It's a monster.

 OCD

It's intense fear. You're always running from it, knowing it could catch you as soon as you stop.

I published a book this past week. It's the best book I've written so far. But it doesn't matter. No matter how perfect the grammar is, how compelling the story is, how inspiring the message is... it still isn't enough. My OCD lied to me. It said that I would feel better once I finished. (It said that with my previous books too.) It compelled me to work long, exhausting hours. (Even after the inspiration and flow wore off.) I recorded the message, wrote the story, felt inspired. It wasn't enough. OCD said I couldn't stop until it was finished. "When it's done, you will feel better," the monster lied.

It's never satisfied. I publish the book. It is received with loving and open arms by friends and family. It receives wonderful reviews, humbling praise. 

But my monster isn't satisfied. In fact, it keeps me so busy that I don't have a moment alone with God and my book to appreciate the accomplishment, the miracle that it is. 

Nope, because the OCD says "get back to work. This book is worthless unless you write another." So I write. I brainstorm. I create. And somewhere in the rush, the magic of creating something new is replaced with a frenzied need to find acceptance and peace. So I continue with my compulsions, writing new books and checking social media, hoping for outside approval. Because my inside won't give me the approval that I crave.

Do I feel guilty when I spend hours each day checking social media, checking Amazon, checking my publishing site, while my kids ask for my attention. 

Of course.

And my OCD jumps at the opportunity. "You won't be a good mom until...you spend more time, give them EVERYTHING they need, go outside more, attend more social events with them, clean the house (AGAIN)."

if I start to recognize the monster for what it is, accepting that I am a good mother, it has plenty of other fuel. 

"You won't be a good author until...

You won't make up for not graduating from college until...

You won't be a good friend until..."

It's endless. 

Obsessive compulsive disorder CAN. NOT. be satisfied.

And then I remember that I've been neglecting my ERP practice. The one therapy practice that has been proven to help with OCD.

I've been telling myself that I don't need it. After all, it's such a simple thing.

In reality, I'm terrified. My internal defense system will do anything to avoid ERP. 

It's painful. It's choosing to face my fears. It's choosing to expose my weakness, embrace the fear, and then sit with it as my heart beats fast and my head spins. My body and all my survival instincts scream "get me out of here!"

But it's the only way. 

No amount of talk therapy will cure my OCD. No amount of rumination or analyzing. In fact, those things will feed my monster. The monster will ALWAYS demand more. It cannot be satisfied. 

There are hard moments. There are hard weeks. There are hard months and years. 

This one has been a hard week. (The week or so after publishing always is... and it's sad when I stop long enough to think about it. Stopping that long is painful though, so it doesn't happen often.) I wish I could feel excited, accomplished, pleased. But excitement is dangerous. It has been for the last several years. Excitement quickly turns to anxiety. And anxiety quickly turns to OCD. I try to avoid things that excite me. (Avoidance... Oh dear, another compulsion.)

But there are happy moments. My OCD distracts me from them.

But I can be merciful to myself and chose to live in the moment. Choose to embrace the next happy moment. I can allow myself to mourn the losses in my life. The loss of time. The loss of moments and memories that OCD has consumed. 

Things will get better, but it's okay that it doesn't feel that way. 

Pure O Voices: Invisible Battles

"Pure O is a form of OCD marked by intrusive, unwanted, and uncontrollable thoughts (or obsessions). While someone experiencing Pure O may not engage in obvious behaviors related to their intrusive thoughts, such as counting, arranging, or hand-washing, the disorder is instead accompanied by hidden mental rituals."

https://www.verywellmind.com/pure-o-primarily-obsessional-ocd-4159144

The Struggles:

I like to talk about my surface level obsessions, like the time I obsessed about hedgehogs for about 5 days straight, day and night. Or worse, the time I couldn't stop obsessing about snakes for 3 weeks (now I have nightmares about snakes). Because even though it's vulnerable, it's a lot less vulnerable than other distressing parts of OCD.

 Sometimes I just feel like a worthless piece of baloney. 

I need to repent. I don't deserve friends. I'm not enough for God. 

I think everyone knows what it feels like to be physically sick. But being mentally sick is hard to put into words. 

