This website consists of a book on how to live a happy and productive life with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Feel free to print out a copy.

Me & My Buddy, OCD

The Truth Shall Set You Free

How to Live a Happy and Productive Life with OCD

By Jay Kreutner

Feedback welcome-jaykreutner@aol.com

Contents

1-Introduction

2-My Story

3-The Universal Truth of OCD

4-Applying the Universal Truth

5-Tools Necessary To Apply Universal Truth

6-My Story (After Accepting Universal Truth)

7-Recognizing Spikes

8-Advantage/Pitfalls Of The Obsessive Nature

9-Other Observations On OCD And The Universal Truth

10-Conclusion

Supplemental Writings Added in 2008-

11-My Story (Jesus is Lord)

12-My Testimony

13-Observations of Christianity

14-OCD/Universal Truth Through The Biblical Lens

1-Introduction

My name is Jay Kreutner. Am I a doctor? No. Am I a specialized counselor? No. I run a lawn care company is Southern Indiana. Then why, you ask, should I waste any time reading what this guy has to say about OCD? Because I have OCD. I have been and still am where you, or someone you care about, is. I’ve had it for nearly 20 years now. I have read many of the books, seen numerous doctors & counselors, and done countless research on the subject of OCD. Some of it has been helpful, but the most valuable resource I can offer you is the experience of having lived it and continuing to live it every day. OCD has resulted in a lot of dark days for me. It would get so bad at times, I often considered taking my life. I didn’t understand where these thoughts were coming from and why they wouldn’t go away. They crippled me physically, mentally, and emotionally for many years. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I thought I was the only person in the entire world who thought like I did. For almost 13 years, I didn’t even know what OCD was, let alone that I had it. I lived in ignorance and hopelessness, just allowing OCD to run my life. I had subconsciously developed a system to cope. When I was finally diagnosed, I learned a lot about OCD through books, websites, and medical professionals.

I decided to write this book for several reasons. First, through my experience and acquired knowledge of OCD, I know what it takes to live a very happy and fulfilling life with OCD. I know what I’m talking about. I live it. I know that means nothing to you now, but I hope you give me a chance to earn your trust through what I write that you will know I understand what you go through. Then, through specific examples and language only people with OCD "get", clearly express to you principles that work with OCD. I take nothing away from doctors and other medical professionals. I have learned a great deal from them. But I don’t know how anyone can know more about OCD than someone who has it. They spend countless hours studying and researching information. I have spent every waking moment living it. Another reason I wrote this book is when I was suffering with my OCD and looking for answers, the books on OCD I found were very complex and hard to understand. They were filled with medical jargon that I had a real difficult time understanding. It wasn’t that I’m stupid. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent guy. I just had a hard time focusing because of my OCD, making it difficult to understand complicated medical terms. I wanted answers in language I could understand, not diagrams of the brain. This book will not contain medical language. I will write like I speak: in good old fashioned English from one friend with OCD to another. It will not be very lengthy with thousands of pages. It will contain a simple, basic plan with principles to live a very enjoyable life with OCD. Finally, when I began seeking information about what I had, I found very little useful information on the local level. I saw several very qualified doctors, but they didn’t specialize in OCD and looking back, didn’t understand it. I live near a major metropolitan city and was astounded not to find an OCD specialist in our area. As a matter of fact, when I began looking for an OCD support group, the closest one was 2 hours away. On the national level, I finally found something that made sense to me and the coping skills I had developed. I’m sure there are many excellent OCD specialists, but to this day, I have found only one who truly gets it. I will gladly refer to him and his website later in this book. In short, I had become frustrated with the lack of true understanding of OCD and the principles it takes to live with it.

Please allow me now to set up the rest of the book. One term I will use frequently is spike (It is the one medical term I do use). A spike is simply the unwanted, often irrational thought that circles in the mind of someone with OCD. For example, "if you step on a crack, a loved one of yours will die" is a spike. There are as many forms of spikes as there are people with OCD. In the next chapter, I will briefly tell you the story of my life with OCD. I will reveal my form of OCD and the specific spikes that I have had. Chapter 3 is the most important one in the book. It is about what I call the universal truth of OCD. Being able to live a happy and productive life with OCD is predicated on learning and accepting this one truth of OCD. It is the foundation of recovery and everything else builds off it. As does this book. That is, chapters 4 & 5 will provide information on applying universal truth, and the tools necessary to do so. Chapter 6-8 are about the deceptive nature of OCD and how it evolves after accepting and living universal truth. But again, everything builds off the universal truth of OCD. OK, my friend, let’s get started.

2-My Story

There are 2 forms of OCD. The "standard" or traditional form of OCD is when one has spikes and performs physical rituals to ease the anxiety of these spikes. For example, one might think if they don’t clean their house every day with a toothbrush and bleach, they will contract some deadly disease. Their spike or unwanted thought is "if you don’t clean the house with a toothbrush every day, you will get a disease". Although the person realizes this is irrational, he/she is compelled to perform the physical ritual of cleaning the house with a toothbrush every day to ease the anxiety that comes with the spike. The obsession is the spike, the compulsion is the physical ritual. This is by far the most common form of OCD. Although I have had this traditional form for a brief period in my life, my primary form has been the other: known as the Purely Obsessive form of OCD or the "Pure-O". With the Pure-O form, the obsession is still the spike, but the compulsion is a mental ritual rather than a physical one. I don’t perform physical rituals like compulsive cleaning or avoidance. My ritual has been trying to "figure out" the spike and force it to go away.

My first spike occurred when I was 14 years old. I was on the 9^th grade basketball team and was a very good shooter. I am right handed. One day I noticed my left thumb was turning in when I shot. I always did this, but when I noticed it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. That’s all I could focus on and my shot went to hell. I couldn’t make anything and I caused our team to lose our first 8 games. Then halfway through the season I made a conscious effort to keep my left thumb still when I shot. It worked. I began shooting like I did and we won our last 9 games. Little did I know that, although I had been able to work my way out of this problem, the OCD seed had been planted. I had suddenly become very aware of how powerful and destructive my mind could be.

The next time OCD visited my life was about a year later. I vividly remember sitting in Biology class as a sophomore. I had always been a good student with little problems learning new material. All of the sudden I thought, "I wonder if I tell myself I can’t understand what I’m reading, will I be able to?" Sure enough I couldn’t. All I could focus on was this thought that was now in my head. It was like I was reading blank pages. Although it was the second spike in my life, it was the first truly damaging one with life altering affects on me. With the basketball one, I was able to make a simple physical adjustment and it was solved. But now I was devastated. How was I supposed to succeed or even survive in the world without being able to read anymore? This spike also set the framework of the shape most of my spikes would take: self-sabotaging thoughts that would take something away from me. That day my world officially changed.

Over the next year or so, I would have my reading spike several times a day, just about every day. How I would handle it would be to focus on being funny, or the class-clown, when I became unable to read. I hadn’t been a very outgoing person, but I became one in weird sort of protective way. Subconsciously I would think: "When I tell myself I can’t read and can’t, that’s OK. I can still be funny and entertaining." I was, and became a lot more popular to friends in my class. By responding to my spike this way, I put more importance on being funny than reading. It also gave me source of confidence. Every time I was able to do this, reading wasn’t as important to me, and I was able to read again! Although it was subconscious and unintentional, developing this coping skill was as life changing as the reading spike itself. I just wouldn’t understand why until much later.

I was sitting in a lounge with a bunch of new friends I had made at Boys State, a seminar for honor students to learn about government, when my next spike arose. I was doing my usual thing, being as funny as I could be and was killing it. We would all come to the lounge after our activities to shoot the bull. I would always have everyone in stitches, telling jokes and stories. I sat down to take a break and was looking at the wall. Out of nowhere, I thought: "I wonder if I tell myself I can’t be funny, will I be able to?" Suddenly I couldn’t. It was like someone else entered my body and I left. I remember everyone asking me if I was OK then and the rest of the week because I became withdrawn, barely talking to anyone. It was the first time in my life I felt what true depression felt like. This wasn’t funny anymore, no pun intended. Now I had taken away my ability to learn and my personality.

I now realized I was different. What had I done to deserve this? I began reflecting on my life, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. I was an arrogant child. I thought I was God’s gift to the world. Maybe this was his way of humbling me. It didn’t matter, though, how many theories I came up with, or how right I thought they were, nothing changed. I had a new reality now, and I was petrified. I so badly wanted these thoughts to go away. I tried so hard to force them out of my brain, to focus on something else. It didn’t work. One revelation I had during this time period was to understand why these self-sabotaging spikes were working. I couldn’t retain what I was reading because all I was thinking about was the reading spike. I was focusing on the unwanted thought, rather than the material. I couldn’t be funny because of the same reason. The flow of random thoughts needed to be funny was halted and replaced by a single thought that brought fear into my body. I finally understood this was simply a focusing problem, but that didn’t help me get rid of these self-sabotaging unwanted thoughts.

The next new spike, ironically, once again had to do with basketball. It wasn’t the thumb spike, but a more powerful, general spike. I would tell myself I couldn’t shoot well, and I couldn’t. A person who once was projected as a major college player now wasn’t worth squat. I was a sophomore in high school and I was targeted to be on the varsity team vying for playing time. I suddenly lost my best weapon as a player, my shot, and everything changed. Everybody was wondering what happened to my game. I knew how I could nip this in the bud, though: I quit. I told everyone I wanted to concentrate on my grades, but we know the truth. Once again, my spikes attacked an important part of my life and took it from me. Still to this day, people will walk up to me and ask: "you were once so good at hoops, what happened?"

I was now a junior in high school and the next 3 years would be dominated by my reading and funny spikes. I was a new person, one many didn’t recognize. I once again subconsciously began teaching myself another coping skill. I basically would just roll with the flow of the spikes. That is, when I had the reading spike, I would take that opportunity to be funny. When I had the funny spike, I would then do my homework. This worked for me and helped me survive. Again, although subconscious, it worked because when I had the reading spike, I didn’t care if I was funny and was able to be. My fear was focused on not being able to read. And vice versa. When I had the funny spike, my fear was focused on not being able to be funny, and being able to read didn’t matter. Hence, I was able to retain reading material. Although it worked, I was still often depressed because my life was dictated by these thoughts. Who I was at any particular moment was dependent upon what spike was in my head. I was a slave to them, but I learned this worked better than when I would try to fight them.

I was some how able to get a Ronald Reagan Scholarship to attend Eureka College, his alma mater. It was given to only 5 students throughout the nation each year. It was based on being a well-rounded student. Academics, athletics, and student activities all played a role. I don’t tell you this to stroke myself, but because it was an important point in how I viewed my new self, then one with uncontrollable thoughts circling in his head. First, it gave me a new source of confidence. I was very proud to be able to achieve this while dealing with my spikes. It was my first major positive accomplishment since my spikes began. For the first time in a long time I had hope that I could do something with my life despite my spikes. The important thing here is I subconsciously was able to accept these thoughts as part of who I am because I was able to produce a positive outcome with them. As you will see, there were many more dark days ahead for me, but this was a concept I was able to look back on and learn a great deal from.

The first 2 years of college were good ones for me. As I said, I had gained a lot of confidence from being a Reagan Scholar. I had my coping skills I had subconsciously developed, along with a new one: drinking. Although, as you can predict, it would later cause me a great deal of problems, drinking gave me a new weapon against my thoughts. I never drank one drop of alcohol in high school. I didn’t know the affects it had on the brain. I learned that when my coping skills weren’t working or I had a high stress situation to deal with, I could numb my brain with alcohol and make the thoughts go away. As my fellow students would happily testify to, I was a bad drunk. I would pick fights, insult people, and worst of all, drive wasted. But I didn’t care. I had my problem (my self-sabotaging thoughts) to worry about. And this worked on them. It didn’t matter if it was 6 am, if I had a public gathering to attend, I drank. It’s called self-medicating and I knew I was doing something wrong every time I did it, but once again, it was a trade I was willing to make. At the time, It seemed like the only way to get rid of these haunting thoughts. So, although I was drunk half the time my freshman and sophomore year, I enjoyed these years. I was becoming more comfortable with my reading and funny spikes because I knew I could hide from them behind a bottle whenever I needed to.

My brain must have sensed how comfortable I was becoming with my spikes, so my junior year it sent me a little present: a brand new crippling spike. I was sitting in class and I noticed my tongue rubbing against my upper right teeth. It was a little bit different than my other spikes. It wasn’t a "tell myself I couldn’t do something and can’t" spike, but had equally devastating effects. I couldn’t take my mind off my tongue rubbing against my teeth. It was even more damaging because, no matter how drunk I got, I could always feel my tongue rubbing against my teeth. I became more depressed than ever. Every time I would get comfortable with myself, my brain would attack me in a different, more potent way. I drank more, at times to the point of alcohol poisoning, started smoking, and became more secluded. For the first time in my life, I was ready to quit: quit life, that is. I began to contemplate suicide and how I would do it. The only reason I didn’t was that I was very close to my parents and knew what it would do to them. My life was 24 hours of fear a day. For the first time, I thought about telling my parents about my thoughts, but didn’t because I thought they would be ashamed of me or blame themselves. So I plugged along by myself doing what I needed to every day to survive. I even began researching a few things. First I was looking into getting my upper right teeth pulled to solve my most recent spike, and damn near did. Second, I was trying to figure out if there was a way I could give myself amnesia. I wanted to erase my brain and forget what I could do to myself. There was no such thing. I remember driving down the road hoping someone would hit me; not to kill me, just hard enough to give me amnesia. These were some of the darkest days I had ever seen.

My last two years of college were not good. Aside from my new spike, my drinking began to catch up with me. After repeated altercations with brothers of my fraternity, they through me out. All the altercations happened when I was drunk. Somehow, though, I was able to continue to make outstanding grades and was set to graduate a half-semester early. 2 nights before I was to go home, I drank and drove for the umpteenth time. This time I rolled snake eyes. I received my first DUI that night. When I got bailed out of jail and went home, I found out this violation cost me my scholarship. Financially, it didn’t matter. I was done anyway. But as you know, I took a lot of pride in that scholarship and now was prohibited from any future activities with the program. I knew I was on a collision course with disaster, and it finally happened. But drinking seemed the only way to make most of my spikes go away. Maybe I’m nieve, but I don’t think I was an alcoholic, although I could see why anyone looking in would think so. I only drank when I needed to be speak publicly and couldn’t cope with my spikes on my own. I didn’t drink any other time. There was one purpose to my drinking: squash the thoughts. But that’s a debate for another time.

When I came home, my resume still said Reagan Scholar with a near perfect GPA. That meant expectations. Reagan scholars are supposed to be lawyers, politicians, or some other respected professional. This scared the shit out of me. By this time, my spikes would float between what I called the Big 3: the reading, funny, and tooth spike. Either of these could render me useless. Also, I was living at home again and after the DUI, I couldn’t drink away my thoughts anymore. I still tried to manage by using the "if I’m having the reading spike, then be funny etc…" coping skill, but there was a new problem. My resume got me an internship at the top accounting firm in Louisville. I was supposed to impress them, take my CPA exam, and then a permanent position with the firm. But if I couldn’t understand what I was reading, I couldn’t make up for that by knocking on the boss’s door and doing a clown routine for him. I was terrified in that place. In college or before, I could dictate my schedule: when I studied, when I socialized etc…, but now, I had to be able to understand complicated stuff on someone else’s schedule. And again, the pressure of having Reagan scholar on my resume didn’t help either. I talked them into letting me isolate myself. I would use offices of people on vacation. It helped a little by having no distractions, but I knew I was still doomed. Halfway through the internship, they had informed me I wouldn’t be offered a permanent position. Surprise, surprise! I thought for sure that after the 1^st grade work I was turning into them, they would want to make me a partner. Here’s the real funny part: After they told me that, I finally could relax and began producing better work than any of the other interns. They told me as much: "It was just too bad I couldn’t work as hard earlier in my internship". Little did they know. Once again, though, I noticed that when I didn’t care anymore about something, the spike lost its affect. When I told myself I couldn’t read but didn’t care, I could read. It was still subconscious, but I became aware of a pattern. But at the time, it didn’t make sense to me and I had just embarrassed myself. Of course, my parents and friends told me I was robbed and it wasn’t my fault. I played along so they wouldn’t be disappointed.

I was now 23 years old. Throughout the next year or so, I took several other accounting jobs with similar results. During this period, I also developed a new spike. I would tell myself I couldn’t understand what someone was saying to me, and I couldn’t. It was devastating because this one could affect my professional and social life. I’ll let you imagine how many times I was humiliated by someone talking to me and being unable to respond because I had no idea what they were saying. I was just focused on my spike. I would usually just stare, nod, and walk away in shame. I was once again at a new low point. I began drinking again, usually on weekends to get some peace. I would lie to my parents and tell them I was the only one not drinking at the club. Or if I did, I would never drive. And to be truthful, I usually didn’t drive, but I was always drunk. I would pray every night for God to take away these thoughts. I would try to make deals with him. I would do anything he wanted, become a monk or whatever, if I could wake up the next morning without the memory of what I could do to myself.

Knowing now I could not survive in the job market with these thoughts, I needed an alternative. Luckily, I had been cutting grass for extra money on the side. I decided I would turn this into a legitimate lawn care company and work for myself full-time. That way, I could work by myself most of the time and control my schedule like I used to. Of course, everyone was disappointed. Like I said, Reagan scholars were not supposed to end up cutting grass. But it didn’t matter to me. I was thinking of survival, not success. I just told them I could make more money working for myself and that I enjoyed it more. This turned out to be a great decision for me. I think a lot of the reason I was able to continue to make good grades and have success in some facets of my life, was when I was able to focus on anything other than my spikes, the obsessive part of myself could be funneled into producing positive results. I don’t know, but I would guess this is true of most people with OCD. Now, I had something new to pour my efforts into. I developed the company quickly into a profitable, successful operation. I paid attention to every detail, making sure I did a better job than anyone else. It was good for me at that time because it gave me something to be passionate about and gave me another source of confidence. This was another pattern I began to notice: that is, when I had confidence from achieving anything, I could handle my spikes a lot better. I still would have them just as frequently, but I could ignore them easier.

Over the next several years, my confidence continued to grow as I expanded the company and made it more prosperous. I became a certified workaholic. As long as I was working, I was able to find some relief from my self-sabotaging thoughts. As soon as I was done, or took a break, though, the suffering would resume, which made it very unfortunate the business I chose was seasonal. During the mowing season (April-November) I was fine, but as soon as the "off-season" came, I would spiral into major depressions. I would lose my source of confidence and the thoughts would begin to dominate me again. When the season would start, I would be better once again. That cycle would continue and I began to get frustrated. I began to notice my dependence on work to avoid the thoughts. I didn’t want to have to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in order not to shut down due to my spikes. I recognized the importance of having something I was passionate about, but didn’t want to have my peace of mind dependent upon it.

During this time period, I also picked up a new spike. Once again, it wasn’t one of the "tell myself I can’t do something and can’t do it" spikes. It was more like the tooth one. One day, when I was jogging, I felt my right big toe pop. Suddenly, I could feel it popping with every step. It would get stuck in my head. When I wasn’t thinking about it, I couldn’t feel it popping, but as soon as I would, I could feel it pop with every step. It would drive me crazy. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, at times.

I mentioned earlier that although my primary form of OCD was the "Pure-O" form, one without physical rituals, that I did have a period in my life when I had the traditional form. That was during this period, as well. The first physical ritual I performed had to do with rinsing out my mouth after I brushed my teeth. 3 has always been my favorite number, and I convinced myself if I rinsed my mouth out 3 "good" times, my thoughts wouldn’t bother me as much the next day. It worked a little at first because I believed it worked. But if that 3^rd rinse didn’t feel right, I needed to rinse out 6 more times to total 9 rinses. The last "good" rinse had to come on a multiple of 3. If the 3^rd or the 9^th rinse didn’t feel right, I had to make the 27^th rinse "good" and so on. I remember being at the sink thinking, "this is ridiculous", but I couldn’t stop. The relief the following day was more important. As you can imagine, I would sometimes spend hours rinsing after I brushed my teeth. My second physical ritual had to do with locking doors. Every time I locked a door, I had to lock it 3 times. And once again, if that 3^rd lock didn’t feel "right" it would have to be 9 then 27 then 81…. I remember family members and friends looking at me like I was crazy. I would tell them I was doing an experiment and I would catch up with them later. The third and final physical ritual I would do would be to swing around a street sign. This one I used directly to avoid the "toe popping" spike before I would jog. I convinced myself that if I swung around the sign at the end of my street 3 times, the toe popping wouldn’t occur when I would run. But once again, that 3^rd swing had to feel "right", or it was on to the 9-27-81… swings. Although people would be driving by wondering what in the hell I was doing, I was compelled to finish the ritual each time. Between these 3 rituals, they began to overrun my life. They would drag out to where I was spending hours on each every day. I performed these rituals for about 6 months. One day I woke up and decided I would rather live with my original spikes than spend my entire day performing rituals. What was the point of being able to handle my thoughts if my entire life would be spent doing these silly things? That was the last time I ever performed any physical rituals. I now look back at that period as a blessing, though. I understand what it feels like, that no matter how time consuming and ridiculous a physical ritual might seem, to be compelled to do them anyway. It gave me the traditional OCD form perspective.

I am now 26 years old and going pretty well, all things considered. My confidence is still pretty high because of the lawn care company. I still battle my 5 primary spikes (reading, listening, making people laugh, tooth, and toe) every day. I pretty much can work my life around how I am handling my spikes. Then the best and worst thing happened to me. I met a girl I fell in love with. Up until this point, I had intentionally chosen girlfriends who I liked, but didn’t love. I also chose girls who worked all the time and were very independent so I could do what I needed when I needed to get by with my spikes. It was a survival tactic and it worked for me. Nothing against my prior girlfriends, they were all very nice people who deserved better than I could offer, I just did better when I was with someone I didn’t really care about. It took the pressure of being "normal" away, and I couldn’t handle any additional exterior pressure. I had all I could handle with my brain. I was introduced to this girl and I felt love for the first time in my life. I was so happy on one hand, and very concerned on the other. I knew when she found out what I did to myself with my thoughts, she would be gone. For the first few months, I held on. I would drink before we would go on dates, so I could have fun. The longer our relationship went, the more I knew I had found the girl for me. When the mowing season ended that year, I crashed. I was crying all the time. I avoided my girlfriend for a week, because I needed to figure out what I was going to do. It was even worse than before because now I had something I wanted. Finally, after 13 years of hiding what was going on inside my head, I told my parents about it for the first time. They didn’t respond as I expected. I thought they would think I was some sort of freak, but they didn’t. They weren’t ashamed or judgmental. The only thing they were upset about was me not telling them about this before. They told me I needed to see someone. Although I didn’t think anybody could help me, I had had enough and agreed. I often wonder what my life would be like if I had told them about this when it first started. How much pain could I have saved? I believe there was a reason for that. I was meant to live that life so I could later help people with OCD.

I felt a large burden lift and a great sense of relief when I broke my 13 year silence. It didn’t solve any of my mental problems, but at least I could talk to someone about it. I did also tell my girlfriend. She, who is now my wife of 6 years, was very understanding as well. My parents, at first, became a little over-protective, as parents will do. But for the most part, letting my secret out was the best decision I have made in my life. It put me on the road to education and information about OCD, rather than ignorance and hopelessness. I still had a long, tough journey to go, but at least that journey could finally begin.

