Situation: Ambiguous intersection.
Obsession: I may have caused an accident by not having handled the turn lane properly.
Compulsions: Go back to look at the intersection. Re-create the turn repeatedly in my head. Listen to traffic reports for word of trouble.
Jackie and I are working our way through one of her so-called “Thought Record” worksheets, as we’ve done a hundred times before with a hundred other episodes. But this time, Jackie suggests I attempt to indulge my new interest in spiritual arguments as we tackle the worksheet’s all-important Responses section.
“I have to be honest, though,” she apologizes. “I know nothing about spiritual reasoning.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “Neither do I.”
A couple of heathens, we give it a shot.
Responses to Ambiguous Intersection Obsessions:
Perhaps I still can’t trust myself, but I’ve given this job to God. If he’s not showing a clear sign, I’m going to trust him and move on.
I could go back to the intersection and check, but this doesn’t serve my greater function.
God judges us on intentions, not actions, and my intention was good.
God doesn’t want me to suffer, obsess, and worry. I can serve him best if I just move on.
I need to work on letting this go.
This is a test of my faith and trust. I can come out of this stronger.
This is new territory for Jackie and me. I sense that she’s a bit uncomfortable with the whole notion of introducing spirituality into our traditional cognitive behavior therapy. But Jackie is the quintessential pragmatist. If something seems to be working for one of her patients, then she’ll do everything possible to encourage its continued use. For whatever reasons, spiritual reasoning seems to help me get some perspective on the whole intersection incident and a handful of other episodes in the weeks that follow. So we go with it, dancing around the many differences one might point to between a spiritual and a scientific approach to treatment, focusing instead on the surprising number of similarities.
As I’m sure you can appreciate, the real-world laboratory in which Jackie and I worked was anything but a controlled environment. So to say that my new commitment to spiritual principles quickly made a huge difference in my OCD battles would be to connect dots no good scientist would ever venture to link. My inner believer would love to claim the credit. But for all I know, my quantum-leap progress could have been due to my meds, which Dr. Smith had recently changed from Prozac to Zoloft. Or a sudden breakthrough in my understanding and application of behavior therapy. Or some harmonic convergence or planetary alignment. Who really knows? All I can tell you for sure is that I was soon able to cut in half my time spent checking, and perhaps more importantly, that I also managed to reclaim at least some semblance of my once healthy sense of humor.
From day one, Jackie had coached me to look for the humor in my ludicrous OCD thinking and checking patterns, often taking the task upon herself when so moved. Laughter is powerful medicine, as the old saying goes, but it can also be a tough pill to swallow. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on my frame of mind), Sam shared Jackie’s sense of humor. Sam, at Jackie’s urging, had been relentless in trying to drive home the droll nature of my illness, resorting even to verse to help me hear myself talk:
I killed a man in Frisco,
One in Oakland too.
Dead bodies, they surround me.
Oh, what am I to do?
They jump off towering bridges,
Litter highways too.
Dead bodies, they surround me.
Oh, what am I to do?
I force cars off the roadways,
Cause strokes all over too.
Dead bodies, they surround me.
Oh, what am I to do?
I have a slight disorder;
It’s known as O-C-D.
With Jackie there to help me,
No more bodies will I see.
Jackie couldn’t have been more delighted when I brought in my wife’s “charming” prose. “You sure were lucky to find a woman like Sam,” she’d said, all smiles. From then on, the two of them would share more than a few good laughs at my expense—perhaps none more relished than the ones spawned by the Ben Gay episode.
As I recall, it had all begun when I got home from the library one night and realized that the heating ointment I’d put on my shoulder for a sore muscle had left a mark on my shirt. This was not good. I bet it also got on the library’s couch! Within seconds Doubt had me convinced that others who sat on that couch might get the ointment on them, perhaps putting their health at risk. What about pregnant women? Is the product safe for them? I had to know. Had to read the warnings on the label.
The tube of Ben Gay I’d used was still at the gym, so I had to go out to the drugstore that night and peruse the shelves. No serious warnings, as I remember, but that didn’t stop me from returning to the library, where I spent a good ten minutes sniffing the couch—yes, nose to the cushions, sniffing the couch. Imagine the notation on my sacred permanent record had some authority figure caught me in the act!
Unlike my wife and therapist, I was far from amused by my actions that night. It was only at this juncture, months later, that I began to see anything even remotely funny about the whole incident. But the point is I did, and that point was not lost on Jackie.
“You’re really laughing now about the Ben Gay episode?”
“Yeah.”
“You really understand now what all that nonsense was about?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess we really are making progress.”
