CNN interview: OCD and religion

Nearly two weeks ago, Elizabeth Landau, a writer and producer for CNN's website, contacted me about an article she was writing about scrupulosity. She had found me via this blog.

She interviewed me by phone about my experiences with religious scrupulosity. I talked to her about the ways my fears of sin affected me, especially as a teenager and young adult.

Landau’s article was published today. You can read it HERE. It’s informative and paints a good picture about how this form of OCD can affect people of any religion or no religion. And it gives hope for those who suffer with this form of OCD, including a section on the use of exposure therapy.

If you do read the article, I ask that you share it on other social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or send links to friends who might benefit. Or you can share this blog post in the same way.

It is my hope that this article will help spread the word and help people feel less alone.

Some background

I went to an evangelical Christian school for high school, and the calls to be “saved” were traumatic for me because I could never be sure if I had said the prayer “right,” or if my heart was “right” with God.

I believed that I had to say all my prayers perfectly or harm would come to my family and it would be my fault. I prayed silently, incessantly, repeating myself over and over. If I made a mistake in my ritual, I had to start over.

I turned away from any hint of God or religion for years because of my experiences with scrupulosity.

I’m in a much better place now, living better with the uncertainty of faith, believing that there are many paths to God for people to choose from, or not.

You can read more about my religious OCD on this blog HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Praying for Boston

All evening I’ve been trying to piece together what to write. Even now, as I sit and type, I’m not sure what to write next.

I’m sad, along with many, many people around the world, about the tragedy at the Boston Marathon.

I cannot add any words to the conversation about why people do these kinds of terrible things.

I can pray, and have prayed, but I’m not the best at prayer. That’s when words seem to be in the way, not my friend.

So I have turned to the prayer that my minister shared after the Newtown tragedy in December:

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Your prayers may be different. But I believe that your prayers, whether they be formal prayers or thoughts of concern or sad feelings, will join with all the other prayers lifted up, and they will all be for good.

Praying for Newtown

I’m sure that the thoughts and prayers of all of us have been with those involved in the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday.

I can’t truly imagine the depth of the pain that the families of the victims and the survivors are feeling.

I feel like all I can do is pray, and praying is not always easy, especially when my thoughts and feelings seem numb from the shock of such news.

On Friday, as news about the shootings came out, my pastor posted the following on Facebook:

In the face of the violence we have seen today in CT, the most appropriate prayer seems to me to be a simple one: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

That’s what I have been praying: Lord, have mercy.

OCD and choosing prayer and faith

I’ve written in this space before about my prayer life: how obsessive-compulsive disorder has led me to try to build an imaginary shield of protection around my loved ones and how I have struggled for years to get constant prayers and chants for forgiveness and help out of my head.

If I’m not very mindful and careful, my prayers morph into repetitions of words said until I feel “right.”

Whether they are prayers for others or prayers for myself, prayers said aloud, prayers said silently, prayers written down—they can all end up being a mess of words.

I pray, but I’m not communicating with God. I’m communicating with myself.

For all the pain I’ve had over religion and prayer, I still want to nurture the spiritual in my life. I want to be part of an organized religion. So I am making some choices.

Meditation is working better than prayer for me, and I will continue to practice.

And I’m making other choices.

Jonathan Grayson, Ph.D.

In his book Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Personalized Recovery Program for Living with Uncertainty, Jonathan Grayson, Ph.D. wrote something that made me consider the whole way I approach prayer and faith: “Many of you have focused so much on following rules that you have forgotten to think about the nature of your faith.” (p. 222).

Grayson said people with religious obsessions believe in two Gods, “a loving and forgiving God who cares about their souls and well-being” and “a stern and exacting God who will damn them for the slightest misstep” (p. 222).

We have the choice of which God to believe in, Grayson said. Religion is full of guesswork, and people decide what to believe as a matter of blind faith: “Most people like to think of faith as a feeling that gives strength, but it can also simply be a decision you choose to follow” (p. 224).

My minister

That reminded me of something a former minister told me when several years ago I discussed with him my lack of faith and my trouble with praying. He told me not to focus on how I felt but on what I believed and to do things that could help me be closer to God, like having regular devotions.

There it is again

So I’m back to the same thing I’ve faced before with OCD and depression: I place too much importance on feelings and not enough on action.

My choices

I still have many reservations about prayer. But in addition to meditating, I am choosing to pray, not as I have in the past, not in the OCD way, but in a way that I am able to. I am choosing to pray to the God whom I choose to believe in: a loving and forgiving God.

I will never know in this life whether or not I am doing it “right.” I cannot be certain that I’m praying in the way I’m supposed to, if there is such a way. But I will take action to try prayer to better my life.

For the time being, that will probably be saying prayers that have already been written, like the St. Francis of Assisi prayer.

How do you nurture your spirituality? What choices have you made about spiritual practices? Are there any prayers that you particularly like?

Good Friday thoughts

Tonight I attended the Good Friday service at my church. It was a quiet and meditative time, and I carried away some thoughts I’d like to share with you.

I respect people of all faiths and religions, as well as those who have no religion at all. I believe we are all connected by the same Power.

I can only speak from the belief system that I have chosen to follow, and then, even more specifically, from my understanding of that belief system.

My faith is far from perfect. Sometimes it’s feeble. My commitment to my belief system has been spotty and unreliable.

I have many issues with organized religion stemming from my religious scrupulosity, one of the manifestations of my obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I am a doubter, a wanderer. I sometimes look at others who seem to have an unwavering faith and wish I could be like them.

I am in no position to teach anyone else about how to live a good and faithful life.

I still come before the cross.

I come before the cross, sometimes in despair, sometimes with my unending desires to know how to live a good and meaningful life, and sometimes because there is nowhere else to go.

At tonight’s service, we had a time of meditation on the cross, and anyone who wished to do so could go and kneel before the cross to pray and meditate.

Before the cross tonight, I didn’t pray much. I just tried to absorb the moment and think about what the minister had said in prayer: that we learn from Jesus’ carrying the cross how to carry our crosses.

To each of you, wherever you are in life, God’s grace and peace and blessings.