Maggie Rowe - Sinning Bravely and Moral Scrupulosity

Summary

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation
Episode Summary: Maggie Rowe - Sinning Bravely and Moral Scrupulosity
Release Date: March 5, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Trust Me, hosts Lola Blanc and Megan Elizabeth welcome Maggie Rowe, a former writer for the acclaimed television show Arrested Development and the author of "Sinning Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience." Maggie shares her heartfelt journey navigating moral scrupulosity—an OCD subtype focused on sin and religious anxieties—and how it intertwines with her experiences in religious communities.

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Maggie Rowe’s Background

Maggie opens up about her upbringing in a Southern Baptist church in the Midwest, describing it as fairly moderate. However, she highlights the stringent expectations placed on prayers and religious observances, which laid the groundwork for her internal struggles with OCD.

Maggie Rowe [03:32]: "Do you ever scroll through social media only to find yourself bombarded by bad news... At Cerebral, we believe making time for your mental health is key to your overall wellbeing."

Early Experiences with Religion and OCD

From a young age, Maggie grappled with obsessive thoughts centered around sin and salvation. She recounts her first fixation at age five, pressured into praying specific prayers with the fear of eternal damnation if not recited correctly.

Maggie Rowe [04:57]: "Oh Lord Jesus, I accept you into my heart as my personal savior. I repent for all of my sins and resolve to sin no more."

This early indoctrination fostered a persistent anxiety about committing sins, leading her to constantly question her spirituality and worthiness.

Interaction with Church Leaders and Parents

Maggie's attempts to discuss her fears with church leaders were met with dismissive responses, exacerbating her anxiety. Her parents, though supportive, could only offer minimal reassurance.

Maggie Rowe [22:50]: "You’re spending eternity in flames or you're in heaven."

The Path to Treatment

Maggie's crisis peaked during a cinematic moment in an art house film, triggering intense panic attacks and a debilitating realization of her unresolved fears. This forced her to seek professional help, leading her to a treatment facility in Wheaton, Illinois.

Maggie Rowe [48:21]: "I knew it. I knew it. My life's never going to be the same. I'm like, everything's changing."

Treatment and Recovery

At the facility, Maggie faced misdiagnoses, including an incorrect assessment of bulimia. It wasn't until she met a compassionate psychiatrist who understood her struggles with scrupulosity that she began receiving effective treatment. This doctor introduced her to the concept of "sin bravely," encouraging her to confront her fears head-on rather than succumb to them.

Maggie Rowe [70:14]: "I had panic attacks constantly after that. Before I think I just had an underlying anxiety that was brewing because I was suppressing it."

Through cognitive-behavioral therapy and exposure techniques, Maggie learned to challenge her obsessive thoughts and reframe her relationship with spirituality.

Maggie Rowe [60:10]: "Accepting uncertainty about whether something was plugged in versus accepting uncertainty about whether you are eternally damned and will literally burn forever and never see your family again."

Insights and Advice

Maggie emphasizes the importance of redefining one’s understanding of God and spirituality to alleviate the pressures that fuel scrupulosity. She advocates for viewing God as compassionate and loving rather than punitive.

Maggie Rowe [77:42]: "If you're suffering within Christianity, what I did that was so helpful for me is to replace my image of a scary, terrifying God that seemed likely to send me to hell with that of a warm, compassionate image."

Maggie also underscores the necessity of mindfulness and meditation in managing intrusive thoughts, highlighting their role in maintaining mental equilibrium.

Maggie Rowe [81:07]: "There's a thought. Oh, yeah. Hello thought, goodbye thought."

Conclusion

Maggie Rowe's journey from religious anxiety to mental wellness offers profound insights into the intersection of faith and mental health. Her memoir, "Sinning Bravely," serves as a testament to overcoming deeply ingrained fears through courage and self-compassion.

Maggie Rowe [83:31]: "My website is maggiorowauthor.com books on Amazon. Anywhere where they sell books."

Hosts Lola Blanc and Megan Elizabeth commend Maggie for her bravery in sharing her story and encourage listeners to explore her book for a deeper understanding of scrupulosity and its impact.

Lola Blanc [84:00]: "The book is called Sin: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience by Maggie Rowe. Go check it out."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• [20:42] Maggie Rowe: "Oh Lord Jesus, I accept you into my heart as my personal savior. I repent for all of my sins and resolve to sin no more."

• [48:21] Maggie Rowe: "I knew it. I knew it. My life's never going to be the same. I'm like, everything's changing."

• [60:10] Maggie Rowe: "Accepting uncertainty about whether something was plugged in versus accepting uncertainty about whether you are eternally damned and will literally burn forever and never see your family again."

• [77:42] Maggie Rowe: "If you're suffering within Christianity, what I did that was so helpful for me is to replace my image of a scary, terrifying God that seemed likely to send me to hell with that of a warm, compassionate image."

• [81:07] Maggie Rowe: "There's a thought. Oh, yeah. Hello thought, goodbye thought."

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Final Thoughts

Trust Me offers an unfiltered and compassionate exploration of Maggie Rowe's battle with moral scrupulosity, shedding light on the often-overlooked psychological toll of extreme religious beliefs. This episode serves as both a personal narrative and a beacon of hope for listeners grappling with similar struggles, emphasizing the importance of mental health care and self-discovery.

For more insights and to listen to Maggie's full story, visit Trust Me Podcast.

Transcript

[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Maggie Rowe]

Do you ever scroll through social media only to find yourself bombarded by bad news, hot takes, mommy bloggers, influencers and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored yet also humbled to share more great news about their career. It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone else is doing, but what about you? How are you feeling? Is there anything you'd like to change and what are you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making time for your mental health is key to your overall well being. That's why we make it easier than ever to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication tailored to work for you. And the best part? Cerebral offers in network care so you can focus on feeling better without worrying about cost. 72% of people say they felt better in just 12 weeks. So take the first step today. Visit cerebral.com podcast to see how affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance. Cerebral make time for Mind Time.

[Megan Elizabeth]

If you have your own story of being in a cult or a high.

[Lola Blanc]

Control group, or if you've had experience with manipulation or abuse of power that you'd like to share, leave us a.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Message on our hotline number at 34786 TRUST.

[Lola Blanc]

That's 347868, 7878 or shoot us an.

[Megan Elizabeth]

[e-mail] Trust me, dude.

[Lola Blanc]

You trust me.

Trust me.

I'm like a smart person.

Yeah. I've never lied to you.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I never have lied to you.

[Lola Blanc]

If you think that one person has all the answers, don't. Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cult extreme belief and manipulation from two obsessors who've actually experienced it. I am Lola Blanc.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

[Lola Blanc]

And obsessors we actually are this time. This one's real. Today our guest is Maggie Rowe, former writer on Arrested Development and author of Sin Bravely, a book about her experiences with moral scrupulosity or sin focused ocd. So we do talk a lot about OCD on this show and here's a guest who wrote an entire book about growing up with religious obsessions. She's going to tell us about her first obsessions about what was and was not sin, how she started to analyze the Bible with a critical mind to try to understand how to avoid hell and how her parents tried to help but her church leaders didn't understand OCD and made it worse.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It might not sound like it, but this book is extremely funny. It's very funny and so is this interview. We'll also talk about the compulsion she would engage in to make sure she was being the right amount of righteous, how she checked herself into a treatment facility for Christians, the incorrect diagnosis of bulimia she received, and how she finally got diagnosed with moral scrupulosity and began getting the treatment she actually needed.

