My Journey with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – Part 2

During the lowest period in my life with OCD, there was another person that helped me more than she ever probably realizes. I remember a specific phone call in which a friend experienced me in a very raw moment of that intense battle. I immediately felt shame as I realized I had been exposed to someone I considered a friend. Yet, the desperation was greater than the fear of being shamed. However, Danna never shamed me. She didn’t act appalled or disgusted. She, in a very calming way, helped me navigate the terror I was experiencing. While I do not care to go into the details of the situation, it was a matter of confronting the driving force behind the many years of my struggle with OCD. The tool she gave me is something I use to this day. She said, “John, you need to remember that it is your mental illness talking. Whenever you have those thoughts, look at the evidence of what it is you are afraid of and remind yourself those are not your thoughts. They are the thoughts of mental illness.” This was very similar advice that I had also received from Paul Fitzgerald when he said, “You need to pretend that you have a tumor in your head and your tumor is talking to you.” Paul’s descriptive way of giving the same advice created a word picture I cannot get out of my mind.

A self awareness I have had in the last six months of my life is that I can easily be triggered emotionally when I feel like I encounter a lie. Whether the lie comes from myself, from someone else, or an institution; I can easily be triggered into feelings of anger and it can come quickly. The reason I am so easily triggered when I encounter a particular lie is that my whole life has been a WAR fought against lies from my own mind. The war of OCD and the lies behind it has created some battle wounds. I have won some battles and some skirmishes I have been nearly destroyed in. The lies that OCD brings to the forefront of my mind have been embedded into my emotional DNA. I know the pain that a lie can bring. This is why truth matters to me. Anger is a secondary emotion which is God-given. We typical move into states of anger as we experience hurt, frustration, or fear. So, the learning curve is to step back from the anger and deal with the cause of that anger.

For me, lies represent hurt, frustration,or fear. Like pain, anger can facilitate moments of much need healing if we will lean into it and allow the Risen Christ to step into that anger. Yes, I said it. I know to some this sounds like sacrilege and if so, I am sorry. I am of the belief the Risen Christ desires to step into our ANGER because when He does, He will begin to nurture us in ways that will bring healing to the hurt, fear, and frustration. Perfect love drives out fear. Jesus has perfect love. Actually, that is not good enough. Jesus Christ IS perfect love. His presence in the midst of the anger is enough to diffuse the anger IF we give Him permission to be there. If we cast guilt and shame upon ourselves for experiencing those feelings of anger, we will run the risk of keeping the Risen Christ out of that space. The lie many Christians have come to believe is that anger is in itself, sinful. The emotion of anger is not the sin. It is how we respond when we are in states of anger that can be sinful.

This may be why I appreciate the discipline of Christian apologetics. In today’s world, Christian apologetics is almost like a four letter word to some in the church. Because the discipline has been abused, I can understand why some see it as such. Yet, in my lowest points, when I have almost thrown away my faith for the temptation to believe it was all a hoax, it has been the evidential reality of the Risen Christ that has kept me hanging on. Yes, sometimes only by a thread. However, if the work of men like Greg Koukl, Gary Habermas, Josh McDowell, William Lane Craig, Ravi Zacharias, and others had not influenced me and my thinking about the truth claims of Christianity, I would have easily walked away from it all just thinking Christianity was simply a fairytale for adults who want to live moral lives. You see, in the low points of almost throwing away the faith, I have never known how to dismiss Jesus Christ and the evidential truth surrounding the truth claims about Him. Then, God has always brought someone into my life to BE Jesus Christ to me. There have been about four or five times in my life where this pattern has happened in the dark night of the soul.

Truth matters. Lies always bring pain. Anytime a person or an institution lives in a lie and fails to confront the lie with brutal honesty and then replace it with truth, that person or institution will encounter dis-ease and pain. It is a principle that just works not because I fancy that it will, but because it is a principle that is proven over and over again in the history of mankind. Someone can speak truth without love, yet it is hard to conceive that someone who loves will fail to speak truth. When love and truth converge on the mind and heart like ocean waves, lies get washed away. Love and truth are grounded in the character of God and it is in this space we have the greatest chance of experiencing the fullness of the Risen Christ.

The challenge for all of us is to learn to be self-aware of those lies we live with and when we begin to believe those lies remind ourselves this is not from Father. Sometimes our lies become like a cute pet. Knowingly or unknowingly, we nuture and feed the lie(s). We take it on walks, ask it to come sleep with us on our bed, and we wake up with it. The biggest lie of all is the lie that tells you that for XYZ reason you are out of the reach of the embrace of the Risen Christ. The heart of Father is understood in the revelation of Christ. Today, if you are caught in this lie, consider praying one prayer and one simple prayer alone that Brennan Manning has taught many to pray, “Abba, I belong to you.” That’s it. Replace the lie with that prayer today. Practice self-awareness so that you can recognize when you are being lied to, whether it is your tape or a lie spoken from someone else. Breath in as you say the word “Abba” and breath out as you say the words, “I belong to you.” Let this truth sink deep into the fabric of your soul. Let it sink so deep that your identity gets wrapped up in Abba. Not in your brokenness. Not in your job. Not in the opinion of others. May your primary identity be wrapped up in Abba. You belong. You belong to Him; not to the lies.