Over the next year, I saw probably 6 or 7 doctors and counselors. They all diagnosed me with OCD, and some thought I was also Bi-Polar. I learned what OCD was and read several books on the subject. Although these professionals and books gave me a lot of information, it didn’t seem to help me get rid of these thoughts. That’s why I saw so many. The one very valuable thing it did for me, though, was to learn I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought like this. There were millions of people like me. That gave me additional relief knowing I wasn’t alone, as I had thought for so long. Several of the doctors prescribed me anti-depressants. They didn’t seem to help with me at all. In fact, as I will describe later, they made my thinking even worse. I also developed another primary spike during this year. I would tell myself I couldn’t laugh and I couldn’t laugh. I didn’t realize the release laughter was, or how integrated it was in my life, until I took it away from myself. This led to more dark days, more drinking, and my second DUI. Although I continued to see doctors sporadically, nothing they told me seemed to help me get rid of my spikes, especially my newest one.

The following year I got married to my girlfriend and bought a house. I feared doing both because of the pressure it would bring, but I reacted differently than I thought. I now knew I had responsibilities to live up to and another person who depended on me. I wasn’t about to let my OCD take our house. It also gave me something to focus on, other than my thoughts and my work. It gave me some balance I needed. The year was 1999 and it was a breakthrough year for me. The breakthrough came when I was driving down Green Valley Road. I remember it like it was yesterday. I decided at that moment that even when I was having a spike, I could control my physical reaction to it. Instead of focusing on trying to get rid of the spike, I consciously focused on my reaction to it for the first time ever. This was my conscious introduction to the universal truth of OCD I will discuss in the next chapter. Usually when I had a spike, I would mentally and physically "freeze" and resist it. I now would tell myself, "when I have spikes, fine, but I won’t let them take my energy from me". I specifically used the word energy. That is, I recognized that I could control my physical reaction to the spike. I promised myself that regardless of when or what spikes would hit me, I would not let it affect me physically. I would stay active and energetic. This changed my life. I finally had some control over my life. Not over the spikes--but my reaction to them.

That year was the greatest in my life. I would get up every day looking forward to everything. I spent so much of my past avoiding situations because I feared a spike would hit, but now was no longer afraid. It was like utopia. Everything interested me and brought enjoyment. I still enjoyed working, but could have a good time when I wasn’t. It was like I had been in the worst prison for 14 years and finally got out.

My first true test to my new coping skill would come in the off-season of 1999-2000. I was actually looking forward to my lawn care season being over for the first time ever. When it arrived, I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself without work. Everything was getting better--my relationships with my wife, family, and friends all flourished. I continued to have spikes every day, I just continued to focus on my physical reaction to them. All was well. Then I got greedy.

In January of 2000, I decided now that I was feeling good, it would be a good time to try taking anti-depressants again to see if I could make things even better. Maybe if I took them for a long enough period of time, they would make the spikes go away entirely. 2 days after I began taking them, things started to spiral downward. Now before I go on, it would be irresponsible of me to say that anti-depressants, or any medicine designed to treat OCD or any other mental disorder, is a bad idea. I don’t know. As you know, I am not a doctor. If you are currently taking anti-depressants, do not stop taking them without consulting your doctor. I am just sharing my experience with them and how they affected me. As I said, after I started taking them, my spikes began to overwhelm me. I could not control my reaction to them anymore. The doctors told me to stick with it, that it takes 3 months to really kick in. I was suffering like I had never suffered before. I was afraid of everything. Anything I looked at, I obsessed about. The specific spike that took over was a combination of the reading/understanding what people were saying spike. I think it did because I knew I had responsibilities now and couldn’t live up to them if I couldn’t read or comprehend English. If I looked at a TV, I would think, "I couldn’t work for a place that made TV’s and be able to keep my job because I can’t understand anything, written or verbal". If I looked at the carpet, I would think, "I couldn’t make a living laying down carpet because I can’t understand anything". I couldn’t understand any reading material or anything anyone was saying to me. I would get up every day, go to the living room, cover myself up with a blanket, and shake back and forth. The only time I would get peace was when I was sleeping. The doctors began prescribing anti-anxiety medicine like Valium and Xanax. They would offer temporary relief, but once they wore off, hell ensued. I didn’t want to live any more. I figured it was the medicine doing this to me, but I thought I would never be able to forget what I was able to do to myself during that time period. I finally was checked into a mental hospital. The doctor there also told me to stick with the meds for 3 months. I was told it typically gets worse before it got better. I didn’t know how much of the "worse" I could take, though. I was there for 2 weeks. I was able to relax a little in the hospital because I knew I had no responsibilities in there. No bills to pay, nothing. Once again, the spikes didn’t bother me as much in there because it didn’t matter whether I was able to read or understand anything. But I was still messed up and was frightened at the prospect of going home. I did, and the hell I was living began again. Paying a bill caused so much anxiety, I thought I was going to explode. I began abusing the anti-anxiety drugs prescribed to me. Anything I could get my hands on, I took to escape the torture of my current world. It was now March and the season was about to start. I thought this would be good news. I hoped it would help me get out of my funk as it did in the past. Not this time. The severe anxiety continued and I could barely do any work. I would be out on my mower sobbing profusely. The only thing that gave me hope was counting the days to when I could say I gave the medicine a fair shot, and stop taking them. The 3 month period ended on April 2, 2000. I didn’t take my medicine that day and on the following day, I felt fine. All of the sudden I could focus. And the coping skills, especially the "breakthrough" one, worked again. I was truly astonished the difference one day could make.

Although those 3 months were, by far, the worst in my life, I look back on them as a blessing. First, I needed to know if an antidepressant medicine would help with my thoughts if I took it for the recommended period. Second, I was proud of myself for just surviving that period and not letting my OCD, in its worst form, take my life or my company. It also gave me a whole new reference point. That is, what used to seem like really tough times, didn’t seem so bad now compared to that experience. Most importantly though, it was during this time I found the doctor I told you about earlier who truly understood OCD. For the first time in my life, I talked to someone who I felt truly knew what was going on inside my head. He put words to the coping skills I had, at first, subconsciously and more recently, consciously, developed. His name is Doctor Steven Phillipson, and his website is ocdonline.com. I would highly recommend his site or speaking with him personally. He is out of New York and conducts telephone-counseling sessions. What he told me explained why my "breakthrough" coping skill I developed in 1999 worked. He verbally reinforced what I call the universal truth of OCD.

3-The Universal Truth of OCD

I’m sure you bought this book to find information on how to get rid of your spikes, the unwanted repetitive thoughts that circle in the mind of someone with OCD. Here’s how you do it. In order for you to get rid of your spikes, you have to want them to stay. "OK, so let me get this straight. The thoughts that have haunted, maybe even crippled, me most of my life, I’m supposed to want them to stay?!?" Your reaction was probably something like that. That’s what mine was. But, yes, there is no getting around it: the fully stated universal truth of OCD is the following:

THE POWER YOUR OCD SPIKES HAVE OVER YOU IS ACQUIRED ENTIRELY BY YOUR RESISTANCE TO THEM AND YOUR DESIRE FOR THEM TO GO AWAY. THE VERY SECOND YOU STOP TRYING TO PUSH AWAY THE SPIKES AND ACCEPT THEM AS A PART OF WHO YOU ARE, THEY INSTANTLY LOSE ALL THEIR POWER OVER YOU (AND “ACCEPTING” DOESN’T MEAN ACCEPTING THE FALSE INFORMATION THE SPIKES PRESENT, BUT ACCEPTING THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST IN YOUR MIND). YOUR OCD USES 2 WEAPONS TO GET YOU TO RESIST SO IT CAN ACQUIRE ITS POWER OVER YOU: FEAR & GUILT. AS LONG AS YOU FEAR YOUR SPIKES OR YOU FEEL GUILTY FOR HAVING YOUR SPIKES, YOU WILL RESIST THEM AND THE SPIKES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE POWER SOURCE IT NEEDS TO CONTROL YOU. SIMPLY PUT: IN ORDER FOR YOUR SPIKES TO GO AWAY, YOU HAVE TO WANT THEM TO STAY.

I know the universal truth is hard to embrace when first hearing it because the natural reaction to something you don’t want is to resist and avoid it. This works in physical life situations, but not with OCD spikes. Although it might sound crazy to you now (it did to me), please allow me this chapter to offer some proof that the universal truth is, in fact, the truth.

The first evidence I offer is the reason you picked up this book. That is, what your doing isn’t working. When you fear a spike (or feel guilty for having a spike) and try to make it go away by performing a mental or physical ritual of resistance, it offers only temporary relief. It eventually comes back with even more strength. It does so because this natural reaction of resisting something unwanted & intrusive provided it more fuel through the performance of the ritual. If this natural reaction did work, you would perform ritual the spike asks to avoid consequences spike offers, and the matter would be settled. But as you well know, it always wants more. This also illustrates how OCD uses your human nature against you. It uses your natural reaction of resistance to something you don’t want to trick you into complying with its demands. It does this to acquire the fuel it needs to dominate you. This is why the concept of the universal truth might seem so insane to you right now. It contradicts human nature. But the universal truth is, in fact, true and is the only way. For now, just realize the natural reaction of resistance isn’t working.

Most people with OCD have a primary spike. That is, one particular unwanted thought that sticks in your head most of the time. That primary spike probably changes over time. You will have a particular spike that bothers you for a long period of time, and then it shifts to another spike, which does the same. You likely had a spike in your past that upset you that doesn’t bother you at the present time. Why doesn’t that spike bother you anymore? Because you subconsciously took away its power. How did you do that? You no longer fear the old spike. That’s how. Your fear is concentrated now on a new spike. Hence, while you might think of your old spike from time to time, it doesn’t haunt you like it used to. It just passes in and out of your mind. While all you did was transfer your fear, I offer it as proof of the universal truth of OCD. You subconsciously rendered the old spike powerless by not fearing it anymore. That’s why it doesn’t bother you now. This happened to me many times during my life. For example, when the "tooth" spike entered my life, it became my primary spike. All I could think about was my tongue rubbing against my teeth. I still would have the "reading" and "making people laugh" spikes every day. But they didn’t bother me because my fear was focused on the "tooth" spike. As a matter of fact, I remember wishing I would have the other spikes again. Anything to get my mind off my "tooth" spike. This also illustrates evidence of the universal truth. When I wanted a spike to come back, it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because it didn’t have any of my fear to operate on.

The first time I subconsciously practiced the universal truth was when I had my second spike, the "tell myself I can’t read and can’t read" spike. If you recall, I handled this spike by focusing on being funny when I had the "reading" spike. I would say to myself: "When I tell myself I can’t read and can’t, that’s OK. I can still be funny and entertaining". I would then focus on being funny and reading didn’t matter to me anymore. As soon as I was able to do this, I was able to read again. Why? Because as soon as being able to read didn’t matter to me anymore, I was no longer afraid of not being able to read. I subconsciously took the power away from the "reading" spike when I took away the fear of being unable to read. Hence, the spike passed through my mind and I was able to read again. When the "reading" spike would happen again, and I chose to resist it, it took over my life again. The next time I subconsciously practiced the universal truth was when my spikes started rotating between the "reading" and "making people laugh" ones. I would roll with the flow of my spikes. When I had the "reading" spike, I would take that opportunity to be funny and sociable. When I had the "making people laugh" spike, I would do my homework. It worked because when I had the "reading" spike, I didn’t care if I was funny and was able to be. My fear was focused on not being able to read and without my fear, the "funny" spike didn’t have any power. And when I had the "funny" spike, I didn’t care about being able to read. Again, my fear was focused on not being able to be funny and without the fear of not being able to read, the "reading" spike had no affect on me. Although all I was doing was transferring my fear, like in the primary spike example above, it still provides evidence of the universal truth. I also subconsciously practiced the universal truth during my traditional OCD period (when I performed physical rituals of rinsing, locking, & swinging to get rid of my original spikes). These new, traditional spikes were, "if you perform these rituals, you won’t have your self-sabotaging spikes tomorrow". When I decided I would rather deal with my original spikes than perform the physical rituals these new spikes would ask (because the rituals had overtaken my life), I took my fear of my original spikes away from the new, traditional OCD spikes. Although I still didn’t truly accept my original spikes (I just feared them less than the rituals running my life), I was no longer compelled to perform the physical rituals the new spikes were asking and they went away. They left only when they no longer had my fear (of the original spikes) to operate on. Again, this demonstrates that the universal truth of OCD is, in fact, true.

These coping skills helped me survive, even though I didn’t understand why they worked at the time. But the first time I consciously practiced the universal truth of OCD was on Green Valley Road in 1999. That’s when I had my breakthrough moment and decided I could control my physical reaction to a spike. For the first time, I didn’t resist or try to get rid of my spikes; rather I would focus on my physical reaction to them. I would say to myself, "no matter what or when spikes come, I won’t let them take my energy from me". This breakthrough was the turning point in my life because I finally had some control. Not over the spikes, but my reaction to them. I knew it worked for me and changed my life, but didn’t understand why until later. It worked because I realized I was able to control my physical reaction despite the presence of the spikes. This showed me I could still be happy and productive with the spikes in my mind. For the first time, I accepted the fact these spikes would always be with me, and that was OK. I no longer felt the need for them to go away in order to be who I wanted to be. I could coexist with them. Therefore, I was no longer afraid of my spikes. And without my fear, all of my spikes lost their power over me. I still had the spikes every day, but now being powerless, they flowed in and out of my mind like all my other thoughts. As time went on, the spikes came less often until they barely came at all. That is, when I finally accepted my OCD thoughts as part of myself and didn’t want them to go away, they eventually did.

Something that has always fascinated me is that, although people with OCD have the same disease, other people’s specific spikes seem ridiculous and almost amusing to me. When somebody tells me their specific spike, my initial reaction is “why does that bother you, it’s just a thought?!” And I’m sure when you read my specific spikes that haunted me for years, they had absolutely no affect on you (even though we have the same disease). What I’m saying is that, although we both have OCD, you can see the absurdity in my spikes, just as I can see yours. Why? The answer is that when I hear your spikes, I don’t have any fear of that thought or I don’t feel guilty for having that thought, therefore I don’t have any desire to resist that thought: so it doesn’t have any power over me in my mind. And the reverse is equally true-when you hear my spikes, you don’t attach fear or guilt to that thought, so you see no need to resist it which renders it powerless in your mind. This is undeniable proof of the universal truth of OCD.

If you are taking this chapter as me saying (as I’m sure others have said to you): your spikes are no big deal, there just thoughts: that’s not what I’m saying. I would guess you know by now that I’ve been where you are. I’ve had people say to me after hearing the universal truth: “of course, if I wasn’t afraid of my thoughts, I wouldn’t have a problem”. Well, yes this is true for it is the universal truth of OCD. But what I hope is that before you sought the physical or mental ritual of resistance because you thought that the temporary relief your OCD grants after you perform it was the only relief you ever got. But now I hope you will trust me to give the universal truth a try and understand that real, long-term relief is available without the performance of rituals. I’ll just say this- what’s it gonna hurt to try it? If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to what you’re doing now.

Everyone with OCD must find their own way to the moment they accept the universal truth and begin to practice it. It is a life changing moment. But if you take anything away from this book, remember the universal truth of OCD. That is:

THE POWER YOUR OCD SPIKES HAVE OVER YOU IS ACQUIRED ENTIRELY BY YOUR RESISTANCE TO THEM AND YOUR DESIRE FOR THEM TO GO AWAY. THE VERY SECOND YOU STOP TRYING TO PUSH AWAY THE SPIKES AND ACCEPT THEM AS A PART OF YOURSELF, THEY INSTANTLY LOSE ALL OF THEIR POWER OVER YOU (AND “ACCEPTING”, DOESN’T MEAN ACCEPTING THE FALSE INFORMATION THE SPIKES PRESENT, BUT ACCEPTING THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST IN YOUR MIND). YOUR OCD USES 2 WEAPONS TO FUEL YOUR RESISTANCE SO IT CAN ACQUIRE ITS POWER OVER YOU: FEAR & GUILT. AS LONG AS YOU FEAR YOUR SPIKES OR YOU FEEL GUILTY FOR HAVING YOUR SPIKES, YOU WILL RESIST THEM AND THE SPIKES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE POWER SOURCE IT NEEDS TO CONTROL YOU. SIMPLY PUT, IN ORDER FOR YOUR SPIKES TO GO AWAY, YOU HAVE TO WANT THEM TO STAY.

I know in this Chapter I mostly referred to specific examples of how the universal truth relates to the form of OCD I have, the "Pure-O" form. In the next Chapter, I will discuss applying the universal truth to all forms, with supporting examples.

4-Applying Universal Truth

Now that we have established what the universal truth of OCD is and why it is essential, we can now talk about how to get to that acceptance and be able to apply it. How do you learn to accept your spikes, and stop resisting their existence in order to take their power away from them? There are 2 ways: accepting the downside & general acceptance. Each of these involves learning to live with uncertainty.

Accepting the Downside of Your Spikes

In this first method of living the universal truth, living with uncertainty means being able to live with the downside of your spikes. That is, in order to be able to coexist with the spikes that have haunted you for so long, you must consciously be able to accept the downside of any spike. The downside is the consequences promised by a spike if ritual is not performed. This is an important concept. The fear you have of any spike comes from the consequences or "downside" it offers you if you don’t comply with its demands. And remember: fear is its fuel. In my case, when I would tell myself I couldn’t read and couldn’t, the downside was not being able to read. When I would not accept being unable to read and performed the mental ritual of trying to get rid of the spike, it would control my life. With my first subconscious coping skill, I would tell myself: " If I’m having the reading spike and can’t read, that’s OK. I can still be funny and entertaining". This coping skill worked for me, even though I didn’t know why at the time, because I was able to accept the downside of the spike. As soon as being able to read didn’t matter to me; I was able to again. I accepted its downside, taking away its power over me. With the traditional form of OCD (where physical rituals are performed), accepting the downside of the spike involves living with the consequences the spike threatens if physical ritual is not performed. When a physical ritual is performed, it presents fear to the spike of the downside, which it can use as fuel. When it is not performed, it shows you are not afraid of the outcome it offered to you. Hence, its power source (your fear) is taken away.

There is an important distinction I would like to make here that will be important here in a little bit. By accepting your downside, you are not wishing for that outcome. You just don’t fear it. With my reading spike, the outcome I am wishing for is to be able to read. But in order to get to that outcome, I must be willing to accept the fact that I might not be able to. Screwed up concept, I know. But it is the only way.

ARSTL Response:

In order to consciously accept the downside of any spike, I developed a standard reaction format to them. I call it the ARSTL response. A large part of this response is based on a conversation I had with Dr. Phillipson, the OCD specialist I referred to earlier. I took what he was telling me and shaped it to a form that was effective for me. These are not his exact words; you can find that on his website, ocdonline.com. He was the first person to verbalize to me what I had been doing subconsciously in my early coping skills, and consciously with my "breakthrough" moment: accepting the downside of my spikes.

Accept/appreciate the input your spike is offering.
Recognize the flaw in its logic.
State your opinion.
Trust your opinion.
Live with the uncertainty you might be wrong.

I will give a quick example here before I break down the response. Let’s say your spike is "If you touch any public doorknob, you will contract a deadly disease". The ARSTL response would be: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact I might contract a deadly disease if I touch a public doorknob. I do not agree with your premise, though. I don’t believe, just because I touch a public doorknob, that I will catch a deadly disease. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will touch public doorknobs, and live with the fact I might contract a deadly disease from them.

Accept/appreciate the input your spike is offering

The importance of this part is not to resist your spike or the information it offers. By acknowledging what your OCD offers instead of resisting it, you immediately take some of its power from it. It is used to your initial fear of its presence, fueling the affect it will have on you.

Recognize the flaw in its logic

This part is just conscious recognition of its flaw. Trust yourself. You wouldn’t have picked up this book or sought other help if you weren’t able to identify that your OCD was leading you to behave in a way that contradicted logic and accepted standards. As I will discuss in Chapter 7, by definition, the thought wouldn’t even be a spike if it didn’t bother you. It bothers you because you recognize it is untrue (has no value), but are compelled to act on it anyway.

State your opinion

Now that you’ve mentally noticed the flaw in the spike, state what you believe is true, logical, or the generally accepted behavior, as it relates to this specific spike.

Trust you opinion

This is just your conscious mental declaration that, of the 2 opinions, you believe yours is the correct one. The important thing here is to declare you will not fuel the spike by performing the ritual the spike is asking of you. With the traditional form, it is the physical ritual. Rather, you will physically do what you believe is logical. With the Pure-O form, it is the mental ritual of resistance (trying to force spike out of your mind). Instead, you will not resist its presence.

Live with the uncertainty you might be wrong

This is the key to the response. While you’ve already stated you don’t believe the scenario the spike threatens will happen if you don’t comply by performing ritual, you must be willing to live with the fact that it might be. That is, although you don’t believe consequences your spike presents will occur if you don’t do as it asks, and you do not wish for those consequences: you are still able to live with those consequences if they do result from your non-compliance. You must take your fear of the downside away by consciously choosing to live with the uncertainty that what your spike tells you might be true. Remember: your fear of the downside of the spike is what gives the spike its power. With the traditional form of OCD (with physical rituals), living with uncertainty involves accepting the consequences the spike threatens if you don’t perform the physical ritual it demands. You are not wishing for those consequences, you just don’t fear them. The performance of the physical ritual is your signal to the spike that you fear it (because you fear the downside it offers) and want it to go away. With the Pure-O form, living with uncertainty involves being able to live with the consequences the spike offers. Again, you are not wishing for those consequences, you just don’t fear them. If you don’t fear them, you won’t resist the spike. This resistance to the spike, or wishing it would go away, is your signal of fear to it (because you fear downside it offers). Once again, the universal truth: your fear & resistance is its power. You take away its power by not fearing the consequences it offers.

I know this can be a difficult thing to do. I know that because I’ve lived it. But hopefully, now that you have the knowledge of the universal truth of OCD, it will help you do this. By understanding how your OCD obtains and retains its power over you, you can look at your OCD and its spikes in a new way. That is, by realizing that your spikes are fueled by your fear, and that fear comes from your fear of the downside (consequences) it threatens, you can view being able to live with the downside as a means to an end. In other words, you don’t want the consequences your spikes threaten if you don’t perform ritual to actually occur, but you will be willing to not perform ritual and live with the possibility that they might occur, now that you know this will take the power from your spikes. In the next chapter, I will offer tools you can posses to help you be able to accept the downsides of your spikes. For right now, give it a try. What you’ve been doing hasn’t been working. I hope I’ve earned some trust from you and you believe I might know what I’m talking about. It is the only way to peace with OCD.

I will now give examples of the ARSTL response with some spikes I’ve heard about. The response is universal. That is, it works with all forms of OCD and all forms of spikes. I understand, though, it might be more difficult with some spikes to apply the ARSTL response. But it does work with any spike. I will list the form, the spike and then the response. Hopefully, you will see one that is similar to your spike. But if not, you will get the concept of the ARSTL response and how you can apply it to accept the downsides of your spikes.

Form: Traditional

Spike: If you don’t clean your house everyday for 12 hours, you will have germs around that will kill you.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that if I don’t clean my house for 12 hours a day, I will have germs around that will kill me. I do not agree with you, though. I believe if I clean my house for an hour a day, I will get rid of most of the germs. Certainly, any unsanitary ones. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not fuel my spike by performing the ritual it demands. Rather, I will only clean my house for an hour a day and live with the fact I might have deadly germs around my house.

