Obessesive Compulsive

Obsessive Compulsive

"Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing,
When in His beauty I see the great King,
This shall my song through eternity be,
Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me!”

-"Jesus Loves Even Me" by Philip P. Bliss

           

            One of the most interesting true stories from this part of the world, Robert Harrill, the Fort Fisher hermit. At age 62, failed marriage, failures businesses, disgusted with the world, Mr. Harrill retreated to an abandoned WWII bunker on the beach, pretty well self sufficient, taking care of himself in a very primitive way.  His food coming from marine life in the marshes surrounding him. Not as isolated as most hermits, curiosity seekers would seek him out-visit with him-listen to his stories-make small financial contributions which kept him going. He had a guest book which had been signed, at his death, by 100,000 visitors. News was out that he had a good stash of money hidden in his bunker and evidently someone trying to get his money, killed him in 1972.   

            Of all health studies, medical, dental, homeopathy, etc. there is no study involving homo-sapiens as interesting as the study of mental health. Perhaps 50% of all of the population have mental health problems. We are all "wired" so differently, products of DNA maturing, etc. My own mental problem, and it is one of sorts, obsessive compulsive behavior. I am a victim of routine-making every minute count, despising people who lollygag around, lazy-spoiled-unconcerned, "com se com sa", "what will be will be."

            Those of us who are intense, hard on self, probably have more neurosis than the "laid back." The ugly truth, the hermit, like so many, did not have the grace of a savior and the faith to face the rigors of life. Here in, we find today's greatest problems: addictions (food, alcohol, entertainment, etc), the worship of idols (TV, sports, shopping, etc). Any activity, mental or physical done to excess is probably debilitating.  Throughout my life I have seen "sorry-ness" everywhere, including the public schools and certainly in college....people who just threw their lives away. It was in the military that I came face to face with drug addiction which at that time was mostly alcohol, more recent psychotropic social drugs (cocaine, marijuana, heroin, etc.), most hallucinogenic are relatively new. The military services were shelters for alcoholics. I remember finding one WWII decorated enlisted man drunk on duty and because of my allegiance to patients in the hospital, I reported him and he was courts marshal. Many blamed me because they considered him the victim and, so it is everywhere. It is simply politically correct to go along, to get along regardless of the outcome to everyone involved. One of my lawyer friends, state politician, told me about the loss of a family member due to a drunk surgeon. And, so it is with pilots, vehicle drivers, even teachers and preachers, those unable to control their excesses...their weaknesses. Mental health even invades the maturing of individuals. Authentic masculinity often regressive in a world where the male has become depreciated in favor of gayness. Authentic femininity takes a back seat to abusive lesbian type, "strong womanhood." Have you noticed that once soft, feminine voices are now replaced by rasping female utterances? One would think that every girl is now a chain smoker...harshness of voice.

            Only those caught up in the trauma of homosexuality know about going down alleys to a gay bar, the excitement and discovery of another gay person, the horror story of being outted-discovered and exposed. Only the disabled, blind-deaf-crippled, know the life of a leper. (The normal, sighted, healthy politicians, bureaucrats, those who are supposed to be concerned, do not have an inkling of the problems.) Only the unattractive, obese, physically ugly, autistic, the challenged and impaired from many infirmities, can know the heartbreak of exclusion.

            It starts in childhood, the need to be accepted-popular-friendship. Enough abuse, even from family members, will cause one to be reclusive. Traveling the world, myself excluded because of blindness, women who were unattractive had been left out in life's lottery, would often ask me to dine with them. Like stories I heard from young girls-recruits in the woman's army core (WACs, I was on the staff at the hospital at the army WAC headquarters). The world does not know or understand what some girls and women have endured. Wanting so desperately to have sexual fulfillment, they became the objects of perversion even in their own families and neighborhoods. Some males sought a release satisfying themselves in an effort to show attention to a sexually hungry unattractive girl. As the song goes, "many people look for love in all the wrong places." The saddest story in the world, a women spending her entire life suffering because of love, victim of abortion because of love, victim of a sad life because of the "un love" of family, an attempt to escape reality by travel, alcohol, attempting to buy some measure of satisfaction. With most excluded of the world, the search is on. Thank god many fill the vacuum in their minds, hearts, souls with the comforting fulfillment of the Holy Spirit of God...the only answer to addictions, loses of every type  (disability loss, impairments from poverty and degradation). You never recover from poverty but success does help you forget. Many girls have found that with many boys, the chase was more exciting than the catch. After she had given into his lusts, so many girls found that the boy whom she thought really cared for her, exposed himself totally in his distain for her. How many women have borne the child of a male who could only be called just a breeder, male enough to impregnate but not male enough to rear a child?

            This writer believes it is completely normal, in personhood, to prize privacy. We object the compulsive attitudes of nakedness, whether at the gym or at the airport. As one of my mortician friends said, "I try to show as much modesty in death as most women and men want in life."

            In my long, exciting life, knowing men obsessive compulsive, using metal detectors on the beach, uranium detector in the mountains, searching for precious stones in creek areas, plundering through thrift stores, clipping coupons, entering contests, dreaming with lottery tickets, the foibles, failures and fables of life known to all persons. The thing I will never understand, having climbed the hill with all its gravel and thorns, why fight the fight and then die and go to Hell?

            In The Bible, God often took his saints to the potters house. The potter was in charge of the clay. He would beat it to get air bubbles out, to keep it from cracking, but, those of us interested in antiques know that as fine a pottery piece as you can locate, old, colorful, etc. with age, no matter how wonderful-expensive, age cracks will appear on any fine piece of pottery. Appreciate the old, white haired, wrinkled product of much living and much witnessing. Let your faith control your circumstances instead of your circumstances determining your faith.