I’VE SUFFERED 30 YEARS WITH OCD

By Timothée Paton

Thirty years is a long time. Thirty years of mental pain and

constant battle. OCD never takes a holiday or decides to give you
rest one day a week. It sticks with you, day in, day out. It comes
with you wherever you go.
Only those 3% of the world’s population who suffer from
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have any idea how debilitating,
terrifying and paralysing it can be.
OCD is rarely mentioned in the media and never in the Church.
The International OCD Foundation describes Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder as ‘a mental health disorder that affects
people of all ages and walks of life, and occurs when a person gets
caught in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are
unwanted, intrusive thoughts, images or urges that trigger
intensely distressing feelings.’
One of my first memories of OCD (though I never knew it had a
name) goes back to my early teens. Up to that time I had a very
normal, care free childhood. My brother who grew up in the same
safe and loving environment never suffered from it.
We lived happily in a small apartment in Central France. One day
I was alone and about to leave the house to go outside. I locked
the door. I then checked if it was properly locked. Then I checked
again. And again, many times, till the handle broke. On that day
a damn in my heart had cracked, opening the way to a flood that
almost swept my life away. Over the years I have come close to
drowning under the furious waves of Obsessive Compulsive
Behaviour. Without Jesus I would have gone under a long time
ago.
OCD took over my life. What I thought would only be a ‘teenage
thing’ that I would eventually grow out of kept a tighter hold on
my mind as time went by.
I began checking everything from making sure house doors were
locked properly, my car handbrake had just the right pressure,
lights turned off as I left a room and hundreds and hundreds of
other fears. The list became endless…
The people suffering from OCD know very well how foolish it is
to worry about such things but for some reason they do. Telling
them not to worry will not change anything. It will actually make
them even more frustrated as they perfectly know how irrational
their obsessions are...
For a number of years I felt responsible for anything that I thought
was out of place: whether it was a plastic bag in a public park or
an item ‘over the edge’ on a shelf in a shop.
It was as if I could ‘see’ what others could not and therefore I felt
responsible to do something about it. The ‘saviour’s mentality’.
As a young pastor visiting members of our church or sitting at their
home for a meal was mental torture: I could see so many things
in their house that I felt I had to fix. Concentrating on a
conversation became extremely difficult.
Very few people knew what I was going through. A few close
friends and my family. I think my parents and my brother have
suffered as much as I did, not knowing how to get me out of my
pain. But they prayed. Oh yes they did! Mum and Dad have
prayed every day for years. They have fasted, cried to God for
their son trapped in an unending turmoil.
OCD took a life of its own. Over the years the nature of OCD
changed but the pain never decreased.
I remember trying to explain to someone once how it felt to suffer
from OCD. I said: ‘Worrying about a book for example which
happens to be out of place on a shelf or slightly over the edge is
as tense mentally and emotionally as if I was seeing a child on the
edge of a bridge who could at any moment fall of. That is how
terrifying an OCD can be.’
When travelling overseas, OCD always came along. It does not
need your authorisation to travel or a visa to enter with you into
a country.
I could be in Brazil preaching my heart out at a youth event. From
the pulpit my mind is battling with a tap I fear is dripping in my
house thousands of miles away in Phnom Penh, or a plant I forgot
to ask the neighbours to water in my absence. Then as I finally
land in Cambodia, OCD goes into reverse and I start worrying
about a window in my hotel room in Brazil I think I forgot to
close or that stove I fear I did not turn off properly before I left.
Things get worse when I start writing or phoning back that hotel
to ask them to have a look at that window or that plug… I’ve lost
count how many times I’ve written those kinds of mail.
OCD never gives you any repose. The mental machine is
constantly switched on. It never really turns off. It waits for you
like an ugly beast as soon as you open your eyes in the morning.
For most of these 30 years of battle I have only really known a
few days of real peace of mind.
I can look back at some specific days when the level of mental
pain reached very high peaks. If 10 is the highest on the ‘pain
scale’, some days the pain level actually went up to 9 or 9.5. I
remember it going up that high on several occasions. It reached
9.5 a few years ago while travelling in Thailand. I was waiting for
a plane in Bangkok heading to Burma where I was to visit some
missionary friends. I can hardly take any more pain. I am walking
up and down at the airport terminal and OCD is walking with
me, giving me no rest. I remember asking this Western looking girl
sitting down with her computer if she knew of the password so I
could connect to the internet. I was desperately trying to contact
anyone out there for prayer. She looks up at me and said: ‘Are
you Timothée Paton?’ Surprised, I respond ‘Yes I am’. Then she
adds: ‘You probably don’t remember me: You came and spoke at
our youth group some years ago. How are you?’ ‘I looked at her
and said: ‘Well, to be honest with you I am not well at all. I really
do need the Lord ’.
‘I’ll pray for you’ she said. All the passengers on her flight had
already boarded the plane. She took my hand and ask God to
minister to me. I never saw or heard of her again.
As I reached rock bottom the Lord in his Grace led me to one of
His children right there in the middle of an airport.
Down that long road of pain God has often brought wonderful
people just at the right time to encourage and guide me. If you
are one of those reading this, do know how forever grateful I am
for your help.
Over the years I have probably ‘tried’ every kind of spiritual and
secular help you could think of. I flew out several times overseas
(a couple of times to America) to seek assistance from professional
counsellors. From Sozo prayer method to EMDR to Theophostic
counselling or cognitive therapy …
I have learnt that the more you feed OCD the more it wants.
Every time you give in to a fear you feed the beast.
Today at age 45, I thank God I am doing better. He has been
good to me.
There have been breakthroughs and setbacks. Thankfully in recent
years I have known more breakthroughs than setbacks.
The first real breakthrough came years ago when in Cambodia.
Back then I was a member of the WEC Field Leadership Team.
One day at one of our meetings I turned to the other five
members and opened my heart about my battle with OCD. I felt
a release.
When you bring your pain, your struggles, and your weaknesses
into the open, you have just made your first step towards
restoration.
The Psalmist wrote: ‘When I kept silence, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.’
I wish I could say I do not suffer anymore. What I do know is that
I am travelling the path of healing.
I used to always see OCD as an enemy. These past years my view
of it has changed. I realise that it can actually also be of some help.
OCD at times has been like a ‘warning sign’ telling me to slow
down or to learn to say ‘no’. It works like that ‘red light’ on a car
dashboard warning the driver that he will soon be out of petrol.
It’s similar to a headache that tells us we’ve been drinking too
much coffee or watching too much TV. A helpful warning sign. If
there is any benefit from OCD it is that it has helped me to know
myself better and to know where my boundaries are.
But I also know that God’s ultimate desire is for His children to be
free. One major breakthrough came not long ago when in France
visiting my parents. I spotted this Bible verse from 2 Timothy my
Mum had stuck on the bathroom wall: ‘For God has not given us
a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind’.
Those two words ‘sound mind’ which I had already read many
times literally jumped out and spoke life into my spirit. There is
truly much power in God’s Word!
My parents wrote to me recently: ‘We love you with all our
hearts and if love could have delivered you over these 30 years
then you would have been free long ago’.
You are probably wondering why I am sharing today my long
struggle with OCD. (It was hard to write and even harder to send
out). For several reasons:
- First to encourage anyone out there to find somebody they
trust and can open up to. The Devil wants us to keep hidden
our sufferings and our inner battles. We all go through pain.
We all battle with temptation. God’s Grace is available to
you whatever you are going through today. Find somebody
to talk to. Find a prayer partner.

