Maggie Rowe - Sinning Bravely and Moral Scrupulosity

Today our guest is Maggie Rowe, former writer on Arrested Development and author of Sin Bravely, a book about her experiences with moral scrupulosity, or sin-focused OCD. We talk a lot about OCD on this show, so here’s a guest who wrote an entire book about growing up with religious obsessions! She’ll tell us about her first obsessions about what was and was not sin, how she started to analyze the Bible with a critical mind to try to understand how to avoid hell, and how her parents tried to help but her church leaders didn’t understand OCD and made it worse.

We’ll talk about the compulsions she would engage in to make sure she was being the right amount of righteous, how she checked herself into a treatment facility for Christians, the incorrect diagnosis of bulimia she received, and how she finally got diagnosed with moral scrupulosity and began getting the treatment she actually needed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:41):
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Speaker 2 (00:58):
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Speaker 3 (01:02):
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Speaker 4 (01:18):
Trust me, Trust me.

Speaker 5 (01:22):
I'm like a swat person. I've never lived.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
To you, I never If you think that one person
has all the answers, don't.

Speaker 6 (01:31):
Welcome to trust me.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
The podcast about cult, extreme belief and manipulation from two
obsessors have actually experienced it.

Speaker 6 (01:38):
I am low La Blanc.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
And obsessors, we actually are this time. This one's real. Today.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Our guest is Maggie Rowe, former writer on Arrested Development
and author of Sin Bravely, a book about her experiences
with moral scrupulosity or sin focused OCD.

Speaker 6 (01:55):
So we do talk a lot about OCD on this show.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
And here's a guest who wrote an entire book about
growing up with religious obsessions. She's going to tell us
about her first obsessions about what was and was not sin,
how she started to analyze the Bible with a critical
mind to try to understand how to avoid hell, and
how her parents tried to help but her church leaders
didn't understand OCD and made it worse.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
It might not sound like it, but this book is
extremely funny. It's very interview I we'll also talk about
the compulsion she would engage in to make sure she
was being the right amount of righteous, how she checked
herself into a treatment facility for Christians, the incorrect diagnosis
of bolimia she received, and how she finally got diagnosed

(02:37):
with moral scrupulosity and began getting the treatment she actually needed.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Hell, yeah, Maggie is so funny, and she was so
funny when we weren't recording. If you guys had heard
this story about her getting caught in her front gate
as it was moving, it's.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
Like the reverse Bridesmaids, Like when in the beginning of
Bridesmaids when she gets caught on top of the gate.
Maggie got caught under under her gate trying to get
on the podcast. So she like loves something outside and yeah,
she's gold.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So to have somebody who's written and worked and produced
and arrested development one of my favorite shows ever. And
then also had this thing like when she released the book,
I remember reading it and being like, this is the
closest I've ever related to somebody about obsessing about how
and it's fucking funny.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Hmmm, yeah, it is super funny before we get into it,
and you can hear how funny it is.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
With your own two ears, or I.

Speaker 6 (03:35):
Mean, you know, don't set their expectations too high.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
You can hear what it is that we're talking about. Megan,
what's your cultiest thing of the weekly?

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Okay, there's a big case in Australia. A girl just
died because she's eight years old because this faith based
mission was like, we're gonna pray her diabetes away, and
they're all going to jail. It's getting like prosecuted right now.
But I'm not going to choose that one. Okay, what
I'm going to choose, that's just like I'm just letting
you guys know that's happening. I'm going to choose this

(04:08):
new exercise class that I joined. It's kind of ballet based, right,
I've been doing it for a million years. I took
a long break, I came back and I really love it.
But I realized the other day how baked in unwritten
rules are because there was a girl in the class

(04:30):
who wasn't behaving like you're supposed to. For example, when
we would do something really hard like auja, oh my gosh,
this suck.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Like.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Just being loud and you're not supposed to make a
peep in this class, And I was like, oh, wow,
that's so interesting, Like the slightest variation from expected behavior
is so affronting, even in something as stupid as an
exercise class. So, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
It just reminded me that it's okay to make noises
and classes that are hard. I don't need to I
don't need to like subscribe so diligently to this unwritten rule.
And maybe next time I'll be like, shit, this is hard,
and you know, yeah, break the mold.

Speaker 6 (05:23):
Right the old megan.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, maybe I will. Maybe I will. So anyway, that's mine,
what about you? What's yours?

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Well, before I say mine, I like the idea that
it would be like, okay, so in this episode, since
we're talking so much about OCD, I like the idea that,
like we need to sort of build up our tolerance
to defying group expectations. Yeah, and that seems like such
a safe, nice way to like do a little exposure.

Speaker 6 (05:49):
So yeah, I like it.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, Okay, okay, So what do you think I should
do just like crack a joke.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
Yeah, or just be like.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Whoa, that was hard, but yeah, I want to do
that so great, love it.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I'll keep y'all updated.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
I think we should all look for ways and maybe
this is a thing I don't know. I like it
to ways, to find small little ways to defy the
pressures that.

Speaker 6 (06:18):
We feel from a group to conform.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
I think that would be a really interesting exercise.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Oh god, I'm like pre embarrassed for myself, but I'm
gonna do it. Okay, what's yours, Lola? What's yours?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Um?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
You know, it's always social media, if I like, when
is it not social media? I mean, it's the country,
it's the country, and it's social media.

Speaker 6 (06:41):
And this week I posted on.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Social media about the country shocking, and I was actually
talking about how indoctrinated groups will tell their followers that
everybody else is indoctrinated, and it can become very confusing
when you're trying to decilearn like who's really in the
cult and who isn't, because everyone is telling their group

(07:07):
that the other people are indoctrinated. Just because you are
being told that another group is indoctrinated, doesn't mean that
yours isn't right, right, So it can be it can
be so confusing.

Speaker 6 (07:18):
And so what I what I focused on in the
in the video.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Was like you did a video, I did a video,
And what I focused on in my video about that
was the control of information and the silencing of critique
and punishing journalists and that kind of thing. And those
points are points that I definitely want to make. But
what was interesting about it, which is like sort of
a weird takeaway, but.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
Was that I talked really fast.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
In the beginning of the video to like I mean,
I just was like feeling some kind of way, and
I was like, I'm just gonna talk fast in this
one and see what happens. And I did so much
better than all of my other normal, normal pace talking.

Speaker 6 (07:55):
And I and I just find that curious. I find
that interesting.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
It's it's like everybody's arguing on this fucking video. I
wonder if some of it is that when you talk
fast and loud, you seem confident, and so people want
to listen and like, not that I am trying to
become like a cult leader of any kind.

Speaker 6 (08:17):
I am just trying not at all.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Definitely, but like there, it is difficult to cut through
on social media, so like you know, you look for
like ways to do that. And it made me think
about the other people who've blown up on social media
and like the way that they're literally just just the
their tone and the way that they're talking about what
they're talking about. It seems like it can be almost
more important than the content itself. So I just thought
that was an interesting little window into like cutting through

(08:44):
the noise online.

Speaker 7 (08:46):
It's so scary.

