Content warning. This episode contains discussion of trauma, scrupulosity, self harm, suicidal thoughts, and mental health struggles. We share this story as one of hope and recovery. If you are struggling, please reach out for help. In the US, dial or text 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline. For international listeners, please seek resources in your area.

Brenton: Hello and welcome to the Brenton Peck Podcast where we delve into people's stories and the values that shaped them. Today my first guest is Debra Peck, author of The Hijacked Conscience, a book life best of 2024 selection. For nearly 40 years, she lived with undiagnosed religious scrupulosity OCD, a form of obsessive compulsive disorder that blurs the line between faith and fear. This story is about what happens when your conscience turns against you and the freedom she found without losing her faith. Debra also happens to be my mom. Mom, thanks for being here.

Debra: Thank you for having me.

Brenton: So for those who don't know what is scrupulosity?

Debra: Well, religious scrupulosity OCD is a type of OCD that deals with the fear of sinning or the fear of not being spiritual enough or not doing your your religious duties well enough. It's um like any OCD, it's concerned with being certain. It's concerned with certainty. So like what handwashing OCD would be for a person who has a germ phobia, you know, where they wash their hands um to try and be certain that they have no germs. For a person with scrupulosity, they are concerned that um for for them germs would be like sin. And so they want to be sure they've confessed enough or they've they don't have any sin in their lives. And um it it's an anxiety disorder like all forms of OCD.

Brenton: Kind of like their version of just washing their hands but more scrubbing their soul.

Debra: Yes. Scrubbing their soul. Um and doing compulsions. So the the obsession would be sin. A compulsion would be things like reading scripture or quoting songs or specific things to help them deal with the anxiety that comes from the obsession.

Brenton: I have watched a lot of different TV shows. Criminal Minds is one of them. There was an episode with scrupulosity on it actually. Um and the person suffering with it had to do things in threes because it was tied to the trinity. So to be holy, everything had to be tied in threes and even more than that, three sets of threes. It seemed to compound and affect every part of her life. Um, how did this affect your life? Like, let's start all the way back at childhood. Did you know you had scrupulosity as a kid?

Debra: I didn't know I had scrupulosity until actually about 10 years ago, but I started developing scrupulosity when I was about 11 or 12 years old. Um, I had been raised in a very strict conservative holiness church that stressed following rules. And as a young child, I had given my heart to Jesus and loved Jesus and wanted to serve Jesus. But my family and that particular church kept telling me I wasn't doing it right. I wasn't being holy enough. And um over the years as a child, I was able to deal with that. But then when I was about 11 or 12, I decided I was going to prove to God that I really was serious because um I kept being told I was going to hell.

So in this other church the women didn't wear pants, they didn't cut their hair, they didn't wear jewelry, that kind of stuff. They didn't watch TV. And those that did, in their opinion, were going to hell. So when I was five and and my mom and a couple of us kids left that church, uh our relatives would tell us that we were going to hell. They would tell me, "Debi, you're going to hell because you're wearing pants and you're cutting your hair."

And it was really confusing to me because I knew I loved Jesus. I knew I'd given my heart to Jesus and wanted to serve God, but they made it seem as if I wasn't.

Debra: And so at 11 or 12, I I started doing things like I would um pray very specific ways the same way every time.

Brenton: Like the Lord's prayer?

Debra: Like the Lord's prayer or I would the sinner's prayer was a lot uh on one I prayed a lot uh before doing anything because I became very afraid that I was going to die and go to hell if I didn't confess my sins. And so I started confessing my sins all the time. And even things I hadn't done, I would I became afraid that maybe I had done something. And so I would confess to attitudes or or things I hadn't even done just to be sure I had confessed everything and wasn't going to be surprised and go to hell.

And so I started um reading my Bible in certain ways. And um as I started doing that, that's when I started having issues like uh reading the Bible for instance. So I would be reading along. Let's say I had decided that I needed to read the Bible all the way through because that's what we do. We read the Bible all the way through. And so here I am over reading the book of Numbers. And if anybody's ever read that, it's a delightful book with 500 zillion names that you can't pronounce. And so I'm reading along and and I'm like, "Oh no, I think I forgot a word. I think I missed a word." So I would go back and reread the the verse again, making sure I read every word. Oh no, what if I missed it again? And so I would read and reread and reread the same verses or the same passages.

And then the the thought would start to occur to me, well, why am I skipping passages? Is Satan deceiving me? which is one of the things that that the church would tell you is Satan's trying to deceive you. Or am I am I just really not wanting to be a Christian? Am I not wanting to read something and obey God? And so I would just make sure I reread the same thing. Well, when you read the Bible like that, it becomes very burdensome.

And um so in those early years as a child, it was it affected me mostly in my reading, in praying, and in um repeating the the sinner's prayer all the time before I did anything. And I started to become very fearful of death. Um like I remember as a a child, I couldn't cross a bridge by myself.

Debra: Now, if I was in a car with somebody or with somebody, I could cross a bridge, but I could not cross a bridge by myself. I was terrified that I would lose self-control and jump in. And uh I mean, it seems irrational now, but that was a very real fear that I lived with.

Brenton: In your book, you talked a little bit about it's not like that you're afraid of falling, but right, you're afraid that you might lose control and jump off because and I'm skipping ahead and around in the book. Um, but you mentioned that if something crosses your mind, then that's truth. It's not just a random floating thought, right? So, it's like if a person's driving, they might have a random thought. You know what would happen if I swerved and hit the edge of a bridge? In your mind as a kid, that same thing. If you have a passing thought, that's really deep. What if I jumped off. To you, that meant then I intend to jump off which probably meant you were intending to cause yourself harm and then that's…

Debra: Therefore I'm an evil person because I had this thought. Yeah, we we can talk about the the thought thing later because that's a really important part of religious scrupulosity. 

Debra: It's called um thought action fusion. So for most people if they have a thought a random thought go through their head they can dismiss it. You know like I use the example in in my book about so many years ago there was this awful story about this woman who drowned her children.

And so the next time when I was giving my child a bath, the thought crossed my mind. I could drown my child. Well, most people can just dismiss that as, "Oh, I saw that on TV, you know, I'm not ever going to do that." But for a person with scrupulosity, they think, I had this thought. I must want to do it. Therefore, I'm a bad person. And they become very fearful that they're going to do it.

