OCD is a sneaky devil
As you’ve heard me say before, winter is usually when my OCD really starts to rage for me. The cold days and early evening darkness really begin to take a toll on my ability to cope with the rapid speed of my thoughts. Spring of 2022, with its warmer and longer days, brought with it a new hope for a world moving farther away from Covid, kids preparing for summertime relaxation, and the goal to fill up my schedule with faraway tasks that would get me out of my house so I could escape the chaos of the giant kitchen renovation we were undertaking. I kept myself super busy and, in that busyness, didn’t catch some old fears before they crept back into my psyche.
I should’ve been on guard for the early signs, but I unknowingly slipped back into fearful mornings and ruminating nights, followed by physical symptoms that began to cause me even more angst. I’d become complacent in the normal chaos of family life and didn’t see the dark cloud of anxiety coming on at a time I didn’t normally expect it to. The symptoms started small, then grew slowly until I was in a ball on the floor fully convinced, I was dying of a heart attack. I assumed summer would be easy for me because of the sun, the pool, and the free time, but as the heat of the days increased, so did my uncontrolled need for control.
At first, simple decisions were especially difficult. I noticed I was spending too much time ruminating about the day-to-day interactions with my kids. The normal childhood fears and questions about the life they asked about became unbearable for me; almost as though I couldn’t entertain one more insecurity because my own were suffocating. Old intrusive thoughts took a new form, convincing me once again that there were things seriously wrong in my life and the lives of my children. I began seeking reassurance from everyone close to me about specific circumstances I needed to be bringing to God or fighting with known strategies. No one was going to be able to convince me that the things I was worried about weren’t true, but I sought people out for too much reassurance, nonetheless. The unhealthy OCD cycles restarted, and the anxiety was again beginning to manifest itself in physical symptoms like panic attacks, arm itching (a weird one), neck pain, and oddly enough, chest pain.
I often wonder why I must learn the same lessons over and over on repeat. God often uses these anxious struggles to sanctify me, making me more like Him. My heart knows it’s all for my good and His glory, but my mind tells me otherwise. I don’t like having to give it all up to Him or trusting that He will give me what I need at any given moment. That feels too scary, and I feel like I should know the answers to how to cope already. The answers and strategies don’t change, but every new fear feels like the one that’s going to be real this time, so I engage with it when I know I shouldn’t. I need to choose to remember that my tendencies for obsessing get old, but they also bring me back to my knees over and over where I find God waiting to give me all that I need to face the fears and bad habits that have crept back into my life. I don’t need to feel shame that I’ve fallen prey to the temptations of OCD because I can rest that God is molding all these experiences into something beautiful that will bring Him glory.
This winter I’ll be on guard for the usual seasonal mental shenanigans, but I’ll also be hopeful that maybe this year will be different for the better. Being reminded that God is with me should never get old and I can’t think of a better lesson to learn repeatedly.
