ADOLESCENTS

(WRITTEN IN 2020)

Over the years I have tried to block out the bad, and try to pretend it didn't happen. But the older I’ve become, the more I realize and accept how difficult it really was. It was especially difficult from the ages of 14 to 16, and is it any surprise OCD played a role in this.

It was a tough time as an adolescent. I felt pressure from my older siblings as a teen, pressure from my father, and pressure from religion stemming from the stifling nature of scrupulosity (Scrupulosity is an unhealthy extreme religious rigidity that stems from OCD). It was coming at me at all angles, I was continually in conflict, and thought little of myself. It was so hard to just be me, I felt so much pressure. I especially felt peer pressure.

Like all boys growing up, I had a best friend. He lived down the street. We would do

everything together throughout middle school and Jr. High. He was also in my ward (lds word for church congregation) at church. He was a lot bigger than me, but so was everybody else. Socially being the smaller hyper kid, I was at the bottom of the social hierarchy among my friends, they were all bigger and cooler than me, and girls paid attention to them, not me. Yet, I was incredibly social and gregarious. I did eventually grow into man hood though, and excelled in the weight room the final years of high school. My senior year I was one of the strongest guys on the football team.

I digress. Unfortunately, I could tell this friend was going to have a real struggle with church life, with peer pressure, with partying, with morality, with experimenting with substances, ya know, the adolescent norm, nothing new under the sun.

I would feel so anxious when there was peer pressure at that age, as do all kids. I felt like an island, that no one had my back. I knew it would be a hard road with my buddy, and being all of 14 years old in the 8th grade, I didn’t really know what to do. 14-year-old boys don’t talk about their feelings with their friends, and I wasn’t about to do that. But everything was magnified, made intense, because my chemistry was off, way off, and it was only going get worse unbeknown to me.

The school bus would pick us up and drop us off every day at the “Big Tree,” that was our bus stop. Almost everyday, I would walk home after school with my buddy and we would hang out at his house. One day, I just walked the other direction and walked home. I remember him turning and watching me wondering what I was doing. I was ending our friendship, because I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to be a good church going kid, and I knew he didn’t, and high school was right around the corner, with pot, alcohol, sex, etc., and the thought of all that peer pressure, hell, damnation, and my fathers disapproval gave me insane anxiety, I was on fire. I couldn't of rebelled even if I wanted to back then, because the anxiety was so horrific, it was that bad, for better or for worse. But again, balance is the key, the truth doesn't lie in the extremes, it's balanced.

We literally took two different roads that day. I was so sad, I was so incredibly sad, and I was so embarrassed for anyone to find out I had no friends. I was in a social circle, and my buddy was a main part of that circle, and when I lost him as a friend I lost all my friends.

To make matters worse, between the ages of 14 to 16, Freshman and Sophomore year of High School, my OCD was constant, severe, never ending, its all I did. Severe depression, OCD, anxiety, and a profound loneliness were those two years. That period of my life was so bad it still stings to this day when I think about it. I was a gregarious extrovert with no friends, at an age when friends are your world.

The symptoms that bothered me all stemmed from scrupulosity. First and foremost, was how it affected my ability to make friends. I was so deathly afraid of making friends, and being pressured to do something wrong. OCD grabbed on to my religion, to sin, to peer pressure, to hell and damnation, and an absurd fear of my fathers disappointment, to the point that I was paralyzed with anxiety to make friends, I simply didn’t, because I thought it would just end up like the friendship with my buddy, a pressure cooker of peer pressure, an avenue for sinning and disappointing God and my father, and inevitably burning in hell. It

always goes back to hellfire and damnation, my greatest fear since my earliest recollections. I was paralyzed socially. It was me and OCD, day after day after day after day. It's all I did.

Even with all the standard pot, drinking, and sex, I had plenty of schoolmates who were good kids, doing their best to make it through adolescents. Yet I was so enveloped in OCD, in religious scrupulosity, in fear and anxiety, I remained a lonely island. In my mind, loneliness was better than my father's disapproval, then God's disapproval, then burning in hell. It was extreme, and again, it wasn't truth, it was mental illness. So I was alone, very very alone, and very sad.

For two entire years this would play out-

Wake up for seminary (LDS Youth Scripture Study For Teens) in the early morning, sit at my desk in seminary incredibly depressed, obsess about things like if the strap on my backpack is in the right position on the floor, because I didn’t want anybody to trip on it and get hurt, because if they did, it would be my fault, and God would be disappointed with me, and send me to hell. Thats a scrupulosity loop.

