One of my favorite parts of parenting is being exposed to ideas and activities that would have never crossed my path unless we followed our kids’ interests.
I’ve read thousands of pages about space because of our older son’s interest in it. We have gone to see magic shows in Denver, New York, Las Vegas, and London because of Asher’s, our younger son, passion for magic. And most recently I finished my third Stephen King book because he’s Asher’s favorite author. I never would have read Stephen King on my own, but I quite enjoyed him.
Asher was also recently asked to select a book from a list for his 10th grade English class. Because he’s been a fan of Hank and John Green’s YouTube channel Crash Course for a while, he selected The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. He thought I would enjoy it so he asked me to read it. I did, and loved it, and from there became curious about other John Greene books. I just finished Turtles All the Way Down and, after my sobbing subsided, I wrote down a few notes to share with all of you.
Turtles All The Way Down
The story follows a 16-year-old girl named Aza Holmes who struggles with OCD. Warning: If you struggle with OCD and, in particular, health anxiety, the book might be triggering as Green goes into depth about certain very unlikely illnesses that can be contracted under very specific circumstances. Even though this isn’t a hook where my anxiety hangs its hat, I did find myself slightly triggered a few times, so if this your primary OCD theme I would recommend skipping the book.
But there are some real gems in Turtles, as is to be expected from the huge heart of John Greene – who happens to suffer from OCD. It takes one to know one; only someone with OCD could write with such accuracy about the inner workings of the obsessive mind.
One of the things he describes is the protective barrier of OCD – of how, when we’re stuck in the mind, we’re not fully present for this life. He doesn’t say it quite so directly, but that’s the message, as he writes:
“I was thinking about how parts of yourself can be in a place while the most important parts are in a different place – a place that can’t be accessed via your senses. Like how I’d driven all the way to school without really being inside the car. I was trying to look at Michael, trying to hear the clamor of the hallway, but I wasn’t there. Not really. Not deep down.”
The Pain of Full Presence
What it is to be fully present in this world – to take in the incredible risk of being human, especially when the awareness of the possibility of loss lives at the center of consciousness. And why is it that those who struggle with OCD are also highly sensitive people? We cannot ignore this fact.
Sensitivity alerts them early in life to the vulnerability of being human, then the OCD acts as a brilliant protector that shields the heart from the awareness of this vulnerability by sending a person into their head. When you’re lost in a thought spiral you aren’t really fully here. And if you’re not fully here, you are protected from everything the heart feels: the awareness of death and loss yes, but also the fear of humiliation, the unbearable possibility of being separate and alone, the risk of failure.
There’s a lot of emphasis on being fully present these days so that you can feel fully alive, but for many people for whom feeling fully alive is too painful they don’t want to be fully present. Without a healthy protective shield, being fully alive hurts too much – like staring at the sun without sunglasses. We need some kind of protection to metabolize the searing rawness of being human, some kind of protective gear for the soul – “soulglasses”, could be say? Otherwise it’s too much.
Healthy Protection
When we don’t learn how to protect in healthy ways as a child (and I don’t know anyone who does because some of it hinges on being raised in communities that have rituals together), we turn to a variety of addictions to provide that protective layer. For those who find their way to my work, the addiction is mental: the endless labyrinth of intrusive thoughts or mental compulsions that keep them separate from life. For others, they fall into substance abuse or eating disorders. These are all ways to anesthetize from the blinding sun of life.
There are better ways, of course. Meditation is one. Prayer is another. Filling in the gaps of disconnection, from physical to social, is essential. (This is what I offer in my new book). When we’re connected in all realms, anxiety quiets down. Connection, we could say, is the “soul-glasses” that makes the vulnerabilities of being human a bit more palatable.
The Element of Shame
And then there’s this element of shame, which Green also poignantly portrays. Aza is so filled with a conviction that she’s repulsive that she drinks hand sanitizer to try to “get clean” from the inside out. Like every person with OCD I’ve come into contact with, she carries a deep down belief that she’s disgusting.
But I don’t think the shame is the first experience. I think it could be anger or even rage, and when those “un-pretty” emotions are unexpressed they foment into shame. Because you can do something about the shame; it’s within your control. You can wash your hands enough or do whatever compulsion you do that gives you that momentary relief from the belief that you are disgusting. But anger or thinking badly of loved ones is… unacceptable. Or that’s what we’ve been taught. Those “unpure” thoughts morph into shame, where OCD takes over and attempts to find purity and perfection.
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PS: If you haven’t preordered my new book, The Healing Anxiety Workbook: a guide to calm worry and intrusive thoughts at the root, you can read more about it and purchase it here. If you’d like to attend a FREE publication week event, send your receipt to my assistant, Kathryn, and she’ll send more information ([email protected]). The book comes out on March 18th!
