Is It Possible To Overdose On God?

Is it possible that religious belief is toxic for some people?

10:48pm
Waterloo, ON

Soundtrack: Martina McBride - Greatest Hits
                    AC/DC - Back In Black

Good Evening. The music is loud, and I'm tempted to line dance, but I'll refrain.

Sunday School and services on Sunday mornings, Bible studies on Wednesday nights, youth group activities on Friday nights. Christian student clubs at elementary and secondary schools, and three years of Bible college to boot. And that's not counting the thousands of hours spent reading religious books, watching Christian movies, and listening to Christian music, as well as having countless conversations about God/religion/faith

Is it possible to overdose on God? I say that it is. I have a hard time reading posts about God or Christianity when they come across my Facebook feed. They're everywhere, and I get that because many of my FB friends are Christians. There are prayers, prophesies, declarations, and of course the worst ever - the posts that say "share this or you're denying God."

There was a meme or post that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago that simply asked, "What food from your childhood were you forced to eat that you just can't stomach today?" For some it was creamed corn (eww), for others it might be porridge or liver and onions.

You can see where I'm going with this. "Mark Andrew, were you forced during your childhood to believe in Jesus/God?" Let me say this. I believe that my parents were doing what they truly thought best for me by having Christianity be such a huge part of my life. It was what they had been taught, and what their parents and grandparents had been taught. However, let's think about this for a moment. When you're faced with a belief system that basically says, "Believe in Jesus/God or else you're going to a place of eternal torment called Hell," doesn't that sound like a forced decision to have to make?

Almost everything was God this, Jesus that when I was growing up. There was no explanation of other faith systems so that I could explore them for myself and decide whether I believed in one of them or not. It was all Jesus all the time. So much so that it's hard for me to stomach these days. And it's too bad, because the person of Jesus sounds like a pretty kick-ass, turning tables, revolutionary kind of guy.

I also believe that, for some - not all - religious belief can be a mental illness, or that mental illness can be exacerbated by religion. For instance, incessant prayer over perceived sins or shortcomings can not only reach the border of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, it can jump over the line. It's called religious scrupulosity.

Common Scrupulosity OCD obsessions include:

• Fear of living a life of sin or one that God wouldn’t approve of.
• Fear of doing something that doesn’t align with your moral or ethical standards.
• Constantly wondering if you’re praying enough or the right way.

Common Scrupulosity Compulsions include:

Excessive prayer.

Saying the same prayer over and over again until a state of certainty has been achieved. You feel as if God would approve of the amount.

Reassurance.

Seeking constant reassurance from God.

Excessive reflection.

Making sure that you haven’t said something God would blasphemous.

Going to church or temple.

Constant visits to places of worship.

Confession.

Excessive confessions to a priest, rabbi, other clergy or even a significant other.

Thoughts of unholiness.

Having natural associations that you think are unholy and offensive to God.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I suffered from religious scrupulosity for about 21 years or so. I already struggled with OCD in other areas of my life, like checking and washing rituals, and this constant God-talk provided me with something else to be obsessed with and utterly consumed with. It's awful to live under the threat of "believe this or else." Some would say that if I had just trusted God's grace that I wouldn't have such problems, but the thing about being a fundamentalist Christian, I found, was that not only were you supposed to say the magic words ("I confess I am a sinner and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour.") but that you then had to make sure to be a good Christian, whatever that meant. It was my duty to pray regularly, read Scripture daily, and adhere to a list of do's and don't's that was seemingly endless. 

Is it possible that religious belief is toxic for some people like myself?

Is it possible to overdose on God? 

What do you think?

For more information and stories of people who have lived where religion blends into mental illness, check out this site.

Mark Andrew

We Need People (And Dartboards Apparently)

3:59pm
Starbucks - Chapters Waterloo
Soundtrack - k.d. lang

Good afternoon. I got up at the crack of 2pm today, and now find myself sitting at a crumb-laced table at Starbucks inside Chapters. I was all excited to sit here and watch last night's premiere of The Bachelor or to blog on my laptop. Alas, Windows has decided that it's time to undergo a massive update, so I was left to download the Blogger app and blog from my phone, all the while sipping on a grande blonde roast.

If you're like me, you love being around books. So, finding yourself in a bookstore is the nearest thing to heaven. For me today, it is a warm refuge on a -20 (with the wind chill) day. I shuffled in out of the cold a few minutes ago, only to be greeted by books, yes, but also...dartboards. Yes, dartboards.

