Who Loves Naomi Anyway?

Loving Naomi is a fiction book, but it is based largely on the experiences I’ve personally had with OCD. The title has multiple meanings and layers. The book is about how the main character, Naomi, learns to love and be loved in a variety of ways. It isn’t just about how she learns to love herself, but also how those around her journey through loving her well in her trials. As I move toward publishing, I think it is important for me to explain the connections my fictional characters have with the actual people in my life who loved me during my battles with OCD.

Loving someone with OCD is hard and can be stressful. Watching someone you love torture themselves by fretting over illogical thoughts is exhausting. I know my family had to swirl with me in my mental tornadoes and it sucked them of emotional energy. My constant unwanted feelings of guilt about the stress I put on them only served to make them feel less comfortable to share their fatigue with me.

I want the supporting characters in my book to illustrate the overwhelming fatigue they experience through the worthwhile love they show Naomi. I also want to show that we all have to love each other through hard things and OCD is no different than any other struggle people may face together. My imagination made this story very different from my own, but the authentic love Naomi receives from her family in the story is an accurate picture of how well my own family has loved me in hard places I’ve faced.

Naomi also has to figure out that God does, in fact, love her. His love for her doesn’t come and go but is a never-ending reality she slowly awakens to. God doesn’t feel fatigued with us when our OCD gets out of control or when we can’t stop the spinning in our minds. Knowing that God loves us in and through our trials can be our greatest and most helpful strategy with OCD. My prayer is that people will read Naomi’s story and will be able to rest in the comforting truth of His word. God is with us and He will never leave us, even when OCD tells us otherwise.

I look forward to revealing fun tidbits about all my characters in the weeks to come.