I’ve been continuing to read about religion and philosophy, and I have been considering my OCD as well. I have always felt like everyone else had this instinctual idea of how to act and I was missing that. Its why I felt like I was different and alien from others because when everyone was going to the right, I wanted to go to the left. I didn’t want to go to the right because it just didn’t feel like I should. All my life, whenever I tried to be like everyone else and fit in, it just made my OCD worse. That feeling of “wrongness” just got worse. My OCD symptoms would get worse, too.
In the readings, I have been doing, it is suggested that when someone tries to do what society or what the group tells them to do, then that person will spend their life trying to live a life defined by someone else. The problem is that no one can show me my life path; a good teacher can guide me along my path, but that’s about it. It’s why I am always saying that I am only here to share my story; I can’t tell anyone else how to live their life and more importantly, I can’t tell anyone else’s story for them.
Last night, as I was contemplating all of these ideas, I realized that there’s always been something deep inside of me guiding me and I have spent a lifetime trying to understand it. First, it doesn’t matter how I came to know God, because all I remember is knowing Him before anything else. That belief shapes who I am more than any religion ever will. My first memory I remember that I already knew there was a God. I was going through a checklist in my mind about what I knew and the fact that God existed was as real to me as my own mother being alive. No religion, institution or person can ever take that away from me or tell me who God is. I already know who He is; I have always know for as long as I can remember. Surprisingly, He isn’t the God of Christianity or any other religion that I know of. He is simply a creator that loves me very much and transcends all understanding and definition. That’s all He was when I was three years old and that’s truly all He really needs to be. My relationship with Him has grown, changed, and become more complex, but in the very depth of my heart that’s who God is. Second, I know what’s important for me: Feeling over appearance. I have felt this way all my life since I was a toddler up until now at the end of middle age. I really don’t care about appearances; I care about feelings. There are so many illusions in our world and it’s so crazy how much of what I see is all about how it looks. I just need to look at social media and I see how a social media feed can present a picture of reality that is a complete illusion. I grew up in a house that was all about appearances and creating illusions. I knew without anyone telling me, almost instinctually, that I didn’t want anything to do with that. (It’s not that I can’t lie. I can lie very well. In fact, I hate myself for it, but I get very offended when I see someone lying badly. I guess it is a matter of “professional pride”. If you are going to lie, then you should take the time to do it well.)
Yet, it shouldn’t come as a surprise with my OCD. I didn’t care about the way I looked or what anyone else thought; all I care about what that feeling of “wrongness” that I was getting from the OCD. It has been the pivotal factor of my life. I just want to feel like things are good. I want to feel like if God looked down on me, He would be smiling. He would be smiling not because of what I looked like, but because of what was in my heart and in my soul. I know that I’ll never be perfect. I will be struggling to feel good all my life, but what a struggle!
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