So, back to the bridge. Yeah. It wasn't a fear of falling. It was a fear that I would purposefully jump. That I would, even though I had no intention of it, I just was thought, well, I must want to jump and so I can't cross the bridge. I became afraid of of plugging stuff into the wall. I couldn't plug stuff into an outlet because I was afraid I would get shocked and die and if I wasn't sure I had confessed my sins, then I would die and go to hell.

Um, I became fearful. So, in the other church, um, one of the things that you don't do is you don't read anything secular on Sunday. Uh, Sunday's a holy day. You can't read anything secular. And I became so fearful that I would not look out the window on the way to church for fear I would read a McDonald's sign and get in a car accident and die and go to hell for having read the McDonald's sign. So I would just keep my head down the whole way to church so that I wouldn't accidentally sin and maybe go to hell.

So it affected everything I did. Um every conversation I had. Um this is where my so I I ended up with quite severe social anxiety and a big part of that was this fear that um I would lie or or say something that wasn't true. So every conversation I had afterward I had to go home and replay the conversation in my head and see did I exaggerate anywhere because that's lying. Did I outright lie anywhere? Did I hurt anybody's feelings? Is there anything I need to go back and apologize for? So I was always going back and apologizing for some little thing that nobody else had even noticed that um I was afraid that I had done and sinned. And it's just it it totally took over my life.

Brenton: There's an interesting tension there I want to tease out a little bit. Um because I know you actually attended two different churches. Um you started in the really conservative holiness one and then you went to um the Nazarene church. Um different denominations interpret the Bible differently. So, if you're dealing with religious scrupulosity, it sounds like not just a um religious component tied to a singular viewpoint, but it sounds like there's a social component too of how people are interpreting it and conveying that to you.

And with that dynamic of two churches, like are you getting yanked back and forth between viewpoints? And as you're reviewing conversations in your head, it seems like then you're trying to analyze through multiple viewpoints, um, but they're conflicting. Like, how how could you resolve those?

Debra: Well, theologically speaking, the Nazarene church and the other church that I attended as a young child believed the same things theologically. It was in the outward appearances that they didn't agree. And so, but I was yanked back and forth. So at times I would attend the other church and try and follow their rules and then my family, especially my dad, would make fun of me, tell me I was I was brainwashed. But then by the same token, when I would not follow the rules and I would attend the Nazarene church, even my Nazarene friends would be telling me, "You don't need to do what the other church says."

And so no matter what I did, I was made fun of. And in my desire to to just serve Jesus, I think I was I was ill served as a child by both churches. Although I have I've been a Nazarene now for a very long time and have a deep love for the Nazarene church in my early years. And there was that tension between the two churches anyway because many people that attended this other church had previously been Nazarene.

So there was another dynamic going on there. when I was a child. Um but to your point about um how it's interpreted through different church lenses, scrupulosity is it affects people in every single religion.

Brenton: Not just Christians.

Debra: Not just not just Christian. It it affects Muslim. It affects um LDS. It affects Protestant. It affects Catholics. It affects uh people even who do not have a faith can be affected by religious scrupulosity.

Brenton: So like atheists or agnostics?

Debra: Atheists agnostics can all every religion and and you quite often those with without who are atheists will have a slightly different thing called moral scrupulosity where they're concerned with rules and rule breaking. But there is a portion of atheists who even though they don't believe in God have religious scrupulosity and in that scrupulosity fear God. It's it's kind of an interesting dynamic but yeah it's like OCD can affect anybody anywhere. Um and it's the same with religious scrupulosity. It's it can just show up anywhere.

Brenton: It sounds to me almost like religious scrupulosity. I'm seeing a hierarchy. Religious scrupulosity is almost a subset of moral scrupulosity. Um, which is a subset of OCD where they're kind of staggered. Overarching of the religious is a moral viewpoint where the religious is a specific um overlay of what those morals are whether it's following um the Christian morals or the Muslim morals or insert religion there it seems like that's a subset of the moral which is then all ultimately under the overall OCD spectrum.

Debra: Right. Right. And and people ask me all the time, is there a genetic component? Well, we know that OCD runs in families. So just OCD has a genetic predisposition, so to speak. And but not every so just like any other disease or whatever that people are predisposed to, not everyone will get it. But quite often if there's a trigger for a person who's already predisposed to OCD, they will get OCD. They will get their scrupulosity.

Brenton: It seems like that's the case with many mental illnesses. Um like I know bipolar is one that's oftentimes triggered by a significant event like the death of a loved one or a significant move or something. There always seems to be like you're predisposed and you might experience small amounts of it, but there's some large life-altering event that really kicks it into gear.

Debra: Right. And for me, I can point exactly to the life event. 

Debra: I was 9 years old and I had gone back the the church of my early childhood was having what they called a tent revival. So, they erected this big tent and were having revival services. And I went one night to that and as the pastor was preaching, I started thinking, well, I wonder if I really asked forgiveness of my sins. Wonder if I really asked God sufficiently to forgive my sins.

So, um, I decided to go to the altar, which is what you do in that church denomination. You go to the up to the front and kneel at an altar and confess your sins. So, I went up and and started confessing my sins. And one of my aunts came up and started praying with me. Now, Debi, tell God you'll quit wearing pants. Tell God you'll quit cutting your hair. Tell God you'll quit watching TV. Well, none of those was what I was there talking with God about. And I remember kneeling there being completely devastated, feeling I will never be holy enough. I will never be good enough. Whatever the is, I will never get there.

And that moment changed the whole trajectory of my life because I became aware of this tug-of-war between the two churches and between the two ways of of believing in God and felt very pulled both directions. And so that that started even though I didn't develop the scrupulosity till a couple years later that started me on that journey toward it.

Brenton: Yeah.

Debra: And it it has been a a moment in my life that is as clear in my mind as as something that happened yesterday.

Brenton: It's interesting you can identify that trigger point so clearly. Um something occurred to me I haven't thought of before. Have you read Dante's Inferno?

Debra: I have not read it. No.

Brenton: Um do you've heard of it though?

