“Please forgive me for anything I did wrong today. Please forgive me for what I did do that I wasn’t supposed to do and for what I didn’t do that I was supposed to do.”
I wish I were home. I wish I were alone in my bedroom, with the door closed. I’d be able to close my eyes or bury my face into my pile of stuffed animals, be alone with the whirl of prayers in my head.
“Please forgive me for not being happy where I am. Please forgive me for not focusing on you.”
I’m on the van that is carrying me home from school. I have to keep my eyes open so that the other riders won’t know that I’m praying. Everybody is so noisy. I can’t keep the rhythm of the prayer going.
“Please forgive me, Lord. Please forgive me for everything I’ve done wrong. Please forgive me for the mean thought I just had about the kids in the back of the van. Please bless them. Please bless them. Please forgive me for all my sins.”
Those were my prayers when I was a teenager, when I kept the journals that I wrote about in my last post.
I don’t pray like that anymore. I don’t feel like I’m physically straining to get the prayers right anymore.
I’m not all better. But I have begun to understand.
Late last night, or early this morning, as I got ready for bed, I knew I was too keyed up to fall asleep right away. My husband was still up, in another room. I sat in the dark on top of the bed and meditated.
When I meditate, I concentrate on the sounds around me. Starting out, I hear the larger sounds, the furnace running, perhaps, or the train passing through town.
But as I continue to listen, I hear the smaller sounds. The faint tick of something rolling around in the dryer in the basement, in the load I put in before bed. Or one of the cats munching a midnight snack.
Last night, as thoughts distracted me, I pictured myself apart from my thoughts. I pictured my hand holding a globe, with the thoughts swirling around in it, in pictures. I tried to be that Impartial Spectator that Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz writes about in “Brain Lock.”
My thoughts slowed down. I felt calmer. I felt like my mind was empty enough to go to sleep.
I put my head down on the pillow. But my mind wasn’t empty enough, after all.
I don’t remember now what I was thinking. I don’t even remember what I prayed, but I prayed one of the “spurt prayers,” something like, forgive me, God, or help her, God, or oh, Lord, be with him.
They’re not real prayers. They’re not directed at God. They’re compulsive chants. They make me anxious, restless. They’re meaningless, but necessary to quell . . . what?
I wanted to think. I wanted to answer the question. Why did I feel like I had to pray like this?
I’m beginning to understand that it’s because somehow I don’t believe that I will live a good life, in the care of the grace of God, that my loved ones will be safe and well, unless I think these meaningless chants.
It’s not for my salvation from an eternal hell. It’s to build some kind of shield against all that might hurt my family and me.
Somehow, I don’t believe God can take care of it all, that nature will run its course, that life will happen. Somehow, I believe I can control it all with my compulsive thoughts in the form of prayers.
I’ve been working on that shield for most of my life, and it hasn’t done anyone any good.
I feel like I had a brief moment of insight last night. Perhaps it came because of the stillness and quiet that I experienced during meditation.
It’s time for me to work on refocusing, on letting go of the imaginary shield. Do you have any ideas on how to do this? How do you deal with OCD when it’s all happening in your thoughts?
Sounds so familiar. I used to end all of my prayers with "Amen. And Amen again." I could not sleep or eat or do whatever until I had said that phrase in my head, and sometimes I got trapped in my head repeating it over and over and over until it felt right enough for me to let go.
ReplyDeleteHeather, Thank you for commenting. I like how you described getting "trapped in my head." That is such a good description. And you never knew when it was going to feel right.
ReplyDeleteI've tried to limit myself to asking for forgiveness once a day. This has helped, but to some extent just limits my compulsive forgiveness asking for one time, since I can't seem to just ask forgiveness once. It just doesn't feel right. I have to say it with the right earnestness, the right concentration, etc. I should work on this more. Your "prayers" from high school sound familiar, especially with the careful mention of sins of doing and sins of not doing and not "focusing" on God enough. Sounds so like my, "please forgive me for my sins and for not loving everybody as I should and for not seeking you as I should and please forgive me for my sins..." All for a "just right feeling." I guess I should expose myself to not getting that "right" feeling. Yuck. More work.
ReplyDeleteAh, Abigail, I think there will always be more work. But that is life with OCD. We'll get better at it.
DeleteI'm sorry you had problems like this too. It really ends up being a barrier to feeling close to God, doesn't it?