Another bookstore. More research. But this time I am scouring not bookshelves, but bulletin boards, looking for some kind of human support system I can tap into. Mentors. Coaches. Maybe just a group of people who understand suffering. Ever since learning about the groundbreaking group work at Jampolsky’s Center for Attitudinal Healing, I’ve become fascinated by the power of shared determination. But I am not facing a catastrophic illness, nor am I grieving for a lost one, so the Center is out. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. There are OCD support groups out there. I’ve heard of a few. But who’d want to sit around in a room with a bunch of freaks like me?
Today, though, I have stumbled across word of a “New Thought” discussion group that meets on Tuesday nights not too far from our house. At first, I dismiss the idea outright, imagining what kind of namby-pamby, touchy-feely types would choose to be a part of something like this. But then I remind myself that I can get up and walk out at any time. Nobody needs to know who I am. I can be a fly on the wall. Besides, when it comes right down to it, what on earth have I got to lose?
The following Tuesday, I fight a rainstorm and two nasty driving episodes as I make my way to the meeting. Dripping wet and ten minutes late, I attempt to sneak in the door marked with the address I’ve scrawled on a notepad along with directions. But a surreptitious entry is not to be. One step through the doorway and I am staring right into an oversized living room. Right at some thirty men and woman seated in a circle of folding chairs. They too are staring at me, alerted to my arrival by a door hinge in desperate need of some WD-40.
A soft-spoken man with graying hair and kind, tired eyes is standing at the far end of the room. He motions me in.
“Please. Make yourself comfortable. My name is Dirk and I moderate this group. Right now, we’re just doing some sharing about our challenges this past week.”
Thirty pairs of eyes are locked on mine. I want—need—to make up an excuse, tell them I’m in the wrong place, and get the hell out of here. But I can’t. For whatever reason, this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and whatever “knowing” tells me this also suggests I plant my butt in one of these seats. Now.
Over the course of the next forty-five minutes, I learn how off-base I’d been about who would attend this meeting. Not a single namby-pamby, touchy-feely type in the room. As it turns out, Dirk is a recovering alcoholic, clean and sober for nearly two decades now, and he and at least half of the other people in the room are here as part of their AA or other Twelve Step work. In no particular seating order around me are old men, kids barely out of their teens, a gray-haired woman with granny glasses, a hulking biker with mean tattoos, and a cast of some two dozen other miscellaneous characters, all joined by two common bonds: a heartfelt desire to rebuild their lives and a humble recognition that they can’t do it alone.
Something else strikes me early on, too: no one is pressuring anyone to say anything or volunteer any thoughts. Hands go up. Dirk calls on people. And they, in turn, offer real-life, school-of-hard-knocks comments on the various spiritual topics that pop up in discussion. The whole dynamic is far more comfortable than I could have imagined. If I weren’t so worked up over my driving episodes and my soggy umbrella’s current potential to cause all kinds of problems, I might even be able to relax.
After the meeting, Dirk catches me on my way out the door. I thank him for his hospitality and brace myself for the sales pitch I know is coming.
“I’m glad you showed up,” he says. “Please know you’re welcome any time.”
And that, along with a firm handshake, is all he’s interested in pitching me.
Week after week, I show up for Dirk’s Tuesday night group and quietly take in all the inspiring stories: a longtime drunk talking about the morning he woke up in a gutter and realized it was time to put his hands together in prayer; a recovering addict describing his life-changing revelation in prison; a former CEO explaining what it’s like to wind up with a cardboard box for your home.
I say very little, just soak it all in. But as the weeks march on, I come to realize that I’m the guy who keeps pulling pennies from the jar next to the deli cash register to round out his bill, but never sees a need to toss an occasional coin from his own change back in the bin. Here I am drawing inspiration from recovering drunks and addicts, all brave enough to talk about their lives in the gutter, but I’m too embarrassed to open my mouth about driving in circles?
So one night, forty minutes or so into our meeting, I just do it: stand up and tell the group I have something to share. I get about three quarters of the way through my little speech before I start to lose it and scurry out of the room. Standing on the front porch, I realize what an egregious mistake I’ve just made. I decide to forgo the rest of the meeting and head home, leaving this place behind me forever. But damn it, my jacket is still inside.
I peek my head in the door and see that the group is just breaking up. My jacket is waiting for me right where I’ve left it. So too, it seems, is all of the personal encouragement I’ve been craving.
One by one they come over to me, arms outstretched. Tattooed and needled-pocked forearms wrap around my shoulders. Eyes set in faces weathered and chiseled by years of rough living look right into mine. Voices strengthened by a power greater than their own whisper in my ears.
“We’re proud of you, Jeff.”
“You can get through this, big guy.”
“Your Higher Power is there for you. Always.”
These are the true believers comforting me. Ragged, battered, patched-up souls who have learned the hardest way possible how to tap into the power of their own belief. They are walking their talk one day at a time, carrying each other when the journey calls for it.
If I, too, am going to stumble my way along some kind of pseudo-spiritual path, I know these are the travel companions I want by my side.