Poet
There are some
in this world
without
an ozone layer
for feeling,
must find form
to cradle the light.
I’ve been away from here too long, but I have an excuse and a confession. I’ve turned my attention to what those with OCD get at their core but don’t often have the support or encouragement to acknowledge: the poetic.
The poetic allows us to make connections between feeling and thought that go beyond the linear and touch some of the deepest chords within.
There’s so much more to the world when you are allowed to have a poetic view, and that’s exactly what I’ve felt has been missing in the OCD treatment world. It’s precisely why I needed a break from the community—it doesn’t open its heart enough to what the poetic brings to the table.
What do I mean? I’ll use a poem to illustrate. I wrote the poem above as inspired by a client I’ve been working with who has OCD. There was no easy way to describe how easily and quickly feelings would turn into doubts, until I chanced upon the analogy of the ozone layer (as unromantic as that sounds!).
In my view, people with OCD have all too open access to the light and warmth of the metaphorical sun but with little protection from a metaphorical ozone layer. And attempting to explain that to others who do have an ozone layer is nearly impossible just as it’s excruciating for a a poet to explain to a ‘non-poet’ why they notice and connect everything they see, feel, and hear. And by the way, it also takes all the poetry out of everything too!
The great news is that it’s possible to develop and strengthen that ozone layer and still benefit from the generative potential of that brilliant sun. That’s what my task has been as a writer when it comes to OCD, and I’m curious out there if any others ‘get’ and resonate with what I’m speaking putting out there.
If so, please share your connection to the deeply feeling, poetic imagination that doesn’t get talked about in the community whether you’re an OCD sufferer or an OCD specialist.
What are the ways we can begin to talk about this condition with a bit more humanity, nuance, and complexity? Wouldn’t it be lovely it you could take possession of the gift of having this poetic sensibility and not fall into the chaotic doubts of OCD proper? I have radical hope that this can be done, and I think one way to start is completely reimagine what OCD is, how it works, how it begins, and how it might end and, best of all, find new creative form.
Good to be back with my fellow poets!