[Lola Blanc]

Hell yeah. Maggie is so funny. And she was so funny when we weren't recording. If you guys had heard this story about her getting caught in her front gate as it was moving.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's like the reverse Bridesmaids. Like when in the beginning of Bridesmaids when she gets caught on top of the gate, Maggie Got caught on the box under her gate trying to get on the podcast. She, like, left something outside. And yeah, she.

[Lola Blanc]

She's gold.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So to have somebody who's written and worked and produced and Arrested Development, one of my favorite shows ever, and then also had this thing, like when she released the book, I remember reading it and being like, this the closest I've ever related to somebody about obsessing about hell. And it's fucking funny.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, it is super funny. Before we get into it, and you can hear how funny it is with.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Your own two ears or, I mean.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, don't set their expectations too high. You can hear what it is that we're talking about. Megan, what's your cultiest thing of the week?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Of the week. Okay. There's a big case in Australia. A girl just died because she's 8 years old. Because this faith based mission was like, we're gonna pray her diabetes away and they're all going to jail. It's getting, like, prosecuted right now. But I'm not gonna choose that one. Okay. What I'm gonna choose, that's just like. I'm just letting you guys know that's happening. I'm gonna choose this new exercise class that I joined. It's kind of ballet based. Right. I've been doing it for a million years. I took a long break, I came back and I really love it. But I realized the other how baked in unwritten rules are. Because there was a girl in the class who wasn't behaving like you're supposed to. For example, when we would do something really hard, she'd be like, ouch. Oh my gosh, this sucks. Like, just being loud and you're not supposed to make a peep in this class. And I was like, oh, wow, that's so interesting. Like, the slightest variation from expected behavior is so affronting, even in something as stupid as an exercise class. So, you know, I don't know, it just reminded me that it's okay to make noises in classes that are hard. I don't need to. I don't need to, like, subscribe so diligently to this unwritten rule. And maybe next time I'll be like, shit, this is hard. And, you know, yeah, break the mold.

[Lola Blanc]

Break the mold, Megan.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, maybe I will. Maybe I will. So anyway, that's mine. What about you? What's yours?

[Lola Blanc]

Well, before I say mine, I. I like the idea that it would be like, okay, so in this episode, since we're talking so much about ocd, I like the idea that like, we need to sort of build up our tolerance to defying group expectations.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

And that seems like such a safe, nice way to like, do a little exposure. So. Yeah, I like it. I like it.

Yeah. Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay. So what do you think I should do? Just like crack a joke?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

Or just be like, ouch, that was hard.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But yeah, I want to do that. So great.

[Lola Blanc]

Love it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'll keep y' all updated.

[Lola Blanc]

I think we should all look for ways and maybe this is a thing. I don't know. I like it. Ways to find small little ways to defy the pressures that we feel from a group to confront form. I think that would be a really interesting exercise.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, God. I'm like pre embarrassed for myself, but I'm gonna do it.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay.

[Megan Elizabeth]

What's yours? Lola, what's yours?

[Lola Blanc]

Um, you know, it's always social media if I like, when is it not social media? I mean, it's the country. It's the country and it's social media. And this week I posted on social media about the country. Shocking. And I was actually talking about how indoctrinated groups will tell their father that everybody else is indoctrinated. And it can become very confusing when you're trying to discern who's really in the cult and who isn't, because everyone is telling their group that the other people are indoctrinated. Just because you are being told that another group is indoctrinated doesn't mean that yours isn't right. So it can be so confusing. And what I focused on in the, in the video was like, you did a video? I did a video. And what I focused on in my video about that was the control of information and the silencing of critique and punishing journalists and that kind of thing. And those points are points that I definitely want to make. But what was interesting about it, which is like sort of a weird takeaway, but was that I talked really fast in the beginning of the video to like. I mean, I just was like feeling some kind of way. And I was like, I'm just going to talk fast in this one and see what happens. And I did so, so much better than all of my other normal, interesting, normal paced talking. And I. And I just find that curious. I find that interesting. It's. It's like everybody's arguing on this fucking video. I wonder if some of it is that when you talk fast and loud, you seem confident and so people want to listen. And like, not that I am trying to become like a cult leader of any kind I am just trying to. Not at all, definitely. But it is difficult to cut through on social media, so you look for ways to do that. And it made me think about the other people who've blown up on social media and the way that they're literally just their tone and the way that they're talking about what they're talking about. It seems like it can be almost more important than the content itself. So I just thought that was an interesting little window into cutting through the noise online.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's so scary.

[Lola Blanc]

It's so scary because also I don't wanna talk that fast in order to make my points. I can't keep that. Like I did go to auctioneer school as a kid. Like I did. I can do it, but I don't like it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

How can we bring your ventriloquism into the. Into the mix as well? We need your auctioneering, your ventriloquism. And then finally the arc will be complete.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my God. Maybe that's the secret to my to going viral.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I think it might be. I think it might be. Well, interesting points. Interesting points. I'm excited to see how many more videos you do like this. And if you become the auctioneer girl, hell yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Abe woulda go find out. Find out. All right, stop.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Shall we talk to Maggie?

[Lola Blanc]

Let's do it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Maggie Rowe]

Do you ever scroll through social media only to find yourself bombarded by bad news? Hot takes mommy bloggers, influencers and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored yet also humbled to share more great news about their career. It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone else is doing. But what about you? How are you feeling? Is there anything you'd like to change? And what are you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making time for your mental health is key to your overall well being. That's why we make it easier than ever to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication tailored to work for you. And the best part? Cerebral offers in network care so you can focus on feeling better without worrying about cost. 72% of people say they felt better in just 12 weeks. So take the first step today. Visit cerebral.com podcast to see how affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance. Cerebral make time for Mind Time.

[Lola Blanc]

Welcome Maggie Rowe to Trust Me. Thanks for joining us today.

So happy to be here.

So happy to have you. Megan is obsessed with you completely.

[Megan Elizabeth]

This book is one of my favorites. It really helped me unwind a lot of my own trauma and Maggie risked her life by being here today. She almost got killed by her gate.

[Lola Blanc]

Nobody knows what we mean, but trust me, it was hilarious. Maggie, so you wrote a book called Sin bravely and that's your story. In this book is what we're gonna talk about today. I know Megan and I both resonated so much with it because of our own, you know, Megan's particular fear of hell and my particular just obsessive thinking. So can you just start by telling us what was the church that your family attended when you were growing up?

The church that I attended was fairly moderate. Actually it was a Baptist church, oddly a Southern Baptist church in the Midwest. The church was fairly moderate. But the Christian camps and the overall message, even if it wasn't dwelt on that, you have to say this very specific prayer and you have to say it with a very specific sort of sincerity and commitment or it doesn't work.

It's going to give me hives just thinking about it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I can't.

[Lola Blanc]

And there's no certificate that comes in the mail. The most important thing that could ever even conceivably matter. The most important thing and you have no confirmation whether your prayer worked, whether.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You'Re spending eternity in flames or you're in heaven. Yeah, that's the matter at hand for a lot of people who are children even today. It's a very strange little thing that.