Form: Traditional

Spike: If you step on any crack in the sidewalk, a loved one of yours will die.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that if I step on any crack in the sidewalk, a loved one of mine will die. I do not agree with this, though. I believe if I step on any crack in the sidewalk, it will not result in the death of a loved one. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not fuel my spike by performing the ritual it demands. Rather, I will not avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk and live with the fact it might cause a loved one of mind to die.

Form: Traditional

Spike: If you come out of your bathroom, you will become infected and die of some disease.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that if I come out of my bathroom, I will become infected and die of some disease. I do not agree with this, though. I believe if I come out of my bathroom, I will not become infected and will not die. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not fuel my spike by performing the ritual it demands. Rather, I will not stay in my bathroom, and live with the fact I might become infected and die.

Form: Traditional

Spike: Since your mouth is bleeding, you probably have throat cancer. You should go to the Emergency Room.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that I might have throat cancer because my mouth is bleeding. I do no agree with this, though. I believe I probably just have a cut in my mouth. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not fuel my spike by performing ritual it demands. Rather, I will not go to the ER unless it continues to bleed for several days, and live with the fact that I might have throat cancer right now.

Form: Purely Obsessive

Spike: If you tell yourself you can’t laugh, you won’t be able to laugh.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that if I will tell myself I can’t laugh, I won’t be able to laugh. I do not agree with this, though. The reason I can’t laugh isn’t because I’m telling myself I can’t laugh, but it’s because my mind is busy resisting this spike and not focusing on something I might find funny. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not fuel the thoughts by resisting them anymore, and live with the fact I might not ever be able to laugh again.

Form: Purely Obsessive

Spike: If you enjoy any activity, you will obsess about it and not being able to stop doing it.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that if I enjoy any activity, I will obsess about it and won’t be able to stop doing it. I do not agree with this, though. I believe I can enjoy an activity and not do it obsessively. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not perform the mental ritual of resistance of not enjoying any activity and live with the fact I might become obsessive at times.

Form: Purely Obsessive

Spike: You are a bad person because you have continuous thoughts of killing people.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact I might be a bad person because I have repetitive thoughts of killings people. I do not agree with this, though. I believe that, just because I have thoughts of killing people, doesn’t make me a bad person. There is nothing wrong with having these thoughts, for I have no control over these thoughts, and I do not wish to act on them. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right, and will not fuel the thoughts by resisting them anymore, and live with the fact that I might be a bad person for having these thoughts.

I have talked to a lot of people who have these general thoughts with violent or sexual content as their primary spike. It’s what I call guilt-driven OCD. While I primarily have resisted my spikes because I was afraid of them, this type of Pure-O OCD creates resistance through its other weapon: guilt. They thought they were bad or evil people for having these thoughts in their head. This is not true. No matter what context your spikes take, they do not reflect the kind of person you are. I would, instead, say the fact these thoughts bother you, show what kind of person you are. If you were truly evil, then thoughts of killing wouldn’t bother you. And you wouldn’t have picked up this book if these spikes weren’t upsetting you. What you must recognize is your guilt for having these thoughts cause you to resist them, which, of course, fuels them: allowing them the stay in your mind. If you accept the truth, which is just because you have impure thoughts of any kind, doesn’t mean you are a bad person (only acting on them would), you can see the true spike you are having. The spike isn’t the thoughts of violence or sex, but is that you are a bad person for having these thoughts. It’s a tricky thing OCD does. It does it because if you believe you are a bad person for having these thoughts, you will feel guilty for having them causing you to resist and give them power. The bottom line is if a thought is repetitive and unwanted, you shouldn’t feel guilty for thinking it. If you stop feeling guilty for having that thought, you will take away its power.

Form: Purely Obsessive

Spike: You are a bad person because you have continuous thoughts of choking your baby.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact I might be a bad person because I have thoughts of choking my baby. I do not agree with this, though. I believe that, just because I have thoughts of choking my baby, doesn’t make me a bad person. It doesn’t reflect the kind of person I am, for I have no control over these thoughts, and do not wish to act on them. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right, and will not fuel the thoughts by resisting them anymore, and live with the fact that I might be a bad person because I am having these thoughts.

I developed the ARSTL response to give me a structured way to accept the downside of my spikes. You may want to create your own response. Whatever the means, the important thing is to accept the downside of your spikes. When you can do this, your fear of the spike will diminish. And when you take the fear away from your spike, you take its power it has over you. You will then no longer fear its presence, and have no desire for them to go away. When you don’t want them to go away, they will. That is, again, the universal truth of OCD.

General Acceptance

In this second method of applying the universal truth, living with uncertainty means being able to live and function with the presence of your spikes. While the goal is the same as the acceptance of downside method (taking the fuel, your fear, away from your spikes), that goal is achieved by practicing a more general form of acceptance. That is, you just accept the fact that your spikes are a part of you and that you will no longer mind their presence. It is really just an expansion of the acceptance of downside method: You are still accepting a downside, but instead of accepting the downsides to each specific spike, you are accepting only one (that you will always have spikes). You are acknowledging you have OCD & will always have spikes, and you are OK with that. When you accept the spikes as a part of you instead of resisting them, you no longer have a desire for them to leave because you don’t fear their presence. When your fear and resistance to your spikes are gone, you have taken its source of power, and they leave. Hence, you have applied the universal truth by accepting the spikes as a part of who you are. Again in this form of acceptance, you are not wishing for the downside to be true, but you become willing to live with it as a means to an end. That is, your goal is to get rid of the spikes, but in order to reach that goal, you become willing to live with the fact that you will always have spikes. Again the universal truth: in order for your spikes to go away, you have to want them to stay.

An Exercise in Focus:

I learned early on in my OCD life that the reason my spikes destroyed me was just a matter of focus. I was unable to understand what I was reading because my mind was focused on the thought of not being able to. The tooth spike took control of my life because that’s all I could focus on. At the time, this knowledge didn’t do my any good. I couldn’t consciously focus on what I wanted to because I was busy resisting and trying to get rid of my unwanted self-sabotaging thoughts. When I had my breakthrough moment, this knowledge began to serve a valuable purpose. Once again, when I had my breakthrough moment, I decided to focus on my physical reaction to my spikes instead of wishing they would go away. I accepted the fact these spikes were always going to be there for the first time in my life (universal truth). Now before this moment, when I consciously tried to focus on what I wanted to, I couldn’t. With the reading spike, I would understand the reason I couldn’t read was I was focused on my spike of not being able to read and not the material in front of me. I would tell myself, "just think about what your reading, not the thought of not being able to". I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I subconsciously still didn’t want my spikes in my head, which gave them their power. After I accepted the fact my spikes would always be there, I immediately began to be able to consciously focus on what I wanted most of the time. I could because instead of trying to focus away from the spikes, I began focusing with them. That is, instead of trying to get rid of the spikes by thinking of something else, I now tried to focus with their presence. With the reading spike, I now would say to myself: "It’s OK with me that this spike is in my head. I am going to try to focus on reading this material anyway". It worked. It worked because I took away my mental resistance by accepting the spike as a part of me. That is, I was able to focus on what I wanted because I wasn’t focused on trying to get rid of the spike. Simply, your brain cannot focus on 2 things at the same time. Since I was no longer practicing my ritual of trying to get rid of the spikes, it cleared my brain up to think about what I wanted it to.

Although I still use the accepting the downside to a specific spike method, applying this general acceptance of my spikes though this "focusing exercise" is what I employ most often to live happily in step with my OCD everyday. Keep in mind, though, it only works because it applies the universal truth of OCD. That is, I am only able to focus on what I want when I welcome my OCD and the presence of my spikes. When I do this, I consciously state I can happily coexist with my spikes and do not fear them. When the fear is gone, so are the spikes, because they no longer have to fuel they need to hurt me.

The practices in this chapter are what work for me to live a happy and productive life with OCD. You can use them, tweak them, or create new coping skills that fit your spikes. As long as its foundation is based on the universal truth of OCD, it will work.

5-Tools to Help Apply Universal Truth

While OCD and its spikes use your fear and guilt against you, there are some valuable tools you can posses to help you apply the universal truth.

Confidence

The best weapon you can have in your arsenal to help you live with the presence of OCD is confidence. OCD attacks hardest when it senses low self-esteem. When you feel good about yourself, you will be better able to consciously react to your spikes, instead of passively letting them overwhelm you. Up until this point, you might have had problems having any confidence because of the presence of your OCD. Now that you know the universal truth, that can change. You now know you must view your OCD as a part of you, a welcome part. Hence, when you realize you can live a productive and happy life with the presence of your spikes, instead of spending all your time resisting them, you can get rid of the cloud of shame and guilt you’ve carried with you so long. You should be proud to have OCD. Aside from this being the universal truth, there are other advantages of having OCD. First, people with OCD tend to be very intelligent. This is a trend I have noticed while researching OCD. I don’t know if its because we have been forced to process a lot of thoughts, or what, but it seems to be irrefutable. When we learn to use that intelligence in a way other than resisting spikes, the sky is the limit. Second, we are also very organized for the most part. While I realize when taken to the extreme it can be maddening, organization is a good thing in "moderation". I used to have to have every single thing in its place so I could find it whenever I needed it. Now that I am able to live with OCD, I don’t take it to that point, but I am still very organized. I am never late on payments or lose things. I often thank my OCD for that after seeing someone who doesn’t know where anything is or when things are due. Another thing OCD did for me was to give me a point of reference. After living through all of those dark years before I understood OCD, I now appreciate things a lot more than if I hadn’t had that experience. I can take pleasure now in the smallest things. I couldn’t notice them before because I was absorbed in my spikes and my resistance to them. Now that I can accept my OCD, I appreciate people and things "normal" people do not. It’s like being reborn. Again, I spent so much time in my cloud of resistance to my spikes, I rarely was able to notice all the beautiful things this world has to offer. I’m sure you are aware of how powerful the mind can be. But to this point, you might have only experienced its negative power. When you accept and live the universal truth, you get to see the positive power your mind can offer, as well. It’s hard to explain. You’ll have to experience it for yourself when you accept the universal truth. The point I’m trying to make here is it’s actually pretty cool to have OCD when you accept it as a part of you. There are definite advantages. The important thing to remember is, from this point on, never to stake your confidence on not having spikes. That is, not to base how you feel about yourself on whether you are having spikes or not. It’s a part of you now. You can be confident and proud with the presence of your spikes, for that is the universal truth.

Another aspect of confidence I find helpful is to base it on effort instead of result. That is, I base my confidence on giving my all to any activity, not the outcome. Of course, we are valued in society based on the results we produce. I have no problem with that. But the best way to acquire the desired outcome, is to take the pressure away from the process, especially someone with OCD. As we have talked about, OCD and its spikes are driven by fear. Often that fear is the fear of failure. When you can approach any project with the attitude of "I’ll do my best and the result will be what is meant to be", it takes that fear of failure away. The result, then, will often be more desirable than if you focused on a preferred result throughout the process. When you can adopt this attitude, it will allow you to try things you were afraid to before. A perfect example for me is this book. I have been wanting to write this book for some time. It is very important to me because I know I have something to offer. My fear of not writing the perfect OCD book kept me from starting it. Only after several years was I able to take the following attitude: "I’ll write the OCD book I want to write. I’ll give it my best effort based on the knowledge and experience I posses. If it gets published and helps people, great. If it doesn’t, at least I gave it a shot". As soon as I was able to do this, I began to write. This is really just an extension of the universal truth. When you base your confidence on effort and not results, you accept the downside of the project failing. The importance is placed on the process and not the outcome. When you accept the outcome as what was meant to be, you take away that fear of failure. When you take away the fear, you take away the power of those negative thoughts that keep you from trying things you want to.

When you can develop confidence, you begin to trust yourself. This trust is valuable in recognizing the flaws in the spikes your OCD sends you. Not only can you recognize those flaws; it will help you to avoid resisting the spikes by performing mental and physical rituals. For example, if you have the spike: "if you step on a crack, you will cause a catastrophic event", you will be able to recognize its absurdity and not resist the spike by avoiding cracks easier, if you trust yourself. You will be more likely to live with the fact that stepping on a crack might cause a catastrophe, but it probably won’t, if you trust yourself. That is, you are much more willing to be wrong if you have confidence and self-worth. Confidence and trust go hand in hand.

A form of confidence I would use sometimes when I didn’t feel good about myself would be role playing. That is, if I were uncomfortable with a situation, I would pretend I was some rich, talented, and powerful person. When I would do that, I would borrow the confidence of that fictitious person to help me get through circumstance I was in. Of course, it’s best when you have confidence in who you are, but this can be a valuable coping skill when you don’t.

A word I often interchange with confidence is self-worth. Self-worth is valuing who you are and believing you deserve to be happy. Hopefully, you have people in your life who tell you that you are valuable and deserve the good things life has to offer. But if you don’t, I will. You deserve happiness just as much as anyone else in the world. You might not think so right now because you’ve been beaten down by your OCD (I was there). But there is hope. That hope is the universal truth. Accept it and your world changes.

In summary, confidence is crucial to living with OCD. I know from personal experience, it can be difficult to maintain any confidence with self-sabotaging spikes controlling your life. The critical concept to remember is not to associate your confidence with the absence of spikes. This violates the universal truth of OCD. When you do this, you are telling your brain you don’t place any value in yourself when spikes are present. This indicates fear that, in turn, will provide fuel to them. This creates a cycle of dependence between your spikes and your confidence. When you don’t have any confidence, your spikes will affect you more. When your spikes are affecting you more, your confidence is diminished. You break this cycle by accepting OCD as a part of you and feeling good about yourself with OCD.

*An important point I would like to interject here is that, aside from fear, another form of fuel OCD will use to obtain power over you is guilt. I haven’t mentioned this as much to this point because the initial acceptance of OCD and beginning to practice the universal truth deals with the fear of spikes. But guilt can be an equally effective form of fuel your spikes can use against you. While guilt is a perfectly normal human emotion that serves a valuable purpose, your spikes will often present you with false guilt in order to gain power over you. When you feel guilty, you are much more vulnerable to spikes and are more likely to resist them, giving them more power.

Forgiveness

Another tool you can offer yourself to help you live with OCD is forgiveness. Forgiveness as it directly relates to OCD, means forgiving yourself for, every now and then, being overwhelmed by your spikes. Even after you accept OCD as a part of you and your life drastically improves, there will still be times it gets the better of you. That’s OK. The important thing is not to give up and continue to practice the universal truth. Forgive yourself for the times you resist the thoughts and they overwhelm you. Your OCD counts on the fact you will get frustrated and feel guilty about having a setback. It will feed on this guilt and use it against you. You are human. You will have days that stink. The continuing effort is the important factor. Also, frustration is another signal of resistance to your brain to your OCD, which violates the universal truth of OCD. Trust me, when you accept OCD as a part of you, you will have more "good" days than you ever thought possible. Just remember when you have a bad day; forgive yourself, get up, and keep trying.

Forgiveness is also the essence of the universal truth. Forgiveness, in its simplest form, means acknowledging you are human and make mistakes, and being OK with that. In order to apply the universal truth you must be able to accept the downside your spikes offer. To be able to do this, you must be willing to be wrong (make a mistake) and be OK with that. That is, although you don’t believe the consequences your spike offers will occur if you don’t perform ritual of resistance, you need to be willing to live with the fact that you might be wrong. This can only happen if you are willing to forgive yourself if you are wrong.

Discipline/Work Ethic

Another significant tool you must acquire to live with OCD is discipline. It is important because it offers a baseline to live by on tough days. My definition of baseline is: "no matter what’s going on in my head, this gets done". When I was suffering with OCD before I learned the universal truth, I always had a baseline. My baseline was getting up every morning, and taking care of my financial responsibilities. That is, no matter how bad a day I was having with my spikes, I would do those two things. Anything else was a bonus. Looking back, it meant a lot to me to have that baseline. I knew that no matter what my OCD did to me, I was able to do what I needed to survive. This gave me pride and confidence in even the worst of times. And in a way I subconsciously applied the universal truth: I knew that even when my spikes were at their worst, I could survive with them. Living up to the baseline required discipline. No matter how much it hurt, or how much anxiety it caused, I did those two things. Some days, it was horrifying. But having the discipline to get through it, despite the pain, kept me going. Discipline, to me, is being able to tolerate pain. If you can develop a tolerance for physical and emotional pain, you will give yourself a better opportunity to succeed with accepting OCD, or anything else in life, for that matter. Also, being able to acquire a tolerance for mental pain is a key ingredient to acceptance. That is, if you can develop the attitude, "no matter how much anxiety my spikes cause me, I can take it", you are essentially accepting the spikes because you are indicating you no longer fear the anxiety they bring. After you accept the universal truth and accept the spikes as a part of you, the anxiety level they bring will diminish or disappear. But on those days when the spikes can access your fear or guilt again, this tolerance for mental pain will help keep you from relapsing into performing rituals of resistance. Again, when you accept the universal truth, your life will be better than it ever has with OCD. But there will still be a few days that are difficult. This is when discipline is crucial in grinding through those days to help avoid an extended relapse of resistance to your spikes.

Structure

The next significant tool that is essential to live the universal truth is structure. People with OCD, by definition, are obsessive in nature. We can easily take anything from one extreme to the other. That’s why it’s important to have universally accepted standards to live by most of the time to be able to consciously react properly to a spike. For example, we’ll use the cleaning spike we used in the previous chapter:

Form: Traditional

Spike: If you don’t clean your house everyday for 12 hours, you will have germs around that will kill you.

In order to identify the flaw, you need an accepted standard of cleaning to refer to. That is, people who clean their house for an hour or two a day on most days don’t have germs around their house that will kill them. The standard also directs you to the appropriate behavior and away from the ritual of resistance: to clean house for an hour or two a day and live with the fact you might have deadly germs in your house. Structure and standards are also important in avoiding what I call an over-correction to a spike. That is, if the person in this example decided to react to their spike by never cleaning their house again instead of the standard, they would eventually have some pretty nasty germs in their house, which could be unsanitary. They would go from one extreme to the other. I would contend that, although the behavior of the original physical ritual changed, this "over-correction" has to potential to be just as harmful as the original spike. It does because it offers false legitimacy to the original spike. If they decided on the new behavior of never cleaning, mildew and germs would begin to form. The spike could then say "see, I told you if you didn’t clean your house all day, you’d get bad germs around your house". That person likely would resume old ritual of doing so. This is why having structure and standards are so important to serve as guidelines.

In my life now, structure is the most important tool to me. Since accepting my OCD as a part of me and beginning my "new" life, I now obsess a lot about making the most of my time. Everyday when I get up, I have so much I want to do that, without structure, I would be doing something all day and all night until I collapse. I give myself time periods to work on whatever I want and when the time is up, I have to quit. This structure I have put on myself helps give me balance in my life, which has made me (and my wife) much happier. I will expand more on the importance of structure in living the universal truth in later chapters.

Passion

Another important tool to have at your disposal is to be passionate and active. It is extremely important to have something in your life you look forward to and enjoy. This gives you a sense of self-worth that provides you with the confidence you need to accept your OCD. Whether it be work, a hobby, or whatever, it’s crucial to give yourself a purpose each day. This is true for life in general, but it’s especially vital for a person with OCD. I know it can be difficult at times to be productive when the spikes are running wild. In such times, it is still important to be active. Even if it means just doing something simple. Inactivity will create an environment for which your spikes can dominate you. Inactivity with the presence of spikes signals fear of them, which provides more fuel to them. Inactivity is also an unnatural state. That is, you know there is something wrong with being inactive for an extended period of time. This creates guilt and more fuel for your spikes. When I speak of being active, I mean doing anything productive, not just physical activity. But I do recommend that, as well. Of course, we all know that physical activity is good for your health. It’s equally important as it directly relates to OCD. First, I’ve seen a bunch of studies that talk about the chemicals released during and after exercise that help with anxiety. They’re true. After I work out, I feel relaxed. This just provides one more weapon in accepting the universal truth. Second, and more importantly, when you workout, you tend to look better and feel better about yourself. This, again, provides more confidence; the primary tool you need to be able to practice the universal truth of OCD.

Patience

The process of accepting the universal truth and living it takes time. The concept may be difficult to understand and practice at first, but over time, it becomes easier and easier to live. I like to compare it to getting into shape. The first time you try to run a mile, it’s hard and you’re sore the next day. But if you stick with it, it gets easier over time to a point that you can do it with no effort at all. It’s the same with the universal truth. This is how patience applies to OCD. You may have been suffering as long as I did. You want immediate relief, but it may take some time to accept the universal truth. You have to have patience. It’s a process that takes time and effort. But the first time you feel the freedom that comes with the acceptance of the universal truth, you will know it was worth it. Your OCD and its spikes, though, will try to use impatience against you. It will tell you, "see this universal truth crap isn’t working yet, give it up". It tells you this because it knows as soon as you accept the universal truth, you will be able to take its power from it, rendering it useless.

Also, impatience is a physical sign of fear. When you hurry or are in a rush, you are telling your brain that you are not enjoying the activity you are currently engaged in. Of course, there are times when hurrying is a normal, protective response, but as it relates to spikes, it’s generally not a good idea. When I had my breakthrough moment and decided to focus on my physical reaction to my spikes, being patient was large part of that response. I had noticed that when I was having a spike and resisted it, I became very impatient. My impatience indicated my resistance and fear which, in turn, provided fuel. I now began to consciously try to slow myself down when I would have a spike. I wouldn’t try to make the spike go away, I would just control my physical reaction to it. As I have talked about, this changed my life because I was able to focus on what I wanted when I could "slow things down" by not resisting the spike’s presence.

Environment

The bottom line here is you will be much more likely to accept the universal truth and live a happy life with OCD if you surround yourself with people who genuinely love you and want the best for you. I have been blessed with a very loving & understanding wife and family. They offered the support and encouragement I needed to get through the dark days and helped me arrive at the point in my life where I am comfortable with my OCD. They also weren’t afraid to put a boot in my ass when I stepped out of line, keeping my obsessive nature from destroying me. I realize many people don’t have this support system in place. Many of you might be surrounded by people who might be very uncomfortable with you improving yourself. Misery loves company. If this is you, I won’t tell you that you need to do this or that. That’s up to you. Ultimately, whether you accept and practice the universal truth is completely up to you and can be done in any environment. I again will say, though, that you will give yourself a much better chance to succeed in this journey, or any other, if you can keep the company of good people who support you.

Morality

When reading the titles to these last 2 tools, please don’t assume I am going to start preaching now. I hate being preached at and that’s not what this is. I will talk about morality and religion only as it directly relates to OCD. Morality, or living an honest, clean life is important as it relates to guilt, a primary form of fuel your spikes use for gaining control over you. Guilt is a useful mechanism we use to guide our lives. If you walk up to someone and punch them in the nose, you should feel guilty. Your OCD and its spikes, though, often use false guilt to gain power. For example, a spike might be "if you step on a crack, you will cause a plane to crash". It’s trying to get you to falsely feel guilty about causing a plane crash so it can use that guilt as power against you. Although OCD primarily tries to use this type of irrational guilt, it will use any form of guilt presented to it as fuel. Therefore, if you try to live an honest and clean life, aside from the many benefits it otherwise brings, you also take away a source of fuel from your spikes. I was often told by counselors that drinking wasn’t a good idea for me because it was a depressant. I know this is true, but, in my opinion, the true damage drinking excessively did to me was the guilt I felt about doing so afterwards. My OCD would always be more intense the first couple of days after I would get drunk and act like an ass. I now know it did this because it was feeding off the "normal" guilt I provided. Another benefit of trying to be a good person is it will make you feel better about yourself which, in turn, provides you confidence (the primary tool you need in accepting universal truth). Again, I’m not saying you need to be a perfect person. That’s impossible, we all make mistakes every day. But the fewer sources of guilt you provide your OCD from engaging in activities you know are wrong, the better.