Speaker 6 (08:48):
It's so scary.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Because also I don't want to talk that fast in
order to make my points.

Speaker 6 (08:53):
I can't keep that up.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Like I did, go to auctioneer school as a kid,
like I did, I can do it, but I don't.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Think can we bring your ventriloquism into the into the
mix as well? We need your auctioneering you're during trilloquism,
and then finally the arc will be complete.

Speaker 6 (09:11):
Oh my god, maybe that's the secret to my to
go viral.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
I think it might be well, interesting points, interesting points.
I'm excited to see how many more videos you do
like this and if you become the auctioneer girl, hell.

Speaker 6 (09:25):
Ya go on?

Speaker 4 (09:28):
All right? Stoph we talk to Maggie.

Speaker 7 (09:32):
Let's do it.

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Do you ever scroll through social media only to find
yourself bombarded by bad news, hot takes, mommy bloggers, influencers
and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored yet
also humbled to share more great news about their career.
It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone
else is doing. But what about you? How are you feeling?

(11:45):
Is there anything you'd like to change and what are
you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making
time for your mental health is key to your overall
well being. That's why we make it easier than ever
to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication. Taylored to work
for you. You and the best part, Cerebral offers in
network care so you can focus on feeling better without

(12:05):
worrying about cost. Seventy two percent of people say they
felt better in just twelve weeks. So take the first
step today. Visit Cerebral dot com slash podcast to see
how affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance.
Cerebral make time for mine time.

Speaker 6 (12:26):
Welcome Maggie Rowe to trust me. Thanks for joining us today.
So happy to be here, so happy to have you.
Megan is obsessed.

Speaker 7 (12:34):
With you completely.

Speaker 5 (12:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
This book is one of my favorites. It really helped
me unwind a lot of my own trauma. And Maggie
risked her life by being here today. She almost got
killed by her gate.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Nobody knows what we mean, but trust me, it was hilarious.

Speaker 6 (12:51):
Maggie.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
So you wrote a book called Sin Bravely, and that's
your story in this book is what we're going to
talk about today. I know Megan and I both resonated
so much with it because of our own you know,
Megan's particular fear of hell in my particular just obsessive thinking.
So can you just start by telling us what was
the church that your family attended when you were growing up.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
The church that I attended was fairly moderate. Actually it
was a Baptist church, oddly a Southern Baptist church in
the Midwest. The church was fairly moderate. But the Christian
camps and the overall message, even if it wasn't dwelt

(13:32):
on that you have to say this very specific prayer,
and you have to say it with a very specific
sort of sincerity and commitment, or it doesn't work.

Speaker 6 (13:45):
It's going to give me hives just thinking about it.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
I can't And there's no certificate that comes in the mail.
The most important thing that could ever even conceivably matter,
the most important thing, and you have no confirmation whether
your prayer.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Worked, whether you're spending eternity in flames or you're in heaven.

Speaker 7 (14:10):
Yeah, that's the matter at hand.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
For a lot of people who are children, even today,
it's a very strange little thing that we teach kids about.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Your book, you do such a great job of illustrating how.
And we'll get into more of these specifics but just generally,
like how people in the churches and church camps and
communities that you were a part of would just kind
of respond to your questions with a thought terminating cliche
like well, you're just supposed to have faith or just
let accept Jesus. But when you have a brain like

(14:39):
yours or mine or megans, it's going to be like,
but how do you know specifically how many times do
you say?

Speaker 6 (14:46):
What inflection do you you know?

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Like, you do such a good job of illustrating how
not everybody is so comfortable feels that certainty so immediately.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
And here's the thing, here's what I was told sometimes
that was just the killer was when I was told, well,
if you were really a Christian, the Holy Spirit would
convict you of your salvation, which was like, oho, So
the fact that I'm scared of this is an indictment.
It's an indication that it did not take like that

(15:18):
little loop that that sets off. Ooh, that's a nasty one.

Speaker 6 (15:23):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
So what was the first thing that your child brain
began to sort of fixate on.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
As soon as I said to that prayer, I was
five years old, and I remember I said it a
bunch of times. That first night, there was a Sunday
school class where they had described the notion of eternity
as they were defining it. And then imagine the worst

(15:51):
thing you could ever imagine happening. And I imagined being
separated from my parents because I had done something wrong.
I had poisoned that Like, I just imagined a horrible thing,
and then it continuing. I was horrified, and I was like, Okay,
I gotta say this.

Speaker 7 (16:10):
Prayer, and what's the prayer?

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Yeah, what is the prayer?

Speaker 5 (16:13):
Oh Lord Jesus, I accept you into my heart as
my personal savior. I repent for all of my sins
and resolve to sin no more.

Speaker 6 (16:27):
Oh wow, that's a big resolution.

Speaker 7 (16:30):
As a five year old, that's hard.

Speaker 5 (16:33):
And of course as an adult, I can think, well,
I can resolve to sin no more, but of course
I have the realistic expectation that that's an impossibility. But
a child's brain and what do I really resolve to
sin no more? And then there was the concept of
the deliberate sin, which was a real kicker, and that
was the idea that if you were truly a Christian,

(16:56):
you would not deliberately sin with forethought. You could mess up.
You could, you know, bump your knee and go shit
and go oh oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That was unconscious.
You could do something reflexively, but if you were really
a Christian, you would not go, I am going to
lie in this situation. Like I remember one when I

(17:20):
was a kid that I just spun out about we
had I was like maybe eight, and we had guests
over and I needed to go to the bathroom and
I was embarrased for some reason. You know, it was
just to get like, so I just said, I'm just
gonna go wash my hands.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
But like, but you secretly peede, yes.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
Secretly this child that's like, I'm just going to wash
my hands. But afterwards I was like, m I knew
ahead of time that I was going to lie, and
I did lie. And a true Christian, someone for whom
that prayer worked, would not deliberately send and so it
wasn't here Like when I try to explain to people

(18:04):
my particular headloop of this particular type of evangelicalism, it's
not that the sin causes you to be punished. It's
that the sin is an indication that the grace has
not worked, and so you will be punished.

Speaker 6 (18:21):
That hurts my brain.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Okay, so the sin is not an indication that you
will be punished. The sin is an indication that you
have not been saved.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
You have not been saved. It's not that the sin
causes the it's like because you're free and good, but
if it really worked, you wouldn't be doing it.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
So when you're saved, you commit no sin is the idea,
no deliberate, No deliberates, So you could do a manslaughter sin, but.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Not absolutely crime of passion. Fine, absolutely lying about being wrong. Yes, yes,
you know one of the things that I got super
caught in. And I don't know what the three of
us have common that made this something for us. But
like I remember being really little, like three even, and
they would always say, you know, a spirit like a child.

(19:10):
You have to have a spirit like a child. That's
the most Christian thing that Jesus loves. And I'd be like, well,
I'm kind of a dick, so I must not be
doing this child thing right because I'm selfish and I'm like,
you know, I want my toys and all that shit.
So like from the jump, I was already like, oh no,
I'm not doing it right.