[Lola Blanc]

We teach kids about your book. You do such a great job of illustrating how. And we'll get into more of the specifics, but just generally like how people in the churches and church camps and communities that you are a part of would just kind of respond to your questions with a thought terminating cliche like, well, you're just supposed to have faith or just let accept Jesus, but when you have a brain like yours or mine or Megan, it's gonna be like, but how do you know specifically how many times do you say it? What inflection do you use? You know, like you do such a good job of illustrating how not everybody is so comfortable, feels that certainty so immediately.

And here's the thing, here's what I was told. Sometimes that was just the kick killer was when I was told, well if you were really a Christian, the Holy Spirit would convict you of your salvation. Which was like, so the fact that I'm scared of this is an indictment. It's an indication that it did not take like that little loop that, that sets off. Oof, that's a nasty one.

Oh my God. So what was the first thing that your child brain began to sort of fixate on?

On. As soon as I said that prayer, I was, I was five years old and I remember I said it a bunch of times. That first night there was a Sunday school class where they had described the notion of eternity as they were defining it. And then imagine the worst thing you could ever imagine happening. And I imagined being separated from my parents because I had done something wrong. I had poisoned that. Like I just imagined a horrible thing. And then it continuing in. I, I was horrified and I was like, okay, I gotta say this prayer.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And what's the prayer?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, what is the prayer?

Oh Lord Jesus, I accept you into my heart as my personal savior. I repent for all of my sins and resolve to sin no more.

Oh wow, that's a big resolution.

[Megan Elizabeth]

As a five year old, that's hard.

[Lola Blanc]

And of course as an adult I can think, well, I can resolve to sin no more. But of course I have the realistic expectation that that's an impossibility. But a child's brain and do I really resolve to sin no more? And then there was the concept of the deliberate sin, which was a real kicker. And that was the Idea that if you were truly a Christian, you would not deliberately sin with forethought. You could mess up. You could, you know, bump your knee and go, shit. And go, oh, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was unconscious. You could do something reflexively. But if you were really a Christian, you would not go, I am going to lie in this situation. Like, I remember one when I was a kid that I just spun out about. We had. I was like maybe 8, and we had guests over and I needed to go to the bathroom, and I was embarrassed for some reason. You know, it's just a kid. Like, I. So I just said, I'm just gonna go wash my hands. But, like.

[Megan Elizabeth]

But you secretly peed.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes, secretly peed. This child that's like, I'm just gonna wash my hands. But afterwards, I was like, I knew ahead of time that I was going to lie, and I did lie. And a true Christian, someone for whom that prayer worked would not deliberately sin. And so it wasn't here. Like, when I try to explain to people my particular head loop of this particular type of evangelicalism, it's not that the sin causes you to be punished. It's that the sin is an indication that the grace has not worked and so you will be punished.

That hurts my brain.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Okay, so the sin is not an indication that you will be punished. The sin is an indication that you have not been saved.

[Lola Blanc]

You have not been saved. It's not that the sin causes the punishment. It's like, because you're. You're. You're free and good, but if it really worked, you wouldn't be doing it.

So when you're saved, you commit no sin is the idea.

No deliberate sin.

No deliberate sin. So you could do manslaughter sin, but.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Not absolutely crime of passion. Fine.

[Lola Blanc]

Absolutely.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Lying about peeing wrong. Yes.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You know, one of the things that I got super caught in, and I don't know what the three of us have in common that made this something for us, but, like, I remember being really little, like three even. And they would always say, you know, a spirit like a child. You have to have a spirit like a child. That's the most Christian thing that Jesus loves. And I'd be like, well, I'm kind of a dick, so I must not be doing this child thing. Right. Because I'm selfish. And I'm like, you know, I want my toys and all that shit. So, like, from the jump, I was already like, oh, no, I'm not doing it right. I'm not even Being a child, right?

[Lola Blanc]

Totally. That picture of like, let the children come unto me and Jesus with all of these innocent, bright seeming children. There's a. You know, I know shame is such a buzzword these days, but I do feel like that original sin thing and not measuring up to have morality like that as a child is a real. As opposed to the Buddhist notion that we're naturally good, that we have this natural Buddha nature and it gets sullied and cramped and misshapen. But I just think that intrinsic orientation makes a big difference.

That's interesting. Yeah. What did your parents and your church leaders say when you brought up these thoughts to them?

So my parents were wonderful in the sense that they said, you are saved, you are saved. You said it right, you did it right. You're fine, let it go, let it go. And that was kind of all they could do other than rejecting the notion altogether.

Right.

But even with their reassurances, I was like, shit. I was like, my parents have been wrong about things all the time. I have seen, you know, people are wrong, they just haven't thought this through. Like I have. And I had this. I remember this ryrie study Bible that I had that had four different translations of the verses in one. So it was in four different columns. And so I would just read through. You could go to hell, you know, look in hell in the index. And then I would just read all of the verses and I'd read the four different translations. And, you know, one would be horrifying and one would be like. Like the living Bible would have something, you know, a little. But I would. And then I would read the commentary, comparing the four different. And try to decipher what the odds are because there were so many factors of that prayer.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You sound like a really chill middle schooler.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew how to party.

In a way. Your OCD taught you really good critical thinking skills, though, because you're like examining the contradictions between everything. Some of the thoughts that you describe yourself having having as a kid. I'm like, that is so intelligent, even though it is obsessive and like, probably was deeply uncomfortable and painful. Very intelligent thoughts and, and analysis.

Like, I remember, you know, like one concept that was totally beyond. Well, it's beyond to everybody. But the idea. I remember reading in these translations about the word for eternity, what the Greek word was for it. It might have been kairos, but I would. But they. One translation would be like everlasting, go and on and on. One would be like, it shatters Time, it's beyond time. One would be like, you know, it was all these ways to understand the nuances of the Greek word that eternity rose from and like going, oh, I hope it's the one that shatters time. Please let it be the one. I would feel like such gratitude to whatever that, you know, the new international version, I would be like, but. But then I would look and then another, another word for eternity would be used in an. You know, it would just.

Yeah. Did your parents, did anyone in your family have ocd? Like maybe undiagnosed? Did it seem like it?

My grandmother, who ended up having electroshock therapy and then not being able to function again, I believe had different. She had different psychological struggles, but one of them, I think was ocd. And so the fear of what happened to her was an ever present. And she was the one, she was the party girl. She smoked and wore red lipstick and perfume and she had an affair. My dad was the product of an affair, you know, so she was, you know, what I wanted to be. Yeah. Awesome.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So cool.

[Lola Blanc]

But then, but then she ended up living with us, you know, sitting in a room in a rocking chair, looking at a television that was not turned on. So I think, you know, just the way a child's brain kind of computes. Nobody ever told me that she was punished for her lifestyle, but I believe that was in my head.

Right? Right. I mean, yes. How could it not be? She was sort of the. She represented all of the things that you were not supposed to be, but that you were drawn to, but you felt like it was a sin. And then bam. Like that happens to her in that belief system. I think it'd be hard to interpret it differently, honestly.

Yeah.