It's those days that you feel like you don't deserve friends. Because you wake up from disturbing dreams and have disturbing thoughts during the day. OCD makes you feel like you just have to avoid all people. But avoiding people makes it worse. The thoughts tell me that I'm not good enough or clean enough to be with my friends. No matter how joyful and grateful you are in your marriage, SO OCD and ROCD tell you "Well, what if you cheat?" and so you want to avoid people to make sure that doesn't happen. You overanalyze all of your interactions with people, because your relationship is too important to let any hint of unfaithfulness enter your life. 

OCD targets the things that are most important to you and then corrupts them. And it's hard to brush those thoughts and feelings off. Even though you know they're baloney 

It's those days you reach for your scriptures (which used to be the greatest source of comfort in your life), but then cringe inside before you even touch them, and feel "I'm not ready today." 

Religious OCD makes you feel so weak. Like your attempts to connect with God are so insignificant. And then the feelings of inadequacy and guilt become associated with living your faith, and it gets harder to enjoy the things you once enjoyed about worship. 

Religious OCD is cringing inside when someone talks about a conference talk/spiritual message they read (Why am I cringing?? I love conference talks!) because you feel guilty for not having read the same talk. 

Religious OCD is walking to your Sunday school class, standing in the doorway, then walking away because the guilty feelings are already starting to creep up inside you and twist your stomach into a knot. 

Religious OCD is hearing people say, "I'm so excited for the temples (one of our most special places of worship) to open up again (after COVID-19 had them closed)" and feeling terrible for not having felt the same way. Hearing "Hopefully the temples will be opening soon." and feeling guilt wash over me that I'll never be able to go to the temple enough. (I used to go to the temple every single week just because I loved it so much! But now thinking about going inside causes anxiety.) 

Religious OCD is preferring to sit to pray instead of kneel to pray. Because every time my knees hit the ground, a kid asks for help. And then feeling guilty for not kneeling. 

The Lessons:

Struggling with HOCD and ROCD has taught me that I can talk to my husband about anything, and he will love me unconditionally. And as soon as I'm able to get the fears out in the open with him, a sense of safety and peace wrap around me, and I know that things will be okay. I feel closer to him, safer with him, and am increasingly more grateful for my marriage and my sweet husband. 

Struggling with HOCD has taught me that I need friends. 

"Wherefore by their ^afruits ye shall know them." Matthew 7:20, the Bible 

Instead of ruminating about things (like thinking I need to avoid people), I can move forward with faith and experience things. Like being with friends. Then I feel the goodness of being there with them, and I am reassured that everything is okay.

Struggling with Religious OCD (Scrupulosity) has taught me so much! Since understanding and learning about Religious OCD, I have found that I am able to enjoy my faith once again. 

I am learning to extend mercy to myself. 

Somedays I know that I'm not ready to read the scriptures, but the Lord tells me in my heart "That's okay, Daughter. Maybe today you can just think of Me." (In our church, there is a lot of emphasis on studying scripture. It is an important daily ritual for us.) Or somedays I'm feeling up for a little more, and He tells me, "Maybe today you can just hold the scriptures in your hands while you think of your favorite verse." And when I do those little, tiny, seemingly-insignifacnt things, I feel an outpouring of His love. And I am blown away by His mercy, grace, and GOODNESS. I stand amazed that He loves me and blesses me, even when I am so weak and incapable. He makes me strong. He fills me with joy and gratitude, meaning and purpose. 

My Lord redeems me from all things difficult, whether my fault or not. 

Religious OCD has taught me to come to know the Lord on a deeper level. To trust Him on a deeper level. To let Him prevail in my life more fully.

The Lord loves broken things. 

Because the cracks give space for His light to fill us. 

And being filled by Him feels better than being filled by anything else. 

I'm so grateful for the chance to learn about Him. To experience Him in a way that is deeply personal and significant. 

I think it is beautiful that every single one of us has a completely unique life and personality. And that He desires to be our personal Teacher. He teaches us in ways that no one else can. He can make every unfair thing into something that will bless our lives. I can't say enough about Him. 

* I like to share my experiences because there are many people who are deeply affected and deeply suffering because their OCD struggles are so intense and too difficult to share. My heart aches for those who struggle more than I do. My struggles are hard, but I can't begin to imagine the depth of pain and loneliness that some OCD strugglers experience. I hope to bring awareness to their situations (as well as to everyone who struggles in anyway). 