- Secondly, to remember that those of us in ‘full time ministry’

suffer like everyone else. Many who have followed me over
the years have often seen one side of my life. But behind the
smile there is often pain and discouragement and even, at
times, hopelessness.

- And finally I share this testimony to highlight Obsessive

Compulsive Disorder affecting millions of people around the
world. OCD is no respecter of people. It affects politicians
and movie stars as well as people living in a slum.
The Body of Christ needs to stand up for those struggling
with mental issues. Those souls in need are found in every
church congregation around the world. They might be sitting
right next to you on Sunday morning. Too many of God’s
people are suffering in silence. I have opened a Facebook
page (in English and in French: TIM, TOC & OCD) which
will hopefully serve as a round table where those of us
fighting OCD or those wanting to know how to help a friend
suffering with it can sit and learn from each other and, most
of all, pray and encourage one another. There is nothing
 more uplifting than to know you are not the only one in the
fight.

Looking back at my life I know that OCD could have kept me

from moving out into serving the Lord. OCD could have easily
been the number one excuse not to go to Cambodia. But I decided
to trust God and to keep on walking with my eyes on Him. I
heard the other day someone saying that ‘Courage is not the
absence of fear. Courage is fear walking’. So true.
Whatever challenge you are going through. Whether it is in your
mind, in your body, in your family, your workplace, or in your
relationships, you have a choice to make: you either sit by the
roadside and give up. Or you rise up, and keep on walking.
I’ve decided to keep on walking.

Timothée –
March 26th, 2018