Religion

See Chapter 11-things have changed

6-My Story (After Accepting Universal Truth)

In the 5 years I have been living the universal truth, my life is much better than it ever has been. I don’t have to worry about my spikes crippling me and causing major depressions. But I have OCD (that is the universal truth), and still have spikes every day. I rarely have the reading, laughing, or any of the other ones that haunted me for so long. I don’t have them much because I don’t fear them or their presence. What I have learned, though, is OCD is a sneaky bastard. My spikes now come in forms that are more difficult to recognize as spikes.

Before I gained knowledge of the universal truth, I always had an excuse to do whatever I needed to survive. That is, my life revolved around my spikes and only my spikes. I had little to no concern for anything or anybody else. I could bury myself in alcohol, work, or whatever else I needed to in order to get by without feeling any guilt. I would use the obsessive nature of my personality as a crutch to absorb myself in activities to avoid people and the embarrassment my spikes could provide. For example, I would never miss a football game of any sort when it was on TV. I would go to a sports bar on Sundays so I could watch all 13 games. Football gave me an escape from my spikes, and I would obsessively watch it to give me peace. I will admit it was pretty convenient to have this "free pass" to do as I chose instead of having to live by the standards of "normal" people. But now that I was comfortable with myself and no longer sought to hide from people because of my spikes, I began seeking balance in my life. I gave up drinking. That was a great decision. I began only watching the Monday Night football game. But since I used to cope mainly by being a workaholic, my new passion became making my company and my life in general as organized and efficient as possible, allowing the new me (the one who accepted his OCD) time to spend with my wife, family, and friends. Looking at it from this new perspective, I was amazed how inefficient the company really was. Before, I didn’t notice it because I took solace in working as many hours as I could in order to hide from my spikes. So if I didn’t have anything to work on then, I created something. At first, my new passion was producing substantial, positive results. I limited the amount of clients the lawn care company would take on each year, creating reasonable working hours for myself each week. We used to take an unreasonable amount of time on each lawn, trying to make them perfect. We now began to still do a good job, just not a perfect one, by eliminating attention to obsessive details. We were now completing twice as much lawn work with the same amount of employees as before. This allowed me to make the same or even more money with the new limited hours I was working. I overhauled my entire accounting system. I streamlined it to where it took ¼ the time to finish each week. And where before I was spending most of each Sunday doing maintenance on the machines, it now only took a few hours. I transformed the company into a model of efficiency. My new passion was helping me free up time to realize my goal of a more balanced life.

As you can see, my new passion with being efficient and having a balanced life initially produced positive results. But remember, I still have OCD. That is, it is my nature to be obsessive. Enough is never enough. I began to get greedy. I wanted more free time to be "balanced". I felt I had missed out on so much, I wanted to make up for it now. I began to resent my work and my company because it got in the way of my free time. Every day when I was working, all I could think about was getting it done as fast as possible so I could get home and do something else. If something broke or anything happened that would slow me down, I would get angry. I demanded a perfect day, every day. I began to monitor every movement I was making to determine if it was obsessive or efficient. I even started to monitor my thoughts. If I was thinking about anything other than completing what I was doing at that moment efficiently so I could get done and have "free time", I felt guilty. This constant analysis and need to hurry started to bother me. I started to feel guilty about never wanting to work, not even reasonable hours. The pendulum had swung entirely the other way. That is, instead of obtaining the balance I sought, I now was at the other end of the spectrum. Before, I would obsessively work to provide self-worth through productivity. Now, I associated it with providing myself as much free time as possible to do anything that wasn’t productive. My passion had become an obsession. I became obsessive about not being obsessive. F’d up, isn’t it?

I was still hurrying to get my work done, but when I got home, I could no longer enjoy my free time. I was worn out from the mental torture I was putting myself through each day and was frustrated with myself for being out of balance again. I felt I could no longer trust myself. Whenever I became passionate about something, even the pursuit of balance, I couldn’t keep that passion from turning into an obsession. I had begun to convince myself that if I were passionate about or began enjoying any activity, I would absorb myself in it, and wouldn’t be able to do it in a reasonable manor. When I was working, I would be thinking, "if you start to enjoy this, you won’t want to quit and you won’t have any balance in your life". When I would get free time, I would think, "If you start to enjoy your free time, you won’t want to work again and won’t have any balance in your life". It would become so maddening that I became afraid to enjoy or become passionate about anything because of the fear I might obsessively do it. I would have to force myself to do anything and everything. Noticing this fear, I reacted like I thought I should. That is, since the source of my inability to enjoy anything was my initial fear and avoidance of work, I would begin working all day and all night again to "show myself" I wasn’t afraid of work. This reaction meant I was working all the time and avoiding people again. This put me right back where I started and I would begin to seek efficiency and balance again. I found myself in this vicious cycle that caused me as much pain as my original spikes did.

I was frustrated because, although I had accepted the universal truth and my old spikes that destroyed me for 14 years were gone, I found myself with a broken spirit again. The problem was my OCD had inserted a new spike into my life under my radar. The specific spike is, "if you enjoy this activity, you will obsess about it and won’t be able to do it in a reasonable, efficient manner which won’t allow for any balance in your life". Once I was able to recognize this as a spike, instead of a healthy thought with value, I was able to apply the universal truth. My new attitude would be "I will try to do things in an efficient, balanced way, but if I become passionate about something, even obsessive every now and then, that’s OK." That is, I would rather reign myself in at times than constantly have to force myself to do anything and never be able to enjoy it. I accepted the downside, obsessing, and stopped resisting the spike by performing the ritual of hurrying through and not enjoying anything I did. I took away my fear (of obsession), which took away the spike. This endless pursuit of balance through efficiency became, and still is, my primary spike I have each day.

I began to really notice this obsessive nature of my behavior after I took away my original spikes by not fearing them any more. It was always there, I was just mindful of it now. It’s all or nothing with me. If I get into something, it on. This was the source of my "pursuit of balance" spike. When I began to try and reign myself in from obsessive behavior, I found myself shutting down completely and losing passion in any activity. I was afraid to enjoy anything because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop doing it. I would notice this and overcorrect, forcing myself to absorb myself in projects again. This all or nothing attitude illustrates the importance of structure I discussed in Chapter 5. First, standards direct you to appropriate behavior. My passion for balance became an obsession because my behavior went against the standard and was no longer appropriate. That is, at first the passion was healthy because it helped me obtain reasonable working hours. When I became greedy, and even reasonable working hours were no longer acceptable, I violated the standard of "normal" behavior. And my over-correction of working all day & night again, wasn’t normal behavior either. Also, when I shut down and refused to allow myself to become passionate or enjoy anything, I again disregarded the standard of "normal" human behavior. It is healthy, even essential to have things you are passionate about (one of the tools used in acceptance) in life. I also learned the only way I can find the balance needed to be happy is to have structure in the form of a schedule to live by most of the time. I will typically give myself time periods to due certain things; work, exercise, relax… When the time period is up, I have to move on to the next thing. I have to do this because of the obsessive nature of myself. It not only keeps me from obsessing about everything, It also keeps me from overcorrecting and shutting down. That is, when I schedule a period of time for me to work, I won’t allow myself to quit early. I simply can’t trust myself not to have a schedule. And that’s OK with me because I accept I have OCD which means I’m obsessive my nature.

On the other end of the pendulum, though, if my schedule becomes too rigid and can’t be broken, it becomes a ritual. This showed me it is equally important to have some flexibility in the schedule. That is, I give myself a basic foundation to work off of, but if circumstances call for it, the schedule can become flexible every now and then. As I said, without this flexibility, structure can become ritual, which, by definition, violates the universal truth. That is, by becoming dependent upon "sticking to the schedule" in order to ease some anxiety (in this case the anxiety of not having a balanced life), you are indicating fear of that anxiety, giving it power. An example of this is, due to my obsessive nature, I have an eating disorder. When I start eating, I have a hard time stopping. I avoid gaining weight by only eating at night. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch…ever. I don’t recommend this. Every doctor in the world says its better to eat 3 balanced meals. Not only do I eat only at night, I eat low calorie, low fat foods so I can eat more of them. A couple of years ago, I started eating salads with fat free dressing. I loved it at first because I could pretty much eat as much as I wanted without gaining any weight. Over time, though, I noticed it was beginning to turn into a ritual. I would feel anxiety if I couldn’t make time to eat 2 salads a night. Initially, putting myself on an eating schedule helped me counteract my obsessive nature. But when I became mentally dependent on sticking to that schedule, and would alter my life to do so, it became a ritual. I performed this ritual to ease the anxiety of not being able to eat a lot and not gain weight for I knew once I started eating, I would have a hard time stopping. I would alter my life to make sure I would eat my 2 salads a night. I began to notice this and it bothered me. My passion of enjoying salads each evening turned into an obsession, which I couldn’t do without. Yes, believe it or not, I was now having "salad" spikes. That is, my mind was telling me "you can’t have a fulfilling day unless you eat 2 of your salads each night". Again, when I was able to recognize this as a spike, instead of a healthy thought with value, I was able to apply the universal truth. I accepted it as a part of me and stopped resisting it by performing the ritual of having to eat 2 salads each night in order to feel fulfilled. I would now eat them if time permitted without altering my life, but I was able to consider a day complete without them. I accepted the downside of not being able to eat 2 salads every single night. This "salad" spike is just one example of a hundred or so of these spikes of mental dependence I began having after my old spikes went away because I no longer feared them. From television shows to doing push-ups. If I enjoyed it, I had to potential to associate my self-worth with being able to performing these activities each day. Once I became aware of this form of spike, I was able to apply the universal truth to them more efficiently as time went on.

The point of this Chapter is that after I accepted the universal truth, my life changed for the better. Now that my old spikes (reading, laughing…) didn’t have my fear to operate on, they were gone. But I still have OCD and always will, for I accept it as the universal truth. The spikes now just come in different forms that are sometimes difficult to recognize. I will discuss this in the next chapter. Also, this time period since accepting the universal truth has revealed to me my obsessive nature and the benefits and pitfalls it presents. I will deal with this in Chapter 8.

7-Recognizing Spikes

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a girl I had met on an OCD website message board. This was 4 years ago, just after I had accepted the universal truth and set myself free from my 14 year prison of my self-sabotaging spikes. I was seeking to share my knowledge of the universal truth with people suffering with OCD. This girl’s OCD seemed similar in form to mine, so we had a few phone conversations. The reason I mention her is she asked me a question that, at the time, made no sense to me. She asked me how to know what thoughts are spikes and what thoughts are just "normal" thoughts. I was baffled by this question. My spikes up until that point were in a form that was easily and clearly recognizable. I remember thinking "whoah, this girl’s elevator might not go to the top floor if she can’t even recognize a spike as a spike". I didn’t have an answer because I hadn’t lived that part of OCD yet. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, I now understand exactly what she was talking about. Over the past couple of years, my spikes have evolved as I have. That is, although I took away my original spikes by not fearing them anymore, I will always have spikes because I accept I have OCD (universal truth). The spikes, now, come in forms that are difficult to recognize as spikes. It does this in order to survive. It knows as soon as I identify a spike as a spike, I will accept it and not perform ritual of resistance, taking away its power because I live the universal truth. So it tries to camouflage itself as "normal" thoughts with value so I will perform the task or ritual it asks of me to provide it fuel. OCD also continues to try and insert itself in places from where I draw confidence. It does this because it knows, not only is this my primary tool in accepting spikes and not resisting them, but also because I will have a harder time identifying spikes if I doubt myself. Like I said, OCD is a sneaky bastard.

So how do you separate and recognize spikes from "normal" healthy thoughts? The short answer I have read and heard in many OCD resources is that if you feel anxiety with a thought, it’s a spike. This, in a general sense, is true. That is, if you feel anxiety with or the thought bothers you, it’s a safe bet it is a spike. In the previous chapter with my "pursuit of balance" spike, it became a spike when my endless thoughts of achieving efficiency began to bother me. It became unwanted and my resistance to it began to fuel it. This is also a good example of how OCD can disguise itself to enter your life. At first, my pursuit of efficiency was a passion, not a spike. It was a passion because I enjoyed the pursuit since it produced real and substantial results. It was enhancing and providing value to my life. The key is as long as I enjoyed my pursuit of efficiency and it didn’t bother me, it was a passion and not a spike. When I began to believe I had done all I could reasonably do in order to be efficient and my thoughts began to demand an unreasonable level of efficiency, they began to bother me. That is, when I started monitoring every movement I made to determine if it was efficient, my pursuit of efficiency began to bother me. At this moment, my pursuit of balance changed from a passion to a spike. This illustrates the sneaky nature of OCD. For the first time, a spike entered my life through the back door, under the cover of a healthy, productive thought. My "salad" spike I spoke of in the previous chapter is another example of this. When I first found my salads with fat free dressing, I enjoyed and looked forward to them each evening. It was a passion of mine because I believed they added value to my life. When I began to believe my day couldn’t be complete without eating 2 of these salads, it began to bother me. It bothered me because I had become mentally dependent upon eating 2 salads each night and would alter my life to make sure I was able to. Again, an activity that started as an enjoyable passion became a bothersome spike.

Since noticing the deceptive nature OCD began to take in my life, I began to critically analyze how to recognize spikes and separate them from "normal", healthy thoughts. As I said, although I generally accept the theory that if you feel anxiety with or the thought bothers you, it’s a spike, I have come up with a more detailed test to identify spikes. They are 3 characteristics that help determine whether a thought is healthy one or if it’s a spike:

Bothersome-

This is what we just covered. The thought must bother you in order to be a spike. Even if you are engaging in obsessive thinking or behavior; as long as it doesn’t bother you, it’s not a spike. It’s a passion.As we just covered, a thought can begin as a passion and turn into a spike. The presence of anxiety must exist in order for a thought to be a spike. For another illustration let’s use the "bleeding mouth" spike in Chapter 4:

Form: Traditional

Spike: Since your mouth is bleeding, you probably have throat cancer. You should go to the Emergency Room.

ARSTL response: Thank you, OCD, for alerting me to the fact that I might have throat cancer because my mouth is bleeding. I do no agree with this, though. I believe I probably just have a cut in my mouth. We have 2 opinions here. I trust that I am right and will not go to the ER unless it continues to bleed for several days, and live with the fact that I might have throat cancer right now.

This is only a spike if you believe going to the emergency room to see if you have cancer is an unreasonable reaction to a bleeding mouth. If that’s the case, this repetitive thought would bother you. If you thought it was a reasonable reaction, it wouldn’t be a spike because it wouldn’t bother you. You simply would go to the emergency room.

The anxiety begins when the thought provides no productive value to you, or is even destructive. That is, if you do what your spike asks, it will not enhance or be of value to your life. This value is based solely on your opinion at the time you are having the thought. That is, does the thought have value to you at that particular moment in time? To illustrate this, I smoke and naturally am concerned about the health consequences if I don’t quit. Take my thought, "If you don’t quit smoking, you might die early". When I am truly considering quitting, this thought has value to me and if I were constantly thinking this thought, it wouldn’t bother me. Therefore it wouldn’t be a spike. Once I make the decision not to quit smoking, that thought would offer no value to me. If that thought would continue to circle in my mind (as it often does), it would bother me and become a spike. It does because to me, at that time, it offers no value. I already made the decision not to quit smoking.

Repetitive-

The thoughts must circle in your mind in order to be a spike. You might have a bothersome thought enter your mind, but if you quickly process it and it leaves, it’s not a spike. The thought must be absorbing and persistent in order to be a spike. For example, let’s again use the bleeding mouth spike (above). You have the thought, "Since your mouth is bleeding, you probably have throat cancer. You should go to the Emergency Room". If you react by thinking, "That’s ridiculous. If it keeps bleeding, I will go see my doctor in a few days", and doesn’t absorb your day, it’s not a spike. Again, the thought must be absorbing and persistent to be a spike.

Absence of a Recent Traumatic Event-

There are real life situations that occur that would cause anyone to have repetitive, bothersome thoughts that don’t provide any real value to your life. For example, if one of your close relatives passes away, you will likely experience continuous, painful thoughts of grief for some time afterwards that will not enhance, or add value to your life. Although it passes the test of the first 2 characteristics, it’s still not a spike because with the presence of recent trauma; repetitive, bothersome thoughts with no value become the norm. That is, with a traumatic event, these thoughts are considered normal human behavior. Although I can see the argument that the thoughts of grief offer value in mentally healing from the trauma caused, I still contend that because the thoughts can’t produce any real change, they offer no value. But that’s for you to decide. I just wanted to make the point that with a significant traumatic event, the previous 2 standards of identifying spikes go out the window for a period of time.

In closing, I would like to note that the first 2 primary characteristics of spikes are interconnected. Again, a spike is bothersome or causes anxiety usually because you notice its lack of value or irrational nature. Also, the thoughts become repetitive (you can’t get them out of your head) because they bother you. For that is the universal truth: your spikes are fueled by your fear. Applying the universal truth can be helpful in the process of recognizing spikes, as well. If, even after testing a thought for the presence of the 3 characteristics of spikes, you still are unsure if it’s a spike; trust yourself, make a decision, and be willing to be wrong. Yes, you can have spikes about recognizing spikes. A lot of people, as have I at times, obsess about being able to differentiate between healthy, normal thoughts and spikes. Again, the universal truth applies here. That is, if you are able to accept the downside of the spike (falsely identifying a healthy thought as a spike, and vice versa), you take your fear and its power away from it.

8-Advantages and Pitfalls of the Obsessive Nature

After accepting and living the universal truth of OCD, I became aware of the obsessive nature of myself because of my OCD. This obsessive nature can be a powerful, productive force if directed in a positive direction. On the other hand, it can be equally devastating if used in destructive thinking or behavior. Everyone has some obsessive nature, but if you have OCD, like I do, regulating this obsessive nature can be a very difficult proposition.

Advantages-

Productivity

The obsessive nature of a person can be one of the most productive forces on earth, if that nature can be funneled into passion instead of obsession. Passion offers valuable, substantial results. That is, when the obsessive nature is controlled and used in the pursuit of making positive change, the sky is the limit. I would contend that anyone in the history of the world, who has had a life-changing impact on others, was passionate about their cause. This reinforces several of the tools used to apply universal truth discussed in Chapter 5. Morality-if the obsessive nature of yourself is used to better the lives of yourself and others, OCD can become a positive aspect of your life. Structure-this is needed to give yourself guidelines to provide a framework to direct your obsessive nature. And most importantly, confidence-funneling your obsessive nature into productive, valuable efforts with make you feel good about yourself. The important thing here is to realize there are advantages to having an obsessive nature and that it can be used to produce miracle-like results. This should show you that you can feel proud to have OCD. This feeling of pride with OCD is, in essence, acceptance of it (the universal truth). Also, it will allow you confidence with OCD, a primary tool in living the universal truth.

Perspective

Also, another advantage of having an obsessive nature that comes with OCD is after you accept the universal truth and begin to live happily with OCD, your life will be better than if you had never suffered with it. While I was suffering, I often wished for the way my life was before I developed OCD. Now that I have the knowledge of the universal truth and can apply it, I wouldn’t trade my life today for the one I had before OCD, even if you through in a million dollars with it. I wouldn’t because the suffering gave me an appreciation of things most people take for granted. It gave me a perspective they don’t have. That is, after living in fear for 14 years of not being able to read, laugh…, and then suddenly set free by the universal truth; things that bother people who haven’t had this experience, don’t bother me. Even if you haven’t accepted the universal truth yet, you probably still have moments of clarity that give you peace. Now imagine a lifetime of that clarity. That is what it is like to live the universal truth.

The new perspective you will have after accepting and living universal truth will change the way you view yourself and other people. By accepting the universal truth, you are accepting OCD as a part of you. When you do this, you accept the imperfect nature of yourself. You are human and flawed by nature, and this is OK. One of the most comforting things you can learn to do is to laugh at yourself and your weaknesses. When somebody asks me what it’s like to have OCD, I tell them it’s like having your wife live inside your head. "Do this. Do that. You don’t do enough. You didn’t do it right…". Now before all the women out there get angry with me, I am just kidding. The point is, I am now able to laugh at something that, at times, almost led me to take my life. When you can accept your imperfection, you will also be more likely to accept the imperfection of other people. This can be of value to you in 2 ways. The first is you realize you are not alone. As I noted before, the most important thing seeking help after 14 years of silence did for me was it showed me I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought like I did. That gave me some relief and peace. After accepting the universal truth, I also began to notice that every human being, not just those with OCD, has a "demon" or something in their life that has bothered them at times as much as my OCD did me. That is, no matter how "together" or perfect a person’s life might seem from the outside, they have been weak and suffered at times. This made me look at people in a different way. Not only did I feel linked to people with OCD, but I felt connected to all people through this common bond of imperfection. The second thing this new perspective offers is trust. That is, when you can accept the imperfect nature of other people because you accept the imperfect nature of yourself, you will be more likely to trust other people and reach out for their help. Before I accepted universal truth, I had a real hard time trusting anyone to perform any of duties of my lawn care company. I tried to do everything myself because I liked things to be done an exact and precise way every time. The only way I could ensure this perfection was to do the work myself. This need for control is a common characteristic I found in people with OCD. After accepting and living the universal truth, I no longer felt the need to pay attention to obsessive details on every lawn that our clients didn’t even notice anyway. With the obstacle of the need for perfection removed, I became more willing to hire people and let them help me with my work. It’s a big relief to realize you don’t have to do everything yourself. This is another advantage practicing the universal truth offers.

Other Uses of Universal Truth

In addition to OCD, the universal truth and the tools necessary to live it can also be applied to life in general. That is, not only can the universal truth help you live with your OCD, you can also use it to your advantage in other aspects of your life after you accept & practice it. For example, the fear of failure runs a lot of people’s lives. They are afraid to try new things they are passionate about because they are more concerned about what would happen if they failed. By applying the universal truth, they would accept the downside: failing. When they can accept the fact you might fail, they take away your fear from those "what if" thoughts. Without their fear, those thoughts lose their power, and the continuous concern with failing goes away. They would now be able to try things they were once afraid to. Or take the person who has problems in relationships because of the fear their significant other might leave them. They often are dependent on them because they associate their entire self-worth with that relationship. They are clingy and needy which eventually drives the other person away. If that person can accept the downside, being left, they would lose the fear that dictates their obsessive behavior. Of course, in order to be able to do that, they need to develop their own self-esteem independent of the significant other. This again illustrates the need for confidence in order to live the universal truth.

Another example of the application of the universal truth is Alanon. Alanon is an organization designed to help people, who have family members or loved ones who are alcoholics or addicts, cope with that person’s addiction and not let it run their lives. It is based on the 12 steps, the first of which is accepting you are powerless over that person’s addiction. That is, no matter what you try to do, you do not have control over whether that person drinks/uses again. It’s the same with OCD. When you accept that you don’t have control over your spikes (only your reaction to them), you realize that resisting them serves you no purpose. It doesn’t matter what you try to do, you can’t force the spikes to go away. Of course we know with OCD that, not only does it do you no good, it also provides fuel to them. Another important concept they teach is to learn to live with the fact their loved one might start drinking or using again. When they can accept this "downside", they can find peace in their lives. This illustrates that being able to accept the 1^st step involves living with uncertainty, like it does with OCD. This also involves a dependent relationship. That is, in order to be able to accept this downside, they have to stop associating their value with whether the loved one is sober or not. They need independent self-worth in order to practice the universal truth: accepting the downside, taking away their fear, which takes the power from the constant thoughts of their loved one drinking/using again. After seeing all of these similarities, I understand why organizations that teach the 12 steps provide so much help to people.