Get done with seminary, and feel the extreme anxiety of having to face a day at school being a loner. Go to school, go to the bathroom, stall as much as I could, so in a sense I could hide I was alone. Go to class, stare at the floor in deep depression, I had no energy. Stare out into the front of class, not listening to a thing being said.

Go to lunch, the worst time of the day, sit at the end of the table with the friends I had in Jr. High, but say nothing, they’re wondering what is wrong with me. Here was a kid they knew, that completely changed from the previous year. I became a shell of the person I used to be, of who I really was. During lunch, I go to the library, sit and stare in my math book like I’m studying, I’m not, I just don’t want it to look like I was alone and had no friends.

Get done with lunch, repeat the depressed staring into nothingness routine. Go to Biology class, have this kid sitting behind me wanting to slap box, he’d slap me from behind at my desk, playfully, but I would get so pissed off. I was so mad, I wanted to deck the kid, but I thought, “If I bring attention to myself, if I get in a fight, everybody will talk, word will get around, people will notice me, realize I was alone, or it will present the opportunity for more social interactions and people wanting to be my friend, which will be an avenue for peer pressure and doing bad things, which will lead to disappointment from my father and from God, and ultimately I will go to hell”, that was the thought process. Thats called mental illness, and this is an example of scrupulous OCD thinking, it gets intense.

Go home, go to the bathroom, do my germ cleaning ritual. Germ cleaning ritual- I went to the bathroom, my hands and arms have germs on them, if I bump anything I need to

clean it, because then I’ll put my germs on that spot, and if my little brother comes and bumps it (for whatever reason I always thought of my little brother), he’ll get those germs on him, and then he’ll eat like a sandwich, and then he’ll get sick and die, and then God will be angry with me because its my fault, and then I’ll go to hell.

Scattered throughout the day was also checking the window ritual, make sure its locked, air breathing rituals, intrusive violent thought rituals (mom gets stabbed, I pull out the knife and throw it to the side in my mind, head ticks to the left, and then I sew up the wound with stitches, head ticks upward. OCD floods your head with disturbing thoughts that often compel the sufferer to ticks or other rituals.

Chopping Cotton Ritual- I chopped cotton on a friends farm that summer. I distinctly remember occurrences of having doubt I missed a weed. I would turn around, walk back, and there would be no weed to chop. I would walk forward, and then the doubt came back again, the voice of OCD whispering, “I think you missed a weed.” This wasn’t a perpetual issue, but I remember it happening. I distinctly remember it being the end of the day once, and my buddies older brother was yelling for us to get into his truck, it was time to go home. It took me an extra 5 minutes because of this stupid missing a weed doubt. They

were yelling, “C’MON!!” I think around the 5th double check I did, I finally just said, “screw it, there is no weed behind me!”

Sophomore year-

Sit alone at lunch, or with acquaintances I know from class, who wonder why I’m sitting with them, and think, this guy has no friends. I have the same peer pressure, sin, God, hell, father intimidation, don’t make friends issues running a muck in my head. I remember this kid I would talk to in class, and one day while walking somewhere on campus, he just asked “Who are your friends?” I couldn’t really answer his question. I had friends, a social life, everything once upon a time. But it all came crumbling down because of OCD scrupulosity which caused an intense fear of God inside me, a fear of my father, of hell, pressure to be good, anxiety, and depression. It beat me down so incredibly bad. That is not truth. That is not the gospel. That is mental illness.

Math Class-

Expo Marker Ritual- I was very sensitive to the scent of the expo marker my math teacher would use. If I breathed in the scent, that would be inhaling the marker smell, like I was getting high off of it, and that would be a sin, against the word of wisdom, and God would hold me accountable and send me to hell. So if I breathed in the smell, I would breath out

until my lungs were flat, and slightly turn my head to a direction away from the marker smell, and then inhale deeply because my lungs were flat out of air. But if I caught whiff of the market smell again, I would repeat the ritual. I was glad when the teacher put the cap back on the marker. I really wish we would have had a chalkboard.

Plus Sign Ritual-

I was obsessed with how to cross my plus signs. If I crossed them too high, that is a cross, and being LDS we don’t have crosses on our chapels. If I crossed it too low, that's an upside down cross, a satanic symbol, and obviously the church is opposed to that. I would erase and re-erase until I crossed my plus sign right down the middle. My plus signs

had to meet LDS standards, lol. My tests are a whirlwind of erasing. My teacher looked at my paper one time I remember, and asked, “what happened?” Really, what am I going to say. I get a D in Algebra.