My Journey with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) – Part 1

My earliest recollection of the battle with OCD started around 5th grade. The anxiety was stimulated by the fear of absolute rejection from God. Fear of the evil side of spirituality and the possibility of being consumed by Satan himself began to overwhelm my thoughts. Ruminations that became fixations and an overactive brain (obsessions) created a cycle of anxiety that only found relief in two rituals (compulsive behaviors).

The first was to make sure every THING I owned was in its exact place. This begun a repetitive cycle in which I would stand in front of each piece of furniture in my room and scan my eyes over each section of furniture in a repetitive nature to make sure every trinket was in its “perfect” place. Every morning this ritual would take around 30 minutes to accomplish and would be repeated during the day. In the morning before leaving for school, I would lock my bedroom door, and repetitively checked the door to ensure it had indeed been secured so I could know the work I had just gone through would not be destroyed by an “intruder.” Essentially, I was keeping my outer world in order because my inner world was in absolute chaos. It was the only way I knew to take control of the anxiety. This, of course continued but the compulsive tasks got more complicated as my life progressed.

The second ritual was spiritual in nature. I had a repetitive prayer I had to pray with perfection. I had to count the mistakes in this repetitive prayer and this prayer began taking about 30 minutes but soon that 30 minutes turned into an hour and then longer. I would go to church, lock myself in a room and pray the prayer. If the church was not an option I would find a room in the house. This prayer had to sometimes be done several times a day.

What people saw as a highly spiritually, motivated person was nothing more than a person caught in the bondage of mental illness. It was a neurosis that nearly destroyed my life. Many jokes are made about OCD and yes, the irrationality of the behavior is something a comedian can use as good fodder. I have learned to laugh at it as much as I can but the truth is, if you have never struggled through the immense pain of such mental anguish it is hard to understand, yet I would never expect someone to either.

The journey has been a long, hard battle. My breaking point of confrontation with this neurosis began in 1999 when I had my first panic attack. Since then, there have been some extreme ups and downs but I have learned to manage it. The lowest point in my life was about 6 years ago. For an approximate five-month period, I had an average of about 2-3 hours of sleep per night and lived in what I would describe as a constant state of “panic attack” level of anxiety. During that season, at times I almost committed myself to a mental hospital for the fear I was literally losing my mind. On several occasions I entertained the thought that the only way out of the hell would be to take my own life. I imagined ways to accomplish such an act while making it look like an accident.

I reached out to those I felt was safe. During that period of time there was more than one night when I called Paul Fitzgerald. I can recall those times when at 2:00 am or so I would call Paul and he would answer coming out of a deep sleep. As I could heard the sleepiness in his voice, I am sure all he wanted was some rest. Yet, he never shamed me. Instead, he showered me with grace and helped me see that perhaps his response toward my brokenness may truly be the nature of the Risen Christ. He was present. Quite frankly, had he not have answered the phone, I am not sure how I would have made it. I was broken. All those hours of “perfect” prayers I realize now was wasted. The awareness I am now coming into is that all the Risen Christ wants is what I am; even if all I am is broken.

Some might say, “Why are you putting this brokenness and ‘dirty laundry’ on such a public forum?” The reason is simply this. God has given me a gift. That gift is the pain I have experienced. I have decided to commit the pain to God and not let any pain, untouched by the lover of my soul, be wasted. I will risk being shamed, discredited, marginalized, and ridiculed. This is not about me. I have entered a new place in my life where I am answering God’s call to own my story so that the Risen Christ can bring hope to those who hurt. I have NOTHING to offer you. Nothing but my own story that details a life of broken pieces which have been touched by Jesus Christ. The Jesus that touched the lepers and the unclean. All I want to say to you today is that He WANTS to touch you too. Not because of some moral obligation stemming from the fact that He is God, so He begrudgingly has to. Not so that He can send you to Africa and exploit you for selfish gain. He wants to touch you so you can practice what it will be like to have have a love affair with Him throughout eternity.

My desire is to extend hope and grace. Hope for those who fear being shamed, so they secretly suffer. Those who fear being accused of not surrendering to God, not having enough faith, not selflessly serving, and not being mature in their faith. So, they hurt alone in isolation. Those who look at despair while it scoffs at them and they begin to feel the burning of hell. A hell that does not burn with fire. It burns with hopelessness.

Since those who have such open psychological wounding will often never expose themselves, I will share so openly in the hope that you will begin to recognize and start to believe the possibility that the Risen Christ is willing to take up residence in your pain and hold you close as you hurt. You can find healing. Hope is more than a fantasy found in a fairytale. Hope is embodied in the presence of the Risen Christ. He wears the scars of the cross as a constant reminder to you of His love and acceptance. Reflect on this thought. This PERFECT Christ has the blemish of scars and He wears them to this day. That is a sobering reality that will will make the hardest heart melt in the furnace of His love and at the same time it will heal the most wounded soul.

This post is not for the religious elite. It for those who recognize they are are ragamuffin.