Poking Holes Through the Veil

I stopped praying about a year ago. 

Each night up until then, the same prayer tumbled out of my mouth in the same order--a perfect but hollow balance of thanks and wanting, humility and desire. I vomited lists of repentance that would stretch across minutes and minutes, and if I forgot to ask for forgiveness for something “I may have forgotten” or to bless “everything and everyone,” the phrases would push their way from my throat, reflux with an acidity that simultaneously burned my throat and relieved my anxiety. Only then could I fall asleep, paralyzed in a kneeling position, with my chase for elusive rest temporarily paused. 

After twenty years of this routine and many others, I was finally diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and scrupulosity (religious OCD) my freshman year at BYU. Mind you, OCD is a mental illness and not an adjective--despite our culture's quick use of the acronym to describe intense cleanliness or organization. For me and so many others, an OCD diagnosis was a relief and a testament to the chaos produced by overactive parts of the brain and faulty serotonin receptors. But when society mislabels OCD as a slapstick adjective rather than a mental illness, it chips away at that comfort, allowing OCD to seep into and poison reality.

After my diagnosis, I learned that my brain loathes uncertainty. It must figure out every potential effect of an action, filtering through the multiverse of possibilities and improbable linked fates. As it tries to understand the impossible, it gets stuck in endless loops and on false truths it has somehow proved to itself. The only relief? Some kind of compulsion, binding me to an ongoing performance of absurd rituals--a futile and beautifully-innocent effort to combat the anxiety of the unknown.

Early accounts of Martin Luther have traced OCD in his practice. Fixated on thoroughly confessing even the smallest of sins out of fear of damnation or imperfection, “Luther would repeat a confession and, to be sure of including everything, would review his entire life until the confessor grew weary and exclaimed, ‘Man, God is not angry with you. You are angry with God. Don’t you know that God commands you to hope?’” I can imagine that Luther only found rest after his six hours of confession just as I did after hours on my knees. But that rest would not persist the next day, and he would have to begin the process again and again, also like me.

My compulsive praying began to bleed through my existence. It possessed me and carried me through each moment. In its combat of anxiety and fear, I was energized, a quick burst of light and dopamine as from a drug. In its wake, I was exhausted. The words “Please forgive me,” coupled with the names of both my Heavenly Father and Savior, should have remained beautiful in their sanctity but were corrupted by endless repetition and obsession.

Then one night, withered by my empty repetition, I sang the same lamentation as David sang in Psalms 6: “[God] I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.” 

And so I stopped praying.

In technical terms, my decision to stop praying is an example of the most common treatment of OCD: exposure therapy. Participating in an exposure means confronting the uncertainty that accompanies not performing a compulsion. With scrupulosity, I had to confront what would really happen if I forgot to pray or to include my twisted, ritualistic phrases. In fact, nothing would happen, but with a mental illness, I could not accept that. I was convinced God would be angry with me.

In my healing, I remember feeling betrayed when my therapist told me my religion either caused or at least exacerbated my mental illness. How could my religion, so instrumental to my being and understanding of this world after being raised in the LDS Church, cause so much pain? How could being caught up in a constant, ever-whirling prayer cause so much unrest? How could I lose myself so fully in what I thought was perfect faith? 

Like Martin Luther, I was angry with God, but anger is slippery and mine quickly melted into sorrow. During my detox, I yearned for the rest that is promised with prayer, but mine was a special case. I had to convince myself that the dopamine rush that came with my compulsive prayer was not that rest. And I had to convince myself that my God would not require this suffering.

Now, it’s been a year. 

Without my scripted prayer, I communed with God differently--mostly subconsciously. In the winter, I wore a pair of “lucky socks'' on days when the gray skies consumed my light and hope was hard. In the spring, I cried tears of thanks at the new birth of flowers and friendships. In the summer, I swore at the sun as I walked up the twelve flights of stairs to BYU campus each day for my econometrics class. And in the fall, I delighted in my little life by changing the baby’s breath in my collection of vases every week. In retrospect, I realize I dedicated this year’s sadness, gratitude, frustration, and happiness to God in a way so different from my pattern but so natural.

I understand prayer so differently now. I imagine piercing a piece of white paper with a pushpin and then holding the paper up against a window. Tendrils of light slip through the holes, fingers of God, lighting my side of the paper. His light, already pressing against the paper, beckons us to reach out and truly commune with Him. I realize that prayer is just that: a simple attempt to poke holes in the veil between us and God and to feel his light.

I said the opening prayer in my ward last Sunday and the prayer in my class at BYU last Wednesday. I can say those prayers without my OCD creeping in. I love the repetitious prayer my granddad says at the start of the day to bless each meal. I long for my parents’ nightly prayers I usually slept through in my youth. I can listen to those prayers without fear of a panic attack. Still, each night as I climb into bed, I try not to scratch that obsessive itch and undermine the healing I have found this past year. 

My mental illness is relentless and will likely try to reignite my obsessions, compulsions, and anger. But for now, I have found rest in my new communion. For now, I have learned to poke holes in the veil between me and my God. For now, I will stay in His light, in His hands.