  Or “I’m not going to answer and enable your OCD.”

It’s a hard position for them to be in.  For the OC too!

As a Christian who believes the Bible when it says, “The truth will set you free,” I had (and still have) a hard time thinking that it is not helpful for a friend to tell someone the truth– shouldn’t that help set them free?

But then I think how I asked those questions for years and years, and all that stated truth piled up like a mountain but never moved me.  Why was it that listening to a LIE– an audio recording telling me repeatedly that I was going to hell– is what ultimately unlocked the doors of my prison?

A student at the university where I worked asked me that earlier this fall– how listening to a lie could rescue me.  I didn’t have an answer for her then.  The more I thought about it afterward though, I realized that what had happened was that listening repeatedly to a lie started to make the lie SOUND like a lie– and that was the truth!  CBT helped me recognize truth, and so in that way, it was still truth that set me free.

Does that make sense?

I’m still processing all of this and would love insight on this!

~4

How/why does a good and all-powerful God allow bad things to happen?

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In light of the recent shooting at the Connecticut elementary school, many people are asking this question.  Years ago at a youth workers’ conference in Atlanta, I heard one of the most stirring messages of my life, delivered by Louie Giglio, and I have never forgotten what he had to say there.  In fact, his message has taken up residence inside my heart so permanently that it made its way into the novel I’m writing.  Here’s an excerpt:

He moved so that he was sitting beside me, both our backs against the tower wall.  “You know, West, I believe that God is in control of everything.”

“Even over the bad things?”

“Yes.”

“Death?  Disease?”

“Yes.”

“Catastrophe?”

“Yes.”

“Solipsism syndrome?”

The pause was brief.  “Yes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The cross,” he said simply, and when I didn’t answer, he took my hand in both of his and explained, “When Christ died, his followers looked at his bloody body on the cross and said, ‘That is the worst thing in the universe.’  The ugliest.  The most horrific.”

I nodded, prompting him to go on.

“After the resurrection, Christians say that same image was the most incredible, amazing thing in the universe,” he said.  “How is that possible?  How is it that one weekend separated the worst thing from being the best thing?”  He leaned his head back against the wall, looking up toward the tower roof.  “That is how I believe that God is in control of everything.”

One thought wrestled its way to the front of my mind, and I blurted out, “But why was it necessary?”

Silas frowned.  “Eden.  The fall of man,” he said.

I shook my head.  “Even that,” I said.  “If God is in control of everything—like you say—then why did humanity fall at all?  Why wouldn’t God just have life go on perfectly, like in the garden at the beginning?  He could have stopped Adam and Eve from ever screwing things up.”

“I think,” said Silas with a sincerity that almost frightened me, “that God favors redemption over perfection.”

“You mean … you mean, he prefers a rescue operation over having no need for one?” I asked.

“That,” said Silas, “is exactly what I mean.”

You can watch the sermon that so impacted my life below, and I hope that you will.  Forty-five minutes of your time is a small price to pay for such a life-changing message.  If you choose to watch, will you post your thoughts in the comments section below?  I’d love to start a healthy and friendly discussion.

OCD and suicidal thoughts

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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.

suicide

OCD and the Unpardonable Sin

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Scrupulosity: OCD centered around religious themes.

The story of my life.

The obsession: for many years, my head would repeat blasphemous things over and over, sometimes triggered by certain sounds and sometimes by non-specific phrases about hell, demons, souls, the devil.

The compulsion: I began to repeat one particular phrase– “Father God, I love You”– over and over in my head as a way to stem the other thoughts.

It became very difficult to handle everything that was going on: these blasphemous thoughts would crowd me– I mean, really crowd me (the image I have is of these thoughts bumping and grinding on me like dirty brutes at a dance club), and I’d be warding them off by repeating this repetitive prayer over and over (and over and over and over).  And on the outside, it didn’t look like anything.

Those who were closest to me (dear friends and roommates and family members) knew that I was going through hell, but they couldn’t see the battle that was taking place.  They only knew of it when I told them or on nights when I broke down sobbing in fear of eternal damnation.