Speaker 7 (19:30):
I'm not even being a child right totally.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
That picture of like let the children come unto me
and Jesus with all of these innocent, bright seeming children,
there's a you know, I know shame is such a
buzzword these days, but I do feel like that original
sin thing and not measuring up to have morality like

(19:57):
that as a child is a real as opposed to
the Buddhist notion that we're naturally good, that we have
this natural Buddha nature and it gets sullied and cramped
and misshapen. But I just think that intrinsic orientation makes

(20:19):
a big difference.

Speaker 6 (20:21):
That's interesting.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, what did your parents and your church leaders say
when you brought up these thoughts to them?

Speaker 5 (20:29):
So my parents were wonderful in the sense that they said,
you are saved, you are saved, you said it right,
you did it right, You're fine, let it go, let
it go, And that was kind of all they could
do other than rejecting the notion altogether. Right, But even

(20:53):
with their reassurances, I was like shit. I was like,
my parents have been wrong about things all the time.
I have seen, you know, people are wrong. They just
haven't thought this through, like I have and I had
this I remember this Ryri study Bible that I had
that had four different translations of the verses in one

(21:17):
so it was in four different columns, and so I
would just read through. You could go to Hell, you know,
look in Hell in the index, and then I would
just read all of the verses, and I'd read the
four different translations, and you know, one would be horrifying,
and one would be like like the living Bible would
have something, you know a little, but I would and

(21:39):
then I would read the commentary comparing the four different
and try to decipher what the odds are because there
were so many factors of that prayer.

Speaker 7 (21:50):
You sound like a really chill middle schooler.

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew how to party in a way.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
You're OCD taught your really good critical thinking skills though,
because yeah, like examining the contradictions between everything, some of
the thoughts that you describe yourself having as a kid,
I'm like, that is so intelligent, even though it is
obsessive and like probably was deeply uncomfortable and painful, very
intelligent thoughts and analysis.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
Like I remember, you know, like one concept that was
totally beyond well, it's beyond everybody. But the idea I
remember reading in these translations about the word for eternity,
what the Greek word was for it. It might have
been chiros, but but they one translation would be like
everlasting goes on and on and on. One would be

(22:45):
like it shatters time, it's beyond time. One would be like,
you know, it was all these ways to understand the
nuances of the Greek word that eternity rose from, and
like going, oh, I hope it's the one that chatters time. Please.

(23:06):
I would feel like such gratitude to whatever that, you know,
the new international version. I would be like, but then
I would look, and then another another word for eternity
would be used in another you know, it would just yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Did your parents? Did anyone in your family have OCD?
Like maybe undiagnosed? Did it seem like it.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
My grandmother who ended up having electroshock therapy and then
not being able to function again, I believe had different
She had different psychological struggles, but one of them I
think was OCD, And so the fear of what happened

(23:49):
to her was an ever present and she was the one.
She was the party girl. She smoked and wore red
lips and perfume, and she had an affair. My dad
was the product of an affair, you know, so she
was you know what I wanted to be. Yeah, so

(24:13):
cool then, but then she ended up living with us,
you know, sitting in a room in a rocking chair,
looking at a television that was not turned on. So
I think, you know, just the way a child's brain
kind of computes. Nobody ever told me that she was

(24:33):
punished for her lifestyle, but I believe that was in.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
My head, right right, I mean, yes, how could it
not be. She was sort of the she represented all
the things that you were not supposed to be but
that you were drawn to, but you felt like it
was a sin and then bam, like that happens to her.
In that belief system, I think it'd be hard to
interpret it differently, honestly.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, do you ever roll through social media only to
find yourself bombarded by bad news? Hot takes, mommy bloggers,
influencers and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored
yet also humbled to share more great news about their career.
It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone

(25:16):
else is doing, But what about you? How are you feeling,
Is there anything you'd like to change and what are
you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making
time for your mental health is key to your overall
well being. That's why we make it easier than ever
to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication tailored to work
for you. And the best part, Cerebral offers in network

(25:37):
care so you can focus on feeling better without worrying
about cost. Seventy two percent of people say they felt
better in just twelve weeks. So take the first step
today visit Cerebral dot com slash podcast to see how
affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance.
Cerebral make time for mind time.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
What were some of the like compulsions that you were
doing before grace point? What were some of the compulsions
that you found yourself doing in your everyday life.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
So I had some basic OCD compulsions like curling iron
and checking the curling iron a million times, you know,
you know, needing to have proof throughout the day that
I had unplugged it. So I'd make a little mark
with the prong so I could look at it later on.
But then I would think, wait, did I do the
prong and then replug in the curling ire. So why

(26:31):
would I those kind of garden variety ones. Those I
could manage, I mean not managed. But the ones that
killed me was when it was internal, and it was
confessing the sins, trying to sincerely confess sins, trying to

(26:52):
love the Lord your God with all of your heart
above all things. And the more I was required to
do that, the more I hated and resent it. Like love,
what does that even mean? The fact that that we
were instructed and commanded to love a thing that is
a spontaneous response from gratitude. To prescribe it with a

(27:17):
punishment attached to it is such a mind screw. It's
such a mind screw. So I was trying so hard
to love God.

Speaker 6 (27:25):
I'm loving you, I love you, I swear trying to
love you, and I feel it.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
And then I would have Oh, there were thoughts that
I would have that were just even now. It just
sent a shudder through me. Is I would have a
thought like God, we spend all of this time imagining
how hard it is for Jesus to be on the
cross for three days. This still is in my body.
I'm still like but I would think he was on

(27:52):
the cross for three days. People have unbelievable suffering that
goes on for people are in jails and they're orchard
people lose their child. You know, they're so much suffering.
We're how to feel bored for three days.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
This is one of the only conversations I ever had
with my father where he was like saying good night
to me one night and I would stay up all
night six am thinking about how and how it was
inevitable and being scared. And I just said to him, like,
I don't think Jesus dying was that big of a deal,
Like I would have done the same thing if it

(28:32):
saved everybody. And I'm an asshole, so like I don't understand.
And he was like, that's so funny, and he said,
I totally understand what you mean, shocking, And he was like,
what was so hard about it was that Jesus was
had to be without God for those you know, days,
And I was.

Speaker 7 (28:50):
Like, isn't he God?

Speaker 2 (28:52):
I'm so confused And it's like I have math homework
to be doing, you know what I mean, Like I
have shit to do?

Speaker 7 (28:58):
Like what am I doing?

Speaker 5 (29:00):
Oh my god? This makes me so happy?

Speaker 6 (29:02):
To hear you say that, Yes, totally.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
I got the exact same answer. Well, he went from
the height of eternal bliss into uh separation from himself God.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
And that's worse than years of torture and isolation that
a human would experience.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
Right, that's that's nothing. Three days and we're supposed to go.

Speaker 7 (29:29):
And you know you're going to heaven forever after.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
It, Like I would one wants to do it, we
would all do it.

Speaker 5 (29:38):
Yeah, I love that. That's what just made me so happy. Listen,
three days I would do it, and I'm an.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
Assholes, like a whole world for all eternity would be saved.

