Challenging OCD on Christmas Eve

A night without usual fears allows faith to be reclaimed.

Paula Duncan

Paula Duncan is a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen, researching OCD and faith.

A nocturnal snow-covered scene of a tree, chapel and Christmas tree casting shadows.

A chapel in Krün Germany.

Andreas Kretschmer on Unsplash.

The display on my car tells me that it’s just gone 11pm on Christmas Eve, and the temperature is below freezing. It’s the sort of cold that catches your breath the minute you step outside. The trees are glittering with frost. The stars are sharp and clear in the sky. Everything feels still and clean. In the carpark, I can hear the muffled notes of the organ playing familiar Christmas carols. People in Christmas jumpers are trickling in through the main church door. I can see Santa hats, some reindeer antler headbands; some kids have woolly hats tugged down over their ears. I haven’t been to a Christmas Eve service since I was a child.

I take a deep breath and try to let go of some of the anxiety about being here. My Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder doesn’t take a break for the festive season. I have previously written about my experience with OCD: the way that it impacts my experience of faith and how it makes going to church feel difficult. I find it a challenge to sit with the doubt and uncertainty of not being 100 per cent sure that I believe in God but badly wanting to. I struggle with not knowing what verses of the Bible will be read and how I will feel. I worry about something sparking my OCD and then being held hostage by my own intrusive thoughts. This always feels worse when I’m tired, too. I am far more likely to engage with the intrusive thoughts my OCD offers up when I’m not well rested. But I’m here. Despite feeling nervous, I am happy to be here. The warm glow of the light inside the church is welcoming and the low hum of happy voices feels reassuring as everyone discusses their Christmas plans.

There is a flurry of chatter as we are all invited to wish one another a ‘merry Christmas!’ and then we fall into a restless and expectant silence as Christmas day begins.

I don’t have the usual fear of the unknown today. We are here for the carols and the watchnight service – eagerly awaiting midnight and the dawn of Christmas Day. I might not know exactly what the structure of the service will be, but I can almost guarantee that the reading will begin with words from the Gospel of Luke. We’ll be told of the census of the Roman world, and we’ll hear that Mary and Joseph would have to travel to Bethlehem. There will be no room in the inn. The baby Jesus will be born, and laid in a manger.

This story is one that I heard at childhood Christingle services. It’s the one that we were told every year in primary school with abundant colourful crafts to help us to remember the key points. I’m reminded of nativity plays – watching them and being part of them, and the slightly off-key renditions of ‘Away in a Manger’. I remember doing the reading as a Girl Guide – nervously practicing beforehand to make sure that I could pronounce all the words correctly. I remember being proud of myself for standing up and reading at all.

Armed with those memories as I cross the carpark, I know there is going to be nothing unexpected in the Christmas Eve service. My OCD still finds ways to make its presence known – I insist that I get to sit at the end of a row because that’s where I feel most comfortable. I read the order of service a few times to check that everything there is as I expect. I make some concessions to anxiety for the sake of being able to turn up at all. But I am here, and I feel safe.

The readings are exactly as I expected. I know all of the Christmas carols that we sing. At midnight, there is a flurry of chatter as we are all invited to wish one another a ‘merry Christmas!’ and then we fall into a restless and expectant silence as Christmas day begins and we wait for the minister to say a few words about what this means. I am with my family and there are familiar faces in the congregation – people I know from various places. It’s nice knowing that we are all here for the same reason and with the same intention.

There are many cheerful Christmas wishes as we leave the church and I’m proud of myself for being here. Maybe my faith is something I can reclaim from my OCD eventually, however slowly. For now, I look up to the sky as we head back out into the carpark and smile at the stars twinkling down at us. I feel perfectly fine.

Since that year, lockdown excluded, my family have been to the watchnight or the Christingle services most years. As a theology student, I sometimes feel a little self-conscious about how infrequently I go to church. I sometimes joke about being a Christmas Christian in terms of my church attendance and certainly in how I engage with the Bible. I like to read a little on Christmas day and I love watching the televised service on the BBC on Christmas morning. It’s the time of year where I am perhaps most active in my engagement with my faith. I look forward to going to the Christmas Eve church services now. It’s the one time where I don’t have to battle with anxiety about going to church and know that plenty of other people are here as infrequently as I am. My OCD comes along with me, certainly, but I feel safe to be here just as I am.

Article

Comment

Politics

7 February 2024

6 min read

Northern Ireland’s imminent danger is distraction

Distraction damages much more than your concentration. Its consequences could cost Northern Ireland its future.

Andy Flannagan

Andy Flannagan is an author, organiser and musician.

Smartly dressed politicians sit or mill around a round table.

Rishi Sunak with the leaders of the Northern Ireland Government.

Prime Minister's Office.

Should you be reading this article right now? Are you meant to be working? Perhaps you’re working from home with the glorious ‘freedom’ that brings? Forgive me for judging, but it’s just that I know myself all too well. Dear reader, I must confess to you that in the course of writing this article I have already ‘cut away’ to cricket scores or my fascinating chess match with covidchessfun34 more than a few times. We are an increasingly distractable people. But you’re here now, so whether you landed here through word of mouth or social media, welcome. Much as you would (I am sure) love me to deconstruct yours and my individual psychology and boundaries, my hopefully more important point here is that distraction also operates at a political level.

