OCD : It's a (real) thing!

In case you didn't know, I'm mentally ill, and sometimes it's meet and right to say so...

Morning Sun, by Edward Hopper

Twenty-three years ago, on a day of crystalline autumn sunlight in Colorado, I woke to find my mind broken. I think the rumours of its breaking had fretted on the edges of my life for years, but that beautiful day, I was abruptly assaulted by an unceasing barrage of horrific images. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t control them. They wrapped themselves around the people I loved most. They invaded every happy moment. That day grew into months and without warning, the person I had been - a hopeful, idealistic teenager with many dreams and much excitement - slowly eroded. I felt guilty and filthy, but also bewildered. I was vehement in rejecting what I saw, but… was it my fault? Could it be possible I willed this on some level? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I could ever get over what I saw inside of myself. I just didn’t know. And the secret, anguished shame of that season left me in profound isolation.

Which is why I’m posting today. Recently, a Christian leader asserted that OCD, ADHD, and PTSD do not exist. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have already seen most of what’s in this post, but I thought it was worth publishing here too with a few more words than IG allows for. If you follow me as a writer, you probably know that OCD is party of my story. In case you don’t, I just want to say that my faith, as well as the beauty and truth I pursue in this space and any other where I write are inextricably bound to my mental illness. So, a little about me:

1. I have OCD. I was diagnosed when I was 17. It never fades - most days I probably have dozens of disturbing, graphic images accosting my imagination. They used to be perverted and violent in nature. Now, they’re mostly themed to my fears for my children. They’re visceral and sometimes bring me to the edge of tears. But I cope. After long training, I reflexively parry: slough away the image, wrestle through the fear, ask my husband when I can’t ‘see’ what’s real. Sometimes it’s harder, like now in the postpartum season. This time the sense of dread has stretched for months, the compulsive fear that someone will be hurt. This illness, it will be with me till I die and sometimes I find that bearable and sometimes... I ache.

2. OCD is real. It’s a clinical disorder. Not, as was suggested, misplaced grief or a lack of trust or the result of an inadequate spiritual life. OCD is a diagnosable mental illness that causes acute and terrible symptoms. If you’ve read my book, you know that before I was diagnosed I was told everything from ‘take each thought captive’ to ‘you’re clearly influenced by demons’. Neither were helpful in addressing a misfiring brain and a disordered mind.

3. An accurate diagnosis, followed by therapy or medication is a profound gift, one that God uses to heal shattered people. For me, it allowed me the first breath of grace I’d known in months as I realised the horror I saw within my mind wasn’t my fault. That relief, that release of knowing I wasn’t to blame allowed me to gain objectivity - this wasn’t my sin, this was an illness I could address through cognitive behavioral therapy, or medicine, or counseling, something I could learn to live with and around, rather than something that would define the whole of my personality.

4. I was kept sane then and I’m kept sane now by my fierce belief in God’s radical kindness and presence in the very midst of my broken mind. I don’t know if I could cope without that knowledge. I would have lost my faith and possibly my sanity if I thought God’s posture toward me was one of judgment for this disorder or impatience in my handling of it. For any pastor to imply differently or suggest that mental illness is a matter of spiritual effort is a profound betrayal that removes those who suffer from the very comfort Christ came to give. God is not waiting for the mentally ill to get a little more disciplined before he arrives to help. Christ is ‘with us’ - in our insanity, our grief, our despair. He is not using our illness to train us, he’s taking it upon himself to heal us. He breaks into our darkness with light. Let nothing obscure that incredible and beautiful truth.

5. I’ve written a book and a number of articles specifically about OCD, sorrow, and God’s goodness. My book is ‘This Beautiful Truth: How God’s Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness’. Or here’s a recent article at Plough Magazine called ‘My Mind, My Enemy'. Or an article for Premier Christianity I wrote called ‘I’m a Christian with OCD: this is my story’.

I share this only because I know that there are many good souls out there wrestling in the profoundly lonely shadows of mental illness. And I know from long experience that speaking forth your anguish, admitting a disordered mind, is the first step toward healing. But opinions like the one put forth make the even more difficult than it already is. So I’m just here to say, as one who knows the wrestle and its intimate anguish, but also the piercing grace of a God who arrives in the very heart of our suffering: God is here. He is at work. His beauty reaches out to you. Healing is possible. Reach out. You’re not alone.

Go in joy, my friends.