Maryn is recoloring her brain
On religious OCD and learning to live beyond black-and-white thinking
I’ve committed myself to writing about the things I really need to write. This week, I sat down to try and for some reason felt like I had to write out my whole story, all at once.
Some parts of it came out okay. Other parts I realized I’m not quite ready to write about.
A friend told me reading my newsletter feels like going on a journey with me and I’m glad because I’m absolutely going on a journey over here! And right now, the journey looks like not forcing myself to write parts of my story that I’m not ready to write just yet.
I want this to remain a space where I feel open to explore and write about whatever I feel like, whenever it feels right to do so. I also want to gently push myself to write the stuff that requires more courage on my part. I’m working on finding that balance: of ease and discomfort.
All this to say… I want to tell you about younger Maryn.
I grew up Mormon, a.k.a. a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a suburb outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m a descendant of Mormon pioneers who immigrated from Europe to Utah in the 1800’s. For me, Mormonism runs deep. It was the foundation upon which my entire identity and life were formed — and the same was true for generations before me.
As a kid growing up in the church, my life mission was to be the best Mormon I could possibly be. I latched onto the church’s guidance for how to live a righteous, blessed life. It was all I knew.
I was a teenager when the self-loathing started. I did my best to be perfect, but it could never be enough. My mental health started to suffer, and I began experiencing intrusive thoughts. The church teaches that you must keep your thoughts clean and pure, and all of a sudden my mind seemed to be turning against me. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I was being overtaken by the devil.
Thankfully the church’s website had advice for keeping your thoughts holy, namely to shut out any unwanted thoughts by singing hymns or reciting scriptures in your mind. So that’s what I did. Obsessively. Only it didn’t actually work. It made things worse.
I know now that what I was experiencing was most likely religious OCD (also referred to as scrupulosity). I know now that the best thing to do for OCD is to not give any weight to intrusive thoughts and to just let them pass without judgment. But at the time, it felt like I was under attack and the only thing I could do was try even harder to be perfect.
I spent a lot of my life in that mode: afraid of my brain and overcompensating by zealously seeking the Mormon standard of perfection. When I was serving as a missionary in 2014, I realized my level of zeal wasn’t totally normal and that it made me a bit intense. Other missionaries told me to my face that they found me annoying or that they didn’t like me because I was so fixated on exactly obeying every single missionary rule (of which there were many). I had to obey every rule. Otherwise, how would I know I was good? Otherwise, how would I protect myself from the darkness I so feared?
It was on my mission that I first realized that maybe my obsession with perfection wasn’t healthy. I started to loosen up — but only a little. (After all, my whole identity was wrapped around being good.)
I got married less than a year after my mission to a cute boy from Singapore named Freddy. As the years went on, I made a conscious effort to become more open-minded. Inspiring voices on the internet helped me consider other perspectives and that there isn’t one right way to live a life.
On one sleepless night, I stumbled across an Instagram post about OCD. I had never understood anything about OCD outside of the context of shows like Monk or jokes people make about being “so OCD” (side note: please don’t joke about being OCD). I was stunned to see my experience described in acute detail, especially because I didn’t know it was a pattern that existed outside of myself. I thought it was only me.
I struggle to describe the years since then. A lot has happened! Freddy and I moved to Paris. We moved to Malaysia. We moved back to Paris. 2020 happened. Paradigms shifted. We moved to D.C. We got a dog. We moved to Virginia. I went to grad school.
Through it all, I got to know myself and life a little better. I learned about the world. I learned more about mental health. I learned about scrupulosity. I learned that life is richer when you’re not moving through it with clenched fists, silently judging yourself and everyone around you. I learned that maybe there isn’t always a clear distinction between good and bad, and maybe I can focus on just being.
What I really need to say is that if you knew a past version of Maryn, I’m not that person anymore. I mean, I am, but I’m not. I had to learn how to restructure my brain so I could live without constantly measuring myself to an imagined standard of good. Some things got lost along the way. The core parts of me are still here, but I had to let a lot go. I had to let them go to make room for love and possibility.
Sometimes I miss feeling like I have all the answers. But I’m fairly confident that life for me is better living in the messy unknown, where I’m learning how to be more fully myself, where I’m discovering and creating my own world.
Traces of my OCD and hustling for righteousness still linger. I’m still figuring a lot of things out. A lot of things will never be figured out, and I’m learning to be okay with that.
What I really need to say is that I’m here. And that’s all I know, for now.
If you made it this far, thanks for being here. As always, I’d love to know your thoughts. Feel free to comment below, or reply directly from your inbox.
Goodies
on quitting Instagram. I’m this close to quitting. THIS. CLOSE.My designer friend Kensie Smith pulled together some lookbooks of open-source artwork c/o museums like The Met! A genuine goldmine.
shared these gorgeous comics by Madeline Jubilee Saito, which inspired the comic format I attempted above. They’ll make you feel things.I’m in an era of finding fun new ways of moving my body and I’m very inspired by Amy Webb’s jump-roping.
My friends know I’m a Cup of Jo fanatic (and I will try my darndest to convert you too). I’m so thrilled that Cup of Jo has made its way to Substack via
!Until next time,
Maryn (is here)
So proud of you for both your thoughtful sharing and for knowing you need to keep some things to yourself. I grew up with some similar tendencies towards religious rule following, and it's so tricky to sort out what I still believe to be true and all the junk that gets thrown in along with it. I find myself leaning into the mystery these days--I can't make sense of everything, so I might as well be fascinated by it, right?
Beautiful! Powerful! Thank you for sharing. I love the first photo (wow!) and haiku + the visual. Moving from black + white to grey/technicolor thinking is such a powerful shift. I went through something similar in my 20s-30s and so grateful for the compassion, freedom, acceptance, peace and ease (for myself and others) that it allows me today. So glad Maryn is here :)