Just an update on a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Hurricane Irma brought a lot of wet and windy weather to Michael’s university, but everyone seems to have fared pretty well. The students spent a few days indoors before the administration gave the all clear sign. No electricity was lost. Apparently, the students in Michael’s housing did a good amount of eating and baking. Michael caught up on a whole lot of sleep, too. The experience was a bit scary, yet a good learning experience for life for our young adult.
Month: September 2017
When OCD Seizes Religion
There is a lot written about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and religion. Heck, some of the earliest recognized forms of OCD were in religious circles: people who were constantly in confession, people who said prayers over and over until they got them just right. At conferences and workshops I’ve attended on OCD and religion, the guiding principal has been that one must respect a person’s religious values and practices, while helping them to separate out that part which is OCD. What, however, is to be done when being religious is all about OCD in the first place? Let me explain.
Blake became religious about six years ago. Our family certainly identifies with our religion. We celebrate holidays, we do attend some services, and the hubby and I enjoy learning and studying about our religion. However, there are very few who really know us who would describe us as a devoutly religious family. That’s why it was a surprise to many when our son became very religious.
The hubby and I believed Blake’s fast journey to religious observance was OCD driven, with fear being the motivating factor. Blake contended that was not true; he professed that he was doing this out of desire and wanting to learn more. Still, he repeated prayers, he stressed about the way he observed, and he was overly punitive to himself when he made a mistake in observance. We consulted with mental health professionals and religious authorities to help separate out what was OCD and what was true observance. I embarked on learning more about my own religion in order to keep up with what my son was doing. We were welcomed by those who were more religiously observant and who graciously accepted Blake into their midst. It was a fascinating journey.
Still, although Blake found some happiness in being religious, I often observed that it seemed like torture. Instead of his finding meaning in his observance, he spent many nights awake, crying in despair because he couldn’t believe enough – couldn’t answer whether the Almighty was actually there, or whether he had completely changed his life in vain. The hubby and I were concerned that Blake’s flight into religion might eventually lead him on a path in the opposite direction.
And then, the confession…
It wasn’t a confession in the sense that people with OCD often confess. I mean, Blake didn’t come to us to clear his conscience or to get reassurance. One tortured night a couple of months ago, as he sat with tears in his eyes, he told us the truth that was in his heart.
“I don’t actually believe,” he told us, and then bravely proceeded to tell his religious mentors, who accepted his comments with various degrees of receptivity. The best response came from the mentor who told him that religion was not supposed to cause him despair and pain, and who reiterated that he will support him no matter what he does.
This week, Blake shared his most insightful revelation yet.
“It’s always been about OCD,” he told us. “It’s what so much of my depression is about. I’ve only practiced because OCD made me afraid not to. I’ve realized over the last several days that I’d rather not go on living this way.”
Of course, I immediately became fearful that this meant Blake was suicidal. So, I asked, and he assured me he was not.
“I just think something is wrong when religion makes you want to contemplate suicide,” he told me. “I like to think there is a G-d and that’s not what religion is supposed to do. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do yet. I just know I can’t keep doing what I have been.”
So what does one do when their entire religious practice, or most of it, has been based on OCD saying, ‘You have to, or something bad might happen?’ How does one proceed? Does one give it all up? Does one change things in increments? Blake is terrified to make any changes at all, and it’s because of that old familiar OCD anxiety. He’s terrified to feel the discomfort that comes from defying one’s OCD – and he’s stuck in this in between place.
“I feel like I went searching for G-d. I knocked on the door to his house, but he wasn’t home. Now, I feel like giving up. He knows where I am and he can come find me,” Blake told us, thinking out loud.
“Maybe you went looking in the wrong places or under the wrong pretense,” I suggested. “I can imagine that G-d wouldn’t have wanted you coming out of fear only. Perhaps it’s time for you to approach things in a new way. Maybe it’s time for you to stand up to your OCD and your fear. Maybe your job is to do the things that make you feel scared and anxious.”
“But it’s too scary,” Blake said. “I’m so nervous.”
“You’ve stood up to OCD fears before, Blake. I know you will again when you are ready.”
So my son sits, for now, in his in between space. He recognizes his OCD, knows he must do something different, but is still too afraid to act. The hubby and I support wherever he must be in this process. I can only imagine the difficulty of being where he is, emotionally. And I can only hope that he finds the courage to move forward soon.
Waiting for the Storm
I woke up this morning still trying to absorb my realization from this past week’s therapy session that Blake’s recovery will likely take longer than I originally had hoped. Blake continues to see treatment as something he is being “forced” to do, and he just has not recognized that our therapist is there to help him take the steps he will need to take to be ready for college in a year. So, in my mind, I’ve been working to readjust my expectations, and to hunker down for the potential long hall.