One final example of how the universal truth can be a useful application is with competitive sports. Athletes are taught to play to win instead of playing not to lose. The only way an athlete can perform to their potential is to be confident and focus on what they are doing rather than the consequences of losing. Although most of them do it subconsciously, they do it by accepting the fact that they might lose. This is why they try to treat the Super Bowl, or any other high stakes event, as just another game. If they place more importance on it, they add pressure which makes the acceptance of losing more difficult. By accepting the downside (losing), they take away their fear which would negatively affect their performance. A specific illustration of this is St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Rick Ankiel. If you haven’t heard about his story, he was an outstanding pitching prospect with unbelievable ability. After years of success, he began to throw wildly. He would walk batter after batter and some of his pitches would even end up in the stands. He has spent the last couple of years floating back and forth between the minor and major leagues, trying to find a solution to his inability to throw straight like he used to. Whether this is a case of OCD or not (I tend to believe it is), the only answer for him would be the universal truth. That is, I would contend the only way he will ever be able to have control with his pitches again is if he were able to accept the fact that he might not ever be able to. His fear of throwing wildly is fueling his repetitive thoughts of throwing wildly, causing the physical tension that results in the wild pitches. The only way to take away the power of these thoughts is to take his fear from them by accepting the downside (throwing wild pitches). He has to almost want to throw wild pitches in order to get his control back. F’d up concept, I know, but it is the truth: the universal truth.

There are a million other examples I could use, but, as you can see, the universal truth is, in fact, universal. Not only is it the only way to live a happy and productive life with OCD, but it can be a valuable weapon you can apply to the rest of your life, as well.

Pitfalls-

Addiction

While the obsessive nature of a person with OCD has its definite advantages, it also comes with a high level of destructive potential. The main pitfall to be aware of is addiction: physical and mental addiction. Before I deal with addiction as it relates to the obsessive nature, I will address another connection between OCD and addiction. That is that most addictions to mind-altering substances (alcohol, drugs) derive from a person’s need to hide from thoughts or memories in their mind. The numb their brain to escape from thoughts of one form or another. You can clearly see why people with OCD would have a much higher risk of self-medicating through addiction to mind-numbing substances. OCD, by definition, is the presence of unwanted, intrusive thoughts. As you read in my story (chapter 2), I would often abuse alcohol to numb my thoughts before I learned the universal truth. This self-medicating usually leads to disasters like DUI’s, disease, or worse, death. Hopefully, after reading this book, you accept the universal truth and your desire to self-medicate will diminish. But always keep in mind that because you have OCD, you are at a higher risk of leaning on addictive substances to escape.

Addiction as it relates to the obsessive nature means, because of this nature, if you choose to try an addictive substance, you will be more likely to become dependent on it. Enough is never enough. Your obsessive nature will lead you to think "1 beer felt good, why not 2. 2 feels even better, let’s try 3." Before you know it, you will be physically dependent and the decision making process with that substance will no longer be yours until you get professional help. Also, if you become physically addicted to a substance of any kind, accepting and living the universal truth of OCD becomes virtually impossible. Obtaining the substance absorbs your world, and the guilt & fear that come with addiction provides an unlimited amount of fuel to your spikes. Your OCD knows this and if it senses its existence is threatened by your acceptance, it might try to tempt you into addiction to gain access to this fuel supply. I, again, am not going to tell you how to live your life. Just keep in mind the obsessive nature of someone with OCD before you try any substance that has addictive potential.

Aside from physical addiction to a substance, the obsessive nature of OCD can lead to mental addiction, as well. A year or two ago, I was watching Mel Gibson being interviewed on TV and he said something that caught my attention. He said, "I can be addicted to anything". At the time, it didn’t make sense to me, but after noticing the obsessive nature of my mind the past couple of years; I now understand what he meant. My "salad" spike I spoke of in chapter 6 illustrates this mental addiction to something you normally don’t associate with addiction. If you recall, I found a fat free salad dressing that I loved which would allow me to eat a lot and not gain weight. At first, it was a passion of mine to enjoy 2 salads each evening. I then became obsessed with it. That is, I began believing if I didn’t get to eat my 2 salads each evening, my day wouldn’t be complete. I would alter my life and my schedule to make sure I got to eat my salads. I would resist taking trips because it would be more difficult to ensure I had access to my favorite salad dressing. I became dependent or mentally addicted to salads! Over the past couple of years because of my obsession with balance and having free time, I became mentally addicted to many activities I associated with free time. These ranged from video games to movies to exercise. Anything I enjoyed, I could become mentally addicted to. I remember hurrying through 10 hours of mowing so I could make sure I had time to play video games that evening. I was convinced if I was unable to make time to do something as insignificant as playing video games, my day wouldn’t be complete. I now understand what the term, "addicted to anything", meant. Everyone has things they enjoy doing. But when you begin to feel you would be incomplete without them and they begin to interfere with your life, they transform into mental addictions. And while mental addictions are better than physical ones to substance, they can be equally damaging and distracting to ones life.

As I have illustrated through my examples ("salad" spike), the source of mental addiction is a spike. My brain would be telling me, "if you are unable to eat 2 salads each and every night, you won’t have a fulfilling day". Hence, understanding the universal truth can help, not only those with OCD, but also anyone who has a mental addiction. For example, let’s take an addicted gambler. Their brain is telling them, "if you don’t have action, or a bet, on something each day, you haven’t had a fulfilling day". If you apply the universal truth, you must accept the downside of this spike: not having action each day. Once the addicted gambler can do this, they separate their self-worth from the activity of gambling. When they do this, they take the fear away from the spike and the obsessive thoughts of gambling go away. Easier said than done, I know. But the concept of the universal truth still applies.

Overcorrecting

The obsessive nature of someone with OCD also provides potential for an overcorrection to a spike. It’s caused by the all or nothing attitude of the obsessive nature. For example, if a person with OCD has the spike, "If you don’t take 20 showers a day, you will smell badly to other people". When you apply the universal truth, you take away the power of the spike by not performing the ritual of showing 20 times a day. Instead you shower once or twice a day and live with the fact you might smell. The obsessive nature of that person might cause them to think, "this is nice, not showering 20 times a day and only once a day. If showering once a day feels this good, maybe not showering at all will feel even better". Of course, if he/she chose this behavior, they will begin to smell. This will provide false legitimacy to the original spike. That is, your brain would say, "I told you if you didn’t shower 20 times a day, you would begin to smell". This could cause the original ritual to be performed again. The point is that the obsessive nature that causes original spikes can easily lead to equally harmful over-corrections to spikes.

As I stated in the chapter 6, my current primary spike is my "pursuit of balance" spike. To review, the specific spike I have is, "if you enjoy this activity, you will obsess about it and won’t be able to do it in a reasonable, efficient manner which won’t allow for any balance in your life". When I have this spike, my mental ritual of resistance is to monitor everything I do to see if I am obsessing about it or not. I developed this spike through a series of over-corrections and new spikes.

After accepting universal truth and my original spikes had been rendered helpless because they no longer had my fear to run on, I noticed my life was way out of balance. I avoided people by working all the time to avoid the potential embarrassment my self-sabotaging spikes provided. My pursuit of balance began as a healthy passion that resulted in productive, positive results. I made the company more efficient, allowing me free time to spend with my family and friends while making even more money. Due to my obsessive nature, though, I became greedy which transformed my passion into a spike. That spike was "You shouldn’t ever have to work again, you should be able to do only whatever brings you pleasure". I call it my "Pleasure" spike. (A quick aside here: I’ve noticed whenever my mind uses the words "should be able to", an over-correction usually follows. Not always, but most of the time). I then began to seek an unreasonable amount of free time. I couldn’t enjoy my free time anymore because I knew something was wrong with this and felt guilty. Before, when I had free time, I would do active, fun things like sports and going out to the movies. Now the only thing I enjoyed was to completely shut my mind down or sleep. While in the past I only acquired my self-worth with working all the time, I now only associated it with being able to do nothing. I did this to the point that if I were even thinking about anything, I would feel guilty and wouldn’t have any confidence. That is, I derived my confidence from my ability to completely shut down. I then trained myself to only enjoy myself when I would shut down, and resented any form of work or leisure activity. I noticed this and recognized that even in my pursuit of balance by not being obsessive, I had become obsessive (about not being obsessive) by mentally shutting down. I had massively over-corrected my life from only finding peace in work to only finding peace in shutting down.

I knew I still had to do my work in order to survive, though, so my reaction was to obsessively work to provide the largest amount of free time at the end of the week. That is, on Monday of each week I would begin to work hard 16-18 hours a day until I got everything done. Servicing the lawns, bookwork, and maintenance: everything. That way, I would make sure I got all my work done, and then I would be able to enjoy my free time again. At first, it didn’t bother me. It was a solution to my problem. I was obsessing about work again, but that was OK because I was doing it to have as much free time on the weekend as possible. It was a means to an end. But once again, my obsessive nature got the better of me. When I got my work done one week, instead of enjoying the free time on the weekend, I thought: "If I get next week’s bookwork done this weekend, I won’t have to do it next week. That way, I won’t have to work as much during the week and have some free time before the weekend". But instead of enjoying that free time during the week, I began working on the following week’s work. Before I knew it, I found myself needing to be as far ahead of schedule as I could possibly get. I became the anti-procrastinator. I could only find peace when I knew I had everything done I could possibly do, even if it was completing work that wasn’t due for several weeks. And of course, you can always find something that needs to be done. It began to bother me because I noticed I was altering my life to fill this need of having to have everything done in order to relax. For example, I would decline invitations to spend quality time with my wife, family, and friends because I was working on bookwork 2 weeks ahead of schedule. What once was a brief passion, had become a new spike. That new spike was my brain telling me, "If you don’t do it now, you won’t want to do it later, and it won’t get done". I call it my "Do it now" spike. It was a direct result of my first over-correction: it came from the fear of work I developed by seeking unreasonable free time. That is, my thoughts of wanting unreasonable free time to shut down caused me to work harder and for longer periods, obsessively having to be ahead of schedule.

I had lost trust in myself. When I began my pursuit of balance I became obsessive about acquiring free time. When I noticed this, I became obsessive about working and getting ahead of schedule. It seemed like every time I would become passionate about something, I became obsessive about it (which is what I was trying to change in the first place). This is when I developed the "pursuit of balance" spike above. I became convinced that if I enjoyed anything, work, play, "shutting down"…, I wouldn’t be able to do it in a reasonable manner and would end up obsessing about it. I then wouldn’t allow myself to become passionate about anything or to ever relax, for I wouldn’t be able to stop doing either. This spike had taken away everything from me. I felt trapped because before I did anything, I would think: "if you do this now, you won’t be able to stop" and "if you instead relax right now, you won’t be able to stop relaxing and it won’t get done". It created an impossible scenario where whatever I would choose to do brought great anxiety.

I went through the process of how I arrived at my "pursuit of balance" spike in more detail for several reasons. First, it clearly shows the potential for over-correction the obsessive nature provides. It also illustrates why these over-corrections can be as damaging as original spikes. Not only (as I discussed earlier) can they offer legitimacy to original spikes, they can even create spikes as they have in my life. That is, an over-correction (or getting greedy) can turn a healthy passion into a spike. This explains how OCD uses your obsessive nature to enter your life through a passion, making it much more difficult to recognize the spike when it presents itself. This is what caused so much pain in my life. That is, I knew the universal truth worked, for when I applied it, my original self-sabotaging spikes that haunted me for 14 years went away because they didn’t have my fear to use as fuel anymore. Then why was I having so much anxiety and pain after accepting universal truth? The answer is I wasn’t able to identify these troubling thoughts as spikes for a long time. My OCD had come up with a way to overtake my life again by disguising itself as normal thoughts. It did this because it knows as soon as I am able to sniff out a spike, I will apply the universal truth to it. Once I take away my fear, it’s power goes with it, and it’s gone. This is exactly what happened. I have learned how to recognize this new form of spike and apply the universal truth much quicker now. I take away the fear of the spike by accepting the downside, becoming obsessive. I now allow myself to be passionate about and enjoy whatever I’m doing and trust the fact that I won’t do it obsessively. But if I do, that’s OK too. My fear of obsession was causing me to be obsessive. Now that I’ve taken away that fear, I can be passionate and enjoy what I’m doing and do it in reasonable time periods most of the time. I also again noticed OCD tends to attack areas from which you derive confidence or self-worth. In this example, it recognized I was beginning to take pride in not obsessively working, so it focused its attention on that area. It does this because it knows it will more likely be able to take over your life if it can remove the primary tool needed for acceptance, confidence. The evolution of my pursuit of balance spike also reinforces the need for structure and a schedule, especially for me. What I mean by that is because I am my own boss and essentially can control when and how long I work, I need to set a schedule and more importantly, adhere to it most of the time. Most people have bosses and operating hours to dictate when they work. I don’t. I have to accept that I am powerless over my obsessive nature. If I don’t have parameters that I work in, my obsessive nature will create havoc in my life.

The most general form of overcorrecting, in my opinion, is the relationship between anxiety and depression. These 2 usually go hand in hand. I believe it’s because they are each protective responses against the other. That is, when a person experiences a high level of anxiety over an extended period of time, their mind and body protect itself by shutting down. It has as much anxiety as it can take, then depression kicks in. After an extended period of depression, guilt and fear of doing nothing fuels the anxiety again. This cycle of over-correction continues on and on until a substantial variable changes.

9-Other Observations on OCD & The Universal Truth

This chapter is just some opinions and observations on OCD & the universal truth I have based on my experience of living with OCD. There is no rhyme or reason to their order. Maybe you will see something that will help you in your pursuit of the universal truth.

Where does OCD come from?

The most important thing I have learned about this subject is that it doesn’t matter where it comes from. That is, even if you think you know why you have OCD, it won’t help you live happily with it. I racked my brain for years to come up with this answer, and I think I have a couple of pretty good theories. Just for kicks, here they are: Before I started playing basketball in 1^st grade, I was a chicken shit, pardon my French. I was afraid of everything. I remember going to school and being so petrified, I couldn’t understand what my teacher was telling me. When I was introduced to basketball, I picked it up quickly and was very good at it. This gave me confidence which changed my life. I wasn’t afraid any more. I started making good grades and became a popular kid. I became full of myself and by the time I was a teenager, I was down right arrogant. In my opinion, one of two things happened. 1) I developed OCD as a humbling mechanism. That is, it was God’s way of humbling me. I would like to note here that I am, by no means, saying I believe everyone with OCD did something wrong and is being punished for it. This is just one of my theories I came up with as it directly applies to my life. Or 2) I was born with it, and the years between when I found basketball and developed OCD, were the "exception to the nature" of my life. The first four years of my life were anxiety ridden, and I accept now that I have an anxiety disorder. Hence, it must be a part of my genetic makeup. I don’t know for sure if either is correct, though. The point is that, although I learned some valuable lessons by looking back and trying to figure out why I have it, it didn’t help me learn to live with my OCD. Only accepting the universal truth did.

Human Nature

What makes accepting the universal truth so difficult to accept is OCD is based in human nature. That is, it uses human nature against you. First, it is human nature to avoid pain or things we find unpleasant. If we don’t like someone, we don’t hang around them. We avoid putting our hands on a hot stove because it hurts. OCD uses this natural human nature against you. When someone develops OCD and begins having unwanted, intrusive thoughts, the natural reaction is to resist them. Of course, we know now that just provides more fuel to allow them to get stronger. Knowledge of the universal truth is the answer, but you can see why OCD often gets out of control before help is sought. It is also human nature to seek more of what feels good, or pleasure. OCD uses this to lead you to physical or mental addiction because the presence of addiction provides a vast supply of fear and guilt to fuel its spikes. Also, guilt is a part of human nature. Guilt, in its natural useful form, provides a valuable service to guide you to know right from wrong. If you insult someone, you feel guilty and should. Apologizing would ease that guilt or "make it right". OCD, though, builds off this natural human reaction to ask you to feel false or non-useful guilt. Where people without OCD are able to recognize the boundaries of useful/useless guilt, people with OCD find it more difficult. The same applies to fear. Fear, in its natural useful form, helps you protect yourself when threatened. OCD uses this form of human nature to ask you to be afraid of consequences it presents if you don’t comply with it by performing a mental or physical ritual. In addition, it’s natural to seek to become as good as you can be. It’s healthy, even necessary, to have passion towards improving your life or the lives of others. OCD exploits this form of human nature to convince you that you must be perfect. It tries to convince you that if you make a mistake by not performing what it asks, you or others will suffer. It tries to persuade you that you can’t afford to be wrong. If it succeeds, it knows you will be unwilling to accept the consequences (downside) of not doing as it asks, and instead, continue to provide it with the fuel it needs. Of course, we know even if you do comply, it’s never enough. It always wants more. One last example of how OCD uses your human nature against you is control. It’s human nature to want to have the freedom to control of how your life turns out. OCD uses this against you because it knows your natural reaction will be to try and control the spikes it sends. It knows you will try to resist these unwanted, intrusive thoughts and force them out. As we know, this just gives OCD the fuel it needs to control you. As you can see, OCD taps into your human nature in many ways to acquire fuel for its survival and dominance.

The reason I wrote about this is when you recognize how OCD disguises itself in human nature, you can see how it tricks you into complying with it. It uses your human nature by relying on your natural reaction to "normal" fear & guilt to the false fear & guilt it presents to fuel itself. For example, when presented with false guilt, the natural reaction of "making it right" by performing ritual the spike asks doesn’t, in fact, make it right. If it did "make it right", the thought wouldn’t return with even more guilt (Even when you do what it asks, it just asks for more). The natural reaction, instead, only provides more fuel and gives more power to it. You must develop the unnatural reaction of not trying to "make it right" by performing ritual of resistance is asks. You do this by living with the consequences the spike threatens if disobeyed. You can see why the universal truth can be difficult to accept. It contradicts human nature and natural reactions. But by now you know, natural reactions to spikes don’t work. The universal truth does.

The General State of Resistance to a Spike

Looking back at my life before accepting universal truth, I noticed the common "state" my resistance to any spike put me in. I refer to it as a "zone"-like condition where I was unable to focus and was absorbed by fear and doubt. One of the many doctors I saw called OCD the disease of doubt. This is so true. When I let a spike overrun my life through my resistance, I questioned every decision I made. "What if" became the most common thought of my mental vocabulary. What if I do this wrong? What if I don’t get this done on time? And on and on. I would become trapped by my uncertainty in making any decision. It could take me a half-hour just to write a check because I was so afraid I would write the wrong amount, not sign the check, or ten other possible negative outcomes. The only time I could concentrate on writing the check would be to think, "write the check, Jay. If you mess it up, oh well." As we now know, it’s because I subconsciously accepted the universal truth by being able to live with the downside of messing the check up. But my purpose here is to explain the "foggy" state my resistance would put me in and how that often would lead to racing thoughts of doubt & fear. This explains why most people with OCD have a real hard time making decisions, including me, before accepting universal truth. This fear of making any decision creates a great deal of anxiety because you have thousands of decisions to make each day. Even the smallest decision can become debilitating while in this state of resistance to a spike. If you find yourself in this state of racing thoughts and indecisiveness, the answer is once again the universal truth and having the confidence to apply it: make a decision and live with it. Trust that you’ll make the right decision, but if you’re wrong, that’s OK, for you were meant to be wrong. Take the fear away from making the decision by accepting the downside: you might make the wrong decision. I also use the general acceptance method sometimes to slow things down when I realize I’m in a cycle of resistance. That is, I notice that I’m extending the state of resistance by resisting this "foggy" state. First, I’ll forgive myself for resisting. Then, I will consciously think to myself, "It’s OK you’re in this ‘foggy’ state of resistance, for you have OCD. I accept this state of resistance as a part of who I am and will try to focus on one thing at a time while I’m in this state." When I accept this, I stop resisting the state of resistance (breaking the cycle of resistance), and I am able to focus again. Again, either through accepting a downside or general acceptance, the universal truth is the only way out of this "state of resistance".

OCD/Bi-Polar Relationship

This state of resistance to a spike also leads me to believe that there is a direct connection from OCD to Bi-Polar disease or manic depressive disorder. When I first sought help and began getting diagnosed, a few doctors thought I was B-Polar, either by itself or in conjunction with OCD. Let me give you a little background here: Before I consciously accepted the universal truth, I would have times when I subconsciously accepted it which gave me periods when my spikes would go away. But since I was only subconsciously practicing the universal truth, I didn’t know how or why the spikes went away. And more importantly, I didn’t know when they were coming back. So when I got a break from them, I would stay up day & night to get done as many things as I could before the spikes would overwhelm my life again. I was like a new person. I would be sociable and do things I normally was afraid to because of my unwanted thoughts. I wouldn’t want to sleep because I wanted to take advantage of this "spikeless" time period to get as many things done as possible before their return. It was a manic stage for me. When I would begin to fear the spikes and fuel them back into my life (which I certainly would do because I didn’t understand the universal truth), I would get depressed again and resume my normal behavior of avoiding people and being afraid to do anything productive because I might make a mistake again. You can now see why some doctors thought I might be Bi-Polar. The source of my manic-depressive behavior was my OCD. When I subconsciously accepted the universal truth (even though I didn’t know what the hell I was doing), and got a break from the resistant state of racing thoughts of doubt & fear. My obsessive nature would kick in and I would manically do things I was afraid to with the presence of my spikes. When the thoughts would come back, my obsessive nature would cause me to become severly depressed again. This depression would often be worse than normal because I just had a "taste" of life without my spikes. I don’t know for sure, for I can only look at it through my life, but I would guess that the manic-depressive behavior a lot of people have that results in them being diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder, roots in OCD and their resistance to it. Therefore, in my opinion, the universal truth could be the answer for many people who have been diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder.

Compounding Anxiety/Panic Attacks

Having the tool of forgiveness (being able to forgive yourself) is what I mean by compounding anxiety as it relates to OCD. Allow me to explain. Even after you accept the universal truth, there will still be times when you resist your spikes and fuel them again. This is when you must forgive yourself for resisting to avoid adding guilt to the supply of fuel you have already provided. Your OCD is counting on you feeling guilty about the relapse, and providing it this additional fuel to overrun your life again. Forgive yourself and move on. This is especially important early in your life after accepting universal truth. That is, after accepting and applying universal truth, you will relish your new life of freedom from your spikes controlling you. But remember, you will always have spikes, for accepting that is the universal truth. Your new life of freedom is predicated on this acceptance. As soon as you think, "this is great, I’m so glad my spikes are gone", this indicates fear of them and they gain their power back and re-enter your life. In other words, by accepting the universal truth and taking away the power of your spikes (your fear), they will go away. But as soon as you don’t want them to come back, they will. The point I’m trying to make is that this will happen to you after you accept universal truth. You will get to a point where you will be consciously glad they are gone and they will return. This is when you must forgive yourself and re-apply the universal truth in order to "nip it in the bud" and avoid a prolonged cyclical relapse into resistance. I compounded my anxiety several times in my life after accepting universal truth. I would resist a spike and give it power for 5-10 minutes or so. This is OK, in and of itself, because I’m human and will make mistakes. The problem was I would spend the rest of the day beating myself up for allowing myself to resist for 5-10 minutes! I compounded my anxiety by not forgiving myself and moving on.