Speaker 7 (29:51):
You have to.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
And even he didn't want to do it, he was
like do I have to? And that was like, yeah,
you have to, And I was like, okay, fying, I
totally get how But then those those I would get
really angry. How dare God send everybody I know to hell?
Because only the people in my religion are going to heaven?
I hate you God, And then this other side of

(30:12):
my brain would clamp down and be like, no, I
don't I love you God, don't see me to Hell.

Speaker 7 (30:16):
I'm just kidding, Like, who is that?

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (30:19):
Totally, totally. It's that vicious cycle of I'm indicted by
my sympathy really too with that, I mean I was
scared for myself obviously, but even like this idea of God,
how could you do this to everyone and then love them?

(30:41):
Love them, love.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Them like like as in like how could people be
not saved who are in other religions?

Speaker 5 (30:49):
Yeah? That killed me.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Yeah, I remember asking about that as a kid too,
and I Mormon's had a better answer to it than I.

Speaker 6 (30:56):
Think general Christian churches.

Speaker 7 (30:59):
What's their an?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
The answer was, well, we do baptisms for the dead
so they get the chance to be exposed to the
true Church in the afterlife. And that's why we do
baptisms for the dead for all people who've ever lived
that we can register.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
You know that all of the answers and like that
one had to do with choice, they had to do
with well, you had the choice. But the deeper thing
that I think I intuited as a child is all
of our choices are based on our circumstances. We choose
things because of our genetics and our environment.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Again, how did you know this at such a young age?

Speaker 6 (31:36):
This is crazy?

Speaker 5 (31:37):
Well, I think I just like it's all like I
felt like, Oh, I remember watching a thing about Jeffrey
Dahmer because that was around where I grew up in Chicago.
That was Milwaukee. It was on the news a lot,
and they talked about he had been dropped on his
head and I as a child, and there they were
talking about a number of high percentage of serial killers

(31:59):
have some head trauma as an infant, and it felt like, whoa,
so all of the choices that he made that could
have come So aren't we all a product of all
of these different things that happened to us? Are we
better than Jeffrey Dahmer? I wasn't dropped on my head?

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Yeah, I mean this is my current worldview. But for
a child within Christianity at a young age to understand
that is really impressive. I also have to ask you
about the T shirts because I was.

Speaker 6 (32:33):
Absolutely losing my mind. Feel the force, Jesus, Jesus, what
was the sharp? Please explain?

Speaker 5 (32:45):
Okay? The thing that it had two different thoughts, So
I think it was like the Christian bookstore, the Agape
bookstore was trying to make things hit. They were trying
to make things so it said and like these black
letters feel the Force, and then underneath it just said Jesus.

Speaker 7 (33:03):
And it was a shirt.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
It was a T shirt. And the idea was this
was how you could bring souls to Jesus by wearing
something that indicated that you were a Christian and then
behaving so well that everyone would go, hmmm, that's interesting.
What is this Christianity thing? As if kids are responding

(33:27):
to some moral secrity that they're like, oh, she was
behaving in line with her morals. Give me some of that.
But I figured if I was doing that that I
didn't have to do the horrible direct witness, which was

(33:47):
where you went up directly to somebody and shared your faith,
often through a Bible verse that you cleverly would incorporate
into conversation. Like I remember on the on a plane, they're, oh,
if anytime you sat next to a stranger, that was

(34:09):
an opportunity to witness.

Speaker 6 (34:12):
So oh no, not on a plane a five hour flight.

Speaker 5 (34:21):
Oh God, imagine having having this girl next to you
and saying, do you have a best friend? And then
whatever they answered, I do. His name is Jesus, and
he never lets me down. I know best friends let
you down, but Jesus is there.

Speaker 8 (34:43):
Forever.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
So you were trying to avoid this direct witnessing because
it was obviously embarrassing the worst by choosing a T
shirt to do silent witnessing, which is also very embarrassing.
It was, and yes, my favorite thing though was that

(35:05):
first you were obsessing about whether you should or shouldn't
get it because it would like mean something about you
if you didn't get it out of fear of embarrassment.

Speaker 5 (35:14):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (35:15):
And then it led you to buy even more embarrassing
T shirts on purpose. Please explain.

Speaker 5 (35:23):
Well, I felt a dinge of embarrassment and I was like,
oh shit, that means I'm embarrassed. I've got to prove
to God that I'm not embarrassed, so I'll get a
more embarrassing T shirt and my you know, I thought
it would prove to God if I just kept doing

(35:45):
increasing levels of horrible things to wear. There was what
was one, Oh you think Duran Duran Rocks tried Jesus.
It was like, it's like at the height of Duran
Duran when everyone had like one of the four guys

(36:07):
that they had a crush on.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Me, making the like connon is just so and it
sounds like it became like a compulsion, like if I
don't wear this, then I'm super fact. So the shirt
is not the coolest thing, but I absolutely have to
wear it because I don't want to wear it.

Speaker 5 (36:30):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
The bad feeling means I'm being faithful, right exactly, I
mean when in Barratt when like, it means you're righteous
to do a thing you don't want to do. It
just is a recipe for a bad time, a very
bad time that feels right.

Speaker 5 (36:50):
And love God for it. At the end of it,
do the thing you don't want to do and then
love them for wanting you to do.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
It, whatever that means.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
And if you get mad, that's bad. So don't let
yourself get mad that he's making you do this.

Speaker 6 (37:05):
Again, get an even more embarrassing T shirt.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
Or start directly witnessing, right. But I eventually moved on
to pushing myself to do the direct witness because I'm like,
I'm I'm embarrassed to do it. God's going to see
that I'm embarrassed. I got to do it so I
would witness to my friends.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
What's so funny is that you were in a way
doing like the Christian version of exposure therapy, right, because
you're doing the thing you.

Speaker 6 (37:34):
Don't want to do that you're.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Afraid of doing to sensitize yourself to it.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Except it's backwards, yeah yeah, making you more obsessive.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
Right right, because exposure therapy. Well, wait, would exposure therapy
be not doing it and tolerating the discomfort?

Speaker 6 (37:53):
No, it would, it would, But this does feel.

Speaker 5 (37:55):
Like exposure therapy, so what is it?

Speaker 3 (37:57):
It's tolerating well, because you're personal your actual underlying fear,
your core fee underneath that is like of going to hell,
or of like not being faithful, So you're acting on
a compulsion. But outwardly, oh, it could look like the
fear is of wearing the shirts, so you go toward
that feeling. But because your core fear is not actually

(38:21):
about the shirt, it's about right.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
Right right, I'm with you.

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Speaker 3 (39:34):
You wrote about like a pastor who you kind of
voiced your doubts too, and he literally just told you
to not feel the way you feel and that God
sees and knows everything that we think. I can't imagine
that helped UH very much.

Speaker 5 (39:49):
It was I remember it as being one of the
worst days of my life because it took some courage
to tell him that, UH. And he basically said that
my feelings were an indication that I was not saved.
That the Holy Spirit, if you are saved comes in

(40:12):
and assures you of your salvation. So it was basically
check your heart and then what in the world I
was supposed to do with that? Right?

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, having any doubt means you are inherently your fears
are true basically, Yeah, because you had.

