CHILDHOOD

(WRITTEN IN 2020)

It's interesting how my father and I process religion differently. My father grew up in a household without gospel teaching, with parents that were unfaithful, verbally and physically abusive to each other, but did the best they could considering the little support and training life had provided them. The Church to my father as he explained it, was like a breath of fresh air, a security, a scaffolding surrounding his life that gave him the direction and boundaries he never grew up with. My experience was the complete opposite unfortunately. But it wasn't truth, it was mental illness.

My first recollection of OCD came at a very young age, 5 years old or earlier. I remember having intrusive thoughts of me getting cuts on my chest, so I would run my hand over the areas I was getting cut, like I was brushing off this thought from my body. I remember scrupulosity (Religious Rigidity, Religious Rituals, Basically OCD having a hay day with religion) having a debilitating effect on me as a child (which has been a struggle into adulthood too). Unfortunately, whenever we would have family scripture reading as many LDS families do (LDS=Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), the only thing I would focus on were all the verses about hell and damnation. I thought that was scary, and I worried if I might end up there one day. I obsessed about my worthiness before God, even as a young child, I always felt unworthy, INADEQUATE.

Unfortunately, with OCD, emotionally it takes what was an inch, and makes it

a mile. It’s not only a disorder of doubt, but also one of exaggeration. My parents had no idea their son was mentally ill, and obviously I didn’t know. My mind ran with sin, worry of hell and damnation, a fear of God, and a fear of my father, to an extent only a mentally ill child would have.

I know for a fact scrupulosity was a catalyst for my issues with authority. The one OCD symptom that is still debilitating to this day, is the anxiety that stems from authority. If I have a boss, a co-worker, really anybody in any environment, and I perceive them as above me, a "vertical", and they put pressure on me to perform, I immediately have a fight or flight response, and anxiety pounds inside me, like fire, and it won't shut off. If I can't leave the situation, then I fight, and I become the most difficult, confrontational, unruly employee imaginable. Oh the stories of post college, I'll share those in a different post about young adulthood, but this issue has sidelined my career, its made it very difficult, though I have tried time after time after time after time....after time. Once the "vertical anxiety" switch is turned on, the only way to turn it off, is to leave my place of employment. In times past, when I have stayed and tried to stick it out, the anxiety worsens, and worsens, and worsens. Obviously, my performance becomes a mess, because I'm a mess, and I eventually blow up at the authority figures. If I stay this way too long, then I fall into dark scary places I never want to return to, in the psychiatric realm. It's beyond awful there, its literal hell.

In a nutshell, I can't have a boss. I don't like rules, I don't like being told what to do, I don't like being pushed, and I don't like being confronted. If these come from a someone I perceive to be a "vertical", it makes me very anxious. If they come from a "lateral", I become annoyed, and eventually get mad. All of those things make me feel trapped. As you read on in this blog, you'll see why.

My maternal Uncle portrayed similar behaviors when he was alive. He would throw up before PPI’s (Personal Priesthood Interviews) with his Bishop (LDS Clergy) when he was an elder’s quorum president (position in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), so bizarre. I guess he felt an incredible amount of pressure to perform.

My authority/boss/vertical anxiety issues have been such a detriment to a career, and it has created angst, because I think religion by and large was a catalyst in creating this anxiety, in creating this authority complex. But it was religion through the lens of scrupulosity, it was not truth, it was not the gospel.

I digress. So childhood was interwoven with lots of guilt, fear, and anxiety, all stemming from an OCD understanding of the scriptures. I remember going to my mother as a little child, and telling her that I needed to confess my sins. She said I had no sins, she was worried about me.

School wasn’t a friendly place for me either. As a child I really struggled. Kindergarten was rough, so I was placed in the dumb Kindergarten with an older lady everybody thought was mean (she was probably a sweet kind old lady), or at least I remember her that way. I also remember this deaf kid in the class who always had this blank look on his face, and his hearing aid would ring incessantly. I realized, yea, these are my people, lol. In reality, that deaf kid probably grew up to be an engineer.