It is hard to describe exactly what it feels like to feel as though you’re wearing a sentence of hell on your shoulders.  Here’s a shot:

Condemnation (or supposed condemnation) is like being in a tank of water with only inches of air at the top.  You have to lean your head back to put your lips to the air, and the whole while you must keep treading water.  There is no opportunity for distraction.  It consumes every moment of your life.

Anyone reading this understand me?

If so, please read this sermon.  I think it might help.  My heart aches for you, but there is hope.  Lovers of Jesus Christ don’t belong in hell.  Let’s talk.

Socrates, alive and well and emailing me

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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.
~1

Mental illness is a medical problem.

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One thing that frustrates me to no end is when people treat mental illness like moodiness, as if you can just snap out of it, instead of like the medical issue it is.  This mindset is so pervasive that it has infiltrated even those with mental disorders.  It broke my heart to sit across the table from an obsessive-compulsive who thought she should be able to just “pray away” her OCD.  Now, of course I think that prayer matters.  But I think also that you pray about cancer– and then undergo chemotherapy— and pray some more.

whatifwe

OCD stereotypes and Pure-O

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Just like any other group, obsessive-compulsives have their own stereotype, which is quite often perpetuated by media.  When most people hear “OCD,” they think of a neat-freak.  The truth of the matter is that, for some, washing and ordering are just symptoms of the problem.  Oh, and about 2/3rds of OCs are hoarders, so … yeah, that neat-freak stereotype falls a little flat.

monk

Personally, I identify as a pure obsessional (in our community we call it “pure-o”), which is actually a misnomer, because we pure-o’s still have compulsions.  My most common obsessions were about sin and hell, and then my primary compulsions were seeking reassurance* and internal repetitive prayer.**

* This usually centered around whether or not I was hellbound or whether or not something was “okay” and not sinful.  With some people, it would be an overt, “Do you think this was wrong?” or “Do you think I’m going to hell?” but with others, I would be more passive about it.  For example, at work, I would say something like, “I am terrible at this,” and then wait for someone to say, “No, Jackie, you’re not!  You’re great at your job!”  Both are forms of seeking reassurance, and it is a real compulsion.  I know because if I would try to keep myself from doing it, my heart would flood with terror.

** This was prompted by certain words and sounds– for me, usually curse words, words that sounded like curse words, and the sound of the letter f– and would include repeating the phrase “Father God, I love You; Father God, I love You” over and over in my head.  This was my way to combat the direction I knew my mind would go when I heard those sounds, which would be to curse at the Holy Spirit, what I believed to be unforgivable.

If you weren’t a close friend of mine, chances are you probably wouldn’t even notice my compulsions (although a roommate did notice what appeared to be a facial tic– when the repetitive prayer was cycling through my mind and someone was having a conversation with me, it would be so hard to keep both going that I would shake my head– just a little bit, like an Etch-a-Sketch– to “clear away” that repetitive prayer, et al, and focus back on what my friend was saying).  So there’s that.

And I am not a neat-freak.  Not by a long-shot.  Ask anyone who has ever lived with me, and they will tell you that I am a slob.  My friend Tracy would say I’m a “piggy”!

I know obsessive-compulsives who are washers, checkers, orderers, hoarders, but actually, most of those I talk to are pure-o.  You live with us, work with us, are friends with us– and you don’t even know it because we don’t fit the stereotype.  There is this joke that goes “I have CDO.  It’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the letters are in alphabetical order AS THEY SHOULD BE,” and I just find it so annoying because it seems to belittle OCD so much.  Even for those who are orderers and who would be upset by something like that.  People just don’t understand that there is a drive– a terror– so much fear and this feeling of disgust and wrongness if we don’t perform our compulsions.

It’s so much more than being organized or neat, even for those who are organized and neat.

What are some stereotypes you or others have of OCD?  I’d love to share the truth!

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the non-obsessive-compulsive people (those who are just straight-up clean or quirky) who then label themselves as “OCD” … grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Yeah, maybe if it stood for “obnoxious chump disorder.”  😉