I used to be afraid of Kate Kelly

I used to be afraid of having a gay child.

Of psychologists.

Of uncertainty, dissension, and differences.

Of things I didn’t understand.

I used to be afraid.

Now I am afraid of having any child.

Of being alive.

Of being dead.

Of connecting.

Of isolating.

I was influenced to see Kate Kelly as a symbol of narcissism and evil. Now I see a woman.

I was influenced to believe that having a gay child meant choosing heaven or love. Now I see a child.

Someday I will not be afraid of having a child, of living, of dying, of connecting, of isolating.

What will I be afraid of then?

Opening Lines of Books

The opening sentences of a book can be stirring for me. Reading them invokes the feeling of wind rising up and sweeping past. Something is about to start, about to happen. I am entering a world that will gradually reveal itself to me. I have parted the curtain of vines and stepped into a new forest and I will not emerge the same.

Photo by Gonard Fluit on Unsplash

These are a few of the books and their opening lines that have moved me:

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men."

2. The Witches by Roald Dahl 

"A Note About Witches: In fairytales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairytale. This is about REAL WITCHES."

- Pretty much any book by Roald Dahl has a great opener.

3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number 4 Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

4. Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Technically this is an epic poem, not a book)

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harper's hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."

5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis 

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

6. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

“The mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; Til he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said, “Bother!” and, “Oh blow!” and also, “Hang spring cleaning!” and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.

7. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

What are your favorite opening lines? I would LOVE to hear them. 

OCD

I think OCD is one of the most misused pyschologic diagnoses out there. I hear people at least twice a week saying "I'm OCD," or "It's my OCD." Usually they are referring to straightening a skewed welcome mat. I would be willing to bet that these people don't actually have obsessive compulsive disorder, they are just anal retentive and like to straighten things. 

Also, saying "I'm OCD" makes NO SENSE. You are not the embodiment of obsessive compulsive disorder. 

So what exactly IS obsessive compulsive disorder? It is so much more than just being a germophobe or having to touch your chin every time you take a bite of cereal. 

I want to take a few moments to talk about what OCD is to me. There are a lot of other possibilities, but this is how I experience/experienced OCD.  My OCD is not visible. I'm also coping with it more than when I was 14-21 years old. For the sake of understanding, I'll describe what it was like for me during those years. 

First, I had a lot of unwanted thoughts:

Unwanted thoughts that came back again and again and again and again and....

Unwanted thoughts like: What if I kill someone? What if I rape someone? What if I'm going to commit a mass shooting? What if I lose control over myself and shout obscenities in church? The state of Florida looks like a penis. Everything long and roundish looks like a penis. Why do sexual thoughts about Jesus enter my mind? What if I have no control over myself whatsoever?

The more I tried to push these thoughts out of my head, the more force and power they had. The more guilty I felt, the more often they came. Until I felt sure that I was an evil person. 

My thoughts were like painful zaps with a rubber band. Quick, but distressing. They would flick through my mind unannounced and uninvited. The thoughts wouldn't last long, but they would come with increasing frequency. The same set of thoughts striking my mind repeatedly. 

Second, I had compulsions, which is the aspect that Hollywood focuses on. My compulsions were invisible. I wasn't a hand washer. When I had an intrusive thought, I reflexively repeated in my mind "please forgive me" in an attempt to neutralize the bad thought. 

A full definition of the disorder can be found in The DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition). For our purposes, this description by comedian Maria Bamford will do: 

 "Have you ever not wanted to go to Sea World ‘cause you're worried if you're left alone with a baby starfish, you'd try to kiss its poop hole?"

Everyone with OCD needs to listen to her comedy.

It's hard to tell people that I used to have intrusive thoughts about being a murderer or some other horrible sort of person. The general public has such a limited understanding of OCD, it can be initially jarring and worrisome to hear about those thoughts. It can be difficult to understand the difference between a destructive crazy person and a person who worries about being a destructive crazy person. The best way I've heard it described is that a psychopath has a lack of conscience. A person with OCD has an overactive conscience. Psychopaths don't worry about hurting people. 

My healing came from telling my therapist all the thoughts I hadn't dared to give breath to before. She calmly looked at me and said, "oh yeah you have OCD." 
Now, lest you think this is easy for me to talk about, when I first sat down with my therapist Lisa (see this post) I sobbed for a long time before I could tell her the horrible, shameful things going through my head. It felt like I could not physically speak the words. My lips would not form them. 

It took a long time to change the perception of myself and understand those thoughts were not my own, but a mental illness. (It also took a lot of Brene Brown-esque "You had a bad thought, you are not a bad person" mantras).

So, what is all this for? Why am I telling you something I still find pretty embarrassing and shameful? I want people to have a better understanding of what OCD is. Whenever someone offhandedly says "I'm OCD" or a television show portrays someone with the disorder as a hand washing, pencil straightener, I feel like my experience is cheapened or diminished. I feel like the horrible shame I experienced is reduced to a comical display of tidiness. I also want people who have OCD to know what it is so they don't think they are evil people. If any of what I have said resonates with you, talk to a therapist. You may not be normal, but you are definitely not alone. 

More resources about OCD/mental illness:

Invisibilia podcast Season 1 Episode 1 "The Secret History of Thoughts"
Criminal podcast Episodes 51 and 52 "Money Tree"  and "The Checklist" 
Darkness Visible by William Styron
www.nami.org National Alliance on Mental Illness

Julia Vincent Hetherton