Speaker 5 (40:35):
Them, because I had them.

Speaker 7 (40:37):
Yeah it sucks.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
Yeah, I still I still care, Like if you were
to like anger that I hold up, you know, dry
to lego of. But that moment, I felt like he
really could have helped me. And I wish pastors across
the world would have more of an awareness even if

(40:59):
you're you know, obviously I think there are problems with
the theology itself, but even within the theology, if pastors
were aware of OCD, if they were aware of scrupulosity,
I mean, if they were aware of the horror of
their notion of hell. But yeah, I would. I wish

(41:21):
there was more education in the clergy.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, how did it get to the point where you
decided that you needed to go into a facility to
be treated for your sinful thoughts?

Speaker 5 (41:34):
It was such a cinematic moment when I think back
on it now. So I was in college, I had
started having sex with my boyfriend. But I justified it
in my mind by saying, we're married in God's eyes
because we're planning on being together forever. But I still
felt the guilt. I pushed it down. I started I

(41:56):
had been drinking, which you know, it was like, you
can drink, don't do it, not too intoxication. And then
it was like, well, anyway, all my fears of what
I was doing, that I was straying, that I was backsliding,
that word backsliding. I pushed it down, and then I
went to see this art house movie, Akira Kira SAWA's Dreams.

(42:20):
It has nothing on the surface to do with the afterlife,
but apparently he created the film as an evocation of
fantasies of the afterlife. Who would have known.

Speaker 7 (42:35):
It's a girl unconscious, my unconscious.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
It's so like when people say the power of art,
like boy, this dude nailed it. But it's a girl
running through a garden. It's a boy under a cherry
blossom tree that becomes a spirit. It's all these surreal images.

(43:01):
And then it's these hikers walking in a snowstorm and
they gradually gets colder and colder, and they gradually freeze
to death. And I have this thought of did they
accept Jesus as their personal savior? And my body just
went a flame with anxiety, and I was like, I've backslid.

(43:25):
I've backslid. I didn't ever or I never really meant
it in the first place. I never was saved. I'm
never saved. And I heard this was the cinematic part.
Is I heard a scream. I heard a scream in
the theater, and then I realized it was coming from
my own mouth, and I stumbled out of the theater

(43:46):
without my code. It was the middle of winter in Ithaca,
New York, and I was just out in this snow,
rather similar to the people that had just gotten frozen
in the snowstorm. And I can feel it in my
body now. Is. I was like, I knew it. I
was like, my life's never going to be the same.
I'm like everything's changing. And I stopped having sex with

(44:09):
my boyfriend. I stopped drinking, I stopped swearing. I started
reading books that I wasn't I started doing Bible study.
I was like, I got to get back on the
right path. And I was like no, no, And I
was just like, you know, I couldn't need I was
vomiting and I was very very ill, and I called
my parents, who really came through for me. They found

(44:32):
I mean, there were problems with the facility that I
went to, but it's it's what I needed. I was like,
I need help, and I don't need once a week therapy.
I need help, and I can't go to a secular
facility because they'll be like, hell's not real, get over it.
I'm like, I need I need to work with it.

(44:54):
So they found me a place. It was in Wheaton, Illinois,
which is the greatest number of churches which is per
capita in the United States, and so they just have
tons of different programs and the place that I went to.
The thing that I am grateful for two for them

(45:15):
to this day is everybody there said you were saved,
you were okay. If they had not done that, I
don't know. I don't know what would have happened to me.
They at least gave me that they certainly didn't object
to the notion of it. I mean that was that

(45:38):
they never would have done that. But they medicated me,
which I needed. I was able to get my appetite back.
We talked about OCD. I learned about scrupulosity. I learned
that Martin Luther suffered from it. And then I had
one therapist who is just really saved the day for

(45:59):
me and told me about Martin Luther's doctrine of pecaphor
de tay, which is the brave sin, and it is
sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God.
And he essentially told me this was exposure therapy exactly
as he said, the most important thing is your relationship

(46:20):
with God, and you are destroying it by being worried
about being punished or that you're not saved. You need
to do all of the sins that you want to
do and not worry about repercussions.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
I want to know more about the period right before
this movie theater incident, like were you having panic attacks?

Speaker 6 (46:40):
Like what was going on?

Speaker 3 (46:43):
No, it just like something just got triggered by that
movie and that thought in there.

Speaker 7 (46:48):
Yeah wow wow, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
I had panic attacks constantly after that before I think
I just had a I think there was an underlying
annxiety that was brewing because I was suppressing it. But no,
I was really happy. I was happy I had gotten
engaged to my boyfriend. I was you know, I was happy,

(47:18):
and then it broke just in a second. So a
strange situation for a nineteen year old college kid. I
was by far the youngest person there. I was grateful

(47:41):
to have some form of care. The medication did really help.
And then I had a best friend there was She
was my buddy just from day one, and she was
I think she was probably thirty five. She seems so

(48:01):
old at the time, such an adult to be friends
with a thirty five year old, but she was so
kind to me. And later on in my journey, when
I started picturing God as a female, that was one
of the steps that I took along my way, I
would picture her as part of that image because her

(48:26):
attitude towards me and my suffering was it really it
really helped. It really helped me in the experience. I
think she facilitated facilitated my change in some ways.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
You write about this amusing quotation marks therapist Bethany, who
kept pushing this narrative on, like she wouldn't listen to
anything you were saying, basically and decided you were a
boleamic and it just not. I mean, I wanted to
watch them movie of your book and hate her character

(49:03):
so much you know, can you just talk a little
bit about her role versus.

Speaker 6 (49:08):
Like having a friend and like just the difference between.

Speaker 5 (49:11):
Yeah. So, Bethany was the main therapist that I worked with,
and I felt like I could see her textbook in
therapist school that she was working from when she talked
to me, Like I could almost see her eyes go
off and go on page twelve, young women who are

(49:33):
throwing up. But I kept telling her about my experience,
and she had decided what was going on with me.
Certainly a lot of nineteen year old young women are
worried about their body image issues, and I really didn't.
I was so skinny, I wasn't eating and I was

(49:55):
throwing up. And she felt that the main problem was
not the theology, but was body image issues. And it
just wasn't true.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
The theology was what was making you throw up because
it was so stressful.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
Yes, I just couldn't keep food in my stomach. But
the more that I said, look, I am not worried
about being fat, she was like, well, this seems to
be a really loaded topic for you. Denial, denial, denial.
You seem to be getting very upset, right, you know,

(50:33):
And she had a full length mirror that she brought
in at one point, you know, she was like, tell
me what you see? It like, I don't want to
look in a mirror. There you go, you don't want
to look in a mirror.

Speaker 6 (50:45):
Oh there?

Speaker 5 (50:47):
And I'm like, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
But you look up confirmation bias in the dictionary just
a picture of her.

