I really identify with learning about religious OCD and then feeling SHAME for not recognizing that this is clearly something I had been dealing with for many, many years . . . poor poor us. Of course we didn't recognize it, it was actively encouraged in my life thanks to religious institutions and leaders and Christian publishing benefitting from my mental illness.
Such a good post! I am not diagnosed with OCD, but I’ve always said I have some tendencies. But after reading this and remembering how I had my many stuffed animals lined up on the end of my bed in order, all were named and when I got a new one I would introduce the new one to each old one by name. And that’s just the stuffed animals.
I have always had the compulsion to do spiritual disciplines and the guilt for not, for forgetting, for not wanting too.
I really appreciate you saying you still go to church and participate. I don’t want to stop, but feel my faith changing. I love the community of my church for myself and my kids. But I no longer lead the kids work or do anything beyond attending and of course that makes me feel guilty.
Recently, Laura Jean Truman (also on Substack and IG) wrote this:
One interpretation of YHWH is the sound of breath. The idea that every time I breath I say God’s name.
We notice we’re breathing. When we stop noticing, our breath still carries us.
We notice God is here. When we stop noticing, Love is still with us.
That’s where I’m at: sometimes I notice and feel connected, then I forget and start to feel guilt, but I don’t have to feel guilt. We can’t notice our breathing all the time. That’s just not how our bodies have to work (thankfully!).
So good! Yes! I was shocked and relieved when I found out it was not God but autism and OCD. When I first learned about mental compulsions, it was eye-opening. I was often commended for my prayer life but now I know that much of it was compulsions. It’s so weird stopping myself from “praying” and redirecting but I know that that is what is healthy for me to do.
Thank you, Aly. The story about the cups with food coloring just made my heart sink. It’s so frustrating to remember the things that adults did and said to us as kids. My adult self wants to confront them and just lose it and “turn some tables” 🤬
That Hilary McBride quote is so good.
As I read this I’m actually thinking about finding a therapist for my 12 yo. They are very perfectionistic and have developed a really harsh inner critic since starting middle school. I’ve been so baffled because we have not raised them in the same fundamentalist world that I grew up in, and yet they talk about how “bad” they are! I can’t even imagine if they were hearing about sin & hell all the time the way I did! 💔
Absolutely and totally relate. Thank you, Aly. Slowly making my way back through 62 old journals and seeing aaaalllll of the mental mess that evangelical Christianity made in my life. Whew.
This is so good. The childhood stories feel so familiar to me, and the inclination toward all or nothing and constant sense of failure. Though I haven't had full OCD, that inclination often has me hyper alert judgement from or perfectionism in others and I often find myself verbally justifying the in-between of reality and my choice to accept "good enough". It's reassuring to hear that this is generally the pathway out of this kind of compulsive thought.
Such a good article! Thank you for sharing your experience, Aly (and I signed up for your newsletter right away!). Evangelicalism reallllly normalizes and praises OCD / moral OCD / scrupulosity. It's so alarming. I don't have full-out OCD but some of the thoughts you describe were definitely resonant. And the feelings you describe experiencing as a kindergartner are heartbreaking. I'm saving some of the resources for my work with my own clients who struggle with OCD!
Ha, this is so incredibly relatable but the whole time I was like "oh this sounds like the Enneagram 1 version of what I have the Enneagram 3 version of" and sure enough, in her bio, it says Enneagram 1. haha I almost feel like I don't even have the closure of having failed or made a mistake in the past tense, because for a 3, everything is juuuust out of reach. We have to keep trying harder. We have such potential! Just work for it! Just do more! You can still be good and perfect and shiny if only you burn yourself out a little farther, push harder, take on one more goal or task or position. It's exhausting. I didn't know about the mental rumination thing, but that really helps. I haven't formally been diagnosed with OCD specifically, but even as early as high school, it really resonated with me as someone with a variety pack of anxiety disorders so it's probably in there too or at least "traits."
I've talked about this before here, but her words about being "inconsistent" are very similar to my word of the year: complicated. As in, letting myself be. I don't have all my labels nailed down or fit all the diagnostic criteria for one specific thing to a T. I have a lot of overlapping issues, co-occurring diagnosis, things that may or may not be "clinical" according to the DSM, meds that I'm trying but not sure about long-term, labels that contradict or get, well, complicated to explain. It's not a great bio blurb, but it is the real, messy, frustrating, infuriating, brutal, wondrous nature of humanity.
Thank you for writing this beautiful essay, and for sharing resources. I feel like I walk on the edge of OCD and occasionally (temporarily) tumble over the edge. So I felt a strong resonance with the stories you shared, but I seemed to have had an internal voice that said “wait, this can’t be right,” which I was usually able to listen to.
Recently, though, I did get stuck in an eating disorder OCD loop for 20 months that was very awful. It was so scary to see the entirety of my life and my rich internal resources become tightly wound around a single worry (“how much do I need to eat to sleep through the night?”--even typing out the question evokes a hellish feeling, though it sounds like just a mundane question), and to be truly trapped. Thankfully I broke free and am in therapy now, but having more insight at my disposal on how to break out of an OCD loop will be helpful.
I also want to say your piece struck sadness in me that small me (with a different set of symptoms) and small you, and the rest of our small selves were not given the professional help we so desperately needed.