My previous kindergarten class was with what I considered the normal kids, and probably other kids would too, lol. I had a younger teacher, who I thought was very attractive. Years later I would ask my mom if she was indeed an attractive lady, and my mother said she was. I distinctly remember her dressed up as a giant crayon for Halloween, I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life, lol. She was a burnette I remember, and to this day I prefer burnette's over blondes, go figure.

But I was stressed as a little kid at school, I struggled reading, I was always in the dumb reading class, and it was a bit overwhelming. My mother says one day I came home from kindergarten and said that I wanted to kill my teacher and bomb the school, disconcerting to a mother. This was in the 80s, so, no bomb squad was called. Today, yea, the next day I would be escorted to school with the SWAT team, and thats actually not an exaggeration anymore I think, things have REALLY changed.

I remember once while my mother was trying to help me get ready for school, I said “Don’t you trick me!” She knew something was wrong, this coupled with me saying I would have weird thoughts about the devil, sin, and so on, was enough for her to set me up with a child psychologist. In reality I was overwhelmed, I was stressed, I was only 6 years old though.

My child psychologist diagnosed me as depressed, at 6 years old. She was correct in that I was depressed, but the real problem, OCD, a diagnosis wouldn’t come until much much later while on my LDS mission in Chile. These early negative experiences with school, ingrained in me that I was stupid, and I already often felt dirty and unworthy, sinful, vexed with shame as a child because of a distorted idea of who God was. I never had a high self-esteem.

When I was 12 years old, I started playing Pop Warner Football. I would throw up before all my football games. I was so incredibly worried about messing up and having the coach yell at me. It was my authority issues. It was fight or flight, and I wasn't about to quit football, never in a million years. I was a very intense aggressive player, I was quite good. I blew out a kids knee and dislocated a kid’s shoulder in my first football season, and I wasn't even 100 pounds yet. Kids in practice didn't like facing me in drills, they were scared. There were other fellow teammates that scared the majority of the team as well, and kids would want to trade places in line with me so they didn't have to face them, and I would gladly take their place. I would run at the kid during drills like a bat out of hell, and hit him as hard, and with all the angst my anxious 12 year old body could muster.

My football coaches thought I was a Pop Warner Football gift from heaven. My pre game vomiting became the norm, and my coaches would ask where I was. Someone would respond, "He's throwing up". "Well tell him to get over here, the games about to start." I hated how anxious I was before games, but the elation that came with doing so well, getting the game ball after almost every game (they stopped giving me the game ball because I kept on forgetting to bring it to the following practice. But I would have received the game ball literally after every game, lol.). The respect from coaches and players, it was a high, I felt elated. I still love intense aggressive sports to this day, but not coaches, lol. I now know this was odd behavior, because I never had a fellow team mate who did the same in all the years I played football, ESPECIALLY in Pop Warner football, among a bunch of 12 year olds! It would be a Saturday morning, hundreds of elementary kids running around, 4 pee wee football games going on at once at a park, and I never, not even once, saw anyone one else throwing up, and that never registered with me. It was an over the top intensity. People do throw up before competitions or intense endeavors, but as a 12 year old boy? Yes, there are other 12 year olds like I was, but it is the exception, and it's a sign of mental illness.

I also felt this anxiety on my mission, towards my mission president, which I'll dive into later on. This anxiety has manifested itself in so many different environments, especially in my jobs post college. I digress.

Despite scrupulosity, anxiety, and depression running a muck with fear and guilt, I still experienced good times. I had neighborhood friends, the summer time, the rec center pool, camo fatigues and spying on "Lloyd" the big kid, lol, climbing "the big tree", playing in irrigation ditches, etc., it was all there. Luckily, I was never sexually or physically abused, I can only imagine the trauma with my mind. It's so sad, because I know there are kids out there who are suffering from the same issues I did, who are being abused.

All I can say, is there is accountability, there is a God, I know that. But there is agency in this life, and it's at the center of life. Humans have free will, and honestly, that's why I believe in God.

