What is Scrupulosity? Author Kari Ferguson Goes Behind The Scenes of "The OCD Mormon."

Kari Ferguson is the author of "The OCD Mormon" and "For and In Behalf Of" and creator of the blog, "Of Faith and Great Anxiety." She is a current member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

and has served as Primary and Relief Society President.  Kari runs the bookstore Oh Hello Again (ohhelloagain.com) in Seattle. She received her MA in Communication, Culture and Society from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and her BS from Brigham Young University. Kari lives in Seattle, WA with her husband, two children, two bunnies, and giant puppy.

 

Kari's book https://amzn.to/30N5iF6,

Vice Article https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7qjzm/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-dirt-cleanliness-how-i-have-sex,

Website https://www.faithandanxiety.com/

 

Full Transcript:

0:00:00.3 Narrator: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of Improving Intimacy.

 

[music]

 

0:00:28.6 Daniel A. Burgess: Welcome to another episode of Improving Intimacy. Today I'm excited to have a special guest with us, Kari Ferguson, who is the author of OCD Mormon. Oh, did I get the title right? The OCD Mormon. I'm curious, have you even been interested or wanting to change the title now with the whole name change? Or have you felt like, "No, I'm gonna accept this."? I'm curious about that title. What has been your thoughts?

 

0:00:57.7 Kari Ferguson: We published it and then... 'Cause that's what my blog was called before, and then they had the whole, "Don't call yourselves Mormons," and... I don't know. We were just like, "Oh, whatever," I guess. That was who I was known as, is that at that point I thought it was just... I don't know. [chuckle]

 

0:01:14.7 DB: In the...

 

0:01:15.6 KF: Yeah, it's good for my scrupulosity as well, in a weird way.

 

0:01:18.7 DB: That's what I was wondering.

 

0:01:19.6 KF: Yeah, because of... Yeah, I have to keep it that. I'm bucking against what the church tells me to do.

 

[chuckle]

 

0:01:28.1 DB: Yeah, this is your form of exposure therapy.

 

0:01:31.5 KF: Exactly.

 

0:01:32.2 DB: Okay, I gotta accept it.

 

0:01:34.0 KF: I can't change it, yeah. It's out there.

 

0:01:35.6 DB: Well, I'm excited. I've been thinking about this a lot, and you and I were talking offline just a minute ago about why didn't I find you until now? In fact, when did you publish the book? How long ago?

 

0:01:47.1 KF: It came out in September of 2017.

 

0:01:50.6 DB: Okay, so not too long ago.

 

0:01:52.6 KF: Yeah, it's about three, four years ago now, yeah.

 

0:01:55.4 DB: A friend of mine who... So for my audience who doesn't know, I actually deal with a large amount of anxiety, something I've actually been coming to terms with it, or rather discovering more over the most recent years here, and have been reaching out to some friends and family.

 

0:02:13.1 DB: I have made a good friend with someone and we were talking about this this morning about, "Let's write our story about this," and he's like, "Yeah, this is so triggering for us." And I don't know if I can, I've got myself into a good place. I'm curious, so let's start off there. We'll get into some of the meat here and I have some quotes from your book that I really, really valued. I wanna st