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"Do not worry, Gordon, when you realize that you have not yet arrived. After all, there would be no journey if you had nowhere left to go."

 
Amen to that preacher. Amen.
  
 http://littlegreenfriend.blogspot.com
1 John 4:19-21

I can still tell you about the pattern I came up with to ensure equal left/right footsteps, because I didn't trust myself to remember which foot I started on.

I think that same obsessiveness is what lets me (or makes me) go over a manuscript page a hundred times, hunting for the things that don't feel right. What normal person can focus on the same 250 words for an hour?

Every good writer I know is nuts.

Preacher-man, you really need to stop making me cry at work. :-p
Or, you know, I could stop reading your articles at work and cry in the privacy of my own home, what the ever.
Heh, I'm picking at a hangnail right now. I should stop, nu?
______________________
SWS
Ecclesiastes 7:13

This surprises me... I didn't know anyone else was like this. I thought I was weird. I mean, I knew I was, but I thought I was the only one!

 Besides the nail-chewing and the stepping on cracks, everything I did would have to be 'even' numbered. It killed me to walk up a stairwell and have an uneven number of steps. I chewed gum on one side of my mouth for a certain number of chews, and then on the other for the same amount, and never could it be an odd number. I did math in my head to make myself go to sleep, otherwise I would start hearing things, terrified in my small bed.

I still catch myself doing this every once in awhile. I do remember the day, when I was around 10 years old, when I realized I was getting so caught up in my order and evenness that it was seriously disturbing me. I just knew I had to stop. It was scary, I forced myself not to count the number of times I chewed my gum, or refused to look at the sidewalk when I was walking, or didn't plan out my steps before I would leave carpet to make sure I was keeping even. I had to play the radio and have a fan going to get to sleep. It was a scary new world.

This story really encouraged me. thank you so much... (I'm a firstborn, too.)

>smile< Yep, I know this feeling. I, too, am firstborn and looked always for adult approval. I had one foot per sidewalk square, alternating left and right, even if they did not match my stride. I eat M&Ms in pairs, in color order. If there's an odd number of a color, I bite the last one in half. (Same for Skittles, or even jelly beans, but why have Skittles when you could be eating CHOCOLATE?!) Thank you, RLP, for reminding me that I'm not the only one who has trouble believing/accetping/being at peace with grace. I beat myself up about it much more often than I ought to, wishing I could internalize more completely the love I receive both from my dearest loved ones and from God. It is good to be reminded that we all struggle with it, we all continue to worry with nagging doubt, and that it's okay, I'm still "good enough".

Thank you for this.  When it comes to preaching, we are no more likely to absorb and act on our exhortations/admonishments than those who hear -- even listen to us.  Grace is our hope, rarely our experience.  So we search, and find, comforting behaviors.  Many who seek to please God find relatively harmless ones.  I am sometimes mortified at my own paper-twirling, knuckle-cracking, finger-pinching ways.  Yet these beat many alternatives hands-down.  More love to you.  :) Lauren

We are pattern-making and pattern-finding animals. Making and finding patterns is what human beings excell at, and it has made us masters of the physical world. We are all, on some level, computational and visual geniuses.

But we are susceptible to magical thinking because we believe the world rings with correspondances and sympathies. We gamble because we are sure that eventually the right combination must come up.

And when we are young, or vulnerable, or knocked off center somehow, or perhaps even genetically just a few ticks away from the main hump of the bell curve, we have a touch ~ or more than a touch ~ of OCD. We MUST find or make the pattern, or suffer terribly.

