I started to worry about the well being of my family back in the USA. I started worrying that if someone was hurt or, even worse, died, I wouldn't be able to get home or at least not that quick. I started to pray every night. I prayed the Lord's Prayer for lack of knowing the words to say. I mean, let's face it, there was nothing wrong at home...I was just worried about the impending doom. Then I got a call one day. It was a rather sad call. I learned that a second cousin had passed away. I had never been super close with him, but yet I felt sad.
Someone who has OCD with magical thinking will often link their thoughts to things that occur in the world outside their brain. For instance, I could have started to blame myself for my cousin's death just because I had worried about someone dying while I was out of the country. Luckily, I did not do this or it may have lead me down an even worse path. I did, however, start having much more trouble with the idea of being away from family and friends, especially my parents. I started to pray even more. I would say the Lord's Prayer 3 times every night. It had to be three times. And it had to feel right as well. That is hard to explain, but if the prayer didn't feel like it was said right, I would have to start over and pray all three times again. I would also at some point during my praying ask God to watch over all my different family and friends by name. I would ask for each person to be watched over by name. That's crazy. Every night I did this. Every night!!!
But it didn't stop there. I was certain I needed to keep praying and praying properly. I was certain if I messed up in the praying that something could happen to my parents. I thought, if something happened to them and I hadn't prayed properly it would have been my fault. It got worse. I figured the best way to make sure I properly said the prayers was to write them in my journal. So every night, after I had written something about my day, I would write out the prayers. And yes, I would write them 3 times. I would guess that a lot of my journal from that time isn't worth much reading as it is just me writing down the Lord's Prayer over and over. It got so exhausting. But I had to do this every night. When my parents came to visit with my friend, it was one of the worst times. I was worried the entire night before they arrived. In some ways, I was certain their plane would crash. I prayed and prayed like crazy. And nothing happened to them. But, of course, in a way this kept my compulsion alive. Of course, they were alive because I had prayed properly.
I still have this problem...but not as much thankfully. But there is a lot more to magical thinking than just believing someone will come to harm because you didn't pray properly. For instance, I also have a magical belief that I must kiss my son good night in a particular way and my husband gets a particular kiss goodbye in the morning to ensure their safety. And I must not step on cracks in the sidewalk if I can in order to keep things okay in the world. And I must not lose my favorite picture of myself with my grandfather or something bad will happen to me. And if I am afraid of something, sleeping holding my Bible like a teddy bear will keep me safe. And if I do things in 3s than all will be okay. Crazy, huh? Well, that's good old OCD and magical thinking.
Some folks have different magical thinking patterns. It is hard to list every single one. And I am sure there will be new ones added all the time. Needless to say, it is an exhausting way of thinking and can drive you quite mad. But, of course, we hold on and work through it and make it through another day with our disorder. It's all we can do.
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