How OCD and Anxiety Feel (For Me)

 I feel like I'm being hunted. My heart races. My chest feels tight. My mind spirals. But where do I run? There's no where to go when the monster is inside of your head. 

OCD feels like a monster in my head. But the weird thing is that the monster doesn't look bad. It looks good. The monster is wearing a pristine, ironed outfit—somewhat old-fashioned and traditional in style, but in a way that feels "right." The monster's whole appearance has a certain rightness that I will never achieve. The monster's hair is tightly pulled back in a bun—no stray hairs, no cowlicks, nothing out of place. 

The monster looks friendly. It looks righteous. It looks good. It looks like the person I'll never be. Sometimes the monster feels good too. Maybe because it's always there. It's reliable. It's consistent.

But even though the monster looks good, when I stop to think about it, in brief moments I realize that the monster doesn't treat me well. Those moments don't last long though. In an instant I forget the criticism, the belittling, the constant nagging... And I convince myself the monster is good and worth paying attention to. Why? I don't know. Probably because the monster embodies all of the things I'm supposed to be but never will be.

OCD feels like I'm never enough. It's so real. So convincing. And so...normal. I'm not sure what my mind would feel like without it there. Is it not normal to have a voice inside your head that constantly belittles you, tells you you aren't enough, convinces you you should be doing more? More of what I'm not sure... Maybe just more of whatever is unachievable and out of reach. 

The consequence of not listening to the monster? It's bad. BAD. Whatever will happen if I don't listen to the monster—although I can't quite put into words what that thing is that is sure to happen—I FEAR it. I fear what will happen if I don't listen to the monster. The monster almost always tells me what to do. 

The monster tells me how to be a better mom. Then it tells me that my efforts were not enough. And I should try something totally different. Because maybe I can still redeem my pathetic attempts. First I'm supposed to be a better housekeeper. When that doesn't work, I'm supposed to give up on housekeeping altogether and do something else that I might succeed at. (But who knows what that is! The monster isn't very good at explaining things. And when it tries to explain, its logic ends up as a blur between perfect sense and complete nonsense—I'm usually not sure which it really is.)

OCD is spending one day trying to be present, happy, and involved as a mother. Then spending the next day guilty brainwashing myself by pursuing some kind of bizarre obsession, hoping it will distract me from the pain of failure and inadequacy. 

OCD is feeling like you need to cry... but all the cry is stuck in a bottle, and you can't get the cork off the top to let it out. It's just stuck inside, bouncing around, turning into ferocious anxiety that might eat you if you do end up getting that cork off.

OCD and anxiety feel like desperately needing connection, but fearing anything that might actually make that connection possible. Like seeing people. Or talking to someone. 

OCD is intense fear of being present. And feeling completely incapable of being present. All while craving mindfulness like some kind of illegal sustenance. Mindfulness is the thing you need and the thing you can't have. It's the thing you fear and the deepest desire that feels like it will fill the emptiness. 

OCD tells me that if I don't do that one thing (what that thing is changes frequently), my life will be unfulfilling, and all the good things that I have done that aren't that one thing will be pointless. 

It feels like there are a lot of invisible monsters in today's world. Monsters that you as an individual might deal with everyday, that no-one else seems to see. But maybe by shining some light on our monster's ugly faces, we'll be able to make more sense of them, see them for what they are, and then walk past them without giving them what they want—our unhappiness. 

In contrast to those invisible monsters lurking in the shadows, I believe in angels. Angels that are fighting battles with us. Angels that shine light at those monsters and tell them to get lost. Angels that sit and listen when we need to talk. Angels that put their arms around us. Angels that say, "I'm brining you dinner."  Angels that are hard to recognize at first glance. Angels who are invisible, or who are visible, but look like an ordinary person—a cherished friend, a loving family member, a friendly neighbor. And angels who we can't see, but if we could see, we might recognize as an ancestor. 

In the times we feel alone, I know we are not alone. That doesn't mean it doesn't feel lonely, but it means there is hope. There is friendship. There is love, acceptance, and peace. If not in the moment, the good things will come eventually. It's okay to let hard moments be hard. We are here on the earth to experience the good and the bad. And without the bad, the good wouldn't be as gloriously sweet.