The blessing of Promethean fire is how it warms us, the curse is how it burns.

both2and: beyond binary

Dr. William Glasser is this radical psychiatrist that I forced myself to read because so many people  are against Rx for OCD, depression, panic...and  I have seen so many people get better on RX...and, well, he is totally vs the use of RX....very radical...since he didn't give me any sound studies or explanations, I still sit in the middle on this issue. But one thing he says that I love is that the compulsive behaviors that you describe are our means of surviving the "inside stuff", he is much more negative about it in that if only we faced up to the problems (preferably with HIS "choice theory counseling"), we would not have these symptoms. I see it differently. We are surviving. But I do remember your writing that you had a therapist, and I still think that a good, licensed therapist can help so much in finding the issues that grind away at us....Having been to the worst possible therapist, and then to a good one, I am a firm believer in therapy helping us see things differently...it is finding a good therapist that could be tough for folks....trust and all... 

Amen, good pastor. Grace alone. God is good. Thanks so much for your continuing ministry to your readers here.

I'm the same way Gordon. 
I count my teeth with my tongue in various patterns and I "thump" my toes much to the consternation of my wife and daughters! 
Then the Sunday morning rituals begin...
peace & love, brotherterry

oh how this ministered to this undiagnosed obsessive compulsive. i remember in my therapy one of the most helpful things i have ever done (and i was so freaked out to do it because it was so 'new agey') was to to do a visualization exercise as part of 'a gentle path through the 12 steps' by patrick carnes- it's called 'the healer within' (pg. 237).

the healer within and the child within meet and connect and assist each other on the journey. when you talked about taking yourself on your knee it reminded me of the time i worked through that exercise. thanks again for being so transparent, it means a lot to me.

The end of that essay makes me weepy. Thank you for this, RLP.

***
"Why write unless you praise the sacred places?" -- Richard Howard

Wow,

I had no idea that anyone else on the planet drummed out beats with their teeth. I tried to explain this to my mother several years ago and she gave me such a look that I decided maybe this wasn't something I should tell people. I also bite the insides of my cheeks. I didn't realize these things could be connected, or that they might have something to do with my firstborn child status. Thank you for the insight.

I also chew the insides of my cheek. Sigh. When I was small, I would picture a chair as I was falling asleep. Then the chair would fall over, and I would have to put it up again. This went on and on--I couldn't get the damn chair to stay put. When I was reading your essay, I thought of the TV show Monk, about the OC detective. I think he's so appealing because we all have some small and often secret ritual that helps calm us and keep at least some small corner of the universe in order.

I was touched to read this entry and these comments - especially the part about drumming out a rhythm with your teeth; it's my least favorite of my habits because it winds up giving me a headache, and I seriously have only ever met one other person who does the same.  For the last two years I've been entreating my fiancé to stop me when I do it, and he's been quite obliging, but I still catch myself doing it when I'm alone!The M&Ms thing seems really common - my own M&M-related tic is sorting out an equal number of each, eating the leftovers, and then eating the "matched" ones, one from each color at a time.  Back in the old color palette, my favorites were tan and green...

I know I've said this before, but: buddy, you can really WRITE. This was an excellent piece. Thanks.

Preacher Man, we are all so well pleased with you -- always.

Yours is a lengthy list, but I'm not sure any of this is obsessive compulsive. Perhaps its just a way of feeling you have a bit of control over the moment. A person might need that each morning before a sermon.

And lastly, without meaning to deviate from the subject, usually your posts give me emotional comfort. This one gave me physical comfort. I'm so glad you mentioned the "footsteps crunching in the snow". I hear them often and was so afraid that it might be a signal of an aneurism (sp), but if you heard them as a young boy I'm going to stop worrying about it. I'm going to stop staying awake listening and twiddling my toes just to make sure my blood is still flowing through my body unimpeded.

One of the things I love most about your writing is that you bring out the hidden frailties that the rest of us make effort to keep hidden. I've never been pleased about my dysfunctional upbringing, and the fact that most of my family has noticeable OCD traits. I have a tendency towards it, like you hiding your tapping teeth behind a closed mouth. When nobody's looking I tap on my computer screen with my fingernails sometimes, usually when I'm stressed out. Same number of times with R hand and L hand. To me, it's a signal that I need to relax, breathe deep, and maybe take a day off. As a kid, I did the even number of steps in the sidewalk squares, etc. My childhood life was clearly out of control, so this could have been a way of controling something. It's so much more loving to view it that way, than to give it a disease label. I love your descriptions of what may be behind it all.

