Dr. Seuss meets OCD
(best read and understood if read aloud as if it were Seuss-ian)
Pounding echoes through my soul. I feel myself losing control of the things that rack my skull late at night when I should be asleep. Instead, I am gradually slipping into my head, wishing that I was dead and that I could avoid this cyclone of grief coming that won’t be brief. I push the lie away for thirty seconds at most, until it comes back again to put me to roast. It tells me that I am not who I could be, should be, would be if I were not such a mess. How could I expect anyone to invest in my stress when being so close is a test? You? No one could love you, after all that you do and see things fall through! Your OCD thinking is too much to bear, don’t let others know what goes on while you stare at the wall in the hall and feel not good at all. Those thoughts would be burdens that no one wants to pick up. You’re not worth the emotional effort they’d give up! The best thing you could do would be to suck up and hope it goes away… even though I know that it will stay and will stay and will stay and will play on and on and on in my mind as my thoughts take control and my functions unwind. Then the texting begins as a plea for someone to affirm me, to hear me, to love me. Desperate for affection or correction or direction or connection, the messages write themselves with no time for reflection. It’s the worst when they’re busy or tired or uninterested in dealing with my busted brain bringing bad baggage that before’s been berated. They’ve stepped in before; they choose to ignore me in hopes that it will pass but instead it pulses more. Then, praise Christ, some relief with a simple reminder (sometimes just so brief) that they care or they dare to be part of my life. It’s not such a problem that you can’t have (or don’t have or won’t have) a wife and that God above created me with this issue in mind and decided that I could still be used to find others who need Him in ways just like me. To be looked at and loved-at and liked-at by me and in so doing realize their great need, which has much more to do with their Lord than it does me. It’s like I finally have oxygen and can take my brain out of that box again, gasping for air as I remember to breathe. I fight off the terror that this will happen again, maybe shorter, maybe longer, maybe one minute or ten. The design of my mind seems unkind as I ask God to remind me who I am to Him, and not how I losing myself inside my soul takes its toll on us all. If I can avoid getting deemed a waste and stare at what’s streamed on my screen, a thought comes to mind declaring,
“ANYTHING CAN BE REDEEMED!”
and I latch onto that truth and remember that I am no more beyond His reach than you or that guy. With this knowledge I rise out of my chair or my bed and see its okay that I am who I am with this head. Obsessively stuck on the lie is gone now, and although it will come again soon I can do things for now. I can smile and mean it with joy from the Lord, because while compulsively living is hard, I know where my treasure is stored. Its not in my thoughts or composure or clear-thinking head, it is where I get to go when I’m finally dead. Even though I had to write this to be able to sleep, I am able to slumber because, I, He will keep. This brokenness within me that makes me depend on others and brothers and mothers and friend is actually the thing that will keep me coming to God. Without such an issue I’d think others odd and would question the need for a Savior like Him. But God has redeemed this break in my thinking to be used for Him.
So if you find yourself thinking and thinking that thought that tells you again and again that you’re not, then lean on somebody and burden them to care. Anything can be redeemed and God wants you to share in the endurance, assurance, concurrence and hope. You’re no longer defined by the times you can’t cope.
