Well, and now we talk about the panic.
As you well know, there is OCD in these parts, and when the chemical equilibrium is upset, as it has been these past several weeks, it rather enjoys crashing the serotonin party. Sometimes the anxiety is general; sometimes it’s focused on one particular area of life, and sometimes, when life is particularly awesome, it lazers in on one totally humiliating, terrifying thing which clings and reappears like mildew, not matter how often it’s shot with bleach and left to die.
This one is particularly bad; just as when I was a teenager, the OCD has attacked my faith, which effectively removes that source of comfort from the equation. Many of you have read about how this works in “The Waltz” or The Book!, but just in case you’ve encountered neither, come along with me on a delightful gondola ride through baseless panic:
FIRST STOP
THE TRIGGER: Hear an author mention the prophecies of St. Malachi on a news show
SECOND STOP
THE PANIC: OH HOLY CRAP WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE
THIRD STOP
THE RATIONALIZATION: Search frantically for a shot of online comfort
FOURTH STOP
RINSE AND REPEAT: Bounce between #2 and #4 until alseep or drunk
In my many webtacular wanderings during Stop 3, I read many admonitions along the lines of “We won’t know the day or the hour” or “Well, just have faith and be prepared.” Right, okay– so the good children of God will go to heaven. But as the OCD sees it, the problem there is that if we’re facing the end times, it’s going to suck. Christ said it was going to suck. It’s like my surgery– I knew I’d come through it, but I was still dreading the absolute suckation in between.
Not to mention the positively terrifying messages surrounding a reported Marion apparition in Akita, Japan– apparently we’ve won ourselves fire falling from the sky, and “the survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead.” Well, ain’t that a holiday weekend. I am an English major. I am in no way equipped to survive a tribulation.
As the Church teaches that public Divine Revelation is done, Catholics are not compelled to believe in apparitions; if they’ve been approved, we are permitted to believe them, but the content isn’t part of the deposit of faith– all of which is a supremely tortured way of saying that it’s times like this in which I develop extreme jealousy for Protestant husband and the raft of Protestant in-laws he brought with him, who never seem to worry about these things.
I don’t blame the Church for this; it’s like blaming a gunshot victim in a driveby shooting. It was there, it was a live target, and the OCD aimed.
In the meantime… where is my Percoset?
as always at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com
5 responses so far ↓
| Morning Works Media // Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 11:01 pm |
[...] Beth is enjoying yet another OCD go-round Share and [...]
red pill junkie // Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm |
BVM apparitions, eh? That’s ‘Blessed Virgin Mary Apparitions’, the “aseptic” term used in Fortean circles when discussing such events.
And Fortean, in case you don’t know, is in honor of a very remarkable American gentleman called Charles Fort, a self-taught man who delighted in collecting scraps of newspapers describing bizarre events, such as rain of toads or fish from the sky —which BTW, still happen to this day you know… with no one really knowing why this happens.
Anyway, after studying a bit about these apparitions, one lefts wondering why they have so much in common with what is now commonly referred as UFO phenomena. What’s up with that “buzzing sound” reported by the witnesses of Fatima when the children were communicating with “the lady of the sky”, for instance. And the Virgin and the “aliens” always telling us the same thing: that the world is going to end, we’re killing the Earth, yadda yadda…
My suspicion —NOT belief, mind you; in this game it’s dangerous to have beliefs— is that we’re dealing with an intelligence that conforms with our preconceptions and cultural baggage, and projects itself as we want “it” to perceive it. As John Keel (recently deceased), the author of The Mothman Prophecies used to say: “If you believe in the devil, someday the devil will come to your house and ask you to use the telephone”.
But, leave me end this with a comforting notion: The term “end of the world” can mean many things. Take for instance the Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan: surely, for the Aztecs it was the end of THEIR world, but the beginning of a new one —and yes, with the Spaniards came Catholicism, which was fully accepted by the original peoples after… a Virgin Mary apparition. Delicious mysteries ;-)
Catherine // Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 8:40 pm |
As a longtime reader and fellow sufferer of both OCD and depression, I am fervently hoping that you won’t take offense when I tell you that I read this article:
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/woody-allen-summers-cincinnati
And thought of you generally and this post specifically. My point, such as it is, being that perhaps there’s something that goes on culturally in Cincinnati that makes life a little harder for people with predispositions like ours. Or, you know, the hoary-if-silly “there must be something in the water”. And even though you’re far away now, you had the, uh, “benefit” of many years of it.
Yay for neuroses!
Hang in there, MB; I’m keeping a good thought for you during what I know is a difficult time.
Sarah the Reader/Former Student // Friday, July 10, 2009 at 11:20 pm |
I felt a need to comment on this and basically echo what Catherine said: “Yay for neuroses!”
Except…God do they suck sometimes. All of us will pull through it though, even if we don’t think so at the time.
Oh, and dropping in to say hello. I still read here. :)
Flip // Sunday, July 26, 2009 at 10:30 pm |
Ah, Japan, home of the Alumni team’s big victory this weekend.
http://www.ndjapanbowl.com/