My heartfelt thanks for writing this story, and for being willing to be vulnerable in public.

http://blogs.salon.com/0003947
www.wanderingwillowblog.blogspot.com

Gordon:
As one first-born to another, let me admit to something that only my wife has heretofore known about me and she's unaware of how extensively this is so. Like you, I have lots of little habits and quirks, including those revolving around symmetry. Like "religion" (or as Paul would put, "life in the flesh"), these rituals make me feel more in control. They bring some sense of bizarre order in the world.

What I'm reaching for, of course, is life in the spirit and ultimately, the upward prize. Thank God for the little outposts of grace--like your column--that remind this preacher who proclaims it all the time, that God loves me as I am and is committed to liberating me to become what, through His grace, I can become.

I'm preaching on Philippians 3:4b-14 this coming Sunday and your words fit perfectly. I'm likely to plagiarize--with attribution--because what you say is so apt and so true. Beautifully put, Gordon. I am in awe of your gifts as a communicator and the ways in which you use them.

Blessings!
Mark Daniels
MarkLuth@aol.com
http://markdaniels.blogspot.com

Good one. Foy is in New Orleans now, isn't he? How is the old boy?
OldPoet

WOW!  Gordon, you just described me to a tee.  I have thought for years that I was crazy and defective.  Even well into adulthood.  Thank you for your honesty.  Keep writing and know you are ministering to us out here.
revrendshafty

What beautiful writing, about something it seems many of us experience and struggle with....I'm another tooth percussionist, and puller/biter of the skin round my nails. When I first offered for ordination, the pastoral selector wrote alot about my need to please and why this made me an unsuitable candidate, as it betokened huge insecurity. Two years later, when I was wholeheartedly recommended, I thought he'd been wrong. The day before my priesting I realised that he was in fact utterly right, but that this was precisely the person that God had called and wanted to use in this ministry. That felt wonderful...but it hasn't stopped me from destroying my cuticles!Thanks, as always, for giving us a safe space for our own vulnerabilities by exposing yours. 

A friend of mine led me to your blogs tonight in a conversation about faith. I am so glad she did. I'm also a first born, and lost my father when I was four. (And typing this I've just had a God-Breeze)My mom had a nervous breakdown when I was 9, she didn't think anyone knew, but I picked up on it. That same summer after 5th grade, and I didn't put 2+2 together until now, I developed Tourettes. It was that same time until even today, I pick up the pieces for my mom and help her deal with everyday stress. I had the same obsessions, of everything had to be even. If I stepped on a crack, pebble, or crunchy leaf with one foot, I'd have to do it with the other until they were exact, to the point I had stepped with the opposing foot numerous times until I felt the symmetry, and then I'd have to repeat the number of steps with the original foot. It was a horrible cycle I'd get into. Even to this day, and what comprises the Tourettes tics, is if I blink a certain way, I have to do it the same way on the other side; if I raise my eyebrows; tap/grind my teeth; all my muscles have to be symmetrical at all times to the point of severe obsession. I'm in tears now over this realization. And it began at a time I was most stressed out in my life. Now I've internalized this stress and obsessions to the point of chronic daily migraines, and my own nervous breakdown when I was 25.

I've also looked to other males in my life (the head of the church, etc) as a role model, father figure, to replace the void in my life of not having my father with me. Male affirmation has always been very important.

And with my M&Ms, I would sort them into rainbows, and make them look like rainbows, then make them have 'wars' with each other by pressing two together until one cracked and one didn't. And I'd count to the highest number of times an M&M would win. And I had to do this with the entire pack.

So I just have to thank you for taking the time to write and post these blogs. I can't wait to read more!!! You're definitely making an impact on persons lives!

--Diana