Meanwhile, just as I woke up, I received the news that our oldest, Michael, will be doing some hunkering down of his own. His university reported that it will close on Monday due to severe weather. Students are preparing to “shelter in place” should the need arrive. Michael, a Resident Advisor (RA), took his residents to shop for supplies today, as he experienced his first ever tropical storm warning due to Hurricane Irma. As their wireless internet is already beginning to fail, he and his fellow classmates are anticipating losing their power, as many already have in this hurricane.
In a phone call this evening, I told my boy how proud I am of him and how much I love him. The hubby gave fatherly advice that included staying away from the creek that runs just below their living quarters. Now all we can do is wait.
Wishing my best to all who are affected by this hurricane, whether it be because you are directly experiencing its effects, or because you love someone who is.
– Angie
** Update on this post here.
For Us All
I don’t know what to say today, except that I felt the need to write. I feel a desire to cry, yet I’m not crying. Sometimes the only place to put my jumbled thoughts and emotions is into the written word.
The morning began with a text from our older son, Michael, who is in college across the country. His text bore a request for us to say prayers for his girlfriend’s parents. They are in the path of Hurricane Irma, in the mandatory evacuation area, yet they cannot leave. Her father’s work requires that he remain at the hospital. So, yes, they are in our prayers, as are so many others. I frankly can’t comprehend how you safely evacuate the Florida Keys or a good part of an entire county…
The next stop was for Blake’s annual checkup. His 18-year-old check up, complete with his signing paperwork, giving consent for my husband and I to obtain medical information, and the pediatrician singing down the hallway, “There’s another adult in the house!” Of course, that was followed by the pediatrician practically begging Blake to try allowing his psychiatrist to increase his medication.
“You’re probably on a sub-therapeutic dose.”
“It won’t help,” Blake replied – an answer I’ve heard over and over.
“You can’t say that unless you try it,” the pediatrician implored.
The pediatrician then excused me from the room, as he always does. When he emerged, he told me how much he enjoys Blake, what an interesting and intelligent kid he is.
“He really is,” I agreed. Then I asked, getting teary-eyed, “Can you please say a prayer for him?”
“We’re going to be saying a lot of prayers,” he answered. “I’ll put in a special one for Blake.”
Keeping us all in my own thoughts and prayers. – Angie
Eating Potato Chips Off the Therapist’s Floor
It’s a Thursday afternoon and I’m sitting cross-legged on our therapist’s office floor, carefully picking baked barbecue potato chip crumbs out of the tight weave of the carpet. I absentmindedly pop a larger piece into my mouth, savor the spiciness of it, and continue my task. My hubby is sitting on the ground close by, leaning against the wall and sipping iced tea. He chuckles quietly when the potato chip passes my lips.
This somewhat absurd scene began when the hubby showed up a few minutes late to our therapy session. He’d stopped for a bite to eat across the street. He still had his drink and his unopened potato chips in his hands.
“Do you mind if I eat my potato chips in your office?” he asked our therapist.
“Potato chips leave a lot of crumbs,” I say, automatically. Then I add, looking at our therapist, whose exposure antics are well known to me, “But maybe you wouldn’t mind that.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he says. “Potato chips can be very useful. May I borrow your bag?” he asks the hubby. “Sometimes I do this with them,” he says, and he empties the entire bag onto the office floor.
I burst out laughing and I glance at the hubby, wondering how he’s going to handle this. This is the man who admonishes me for some of the things I touch with my own patients who have contamination fears. He reaches for a large chip on the floor and pops it into his mouth. Blake says nothing, though I’m sure he places his face in his palms at one point.
Our therapist asks if we’ve ever sat on the floor at a party or gathering. Of course we have. Then he asks if we’ve ever gotten off the floor and gotten a snack and eaten it without washing out hands first. We both have. Blake is still silent. Our therapist explains that people without OCD contamination fears sit on floor and touch it and then go on to eat a snack with those same hands that touched the floor. He reasons that it’s not much different than eating potato chips off the floor. Then he shifts his attention and moves in to talk with Blake.
As Blake and the therapist talk, the hubby and I each bend over occasionally to pick up a chip and eat it. Soon, it becomes cumbersome and, being somewhat irrelevant to the conversation happening in the room, one at a time, we each move to sit on the floor. We take turns eating chips, as the pile grows smaller and smaller. What first seemed silly becomes a normal process to us, until I am left with tiny crumbs that I pick out of the carpet to throw away. I imagine to myself that this might be what it is like to participate in an exposure for OCD – feeling somewhat silly or hesitant at first, then feeling fairly normal. I also wonder if Blake has taken note that mom and dad were willing to be uncomfortable, even for a little bit. If he is, he isn’t showing it. For the time being, he has bigger issues to attend to.
OCD In The Family 