Understanding compounded anxiety and being able to recognize it can be useful in applications other than OCD, as well. A good example of this would be a panic attack. When you have a panic attack, you have a sudden thought that frightens the hell out of you. This causes you to enter a state of panic, followed by repetitive, intense thoughts that horrify you. This cycle can continue for an extended period of time. I had several panic attacks before I had knowledge of the universal truth and describing them as horrifying doesn’t do them justice. The nature of a panic attack is it initially creates intense fear and then feeds off of it. The thought creates fear, the fear creates more intense thoughts, which creates more intense fear and on and on, like a snowball rolling down hill. The universal truth can be applied here to help stop the cycle of compounded anxiety a panic attack creates. That is, if you understand that the frightening, repetitive thoughts of a panic attack are fueled by your fear, you can substantially shorten the life of a panic attack if you can take away that fuel during one. You do this by allowing the frightening, intense thoughts to enter your mind without resistance. You say, "I am going to be experiencing intense anxiety for the next several minutes, and that’s OK. It won’t kill me", and ride it out. As soon as you can do this, you take away the panic attack’s fuel and it will end much quicker.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

If you are a veteran reading this book and suffer from PTSD, first, thank you for serving our country and allowing me the opportunity to live in a free society. I will preface my opinion on PTSD by saying that’s just what it is, my opinion. I am in no position to tell someone with PTSD they should think this or think that because I haven’t seen or experienced anything close to what they have. I have seen what PTSD has done to someone in my family, but I haven’t lived it like I have OCD. In my opinion, the universal truth still applies. That is, the repetitive thoughts and memories of the traumatic event or events are fueled, in large part, by the fear of those thoughts. While it’s natural to want these horrible images of past events to go away, they are still fueled and gain power from your resistance to them. The only way for them to diminish is to deal with them in some fashion instead of avoiding them. It will be difficult and extremely painful, but at least that pain will be temporary. In other words, if you can somehow accept these thoughts and be able to manage them, you will no longer be afraid of them. You then take their power causing their frequency & intensity to substantially decrease. Again, I give a pass to anyone who has served in combat and seen horrific things to do whatever it is they need to do to survive. I am in no position to judge that. But I still have hope for them and believe the universal truth can help, if they choose. Just know this guy is extremely grateful to you for your service.

Medication

Personally, you know where I stand on medication after reading chapter 2. It didn’t work for me. Again, I’d like to say before I go on that I am not a physician and I recognize that my opinion is based solely on my experience and a few others I have discussed the subject with. If you are taking medication for OCD or any other mental disorder, do not stop taking it without the assistance and supervision of your doctor. My opinion is, for most people, the universal truth is the long-term answer for to OCD, not medication. Medication may be a short-term answer, if it helps put you in a state of mind to learn the universal truth. I also acknowledge there are probably a limited number of people where medication is the only answer. But again, for most people, I believe knowledge and practice of the universal truth is the only way to live a happy and productive life with OCD. In my opinion, if you haven’t accepted the universal truth and feel the need to take medicine for your OCD, that need will diminish once you do accept and begin to live the universal truth.

I also believe that society as a whole is over-medicated. There is a pill for everything. While medication and advancement in medicine certainly serves a valuable purpose, I think its gotten way out of hand. We even medicate children now with behavior disorders instead of teaching them proper behavior through traditional techniques. If you have a problem, somebody has a pill for it. Again this is just my opinion.

10-Conclusion

Hopefully by reading this book, you know that I have OCD and might have something to offer. I lived the life of resistance and fear for 14 years before I consciously understood and applied the universal truth of OCD:

THE POWER YOUR OCD SPIKES HAVE OVER YOU IS ACQUIRED ENTIRELY BY YOUR RESISTANCE TO THEM AND YOUR DESIRE FOR THEM TO GO AWAY. THE VERY SECOND YOU STOP TRYING TO PUSH AWAY THE SPIKES AND ACCEPT THEM AS A PART OF WHO YOU ARE, THEY INSTANTLY LOSE ALL OF THEIR POWER OVER YOU (“ACCEPTING” DOESN’T MEAN ACCEPTING THE FALSE INFORMATION THE SPIKES PRESENT, BUT ACCEPTING THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST IN YOUR MIND). OCD USES 2 WEAPONS TO FUEL YOUR RESISTANCE SO IT CAN ACQUIRE ITS POWER OVER YOU: FEAR & GUILT. AS LONG AS YOU FEAR YOUR SPIKES OR FEEL GUILTY FOR HAVING YOUR SPIKES, YOU WILL RESIST THEM AND THE SPIKES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE POWER SOURCE IT NEEDS TO CONTROL YOU. SIMPLY PUT: IN ORDER FOR YOUR SPIKES TO GO AWAY, YOU HAVE TO WANT THEM TO STAY.

Although it might have sounded insane the first time you read it earlier in this book, I have provided you with many specific examples that provide proof the universal truth is, in fact, true. I hope I have earned enough of your trust for you to consider accepting the universal truth and applying it to your life. It is the only way. I know how it is, though, for I was once in your shoes. Your OCD will try like hell to convince you this is a bunch of crap. In other words, it will fight for its life. It knows that if you accept the universal truth, you will take its power and it will be gone. And if you do accept it and your world changes for the better, it will change forms and try to sneak back into your life. Once you accept the universal truth and obtain the knowledge of identifying spikes, you can live and happy and productive life with OCD. Better than you ever thought possible. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had it for a week or 40 years, the universal truth works every time it’s accepted and applied.

It is applied by either accepting the downside each of your spikes offer or through general acceptance of your spikes. With the "accepting your downside" method, in order to take the fear away from your spikes and to stop performing the mental & physical rituals of resistance, you must be willing to live with the consequences it presents. When you do this, you take the source of power from your spike, your fear, and it becomes a passing thought instead of a repetitive spike that overwhelms you. With the "general acceptance" method, you simply accept your spikes as a part of you, and you no longer mind their presence. When you accept them as a part of who you are, you no longer have the desire to resist them by trying to force them out of your mind. You, again, have taken your spikes power source (your fear & resistance), and it becomes a passing thought that leaves your mind. You can only apply these methods if you posses certain tools necessary in applying universal truth. The most important of which is self-worth or confidence. The secret here is no longer associating your confidence with the absence of spikes, for that violates the universal truth. You must accept that you have OCD and cannot control the spikes, but that’s OK because you can control your reaction to them. Therefore, you can be confident with OCD and its spikes, and view it as a welcome part of who you are. Accept that, and OCD will no longer be able to take your self-worth. Another tool, structure and standards, will help you guard against OCD using your obsessive nature against you. Forgiveness will help you avoid unnecessary guilt, another form of fuel used by your spikes. Living the universal truth is a lifestyle that requires maintenance. You will relapse into resistance at some point. When this happens; forgive yourself, re-apply universal truth and move on. These and all the other tools (Chapter 5) will give you what you need to accept your spikes or the downside of them, and apply the universal truth of OCD.

I tried like hell to stay on point and not let my obsessive nature take over when writing this book. I have had thousands, if not millions of spikes in my life. If I listed them all, this book would be the size of a car. The spikes I did share with you in this book were the primary spikes (the ones that overwhelmed me) I had and still have at times. I also sought to only provide information useful in accepting and living the universal truth. In addition, I did my best to present the information in an organized manner so you can maximize its use in your journey to accepting universal truth and applying it to your life.

On that fateful day on Green Valley Road when I had my breakthrough and accepted the universal truth for the first time, my world changed. The burden of shame, fear, and guilt I carried for 14 years had suddenly been lifted. The relief and clarity you feel at that moment can’t be bought with all the money in the world. Where will your moment be? I wish I could be there when it happens, my friend. Just always remember, if you live in a prison created by your OCD and its spikes, there is a way out. That way is the universal truth and the truth shall set you free.

The following are additional writings added in 2008-

Chapter 11-My Story (Jesus is Lord)

The End of the World as I Knew It

After I wrote this book in early 2005, I sent some copies to people who were important figures in my life. One of them was Dr. Craft, the head of the Ronald Reagan Scholarship Program while I attended Eureka. I sent him a copy because I thought he deserved an explanation as to why I acted the way I did in college. I always looked up to him and wanted him to be proud of what I had made of my life. He wrote back with a simple, and to me at the time, disappointing comment: “It is good for a man to be self-aware”. I was expecting more, but it later proved to be one of the most important comments ever made to me.

Fast forward about 14 months and here is the reality of who I was. I was a new father. My daughter was born in late ’05. She came two months early and spent a month in the NICU. She had gotten through it amazingly well. I was still smoking, (now going on my 14^th year). I no longer binged drank as I did in college, but I had learned to enjoy enough beer every evening to become numb. I actually had started drinking beer a few years earlier, but after I wrote my book, I thought: “I have done what I believe I was sent to do, now kick back and enjoy”. I did. I had noticed after a while that not a single night went by that I didn’t drink at least 4 or 5 beers. Did that bother me? Yeah, but like I said, I wouldn’t get drunk and stumble like I used to, I would just “chill”. On top of that, since I was about 16 or so, I had always kept some form of pornographic material around. I thought it was better than cheating (it is), but I had a secret stash in the house and looking back, had developed a nice little mental addiction to it. So in summary, I was a chain-smoking alcoholic with a porn addiction who just wrote a book on how to handle obsessions and compulsions.

I was now in my mid-30’s and smoking began to take its toll on me. Throw on top of that the stress of being a first time parent and I began to have chest pains and physical anxiety like I had never felt. I had always heard that OCD typically gets worse as you age and began to understand why- not only did my OCD have my mind to play with, it now had the ability to add physical pain to each spike. Just when I thought I had seen everything OCD had to offer, it was once again dominating me. As soon as I would process its scheme and close that door, it would again change forms and open a new one. I became obsessed with each physical pain and began micro-managing all of my health symptoms. I now had a daughter to raise, so my health didn’t just directly affect me. I began to think I had emphezema because I would get shortness of breath at times. When I could relax, though, it would go away. This would help because the one thing I have never been able to live without are my smokes. As these “physical spikes” continued, I became convinced that I could possibly be at the end of my line so I decided it might be a good idea to start looking into what happens to you after you die. If you read my book from 2005-2007, I wrote in the religion section in Chapter 5 that I believed in a God who rewarded those who got up everyday and tried their best. I didn’t have any specific religion, but I believed in God, heaven, and hell. I remember talking to my 5 year old niece and she knew more about the Bible than I did. I decided I would order the Bible on CD and listen to it as I mowed grass. This would be perfect for me because I mowed at least 12 hours a day, so if anything else, this would kill some time. I just wanted to hear the story of the Bible- I wasn’t looking for an “experience” that would change my life. I pledged to hear it with an open mind from cover to cover and not form an opinion on it until I was done.

I started with the first CD in late spring 2006. To be quite frank, I didn’t connect at all with the Old Testament. I literally would laugh out loud, then look to the sky and say “please don’t strike me dead, but this is hilarious”. But, as I said, I pledged to hear it from cover to cover. I continued with 1 disc a day. Sometimes, I would listen to it a couple of times, but I would only listen to one CD each day. This way I could absorb the information and at least be able to carry on an intelligent conversation about the subject. After 45 discs, I completed the Old Testament. Again, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I looked a little more forward to the New Testament because I, as anybody else who has celebrated Christmas, had limited knowledge of Jesus Christ.

As most of you know, the first 4 books of the New Testament are basically 4 perspectives of the life of Jesus. I found this more interesting than the Old Testament, but it still didn’t make a lot of sense to me. On through Acts I went and on August 31, 2006, the world as I knew it stopped turning.

I was trimming a yard on Pamela Dr. when, halfway through the book of Romans, I had this very casual thought: “Wow, for the first time in my life, I believe the story of Jesus”. I didn’t throw my hands in the air or fall to my knees-I just made a mental observation to myself (To this day, I don’t remember what caused me to come to that conclusion). At that exact moment something happened I didn’t think was possible. Something external, direct, and supernatural started happening to me. To specifically describe what was happening would serve no purpose (you probably would think I was crazier than you already might), but it was wonderful and to be perfectly honest, also very frightening. My logical mind began attempting to explain what was going on, but everything I had learned or experienced couldn’t explain how this was happening. Was my mind powerful enough to convince me that things were happening that really weren’t? Did my OCD just learn a new way to torture me? But it kept happening day after day and began at the exact moment I believed in my heart the story of Jesus was true. The harder I tried to convince myself that these were just renegade thoughts, the more I was convinced there truly was something spiritual happening that logic couldn’t explain.

Now I want to be clear-I wasn’t hearing voices: as a matter of fact, what was happening was quite subtle. When I was struggling with this new phenomenon, I was led back to that comment Dr. Craft wrote me about being self-aware. One characteristic of people with OCD is this extreme over-attentiveness to their thoughts. This has always been my curse, but now became a blessing when I was able to discern something as external, rather than an internal thought created by my mind. I knew the God of the Bible really existed and began my personal process of salvation.

The Pains of Childbirth

You would think that after you come to know that God exists, you would experience a time of joy and celebration like never before. To be truthful, though, the 10 months following my internal acknowledgement that Jesus is the Son of God was probably the worst of my life. On top of the external “input” I was receiving, every time I smoked a cigarette, it was like I was smoking poison. As I mentioned earlier, I was already experiencing smoking-related symptoms, but this was different. It was as if my most cherished “release” was becoming too painful and distasteful to enjoy. And again, it all started on that fateful day of faith. As I’ve written several times in this book, my smokes have always been my crutch-to the point of willfully admitting I’d rather live a shorter life smoking than a much longer one not. You were going to take my cigarettes out of my cold, dead hands, as Mr. Heston once said. As the pain kept getting worse with each smoke, I finally set a date to try and quit. I lasted about 5 days and then gave back in. Over the next 2 weeks, the pain just got worse until the day after my birthday (Jan 4-07), I gave it another try. I really didn’t think I’d last very long again, but this new “pain” of continuing to smoke had reached a point that it greatly outweighed the mental pain of quitting. I used the patch to avoid the duality of physical withdrawal while I dealt with my bigger problem of mental reliance. After a while, I had weaned down to the smallest patch and decided to live my first day without nicotine in my system in 14 years. For the first time in my life I realized I might be able to live without cigarettes (a pretty freeing feeling). Of course, with how my mind works, I began to think: “I’ve proven to myself I can wean down off nicotine pretty quickly and easily, so I can start back up again knowing I can just quit again if it gets to painful”. There were a couple of weeks where I was intending to pull into a gas station and buy smokes, but each time something would happen- be it traffic, a phone call, or another distraction- that kept me from doing it. This happened too many times for me to consider it coincidence. More importantly, it bought me enough time that I got to the point I no longer desired to smoke anymore. I was removed from the habit long enough to recognize the lie that cigarettes were and, in fact, that I really didn’t need them. I began running a lot and couldn’t believe how much better you can breathe even after quitting only a short while. Several months past before I first realized that I didn’t quit smoking, rather it was taken away from me by a higher power. While in the midst of quitting, I couldn’t recognize it-only in retrospect could I clearly see how He (Christ) helped me in giving up something I had been unable to on my own. Again, my gift/curse is extreme self-awareness (attention to every detail), which aided in my recognition as to what just happened.

I would like to point out here that from the time I believed in August-06 through early June-07, although I knew Jesus was real, I was still completely ignorant as to what the Bible “really” says. That is, although I knew the story and believed it, I was still blind to the message that only through Jesus Christ could you enter heaven. I wasn’t really all that interested in studying the Bible since I had just been through a pretty frightening experience with something I didn’t think was possible. I was feeling really good about being free from an addiction that had controlled me for 14 years, but I was still drinking beer every night and had a stash of pornographic movies in the house. After figuring out that my successful attempt to quit smoking was not of my doing, I began talking with my wife and brother-in-law about what had happened. I was sitting on the couch explaining to my wife how I felt God wanted my smokes because that is what I leaned on the most for comfort and He was a jealous God. I said I had given Him what He wanted, and now I was at peace with Him. I subconsciously knew that my beer drinking wasn’t the greatest thing in the world-but, hey, nobody’s perfect. What my wife said next was another simple sentence that changed my life: she said “Oh so he wanted your cigarettes, but He doesn’t want your beer?”. That planted a seed in my mind that began to sprout the next day. I can’t explain the feeling that happens when you know Jesus is real and you realize that He wants something from you. You can’t hide, you can’t negotiate, and most importantly you can’t turn away from Him. He made it perfectly clear that I couldn’t follow Him and be an alcoholic. He now wanted my beer. Man, I had just quit smoking and didn’t think I could give this habit up right now, as well. He let me know that with Him, I could. I thought maybe if I give him my pornography, He will let me keep my beer a while longer. I took every adult movie I had, smashed them and threw them into the trash. But, as I said, you can’t negotiate with Him. I could feel Him saying to me “Thank you, I’ll take that as well-but I’m still going to need that beer”. I sat down crying in the garage with my wife and told her “thanks a lot, honey, now He wants my beer”. When praying that night, I told God that, as I did with smoking, I knew I wouldn’t give this up without a fight. I basically said “You no how this goes: You’re going to have to take it from me”. I had built up quite a stash in my office-probably around 6 cases of beer. I then made my first covenant with God after realizing He was real. I told Him that when I ran out of the beer I had bought, that would be it. As the next couple of weeks went along, my supply began to diminish until I was down to a couple of bottles. I began to imagine life without beer and became petrified. I again tried to justify keeping something in my life I knew He wanted: I ran down the list of positive traits I had and the good things I do each day. Surely He would understand. On my way home from work, I stopped by Sam’s Club to buy more beer. I knew I had made a deal with Christ, so I was more than a little concerned. You should have seen me at the checkout-I was sweating like I was withdrawing from meth. I bet the cashier checking me out thought I was bonkers. I was convinced that God would strike me dead as soon as the beer was officially paid for. When it cleared, I was relieved to know I was still breathing. I walked out of there and headed home believing God understood that I needed beer to get by. I got home, sneaked the beer by my wife (I had already told her that God wanted my beer), went downstairs and began to drink. Now I am going to preface what I’m about to write with this acknowledgement-It will sound crazy. If someone would have told me what I’m about to say a year ago, I would have thought they were nuts and would have recommended serious help. I have debated whether or not to share certain details of my walk with Christ because I don’t want them to discredit not only what I have to say about OCD, but also my witness as a Christian. But even though some things might sound crazy, they are the absolute truth so I’ve decided to share some details. Now back to my beer story. I was still a bit uneasy about breaking the deal I made with Christ, so I drank a little more that evening. After drinking the last couple of my “old” beers, I went to pop the top of what I’d just bought. Right before I popped it, there was a shock wave that shot through my body like nothing I had felt before. The closest thing I can describe was it felt like touching a live, electric fence used to contain dogs. It wasn’t sharp, physical pain- rather, it felt like a strong electric shock. Again, I know some of you will not believe that it happened, but it’s undeniable to me that it did. It was that moment I realized that not only was God real, but that He had the power to stop my heart anytime He wanted. It was like He sent me a “warning shot” to let me know who was in control. My initial reaction was panic. I pounded beer after beer until I could forget what happened, then fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning and went to work trying to ignore what happened the night before. I soon realized it wasn’t a matter of if I was going to give the Lord my beer-it was a matter a when and how much suffering I wanted to endure before I did. I was on this one particular lawn and was trying to figure out how I could keep beer in my life, but I just kept going back to the night before and finally in tears- I gave it to Him. OK, crazy time again. At the exact moment I, in my heart, decided to stop drinking, I felt like something left me that had control over me and I took a breath like I hadn’t in a very long time. It wasn’t but a couple of minutes until I was done with the yard and drove around the corner to my next job and I saw a 10 foot snake in the road. It didn’t even startle me-I knew what had just happened, but I’ll get back to that.

The moment I gave up the beer for Christ, I fell in love with listening to, reading, and hearing people talk about the Bible. I couldn’t get enough of it. To this day (about 6 months later), I almost need to hear something about Jesus to feel like my day is complete. Everything the Bible said suddenly made complete sense to me. Also, at that time, everything looked different: I began noticing details in everything I was unable to see until then. It was like my world went from rabbit-ears to 1080p High Def in an instant. Over the period of 10 months, I had become a new person. I don’t even remember who I was a year ago. I had truly become “born-again”.

Chapter 12-My Testimony

Now I know you read this online book to learn about OCD and how to manage it, not to hear about Jesus. In chapter 14, I will discuss how looking through the “Biblical lens” has affected my opinion of my universal truth and on OCD in general. The next couple of chapters, though, will be my attempt to witness to you about the Gospel with only one goal in mind-that you might give the New Testament an openhearted, open-minded chance. I wrote this book to help others cope with OCD, but if I can also convince you to hear/read the “Good News” of Christ objectively-that would be of much greater importance (We’re talking about eternity). I understand religion is a touchy subject and most Christians choose to keep quiet on convincing others, but as a Christian and believing with all my heart what the Bible says, how could I have love in my heart for others and not try to reach out? Just hear my case for Christ and we’ll get back to OCD in Chapter 14.

Is This All There is?

I begin with the one question that all of us ask: what happens after we die? If you combine all religions, the vast majority of people believe there is an afterlife of some sort. Something happening to your spirit or soul with some form of accountability to God factors into most beliefs. This also usually involves a notion of heaven and hell. Others argue, though, that when you die, that’s it. There is nothing else. If you are one of these pure atheists, you’re really not my target audience. I will just say this: if what you believe is true, then the only consequences somebody like Hitler suffered for all of the horrific things he did was the ½ second or so of pain he felt while he killed himself. On the other hand, you have a 7 year old child who is kidnapped by someone (for this discussion, we’ll call the criminal, Joe). Joe then tortures, rapes, and terrorizes that child over several days and then kills him. If you are an atheist, then you must believe that’s just the luck of the draw. There is no accountability for Joe (or Hitler) and there is no relief for the child. Even before I became a Christian, I could never accept this scenario. It just doesn’t feel right. But if you do, my presentation to you ends here. I’ll just pray that you change your mind sometime in your life.

The Butterfly Effect

If you believe there is an afterlife with a heaven and a hell, then who goes where? A vast number of people (I used to as well) believe that “good” people go to heaven, and “bad” people go to hell. That is, people who do good things for others and make their lives better impress God with what they do and get to go to heaven when they die. On the other hand, people who hurt other people and commit criminal acts go to hell when they die to pay for what they’ve done. In a nutshell, you are judged by your works or what you do while you are alive. As I noted, I used to believe this, as well. I have always tried to get up every day and do my best. I have been so blinded by my own pride, I honestly thought I had earned my way to heaven by what I had done. I make an honest living. I am a good husband. I wrote this book to help others- and on and on. After my eyes have been opened though, it’s amazing to look back and realize how my mind was able to block out all of the horrific things I have done. I had mentioned some of my downfalls in life (alcoholism, addiction, sexual promiscuity), but those aren’t even the worst of my sins. I have done things I don’t have the guts to write about. What scares me the most, though, is how I could justify all those things and still have the gall to believe I impressed God. I am truly sickened by how blind I was. I am just making a personal note here that if I got what I deserved, God would have snuffed me out a long time ago and thrown me into hell.