Hi Tina. I'm so sorry you struggle with this. What a burden to carry. I've not struggled with the praying aspect, but I have struggled with fear of sinning and offending God.
ReplyDeleteBecause I don't totally understand this type of obsession/compulsion - I hope you don't mind, but I have a question. Last night when you were praying, was it something you were consciously doing to lessen anxiety, or were the prayers just sort of automatic thoughts that were flooding your mind?
Sunny, Of course I don't mind questions! :-) It's a good question because I had to think about it. It was an automatic thought. I didn't consciously decide to pray. But I think I was unconsciously doing it to lessen anxiety. It happened to be a time when I recognized myself doing a compulsion that I am so used to doing. Perhaps it is an obsession and compulsion that is so deeply ingrained, it's hard to recognize that the "big" show of prayer trouble when I was younger. I am really going to have to be vigilent about it to work with it.
ReplyDeleteSunny, I meant to write that it could be so deeply ingrained that it's hard to recognize BECAUSE it's not such a "big" show of trouble that I used to have.
DeleteThanks for answering. The reason I asked is that if it was automatic then from what I understand about these types of intrusive thoughts is I think, the trick so to speak, is to simply let them come. Now I know that's much easier said than done, and I certainly don't mean to imply that it should be easy.
DeleteI actually was just speaking to my doc about intrusive thoughts today. I have had some minor trouble with intrusive thoughts and I've dealt with them by giving them no importance. Thankfully, for the most part, I've been able to recognize them as OCD thoughts, so I tell myself, it's just OCD, it means nothing about me personally, it's just a thought. If the thought comes, then it comes, but I don't allow myself to get upset about it. I try not to react emotionally to the thought, because from what I understand, if you attach an emotion to it, then it gives the thought importance in your mind, and then it simply reinforces it. I think people who struggle with intrusive thoughts tend to suffer from thought-action fusion (TAF), which is when you believe that by thinking it, you will do it, or you are it, or whatever it is you fear. I'm still not totally clear on TAF and how it manifests itself, but I'm trying to understand it more as I do struggle with it sometimes. I recently ordered Lee Baer's "Imp of the Mind" and I hope to start reading it soon, as it's supposed to be a very good book on intrusive thoughts.
Anyway, I don't know if this helps at all or if I'm just rambling - but just some thoughts I had on the subject. But you know what they say - when it comes to advice you only get what you pay for, and well, my advice was free - so I guess that might suggest the value of it!! ha ha
This does help, Sunny. I tend to react emotionally when I realize I'm having automatic thoughts like the compulsive prayers. Acknowledging and then letting it go--that is the thing to do, I think. Yes, MUCH easier said than done.
DeleteLet me know how the "Imp of the Mind" book is. It sounds like something I would write about myself . . :-)
I think letting go of patterns that form in the mind is one of the most difficult tasks of all.
ReplyDeleteYes, because it's all "in there" together.
DeleteFor years and years and years like all the way back to early childhood and even now I still catch myself repeating silently to myself:
ReplyDelete"God, Please Forgive me Everything Bad I ever did, said or thought."
Elizabeth, I used to do those blanket prayers, and still do sometimes. When I was a teenager, I didn't really believe they would do any good, but sometimes they would get me to that "right" feeling.
DeleteRight there with you...I get caught in a cycle of guilt that my prayers aren't "authentic" if they start spinning into meaningless chants like that. It's so hard to break out of these patterns!
ReplyDeleteIt sure is hard. I didn't know so many others had that problem! Thanks for commenting.
ReplyDeleteYour prayers as a teenager sound so familiar to me. I can't help but feel like everything I do is wrong. I feel guilty over my rituals, but also guilty if I think about not doing them. It's a vicious cycle, and you talk about it so beautifully here. I wanted to share a link that I've found really helpful when it comes to dealing with my OCD: http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-ocd if you're interested. Thank you for writing and being such an inspiration.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words, Joann. OCD can be a vicious cycle. Thank you for sharing the link too.
DeleteTina,
ReplyDeleteGosh, those sound like some of my prayers and still do at times. I like to think of prayers as outloud conversations with God because truly He already knows what's in my heart so far be it for me to find the perfect words which I use to try to do. In fact I wouldn't pray if they weren't perfect.
Hang in there and keep the 'faith'...it's important to do that!
Thanks, Tracy. I am hanging in there, a day at a time. My relationship with prayer is not a great one, but I'm hoping to improve that!
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