My Back Story

            This story is about my college journey through religious extremism and mental illness. I hope that it will be helpful for you to read about what I have to share. I have struggled with my mental health since college. There are so many decisions to make in college – and a lot of them are big decisions that will impact you for the rest of your life. That feels like a lot of pressure.

            I remember that pressure all too well. My mind, body, and spirit responded to this pressure with anxiety – and it only got worse the longer I was in college. Some students respond to this pressure by partying and drinking to blow off steam, and others may turn to religion and campus ministries to help them cope with the stress. My path was the latter. But even that ended up causing me harm….

            When I left for college, I thought I was a pretty well-adjusted student and person. I was independent and ready for the next phase of my life. I had pretty much decided on my major beforehand, but another major became equally appealing during my Freshman year. I decided to take classes in both majors to help me make my decision, but this ended up causing extra stress and anxiety. I went to college a devoted Christian, so I began to turn toward God and religion more and more to help me with the anxiety and uncertainty I was experiencing.

            It didn’t take very long for me to get drawn into a Pentecostal campus ministry. They offered a zealous, passionate form of Christianity that made me feel alive and emotional. I liked it at first. I also liked that I was serving God by reaching out to others and telling them what God had done in my life, and I was developing a close-knit family with my friends in the campus ministry. That close-knit family-like feeling is one of the most contagious things about religious groups. It’s a sense of “belonging.” It may be very real – or it may seem real. Either way, it is a very strong, warm, and welcoming feeling that you get attached to and you don’t want to let go of. Later in life, after leaving Christianity, this is one of the things I miss the most – this sense that there are other people out there beyond your own biological family that actually care about you and would take care of you as if they were your own family.

            After having a few bad experiences with this group, I began to distance myself from them. It helped that I came home for the summer and my Mom convinced me not to go back to that group in the Fall, as she didn’t like the experiences I had described to her over the course of my Freshman year. Unfortunately though, my religious passion only led me to other religious encounters that, while they were more “normal,” nevertheless led me to continue down a path of religious extremism throughout the rest of my college years. This included going on a mission trip with a Charismatic Christian organization, Bible studies that led to my becoming more and more devoted to God, and a zeal to please God so much that I changed my major from something that I loved, Music Therapy, to something that would train me to be a missionary, Religious Studies.

            In short, I had devoted my life to God. I wanted nothing else but to please Him in everything I did. So much so, that I limited my sleep to five hours a night (otherwise I wouldn’t have enough time to study and still spend lots of time with God reading the Bible and in prayer), and I even started to limit my nutrition to train myself to become a missionary. This led to me accidentally becoming anorexic and losing so much weight that I weighed 116 at 5’11’’. I was skin and bones. Needless to say, when I went home for the semester break my mom hugged me and was shocked. She sent me to the doctor the very next day and I spent the rest of the summer trying to gain my weight back and developing a healthier lifestyle. My nutrition teacher and fitness coach reminded me that I needed to be strong enough to help people as a missionary.

            But I had to overcome a sense of guilt at this point…. My thinking had changed with this eating regimen. It wasn’t just about preparing my body for less food on the mission field anymore – I started to feel like I didn’t deserve to have more food, because there were people in the world that were starving. This is when I had to remind myself about what my nutrition/fitness teacher said and retrain my mind to think differently. Eventually I overcame these thoughts and gained the weight back. But this wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me when I was a religious extremist….

            Many religious extremists turn their self-loathing and hatred outward and blame the “infidels” – so they turn their violence upon them. This wasn’t so in my case. My self-loathing and hatred about my own sin was turned inward. I wanted nothing more than to please God and do His will. The hard part was trying to figure out what He wanted me to do! You know, because God doesn’t actually speak to us…. Many of us have different ways of trying to discern His will. Unfortunately, my mind was so desperate to do His will and make the right decision, I began to get anxious. I would get hot flashes and start sweating. Decision making was so hard – even small decisions. Eventually, after a long time of inadequate sleep and nutrition, my mind actually broke. I started to hear what I thought was God’s voice saying "Yes" or "No." Every time I had to make a decision, large or small, I would wait for this voice to tell me yes or no. It was actually helpful and calming at first. But then it started to get in the way and become a distraction. I began to have trouble concentrating and studying. It was hard to carry on conversations and so forth.

            On the morning of 9/11/2001 I was on the phone with my mom. But instead of focusing on the terror and horror that other religious extremists were causing in the world, I was suffering from my own form of religious extremism. So much so that I was wasting away in my apartment, all alone, five hours away from my family and hometown. I told my mom on the phone: “I don’t think I can take my classes this semester” (it was my last semester in college). She already knew I was struggling, and she knew about the “voice” in my head. My family doctor had given me some medicine for anxiety, but I needed additional treatment. So, a few days after 9/11, while rescue workers were still saving people in NYC, my family came down and saved me from my apartment at college.