Speaker 7 (50:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (50:55):
Yeah. So I kept and I just felt like she
didn't understand the would I would tell her even if
I am saved, I'm like, what about my boyfriend, what
about my fiance? What you know? And she would say, well,

(51:15):
we all have a choice, and I was, but the
choices that we make are conditioned by all these other things.
We can't just say he has a choice. That doesn't.
But so, what really helped me was this other doctor
who told me about the notion of sin bravely because

(51:35):
he under he understood what I was saying, and he said, yes,
that is difficult. Now he didn't say, I mean I
wish he had gone as far as good. This is
a scare tactic from the Middle Ages that is crippling
children all across the country. It's not true. It's not true,

(51:58):
young lady. You know, I wish she could have said
something like that, but he he did a lot.

Speaker 7 (52:03):
Better than Bethany.

Speaker 5 (52:04):
Than Bethany.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
There's a scene in your book of you in the
support group at this place, which, by the way, the
characters with what characters the.

Speaker 6 (52:16):
People in the group were.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
But there's a man named Mickey who sort of like
feverishly shouts that all you have to do is accept
Jesus into your heart. And your response is that you've
done that ten thousand times and you just can't be
one hundred percent sure you got it right, which is
just like eat a nutshell. I'm like, yes, that is,
that is what OCD is.

Speaker 5 (52:36):
That's what OCD is. That's and it's such fertile ground
for OCD to grow in.

Speaker 6 (52:42):
Yes, talk more about that.

Speaker 5 (52:43):
I feel like probably whatever predisposition I have towards OCD,
in whatever environment I was raised in, it would have
come out in some way or another, is my guess.
But it would not have grown into the months stracity.
It would not have crippled my psyche for so many

(53:07):
years without this fundamentalist thinking, without the notion of hell,
like like once I did behavioral cognitive behavioral therapy with
the curling iron thing.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yet you figure it out, Like seeing if your door
is locked forty thousand times a night is much different
than wondering about eternity and your soul being on fire forever.

Speaker 7 (53:32):
It's just two different things.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Right, Accepting uncertainty about whether something was plugged in versus
accepting uncertainty about whether you are eternally damned and will
literally burn forever and never see your family again.

Speaker 6 (53:49):
I mean, I'm not I don't.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
I do not want to diminish how painful the first
kind is, because I know people who struggle with that,
and it's very, very painful.

Speaker 6 (53:56):
They're afraid they're gonna kill everyone they love. But it's just.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
There's no real response to someone who believes in this
notion of hell that you could go to for any
like arbitrary sin.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
Right, how do you habituate to that notion? How do
you go okay? Well, like I can go okay, I'd
leave the curling iron in the house, burns down, we
get a new house, or you know, anything is manageable,
but Hell, by definition is unmanageable.

Speaker 6 (54:28):
Right, There's no way out. Once you're there. You're there.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
And that was one of the things, oh that bothered you, Right,
that God didn't extend sympathy to the thirsty rich man
in hell.

Speaker 5 (54:39):
Yeah, it's like, nope, too late. Oh can I tell
you my favorite moment. This might be my favorite moment
in all of literature. I'm so glad I get to
say this. Okay, So that story, that Lazarus story that
I hate it. So if your listeners don't know it. Basically,

(55:00):
there's a rich man and there's a poor man, and
the rich man treats the poor man Lazareth, not Lazarus
that rose from the dead, but Lazareth treats him badly.
Then at the end, Lazareth goes to heaven. The rich
man is in hell. And at one point the rich
man goes to Lazareth, my tongue is burning. Can you
just give me a drop of your heavenly water from

(55:22):
above to soothe my burning self? And Lazareth ask God,
and God's like tell him no, no, It is the cruelest,
most horrible thing. So I was reading in my sin
bravely period after the hospital, I was reading literature that

(55:43):
couldn't be considered blasphemous, and I was reading The Last
Temptation of Christ and they have this scene and they
go up to the point in the story where Jesus
is telling the parable, and then it extends and it
says John, Jesus's favorite disciple, says, Lord, that cannot be

(56:06):
the end of the story. Surely God's mercy spills over,
and Jesus says, ah, John, you among all the disciples knew, no,
the story cannot end there. And God said to Lazauth,
of course, welcome him into the gates and welcome them all.

(56:32):
And I just I just cried and cried this idea
that just the beginning was reported and only one disciple
was open hearted enough to go, No, that can't be
how it ends. Those retelling of those stories have real

(56:59):
power for me, because now when I think of that story,
I have that ending attached to it.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
It's really odd because the two by twos, which I
grew up in, is very focused on how like if
you were to say I'm scared, I'm going to Hell,
they'd be like you probably are, most of us are, like,
everyone's going to Hell is essentially there the thing.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
Really, Yeah, it's it's very hell based.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
But the verses that you were kind of hand picking
and focusing on are things that they also handpicked and
would and would focus upon, so you were kind of
doing the same research.

Speaker 7 (57:37):
They were the scariest shit. Scarious, Yeah, the scariest shit.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
And I remember they would there was a really hard
influence on children, obey your parents, and that God knows
every hair that you have on your head. That was like,
and so when I wanted to talk to God, I
would pull a hair out of my head so that
my hair count change. Oh my God, that I would
have his attention, and I'd be like, now that I

(58:04):
have your attention, here's what I need to tell you.

Speaker 6 (58:08):
The Maggan I didn't know that.

Speaker 7 (58:11):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
Like a lot of the verses that you were focused on,
I was also focused on. But the difference is it
just feels like you were innately finding them on your
own with your I mean the Bible that you got,
this huge Bible with every single different thing. It's it's
horrible and sad, but it's also just so funny that

(58:32):
you were doing this.

Speaker 5 (58:34):
You know. The verse that killed me, the hardest one
for me was the God would rather you be He
wants you to be hot for the Lord, rather you
be cold than lukewarm. If you were lukewarm, he will
spit you out of his mouth. Bikes, and of course

(58:56):
I felt lukewarm. I wasn't on fire, but I was trying.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
You know, it's like forcing yourself to be in love
with someone, like, right, right, you're.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
Got a here in this, I'm in this marriage, loveless marriage.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Right.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
Isn't that enough? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (59:18):
You go from I'm assuming being in the dorms and
being fun to this single bed room by yourself, away
from all of your friends, with an entirely new group
of people, with an entirely new focus on life. What
I mean, what does that even feel like to be
nineteen years old and to be addressing all of these issues.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
I felt like I it was like if everyone's in
a race and then one person schluffs off to the side.
I definitely felt like life was continuing for my I.
You know, I've heard people say this about being physically sick.
It's like you descend into a different world. There's the

(01:00:02):
world of the well and the world of the unwell,
and you can't remember a time when you were well,
and you can't have met It just felt like I
had slipped into a different sort of existence and I
was desperately in love with my fiance, who continued on

(01:00:25):
to do what we had been planning to do that summer,
which was be ares in a dorm. We had gotten
accepted and we were gonna do this together. And he
continued on and he was dating people and he was

(01:00:45):
kind of my It sucks that he was kind of
my only big not my only, but he was my
biggest emotional support. So I would still call him up crying,
and you know, I would measure like is this working?
Am I getting better? Am I still? And it's not

(01:01:06):
like when I left, I was cured by any means,
but I was eating and managing enough. I had some
coping skills.

Speaker 6 (01:01:18):
How did you get officially diagnosed?