[Maggie Rowe]

Do you ever scroll through social media only to find yourself bombarded by bad news, hot takes, mommy bloggers, influencers and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored yet also humbled to share more great news about their career. It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone else is doing. But what about you? How are you feeling? Is there anything you'd like to change? And what are you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making time for your mental health is key to your overall well being. That's why we make it easier than ever to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication tailored to work for you. And the best part, Cerebral offers in network care so you can focus on feeling better without worrying about cost. 72% of people say they felt better in just 12 weeks. So take the first step today. Visit cerebral.com podcast to see how affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance. Cerebral make time for mind time.

[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Lola Blanc]

What do stuff they don't want you to know. Buried bones and betrayal have in common. These hosts are all headed to the Caribbean for the first ever true crime voyage on award winning kid Free Virgin voyages and you're invited book [e-mail] truecrime.

What were some of the like compulsions that you were doing before Gracepoint? What were some of the compulsions that you found yourself doing in your everyday life?

So I had Some basic OCD compulsions like curling iron and checking the curling iron a million times, you know, needing to have proof throughout the day that I had unplugged it. So I'd make a little mark with the prong so I could look at it later on. But then I would think, wait, did I do the prong? And then re. Plug in the curling iron? So why would I. Those kind of garden variety ones, those I could manage, I mean, not manage, but the ones that killed me was when it was internal and it was confessing the sins, trying to sincerely confess sins, trying to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, above all things. And the more I was required to do that, the more I hated and resented, like love. What does that even mean? The fact that, that we were instructed and commanded to love a thing that is a spontaneous response from gratitude, to prescribe it with a punishment attached to it is such a mind screw. It's such a mind script. So I was trying so hard to love God.

I'm loving you. I love you. I swear I'm loving you.

Trying to love you. And I feel it.

But I.

And then I would have. Oh, there were thoughts that I would have that were just. Even now, it just sent a shudder through me, is I would have a thought like, God, we spend all of this time imagining how hard it is for Jesus to be on the cross for three days. This still is in my body. I'm still like. But I would think he was on the cross for three days. People have unbelievable suffering that goes on for. People are in jails and they're tortured. People lose their chil. You know, there's so much suffering. We're gonna feel bored for three days.

[Megan Elizabeth]

This is one of the only conversations I ever had with my father where he was like saying goodnight to me one night and I would stay up all night, 6am Thinking about hell and how it was inevitable and being scared. And I just said to him, like, I don't think Jesus dying was that.

[Lola Blanc]

Big of a deal.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, I would have done the same thing if it saved everybody. And again, I'm an asshole. So, like, I don't understand.

[Lola Blanc]

And he was like, that's so funny.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And he said, I totally understand what you mean. Shocking. And he was like, what was so hard about it was that. That Jesus had to be without God for those, you know, days. And I was like, isn't he God?

[Lola Blanc]

I'm so confused.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And it's like I have math homework to be doing, you know what I mean?

[Lola Blanc]

Like, I Have shit to do.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, what am I doing?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my God, this makes me so happy to hear you say that. Yes, totally. I got the exact same answer. Well, he went from the height of eternal bliss into separation from himself. God. It was like.

And that's worse than years of torture and isolation that a human would experience.

Right? That's. That's nothing. Three days and we're supposed to go.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And you know you're going to heaven forever after it.

[Lola Blanc]

Like, I mean, no one wants to do it 100%. We would all do it.

It. Yeah, I love that. That's what just made me so happy. I listen three days, I would do it, and I'm an.

The whole world for all eternity would be saved.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You have to. And. And even he didn't want to do it. He was like, do I have to? And God was like, yeah, you have to. And I was like, okay, fine.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my God.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I totally get how.

[Lola Blanc]

But then those.

Those.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I would get really angry. How dare God send everybody I know to hell? Because only the people in my religion are going to heaven. I hate you, God. And then this other side of my brain would clamp down and be like, no, I don't. I love you, God. Don't send me to hell. I'm just kidding. Like, who is that?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. It's that vicious cycle of I'm indicted by my sympathy. Really too with. I mean, I was scared for myself, obviously, but. But even like this idea of God, how could you do this to everyone and then love them, love them, love them.

Like, like, as in. Like, how could people be not saved who are in other religions?

Yeah, that killed me.

Yeah, I remember asking about that as a kid too. And I. Mormons had a better answer to it than I think general Christians.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Churches, what's their answer?

[Lola Blanc]

The answer was, well, we do baptisms for the dead so they get the chance to be exposed to the true church in the afterlife. And that's why we do baptisms for the dead, for all people who've ever lived. That we can register, you know, that.

All of the answers and like that one had to do with choice. They had to do with. Well, you had the choice. But the real. The deeper thing that I think I intuited as a child is all of our choices are based on our circumstances. We choose things because of our genetics and our environment.

Again, how did you know this as at such a young age? This is crazy.

Well, I think I just like, you're. It's all deter. Like, I felt like, oh, I Remember watching a thing about Jeffrey Dahmer, because that was around where I grew up in Chicago. That was Milwaukee. It was on the news a lot. And they talked about he had been dropped on his head. And I. As a child, and there was. They were talking about a number of. High percentage of serial killers have some head trauma as an infant. And it felt like, whoa. So all of the choices that he made that could have. So aren't we all a product of all of these different things that happen to us? Are we better than Jeffrey Dahmer? I wasn't dropped on my head.

Yeah. I mean, this is my current worldview. But for a child within Christianity at such a young age to understand that is really impressive. I also have to ask you about the T shirts, because I was absolutely losing my mind. Feel the force. Jesus.

Jesus.

What was the shirt? Please explain.

Okay, the thing that it had two different fonts. So I think it was like the Christian bookstore, the Agape bookstore, was trying to make things. Things hip. They were trying to make things. So it said in like these black letters, feel the force. And then underneath it just said Jesus.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And it was like T shirt.

[Lola Blanc]

It was a T shirt. And the idea was this was how you could bring souls to Jesus by wearing something that indicated that you were a Christian and then behaving so well that everyone would go, that's interesting. What is this Christianity thing? As if kids are responding to some moral integrity, that they're like, oh, she's behaving in line with her morals. Give me some of that. But I figured if I was doing that, that I didn't have to do the horrible direct witness, which was where you went up directly to somebody and shared your faith, often through a Bible verse that you cleverly would incorporate into conversation. Like, I remember on a plane there, oh, anytime you sat next to a stranger, that was an opportunity to witness. Oh, no.

Oh, no, not on a plane, no.

Oh, on a plane.

A five hour flight. Oh, my God.

Imagine having. Having this girl next to you and saying, do you have a best friend? Then whatever they answer, I do. His name is Jesus and he never lets me down. I know best friends let you down, but Jesus is there forever.

So you were trying to avoid this direct witnessing because it was obviously embarrassing. The worst, by choosing a T shirt to do silent witnessing, which is also very embarrassing.

It was.

And yes, my favorite thing, though, was that at first you were obsessing about whether you should or shouldn't get it, because it would, like, mean something about you if you didn't get it out of fear of embarrassment.

Yep.

And then it led you to buy even more embarrassing T shirts on purpose. Please explain.

