Religious OCD and a God who suffers
Living with scrupulosity as a Christian
“Sometimes all I see is this darkness
Well, can't you feel the darkness?
This is the dark before the dawn.”-Andrew Peterson (“The Dark Before the Dawn”)
I didn’t know what scrupulosity—religious OCD—was until I was twenty-three and sitting in a psychiatrist’s office.
It was the first psychiatrist’s office I had ever been in, and it wasn’t as scary as I had imagined it being—just fake oak and curt receptionists. At that point, with nerves buzzing at the ends of their tendrils, a psychiatrist felt like freedom. He asked me about my childhood, and I told him about my incessant fear of salvation and shame of sin, the need to be perfect for Christ. I told him about being a second grader seriously contemplating my Christianity and whether or not it stuck. And—most important—I told him about my Scary Big Fear. I told him about all of that, my obsessiveness and my need for validation, for reminders that I’m okay, that I’m not too much, that I’m normal.
He looked at me—about twenty minutes into our appointment—and casually told me I had this thing called scrupulosity—religious OCD. He said it so simply, as if there was a neon sign above my head blinking my diagnosis.
—
“Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Penuel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”
-Genesis 32:24-31
When the stranger jumped out at Jacob, was he afraid? As he rolled around in dirt and dust, was he confident, cocky, confused, courageous? Or was he scared? Did he know the stranger was the divine?
And when all his strength was spent, when he thought he was on the precipice of victory, was he shocked by the touch to his hip? Was it a throbbing pain or a lightning crack of severed nerve endings? Was he afraid, crippled there in the dark?
A man handicapped, clinging to a being greater than him, begging for a blessing. And when he received it, was he astounded at the glory of it all; at the glory of seeing God face-to-face? Both handicapped and blessed, the dawn peeking over the dark.
I’ll ask it again: Was Jacob afraid?
—
Our scene opens three months before that visit to the psychiatrist. I was working at my alma mater, leading a Bible study for college sophomores.
“Hey Drew, can you talk for a few minutes?”
He was a new student to the study, having only come the week prior. I told him yes of course, and we stepped into an empty office.
“I’m not sure who to talk to about this,” he began. I sat calmly and smiled, proud of myself for being such a trustworthy person.
He kept talking, and I kept listening. As he shared what he was going through, my anxiety climbed up a mountain and eventually reached the summit, screaming inside my brain at a fever pitch. He shared about a fear he was going through—a fear I had personally carried for years and had fought hard to keep dormant.
“So I just don’t know what to do.” He finished speaking and looked at me. I did my best to look back at him, but the chaos fomenting in my body made the room tilt.
“I’m so sorry you’re going through that.”
I stammered more words, and eventually we came up with a plan together to help him. He left the office, and I stood up; the room spun, I walked outside, and I began to gag.
My Big Scary Fear.
—
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And [God] said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord,’ and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
-Exodus 33:18-23
When Moses asked to see God’s glory, and when God said yes, was Moses afraid?
Then, with God’s hand over Moses, was he terrified that the darkness would only remain, that famine and drought, starvation and dehydration would be his only companions? He who watched plagues plague the people of Egypt, was he afraid he had been consumed by a final plague within the hand of the Holy One? Even though he was in the will of God, was he still shaking in the darkness, waiting for the light?
I’ll ask it again: Was Moses afraid?
—
“A new day starts in the dark.”
-John Mark McMillan (“New Day in the Dark”)
That night, after I stopped gagging and went home, I couldn’t go to sleep. I’d wake up every five minutes in a state of panic—shallow breath in, shallow breath out. I moved to the couch even though it was too small for me to stretch out on. Finally, I moved to my closet because it was carpeted and felt safe for some reason. I didn’t know what was happening—all I could think about was my Big Scary Fear—the image of it burning a hole in the O-Zone layer of my mind.
I really want to share what the Big Scary Fear is with you. The problem is that I can’t. Like I try to start writing about it, but my stomach gets tied up into a thousand tiny knots and my breathing grows shallow and I have to consciously remind myself to take full breaths.
I know my Big Scary Fear is irrational, and I know I am okay, that God is with me. But still, it slinks along with me and begins to take over whenever I put a spotlight on it, when anything triggers it. Prayer helps, and so does medicine. But still, it’s there. I’m sorry I can’t share it with you; only those closest to me—family, dear friends, and my therapist—know about it. I hope you understand.
But that’s what scrupulosity does. That’s religious OCD.
—
“[God] said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”
-1 Kings 19:11-13
Elijah crawls into the darkness of a cave, ready to give it up.
Was Elijah afraid when God wanted to pass by? Or was he just tired? Did he feel used by the hand of God and spent, body and soul? How dark was that cave; how dark was his mind? What was he to do?
And when the wind split the mountains, when the earthquake rattled his bones, and when the fire roared and wrenched, why did he stay in the cave? How did he know God was not there? Was he afraid by the Godless acts of God raging outside, or was he just exhausted, thinking his end had finally come?