I really identify with learning about religious OCD and then feeling SHAME for not recognizing that this is clearly something I had been dealing with for many, many years . . . poor poor us. Of course we didn't recognize it, it was actively encouraged in my life thanks to religious institutions and leaders and Christian publishing benefitting from my mental illness.
Such a good post! I am not diagnosed with OCD, but I’ve always said I have some tendencies. But after reading this and remembering how I had my many stuffed animals lined up on the end of my bed in order, all were named and when I got a new one I would introduce the new one to each old one by name. And that’s just the stuffed animals.
I have always had the compulsion to do spiritual disciplines and the guilt for not, for forgetting, for not wanting too.
I really appreciate you saying you still go to church and participate. I don’t want to stop, but feel my faith changing. I love the community of my church for myself and my kids. But I no longer lead the kids work or do anything beyond attending and of course that makes me feel guilty.
Recently, Laura Jean Truman (also on Substack and IG) wrote this:
One interpretation of YHWH is the sound of breath. The idea that every time I breath I say God’s name.
We notice we’re breathing. When we stop noticing, our breath still carries us.
We notice God is here. When we stop noticing, Love is still with us.
That’s where I’m at: sometimes I notice and feel connected, then I forget and start to feel guilt, but I don’t have to feel guilt. We can’t notice our breathing all the time. That’s just not how our bodies have to work (thankfully!).
So good! Yes! I was shocked and relieved when I found out it was not God but autism and OCD. When I first learned about mental compulsions, it was eye-opening. I was often commended for my prayer life but now I know that much of it was compulsions. It’s so weird stopping myself from “praying” and redirecting but I know that that is what is healthy for me to do.
Thank you, Aly. The story about the cups with food coloring just made my heart sink. It’s so frustrating to remember the things that adults did and said to us as kids. My adult self wants to confront them and just lose it and “turn some tables” 🤬
That Hilary McBride quote is so good.
As I read this I’m actually thinking about finding a therapist for my 12 yo. They are very perfectionistic and have developed a really harsh inner critic since starting middle school. I’ve been so baffled because we have not raised them in the same fundamentalist world that I grew up in, and yet they talk about how “bad” they are! I can’t even imagine if they were hearing about sin & hell all the time the way I did! 💔
Absolutely and totally relate. Thank you, Aly. Slowly making my way back through 62 old journals and seeing aaaalllll of the mental mess that evangelical Christianity made in my life. Whew.
This is so good. Thank you to Aly, from a fellow person with OCD who is also an Enneagram One:)
Yep—been there. Grateful to Aly for talking about her experience.
This is so good. The childhood stories feel so familiar to me, and the inclination toward all or nothing and constant sense of failure. Though I haven't had full OCD, that inclination often has me hyper alert judgement from or perfectionism in others and I often find myself verbally justifying the in-between of reality and my choice to accept "good enough". It's reassuring to hear that this is generally the pathway out of this kind of compulsive thought.
Such a good article! Thank you for sharing your experience, Aly (and I signed up for your newsletter right away!). Evangelicalism reallllly normalizes and praises OCD / moral OCD / scrupulosity. It's so alarming. I don't have full-out OCD but some of the thoughts you describe were definitely resonant. And the feelings you describe experiencing as a kindergartner are heartbreaking. I'm saving some of the resources for my work with my own clients who struggle with OCD!
Fantastic post! I relate deeply to this experience, and I loved your rallying cry: "For now, I’m giving myself permission to be inconsistent."
Ha, this is so incredibly relatable but the whole time I was like "oh this sounds like the Enneagram 1 version of what I have the Enneagram 3 version of" and sure enough, in her bio, it says Enneagram 1. haha I almost feel like I don't even have the closure of having failed or made a mistake in the past tense, because for a 3, everything is juuuust out of reach. We have to keep trying harder. We have such potential! Just work for it! Just do more! You can still be good and perfect and shiny if only you burn yourself out a little farther, push harder, take on one more goal or task or position. It's exhausting. I didn't know about the mental rumination thing, but that really helps. I haven't formally been diagnosed with OCD specifically, but even as early as high school, it really resonated with me as someone with a variety pack of anxiety disorders so it's probably in there too or at least "traits."
I've talked about this before here, but her words about being "inconsistent" are very similar to my word of the year: complicated. As in, letting myself be. I don't have all my labels nailed down or fit all the diagnostic criteria for one specific thing to a T. I have a lot of overlapping issues, co-occurring diagnosis, things that may or may not be "clinical" according to the DSM, meds that I'm trying but not sure about long-term, labels that contradict or get, well, complicated to explain. It's not a great bio blurb, but it is the real, messy, frustrating, infuriating, brutal, wondrous nature of humanity.
Thank you for writing this beautiful essay, and for sharing resources. I feel like I walk on the edge of OCD and occasionally (temporarily) tumble over the edge. So I felt a strong resonance with the stories you shared, but I seemed to have had an internal voice that said “wait, this can’t be right,” which I was usually able to listen to.
Recently, though, I did get stuck in an eating disorder OCD loop for 20 months that was very awful. It was so scary to see the entirety of my life and my rich internal resources become tightly wound around a single worry (“how much do I need to eat to sleep through the night?”--even typing out the question evokes a hellish feeling, though it sounds like just a mundane question), and to be truly trapped. Thankfully I broke free and am in therapy now, but having more insight at my disposal on how to break out of an OCD loop will be helpful.
I also want to say your piece struck sadness in me that small me (with a different set of symptoms) and small you, and the rest of our small selves were not given the professional help we so desperately needed.