Back to the good vs. bad argument. We all know that we are not perfect and each of us has skeletons in their closets. My question here is when do you know you have done more “good” things than “bad”? To illustrate this, let’s refer back to the previous fictitious example of our criminal, Joe. Most would say if you are judged by your works, then Joe would be in trouble. Most would say that raping, torturing, and killing a child would earn you damnation. Granted, but lets say Joe had a father we’ll call Mike. Mike was a blue-collar man who worked hard to earn an income for his family. But when Mike got home, in his mind, he didn’t have the energy to offer anything to Joe as a father. He would bury himself in his newspaper and TV shows just to get buy. As a direct result of this, Joe had more freedom than he should have. He would run the streets with a rough crowd and picked up bad habits. These habits and his “friends” twisted him into a different person. Eventually, his environment led him to become a cold, callused bully. It continued to get worse until he got to a point where he was so cold, he didn’t respect human life. Then he did what he did. Is Mike damnable? Remember, what Joe did began by Mike’s decision to be emotionally unavailable as a father to him. He certainly played a role in the child’s death. OK, now we have Sheila. She was Joe’s teacher and recognized disturbing behavior patterns. It got to a point where she thought Joe might be a real danger to society. She considered talking to the authorities about Joe, but she had enough on her plate at home that she didn’t feel like dealing with the paperwork and potential threats that could come along with having Joe assessed. After all, if Joe was dangerous and he got ticked because of her intervention, her life and her family could be at risk. The fact is, though, if Sheila would have had Joe assessed, the child that he killed might well be alive. What about Sheila, is she guilty? She also played a role in that child’s death. Let’s say one day Joe was at a fork in the road before he went down the unfortunate path he chose. He was sitting on the street crying because he was just broken. John, a local off duty police officer walked by him and noticed this kid needed somebody to talk to. But he was late for a ball game and hey, he spent his life helping and protecting people. But if he would have stopped and talked to that kid at that critical moment in his life, it would have made the difference in the decisions Joe made. What does John deserve-heaven or hell? A direct action (or in this case, inaction) played a role in the child’s death. Where is the line between guilt and innocence: between good and bad: or between heaven and hell?

On and on we could go. In this example, we have directly linked the torture and death of a child to 3 people. When I first heard that the Bible says if you’ve broken one commandment, you’ve broken them all; it made absolutely no sense to me. At that time, I still thought I was innocent. My point of this example is not to judge Mike, Sheila, or John because we all make similar decisions everyday. The point is- decisions each and every one of us make lead to horrific things whether directly or indirectly, and whether we are aware of it or not. Everything you say to someone has an impact on who they become. Let’s say you’re in line at the movies and an overweight teenager is in front of you. You make what you think is an under-your-breath insult about her. She’s hears you, though, and it’s the “straw” that breaks her and she goes home and commits suicide. If you hadn’t made that comment, the following week she was going to meet a good role model who would have helped her lose weight and boost her self esteem. Now, you didn’t even know she heard your comment, let alone that it led to her death-but it still did. But because you had to impress your friends, she didn’t meet that role model who would have turned her life around. How would you be judged? Again, I’m only suggesting we all have done things that have the potential to irrevocably injure other people. Each of us have no idea how much damage we have caused. There is a movie called The Butterfly Effect that illustrates my point. It stars Ashton Kutcher and he discovers the power to go back into his past and make one different decision than he had before. Each time he comes back, he is stunned to realize how changing that one decision had drastically affected the present day. Each decision dominos into a completely different reality for those involved. Although it’s fiction, I think the movie accurately represents how each of our choices has a substantial impact on those we interact with.

Again, what I’m suggesting with all of these hypothetical situations is that we are all guilty of causing severe damage to others. The Bible says that “No one is righteous- not even one” (Romans 3:10). That is, if we were to be judged by what we have done (by our works), we would all deserve hell.

The Simple Plan of Christ

The New Testament is a wonderfully complex set of writings that nobody can ever entirely understand, but God’s plan for redemption, entrance into heaven, and eternal life is really quite simple.

God sent His son, Jesus, into the world to first teach us about Himself, but more importantly- He sent Him to be judged in place of every human being. When Jesus was on the cross, the sky went black for 3 hours. It was at this time that He was being judged by God for everything everybody had ever done to that point and everything that anybody will ever do. He literally became sin and was judged for it. I know this is hard to comprehend with the human mind, but Jesus supernaturally saw every sin you have ever committed and every sin you will ever commit- and was judged for them. So either you get judged for what you’ve done (previous section), or Jesus gets judged for what you’ve done. It’s really that simple. What do you have to do to have Jesus judged for what you’ve done instead of you-believe it. That’s right, all you have to do to go to heaven is to believe in your heart that the story of Jesus Christ is true. The most important scripture in the Bible, to me, is Romans 10:9- “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. Ultimately, the Bible comes down to that one passage- do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God (which was proven by His ressurection) or not?

To summarize my case for Christ: A) There is an afterlife B) If we are judged by what we do, that’s not good C) Either we get judged for what we’ve done or Jesus does D) All we have to do to have Jesus judged in our place is to believe in Him.

Chapter 13-Observations on Christianity

The following chapter is just some of my observations and opinions on Christianity based on my brief walk with Jesus Christ.

The 2 Secrets:

I had always heard people talk about “witnessing” about Christ as if they knew it were true. They talked as if it weren’t an opinion, but as if it were fact. I would think, “that’s just your opinion and we’ll all find out whose right when we die”. I now understand why they were so bold in the conversations. The most amazing secret I’ve learned that I didn’t think was possible is the fact that once God knows you believe in your heart the story of Jesus is as the Bible says, He lets you know that you are right. You don’t have to wait! I would imagine God manifests this confirmation in a different way to each person who believes, but whatever the means, I believe it is confirmed in an undeniable fashion. I can’t explain it other than to say I know that Jesus is real and that He is alive.

The other revelation that I understand now is that Satan is present in this world and is directly responsible for why this world is an absolute mess. My prior idea of the devil was that he was in hell waiting to punish “bad” people after they died. But the truth is Satan is an invisible spirit who is in our world and is more powerful than any human being. He is smarter, craftier and has access to spiritual power that man doesn’t. The Bible says he is a fallen angel who rebelled against God in heaven and was thrown out. He has only one mission: to keep people from listening to God’s word with an open mind. He knows once somebody does that, he has lost his power over that person. So he distracts, confuses, distorts-anything that will keep you from God’s word.

“Accepting/Rejecting” Christ:

The only unforgivable sin is rejecting Jesus Christ. I heard someone say that Jesus Christ volunteered to mediate between a perfect, pure, and holy God -and sinful man. If you reject Jesus Christ, then you are saying you can handle the wrath of God on your own. As I have said earlier, I wouldn’t suggest this approach. My question here, though, is what does it mean to “accept” and what does it mean to “reject” Jesus Christ? I would suggest that rejecting Jesus Christ would be to live your entire life and never once read the New Testament with an open mind. That is, either you don’t even bother with it or you read/listen to it only looking to disprove it (you have pre-determined your opinion on it).

One of the first people I tried to share Christ with was my brother-in-law. I gave him a copy of the CD’s and a few weeks later asked him how it was going. He told me he was afraid to listen to them because, in his words: “what if I listen to them and don’t believe? I told him that was Satan trying to distract him in order to keep him from hearing them. This was true, but it led me to another discovery: God’s word is written in the Bible, but it is also encoded on each person’s heart -and the two match. In other words, when a person hears the New Testament with a truly open mind, it is impossible not to believe and have your life changed. This is why I stated my goal of these chapters is to convince those who aren’t Christians to read the New Testament with an open mind. That, in my mind, is accepting Jesus Christ. I know I can’t prove to you that the God of the Bible is real, but if you give Him a chance, He will prove it to you. If He sees you making the Bible a healthy part of your life, He will jump in sometime and join you.

“Go and sin no more”:

The New Testament has 2 main themes as it pertains to salvation: faith and repentance. In chapter 11, my form of repentance included giving up smoking, drinking, and pornography. Let me start by saying this: I had tried to give up these damaging habits on my own for 15 plus years and failed miserably. After believing in Christ, all 3 were gone from my life in less than a year. I’ve heard many people say they avoid reading the Bible or going to church because they can’t live the Christian lifestyle. And they’re right-they can’t, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent from reading the “Good News”. When you come to believe in Christ, His spirit jumps into your body and helps you to live the life God wants you to. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the “helper”. I often hesitate to mention to others that Christ has helped me quit smoking, drinking and other things because: A) they might infer that they have to do this or do that to become a Christian and B) after you believe, Jesus will tell you what sin you need to turn from, not me. You are justified by faith in Christ and repentance will be the result of faith. You will get help to do things that seem impossible to you now. If somebody would have told me that I needed to quit smoking, drinking beer, and throw out my porn movies to become a Christian, I would have said, “I might as well not even waste my time”. Rather, I prefer to focus on convincing people the story of Jesus is real, then He helps with the rest. After all, when you have access to a power that can raise the dead, there is no sin that can’t be broken. Again, my only goal is to convince you to read the New Testament with an open mind, then you will be in God’s hands.

Also, I know people who love the Lord and smoke cigarettes and drink on occasion. Are they true Christians? While only God knows for sure what they believe in their heart, I would suggest it’s entirely possible to be a smoker/casual drinker and be a Christian. These things controlled me, though, and built walls between myself and God: so He tore them down. They were things that I needed and turned to for relief-(they were my “idols”). God is a jealous God and wants you to rely on Him for comfort. That is why, in my opinion, He removed those things from my life. I still enjoy and want things, but I don’t need anything like I used to. That is my experience, though, and every time I try to judge another Christian’s repentance, I usually get reminded how imperfect I still am. So, again, I made a vow to leave the matter of repentance to Christ: I’m just trying to introduce people to Him.

Christ vs. Christians:

Having said this, there are certain things I believe you can’t do and follow Christ. When I do get upset is when somebody claims to be a Christian but doesn’t even come close to living like one. I have met people with immense knowledge of the Bible who will sit there and talk to you about it while they are high or extremely drunk. Jesus is probably roughest on what He called “hypocrites” in the Gospels. These were people who performed all kinds of external, religious rituals while inside they were selfish, arrogant, and evil. Outwardly, they were religious, but inwardly, they were spiritually dead. Again and again, Jesus would criticize the hypocrites more than anyone else. To me, modern day hypocrites are people who have a vast knowledge of the Bible and claim to be Christians, but live a lifestyle that doesn’t support it. My opinion is, while these people may know the Bible backwards and forwards, they don’t really believe what it says. For, again, it is my experience that when God knows you really believe the story of His son, His spirit will intercede in your life and change it.

There is nothing I take more seriously than representing Jesus Christ. If I am to be an effective witness, I need to “practice what I preach”. If you really believe what the Bible says, then you understand the consequences we’re dealing with are enormous and eternal. The last thing I ever want to do is to chase someone away from the Gospels by my behavior. The 9^th Commandment says not to “bear false witness against your neighbor”. While I understand this mainly means not to lie about your neighbor in order to get them in trouble, I also take “bearing false witness” as misrepresenting Christianity. That is, if I say I am a Christian and then act worse than non-Christians, what I have to say will be minimized if not entirely invalid. They would have been better off if I never would have said anything to them.

My only advice in this matter is to recommend that you don’t judge the perfect spirit of Jesus Christ by any Christian, including me. While there should be a noticeable difference in someone’s life when they become a Christian, the only person who ever lived a sinless, perfect life is Jesus Christ Himself. So on the other end of the spectrum, you can fine-tooth-comb any Christian and find flaws. Even my favorite Christian, Billy Graham, has said some things that really irritated me. Again, my suggestion is to form your opinion on Jesus Christ based on the Word of God, not any human being.

Suffering and Signs:

Before I became a Christian, I had primarily 2 questions about God. The first was why an all-powerful God would allow such great suffering to occur? If a loving God is in control of this world, then why are we in the situation we’re in? After becoming a born-again Christian, I have formed a thesis on this question.

-God made people to have somebody to love and to have somebody to love Him. But just as we want others to love us because they choose to, the same is true of God (for He made us in His image): so He gave us the power to choose. In the beginning, this utopia was offered in the Garden of Eden. Everything would have been provided. There wouldn’t have been any pain, suffering, or even death. But since He gave us choice, He had to give us an alternative. While it may seem the alternative was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to me the choice was to either believe God (if you eat from the tree you will die) or believe Satan. Of course, we know how that turned out. Now you might say (as I also did), why should I be punished for a decision Adam/Eve made? I would humbly say that if you don’t believe that Jesus is Lord then you are no different than Adam/Eve. For utopia is again being offered (when we die) to those who believe what God says rather than what Satan says.

Mankind has created it’s own suffering by the choices we have made to reject God. While we are to pray and work for peace, our cumulative, sinful nature makes it impossible to have lasting peace. True peace and the end of all suffering will only come when the Prince of Peace returns.

The second question I used to have was if God wanted everyone to know He was real and obey Him, why doesn’t He just light up the sky and let everybody know for sure?

Again this goes directly back to the sinful nature of mankind. If God did this and lit up the sky, I would contend those who wanted to continue living the way they were could explain away a miracle of any proportion. Our nature always wants more. One year after this would happen, we would need a bigger display to keep believing if the reason we believed was because of the miracle. God wants us to believe Him because He said so. Jesus contends that “only a wicked generation demands a sign”. Even with what I would call miraculous, unexplainable “input” I experienced, I sometimes will catch myself thinking, “that didn’t really happen”.

The good news, though, is once you believe in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God, you get to experience true miracles like you never thought possible.

A Discussion of Demons:

Almost everybody in this country celebrates Christmas. A majority claim to be Christians. But if you claim to believe what the Bible says, then you also must believe in the existence of demons or demonic spirits. As I mentioned in “The 2 Secrets” section above; one of the two things that surprised me most was coming to understand the existence of supernatural forces all around us. I was a logic monster. If I couldn’t see it, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe in demonic influence, and I certainly didn’t believe in demonic possession.

In the New Testament, Jesus interacts and heals many of what are called the “demon possessed”. I’m going to discuss my opinion of demons or unclean spirits base solely on how I have come to view my experience with them. As I mentioned in Chapter 11, when I decided to give up my 6-pack of beer each night (after already surrendering two other habits that controlled me), I felt like something left me and felt truly free for the first time in a very long time. Yes, I believe with all my heart that I was possessed by a demon. That was a difficult realization to come to because when you think of demonic possession (as they are displayed in movies), you think of this wild, out of control, convulsing person. This typical description of someone controlled by a demon would make the possession obvious. This is what makes Satan and his demons so dangerous. In “barbaric” societies, they can be extremely barbaric, but in sophisticated societies, they can adapt and become extremely sophisticated. Again, they are more powerful than any human being. So when did I become possessed? Was it when I became physically addicted to nicotine? Was it through the perversion of my mind by pornography? Was it when I became dependent on drinking alcohol each day? Or was it a combination of all three? I want to be very careful and preface what I’m about to write with this statement: I don’t believe all people who smoke or drink are possessed by demons. I am only talking about myself and my experience. I was controlled by these things. I had to have them. I couldn’t live without these things, and my life revolved around them. Therefore, I have come to believe that when I became physically dependent on substances is when my possession began. I have heard that, in the Bible, the art of witchcraft is sometimes referred to as “pharmacia”. To me, this means one way the devil can gain control over people is through pharmaceuticals-specifically mind-altering drugs.

I have heard and read that it’s impossible for a true, born-again Christian to become possessed by a demon. I believe this and explain it in the following way. After giving up these habits and realizing that they were taken from me by the God that determines whether I wake up tomorrow or not, I’m not brave enough to smoke another cigarette or drink another beer. If it weren’t for knowing that, I’d likely had gone back to the same destructive habits. Again, I am only referring to my repentance and do not imply that you can’t be a Christian and smoke/drink. They controlled me, so they had to go.

Aside from possession, The Bible also talks about two other forms of demonic influence: obsession and oppression. We’ll obviously talk about obsession more in the next chapter, but there is no doubt amongst us OCDers that mental obsessions can ruin and disable a life just as effectively as the most powerful drug in the world. While I believe it’s a step down from physical addiction, mental addictions (such as my porn addiction) that derive from obsessions can become equally destructive. Anything (washing hands, cleaning, avoiding germs) that is taken to obsessive levels can control your life. Also, these obsessions often lead people to turn to substance abuse. Again, I’ll give my opinions on OCD through the Biblical lens in the next chapter.

Before I talk about oppression, I want to discuss my take on the exorcism of demons. We have seen the movies, and the people on TV who put their hands on peoples heads and claim to drive demons out of them. Only God knows for sure whether that stuff is real or just for show, but the way I see exorcism is a little different than that. I heard a pastor on TV talk about the “Authority Chain”. That is, God gave the authority on this planet to mankind. Adam and Eve gave the authority to Satan by choosing to believe him over God. Jesus came down from heaven to take the authority back from Satan and gives the authority to anyone who believes in Him. As a result, when you believe in your heart that Jesus is real, you are given authority over demons. As I mentioned, I don’t believe I can ever be possessed again because of this authority, but it doesn’t end there. If someone is possessed by a spirit, I don’t think I can touch them and drive it out, but I have lived a genuine experience with Christ that I can share with that person. With that experience and with prayer, I am more likely to convince that person that Jesus is real. If they come to believe that in their heart, the Holy Spirit will enter them and Jesus will help remove their demons. Again, I’m not saying that true faith healing isn’t possible, I just look at it from a different perspective.

Because I’m a born-again Christian and have this authority, I have become an extremely dangerous person to Satan. Not only has he lost me, but he knows I’m trying to take others from him by convincing people that Jesus is real and is alive. So even though he knows he can’t have my soul, he isn’t just going to leave me alone. The devil is constantly trying to oppress me (and all Christians) for this reason. There are days I allow him to twist me into a pretzel of confusion, fear, and doubt. For every question I think I have answered, there are a million more that I don’t. Satan takes advantage of this and tries to create doubt and immobilize me. I have learned the best thing to do when he asks an unanswerable question, is to give it to Jesus and then move on.

I know it’s very uncomfortable to read (as it is to write) about demons. You can pay to much attention to their existence, but you can also pay too little. One of the best tricks Satan has ever accomplished is to convince people he doesn’t exist. If you believe that, then you don’t believe the Bible, which means you don’t believe in Jesus. And since only the spirit of Christ is more powerful than Satan, he’s got you right where he wants you. I had to learn this the incredibly hard way.

The 2 Prisms:

One of the oldest arguments amongst Christians has been the ongoing debate between God’s sovereignty and free-will. Am I just a chess piece in God’s master plan or do I have a choice in the matter? My opinion is that both are true. I believe God knows what I am going to choose, but I still get to choose it. From His prism, He knows every decision I have ever made and will ever make and uses those choices to fulfill His plan. From my prism, each day I make choices to the best of my ability with no knowledge of the outcome and have to live with the consequences of those decisions.

This usually leads my mind to another question-does God choose people or do we choose God? To me, the Bible offers what could be interpreted at first sight as contradictory viewpoints on this question. Clearly in the Old Testament, God chooses Abraham and some of his offspring (through Isaac, Jacob) to be His people and to introduce the Law. Throughout the Old Testament, though, God clearly becomes frustrated and angry with some of His chosen people because of their rebellion towards Him. According to the Bible, salvation was only offered to the Gentiles (non-Jews) because of that rejection. Although the Bible says that in the end all of Israel will be saved, in this age, God’s true children are those who are reunited with Him through belief in Jesus. A key phrase I’ve read in the New Testament that helps me understand this “who chooses who” question is “God’s chosen people according to His foreknowledge” (One example is 1 Thessalonians 1:4). In this humble grasscutter’s opinion, that means He chooses His children according to who He knows will accept His son. That is, He knows in advance what each of us will do when we are presented with accepting/rejecting Jesus Christ and chooses us according to that foreknowledge. That implies there is no favoritism, and that each person He creates has the same opportunity of salvation. So when I read “chosen people” in the New Testament, that’s how I take it.

What About Them?

Having said this, I often wonder why I was given 35 years of rebellion towards God and lived to one day believe in Jesus, while on the news every night I hear of a teenager getting shot and killed. Or what about a child, baby, or even an unborn fetus who dies before they have a chance to knowingly decide on who they think Jesus was? Of course I don’t know because I’m not God, but I have an opinion. It starts with one premise and that is God is fair and just. Not only that He is fair and just, but to a degree we can’t even imagine, let alone measure. Since we’re talking about eternity here, I have to believe everybody is given the same chance to accept or reject Christ. Every single person on this planet has different factors in their lives. For example, sometimes I think we Americans have such access to churches (there seems to be one on every street) and religious freedom that we would have an advantage over others who live in less privileged countries. But, while this may be true, we also have more temptations and distractions that could derail our fellowship with God. Also, sometimes I think people with a lot of money would have certain advantages-they can afford Christian schooling, more time for Bible study…., while a single working mother of three barely has enough time and energy to feed her kids. But if you look closer, the drawbacks of wealth-the temptations, the lack of consequences for actions (you can buy your way out of a lot of trouble) just to name of few- balance out the advantages. The same is true for the single working mom: she doesn’t have the time for and can’t afford these distractions of life. She is forced to prioritize and would more likely understand what is really important. My point here is there are advantages and disadvantages in everyone’s life. Each person’s variables factor into an equal opportunity and into an equal accountability as to what they do with Christ. The problem is we are handicapped by our human minds to know what “fairness” truly is.

OK, so what about people and families who live in remote areas that don’t have access to the Word of God? Even if that’s difficult to imagine in today’s information age, I have asked this question many times, as well. I’m sometimes guilty of assuming because I came to believe in Jesus by hearing the Bible from beginning to end- that’s how it happens for everyone. But we’re talking about God here-the Spirit that created the world from nothing. He can reach people any way He sees fit. Take the story of Johnny Cash. He was so overwhelmed with the lifestyle of drugs he had been engulfed in, he basically crawled into a cave to die. At this lowest point, he saw a vision of Jesus Christ telling him to “go do my will” and it changed his life. Also, my brother-in-law had a conversation with one of his friends about the Bible. This friend had become terminally ill and was interested in the afterlife. A couple of nights later, he had a dream that Jesus appeared to him and the only thing he wanted to do was to go with Him. He was no longer afraid to die and had been immediately transformed by this personal experience with Christ. My brother-in-law said he was a different person from one day to the next. To take it a step further, from the time Jesus died on the cross to the time He rose from the dead, some believe the Bible says He preached to the people who died before the way of salvation (the cross) had occurred (I have not resolved this matter in my mind). So even though it’s hard to imagine with our human minds, the spirits of people who died before Christ came were given the same opportunity to accept or reject His teachings. If this is possible, then it leads me to again believe that everyone gets the same chance to accept or reject Christ- no matter how old somebody is before they die or even if they die before they are born.

You look around the world today and all of us question from time to time why we are so blessed and others perish. I think the devil uses this to plant seeds of doubt as to the existence of a fair and just God. Again, it is my belief that each person God creates gets an equal and fair chance to have Christ judged in their place and the problem is our perception of fairness. Regardless of whether you believe that or not, if you are reading this you likely have access to a Bible- could this be your chance?

Led by the Spirit:

Before I had a clue, I had heard the saying “ask and you shall receive”. That is, if you ask God for something in Jesus’ name, it will be granted to you. I would think, “OK, if I had that access, I could pray for a billion dollars and it would be given to me?” What I have learned is A) It is true – everything I have asked for to date since becoming a born-again Christian has been granted and B) The Holy Spirit helps me to know what to pray for. Since I have had my eyes opened, I no longer desire to be rich financially. Now, I won’t be so pompous to say I don’t want to be secure and comfortable (for that’s an obligation I have to my family), but all the money in the world can’t compare to one second in heaven. My main goal in life now is to become the best witness I can become and to convince as many people as I can that Jesus really is the son of God. What else is there? This world is extremely temporary, but Christ is eternal. I have come to realize very quickly in my brief “career” as a witness that the most valuable tool I have is to pray for those I am trying to convince. Where before I would pray for selfish things, now I pray that God will consider glorifying Himself through those I’m “working on”. The Spirit changes you and your priorities and “riches” take on a different meaning.