Debra: Oh yes. Yes.

Brenton: I haven't read it either, but I've heard enough of it in different podcasts or videos or book other books that I've read. Um, the seventh layer of Dante's Inferno, do you know what it is?

Debra: No.

Brenton: Betrayal. So, the lowest layer is Satan. And those that surround him are those who betray. And what comes to mind is it feels like scrupulosity is your own mind betraying yourself.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: But then also within that because you're also feeling like every action you're doing is betraying God because um I know in your book you mentioned you don't ever blame God. You view God as fully loving and he's choosing you but you feel like you're the one that is so sinful he can't live in you. And so what comes to mind is that Dante's inferno. You feel like you're living in that deepest layer of hell of that your mind's betraying you. You're you feel like you're betraying God. Even though that's not true. That's how you're feeling. And that image comes to mind like living with that has to feel at some level like you're living through hell.

Debra: Yeah, it is. It is hell on earth. Uh I have heard it said as I was researching my book um I came across several that said um religious scrupulosity is the most difficult mental illness to treat because it does deal with that deep relationship with God and the fear of eternal damnation.

And so yeah, betrayal of of self, that's a that's a great way to put it. A great way to express what that feels like. and the betrayal toward God because as you say I never blamed God and you know a lot of people who go through abuse or who go through difficult especially spiritual abuse where they feel like God is standing over them with a club waiting to club them down if if they do something wrong. That was never my experience. I didn't feel like God was waiting to club me down. I knew God loved me or love or God was I I should say I knew God was love, but I didn't think I was lovable. And I don't I I didn't think God even saw me as an individual because I felt I was too sinful for God to look upon because that was another false thing that I was taught through scripture that God can't look on a person on a sinner.

And so, yeah, I didn't think God even noticed me. I was too sinful, too awful, and any any punishment I got, I thought I deserved. And I share in my book a a very probably the darkest place that scrupulosity took me was in an area of self harm where I had heard a pastor preach about Paul beating his body into submission. And so I would literally take a belt and beat myself to try and show God how sorry I was for my sin and and how how serious I took it and not realizing Jesus had already taken all my punishment. I didn't have to punish myself anymore.

But yeah, scrupulosity is a is a deep level of betrayal to oneself where your own mind and your your own body betrays you over and over and over.

Brenton: I can definitely see this. Um, Dante's Inferno going to that seventh layer of hell makes me want to reread through that. Or I'd be curious your thoughts if you read through it and see if you identify the other layers of hell going up because it's typically portrayed. Um, it's kind of like hell is an eternal decension and heaven is an eternal ascension. And so you're you kind of everybody kind of starts baseline and they slowly descend into hell or quickly. I mean, but they go through these different layers.

So I'd be curious if you're at the depth of the seventh layer of hell feeling that constant betrayal. What other parts again, not that you're actually in hell, but what parts is your mind telling you that you're in hell on earth and your body and your experience? It was something I just never thought of that I found interesting.

Debra: I'll have to go back and and read Dante's Inferno and and maybe we can have a future talk about it.

Brenton: Yeah. Um I had another thought there, but it's kind of skipped my grasp. Um so let's continue on from your childhood story. I think we were talking about age 11. How did things progress from there?

Debra: So from there, I started um trying to live out the the way that this other church, this conservative holiness church said to live. And as I mentioned, my my dad would make fun of me. And then if I was, you know, and the Nazarene people would make fun of me. And then if I wasn't, then I was told I was going to hell.

So um I started descending down into depression. Of course, I had no name for it. I was a child. The church did not talk about depression. It wasn't a thing that anybody mentioned, but I looking back on I descended over a number of years into a very very deep depression. And I remember just living was like I was living down inside of this tunnel and everything I did, every conversation I tried to listen to, everything I was engaging with in life was like way out there. and I had to work really hard to function on a day-to-day basis.

And by the time I was 15 or so, um the depression was really impacting my ability to function. And I also along with that developed a number of phobias and I mentioned the the bridges, but I was I became afraid to go anywhere by myself. I became afraid to be alone. That was twofold. One, I was like a a natural fear that a lot of women especially have is the fear of being attacked. Yeah. If I'm on my own.

But the other part of that that was maybe even bigger was I was afraid to be alone because I was afraid it would embolden me to sin. That there'd be nobody around to make sure I wasn't sinning. Even though I had no desire to sin and made no plans to do so, I was afraid to be alone because I just might lose my mind and and go wild and sin, you know. Um, which is slightly amusing to me now, but it was not amusing to me back then. Not, but I became afraid of riding in a car.

If I had to ride in a car, I would say the sinner's prayer first just to make sure I had confessed my sins and knew that God knew that I I was sorry and um I just fearful of of everything. It was terrible. And so at at just before my 16th birthday, I decided I am going to since I can't seem to find peace with God and I have all this stuff because the church was telling me I was sinful. And so I thought that must be it.

So I moved in with some of my relatives who were part of that church and thinking I will fully embrace the conservative holiness way of doing things. And I did, but I didn't get any better. And part of that was just the situation I was in um with an aunt who I I also believe had scrupulosity. And um but the darkness and the scrupulosity took over my life.

And um it it's hard to describe those years. They were just the darkest things in my life. I had no hope. No hope at all that that I could have peace with God. But I wanted it. And I loved God through it all. I loved God and never blamed God. I just knew it was me.

And so, um, after graduating from high school, I went off to college. It was at the college that was part of this conservative holiness church. Um, and there again, the preaching was find what you need to sacrifice to show God you're serious. And so, I tried. I tried. I begged God, "Show me. Show me what I need to do." And there was nothing. Silence.

And I would lay down flat on the floor begging God, show me, please save me, you know, anything. And nothing. I felt nothing. I I would sit in church services and feel nothing. And so I interpreted that as I must really be sinful. I must really be evil.

Brenton: There's an extra component there though, isn't there? in that conservative holiness church. Um, you almost had to feel blessed like you had to have that outward expression of emotion. So, it's not just for context here, it's not just that you're not feeling emotion, which could potentially be normal for someone else, but in the context of this church, if you're not feeling that, if you're not expressing that, then you must not actually be feeling God. You must not have him around you.