Well, I felt a tinge of embarrassment and I was like, oh, shit, that means I'm embarrassed. I've got to prove to God that I'm not embarrassed, so I'll get a more embarrassing T shirt. And my. You know, I. I thought it would prove to God if I just kept doing increasing levels of horrible things to wear. There was. What was one? Oh, you think Duran Duran rocks? Try Jesus. It was like. Like at the height of Duran Duran, when everyone had, like, one of the four guys that they had a crush on.

Not me making the.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, the content is just so. And. And it sounds like it became like a compulsion. Like, if I don't wear this, then I'm super fucked. So the shirt is not the coolest thing, but I absolutely have to wear it because I don't want to wear it.

[Lola Blanc]

Exactly.

The bad feeling means I'm being faithful, Right?

Exactly.

I mean, when embarrassed, when, like, it means you're righteous to do a thing you don't want to do, it just is a recipe for a bad. A bad time, a very bad time that feels right.

And love God for it at the end of it, do the thing you don't want to do and then love him for wanting you to do it, whatever that means.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And if you get mad, that's bad. So don't let yourself get mad that he's making you do this again.

[Lola Blanc]

Get an even more embarrassing T shirt.

Or start directly witnessing.

Right.

But I eventually moved on to pushing myself to do the direct witness. Because I'm like, I'm embarrassed to do it. God's gonna see that I'm embarrassed. I gotta do it. So I would witness to my friends.

What's so funny is that you were, in a way, doing, like, the Christian version of exposure therapy.

Right.

Because you're doing the thing you don't want to do, that you're afraid of doing to desensitize yourself to it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Except it's backwards making you more obsessive.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

Right. Because exposure therapy. Well, wait, would exposure therapy be not doing it and tolerating the discomfort?

No. It would. It would.

But this does feel like exposure therapy. So what is it? It's tolerating.

Well, because your personal. Your actual underlying fear, your core fear underneath that is like, of going to hell or of, like, not being faithful. So you're acting on a compulsion, but outwardly, it could. It could look like the fear is of wearing the shirt. So you, you go toward that feeling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But because your core fear is not actually about the shirt. It's about the. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

I'm with you. I'm with you.

[Maggie Rowe]

Do you ever scroll through social media only to find yourself bombarded by bad news? Hot takes, mommy bloggers, influencers, and picture perfect families or professionals who are honored, yet also humbled to share more great news about their career. It's hard to not get wrapped up in how everyone else is doing. But what about you? How are you feeling? Is there anything you'd like to change? And what are you doing to change it? At Cerebral, we believe making time for your mental health is key to your overall well being. That's why we make it easier than ever to access therapy and doctor prescribed medication tailored to work for you. And the best part, Cerebral offers in network care so you can focus on feeling better without worrying about cost. 72% of people say they felt better in just 12 weeks. So take the first step today. Visit cerebral.com podcast to see how affordable and accessible mental health care can be with insurance. Cerebral make time for Mind Time.

[Lola Blanc]

You wrote about, like a pastor who you kind of voiced your doubts to, and he literally just told you to not feel the way you feel and that God sees and knows everything that we think. I can't imagine that helped very much.

It was. I remember it as being one of the worst days of my life because it took some courage to tell him that. And he basically said that my feelings were an indication that I was not saved, that the Holy Spirit, if you are saved, comes in and assures you of your salvation. So it was basically check your heart and then what in the world I was supposed to do with that?

Right, yeah. Having any doubt means you are inherently. Your fears are true. Basically.

Yeah.

Because you had them.

Because I had them. Yeah. I sucks.

Yeah.

I still, I still care. Like, if you were to act like anger that I hold, you know, try to let go of. But that, that moment, I felt like he really could have helped me. And I wish pastors across the world would have more of an awareness, even if you're, you know. Obviously I think there are problems with the theology itself, but even within the theology, if pastors were aware of ocd, if they were aware of scrupulosity. I mean, if they were aware of the horror of their notion of hell. But yeah, I would. I wish there was more education in the clergy.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

How did it get to the point where you decided that you needed to go into a facility to be treated for your. Your sinful thoughts.

It was such a cinematic moment when I think back on it now. So I was in college. I had started having sex with my boyfriend. But I justified it in my mind by saying, we're married in God's eyes because we're planning on being together forever. But I still felt the guilt. I pushed it down. I started. I had been drinking, which, you know, it was like, you can drink, but don't do it. Not do. Into intoxication. And then it was like, well, anyway, all my, like, fears of what I was doing, that I was straying, that I was backsliding. That word, backsliding. I pushed it down. And then I went to see this art house movie, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. It has nothing on the surface to do with the afterlife, but apparently he created the film as a name. Evocation of fantasies of the afterlife. Who would have known? It's a girl.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You're unconscious.

[Lola Blanc]

My unconscious. It's so, like, when people say the power of art, I'm like, boy, this dude nailed it. But it's a girl running through a garden. It's a boy under a cherry blossom tree that becomes a spirit. So all these just surreal images. And then it's these hikers walking in a snowstorm, and they gradually gets colder and colder and they gradually freeze to death. And I have this thought of, did they accept Jesus as their personal savior? And my body just went aflame with anxiety. And I was like, I've backslid. I've backslid. I didn't ever. Or I never really meant it in the first place. I never was saved. I'm never saved. And I heard this. This was. The cinematic part is I heard a scream. I heard a scream in the theater. And then I realized it was coming from my own mouth. And I stumbled out of the theater without my code. It was the middle of winter in Ithaca, New York, and I was just out in this snow, rather similar to the people that had just gotten frozen in the snowstorm. And I can feel it in my body now is. I was like, I knew it. I was like, my life's never going to be the same. I'm like, everything's changing. And I stopped having sex with my boyfriend. I stopped drinking. I stopped swearing. I start reading books that I wasn't. I started doing Bible study. I was like, I gotta get back on the right path. And I was like, no, no. And I was just like, you know, couldn't eat. I was vomiting and I was very, very ill. And I called my parents who really came through for me. They found, I mean there were problems with the facility that I went to, but it's, it's what I needed. I was like, I need help and I don't need once a week therapy. I need help. And I can't go to a secular facility because they'll be like, hell's not real, get over it. I'm like, I need and I need to work with it. So they found me a place. It was in Wheaton, Illinois, which has the greatest number of churches per capita in the United States. And so they just have tons of different programs. And the place that I went to, the thing that I am grateful for too, for them to this day, is everybody there said, you were saved, you were okay. If they had not done that, I don't know, I don't know what would have happened to me. They at least gave me that. They certainly didn't object to the notion of it. I mean that was far that they never would have done that. But they medicated me, which I needed. I was able to get my appetite back. I. We talked about ocd. I learned about scrupulosity. I learned that Martin Luther suffered from it. And then I had one therapist who was just really saved the day for me. And he told me about Martin Luther's doctrine of peca fordite, which is the brave sin. And it is sin bravely in order to know the forgiveness of God. And he essentially told me this was exposure therapy. Exactly is. He said, the most important thing is your relationship with God and you are destroying it by being worried about being punished or that you're not saved. You need to do all of the sins that you want to do and not worry about repercussions.

I wanna know more about the period right before this movie theater incident. Like were you having panic attacks? Like what was going on? No, it just. Like something just got triggered by that movie and that thought in there.

Yeah. Wow.

Wow.