This is the problem that I have with today's bookstores. It used to be that you could walk into a bookstore and only find, well, books. Now, Indigo, in all their wisdom, has decided that we also need pillows and wine glasses and blankies...and dartboards? I mean, who wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "I really need a dartboard...I think I'll go to Chapters!" No! Bookstores were meant for books, and over-priced beverages.

One of the things that crosses my mind today, as my computer restarts for the umpteenth time, is that we need people. At least I do. No person is an island, even someone like myself who teeters on the border of introversion. Perhaps you're an extrovert and you have dozens and dozens of good friends. Or maybe you are happy with only 2 or 3 close friends, that's all you need. One of my goals for 2018 (not resolutions!) is to continue to reconnect with friends here in the city and to make new friends. Also, I need to get out of bed earlier. Take depression and anxiety issues, then throw in hypothyroidism, and you have 3 very tempting reasons to stay bundled up under your blankies.

Yes, we need people, even if that means we surround ourselves with strangers, like here at the bookstore café. There's something oddly comforting about being here, surrounded by strangers waiting patiently for their lattes or doing research on their non-updating computers. And there's something reassuring about humanity when a stranger makes eye contact and offers you a smile.

I also think that we need physical touch from time to time. Ideally this would come from someone whom you are in love with, but it can also come in the form of a big hug from a platonic friend, or perhaps a FWB arrangement.

I hope you're having a great day, and if you need a dartboard, there are plenty here at the bookstore. One would think that people would go to Target instead.

mark andrew

2018: Out With The Old? Not So Fast!

9:49pm
Waterloo, Ontario

Soundtrack: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Stones In The Road

Good evening. I have a Facebook friend who almost exclusively posts memes with Bible verses on them each day of the week. Yesterday's seemed aimed at the ending of 2017. It simply read, "The old life is gone; A new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Why are we always attempting to shed things from our past? Why do we try to convince ourselves each New Years Day that we can magically shut the door on who we were the previous year and start completely new?

What if we embraced our whole selves instead?

There is a particular fixation in many Christian circles on dying to the old self and being born again. The act of baptism often symbolizes dying to sin and rising to new life. The act of the eucharist/communion symbolizes the continual remembrance of the death of Jesus and one's own joining Christ in his death so that we too may rise in glory.

For years I tried to die to my "old self," or to sin as they say. I had been taught that since I had accepted Jesus into my little beating heart when I was 7 years old that I had died to my old self, which was sinful, dark, even evil. Yet as I grew up I couldn't stop sinning or doing bad things. You see, there is no magic switch, as much as we might like to believe, that turns us from being bad little boys and girls to men and women worthy of love.

We should never try to crucify a part of ourselves, or "die" to a part of ourselves. It's not psychologically, emotionally, or I suspect physically healthy. It's the same as trying to flick that other magic switch, the one where we resolve each year to suddenly become a brand new person in some way, shape, or form.

You see, each of us is a messy, mixed up bag of good and bad, happy and sad. We are capable of beautiful things like art and music and making love, and we are capable of heinous things like injustice and murder. We need not repeat the wrong-doings, or "sins" of our past, but we also need not shun our dark sides. Often we try to compartmentalize, putting parts of our lives in neat little boxes, locking some of them up in cobwebbed closets, while putting others on proud display. Instead, what if we were to have an open house where we let trusted friends and confidants roam around, giving them the keys to every room in the house? After all, isn't that what we really want? To be seen for who we really are, warts and all, and loved because of all of it?

Before turning over a new leaf in 2018, make sure to bring along the old ones, because they bear the stories of our lives.

Mark Andrew

I Declare! A New Year, A New You! (And Other Shit)

7:52pm
Waterloo, Ontario

Soundtrack: Norah Jones - Day Breaks

It's a frigid evening here in Southern Ontario, and I just got in from seeing a pretty lousy movie; you know, one of those films that gets 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and has some Oscar buzz, but turns out to be as enjoyable as a root canal. I won't mention the film's name, lest I give it a bad name (okay, it was The Florida Project - do yourself a favour and save your money. Go see The Shape of Water instead - it's terrific.)

The latest Norah Jones album is playing here in my sanctuary of love and lust (otherwise known as my bedroom.) The album is a return to her jazz roots, and it's so smooth that I can't decide if it's very good or very forgettable, or perhaps both. I'll keep playing it.

So it's New Years Day, and I thought it obligatory of me to write a blogpost, ,something that I haven't done in a very long time. I used to write all the time, both on this blog and on a satirical news blog that I created. But then a funny thing happened: words escaped me. However, on this momentous occasion, I thought it incumbent on me to at least try to fumble through something (and so far, I'm most impressed by my ability to use the words "obligatory" and "incumbent" in the same paragraph.)