Debra: Right. you're because there was a very charismatic kind of of interaction with God where like during the singing people would raise hands or even run the aisles or or any number of things and you know people would be weeping and crying and I would feel nothing and I talk in my book more about that and how that comes from some of my childhood experiences with my dad and and my dad's silent treatment really strongly affected me that way.

But um yeah, and so at college I decided well one of the one of the things that people with scrupulosity really struggle with there's several one is fear of blaspheming um that will blaspheme the Holy Spirit and be doomed forever. And along with that is um oh dear my mind went blank. Um fear of blasphemy. Well, and the and the fear of that you'll go to hell.

Yeah. And so I - Oh, of committing, the yeah, committing the unpardonable sin, which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Debra: And so I became convinced that because I couldn't find God and I couldn't find peace with God, that I must have somewhere along the line committed the unpardonable sin.

I had no idea how it had happened or what it was even. I just knew I that's the only explanation is I must have committed the unpardonable sin and I'm going to go to hell. There's no other choice. And another thing I picked up over the years was well the more you sin the worse your punishment in hell is going to be. And so logically I, logically, I thought um well I'm going to hell anyway. I don't want my punishment to be any worse. So, I am going to go ahead and go to hell now and get it over with. So, I don't add any more punishment.

And so, I did attempt to take my life. And thankfully, I'm still here and I was not successful and I'm very thankful for that cuz you wouldn't be here.

Brenton: Exactly.

Debra: Delightful person that you are.

Brenton: Not that I'm the entire reason for you to live.

Debra: No, but you're a good reason. And um and I managed only a couple of people at the university at the college knew about it and they were very supportive through it. But there were no answers. Just more you need to pray more. You need to have faith. You need to trust God. You need to not let Satan confuse you. You need to um find what you need to to show God that you're serious. And it just was unrelenting.

And um I did manage to make it through college and graduated. And then I came home to Idaho. Uh I was just going to be here for two weeks um on my way back up to live with family and to take a job.

Debra: And while I was here, my um childhood sweetheart happened to be in town. And uh we ran into each other. And and the short story is we 11 days later we got married.

Brenton: The short story.

Debra: The short story. And it was a short story. 11 days worth. And um I don't recommend that, but it was great for us. And we've been married now 37 years. But with that, so he was in the military. So immediately we went back to his base where he was stationed.

And my worst fear happened. He went to work and I was alone in the house. And at that point, I had a mental breakdown because I couldn't handle being alone. I was terrified. And I reached a point I couldn't, I developed agorophobia. I could not leave my house.

Brenton: For those who don't know, what is agorophobia?

Debra: So agorophobia is fear of the marketplace. Essentially, it's the fear of going outside of your house, fear of um embarrassing yourself or doing something to draw attention to yourself or whatever. But and that was all part of it.

Brenton: So, kind of like a fear of any social interaction.

Debra: Yes. Fear of any social interaction, fear of stepping outside of my house. I could not even step out the front door. And at the worst point, I could not even go to the restroom by myself. I would have to wait till your dad. My husband came home from work for lunch and then I could go to the restroom and then I would come back out and sit on the couch. I lost all personal feeling of identity. I had no personal identity.

And I transferred all of that at that point onto Norm. And that the amazing thing I still find it very amazing is as long as I was with Norm, I was normal. We went to church. We went shopping. We went places. As long as I was with him, I could function. But if he was not there, I had no sense of of personal identity. So, I did not function at all. I have a even in my own house.

Brenton: I have a couple interesting thoughts there. Um, first going back even all the way to the start talking about that um like your mind betraying yourself and feeling like there's complete separation between you and God because you've committed the unpardable sin or something. Um I go back to what I said earlier where it feels like there's a very social aspect to scrupulosity where if you feel cut off from God if um then you can't talk to him, reach to him to see what am I supposed to be doing because he's not going to answer you or so your mind tells you um then and you don't trust yourself because your mind's betraying you. you have to project that out and take your identity on other people to feel like you have any sort of identity.

So that tracks and makes sense to me. I can see how that kind of develops there. Um and then as far as being fine around dad, the Bible talks very much about Christ being the head of the church, the church being um the body and the church in Christ kind of as the model for marriage. So I can see because you studied the Bible a lot reading and rereading and rereading. So, I can see there can be some symbology there that would kind of tie back into something that feels safe, structured, modeled after um Christ's intentions. Um that would allow you to place some faith in that relationship a little bit while also having that identity form because you didn't feel like you were feeling God.

Debra: Mhm. And I think there's another aspect of it too and that was growing up I heard the verse repeated over and over. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it.

So I learned not to trust myself at all. That I could not trust anything I thought or felt. And so I had to have someone outside of myself. And um I talk in my book about many years later, it it's actually been maybe six or seven years ago. Um I was at a Bible study with Dr. Diane LeClair. Uh she's a theology prof she's a theologian and a theology professor at Northwest Nazarine University and she was leading a Bible study and she was talking about how um so a lot of us grew up hearing that pride is the root of all sin and how if you think about it you have all these women who are have low self-esteem who have no pride and no self-esteem and so she's she developed the thought that maybe idolatry is the root of all sin.

So idolatry of self or idolatry of others. So for idolatry of self, a lot of men especially that tends to be more their sin where they're very self-sufficient. They don't need anybody. They can do it themselves. They don't need God to save them. They can that kind of they can save themselves. That pride manifestation. But for women, we have idolatry of others. So we find our identity instead of finding our identity in God, we find it in others.

And it it's only been maybe six or seven years ago that I really came to understand that that is what I was doing. And there was no, oh, I'm an awful person. There was none of that because this was a skill I learned as a child. I learned to be whoever people expected me to be so that I could stay off the radar and not have conflict.

And so I didn't develop a personal identity. And so having someone I again I mentioned in the book when you were born, so you were my firstborn, I still had agoraphobia but when you were born all of a sudden I could move around my house again. I had another human being there with me and I had an identity again. And so for much of my life I did not have a personal identity. It was found in my husband, in my children, in even my grandchildren after they were born.