 The balance of the universe and everything I observe in it, in nature, it's a physical metaphor for morality, and the accountability we as people are subject to. The physical balance in the universe points to a moral balance in the universe. There is accountability, there is truth, and not in a scrupulous sense.

People don't die and just get off the hook, it's the biggest lie ever told, and some might say God is the biggest lie ever told. I honestly see why many would say that. How many wars and deaths were in the name of God? How much abuse and distorted shame has been caused in the the name of God? But again, it wasn't truth, just like OCD isn't truth, it's a distorted sense of truth, so in reality not truth at all.

Forgiveness and repentance are also very real, but predators don't simply die and get off the hook if there wasn't an immense continual effort to make restitution, by paying their debt to society, coupled with a consistent continual effort to change their heart.

The reality is, God abides by and in truth, real truth, and what is true always has been, always will be, and is today. Its eternal and never changing, it's a circle, with no start, and no end, it just is. Truth is a calm, a peace, free of anger, resentment, grudges or revenge, it is a "true" peace. Truth forgives, but that doesn't mean it's unwise, and willing to trust the forgiven right away. Truth isn't exhausting, its empowering. Truth doesn't create distance, but it does understand boundaries. Truth is full of love, but also protects what it loves. Above all, and this one has always been a struggle for me, truth isn't fear, its faith. The fruits of truth are all the attributes emulated by Christ. If you could truly walk on the path of truth all the time, no matter what ensues around you, or even to you, you would have peace, even calm. So yea, I have a ways to go.

 How do you gain world peace? Let real truth abide in the heart of every person, and world peace would become a reality.

But the reality is, not truth, there is a peace that comes from a rationalization of wrong doing, or a twisting of morality, that frees one mentally of accountability, with the resulting rush of dopamine, elation, and absence of guilt in tow. I believe this is what the "peace as the world giveth" is as referenced by the scriptures. But like the distorted sense of guilt OCD creates, a distorted sense of freedom from guilt pride creates.

I went on a tangent there. Despite scrupulosity, I still have some good memories of church, of feeling the spirit in Sunday school, of mutual (weekly LDS youth gatherings), Boy Scouts, etc. 

It was a paradox, church indeed made me feel safe when I felt the spirit, but the doctrine of hell really scared me throughout all my youth, I obsessed about it. I also recall the anxiety of being a 12 year old deacon, and passing the sacrament. There was a special "skip" method used to pass sacrament to the middle rows at church, and I would always mess it up, probably because I was so anxious about messing up. Every Sunday I would dread being assigned the middle rows, and I would dry heave before church I was so anxious.

There was also excessive guilt about confession. I remember in Jr. High, talking to the bishop, which happened to be my Dad, that really sucked, it wasn’t enough that I told him something, if after our interview I realized I left out some minuscule detail, or messed up the time period by a week, I would be inundated with guilt, “I’m going to hell,” that mind set all over again, and then I would need to tell him those extra details. This I remember being quite prevalent during middle school and JR. High. I wasn't even a bad kid, just your standard boy problems, lol, but it was ridiculous the guilt, the shame, and the worry, and it was all chemical. Again, it wasn't the gospel, it wasn't truth, it was mental illness.

(WRITTEN PRESENT-2024)

There is so much more I could share about my childhood in the scope of OCD. I intentionally left out some experiences and details because the general populous doesn't understand this disorder, and if the time and effort isn't put forth to really understand it, often people will make assumptions that are far from true. Sometimes less is more.

As you continue reading, it will become evident my OCD gradually became more and more severe. Adolescents was a foreshadow of what was to come, and I had no idea. The worst of everything occurred during my young adulthood, especially my early 20s and early 30s, that's where the trauma happened, and it permanently changed me unfortunately. You learn to appreciate "good enough" after severe trauma. All I can say, is thank the lord for music, thank the lord for my drum set, and thank the lord for inspiring so many artists to write so many great songs. Give me sunshine, a destination to drive to, and good tunes, and I can turn a bad day good.