Scrupulosity - my ongoing battle

This post may not come as a surprise if you've read some of my previous posts or indeed follow me on twitter (@garethdawson), but in any case here it is.

I have OCD. I've had it all my life, in hindsight, and I live with it rather than suffer with it but it's not always easy (although there are many others out there who have it worse than me).

One aspect of my OCD that I struggle with the most is scrupulosity.
There is plenty of good information out there on the finer detail of what scrupulosity is, so for now I'll stick with the following: It's a OCD specturm disorder which causes the sufferer to suffer from religious and/or moral guilt/doubt.

With me it's more religious other than moral (although the moral side of it does come into things every now and then) and it comes in the form of doubt.

A bit of background:I wasn't raised in a deeply religious household, I had no religious ideology forced upon me and I never had.
In my teenage years I found Christianity at odds in life as I was experiencing it and began reading about other religions. I found the pre-christian religions of Northern Europe fascinating and within them found an approach to life, and an explanation for day to day life, that fit.
At that point I became a pagan, I suppose. I have always read widely on the subject of faith, and atheism, and I've always been a bit of a agnostic theist more than a died in the wool pagan of any particular flavour - although Heathenism ticked a lot of my boxes. It still does.
It is worth saying that all that time I still held a fondness for liberal christianity and find churches fantastic places to spend some time (and it might be the Welshman in me, but I love a good hymn!). But I find the theology/dogma too exclusive for me to be able to subscribe to.

For a quite a while this contradictory approach caused me no problem at all, although the scrupulous side of my ocd was always there niggling away.

It was a few years ago now when it became a real issue for me, and it has been that way pretty much ever since.

The way the scrupulosity manifests itself is often like this:
1. It pushes me to make a choice between two clearly different beliefs.
2. It then causes questioning of that choice from the point of view of the option not chosen.
3. It then questions the answers to those questions from the other point of view, causing a vicious circle of question, answer, doubt and frustration.

As you can imagine, it's not much fun.

The worse bit is that when looking for help with this kind of religious comparison is that is wealth of for and against information out there and believers in either will inevitably promote their chosen faith, always with good intentions.

My scrupulosity means that even trying to find some stablility as an agnostic is really difficult.

And so it goes on.

Yesterday I thought I had go through my last bout but it's still here.

I get frustrated that it keeps happening, I wish I could find a way of beating it for good, which I will.

I am doing well with all the other aspects of my OCD, I WILL get this sorted one day.
I hope it's soon.

I've written this post more for me that anyone else.
I hope that maybe it might help someone in the same position to feel not so alone with it.
I'm lucky, my wife is such wonderful support that I do wonder how I'd cope on my own.

Until next time, take care out there people and be excellent to each other!

Paganism as a recognised religion

There has been a lot of talk in the press in the last few months, particularly in one of Britain's more right wing mainstream publications, about the rights and wrongs of Paganism being recognized officially by a religion in the UK.
Now when taking on this topic it is very, very easy to get drawn into making rhetoric, biased and , in the case of the Daily Fail, down right hate filled statement making.
I'm going to avoid going down that route.

What I would like to say is that there is no reason for it not to be.
I will go as far as saying that there is no reason for anyone's religious beliefs not to be accepted and recognized.

If we accept that we live in a country that accepts an individuals right to believe what they want - which we do (and long may that continue) - then how can anyone say that anyone religious belief is any more valid than another. After all once you remove your own personal religious views out of the decision making progress then you have no choice but to accept the views of others as being valid.

Devout people, be they monothiest, polythiest, agnostic or athiest, will all hold opinions about what is valid and what is not, and some religions, and the individuals that belong to them, are more tolerant of beliefs that fall outside theirs than others, but the way to look at is it this:

If I were a Catholic then how would I like it were someone belonging to another faith were trying to belittle my religious beliefs by saying it wasn't really a religion and should not be recognized?
The answer is, of course, I would not like it.
Now then, this being the case, what would give me the right to do just that to others?

When people talk about a modern civilization being "formed" or "based" upon one particular religion and it's practices then they are wildly incorrect, especially when you consider the United Kingdom.
Whilst it is true to say that since 500ad, or so, that the country has been officially a Christian one, it is not true to say that the rules, laws and practices of this union of countries were based purely on biblical teachings.
The foundations of our laws, cultures and practices can be found to originate in Pagan Britian. The Church, be it the Catholic one or the Protestant one, never managed to fully Christianize this fair isle and remove the elements that preceded it.
You cannot claim that any one religion is responsible for the moral foundations of a group of people that existed prior to the creation of the religion.
A quick check of a decent history book will show how flawed that approach is.

Now getting back to my original point, to be fair to everyone, of all faiths, then we should scrap the list of "recognized" religions and adopt an approach of complete and total tolerance and acknowledgement.

If something rings true in your heart and soul to the point where you will stand tall and announce it to another then it should be recognized and respected by all.Simple as that.

\m/