EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION

(Written-2024)

Much of this blog (In the "OCD- The Brutal Truth" Category), will come from an inventory/diatribe I wrote in 2020, when life became so infuriating, partly because I could find no understanding from anyone, that I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote, until I wrote out all that I had bottled up for so long, and it felt really really good.

Initially this blog will basically be the diatribe I wrote, but presented in a more organized way. It will go into great detail about all my hardships. There will be some unexpected rants I go on, a lot of venting. In order to stay honest and true to the narrative that has yelled in my head much of my life, even if the present has offered some resolve to those issues, I feel it's important to include them in their honest and true form. Sometimes I repeat these rants like I’m a broken record. Sometimes I’m spiritual, and then I’m angry again in the next paragraph. I would add to my diatribe when getting frustrated wherever it seemed appropriate, beginning, middle or end, so that’s probably why it won’t always flow perfectly. OCD, church, and authority, they don’t play well together in my head. Also there might be some typos. My diatribe from a few years ago, and this blog, they're therapeutic, not something for an English teacher.

I'm basically angry, and vent, and provide great detail about my life experiences in the scope of OCD in the first half of my diatribe, and then the second half was written a few months after the first half, inspired by a church talk, therapy, and some realizations I had, so what I wrote was positive and hopeful. But even since then, since I finished my "diatribe vent" both bad and good (I think thats a good name for it), there have been some really hard times, stupid choices made while in despair, and some really hard days. But there has also over the past year been a true realization of who Christ is and what his gospel really is.

I think for my entire life, I was a member of The Church of Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ, and all that frustrated, even infuriated me, stemmed from not feeling like I measured up to those around me, to the culture, to the academia, to the professionalism, to the status quo, to the leaders, to the image, to the brand, to my peers, etc. I have thought for so long, that if the said leaders of my faith are "the noble and great ones" the "foreordained ones", than what am I if nothing in my life has resembled their lives, from marriage, to career, to church service, to etc. Oh how this has eaten at me. I have since realized this was 1/2 a truth mixed with 1/2 a lie, with a result that was 100 percent bad. I've realized there are souls scattered throughout time and place, that are noble and great, foreordained to do amazing things, often in capacities, locations, and situations that go unnoticed, but are equally important in building god's kingdom.

Unfortunately, my negative thinking all started after a painful return home from my LDS mission to Santiago, Chile as a 20 year old kid, when finally I had a birds eye of all that had troubled me growing up. I realized the severity of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder I had been oblivious to, how dangerously depressed I was my first two years of high school, and really how commonplace depression was growing up. I resented the condescending attitudes towards me, be it from family, friends, or church members. Inside I was very very angry, and I felt like I never had a fair chance, that the attitudes toward me were both completely inaccurate and incredibly unfair. But what infuriated me is that I believed all those attitudes. If I could go back and talk to that kid, I would tell him, "Drum a lot more, and pay no attention to the condescending attitudes and remarks from those around you, because they're completely false. God loves you, love yourself, love others, you have some real challenging handicaps, but you have friends and family around you that really know you, and want the best for you, lean into your strengths."