Saturday 26 March 2011

OCD and being Quaker/Pagan

So, okay, I've dealt with being a dyspraxic, candle-phobic Pagan, and I thought that that was big.  It isn't really though, because I'm Quagan, not Wiccan.  I'm deeply influenced by Wicca, but I'm not Wiccan and I never will be.  But, anyway, I still aim to live by the Wiccan Rede, and to me, that's the most important part.  I mean, "An ye harm none, do as ye will" - who can argue with that?  It's beautiful and it's true.

Anyway, the OCD - now that is bigger - especially the hygiene obsessions.  How can you hold Quaker/Pagan beliefs and values and then do totally the opposite?  I feel disconnected from Mother Earth because I am afraid to touch Her.  The whole eco thing is a problem, and it's hard to instantly overcome it.  Yes, I know that washing your hands every five minutes, using tumble driers, using vast quantities of cleaning wipes, etc are all totally wrong.  And I can go on about the fact that I don't drive or go on foreign holidays and various other things, but that's not really the point.  The things is: guilt.  When I was into going to LDS and C. of E. churches, and into Christianity (apart from the fact that I always believed in the female Divine, etc), guilt was such a massive thing for me.  Repentance - yes, in a way, that was perfect for me, because I want to punish myself constantly for not being good enough and messing up throughout my life.  I like that Quakerism and Paganism doesn't have the same emphasis on guilt - but then I have all these issues, and I think that really I have as much Quaker guilt and Pagan guilt as I ever had Christian guilt, and I don't want to go into that.  I want to fight my OCD and I want to fight my guilt feelings, too.  Regretting the past is unavoidable, but I just have to dwell on it less.  And stuff that I know I'm still doing wrong in my life, I need to work towards correcting or improving.  Who is perfect, anyway?

I hope that I will go back to Quaker meetings eventually.  That is still one of my ambitions.  But I'm not so sure that Pagan Quakers go down well in Basingstoke, UK.  I just know that I believe what I believe and I'm proud of what I believe, so I guess that they either accept me as I am or they don't - but, anyway, that is a whole issue in itself, which maybe I'll return to in a future blog post.

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