And my healthy identity really has only developed in the last six or seven years. And it has been an incredible transformation for me to become the person I was always meant to be. And it's a lot of hard work and a lot of um unlearning that early way of surviving. And of of allowing Christ to to build an identity in me and to become who he always created me to be. It's been a a wonderful thing to happen. And I have joy for the first time, you know, in the last six or seven years and and an identity and I go places now.

Um I still so social anxiety we'll go back to that for a minute because you mentioned you know social anx not everyone with scrupulosity has social anxiety that was just one of mine was this severe social anxiety where a afraid to be seen in public afraid that I would do something stupid or say something stupid or look stupid or or whatever just you know the whole I was not comfortable in my own skin at all.

Brenton: I wonder if that's somewhat tied back to that conservative holiness church like um they placed a lot of emphasis in some ways on your visual image like women can only wear dresses, you can't cut your hair, um men have to wear pants, like you can't wear shorts. There was a lot of those physical presentations. So with scrupulosity, I could see that being a compounding effect. If I do something, I'm going to cause I would bet you go back to the Bible verse, do not put a stumbling block in someone else's path. So, if I dress just wrong and cause someone to stumble, then I've caused them to sin, which means I've now sinned because I've put that stumbling block. Like, I can imagine a lot of those scenarios just playing through your mind with every single interaction with people.

Debra: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And and a funny one of that is so for many many years I one of my um obsessions was I would be out walking around even with dad or whatever just wherever I was and and wonder oh did I put clothes on today you know it was just that that kind of in the background kind of trick that your mind plays on you and with so much emphasis on the outward and being made fun of.

So, I was made fun of by my relatives and for for my hair. I didn't know how to do my hair and so they would make fun of me and laugh at me and, you know, laugh at my clothes. We were very poor, so I was laughed at a lot for my poor clothing and and that kind of stuff as a very young child. That leaves an impression. And so yeah, I there a lot went into forming the the social anxiety and that on top of the scrupulosity was just scrupulosity took that and ran with it.

Brenton: Well, OCD by its nature is an anxiety disorder. So when you're it's not, in some ways it's not two different anxieties. It's taking one anxiety and then amplifying it through another anxiety. Exponentially.

Debra: Yeah. And it's just anxiety on top of anxiety and it's not fun. And then you have, if you've been raised in the church, quite often you'll have be told, well, don't be anxious about anything. Bible says be anxious about nothing. And so you have heap the guilt on for anxiety.

I had this conversation with one of my relatives here recently. He he quoted that verse to me and I had the opportunity to share with him that there is anxiety that yes is from not trusting God, but there's also anxiety that's physical. That is a brain issue. That's a a misfiring in your brain that you don't have control over and you have to learn how to to deal with it.

And I may always have anxiety at some level. I expect I'll always have scrupulosity at some level, but you learn ways of dealing with it and functioning. And you don't need guilt heaped on you for having an anxious thought.

Brenton: Yeah. Anxiety can be crippling and especially when it's a mental illness. Not just I'm choosing to be anxious about something, but literally something you can't change in your mind. It's just..

Debra: Yeah, there's no reason. You're like, why are you anxious? I have nothing. My life is great. Everything's going well. What is this ball of anxiety that has me just completely paralyzed almost? And then you come to realize, no, it's it's because of the my brain, the way my brain is functioning. There's nothing I am anxious about. It's just anxiety.

Brenton: Just plagues you.

Debra: Yeah.

Brenton: Um I was thinking a little bit back on our conversation and a little foreshadowing. Um going back to that social aspect of it and the people pleasing and needing to find your identity in others compounded by not feeling like God sees you. Um you I can see you placing identity in religious leaders to tell you how to do that. Not just in anybody like I assume you're avoiding confrontation with anybody from your social anxiety but especially with um a religious leader because they're going to be able to give you the answers. They're going to give you that um relief or answer on whether something you're doing is wrong or right or whatever that may be. So, how did you how did you cope with that growing up?

Debra: Well, one of the things about religious scrupulosity OCD is that it doesn't generally show up first in the counselor's office. It shows up in the pastor's office because or at home to your parents. So, for children who develop scrupulosity, they'll start confessing sin to their parents a lot.

Um, for those that are a little older, quite often it's their pastor. So, it shows up in the pastor's office, like you say, because you who do you take your spiritual issues to? You take them to your pastor or a Sunday school teacher or a a trusted person at the church. And so, I would I would go and and talk with them about it. But there was another aspect of of the pastor thing that I should mention in the conservative holiness church.

The pastors were they were like up here next to God. That is how they were portrayed. We had to respect them as God's messenger to us. And so you didn't question religious authority.

Brenton: Almost like the Old Testament priests.

Debra: Yeah. You you just didn't question them what they said. Um that's what you went with. And so there you didn't I was actually scared to interact with my pastors um because I did well I wouldn't say scared so much as I didn't feel like I was worthy to take up time and space in people of authority.

But I also needed relief for my religious things. So I would go to my pastors and talk with them. But it was always a fearful thing that I'm taking up their time. I'm just a bother. So I had those two dynamics where I needed it but I was ashamed of need of needing it.

And um one of the things that happens quite often with scrupulosity is that pastors want to help. they truly want to help and the ways that they help people without scrupulosity are different than they would help a person with scrupulosity.

Debra: So for instance, I talk about um assurance. So a person with scrupulosity is looking for certainty. I need to be absolutely certain I have confessed my sins right. I need to be absolutely certain that God loves me. I need to be absolutely certain that I am doing everything right and I'm not sinning. And so if a pastor gives them reassurance, well, of course you're doing well. I can see what a committed Christian you are. I wish everyone in my congregation was like you, was as conscientious of you.

That settles our anxiety down. Oh, we are doing okay. But then because that feels good, then the next time that anxiety raises, what happens? We have to go back to our pastors to get that. it it becomes almost like a drug. Um I say assurance is exactly like a drug to a person with scrupulosity. And the more we get it, the more we have to seek it out. And if pastors, by and large, pastors don't know about religious scrupulosity. Um they don't know it's a a mental illness and they don't recognize it as such. And they can actually do a lot of harm in trying to help. And that is what happened with me.

