I will write about a to­pic that I, and pro­bab­ly many of those who are like me, would rat­her not dis­cuss with ot­her pe­op­le. I hope that what I say here will ser­ve as peer sup­port to those tor­men­ted by si­mi­lar an­xie­ties.

I suf­fer from an ex­cep­ti­o­nal­ly sen­si­ti­ve cons­cien­ce. That ma­kes me feel I need to con­fess mat­ters that do not nor­mal­ly bot­her pe­op­le. When that op­p­res­si­ve fee­ling is very strong, I find my­self in a vi­ci­ous circ­le. So­met­hing bot­hers my mind. But I feel that as soon as I get that off my mind, so­met­hing el­se will come up – and this seems to go on fo­re­ver. It seems I can ne­ver re­ach a state of free­dom.

I think this is re­la­ted to a kind of ob­ses­si­ve-com­pul­si­ve di­sor­der, which al­so ma­kes me check things end­les­s­ly. When le­a­ving home, I feel a very strong need to check that I have tur­ned off the stove and the wa­ter taps. It is per­fect­ly nor­mal to make those checks, but it is prob­le­ma­tic when you feel a need to check and re-check again and again.

As a yo­ung fat­her I thought this prob­lem was exc­lu­si­ve­ly mine. Now I know that my fa­mi­ly have al­so been troub­led by it. My wife may feel ir­ri­ta­ted by my ten­den­cy to go on and on about some mi­nor de­tail. For­tu­na­te­ly, ho­we­ver, she al­so un­ders­tands me and sup­ports me when I am rid­den with an­xie­ty.

I know that I can­not pro­per­ly un­ders­tand the scale and sig­ni­fi­can­ce of things. I may be bot­he­red by a small thing that ot­her pe­op­le do not even no­ti­ce. In the worst case I may feel I am ste­a­ling the sand that sticks to the so­les of my shoes.

I seem to be thin­king on dual tracks. On the one hand, I feel op­p­res­sed and an­guis­hed about so­met­hing, while on the ot­her, I am ra­ti­o­nal­ly awa­re of the ab­sur­di­ty of that fee­ling. Stran­ge­ly, an­guish seems to pre­vail over ra­ti­o­na­li­ty.

I try to think that an­xie­ty is like a good friend who tel­ls me that I am ti­red. It is time to rest.

I am as­ha­med of my neu­ro­tic ten­den­cy. I try to act in ways that con­ce­al this comp­li­ca­ti­on of my life from ot­her pe­op­le.

It is ba­si­cal­ly a qu­es­ti­on of fee­ling safe. I feel that if I do not act in line with my thoughts, so­met­hing ter­rib­le will hap­pen. By doing what I feel I have to do I pro­bab­ly try to gain cont­rol over my life.

I un­ders­tand per­fect­ly well that ot­her pe­op­le find my ac­ti­ons in­comp­re­hen­sib­le. Nor can I give a ra­ti­o­nal exp­la­na­ti­on for why I act like that. Ob­ses­si­on does not lis­ten to the voi­ce of re­a­son.

A di­sor­der of the mind may al­so af­fect one’s faith. Spe­a­kers of­ten tell us about the abun­dan­ce of grace and say that the pos­si­bi­li­ty for con­fes­si­on is a spe­ci­al pri­vi­le­ge and ma­ni­fes­ta­ti­on of grace for be­lie­vers. I un­ders­tand that the spe­a­ker the­re­by me­ans a si­tu­a­ti­on where one should put away a mat­ter in con­fes­si­on. But in my mind that may cau­se a kind of an­guish that the spe­a­ker does not mean to pro­vo­ke. I may be wor­ried that con­fes­sing one thing may trig­ger an end­less suc­ces­si­on of things that spring up and de­mand to be put away. Ne­vert­he­less, I want to be­lie­ve that we do not need to con­fess our faults in per­fect de­tail in or­der to be sa­ved.

I try to con­so­le my­self that all life is im­per­fect. Most pe­op­le have one or more bur­dens that they strug­g­le with. Ma­y­be our Cre­a­tor has gi­ven those bur­dens to us as a re­min­der that one day this im­per­fect life will come to an end.

For­tu­na­te­ly, both me­di­ci­ne and psyc­ho­lo­gy re­cog­ni­ze the ob­ses­si­ve-com­pul­si­ve di­sor­der, and there is help avai­lab­le that enab­les me to live a ne­ar­ly nor­mal life.

I think that God has gi­ven me this bur­den. Alt­hough I so­me­ti­mes find it very hard to be­lie­ve free­ly, I know that He will take care of me. He will take me in­to he­a­ven des­pi­te my short­co­mings if I en­de­a­vor to be­lie­ve.

Text: Heik­ki Hon­ka­la

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.