Do you make New Years resolutions? If so, how's that going for you? We're about 18 hours into 2018, and hey, there's no judgment here if you've already broken them all. I personally don't make New Years resolutions for some reason or another, but I was excited that I was invited to a friends place last night to ring the new year in (though I politely declined). Instead I ate chocolate, and drank smoked beer from this brewery in Germany that I visited when my girlfriend dumped me for having spent a week on the psych ward (or some reason or another.)

What good are resolutions? What good are declarations? I have a friend on Facebook who follows self-named "prophets" and "prophetesses" who are always declaring things in the name of the Lord.

I declare that 2018 will bring abundance!

I declare that 2018 will see a major breakthrough in your life!

I declare that only good is in store for you this year!

Charlatans, I say. Charlatans. (With apologies to Joel Osteen, who has a book entitled I Declare!)

However, I must admit that it was only a few years ago that I was sucked in by such declarations and fantasies. For awhile I was part of a church that was all about the "law of attraction," The Secret, and prosperity-thinking. If someone was sick, they weren't supposed to say "I am sick." Instead they were supposed to use positive affirmations such as "I am healed, healthy, and whole. Every cell of my body radiates health." If you were poor, you didn't say "I am poor." Instead you declared "I am a child of God and therefore I inherit abundance and prosperity." And then you hoped like hell that you weren't just shouting to the wind. Oftentimes you were.

Aren't we fooling ourselves if we think that with the stroke of midnight comes not only a new year, but a new you? Seriously, I'm asking! Tell me if I'm wrong!

2017 saw some good times and some bad times for me. The good included meeting new friends (psst! Rayne, I'm talking to you!) as well as a relocation to this city after having been away for 4 years. I reconnected with my current religious congregation (which is devoid of declarations) as well as with the political party I support and friends that live up here.

The bad included the ongoing shit that is PTSD, depression, and anxiety, being ghosted by a lover, my declining metabolism, and The Florida Project.

I can not (or will not) find it in myself to resolve to do anything extra new or special in 2018, except perhaps to get writing again. What I can do is to let love and the simple pleasures in one day at a time. To finally heed the teachings of authors who speak of being in the moment and being mindful in all that you do. And to commit to watching better movies, drinking better beer, and engaging in much more sweet love - it's better than Klonapin.

I will declare one thing as i finish off this post. I declare that you are enough, just as you are, and that you are a gift. Thanks for reading.

Mark Andrew

Please, Please Forgive Me! Where Religion Meets Mental Illness

During my adolescence and young adult years, I found myself on my knees
 begging for forgiveness hundreds, if not thousands of times.

I was in my teens when it first happened. In previous years I had been able to leaf through the new Sears catalogues without any duress. I looked at the bicycles and toys and other things that little boys look at. But then on one ordinary day I found myself leafing through the swimsuit and lingerie sections of the latest catalogue that my parents kept in their bedroom, and I was mesmerized. What had I been missing all of my life? Yes, puberty had arrived.

Now, puberty and everything that comes with it are of course natural progressions of life, but growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household meant that it also came with a major caveat. Sex and sexual expression outside of marriage was forbidden, and those who engaged in either before saying "I do" were in danger of being in God's bad books.

Along with striving to be a faithful Christian teenager - I attended church gatherings 3 days a week - I also had developed extraordinary checking and washing rituals which only later would I be able to describe as OCD. These rituals were particularly strong at night, when I would repeatedly check that my curtains weren't touching the electric heater for fear that I would burn the house down, getting out of bed to check that the downstairs oven was shut off, and checking numerous times a night that the front door was locked, lest any intruders gain access to the house and hurt my family members.

When puberty, adolescence, and young adulthood hit, my OCD collided with my sexuality and religious life in a way that was embarrassing and exhausting.

Just like millions of other boys my age, I was fixated on the female body, and strange feelings began to crop up in my body that at first I didn't know how to deal with. I found myself touching myself in places that previously had never intrigued me very much. I had heard the word masturbation before somewhere, and when I had asked one of my parents about it, they reassured me (in a way) that it was normal, "just don't do it too much." As well meaning as that parent was, it didn't help me very much as an adolescent. But the real problem with looking at the pretty women in the Sears catalogues, which eventually turned into pornographic images, was that this involved a four-letter word: lust. Lust, I had been taught, was an egregious sin. To me, someone who already suffered from OCD, it was like I was committing an abominable sin against God simply by lusting after women's bodies. One such verse in the Bible that addressed lust was Matthew 5:28, which said, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." You can imagine how much that scared me, because committing adultery was one of the acts condemned in the Ten Commandments.

