I would feel like I had to go to the altar all the time, or I was into these compulsive rituals of what I thought I was supposed to do as a Christian. I had been baptized also when I was 11. That was something that I did not do because I wanted to do, but the encouragement was there, and I went ahead and did it out of obligation. And then I felt like I had to be perfect. I thought, “Ok I’ve been baptized, I have to be perfect…”

I remember my first conversation with my mother about this, she said, “You know what, sweety, I think you’re just taking this way too far. I don’t think this is what baptism is all about.” It was nice that she connected in that way. On the other hand, I didn’t really get any sense of resolution of the war that was within me.

What happens for me is everything I touch becomes part of my obsessive compulsive pattern. And that includes music. When I was a senior in high school, I was doing very well with piano all along, and I would ritualistically play scales over and over again. And it had to be perfect. And there was a lot of emphasis on scales and technique. But I’d start up the scale, and it wouldn’t be just right, and I’d play it over again, and I had it in my mind I had to play it at least, this would be on a small amount, at least five times, PERFECTLY, in a row. But if one time was wrong, I had to start all over again.

The book is called, How I stayed alive when my brain was trying to kill me, by Susan Rose Blauner. This book, I just can’t say enough about. If there’s one thing that comes out of my part in this documentary, and that is that people know about this book… She talks about making a crisis plan of what you’re going to do when you feel this way.

I read some material about the Americans with Disabilities Act, and I read things like “Nobody can accommodate you if you don’t tell them what you need to be accommodating with.” So, a couple jobs ago, I took that to heart and told people in human resources and managers some of what I was dealing with, and I used the OCD label. And it backfired. They did not understand what this meant, and then they would blame everything on that, and they ended up asking me to leave.

I think it is great for people to simply be available. That doesn’t mean that everybody sits around and doesn’t have full time jobs and stuff. But some people feel like they’re not worthy of helping because they don’t have a psychology degree, or they’re not a therapist… I think people in congregations sell themselves short of how much of an impact they are able to have.