Um once I got away from the conservative holiness church and started um speaking with my pastors in the Nazarene church, they all wanted to help me and they all did their absolute I had incredible pastors who um wanted to help me find that assurance but what they offered was assurance and it at times made my scrupulosity worse. Um there were some of the some of some of the times they got things perfectly wonderfully right and helped me tremendously and other times the assurance aspect was there and caused me more damage and it's the same with my counselors.

So I did off and on about 20 years of counseling before I knew about scrupulosity. This is for the depression. For the other I had other types of OCD, you know, I had the handwashing, the the locking the doors. I had the agorophobia. I had the deep depression and low self-esteem and all of those things. So, I was in counseling off and on for 20 years. The scrupulosity was never identified because I didn't talk to them about my spiritual issues.

But they would in not although there was one particular counselor I did see who was a Christian counselor and he was fabulous. Uh he helped me tremendously with a lot of things but he made the mistake of offering me assurance from a religious perspective and I became very dependent on that and it it ended up being very harmful to me.

And so in as I as I lead workshops and stuff about scrupulosity, I always warn pastors and counselors, set good boundaries with people with scrupulosity because we you you'll harm us and in turn we will wear you out cuz you'll just keep coming back over and over. We drive our pastors crazy. We really do. We are difficult people um when you have scrupulosity because you're so desperate for relief and your pastors offer relief and they they can't they need to not do that.

And that's one of the reasons why I talk so openly about my own story is because I am committed to helping pastors and counselors know about this so that they don't make our suffering worse. The suffering is bad enough. Without it being made worse by people who are actually trying to help.

Brenton: Yeah. I would I would imagine it's even harder for pastors, too, because anytime you bring something with OCD, you're going to study it more than other people. So, I would imagine there's a lot of times where the person with scrupulosity is going to know the material, know the Bible, know um

whatever their religious text is better than the person they're going to talk to. And so I would imagine there's extra pressure on pastors like how do I answer this person that seems to know all the answers, seems to already have a deep sense of all this. And so I would imagine a lot of times they're scrambling themselves just to try and I don't know what to do here. Dear in the headlights, but let me reassure you so we can both reassured. And it's like that doesn't sound like that is what you want to do at all for someone with scrupulosity.

Debra: No. And it it can also so if a pastor or a counselor is not healthy mentally themselves, they can be drawn into the the cycle themselves because they're offering they're making somebody feel better and that feels good.

Brenton: Almost the savior complex.

Debra: Yeah. The savior complex, which is really common in in pastors and in counselors. They all have to guard against that. And um we're the perfect ones to come and bring that to them cuz then they make us feel better and then they feel better. And but yeah, quite often a person with scrupulosity, they will know their their scriptures or their holy books or their tenants of religion, their doctrines, they will know them verbatim because they have tried they've spent their whole life trying to make sure they measure up. Make sure they are doing it all correctly.

And yeah, I have I laughingly say I've probably read my Bible more than almost any pastor I've ever had because that's what you did. You you read your Bible all the time. And so, yeah, I did I know the Bible. I know the doctrines. And so, my questions are usually coming from a not from a place of ignorance. They're coming from a place of knowledge that is like a double-edged sword.

Brenton: And I would imagine it's a little deeper than that. Um going back to different denominations like the um conservative holiness church only used like the King James Bible.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: But then going to the Nazarene church they used NIV. Um but then you had already you had studied some Greek. So you had read some of the Greek Bible. Um I remember as a kid I would get you different versions of different Bibles. Like I got you an archeological study Bible. Um, but how do all those different versions or how does the concordances or other stuff that you're studying play into all that too? Because you're looking up to a lot of those religious leaders.

Debra: Well, it became very So I laugh about when I first went into counseling. So I was fresh while I had graduated from college. I was married. I had two young children. And I when I was first diagnosed with depression, um so I knew, my doctor being a wise doctor, he prescribed me medication which helped tremendously to take to allow me to start working on stuff. But then he also said, "You need to be in counseling." He recognized that medication was only going to go so far that I needed counseling.

And I remember thinking, I have to find not just a Christian counselor, but I have to find a um counselor that understands Wesley and holiness. I have to get somebody that understands sanctification y the right way because otherwise he's going to lead me wrong and I'm going to end up in hell anyway. So that dynamic can be really difficult.

I have um a relative who also has scrupulosity and he struggles with even trusting his pastors because he knows he knows the Bible so well and he knows what he thinks so so much and and he's part of a church that doesn't do counseling and doesn't recognize religious scrupulosity.

And so it it's challenging. It's challenging because you're you're driven by this. It's got to be exactly what I believe. And I don't dare read something else. I don't dare read a book that might have something in it that doesn't agree with what I already believe because I might be led astray. And so there's this lack of of trust in in the Holy Spirit for those of us who who trust in the Holy Spirit like that to lead us or th or to trust ourselves. That's all lost. We don't trust ourselves and we don't trust anybody. And so it it's we're afraid to. I remember when I started reading non, well, let me back up.

So, when I first married your dad, I had never read The Hobbit ever because it had wizards in it. Therefore, it was an evil book and I was not allowed to read it because it was evil. Well, after I got married and and dad came to me and said, "Hey, have you ever read The Hobbit?" And I'm like, "No, I can't read that book." He's like, "Trust me, it's it's not a bad book. You can read it." and he um went and bought me my first copy of The Hobbit and I read it and loved it.

And then he brought me The Lord of the Rings trilogy, one book at a time, and I read those and loved them and and saw what incredibly deep books they are. And but that was a that was a hard thing for me to do. I read them with fear at first. And anything I read, if it wasn't exactly from a Wesley and holiness position, I was terrified to read it. I mean, I how dare I read something that might be Calvinistic? What if I'm led astray? You know, those kind of things. Or or what if I read something that does have a wizard in it? Oh, what if I'm led astray? What if I read a a magic spell and I'm now satanic? You know, the the fear is real. And you know, you lived through my years of Christian music.

Brenton: Yep.

Debra: Where I was raised, you can only do hymns.

Brenton: If you can tap your foot to it…

Debra: There's too much rhythm

Brenton: If you can play drums to it. It's of the devil.

Debra: Yeah. Drums were of the devil. That was how I was raised. And I can remember hearing them and just being sick to my stomach and thinking, "Oh no, Satan's attacking me because I am feeling this." Well, what I was feeling was anxiety. Caused by the scrupulosity. I wouldn't let you listen to Christian music, Christian music on the radio if it wasn't hymns. And you know, whether you followed my advice or not, that's another story.