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
So there was a there were a number of different
people that worked there, but there was a psychiatrist that well,
they did the is it the m mp I like
a like a three hour kind of battery of tests
that ask you various different questions and then she gave

(01:01:44):
me an evaluation and the test results came back. You know, oddly,
it's so funny. You know, those tests have weird questions
like do you think Abraham Lincoln is a better man
or George Washington? You know, it's these like we it's
like weird things that they've just determined if you answer
this to this question, you're more likely to have blah

(01:02:06):
blah blah blah. It's like they're indirect questions. Yeah, it's weird,
so you don't quite know what they're testing. But I
remember as I was doing it, being terrified that I
was lying, you know, being like, do I really think
that George Washington is a better? Like? Am I trust?
You know, like being tripped up in the thing itself

(01:02:29):
as I was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Doing Was it a relief when you learned that, like
this is this was something that your brain was doing,
Like did you believe that this was more of a
product of you know, these this sort of obsessive thinking
style thinking habit that you had instead of like, you know,
being directly connected to the reality of sin.

Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
Yes, it was definitely helpful. That was the one really
good thing that they did for me. They compared it
to hand washing and that you know, you're never going
to be sure that you've gotten every single last germ. Now,
of course, my answer was, well, it's okay if you
haven't gotten every single last germ if you're handwashing, it's

(01:03:14):
not okay if you haven't gotten that prayer, right, right,
so it was not the perfect solution, but it did
ameliorate my distress.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
It was one thing I wanted to say something about
the medication that you eventually ended up going on, which
I have as well, But you didn't want to take
it at first because you were scared that you would
become less afraid of Hell.

Speaker 7 (01:03:42):
Might be going there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
So that's a double bind that you have in your
brain where it's.

Speaker 7 (01:03:48):
Just like, no, I have to stay diligent.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
I don't want anything that calms me down, because then
maybe I'll think that I'm not going to hell, and
then I'll go to Hell. And your doctor was able
to make a very important point, which was like, well,
the cortisol in your body is also making you make
decisions that aren't in reality, so maybe kind of finding
the balance would be a more realistic thought. Yep.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
It was a good argument and a fair one, and
I it was my way in. Yeah. I was like, Okay,
that's a distorting drug too, all.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Right, of course, Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Speaker 5 (01:04:29):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Well, so we've said the wordscrupulosity a few times, and
I just want to I'm going to read something from
TREATIOCD dot com, which is a no from no CD.

Speaker 7 (01:04:40):
I'm sure we've all been on it several times.

Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
What is scrupulosity OCD? Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
If you're experiencing obsessions centered on morals, religious codes, and
your ability to adhere to them, you may be dealing
with a subtype of OCD known as scrupulosity OCD or
religious OCD. Scrupulosity OCD typically involves intrusive thoughts and compulsive
behaviors focused on religious codes, spiritual beliefs, or questions of morality.
For example, people with this OCD subtype often have recurring

(01:05:08):
fears about sinning, making God angry, or otherwise going against
their religious's rules. However, scrupulosity can also manifest us more
general fears about ethics, proper behavior, responsibility for others, or
other questions relating to values, like anxieties about veganism and environmentalism. Interestingly,
if you go down to the symptoms, it seems like

(01:05:30):
this must be a recurring theme. Veganism as like a
moral code, because there's there's like did I do something wrong?
Have I disappointed God? Am I committing a sin? If
I'm a vegan? Am I a bad person for accidentally
eating honey? Which totally makes sense. There's so many ways
in which this can manifest itself, depending on what your
particular code of morality is, you know, like if you're

(01:05:54):
anti racist and you have OCD and a racist thought
pops into your head, like, I'm sure exactly the same
thing can come up.

Speaker 6 (01:06:02):
But so that is sort of the realm that we
are dealing with.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
And I don't want to say you got lucky, but like,
your religion wasn't that extreme compared to many of the
people we've had on this show, where the rules are
so so strict and the you know, thought control is
and life control is so so strict that it almost
almost be impossible to not develop OCD in response.

Speaker 6 (01:06:27):
To paying it in it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
I mean, yeah, but I do think it's more common
than maybe any of us realized a few years ago,
because the more we have these conversations, the more and
more people we find will like have had obsessions of
these kind.

Speaker 5 (01:06:44):
Obsessions of these kind in terms of religion, are in
terms of like the veganism that you're talking.

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
About, or religion in terms of like people who are
coming out of religions, but also in general, like cancel culture.
OCD is a thing where you're like worried that you'll
say something wrong or you you'll do something wrong and
yeah you'll get canceled or you know, like there's there's
so many versions of it, but I in particular on
this podcast, because we deal with religion, we see these
patterns kind of come.

Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
Up a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:07:11):
Yeah. I think it's so interesting the connection between particularly
scrupulous I mean, I know scrupulosity is a type of OCD,
but the connection between fear of hell and and finding
some sort of pattern to manage it, whether it's directly
related to the thoughts or whether it's some like did

(01:07:33):
you ever see the movie Jesus Camp You probably did?
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yes, And there's that kid who won't who like he's
like a preacher.

Speaker 5 (01:07:42):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, there's that kid. But there's a
moment when one of the girls who's kind of pushed
to witness when she doesn't want to witness, goes outside
and she needs to get a certain number of snowflakes
on her tongue before she'll go back inside. And it
was such a I saw that and I was like, oh, there, there,

(01:08:03):
it blooms, there, it blooms.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
I mean, anytime you're told that someone is literally in
your brain and can see every thought that you have,
and you're a human being. So some of the thoughts
that pop into your brain that are just the natural
result of being a human whose brain works. Yeah, I
mean some of those thoughts. The first thought is not
going to be your best thought. And then oh God

(01:08:26):
saw that, Oh yeah, God heard that. I got to
do something about that to let God know that that
thought wasn't what I really think, you.

Speaker 5 (01:08:34):
Know, totally, and then that kind of mind screw of like, well,
it's like with a T shirt thing with me. At
one point I was like, wait, does God know I'm embarrased?
Like he can see He's not just looking at the outside.
He's looking. He's gonna know I feel embarrassed. I'm you know,
there's there's all those different layers of how can you

(01:08:57):
trick God? Can you deceive God? Right, it's the don't
think about pink elephants on the wall. As soon as
you say that, they're gonna come stampeding in.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
And and to add on to that, the metaphor that
we always you know comes up in OCD a lot,
and we've talked about this podcast, is when you have
a beach ball in the ocean, and you try to
push the beach ball.

Speaker 6 (01:09:20):
Down into the water, it's just gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
Zoom right back up like there there really isn't That's
not how it works. You can't get rid of a
thought by just like trying not to think about it,
you know, it just makes it come back. More so
if anyone's suffering from scrupulosity, just no, yeah, it's just
your brain braining.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Do you guys think if you have a thought. There
was a pair of twins where you went who were
like completely destroyed by the fact that they kept envisioning
themselves having sex with their mother.