Yeah. I had panic attacks constantly after that. Before I think I just had a. I think there was an underlying anxiety that was brewing because I was suppressing it. But no, I was really happy. I was happy. I had gotten engaged to my boyfriend. I was, you know, I was, I was happy. And then it broke just in a second. So a strange situation for a 19 year old college kid. I was by far the youngest person there. I was grateful to have some form of care. The medication did really help. And then I had a best friend there. She was my buddy just from day one. And she was, I think she was probably 35. She seemed so old at the time, such an adult to be friends with a 35 year old. But she was so kind to me. And later on in my journey when I started picturing God as a female, that was one of the steps that I took along my way. I would picture her as part of that image because her attitude towards me and my suffering was. It really, it really helped, it really helped me in the experience. I think she facilitated my change in some ways.

You write about this. I'm using quotation marks. Therapist Bethany, who kept pushing this narrative on like she wouldn't listen to anything you were saying basically and decided you were bulimic. And it just sounded, she sounded. I mean I, I wanted to watch the movie of your book and hate her character so much. You know, can you just talk a little bit about her role versus like having a friend and like just the difference between.

Yeah, so. So Bethany was the main therapist that I worked with and I felt like I could see her textbook in therapist school that she was working from. When she talked to me, like I could almost see her eyes go off and go on page 12, young women who are throwing up. But I kept telling her about my experience and she had decided what was going on with me. Certainly a lot of 19 year old young women are worried about their have body image issues and I really didn't. I was so skinny, I wasn't eating and I was throwing up. And she felt that the main problem was not the theology, but was body image issues and it just wasn't true.

[Megan Elizabeth]

The theology was what was making you throw up because it was so stressful.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. I just couldn't keep food in my stomach. But the more that I said, look, I am not worried about being fat. She was like, well, this seems to be a really loaded topic for you. Denial, denial, denial. You seem to be getting very upset. Right. You know, and she had a full length mirror that she brought in at one point, you know, she was like, tell me what you see. I'm like, I don't want to look in a mirror. There you go. You don't want to look in a mirror.

Oh my God.

Where is there a problem? And I'm like, I didn't.

But you look up confirmation bias in the dictionary. It's just a picture of her.

Yeah, yeah. So I kept. And I just felt like she didn't understand the. I would tell her even if I am saved. I'm like, what about my boyfriend? What about My fiance. What? You know. And she would say, well, we all have a choice. And I was like, but the choices that we make are conditioned by all these other things. We can't just say, he has a choice that doesn't. But. So what really helped me was this other doctor who told me about the notion of sin bravely. Because he understood. He understood what I was saying, and he said, yes, that is difficult. Now he didn't say, I mean, I wish he had gone as far as go, this is a scare tactic from the Middle Ages that is crippling children all across the country. It's not true. It's not true, young lady. You know, I wish she could have said something like that, but he. He did a lot better than Bethany. Than Bethany.

There's a scene in your book of you in this support group at this place, which, by the way, the characters. What characters? The people in the group were. But there's a man named Mickey who sort of like, feverishly shouts that all you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. And your response is that you've done that 10,000 times and you just can't be a hundred percent sure you got it right. Which is just, like, in a nutshell, I'm like, yes, that is. That is what OCD is.

That's what OCD is. That's. And it's such fertile ground for OCD to grow in.

Yes. Talk more about that.

I feel like probably whatever predisposition I have towards OCD in whatever environment I was raised in, it would have come out in some way or another, is my guess, but it would not have grown into the monstrosity. It would not have crippled my psyche for so many years without this fundamentalist thinking, without the notion of hell. Like. Like once I did behavioral. Cognitive behavioral therapy with the curling iron thing. Yeah, you figure it out.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, seeing if your door is locked 40,000 times a night is much different than wondering about eternity and your soul being on fire forever. It's just two different things, right?

[Lola Blanc]

Accepting uncertainty about whether something was plugged in versus accepting uncertainty about whether you are eternally damned and will literally burn forever and never see your family again. I mean, I'm not. I don't. I do not want to diminish how painful the first kind is, because I know people who struggle with that, and it's very, very painful. They're afraid they're gonna kill everyone they love. But it's just. There's no real response to someone who believes in this notion of hell that you could go to for any arbitrary sin.

Right. How do you habituate to that notion? How do you go, okay, well, like I can go, okay, I leave the curling iron in the house burns down, we get a new house, or you know, anything is manageable. But hell by definition is unmanageable.

Right. There's no way out. Once you're there, you're there. And that was one of the things that bothered you, right? That God didn't extend sympathy to the thirsty rich man in hell.

Yeah, it's like, nope, too late. Oh, can I tell you my favorite moment? This might be my favorite moment in all of literature. I'm so glad I get to say this. Okay, so that story, that Lazarus story that I hated. So if your listeners don't know it, basically there's a rich man and there's a poor man. And the rich man treats the poor man, Lazarus, not Lazarus that rose from the dead, but Lazarus treats him badly. Then at the end, Lazarus goes to heaven. The rich man is in hell, and at one point the rich man goes to Lazarus. My tongue is burning. Can you just give me a drop of your heavenly water from above to soothe my burning self? And Lazarus asks God, and God's like, tell him no.

[Megan Elizabeth]

No.

[Lola Blanc]

And it's the cruelest, most horrible thing. So I was reading in my sin bravely period after the hospital, I was reading literature that was. Could be considered blasphemous. And I was reading the Last Temptation of Christ. And they have this scene and they, they go up to the point in the story where Jesus is telling the parable and then it extends and it says, john, Jesus's favorite disciple says, lord, that cannot be the end of the story. Surely God's mercy spills over. And Jesus says, ah, John, you among all the disciples knew, no, the story cannot end there. And God said to Lazarus, of course, welcome him into the gates and welcome them all. And I just, I just cried and cried. This idea that just the beginning was reported and only one disciple was open hearted enough to go, no, that can't be how it ends. Those retelling of those stories have real power for me because now when I think of that story, I have that ending attached to it.

[Megan Elizabeth]

It's really odd because the two by twos which I grew up in is very focused on how, like, if you were to say, I'm scared, I'm going to hell, they'd be like, you probably are. Most of us are like, everyone's going to hell is essentially their, their thing.

[Lola Blanc]

Really.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, it's, it's Very hell based. But the verses that you were kind of handpicking and focusing on are things that they also hand picked and would and would focus upon. So you were kind of doing the same research. They were scariest shit.

[Lola Blanc]

The scariest.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah, the scariest shit. And I remember they would. There was a really hard influence on children. Obey your parents. And that God knows every hair that you have on your head. That was like. And so when I wanted to talk to God, I would pull a hair out of my head so that my hair count would change.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh my God.

[Megan Elizabeth]

So that I would have his attention. And I'd be like, now that I have your attention, here's what I need to tell you.

[Lola Blanc]

Megan.

I didn't know that.

Wow.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Like, a lot of the verses that you were focused on, I was also focused on. But the difference is it just feels like you were innately finding them on your own with your. I mean, the Bible that you got this huge Bible with every single different thing. It's horrible and sad, but it's also just so funny that you were doing this.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, the. The verse that killed me, the hardest one for me was the. God would rather you be. He wants you to be hot for the Lord. He'd rather you be cold than lukewarm. If you were lukewarm, he will spit you out of his mouth.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yikes.