This is where religious OCD, otherwise known as scrupulosity, came into full-blown presence in my young life. As a teenager and then young adult, I would view a provocative image, subsequently masturbate, then would inevitably end up on my knees at my bedside pleading with God to forgive me for my lustful actions. Ten minutes later I was back doing the same thing. This sequence of events occurred at least hundreds, if not thousands of times in my adolescence and young adulthood. It also included intense, repeated washing rituals in order to cleanse myself from my "dirty" actions. I judged myself for being a "bad Christian" and constantly worried that God was looking down on me with a disapproving countenance. I didn't realize that puberty and all that came with it was normal.

I also made an effort to read my Bible and pray every day, and felt guilt anytime I failed to do so.

Yet another aspect of religious OCD, or scrupulosity, is asking others if you are behaving correctly, and unnecessarily asking for their forgiveness. So, not only does one have to to worry about what God is thinking of them, but they worry about what others are thinking of them.

I continued this religious scrupulosity well into my days at a fundamentalist Bible college, where I continued to view pornography. I came to a crisis point where I believed that I had committed an unpardonable sin against God, and that he had kicked me out of his family. I was guilt-ridden and panicked.

Two things happened that freed me from my religious scrupulosity. One day I had had enough of the intense feelings of guilt and decided to try to drop them and let the chips fall where they may, and I also started to question the major tenets of the fundamentalist Christianity which I had grown up with. This led to my rejection of the faith and an embrace of a more liberal and authentic personal faith.

Today I realize that my former form of religion fed my mental illness, and I am glad that I am free from those days of constantly worrying that I was in danger of hell-fire just because I was a sexual being.

Religious OCD is real. Have you experienced it?

Mark Andrew Nouwen

Living With Anxiety: Listening To Your Inner Voice

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” ~ Howard Thurman

Soundtrack - Margo Price - Midwest Farmer's Daughter
                      Lyle Lovett - Lyle Lovett

It's a chilly Halloween Day here at Chapters/Starbucks here in Waterloo, Ontario. I've just finished my first Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced Latte of the season, and am following it up with a Pike Place roast. I just moved back here to Waterloo Region a handful of days ago, and already the language of Starbucks is coming back to me. It's not medium, it's grande.

As it is every day, I am experiencing a degree of anxiety. Living with generalized anxiety disorder is not fun. As I said in last night's blog, it feels the way you would if, while driving down the highway, you were confronted with a transport truck barreling down the wrong side of the road toward you. Except with GAD, you pretty much feel that way all of the time. Unease, panic, having a hard time being in the present moment.

Today is a particularly rough day. From the time I woke up I have felt a degree of panic. "Well, what's wrong? What are you panicking about?" That's the thing. People with GAD don't need a reason to be panicked, we just are. Part of this feeling is very familiar; it's the same way I felt while living in a verbally and emotionally bruising and unstable household. Back then I had good reason to feel panicked as voices were raised and doors were slammed. However, now I am 39 years old, I'm not living in an abusive situation, yet the same feeling remains.

It's at times like this when I find it almost critical to listen to my inner voice. I think we have two voices within ourselves, one positive and one negative. The negative voice is strong and pulls me farther from my true self. It's an earworm that says things like, "You'll never amount to anything," "No one could ever really love you," "Look how pathetic you are compared to everyone else around you." And it goes on and on. It's the voice that says "You'd be better off if you were dead." This voice, these messages can sometimes be crippling and they add to the feeling of panic. This voice is the devil on one of my shoulders.

The positive voice can be called many things: the inner voice, the Higher Self, perhaps The Holy Spirit for some people of faith. For me, I call it my authentic self or Higher Self. It's the angel on the other shoulder. It says reassuring things like "You are worthy of being loved and of loving," "I'm proud of you for getting out of bed today," "Have confidence in yourself," "Stay here, right now, in the present moment." And so on and so on.

Listening to the inner voice, the authentic self, is particularly essential for me as I live with GAD and PTSD (are there any letters that I'm missing?). These messages are what keep me going, what keep me alive on this planet. That and good friends, good music, and a good drink. For a long time, until somewhere in my twenties, my inner voice took a back seat to what I thought my god wanted of me. I would be obsessed (oh yes, I forgot OCD) with what I thought this god thought of me and how "he" wanted me to act. I had been taught that humankind was originally sinful and that rather than trusting ourselves (or any inner voice which might be authentic), I had to trust in this god. My voice was always secondary. It wasn't safe to listen to, let alone obey my authentic self, within my household and within my religion. Thankfully, my views on the nature of humankind changed over time, and I have bent my ear toward my own authentic voice. It's the voice that says "You are wonderfully unique and I love you," "There is nothing to be afraid of right now," and so on. It's the voice that urges me toward boldness and confidence rather than panic and fear.