Brenton: But I remember getting in trouble a couple times. I remember getting in trouble for um I think Casting Crowns.

Debra: Casting Crowns, yep, which I now love.

Brenton: Which is now one of your favorites. Yeah. Um yeah. Uh I had an interesting thought through all that. So, jumping a little bit ahead, but you ended with a really good relationship with your dad.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: Um, but when I first moved back to Idaho, I moved in with them for a couple months, and at the time I was wanting to write a little bit and working on different philosophy stuff I was thinking through. I had just gone through my associates degree and one of the things I was working on was actually how do you select a counselor? Because implicit in that is you're saying, "I have something wrong with me."

Debra: Mhm.

Brenton: But how do I know who can fix me? They need to have the right value system. So, I need to know what they know so that I know they know the right thing to help me out. And you end up in this complete mind twist where it's like I can't select a counselor because I'm putting trust in them inherently by going them saying they can fix me, which means I need to know their value systems, which I need to know those are

lined up and perfect, but I don't trust my own mind right now to know my value system. So, how can I make that judgment?

Debra: Welcome to my world.

Brenton: And so, it's it's a funny aside. I don't know if you ever knew that, but I was working on writing a paper about that back at the time with your dad. Yeah. Um with grandpa.

Debra: Um that is my world on every level.

Brenton: I can very much see that early when you're first going to that counselor, how hard that must have been right there.

Debra: Yeah, it was.

Brenton: And I know in the book you mentioned actually the church you were attending at the time didn't support counseling, right? I know there was a lot of churches that took the approach of um there's no such thing as mental illness. It's just a spiritual issue.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: You need to just pray it away.

Debra: Mhm.

Brenton: And so I know um you actually switched to a Baptist church for a while.

Debra: Yes, we did. So we were the one bad experience we had at a at a Nazarene church um at the base we were stationed at. Um we were attending a Nazarene church. I was still following all the rules of the other church of the conservative holiness church and um so we were but there was none of those anywhere near. So, I was attending the Nazarene church and when I knew I needed counseling, uh, we went to our pastor and asked, "Can you recommend a Christian counselor?" And his response was, "I don't believe in counseling. If you'll just pray, God will take care of your needs."

And I have never been one to jump churches and run around to different churches and and try different churches. I that's not part of my value system. But at that point, I knew if I was going to get help, I had to change churches. And the only we were in an area where there were very few um Christian churches. And so we ended up attending a Baptist church, which was a a really interesting I was terrified cuz I'm like, what if I come to believe Calvinism?

And what I discovered instead was this these wonderful, wonderful people. I remember picking up the bulletin the first week and here's alcoholics anonymous group listed and a codependent group listed and uh survivors sorts of groups. There was a whole list of people who were admitting they had problems and the church was there providing avenues for them for healing.

Brenton: Instead of preaching hell, meeting them where they're at.

Debra: Well, and instead of saying if you'll just pray, if you'll just read your Bible more, you'll be fine. And recognizing mental illness. It was my first experience with a church that recognized mental illness as not a spiritual issue that you're just trying to get out of obeying God, but that was really something and and providing room and space and resources.

So though our our three or four years I think we went there before we moved were some of the best healing in my early healing that allowed me those initial steps of starting into counseling and starting to um let people know what I was going through. 

Debra: The people at that church, um, several of them knew that I had agoraphobia, that I could scarcely leave my house alone. And I managed at one point to join the choir. And so I would drive to choir practice terrified the whole time. And well, one time I was there and I found I couldn't leave the church building after the choir. I was too terrified to go get in my car and drive home. And so one of the pastor's wives came and got in my car with me and rode with me the whole way to my house and the pastor followed.

And um I had to get them on base cuz we lived on base. And um they just didn't treat me like I had done anything wrong. They were totally supportive. Just walked alongside just walked alongside of me. And through many of those situations, I would get to church and just be paralyzed and um they would walk me through it. You know, sometimes it, this happened actually just a couple weeks ago, interestingly enough.

Um I was leading a workshop at Palcon, which is pastors and leaders conference at Northwest Nazarene University. and we had plenary sessions where we all gathered together and um in a local church and I went into the church and I couldn't make myself enter the sanctuary because I was alone. I didn't have any I wasn't there on official as an official part of a church. I was there as a workshop leader. And so I didn't really have a connection to of somebody set ahead of time to go sit with and so I couldn't I would start to enter the church and I would have I would stop and go back out and you know start to enter again.

So I still struggle, but then um my youth pastor and his wife from clear back when I was a child um they were here for the conference and they're like come sit with us and they knew what was going on. They they recognized that I wasn't able to enter the church. So even to this day, I will have glitches and have people that come alongside me and work me through them instead of well, what's wrong with you? You know, just go go sit down. Stop being anxious. Be anxious about nothing.

Brenton: Because as a kid, what goes through my mind, what would have gone through your head or earlier in your life is I can't enter the sanctuary. Well, I must have some sin in my life like that I can't enter the sanctuary.

Debra: Well, it it wasn't so much about sin for me. It was the social anxiety, the fear of appearing stupid or a fear of being noticed. You know, my my for most of my life, my goal was to be invisible, to not be noticed. And so that that fear creeps back sometimes. Most of the time, I am I move on and don't worry about it. But every once in a while in a situation like that, it I'll glitch.

Brenton: Slight funny aside, I am curious because you've been on a lot of praise teams singing with them. And I remember I used to play bass for several of them, right? And one of the things I picked up um specifically at one particular church is the praise team and worship band should not be noticed. It should be almost as if you're not there. you should blend into the background because so we all at least on the band especially we had to wear the same outfit. You don't want to stand out. You want to blend into the background, right?

Um at another church, several churches that I was at, it's if you're running sound, if anybody notices anything, you're doing it wrong. So, I'm imagining some of this playing into you being up there on the praise team. How do you get up and sing in front of people, but you want to not be noticed because you're not trying to bring attention to you. you're trying to give it all to God, but you're doing this standing in front of people.