It’s been a frustrating few years for the people of Northern Ireland. Which when placed on top of the devastating history of the last 50 years seems a tad cruel. Just when the Good Friday Agreement seemed to have pulled off a miraculous balancing act on the high wire of a divided island with contested history, Brexit came along to throw off NI’s centre of gravity. It was in fact thrown off to such an extent that NI was left just trying to cling on, balance and survive, rendering no forward progress possible. Sadly, the circus metaphor seems appropriate in more ways than one.

Given that context, you can appreciate how the people of Northern Ireland felt this week when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak flew into Belfast and attempted to educate them. He urged the newly formed Northern Ireland executive to focus on ‘things that matter’ rather than constitutional change. With hospital waiting lists that rival Sierra Leone and some roads that rival, well, Sierra Leone, I think that folks in Northern Ireland get that ‘things that matter’ are the things that matter. Of course, what the Prime Minister is talking about is Northern Ireland’s obsession with the elephant in the room - the border, or the desired removal of it. We don’t just talk about the elephant in the room. We study her in minute detail. We build brand new scientific devices just to study her. So, to be fair to the Prime Minister, ‘Don’t get distracted by the border’ is at a surface level an important thing to hear. Especially as Northern Ireland’s new First Minister Michelle O’Neill has not been shy about putting a United Ireland firmly on the agenda in her first days in office.

Condescension from someone that knows more than you is challenging, but condescension from someone who knows less than you do really grates.

But what has grated the good people of Northern Ireland is that this sermon to not be distracted by constitutional change was delivered by one of the chief exponents of Brexit – the biggest constitutional upheaval for Northern Ireland in a generation. The time spent and the regulatory gymnastics involved in trying to do a job of Brexit damage limitation for Northern Ireland has sucked the political energy and life out of these last seven years in Belfast and beyond.

None of us enjoy condescension. It is that annoying thing that happens when people know more about a subject than we do and lord it over us. But what the people of Northern Ireland have had to endure in this last decade is being lectured by the Jacob Rees-Moggs of this world about the wonders of Brexit, when it became patently clear to most Northern Irish folks that not only had the particular challenges of NI not been fully considered but that even senior Brexit-supporting politicians didn’t actually understand the logistics how NI currently operated within the EU. Condescension from someone that knows more than you is challenging, but condescension from someone who knows less than you do really grates. And that’s only the nuts and bolts we’re talking about. Probably more detrimental was the ignorant blind spot around identity and psychology that was exposed. A palpable lack of knowledge was exposed regarding how the Good Friday Agreement combined with EU membership had created a remarkable ‘safe space’ in Northern Ireland where people who wanted to feel Irish could feel Irish and people who wanted to feel British could feel British. Condescension feels even worse when it seems that people don’t understand your circumstances or care about you.

The force(s) of darkness are not idiots. They don’t waste time for most of us tempting us with the big stuff. In short, they try to distract us.

So, I put it to you that the consequences of distraction can be large. Those of us with Irish DNA need to hear the challenge that our obsession with the border has led to us not loving our neighbour as ourselves and stolen decades of healthy existence from our island. But might it be wise to at least consider that the distraction of Brexit has stolen and may continue to steal decades of focus on climate change, strengthening family life, healthcare, immigration, economic justice, international peacebuilding, and maintaining local service provision from local councils. In short, ‘things that matter’.

The temptation is to see distractions as whimsical, temporary things. We think, “ah that quick scroll through Facebook or Instagram may make me less efficient, but it won’t kill me”. But that is exactly how temptation works. If you believe in an invisible battle between good and evil (and I do), then there are some dynamics that are worth considering. If there is a person or an impersonal force tempting me, then it is unlikely to tempt me to do things that are socially and culturally inappropriate in my world. I am not likely to be tempted to murder someone this morning. That would be an inefficient tempting strategy. But it would appear from the state of the world that whoever is in charge of tempting is actually quite good at it.

That’s why I believe we are more usually tempted not to swing dramatically one way or the other but by a small shift of the needle. Just a little bit more than the day before. Not tempted to kill someone but tempted to score that point in a social media discussion. Not tempted to rob a bank, but tempted to ‘creatively’ adjust small increments in our tax reporting. Not tempted to commit adultery, but tempted to linger too long in a conversation or on a website.

The force(s) of darkness are not idiots. They don’t waste time for most of us tempting us with the big stuff. In short, they try to distract us. Just a little wander off the main path. Won’t hurt anyone. Won’t take up much time. Except that habits form and unhealthy practices and opinions start to solidify, and ever-so-subtly the wheels may start to come off. Multiply that by a few million people and a whole country can end up hacking through gorse and bushes rather than driving on the track.

Sure, a marriage can be patched up after innocent distraction becomes a porn addiction, but there will be wounds and scars. We need to acknowledge and repent to allow healing. The people of Northern Ireland know all too well that real reconciliation needs the hard yards of repentance and forgiveness.

My prayer for the new Northern Ireland executive is that they can avoid further distractions and keep the main thing the main thing. At present only seven per cent of young people in Northern Ireland attend an integrated school. That means that the vast majority of people are growing up not getting to know kids from the other side of the religious divide. In that vacuum the fear, ignorance and prejudice can fester. Our own secret apartheid. That would be one place to start.

Speaking of which. Get back to work.