I hope that wherever you are in your life, whatever you wrestle and struggle with, that you will be able to take time today to listen to the angel on your shoulder and kick the devil's ass.

Mark Andrew

Moving Forward When You're Scared To Death

Generalized Anxiety Disorder feels a lot like if you were headed down a busy highway and all of a sudden a transport truck was barreling down the wrong side of the road, about to hit you. Imagine that panic, and then imagine how I feel almost 24/7.

Good Evening. It will come to no surprise to most who are reading this that I suffer from mental illness. For those who need a refresher, I suffer from complex PTSD, general anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder. I used to be very public about it, even starting a campaign years ago, the goal of which was to destigmatize mental illness. That was when I was very active - in my congregation, with a political party, and otherwise. But things changed approximately 4 years ago and what I thought would be a week or two rest-stop at a family members house turned into me seeking help down there in that small city and relocating there for 4 years. During those 4 years I saw an individual therapist, attended at least 4 or 5 different therapy groups, and juggled around with my medications (with the aid of a psychiatrist). I reconnected with family which was great, but lost connection with most of the friends I had made in the larger city.

What some people don't realize, especially those who don't suffer from a mental illness personally or even have a family member or friend who suffers, is that often, mental illness does not go away. At least that's my experience with it. It's the gift that keeps on giving and giving and giving. It's relentless.

For those who aren't familiar with complex PTSD, it's different from "regular" PTSD in that it is "a psychological disorder that occurs as a result of repetitive, prolonged trauma involving harm or abandonment by a caregiver or other interpersonal relationships with an uneven power dynamic." While I'm sure genetics are somehow involved, my "repetitive, prolonged trauma" came at the "hands" of my father. I put hands in quotation marks as my father never hit me, it was all verbal and emotional abuse and abandonment. (Note: I am glad that my father is in so many ways a changed man and that we have a pretty good relationship today). But it subsisted throughout my entire childhood, so the trauma was severe. It is said that "Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me," but that is just a lie. Words matter. Unspoken words matter too.

The main symptom of my complex PTSD is a severe case of generalized anxiety disorder. There are at least 6 symptoms of GAD, including:

• Excessive worrying and tension - For me this means being anxious about almost everything and worrying about everything, from family and friends, to my health, to a job or lack thereof, etc.
• Tiredness & Difficulty Sleeping - For me this means having a level of fatigue 24/7. Some of this is caused by the medication I take, but some of it is just due to the fact that my mind is constantly worrying about something. Like a hamster in a wheel.
• Headaches - Luckily for me this is one symptom that has escaped me.
• Problems Concentrating - For me this means that certain menial tasks such as reading a few pages in a book is very hard, or sitting down to write a coherent blog post as I hope this one will be. Performing tasks are exceedingly difficult because I am always concentrating on what I should be worried about.
• Frequent bathroom trips - Again, for me this is one symptom that has escaped me.
• Irritability - This can sometimes mean that miniscule problems seem larger than they really are.

This video does a pretty good job of describing my life. I will write more below the video:

So where am I today? A few days ago I moved back to the city where I had a lot of friends, involvement in my congregation as well as political party. I got to feeling very isolated where I was and knew that a change was in order.

While I am excited about the prospect of seeing old friends and making new ones, GAD is always there, mixed in with bouts of depression. Simple tasks like re-learning the bus system or getting to know where the grocery store is amp up the stress levels to near panic. GAD feels a lot like if you were headed down a busy highway and all of a sudden a transport truck was barreling down the wrong side of the road, about to hit you. Imagine that panic, and then imagine how I feel almost 24/7. It's exhausting, it truly is a suffering. Some people prefer to say that they "live with mental illness," or are "fighting mental illness." I call it for what it is: a suffering.

I write this blog tonight in order to express myself, and also give you a glimpse of what living with complex PTSD and particularly GAD looks like. For now I am telling myself "Small steps, Mark Andrew, small steps. Try to live in the present moment and complete tasks as they come; don't obsess over them in advance. This is really hard for someone with GAD. The reality is that I am living in a nice home and already connecting with people I care about. It's just hard to see that reality sometimes.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Mark Andrew