Gifts OCD Has Given Me

This is the 100th post on my blog!  Celebration time!!!!!  🙂

Since it’s my hundredth post, and it’s coming up on the New Year, I thought it might be a nice opportunity for reflection.  So I went through some of the old posts I’d written.  WOW.  What a transformative few years it’s been since I started writing my blog in June 2008.

In some ways, it’s painful to read.  In other ways, it’s miraculous.  I read between the lines and remember what this journey has been.  In particular, it’s striking to revisit the agonizing confusion that came with my fight against OCD, especially before I knew I had OCD (I wasn’t diagnosed until December 2010, but I have been battling it my whole life).  I see it in every post, every question.  And yet, I would not change any of it. OCD has been my life’s greatest trial; but as is often the case with great trials, it has also provided many of my greatest gifts.

Today, I’d like to share some of the gifts OCD has given me — graces I would not have received were it not for my day-to-day struggle to live a rich, meaningful life despite my disorder.  I write this for the benefit of others struggling with difficult trials of every variety (including myself!), but with a special place in my heart for those facing mental illness.  I hope this will be a reminder that there is meaning in our battle, that God can create tremendous beauty from even the deepest despair, that there is hope for all of us.

Why I Believe in Santa Claus

Today, my husband posted a “personalized” Santa Claus video on Facebook that we’d made and sent to our daughter.   One of his friends, a staunch atheist, made this comment on the thread: “I’m telling [my son] the truth about Santa, because I don’t want to tell him a lie, besides, if he starts believing cultural mythology, who knows what he might start believing.”

I felt his comment was kind of Grinchy so I fired off a less-than-patient reply — told him that he’d “missed the point.”  I immediately recognized that my comment was made in frustration — something I try to avoid, since the Internet is a mean enough place without me joining in — so I quickly deleted my response.   He must have seen it anyway, though, because when I logged in again tonight I noticed that he’d added another reply: “Katie, ‘you missed the point’ is an easy thing to say.  Please explain what the point is, then I’ll know.”

After some deliberation, I decided I’d answer his question (hopefully with a much gentler spirit than before).  This is what I wrote:

LDS Christmas Talk: Behold, the Condescension of God

I gave a talk at our ward Christmas party this evening, which I called “Behold, the Condescension of God.”  Thought I’d share it here…