Crotch Adjustment Ritual-

A teenagers penis has a mind of its own. Being a sexual organ, of course it is hyper sensitive, and I was overly aware of this. As such, I was constantly readjusting my crotch. Sometimes my penis would be against my leg while walking, if I noticed any type of sensation, that would be considered masturbation and a sin. I remember doing drills in track practice, and some girl noticed, and made a joke about it, again, what are you going to say. I just shrugged it off. It really sucked.

All the Freshman year rituals are also occurring. I become ineligible for football, I start flunking classes.

Homophobic-

I’m phobic of becoming gay. If I nonchalantly looked at a guys shoes or pants, all of a sudden my OCD starts saying, "I think, you’re gay." I freak out in my mind and say, "no way, no I am not, but then the OCD comes in and says, yes you are, then I fight back, "NO I'M NOT." back and forth, back and forth.

There were many other rituals. I hid everything very well, and all people could really notice is I twitched sometimes. But the Obsessive Compulsive storm that raged inside, it was a Hurricane, and nobody knew.

I HAVE NO REAL MEMORIES OF FRESHMAN AND SOPHOMORE YEAR. It was a depressive void, literally. I remember my rituals, my depression, fear of God, fear of my father if I deviate from church standards, and severe loneliness, that's it. It was a depressed blur. Those two years, OCD was literally running my life, and ruining my life. Hours upon hours upon hours upon hours upon hours. It was 8+ hours a day, day after day after day....week after week....until one year became two years, of dealing with severe untreated undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It's all I did for two horrible depressed years. It's bleak. It's torturous. It's exhausting. It's dark. It's agony. It's awful. Suicidal ideation became the norm, it was daily. That is what untreated OCD is really like. Like a morning glory that grows, and grows, and grows, and engulfs and entangles everything in its path, OCD is the same way. That is what mental illness is really like, it's that bad.

I was so embarrassed and ashamed to tell anybody, to open up to my parents, I just bottled it in and pushed through. All these weird things I was doing, though I thought they were off, they made sense to me, in a religiously distorted way, and I felt compelled to do them, that they were all necessary. Also the anxiety I felt not doing them was overwhelming. I have no recollection of learning anything those two years of school.

I remember in adolescence my father could tell something was wrong. I was failing classes and I was ineligible for football, I believe it was Sophomore year of High School. He asked me bluntly at the dinner table once, his tone was rather annoyed, “Are you on drugs?” I replied no, because of course I wasn’t. But I didn’t have it in me to share all that

was going on, partly because I really had no idea I was mentally ill. He probably doesn’t remember that.

As a child, I felt our household had a religious intensity, but not necessarily in a healthy way. There was tenseness in general in the household, and it was coupled with a scrupulous OCD brain. It created an enormous amount of pressure in me. My perception of God, my perception of my father, my fear of hell, pressure was coming from all angles. My OCD and environment were like gas and fire when high school started. It was a very lonely and difficult time.

Junior Year-

I started to make friends again. I became buddies with some on the football team. I also became better friends with some kids in my ward. For the first time since 8th grade, I’m being social again, having fun, being a kid. I can trust a lot of my friends to pull pranks and have fun, but not go so far as get into sex, drugs, or alcohol, the line drawn is the same. I actually have a place to sit at lunch.

In a way, lunch time was the deciding factor of how depressed I was, the fact that I had somewhere to belong, someone to trust, changed my entire life. But through those associations I find that so many kids were like that too. And what's interesting, is all growing up in elementary school, middle school and Jr. High, most of my neighborhood and school friends were a wide variety of kids from LDS, to other faiths, non religious, etc., it didn't even matter. It wasn’t even a concern. Something happened when I hit puberty. The combination of losing my buddy, the OCD, hormones, depression, kids are growing up not as innocent, God, damnation, my father, it was all a scrupulous depressive cocktail. IT SUCKED! IT SUCKED REALLY REALLY BAD!

As far as football, OCD intrusive thoughts are like rapid fire during football games, you can see me twitching on film sometimes. The intensity of the game, the adrenaline in my body that got me up for games, they made me a good player, but unfortunately they also triggered OCD. Sometimes I would have ticks and make funny faces because of the

disturbing thoughts, and my teammates would be like “what the hell was that?” I just shrug it off, what I’m goin to say, “I’m having violent thoughts of my mom getting stabbed, and I don't know why, and I don't know why I can't make it stop, so I have to throw out the knife from my mom, that's one head tick, and then stitch her up, and that's another head tick, and it just repeats." I couldn’t say that. I can now, because I know it was OCD.

The OCD that was occurring all day every day, shrank to bothering me maybe 1 hour a day, except during football games, then it was constant. But I still felt the heavy hand of anxiety pressing on me during the football season, it was tough. But again, I felt so much elation from the acceptance and the approval of team mates and coaches, even if the coaches intimidated me, and I dry heaved before my football games.