This leads me to comment on the so-called “prosperity gospel” that is being preached. Joel Olsteen, among others, say that God wants us to be wealthy and have riches. Pastor Olsteen has made millions of dollars through his services and books. I also saw on Larry King Live that Crestlow Dollar (a pastor I have learned a lot from) owns several homes and looked like he was living pretty well. My humble opinion is I would be very uncomfortable becoming a millionaire preaching the Word of God. As for their message, there are several instances where the Bible refers to “riches and blessings”. One example is Proverbs 3:9-10 that talks about the blessings you receive in return for tithing. In the New Testament, though, Jesus talks about “not being able to serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24) and “it is hard for the wealthy to inherit the kingdom of God” (Matthew 20:23). To me, there is nothing wrong with making a lot of money if it is done honestly and the service you provide enhances others lives (Dave Ramsey comes to mind). But if it becomes more important than your relationship with God, and your primary drive in life-then you become a slave to it and it becomes idolatry. The one thing I found out about Pastor Osteen that does irritate me is there are no visible crosses in his church. How can you have a Christian church and not have a cross?

Regardless, I consider “riches” to be each and every person I can lead to authentic belief in Jesus Christ. Again, those are eternal riches.

The Power of Weakness:

God helps those who help themselves-right? Wrong. The biggest lie Satan ever told is that we can do something for God. The truth is, though, that God doesn’t want us to do anything for Him, but He wants to do something through us. This can only happen when we surrender ourselves to Him through a personal relationship with His son, Jesus Christ. With me, I tried for 35 years (with the best intentions) to do it my way and had a train wreck to show for it. I finally got out of His way and let Him (Jesus) take over my life and He has nearly cleaned up my mess in less than a year.

Referring back to the previous section, my take on when Jesus said “it will be hard for the wealthy to inherit the Kingdom of God” is that people with a lot of money can absorb consequences that might otherwise inform them of their weakness. Take Brittany Spears, for example. I truly feel for her because her obvious addiction problems are overcoming her. The fact that she has so much money only pads her from the consequences her addictions should be causing. Money can buy you out of a lot of problems, and can buy you a lot of people who will tell you what you want to hear. I can’t imagine I’d be alive today if I had that much money when I was her age. It comes down to this-you have to get to a point where you realize you can’t do it without God. Only when you arrive at that attitude of submission will He start moving in your life. Once again, my only goal of these 2 chapters is to convince some to hear the New Testament with an open mind. I believe the “open minded” part of that for most comes after trying to do things their way and failing. The realization of true self-weakness is a necessary ingredient for an authentic relationship with Christ.

Tithing:

When watching any Christian program or attending church, there eventually comes a time when they ask for your money. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that every ministry is funded by donations and that money is vital in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. The Bible is very clear on giving God your “first fruits” or first 10% of what you earn. It even says that your money will be “cursed” if your first fruits aren’t offered to the Lord. I believe this and do tithe (with how tight I am with money, this was difficult), but I am targeting these chapters to those who, right now, don’t believe in the Bible. While I will never say don’t give to churches, I would recommend initially not focusing much on money matters involving the Word of God. First, no matter how much money you give to churches, you cannot buy redemption- it only comes through authentic belief in Jesus Christ. Second, if you push aside money matters at first, you can focus more on the message the Bible delivers. I would suggest that when you come to believe in Christ and observe what He does with your life, 10% will seem like a steal. But until then, I would recommend just hearing the message for free.

The Duality of the Law:

Before I understood what the Bible said about salvation, I did have general knowledge of its contents (as most do). Almost everybody has heard of the 10 Commandments and most probably know a few of them, if not all. I believe most people (even some believers) are misinformed as to the purpose of the law. I used to believe that you are justified in God’s eyes by obedience to His Law (10 C’s). That is, if you do what He commands, you will go to heaven. The Bible is overwhelmingly clear this is not true. The primary purpose of the Law is inform you of your need for a savior and point you to Jesus Christ. Nobody can keep God’s perfect standard of Holiness and justify themselves by their obedience. “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law”-Romans 3:20. God gives his Law, we break it over and over which is supposed to show us our sinfulness and need for forgiveness. We all knowingly break God’s Laws and those sins deserve judgment. Again, either we face the judgment or Jesus does in our place. Our justification comes by our believing what God says. If somebody tells you that you will be saved if you obey the 10 Commandments, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Even though nobody will be justified by obeying the Law, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good”-Romans 7:12. That is, I believe obeying God’s Law as best I can will help me know God’s will for my life. I obey because I love Christ and know what He did for me. I don’t obey to be saved (He did that for me), but I obey in gratitude. My point is the 10 Commandments were given not only to show us our sinfulness, but also as rules that should govern our lives.

Why do people love Jesus so much? He was given the power of God and free will. He could have done anything with that power (Satan offered him the world), but, of his own accord, obeyed God and allowed Himself to be beaten, spit on, mocked, tortured, and crucified. He could have stopped it any time He wanted to, but endured it to reconcile sinful man to a Holy God. He chose to do it. I know if I would have been given the power of God, that’s not what I would’ve done! That’s why He is my Lord- He’s earned it. The book of Romans best clarifies the purpose of the Law and I would highly recommend studying this book of the Bible. It’s the cliffnotes of salvation.

The Salvation Maintenance Lie:

When you believe in your heart that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was literally raised from the dead, you are saved. That means that every sin you have ever committed and every sin you will ever commit is covered by the blood of Christ. A lot of well-intentioned Christians (mostly Catholic) believe that when you come to faith in Christ, you are just covered to that point and you need to maintain it somehow through religious rituals. They believe in past forgiveness, not future forgiveness. I’m not sure where this comes from, but it doesn’t come from the Bible. If you can’t earn salvation through works, how can you maintain it through works after you receive it? How do you know when you have become unsaved and when you become saved again? Who decides that? If I had to maintain my salvation, I would be in big trouble. The truth is it’s all about what Jesus did on the cross at Calvary. His finished work is enough for anybody. Jesus plus nothing-that’s what the Bible says. I believe there are a lot of true born-again Christians who are saved, but needlessly torture themselves with the burden of “maintaining” their salvation. If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that He was raised from the dead, that settles the matter. You are saved by grace and grace alone. If you are a Christian who is caught up in trying to maintain your salvation, I would recommend reading a book written by Joseph Prince called “Destined to Reign”. You can get it at JosephPrince.com. It’s the best book I’ve read on the finished work of Jesus Christ backed up by scripture.

You might ask if all your future sins are already forgiven, what’s to keep you from using it as a license to sin? I would answer by saying a true, born-again Christian who has been saved by authentic faith and has been transformed by a relationship with God will have the desire to sin removed by that transformation. I know I can do anything I want and still would be forgiven, but my only desire is to please Jesus and represent Him properly. When you are reconciled to God through faith in Christ, He exposes sin in your life for the lie it is and what it leads to. The things that used to control me and gave me pleasure now sound about as appealing as sticking needles in my eyes.

The devil is tricky, though, and every now and then, he gets me to play this game of salvation maintenance. What I’ve learned is that every time I do something to “keep saved”, I am really saying that what Jesus did wasn’t good enough. I discredit God’s Son when I say there is something I need to do to get saved or stay saved. If there was another way to earn/maintain salvation, then Jesus Christ died for nothing. If you are currently a Christian, keep that sentence in your mind at all times.

The H Word:

I’ve heard pastors say that they’d rather resign than talk about hell to bring people to Christ. On the other hand, I’ve heard other pastors say they wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t discuss hell to warn people of the coming judgement. I land closer to the former- I rarely play the “hell card” when witnessing to others. For it’s called the “Good News”, isn’t it? I believe the love of Christ attracts people to the Gospels far better than fire and brimstone.

Having said that, I think there are times when the fear of eternal punishment might be the only thing that breaks through to some people. When I speak of hell, I only do so in reference to myself and my experience (for I am forbidden to judge as a Christian). I will simply say this- knowing what I know now, I would be absolutely petrified to live one hour as I did before. I was a heartbeat away from spending the rest of eternity in a place that is described as being so awful that you want to die, but can’t. Again, I only mention how I see myself in this matter to encourage people (whether out of love or fear) to the Word of God.

The Evidence:

We came from somewhere. It started somehow. While man has been able to make advances in science, medicine, and technology, we can’t avoid this one irrefutable fact-we have never made something from nothing. Each invention or the improvement of existing products was made with things that are available. So while we (human beings) can take things that are here and improve on them, we cannot and never will be able to create something out of thin air. You have to have an opinion on where and how life started and to most, removing the possibility of a supernatural creator is difficult.

The biggest piece of evidence to me is the world we live in. Again, The Bible teaches that man in sinful by nature. We all have inherited that nature from Adam. Before, I believed human beings were essentially good and thought the world would eventually adapt with the progress in technology to have an orderly and peaceful planet. The truth, though, is all the advances in the world will not solve the sinful, selfish, and destructive nature of mankind. This reality is hard to face (one of the depressing things about knowing the truth), but it clearly reflects the reality of what we see on the news each night.

These are just a few broad observations that seem clear to me now. I know these statements or anything I say can prove to you that the God of the Bible is the one true living God. Again, though, my only goal is to encourage you in your own way and in your own time to hear/read the New Testament with an open mind. If you do that, God will prove to you that He exists. While I will now return to discussion of OCD and the universal truth of OCD, the true universal truth is Jesus Christ.

Chapter 14-OCD/Universal Truth Through The Biblical Lens.

After becoming “born-again” I must admit one of the first things I thought about doing was trashing this website. The main reason being that I wrote it “blind” and thought “how could this advice be worth a nickel if I ended up in the situation I did”. Ever since posting this book, I have had many people e-mail me and tell me how much it has helped them. I was truly torn because the UT helped me get to a point in my life where I no longer could be crippled by my spikes, but again, it took a spiritual encounter with Christ to truly be free. I had a few people e-mail me last summer and I basically told them to read the Bible and not my book. They turned out to be Christians and were upset when it seemed like I had turned my back on a concept that had drastically enhanced their life. Those discussions, along with some time (and prayer), has helped me resolve some issues I had with my book. Do I still believe in the universal truth of OCD? Absolutely. The only way to take the power away from your spikes (unwanted, intrusive thoughts) is to allow them to exist, instead of resisting them. You will not resist them if you don’t fear those thoughts or you don’t feel guilty for having those thoughts.

Biblically, I justify the universal truth in a few ways- The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the only person to ever live a sinless life. In Matthew Chapter 4, Jesus was tempted by the devil. Therefore it is not a sin to be tempted-it’s only a sin to give into temptation. Every single person lives with temptation every day. Spikes are simply our (people with OCD) form of temptation. The devil is trying to get us to do something we don’t want to do in order to control our lives. Also the Bible teaches we are born sinful and led by the desires of the flesh. My take on this is each of us is born exposed to the devil and his temptations. However satan works- whether internally, externally, or both- he is the prince and power of this world. There is no way to avoid temptation- we can only choose not to give into it. In OCD terms, you cannot control your spikes, you can only control your reaction to them.

Revisiting Identification:

Having said that, I have “tweaked” some of my earlier opinions since becoming a Christian. The first involves the identification of spikes. In Chapter 7 (Recognizing Spikes), I wrote you identify spikes with certain criteria. The first being that the thoughts bother you and cause anxiety because they have no have no value to you at the time of the thought (they are unwanted). The second criteria is that they are repetitive. I will illustrate the problem I have with my old criteria with the following hypothetical example: Let’s say you are presented with an opportunity where you could steal $10,000 and you know for sure you won’t be caught. While considering what to do, you have these repetitive, nagging thoughts letting you know that even though you won’t get caught, you still shouldn’t steal the money. These thoughts (from your conscience) cause you anxiety and bother you because at that time you could really use the money. So according to my old criteria, you could identify this as a spike, allow it to exist, and refuse to do what it asks (to not steal the money). In general, acquiring truly good things take time and some pain. Thoughts of taking short cuts to obtain something more quickly are appealing and the thoughts that tell you not to can be annoying and anxiety ridden. My point is, many times the thoughts that lead you to the truly “right” decision are painful to think about and are bothersome. Also, the conscience is set up to continue presenting the consequences of a “wrong” decision to encourage you not to make it (repetitive). My answer to this would be to simply add one more criteria to the previous two: Biblical reference. The Bible is full of advice to help with decisions (Book of Proverbs), but I believe God summed it up with the 10 Commandments. If the repetitive, bothersome thought is warning that you are about to break a Commandment, I would listen to it. Let’s say you are about to sleep with somebody that isn’t your wife, the moral code that is written in you should warn you not to. How can I recommend or advise that if these thoughts (that are warning you) are bothersome because they have no value to you at that time (you’re horny) and are repetitive, that you should apply the UT to take away it’s power so you can continue? I can’t. I believe the Bible was inspired by God and should be used as a guideline to live life as He intended. (I will again note here as before that you are not made right before God by obedience to the Law, but things will go better for you- even if you are not a believer).

Of course, I have OCD (as do many of you reading this) and can micro-manage anything that comes into my life- including Christianity. My most recent focus has been living the Christian lifestyle and not “sinning”. I put that in quotes because my new obsession has been trying to eliminate the bad things I had accumulated in my life before becoming a Christian. With Christ’s help, I have been able to eliminate all addictions and sexual immorality, among other things. As with anything else, though, my OCD attaches itself to important and productive things in my life and attacks me through them. At times, I have become obsessed with what is sin? Am I sinning when I don’t stop and talk to somebody on the street who looks like they don’t believe in Jesus because I have to stop by Wal-Mart for the third time that week? Am I sinning when I’m in a bad mood because I’ve worked for 12 hours that day? Am I sinning for being lazy on days when I only work 6 hours? Am I sinning because I’m spending most of the day too focused on not sinning? You can see how my mind works. My answers to these questions are I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. My opinion is God wants you to avoid “big sins” such as murdering, sexual immorality, idolatry(addictions), stealing…, but doesn’t demand perfection. The devil demands perfection. God gives guidelines to live by, but allows the freedom of imperfection within those guidelines. The devil tries to get you to control the uncontrollable, to do the impossible, and is never satisfied. This is a big reason why the universal truth is still a big part of how I cope with my thoughts. There comes a time and a line that trying to be perfect becomes counterproductive to who I am as a person (don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good kind of thing). In my life, the line of sin vs. trying to be perfect evolves, but more importantly it is guided now by my personal relationship with Jesus Christ and not my own will. And again, my advice would be to seek out a relationship with Christ and let Him (not me or anyone else) help you to know what is sin and what isn’t, what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.

Guilt-Driven OCD:

Until becoming a Christian, the primary fuel my spikes used was fear. That is, they would present me with scenarios that would produce fear in my body to control me. Earlier, I talked about guilt more in terms of forgiving yourself when you relapse into resisting spikes. I have now officially experienced what it feels like to have my spikes use guilt as it’s primary form of fuel. That is, instead of fearing the thoughts I was having, I would now feel guilty for having them. I refer to the previous section where I became obsessed with not sinning. I got to a point where I would feel guilty for just about everything I did and everything I thought. Where before the devil was constantly telling me, “you can’t do that”, now he was telling me, “you shouldn’t do that”. He would harass and attack in this way with such intensity that it made me want to scream. This time in my life was not pleasant, but it helped me understand another way OCD attacks people. He tries to get you to feel guilty for thoughts and actions you shouldn’t feel guilty for A) to access fuel to dominate you and B) to get you to a desperate position so you will obey. I’ve covered (A) pretty thoroughly in this book about guilt being fuel for spikes, but allow me to explain (B) a little better. Let’s say we have a man who is having obsessive sexual thoughts about other men. These thoughts are unwanted, intrusive, and repetitive. They are harassing him. He doesn’t understand how OCD works, so he resists these thoughts with everything in him. Of course, this only adds more fuel to these spikes and gives them more power. As the control these spikes have over him grows, he becomes desperate and begins a scary thought process- “if I’m going to be tortured just for having homosexual thoughts, I might as well perform the act to get some relief”. That is, out of desperation he begins to think the only way to relieve the intense anxiety that comes with the spikes is to give in and perform the act that is represented in the spike (if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em). He is tricked into believing a lie (that he is a homosexual) and the cycle begins. The devil uses obsessive, unreasonable guilt to convince people they are a product of their thoughts. Just because you have homosexual thoughts doesn’t mean you are a homosexual. Just because you have thoughts about sexual acts with children doesn’t mean you are a pedophile. If you have thoughts about killing somebody, that doesn’t make you a murderer. I contend that only giving in to these spikes (forms of temptation) by acting on them creates true sin.

Now I know some people out there might infer what I just said as- your thoughts don’t influence who you are. The Bible teaches that evil acts begin with evil thoughts. Also, as Christians, we are to have the mind of Christ. I distinguish the two with one simple word- unwanted. If you are intentionally fantasizing about having sex with a child and enjoy it, you are heading for disaster. But if you are being bombarded with unwanted thoughts of the same nature and not only do you take no pleasure from them, but are tormented by them- you are who I’m writing to. I would suggest the former wouldn’t be reading this book anyway. As a born-again Christian, I have been given what I would call “supernatural” power to control the way I think much better than before. Having said that, I still have some pretty wild renegade spikes that if I thought I were responsible for, I would be afraid they would upset God. I am comforted, though, knowing that God knows my brain shoots these thoughts to me sometimes to tempt me into attaching guilt to them so they can acquire power over me. He knows they’re unwanted and I typically laugh at them and move on. I can sum this topic up with the following statement- just because you think it, doesn’t make it true.

As I said in the previous chapter, Satan is more powerful than any human being and can manipulate, twist, and contort people into believing just about anything. I’m not sure if it’s possible to overcome some of his deceptions without accepting the only spirit that is more powerful than he is- the Spirit of Christ. I believe this is illustrated in the Bible by a main theme of the Old Testament. Between the time of Adam and the time of the Law (10 Commandments), people had no idea they were sinning and living separate from God. God sent the Law to inform man that they were sinners in hopes that they would turn back towards Him. But when the Law created sin (by informing people of what was wrong), the sinful nature took advantage of the Law because even though they now knew what they were doing was wrong, they couldn’t stop doing it. They would do something wrong- which would lead to obsessive guilt –which would lead to doing more wrong. They couldn’t obey the Law because Christ had yet to come down from heaven to take the authority away from satan. Of course, His time on earth has long since passed and now authentic belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to overcome the problem of sin-regardless of what sin that is.

Revisiting Overcorrection:

One difference I’ve had with Dr. Phillipson is that of attention to overcorrection. I dealt with this in chapter 8, but would like to add some things to that discussion. If what I believe is correct, Dr. Phillipson doesn’t recommend being to concerned with an overcorrection to a spike. For example, let’s say you are having spikes that tell you that you must have all paperwork done 1 month in advance. You become obsessed with getting everything done 1 month in advance even if the information you need to do the paperwork properly won’t come in until closer to the actual deadline. The ritual of resistance to this spike is to obsessively get the paperwork done regardless of accuracy. An overcorrection to this spike would be to say, “not only will I not get the paperwork done 1 month in advance, but I will begin to do the paperwork 1 month late”. The natural reaction to something that has controlled you is to rebel and do the exact opposite- even if that behavior is just as destructive. The necessary correction to a ritual of resistance without guidelines only becomes a new ritual. Some believe the natural inclinations of people is to do the right thing, but, again, the Bible teaches that man is naturally sinful. To me, this only reinforces the fact that generally accepted guidelines (structure) are needed in correcting rituals associated with resisting spikes.

To refer back to the previous section of Guilt-Driven OCD, I believe another way the devil uses obsessive guilt is to invite an overcorrection. That is, if he can deceive someone into feeling guilty for every thing and every thought, it’s likely that a natural defense mechanism would be to “shut down” that emotion. He would go from feeling guilty for everything to feeling guilty for nothing- which is equally damaging. I think a lot of people who commit horrific crimes are able to because they have become numb to their conscience and feelings of guilt that should regulate their behavior. In some cases, they have done this in reaction to the original over-attentiveness to guilt. Since they have wrongfully attached such extreme guilt to unwanted thoughts they can’t control, they overcorrect and don’t react to any feelings of guilt.

Before becoming a Christian, I would be continuously trapped between the extremes of fear and pride. When I was crippled by fear, I would drink and smoke for relief. When I could overcome my spikes with the UT, I would drink and smoke for reward. Regardless of my mindset, I was still controlled by the same things. Again, I believe the only way out these traps of the devil is with the spirit of Christ given to those who believe. Now when I am confident or crippled by fear, there are things I won’t do for relief or reward because I am under authority. There are times when I would like to revert to those bad habits, but the Holy Spirit has given me guidelines in which to live-and I have yet to encounter a time when Christ didn’t know more about what was best for me than I did.

Removing the Ultimate Downside:

In chapter 4, I discussed the way you are able to coexist with a spike instead of fueling it through resistance is to consciously accept the downside the spike threatens. That is, you take the power away from the spike by being willing to live with the consequences it offers. With the spike, “if you step on a crack, your heart will stop”, the downside is your heart will stop. Part of you knows that stepping on a crack will not result in your heart stopping, but to completely take away the power source of the spike you have to be willing to be wrong. Your heart might stop and that’s OK. That can be a tough thing to do, but it’s the bridge to freedom.

As I mentioned in chapter 11, as people get older, OCD has our physical bodies to play with as well as our minds. This is why, in my opinion, OCD tends to get worse as we get older. OCD uses your death as collateral to demand obedience. I know this isn’t a peachy subject, but it illustrates the most powerful gift authentic belief in Christ offers- being able to accept the ultimate downside of death. To be clear, I love life more than ever and hope to live for a long time, but I know for a fact that when I die, things will only get better. Therefore, the devil’s most effective downside (death) has lost its power over me to a large degree. If you are not a Christian, you can still accept the “death” downside a spike presents, but it certainly has made it easier for me.

To “re-conclude” the universal truth of OCD is the only way for long-term success in managing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. And that again is-

THE POWER YOUR OCD SPIKES HAVE OVER YOU IS ACQUIRED ENTIRELY BY YOUR RESISTANCE TO THEM AND YOUR DESIRE FOR THEM TO GO AWAY. THE VERY SECOND YOU STOP TRYING TO PUSH AWAY THE SPIKES AND ACCEPT THEM AS A PART OF WHO YOU ARE, THEY INSTANTLY LOSE ALL OF THEIR POWER OVER YOU (“ACCEPTING” DOESN’T MEAN ACCEPTING THE FALSE INFORMATION THE SPIKES PRESENT, BUT ACCEPTING THEIR RIGHT TO EXIST IN YOUR MIND). OCD USES 2 WEAPONS TO FUEL YOUR RESISTANCE SO IT CAN ACQUIRE ITS POWER OVER YOU: FEAR & GUILT. AS LONG AS YOU FEAR YOUR SPIKES OR FEEL GUILTY FOR HAVING YOUR SPIKES, YOU WILL RESIST THEM AND THE SPIKES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE POWER SOURCE IT NEEDS TO CONTROL YOU. SIMPLY PUT: IN ORDER FOR YOUR SPIKES TO GO AWAY, YOU HAVE TO WANT THEM TO STAY.

There is no doubt in my mind this one simple concept can instantly and radically change the life of someone with OCD when applied. More importantly, though, I hope I have convinced you to hear the Good News of the New Testament with an open mind. While the universal truth of OCD can help you manage your spikes, the Universal Truth of Life (Jesus Christ) will give you so much more.