            I began seeing a psychiatrist right away. Of course, he thought that I had schizophrenia. I was the right age for it to start and the “voice” symptom made sense. But he wasn’t a Christian, and he just assumed that the medicines for schizophrenia would take the “voice” away. Thankfully I began seeing a Christian psychologist shortly thereafter. He understood me and my issues much better. The schizophrenia medicines did not take the “voice” away, because it wasn’t schizophrenia, it was an obsessive tendency.

            After working with the Christian psychologist for a while, he helped me to see that sometimes the “voice” would tell me to do things that didn’t turn out well. If the “voice” was God it would be perfect, right? That made sense to me. So, we agreed that I would start to ignore and fight back at the voice. After doing that for a while (and it took some effort, believe me), it eventually went away. I ended up with a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (the religious kind – Scrupulosity). I still take medicine to help the chemical imbalance.

            You see, a lot of my religious passion and zeal stemmed from anxiety. I really wanted to please God, and unfortunately the Christian Church and the Bible sometimes build on and add to peoples’ guilt complexes, rather than trying to alleviate them. For me, I had to actually leave Christianity in order to heal myself. But that doesn’t work for everyone. Some people who suffer from Scrupulosity are able to find a way to manage their symptoms and still keep their religious beliefs.

            For me, the fear of being alone (without God) eventually gave way to the desire to overcome the contradictory thoughts, beliefs, and feelings I had stirring within me. I was able to garner enough strength to embark on a spiritual quest that never really ended. Up until this point I had been a firm believer in Christianity – and even though I had suffered greatly, and questioned my faith at times, I always came back to my faith. But when my illness continued to haunt me – and it was so integrated with my faith – I finally came to the point where I had to consider changing my faith in order to get better. So, I decided to start exploring other faith traditions and their practices, and I began to look at God as impersonal, so I wouldn’t have to pray to him constantly. The funny thing is, this experiment worked! The more I did it, the more I wanted to continue doing it!

            I began to feel free from the chains of my illness – it was wonderful! I even went a little “wild” and started chatting online, dating online, and experimenting with other things I didn’t allow myself to do before. During this time, which was while I was getting my Master's degree, I met and married my husband. There were times when I second guessed leaving Christianity…and I went back and forth for a number of years. But when my father (who was an agnostic) died in 2012, I decided I could no longer accept the basic tenets of Christianity and I firmly become “spiritual not religious.”

I had also gotten a lot of help from a therapist who helped me to see the grey and ambiguity in life, and who helped me to accept myself for who I am. She showed me the black and white aspects of Christianity and many other religions, and the need for more acceptance of the things we don’t understand in this world. I also realized there are no “one size fits all” religions, and that people who believe in certain religions, who can’t accept others who don’t believe, really aren’t very loving – and I don’t need those kinds of people in my life. Through this experience I grew more independent, I learned to think for myself, and I healed myself in many ways from my religious OCD.

            I still have anxiety and I am still working on developing inner peace on a daily basis. But I can now confidently say I am ok with the person that I am. I feel comfortable in my own skin. But it has taken me many years to get to this point. I’ve always enjoyed the quote "Not all who wander are lost." I still have a relationship with “Spirit,” which I consider to be the essence/energy of the Universe, and I still desire to make the world a better place as my personal life mission. What has changed is that now I am living a well-balanced, healthy life that is full of a variety of activities, without an over-dedication to religion.

            I have found contemplative practices to be helpful along my journey – things like meditation, mindfulness, and yoga. These practices not only help me spiritually, but they also help reduce anxiety and lead to mental and physical well-being. Other things that help keep me centered are spending time in nature, taking walks, spending quiet time alone, building relationships with friends and loved ones, and taking time to reflect and be grateful for my blessings. Of course I still have difficulties, but overall my meds and therapy keep me stable, and for this I am very grateful.

            I am actually stable enough to work on a doctorate and live a fulfilling life. I once thought I would never be able to get married or hold a job or live the kind of life that I now have. But it is important to reach out and get the help you need. And to take your medicine, if that is what is prescribed – or go to therapy – or whatever mental health professionals recommend for you.

            I know that it is hard to get access to services sometimes, because there are so many people in need – especially on college campuses. Please don’t give up. College administrators are becoming more and more aware of this problem and are trying to address it. They are offering more group sessions and alternative therapies like yoga, meditation, and mindfulness to help address the problems that can be alleviated through these means. If your situation is more serious, please make sure people know that it is, and don’t give up trying to get assistance. Keep clinging to the hope that even though things might seem really tough or dark right now, there is always the possibility of a brighter future. I’m living proof that it is true.

Thank you for reading my story today. :)