At the end of the year, I was awarded the most improved player award. I was an undersized Jr., coming off the heels of a horrible 2 year struggle with OCD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts on the daily. I ended up starting on a team that placed second in state, that had at least half a dozen D-1 recruits. It was easily one of the most talented teams in the 40 or 50 years since the High School was established, definitely one of the top 3.

Senior Year-

I’m relieved we’re moving to Utah. The onslaught of social and peer pressures of being captain on the football team, coupled with the relationship to my father, to the church, to God, with the history of all that happened my freshman and sophomore year, that my parents didn’t know about, I feel like it would have been way too much to handle.

Sometimes I think our move to Utah was the hand of God looking out for me. Maybe he knew I was going to break, but he needed me in the mission field to do it, because there were people there he needed me to teach, I don’t know, just a thought I’ve always had.

It's unfortunate OCD was so socially debilitating in my youth. I’m a gregarious fun loving person. I was well liked up until I fell into a fear based scrupulous religious void. High School was very tough.

Utah was different. But like any place in the world, there were positives coupled with negatives. The line drawn of drugs, sex, and alcohol is more prevalent, though kids are doing it. I never felt peer pressure that entire year. Many kids are dealing with sex, alcohol, and pot, and unfortunately even harder drugs, but there was no pressure I felt to take part. I didn't get push back for just simply trying to be good, not like I had in times past growing up.

Kids are definitely rather prejudice, but they were like that where I used to live, especially members in my ward, maybe even worse honestly. I dealt with quite of few daggers from peers and adults growing up. Sometimes just teasing, but sometimes actually malicious. I was an ethnically mixed LDS kid, and if you met me it would be hard to tell. Mixing it up ethnically and racially is not something very common in my faith. It's changing, and it should, but it's never has been like that, and unfortunately there are many members of my faith, and really all faiths, and really in all of humanity, that struggle with this.

My final year in Utah I noticed how “preppy” and “cliquish” kids could be, I felt like the social lines were as stereotypical as an 80s teen movie. My prior high school had a large mix of race and socio economic levels, unfortunately all brought together by alcohol, pot, and sex, those were such unifying avenues for everybody, lol. But there weren’t such defined social lines of who could hang out with who, at least that's how I perceived it. If you asked somebody else, they might have felt the complete opposite was true.

The reality is I actually would have fit in quite well in High School. If I could have gotten some help, some medication, I think I could have normalized, and been more of my true self. But 1- I didn't know I was mentally ill and 2-The embarrassment and fear to open up to anybody was stifling, I just couldn't, the thought of doing that was overwhelming. I just pushed through unfortunately. I think about that time period now, and I wish I would have reached out for help, and I wonder how much better my life would have been now, had I done that. Hind sight is 20/20, and all you can do is move forward, focus on the future.

What’s most important though, is in Utah I didn’t feel any peer pressure from kids, at all, that was a relief, it was easier, much easier, it really was. It was a much less stressful adolescent environment, at least for me. I can't speak for others though, because again, their experience might have been polar opposite than my own, I can only share what my individual experience was. Religion, religious father figure pressure, depression, anxiety, and the exacerbating influence of scrupulosity and OCD, really made High School difficult. Non the less, growing up isn't easy, it never has been, and it never will be, but for some it is much more difficult than for others.

After High School I score poorly on my standardized college test, and that further cemented how stupid I was. Why did I even take that test? It served me no purpose. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA I think, and even that was inflated because my senior year of High School I had two weight training classes, art class, a P.E. class, a drum class, random other bs classes, and an English class. So that year cushioned the fall my GPA suffered through High School. But I needed my senior year to be easy, I had been through so much. I was just trying to survive. But that stupid test really shook my confidence and self esteem, the last thing I needed. I didn't learn much in High School. All of my energy, time, brain power, and focus, went to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and all the agony it put me through.

I believe there is a high natural intelligence that resides within me, that has constantly competed with OCD, anxiety, and depression. I’m incredibly introspective, observant, and creative. I'm hyper, and struggle with mundane tasks. I'm not sure those thats necessarily a sign of intelligence though, lol. I'm absent minded, I misplace things constantly, because my mind is constantly thinking, sprinting, pondering, contemplating. I also hyper focus, but become distracted easily, and then I hyper focus on that distraction, and sometimes forget what I was originally doing in the first place. My mind can scare me, it can go too deep, it can obsess, and to this day it's difficult to turn off.

