Ani Trueheart - OCD, Faith, and Social Justice

Image Description: Three people standing together, smiling with their arms around each other. On the left is Allan, an older white man with glasses and a white jacket. In the center is Ani, a trans-masculine person with medium-length curly hair and pastel-pink shirt. On the right is Bill, an older black man with glasses, and a brown cap and jacket. The background is a red brick wall.

OCD, Faith, and Social Justice

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

I was sitting in a rocking chair this afternoon, reading the silent prayers in my navy, pocket-sized prayer book. There are several words such as dedication, selfless, propagating etc. that often trigger O.C.D. compulsiveness for me.

Today was different: I felt empowered that I am making a choice to practice a religion, even though I battle Moral/Religious Scrupulosity OCD. I have participated in S.G.I. activities since 2017, but I have been hot and cold with my practice due P.T.S.D. and O.C.D. triggers associated with religious rituals. There have been several events at the S.G.I. Center here in Louisville where I have had panic attacks while chanting. I was overwhelmed by the ambiance, the layout of the building looking like a Christian church, the culture and verbiage sounding similar to Christian environments. O.C.D. tells me that I have to know whether this is the right religion. And the uncertainty of whether I am "doing the right thing" can become suffocating.

I find that Buddhist teachings are different than the harsh, authoritative version of the Christian God that I learned to fear; there isn't a hell that you go to for eternity if you get on Buddha's bad side. Actually, Buddhist teachings talk about the concept of living in states of hell just for being human, which makes more sense to me, since conditions like P.T.S.D. and O.C.D elicit so much suffering in my body-mind. Even as I learn about Nichiren Daishonin's life, Former S.G.I. President Daisaku Ikeda and the history of the S.G.I., I still get triggered because of similarities of being in a religious space. I have had many doubts and even thought that the organization was cultist. Over the years, I have worried about whether my friends will think I'm weird, whether I'm practicing the "wrong" religion and still haven't found the one that offers The Absolute Truth, and how I can live out my faith in Social Justice spaces because that world-where I have passionately immersed myself in-really had me acting from fight-flight-fawn-freeze responses. This last one has really has my mind doing gymnastics. Being fired up about taking action and getting involved in immediate causes while learning how to practice equanimity, mindfulness, compassion, appreciative joy is really confusing for me because my overstimulated and traumatized self is the person who was taking action. If my body is in fight-mode, it is almost impossible to access compassion. Or if I overwhelmed in obsessive fears about bad things happening, it is almost impossible to tap into gratitude.

I was listening to The O.C.D. Stories Podcast and a Christian woman was being interviewed about her experience with O.C.D. and how her faith overlaps with her O.C.D. themes, such as obsessions about being a good mother, a good person, a good Christian, etc. It was healing to listen to her as a recovering Catholic-Christian with O.C.D. who also struggles with the internal suffering of obsessions and intrusive thoughts about going to hell, checking whether I've sinned, harmed someone, offended God, and so on. She said something that was profound for me. She explained that faith is faith; it is a practice of accepting uncertainty. Faith is about our choice to believe in something we can't see, prove, and can never have all the answers to. It isn't about knowing.

Having faith in things we value is vulnerable. We are choosing to give up chronic skepticism, to have all the answers at our fingertips, to trust in everything physical, mathematical, clear-cut and measurable. Choosing to have faith because we are in touch with our inner world and how we feel about something is the heart of any political debate marginalized people are facing now. As humans, we have inherent self-knowledge and we deserve the agency to act in ways that honor our bodies and our spiritual and physical needs without being harmed.

It is indescribable how it feels to chant in unison with others, feeling the meaning of the words together. We connect through our voices, chanting the same words, naturally adjusting to the tones and keys and pitches of the voices around us. My spirit feels held and alive when I realize I am not alone, but have become intertwined with others. This is what I would define as spiritual.

It may sound "woo woo," but I believe in something Nichiren Buddhism calls the Mystic Law of Cause and Effect. Through this natural law, what we do has an effect in our environment. The more I practice healing and recovery in my own life, the more I believe that my faith is not at odds with the heart of any social justice endeavor, but rather, the form and shape that Social Justice culture has taken in recent years and to which I have contributed. I know intimately what it feels to be traumatized, reactive, and ready to fight. And my unhealed wounds have hindered compassion, connection and relational growth with the very people that I have been in social justice communities with and have tried to have political discourse with. If I continue to rely on my fear, shame, blame, and illusion to interact with others, I'm not going to accomplish what my heart truly desires from my activism. I think so many of us crave safety, peace, freedom, joy, ease in life, connection, love, and being understood. Do we know how to practice that with each other?

I am not suggesting that every single person needs to become a Buddhist. However, I do believe that practicing universal values such as patience, compassion, community care, self-care, faith, equanimity, and gratitude could really benefit our causes.

How I feel about my Buddhist practice is that just like any other human activity that becomes an integral part of our life, such as going to the gym, celebrity fan-boying, social justice activism, cooking, baking, and planting, political affiliation, sports teams, etc., I choose to put energy into a value system that encourages the human spirit, that teaches that change is possible for each and every person, and that with a community of like-minded folks, we can encourage each other to act in ways that lessen our suffering and cultivate a more peaceful environment, internally and externally.