[Lola Blanc]

And of course I felt lukewarm. I wasn't on fire, but I was trying, you know, it's like forcing yourself.

[Megan Elizabeth]

To be in love with someone and like.

[Lola Blanc]

Right, right. Dear God, I'm here.

I'm in this. I'm in this marriage. Loveless marriage. Isn't that enough? Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You go from, I'm assuming, being in the dorms and being fun to this single bed room by yourself, away from all of your friends, with an entirely new group of people, with an entirely new focus on life. What. I mean, what does that even feel like? To be 19 years old and to be addressing all of these issues?

[Lola Blanc]

I felt like I. It was like if everyone's in a race and then one person schluffs off to the side. I definitely felt like life was continuing for my. I. You know, I've heard people say this about being physically sick. It's like you descend into a different world. There's the world of the well and the world of the unwell, and you can't remember a time when you were well and you can't imagine. It just felt like I had slipped into a different sort of existence and I was desperately in love with My fiance, who continued on to do what we had been planning to do that summer, which was be ras in a dorm. We had gotten accepted and we were gonna do this together. And he continued on and he was dating people and he was kind of my. It was sucks, but he was kind of my only. Big. Not my only, but he was my biggest emotional support. So I would still call him up crying and, you know, I would measure like, is this working? Am I getting better? Am I still. And it's not like when I left, I was cured by any means, but I was eating and managing enough. I had some coping skills.

How did you get officially diagnosed?

So there was a. There were a number of different people that worked there, but there was a psychiatrist that. Well, they. They did the. Is it the mmpi, like a. Like a three hour kind of battery of tests that ask you various different questions. And then she gave me an evaluation and the test results came back, you know, oddly. It's so funny, you know, those tests have weird questions like, do you think Abraham Lincoln is a better man or George Washington? You know, it's these, like, we. It's like weird things that they've just determined if you answer this to this question, you're more likely to have, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like they're indirect questions. Yeah, it's weird. So you don't quite know what they're testing. But I remember as I was doing it, being terrified that I was lying, you know, being like, do I really think that George Washington is a better. Like, am I tr. You know, like being tripped up in the thing itself as I was doing it?

Was it a relief when you learned that, like, this is. This was something that your brain was doing? Like, did you believe that this was more of a product of, you know, this sort of obsessive thinking style, thinking habit that you had, instead of like, you know, being directly connected to the reality of sin.

Yes, it was definitely helpful. That was the one really good thing that they did for me. They compared it to hand washing and that, you know, you're never going to be sure that you've gotten every single last germ. Now, of course, my answer was, well, it's okay if you haven't gotten every single last germ if you're hand washing. It's not okay if you haven't gotten that prayer. Right.

Right.

So it was not the perfect solution, but it did ameliorate my distress. It was one thing I wanted to.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Say something about the medication that you eventually ended up going on, which I have as well. But you didn't want to take it at first because you were scared that you would become less afraid of hell, thus might be going there. So that's a double bind that you have in your brain, where it's just like, no, I have to stay diligent. I don't want anything that calms me down because then maybe I'll think that I'm not going to hell, and then I'll go to hell. And your doctor was able to make a very important point, which was that, well, the cortisol in your body is also making you make decisions that aren't in reality. So maybe kind of finding the balance would be a more realistic thought.

[Lola Blanc]

Yep, it was a good argument and a fair one. And it was my way in. Yeah, I was like, okay, that's a distorting drug too. All right.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Cortisol. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

[Lola Blanc]

It's true.

Well, so we've said the word scrupulosity a few times, and I just wanna. I'm gonna read something from treatmyocd.com which is from NOCD.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm sure we've all been on it several times.

[Lola Blanc]

What is scrupulosity? Ocd. Okay, okay. If you're experiencing obsessions centered on morals, religious codes, and your ability to adhere to them, you may be dealing with a subtype of OCD known as scrupulosity OCD or religious ocd. Scrupulosity OCD typically involves intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors focused on religious codes, spiritual beliefs, or questions of morality, for example, people with this OCD subtype often have recurring fears about sinning, making God angry, or otherwise going against their religion's rule. However, scrupulosity can also manifest as more general fears about ethics, proper behavior, responsibility for others, or other questions relating to values, like anxieties about veganism and environmentalism. Interestingly, if you go down to the symptoms, it seems like this must be a recurring theme. Veganism as like a moral code. Because there's. There's like, did I do something wrong? Have I disappointed God? Am I committing a sin if I'm a vegan? Am I a bad person for accidentally eating honey? Which totally makes sense. There's so many ways in which this can manifest itself depending on what your particular code of morality is. You know, like, if you're anti racist and you have OCD and a racist thought pops into your head, like, I'm sure exactly the same thing can come up, but. So that is sort of the realm that we are dealing with. And I don't want to say you got lucky, but, like, your religion wasn't that extreme compared to many of the people we've had on this show, where the rules are so, so strict and the, you know, thought control is. And life control is so, so strict that it almost be impossible to not develop OCD in response to being in it. You know what I mean?

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

But I do think it's more common than maybe any of us realized a few years ago, because the more we have these conversations, the more and more people we find will have had obsessions of these kind.

Obsessions of these kind in terms of religion or in terms of, like, the veganism that you're talking about or religion.

In terms of, like, people who are coming out of religions, but also in general, like, cancel culture. OCD is a thing where you're, like, worried that you'll say something wrong or you'll do something wrong and you'll get canceled or, you know, like, there's so many versions of it. But in particular on this podcast, because we deal with religion, we see these patterns kind of come up a lot. Lot.

Yeah. I think it's so interesting, the connection between particularly scrupulous. I mean, I know scrupulosity is a type of ocd, but the connection between fear of hell and finding some sort of pattern to manage it, whether it's directly related to the thoughts or whether it's some like. Did you ever see the movie Jesus Camp? You probably did.

I did, yes.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And there's that kid who won't. Who, like, he's like a preacher.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. Yeah, there's that kid. But there is a moment when one of the girls who's kind of pushed to witness, when she doesn't want to witness, goes outside and she needs to get a certain number of snowflakes on her tongue before she'll go back inside. And it was such a. I saw that, and I was like, oh, there, there it bloomed. There it blooms.

I mean, anytime you're told that someone is literally in your brain and can see every thought that you have and you're a human being, so some of the thoughts that pop into your brain that are just the natural result of being a human whose brain works.

Yeah.

I mean, some of those thoughts, the first thought's not gonna be your best thought. And then, oh, God saw that. Oh, yeah, God heard that. I gotta do something about that to let God know that that thought wasn't what I really think, you know?

Totally. And then that kind of mind screw of like. Well, it's like with the T shirt thing with me, at one point, I was like, wait, does God know I'm embarrassed? Like, he can see. He's not just looking at the outside. He's looking. He's gonna know. I feel embarrassed. I'm tr. You know, there's. There's all those different layers of how can you trick God? Can you deceive God?

Right.

It's the. Don't think about pink elephants on the wall. As soon as you say that, they're gonn stampeding in.