I feel my true academic and intellectual potential was never given a fair chance. I firmly believe I could have taken AP classes and scored high on tests, those same tests that gave me an uppercut to my self esteem after it had endured one hay maker after another during High School. But I was severely depressed, suicidal, mentally overworked, overwhelmed, and incredibly distracted by OCD. Such is life, it's unfair, and sometimes so unfair it's infuriating.

Unbeknown to me, there was a metaphorical morning glory entangling my brain, OCD. It was a severe hindrance in my development. It still entangles my brain today, but at least now I know that it’s there. So I push forward, implement cognitive therapy, talk with my therapist when I start seeing red flags, take my medication daily, and rely on those around me who both respect and love me. One thing that really annoys me is how Hollywood depicts OCD. The Movie “As Good As It Gets” or the TV show “Monk,” it’s portrayed as so light hearted and even comical. It’s DARK, it’s EXHAUSTING, it’s HORRIBLE. It drives severe depression, anxiety, and even suicide. It can drive one to the darkest psychiatric reaches of the mind, which I’ll explain later, as I went to that place. I wish there were movies that depicted it as it really is.

Here comes a rant I wrote-

All I can say, is to all those who thought little of me growing up, or do today, to all those who labeled me dumb, to the peers who label me unsuccessful, to the past friends and schoolmates in college who scratch their heads at my situation and make an assumption that I’m irresponsible or lazy, to the girls who reject me as a potential candidate to date or marry because a career is a real struggle, to family and friends that may wonder about me, to those that were condescending to me on the regular, that labeled me, to coworkers in all my low paying jobs who scratch their head and wonder why a college grad with a business degree works where he does, I wish to all of them I could point to that cotton plant being choked by that morning glory, giving all it has to produce the few cotton buds it has, that they could realize the immense resolve and effort and determination that cotton plant must put forth to yield the little cotton it does, despite the morning glory that chokes it, that my life is no different. That they could realize that cotton plant is me, and that morning glory has been my lifelong battle with OCD.

I sometimes try to imagine where I would be today, what I could have accomplished by now, if it weren’t for that morning glory, that OCD entangling my brain. I imagine how much easier childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood would have been if it wasn’t for this debilitating disorder. I imagine what it would have been like to be a normal Elder on the mission, and serve a 24 month mission and have a standard welcome home. What would it be like to live an average LDS life, of marriage in your twenties, a college degree, and actual success in a career, and kids? I guess my path in life wasn’t meant to be average, or easy, because it hasn’t been.

If I could actually find a woman, a woman I actually like, I’m attracted to, someone pretty and fun and compassionate, and compatible (and I'm really trying to be more compatible these days, I'm easily irked, I know that), who could actually see my potential despite this morning glory that I've had to untangle from my brain, and will continue to untangle the rest of my life. A person that could work with me, and build success with me, a true "help mate", that would be a miracle, that would be amazing.

My heart, my engine, it's big. Seriously, I have a racing engine. My resolve, determination, and work ethic is like a 429 big block. But it's hard to pace my self, it's hard to prioritize tasks, and it's hard to just stop sometimes. I need some brakes and someone to help steer, again, even a "help mate". This disorder is so incredibly debilitating when it goes untreated, and it was untreated and undiagnosed for the first 20 years of my life, the most formidable years of my life. I've dealt with so many labels, so little understanding, and such little compassion from anybody but a very very small circle of people.

-Rant Done

(WRITTEN PRESENT-2024)

The dating world, the business world, the LDS cultural world, it can be harsh, but it's not truth. Maybe even just this year 2024 I have realized that. Anybody can be a critic, anybody can make assumptions, anybody can give labels, but very few seem to recognize and walk in truth, even in the light of Jesus Christ. I'm trying to do that, and rid myself of grudges, and so much resentment towards life, the world, people, women, peers, friends, family, etc. I'm learning I can't forgive, I can't love, until fear is replaced by faith, and I listen to the TRUE identity of who I really am, that God whispers to my heart. When I listen to that voice, I appreciate, and love myself more. I feel in my heart a sense of my true self, not what the world or critics say I am, not the influence of OCD, but who I really am. This realization helps me to start loving others more, no matter what they might think of me.

The biggest hinderance to finding success, peace, and happiness in my life, has been becoming angry, sad, or frustrated, and misbehaving. Sin doesn't make anything better, at all, its a lie. I've learned this, and my current Bishop has helped me realize this. So I recognize Christ is as real as the sun that rises each morning, and God is equally as real, and knows the TRUE me. I'm trying to stop the bad behaviors, driven by frustration, anger, and sadness, and just listen to him more, to be still and know that he's God, he's my father, he made my spirit, that abides in this really imperfect imbalanced brain. But my brain chemistry is not my identity.

I am not OCD, I am a child of God. That is truth.