I saw a quote today that really spoke to me. “The magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding”. That’s what anxiety, OCD, doubt, whatever you want to label it, enables you to do; avoid the magic you so desperately seek. Because with magic (the gold) is also the potential for pain. It’s like youre an explorer searching for treasure nestled inbetween booby traps. Sometimes the treasure is even indistinguishable from the booby traps. And when that all seems too inconceivably hard, then many of us look for some other kind of hard. A video game version of the Explorer life. And the kicker is that the video game feels so real, and feels so hard, we forget that we’ll never win real treasure. We play and we fight and we cry and we fight some more. But The House always wins. We need to look up, refocus, see the real treasure, the real booby traps. And know that the risk, however great, is worth the reward. I still struggle with relationship anxiety, ROCD, whatever you want to call it. The same relationship for over 20 years, 11 years married. I still need to look up and refocus. I’m getting better at it. At seeing the (real) treasure nestled in the (very painful) booby ttaps. But man, that video game is addictive.
Truly brilliantly expressed!
Thank you for sharing this. As someone who is really battling health related OCD, like in Greene’s book, the protector part of OCD certainly has some wisdom to share. I just wish I got the hint. I struggle with HOW to be present with the pain and feelings of being human. I don’t know what that actually looks like in a practical form.
It’s a huge question, Jonathan. When we don’t learn how to accompany the pain of being human when we’re young, we have to learn it in baby steps when we’re older. It’s a slow process, often best done with a therapist who can hold the pain alongside you and help you learn tools for managing it. Meditation can also be very helpful for some people. As can filling in the gaps in connection, which is what I teach in my new book :).
Oh. My. God. The line “ But anger or thinking badly of loved ones is… unacceptable.” gave me chills. I was JUST talking about this with my naturopath. She was asking if my protector part was getting tired of protecting, and I said that yes sometimes it feels that way. And we were talking about that and then she asked “are you protecting yourself, or someone else?”
Which then got me thinking about how even though in the three and a half years since she died, I’ve heard story after story after story and reexamined my own experiences that show how actually awful a person my grandmother was, I still hold onto that tiny sliver of the good person I thought she was because really confronting that SHE was the problem and not me is too painful.
Especially in regards to how she constantly accused people of being perpetrators, baselessly. And my main OCD fear is that I am or would be one. And that the reality is she was one certainly towards others and what if she was to me and I don’t remember?
Yeesh. This is a new level of grief and healing to do around my OCD.
Those are very important insights, Riley. Thank you for sharing them here.
Hi Hangovergirluk, I just want to say thank you for the way you express the struggle with (r)OCD/RA ❤️ I can very much relate. I have struggled with anxiety and OCD traits on and off my entire life (different themes other than relationship, when I was much younger, obviously). It’s heartening to me to hear you are still in your relationship after all these years. Do you write? You have a lovely turn of phrase x
Thank you for another great article. I strongly relate. I also find that ‘flare ups’ happen at times of huge transitions (which your whole work is based on, I suppose). As well as being a time of huge global transition, my wife and I are currently thinking about having a baby – so my obsessions are in over drive. But they are focusing on things I can’t do anything about (eg the war in Ukraine) at the expense of the things that actually matter to me directly. In other words, the obsessions are a decoy.
At the root of it all, I think, is a fear of death. I can’t feel fully alive, because then I’ll become cognisant of all I stand to lose. I’ve also realised that part of the function of obsessions – at least for me – is to render my life miserable, so that I have less to lose when I inevitably die. I hope this makes sense; I’m not expressing it very well.
It all makes beautiful, heartbreaking sense, Joshua: keeping one’s life small and miserable so there’s less to lose. And yet… what is lost in this strategy?
as I’ve mentioned before, I think the best ‘exposure’ for OCD is exposure to all the things one stands to lose, i.e. to life, in all its richness. This reframing is certainly more helpful and relevant to me than the ‘traditional’ or mainstream way of looking at it, as it takes into account the unconscious. The thing we *think* we fear (i.e the thing we obsesses about) isn’t the same as the thing we *unconsciously* fear, the thing which you’ve very helpfully termed ‘the pain of full presence’
Yes, yes, yes. “The thing we think we fear isn’t the thing we actually fear.” Brilliant. By the way, have you read The Upside of OCD? It’s a new book and I think it’s fantastic. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you read it.
Just bought it and skimmed it for now, and it looks like a breath of fresh air. I’m so glad he gives Freud and Jung the credit they deserve!