And that sheer silence—that still small voice—was he comforted? How did he know it was God? For a man accustomed to fire from the heavens, what did the silence do to him?
I’ll ask it again: Was Elijah afraid?
—
“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,’
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”-Psalm 139:11-12
“You have scrupulosity.”
I’m back in that psychiatrist’s office—he’s sitting in front of a desk and a window looking out to the parking lot—three months after my Big Scary Fear crash landed into my life. Over the past three months I found myself calling my dad at least twice a day. My Big Scary Fear would begin to take over my brain, so I’d dial up my dad and ask him to reassure me. He always did, faithfully answering the phone and sitting with me until the storm passed.
I told the psychiatrist—who also doubled as a really kind Christian—all about that and all about my Big Scary Fear. That’s when he told me about my diagnosis.
“Scrupulosity,” he said, “Is the reality of an irrational fear that won’t go away. Everyone gets irrational fears in life. Everyone. But the difference between you and them is that you can’t shake it. Someone else gets the same fear you have, but they’re able to say to themselves, ‘I don’t like that’ and then move on, continuing with their day. You, however, cannot shake the fear, so it begins to define you. It’s like a record scratch that only ever loops around the same two notes in a song. Those notes, for you, are filled with fear—that’s your obsession. And your compulsion is seeking reassurance—in your case, from your dad. Therapy and medication can help with all of this.”
I sat there taking it all in, feeling as though he were describing the darkness that enveloped me. His words acted as a balm to my anxiety—a sliver of dawn within my Big Scary Fear.
I wasn’t alone, and I felt less afraid.
—
“Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’”
-John 11:38-44
How hard was it for Martha to believe in order to see the glory of God? The stone was in front of the tomb, and behind the stone lay Sheol, that land of eternal nothingness, darkness vast and deep. How hard was it for her to believe? Was she afraid?
Was the stone over the tomb actually a stone, or was it also the hand of God, hiding Lazarus in the cleft of the rock? Must darkness always come before the glory of God?
I’ll ask it again: Was Martha afraid?
—
“What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”
-Frederick Buechner (Godric)
It’s been eight years now, almost to the day. I have a new psychiatrist, a new therapist, a new medication, a new hometown, and a new job. But I still have religious OCD; I still have scrupulosity; I still have my Big Scary Fear.
Just like so many things in life, it gets better. At least, it has for me. I have learned how to let my Big Scary Fear be in the car; I have learned how to cope with it; I have learned to give it to God. I have learned, when it pops up again and again, to read Psalm 131 and rest in the arms of God, like a baby in the arms of its mother.
The darkness remains, but I am seeing glimpses of God’s glory, like putting your hands over your eyes and still seeing the sun through the cracks in your fingers.
—
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’”
-Luke 23:44-46
This, the ultimate darkness. Jesus has just sweat blood in the garden and asked for the cup to pass. Is it okay for me to ask if he was afraid? Was he afraid now, hanging there limp on the cross, the sun’s power on mute? Did this feel like rejection from life, from light, from God? Am I okay to ask that?
Like Moses hiding in the cleft, Jacob wrestling in the dark, Elijah dying in the cave, and Lazarus dead in the tomb, would darkness have the final word?
I’ll ask it again: Were they all afraid?
—
“In your wounds I find room for all of mine.”
- The Porter’s Gate (“Christ is Lower Still”)
I grew up with a rich theology of sin. Jesus died on the cross for my sin, and it was my sin that I needed to confess. The darkness in my life was always due to sin as well—lying, stealing, lusting, cursing, etc. etc. etc. It was my sin that nailed Jesus on that cross, and it is my sin that nails him there still.
So, when my Big Scary Fear and scrupulosity came knocking, I only had sin as a category: I blamed some secret sin that I couldn’t name and didn’t know. Why else would this anxiety be ripping its way through my life? Why else would I be feeling this darkness?
But then, about five years ago, I learned something that changed me forever. I learned that Jesus didn’t only die for my sin, he also died for my suffering. He willingly gave up his body to the cross and hung there, and in so doing, he took on suffering and sin for once and for all. He knows what it is like to suffer, and he sits with me every time my Big Scary Fear tries to take over my brain.
To be honest, I do not know exactly where my OCD—this darkness—comes from. If I had to guess, I think I have it because I live in a sad world. God wants to use it to bring me closer to community and closer to God—to display God’s glory in the land of the living. The devil wants to use it to pull me further away from community and further away from God. I think. But how can I really know?
But I know this: Jesus is with me in this darkness. And darkness is often a prelude to the glory of God.
—
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen.’”
-Luke 24:1-5
In the darkness of God’s absence, when all hope felt lost, resurrection was humming in the background, waiting until the time was right to reveal the full glory of God.
In every darkness, in every fear, is resurrection always humming?
If you’re interested in learning more about my condition, feel free to check out this really helpful article.
You are loved.
Have you read Alan Noble's post at Plough? You'll appreciate it. https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/living-with-religious-scrupulosity-or-moral-ocd
Beautiful, Drew. Once again, simply beautiful.