And. And to add on to that, the metaphor that we always. That, you know, comes up in OCD a lot, and we've talked about in this podcast, is when you have a beach ball in the ocean, and you try to push the beach. Beach ball down into the water, it's just gonna zoom right back up. Like, there. There really isn't. That's not how it works. You can't get rid of a thought by just, like, trying to not to think about it. You know, it just makes it come back more. So if anyone's suffering from scrupulosity, just know. Yeah, it's just your brain braining.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Do you guys think if you thought there was a pair of twins where you went who were, like, completely destroyed by the fact that they kept envisioning themselves having sex with their mother. Horrible, horrible thought. Do you think that they should have just seen that fantasy out to the end without guilt? And that would have been kind of the beach ball up to the thing, and you're okay.

[Lola Blanc]

I wonder. I mean, that was the problem with that facility. Well, the slogan was psychiatry, where the Bible comes first, which is a problematic attitude to have. So I felt like some of the treatment, including the treatment of the twins, had that moral overlay that. That could have caused more problems than helped.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is this, like, the thing with OCD is that it attaches onto the thing you value the most. So whatever that is, whatever you don't want to happen the most, that's the thing that's gonna make you think is gonna happen. So if you don't wanna do, like, weird stuff with your mom and you think it would be horrible to do that, that's the first thing that your brain's gonna show you.

Yes. Yes. Your brain braining is the perfect thing to say. Yes.

Apologies for any blasphemy we may have committed. We were more just talking about, you know, take us. But for someone. If there is someone who's currently struggling with this scrupulosity or religious anxiety or moral ocd? Like, what? Would you. Would you have any advice for them, Maggie?

Oh, boy. That's a. That's my. My favorite question. There were different phases to my recovery from scrupulosity. The first phase was within Christianity itself. So anybody suffering within Christianity. What I did that was so helpful for me is to replace my image of a scary, terrifying God that seemed likely to send me to hell with that of a warm, compassionate image. And I really worked to construct that. I mean, I listened to songs I listened to, like the Indigo Girls. Strange Fire. That's the first line. I come to you with an offering of love. I come to you with a strange fire of love. It was written as a love song from God to his children. And so I thought of that. I pictured women as God. I made artwork that would evoke to me a compassion, passionate, warm, pink, rosy, enveloping image. Like, I treated it like an art project so that I had a counter image. So anytime I was worried, you know, I was like. I felt guilty. I had an image that I had curated that would arise when I had the fear that did not replace the horrible image, but stood side by side and within Christianity. That was the best thing I did for myself, exiting Christianity. The best thing that I did for myself was read Joseph Campbell and realize how all of the different religions are connected and how these images are symbols. And I really came to understand how the Bible came to be created, how it's been used as a weapon of fear and extricating myself completely from the literal thinking. Those were the two things that I did. Oh, and meditate, dear God, meditate that. I don't know what would have happened to my life if I didn't have a very regular meditation practice where I can continually come back to center and see what my mind is doing and then go, all right, here we are. Here we are doing its thing. Here we are.

There's a thought. Oh, yeah. Hello thought, goodbye thought.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It's the hardest thing in the world to do. And I still struggle with repetitious thoughts, intrusive thoughts, but that's how I deal with it. That was a long answer.

No, it's a great answer. I love. I love having a distinction between within Christianity and exiting Christianity, because that. That's. Obviously, the approach will have to be very different, and the treatment would be very different depending on what someone. Someone's belief system is. And. And we always do recommend mental health professionals who are specialized in what you are experiencing. I Went to. Before I sought OCD therapy and God listeners. So sorry we talk about this so much, but before I. I saw someone who was specialized, I went to just the general therapist who kind of, you know, she just had anxiety, listed as like one of her specialty. And she was great for what she was. You know, she was great for certain things. I don't want to trash her. She was a very good therapist, but she didn't necessarily know about this stuff. She told me that meditation could be helpful. I was having like kind of non stop panic about. About the. The idea of losing my mind. And she told me meditation could be helpful. And I was like, I'm trying meditation and it's not working. And she was like, well, you can't just start now. You. You have to have it ongoing. And then my. My obsessive brain was like, oh. Because I didn't start meditating earlier, the meditation's not gonna work for me. And so now every time I meditate, it's gonna be, you know what I mean? And I would meditate and then I'd be like, how do I feel now? How do I feel now? Did the meditation get rid of it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It'll just find something. It'll just find something.

Yeah, yeah.

But I do agree mindfulness is a big part of the, like, sort of gold standard treatment for scrupulosity and OCD now. Like, being able to notice your thought and see it for what it is instead of identifying with it so strongly. It's. It's. Yeah, it's just. It's a skill we should all have is what I'm saying.

Yeah, totally.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Oh, my gosh. Well, it sounds like you're free from this belief system or do you still have lingering.

[Lola Blanc]

Fears? Lingering, but very wistful. Yeah, very wispy.

Tell us where people can find your book and. Or are you on social media?

Oh, yes, my website is maggie rowauthor.com books on Amazon. Anywhere where they sell books.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thank you. Wow. Maggie, thank you so much for getting unstuck from under your gate and joining us and writing such an amazing book.

[Lola Blanc]

Indeed. And speaking of the book, there is an ending to the book that is the reason it's called Sin bravely that we didn't actually get to talk about.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes, very strong third act ending. She discovers through her psychiatrist, a philosopher who said something about like, if you're every human's gonna sin, so sin bravely. Just be bold. Be bold about sh. Be bold about shit.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, and in her case, like, she was so terrified of sinning because of how much she wanted not to. And I think that's one of the most interesting things about OCD to me is like, it latches on to the thing that you want or don't want the most. So it's like whatever you value. So in her case, it just was a demonstration of how much she valued being righteous that she was so afraid of sinning. So for her to sin was like, in defiance of like it was. It's a really brave thing to do because she values being righteous so much.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Exactly. So third act pinnacle of this book, which everybody should read for themselves. But I. I won't give away too much, but I will just tell you, she ends up actually going at the end of her kind of summer in this institution to an amateur stripping night and doing a little strip tease.

[Lola Blanc]

She lets it all loose. I mean, no, she doesn't let it all loose, but she dances.

Yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And she takes off some clothes.

[Lola Blanc]

And this is, you know, an exposure for her. And this is a way to be brave and to kind of defy her own obsessive brain. And I think it's such a cool, like, interesting resolution to this kind of obsession about sin.

[Megan Elizabeth]

I'm obsessed with it. I loved it too. So, yeah, read the book for the whole experience, but, you know, you walk away from it feeling. Feeling a new sense of freedom. I did anyway, so.

[Lola Blanc]

Hell yeah.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Can't say enough good about it.

[Lola Blanc]

The book is called Sin A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience by Maggie Rowe. Go check it out.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yes, please. And go check us out on Apple and rate us 5 stars. Leave us a glowing review.

[Lola Blanc]

Order a T shirt at bit ly.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Trustmerge and as always, remember to follow your gut. Watch out for red flags.

[Lola Blanc]

Never ever. Trust me.

Bye.

Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delamater with special.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Thanks to Stacy Pera.

[Lola Blanc]

And our theme song was composed by Holly Amber Church.

[Megan Elizabeth]

You can find us on Instagram @TrustMe podcast, Twitter rustmecultpod or on TikTok usmecultpodcast.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm Ooh Lalola on Instagram and Olalola on Twitter.

[Megan Elizabeth]

And I am MeganElizabeth11 on Instagram and Babraham Hicks on Twitter.

[Lola Blanc]

Remember to rate and review and and spread the word.

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