Speaker 7 (01:09:48):
Horrible, horrible thought.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Do you think that they should have just seen that
fantasy out to the end without guilt, and that would
have been kind of the beach ball up to the
thing and you Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:10:02):
I wonder I mean that was the problem with that facility. Well,
the slogan was psychiatry where the Bible comes first, which
is a problematic attitude to have. So I felt like
some of the treatment, including the treatment of the twins,

(01:10:22):
had that moral overlay that could have caused more problems
than helped.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Yeah, I mean, the thing is this, like the thing
with OCD is that it attaches onto the thing you
value the most. So whatever that is, whatever you don't
want to happen the most, that's the thing that's going
to make you think is going to happen. So yes,
if you don't want to do like weird stuff with

(01:10:48):
your mom and you think it would be horrible to
do that, that's the first thing that your brain's going
to show.

Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
Yes. Yes, your brain braining is the perfect thing to say. Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Apologies for andy blasphemy we may have committed. We were
more just talking about, you know, what our where our
brains take us. But for someone if there is someone
who's currently struggling with this scrupulosity or religious anxiety or
moral OCD, like what would you would you have any
advice for them?

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
Maggie, Oh boy, that's a that's my my favorite question.
There were different phases to my recovery from scrupulosity. The
first phase was within Christianity itself, so anybody suffering within Christianity.
What I did that was so helpful for me is

(01:11:42):
to replace my image of a scary, terrifying God that
seemed likely to send me to hell with that of
a warm, compassionate image and I really worked to construct that.
I mean, I listened to songs I listened to like
the Indigo Girls Strange Fire. That's the first line, I

(01:12:06):
come to you with an offering of love. I come
to you with a strange fire of love. It was
written as a love song from God to his children.
And so I thought of that. I pictured women as God.
I made artwork that would evoke to me a compassionate, warm, pink, rosy,

(01:12:37):
enveloping image. Like I treated it like an art project,
so that I had a counter image. So anytime I
was worried, you know, I was like I felt guilty.
I had an image that I had curated that would

(01:12:59):
arise when I had the fear that did not replace
the horrible image, but stood side by side and within Christianity.
That was the best thing I did for myself exiting Christianity.
The best thing that I did for myself was read

(01:13:19):
Joseph Campbell and realize how all of the different religions
are connected and how these images are symbols. And I
really came to understand how the Bible came to be created,
how it's been used as a weapon of fear, and

(01:13:44):
extricating myself completely from the literal thinking. Those were the
two things that I did. Oh and meditate, Dear God,
meditate that I don't know what would have happen and
to my life if I didn't have a very regular

(01:14:04):
meditation practice where I can continually come back to center
and see what my mind is doing and then go
all right, here we are here, we are doing its thing.
Here we are thought.

Speaker 6 (01:14:21):
Oh, yeah, hello thought, goodbye thought.

Speaker 5 (01:14:24):
Yeah. I mean it's it's the hardest thing in the
world to do, and I still struggle with repetitious thoughts,
intrusive thoughts, but that's how I deal with it. That
was a long answer.

Speaker 6 (01:14:35):
No, it's a great answer.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
I love having a distinction between within Christianity and extiting
Christianity because that's obviously the approach will had to be
very different and the treatment would be very different depending
on what someone's belief system is. And we always do
recommend mental health professionals who are specialized in what you
are experiencing.

Speaker 6 (01:14:55):
I went to.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Before I saw OCD therapy and God listeners. So sorry
we talk about this so much, but before I saw
someone who was specialized, I went to just the general
therapist to kind of, you know, she just had anxiety
listed as like one of her specialties. And she was
great for what she was. You know, she was great

(01:15:19):
for certain things. I don't want to trash her. She
was a very good therapist, but she didn't necessarily know
about this stuff. She told me that meditation could be helpful.
I was having like kind of NonStop panic about about
the idea of losing my mind, and she told me
meditation could be helpful. And I was like, I'm trying
meditation and it's not working. And she was like, well,
you can't just start now, you have to have it ongoing.

(01:15:42):
And then my obsessive brain was like, oh, because I
didn't start meditating earlier, the meditation is not going to
work for me. And so now every time I meditate,
it's gonna be you.

Speaker 6 (01:15:51):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
And I would meditate and then I'd be like, how
do I feel now? How do I feel now? Did
the meditation get rid of it? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:15:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 6 (01:15:59):
I'll just find something, It'll just find something. Yeah, yeah,
But I do agree. Mindfulness.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Mindfulness is a big part of the like sort of
gold standard treatment for scrupulosity and OCD. Now, like being
able to notice your thought and see it for what
it is instead of identifying with it so strongly. It's
it's yeah, it's just it's a skill we should all have,
It's what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:16:22):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Oh my gosh. Well it sounds like you're free from
this belief system or do you still have lingering.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
Fears?

Speaker 5 (01:16:33):
Lingering but very wispy, Yeah, very wispy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
Tell us where people can find your book and or
are you on social media?

Speaker 5 (01:16:43):
Oh? Yes, so my website is maggiowauthor dot com. Books
on Amazon anyway where they sell books.

Speaker 6 (01:16:52):
Awesome, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:16:54):
Yeah, wow, Maggie, thank you so much for getting unstuck
from under your gate and us and writing such an
amazing book.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
Indeed, and speaking of the book, there is an ending
to the book that is the reason it's called sin
Bravely that we didn't actually get to talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:17:12):
Yes, very strong third act ending.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
She discovers through her psychiatrist, a philosopher who said something about, uh, like,
if you're every human's gonna sin, so sin bravely, just
be bold, be bold about shit, be bold about shit.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Well, and in her case, like she was so terrified
of sinning because of how much she wanted not to.
And I think that's one of the most interesting things
about OCD to me, is like it latches onto the
thing that you want or don't want the most, so
it's like whatever you value. So in her case, it

(01:17:52):
just was a demonstration of how much she valued being
righteous that she was so afraid of sinning. So for
her to sin was like in defiance of like it
was it's a really brave thing to do because she
values being righteous so much exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
So third act pinnacle of this book, which everybody should
read for themselves. But I won't give away too much,
but I will just tell you she ends up actually
going at the end of her kind of summer and
this institution to an amateur stripping night and doing a

(01:18:27):
little strip tease.

Speaker 6 (01:18:28):
She lets it all loose, I mean just let at
all loose.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
But she dances, yeah, and she and she takes all
some clothes.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
And this is, you know, an exposure for her, and
this is a way to be brave and to kind
of defy her own obsessive brain. And I think it's
such a cool, like interesting resolution to this kind of
obsession about sin.

Speaker 4 (01:18:55):
I am obsessed with it. I loved it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
Too, So yeah, read the book for the whole experience.
But uh, you know you walk away from a feeling,
feeling a nuisance of freedom. I did anyway, so hell yeah,
can't say enough good about it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:09):
The book is called Sin Bravely, a Memoir of Spiritual
Disobedience by Maggie Brow.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Go check it out, Yes, please and go check us
out on Apple and radous five stars.

Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Leave us a glowing review, order a T shirt.

Speaker 6 (01:19:23):
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Speaker 4 (01:19:26):
And as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out
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Speaker 6 (01:19:30):
Flags, and never ever trust me.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
Hey Hey, trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby
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Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
The special thanks to Stacy Para and.

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