Debra: It's been amusing to me over the years that that is one thing I was able to do, but I started singing in front of people when I was a very young child. So, there wasn't a social anxiety as much attached to that. That was a natural thing I did as a young child. I think had I not done it as a young child, I would never would have been able to do that.

And I still sometimes I'm like, how is it I could do that in the midst of all the the social anxiety I had? But singing in front of people has never been one of those things that really bothers me. It's one of the few things that didn't.

Brenton: I'm curious if it's somewhat because it's such a social norm in that position that you can do it without standing out. Not doing it almost makes you stand out more. So, it's very natural to step into it and just be a part of the social norms where you're not standing out making a difference.

It's like if you're not usually a clapper, but everyone around you clapping, you're going to clap along with so you don't stand out. So, why not sing? Why not get involved? Those who really get involved get a part of the praise team. And I don't really mean that anybody who wants to get involved has to go do that. But when you have all this pressure, it's like, no, if I really want to do this, I need to be on the board or I need to be on the praise team. I need to be part of every group and plug into every aspect. So, I could very easily see that being that easy to do in that sense.

Debra: Yeah. And I'm sure there are people that do, but um there's starting to be this phenomena recognized among pastors that there are some there is a a percentage of pastors that likely go into ministry because of scrupulosity in order to deal with the scrupulosity.

They think this is what I have to do in order to deal with the scrupulosity. And it's starting to be recognized that there there's a percentage of pastors that struggle with scrupulosity themselves. And but for me I think I have always loved to sing and always even to this day this this I don't believe is a a scrupulous part of myself that believes in participation full participation in in church life in what's going on at church.

So if you have a gift, it's not for just you. That you share your gifts within the body. Yeah. That um within the Christian church, we talk about the body of Christ and that we're all part of the body of Christ and that we have our gifts in order to edify the body, not for just us. And so I've always had a strong commitment to be participating wherever I felt I could.

And were there years that I did stuff from a scrupulosity standpoint? Oh yeah, I'm sure. And those were life sucking to me. But when I have being on praise teams, being involved with worship ministries, um, has always been very life-giving to me. I love I love theology. I love thinking about things and thinking about theology and that kind of stuff um has always been in spite even if I didn't have scrupulosity I think I would have been very um involved with worship ministry type of stuff the theology of worship and and why we do that.

Brenton: I have another curiosity actually on the music side. Um, I have a book I can maybe lend you. I need to go back and reread. I haven't read it in years. But this is your brain on music.

Debra: I read it years ago, when you first got it.

Brenton: And one of the things I'm thinking through this um you look at music, music um if you get Alzheimer's or dementia you can play they won't recognize even necessarily music that they listen to as an adult but they'll especially uh it tends to be I want to say the ages of 13 to 14, music that you heard in that period if you play that even patients who are like in a coma their brain starts lighting up um music activates.

Normally you have the left and right hemispheres art or critical thinking. Um music is actually one of the few things that activates your entire brain. Right. So where scrupulosity is in some ways like a brain disorder. Your mind's attacking itself. I'm wondering if the music portion gets past some of what your brain's um putting in your way. So, I'm curious if there's some way to use music and some of that healing process.

Debra: I have used music as as part of the healing process. So, one of the difficult parts of music for me is slower music depresses me. So hymns that are done slowly or music that is done slowly can really affect me mentally. It's not anything I have control over. It just is what it does to my brain. And I mean there's even I looked it up one time. There's even slow music can make people angry. It it affects emotions.

But by the same token, so um I don't think I share this in the book, but um so I mentioned earlier that I wasn't I could only listen to hymns. So you, we were living down in Mountain Home actually and we were stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base and um I was in counseling at the time. I was struggling terribly with depression and my Christian counselor at that time told me turn on the Christian radio station and listen to it. It's it was contemporary Christian had Casting Crowns and Mercy Me and those and I'm like I can't do that. That's not real Christian music. And he's like trust me just when you are depressed just turn it on and and listen to it.

And um one day I was so depressed I decided I was going to go drive out in the middle to the middle of the desert. Of course Idaho is desert. Drive out in the middle of the desert, drive till I ran out of gas and then just stay out there utill I died. And it was a grand plan. And so I started driving and um my counselor's voice just kept ringing in my head. Turn the Christian radio station on. Turn it on. And so finally I turned the Christian radio station on and um the song it was just fresh out was um oh it starts out why are you crying these days? Why are you striving to earn faith? Um I'll be by your side. I can't…

Brenton: Voice of Truth.

Debra: Not voice of truth. It's oh it's right on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, I'll be by your side whenever you call. Um, and that song was playing and it instantly it brought hope to me. I am not alone. God is here with me. I am not alone. And I started from that day forward listening to the Christian radio station. And I found when I was depressed or struggling, if I turned on an a more upbeat music that it could get me through over the hump of of the depression and the anxiety.

And so I still use music that way. If I am really feeling down, I'll turn on a very upbeat music and um even move to it, which is Nazarenes can't dance. Uh not because it's sinful, but we just can't, as as we like to say, but um yeah, music has been a very much a healing part of my journey. And sorry for not letting you listen to Casting Grounds.

Brenton: I snuck in different music. You probably don't remember from Washington. I listened to the OC Super Tones, which was a ska band.

Debra: No, I blocked this from my mind.

Brenton: So trumpets, electric guitar, drums. I think that was my first step out of what we were allowed to listen to as kids was OC Super Tones. Um, but I remember listening to a lot of classical growing up. I think I had a collection of 25 or 30 classical CDs, right? And I stopped being able to listen to classical for a long time because that was it was like this is all you can listen to. That's it. That's it. That's it. You can't listen to any of this other stuff.

And so then I in Mountain Home when you stepped into some of your music like that, I actually stepped into some different ones like I found some Christian rap artist.

Debra: Yes, I do remember the rap.

Brenton: Some Christian heavy metal and I went to everything you could think of. Anything that wasn't bluegrass, gospel or classical. I think at one time I was known in Mountain Home in the youth group is if you wanted a style of music, ask Brenton. He knows the Christian version of it.

Um but that's all a funny aside. Yeah. Um, I definitely think music can play a huge part in people's minds.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: Um, a funny side note is if you can tap your feet to it or if it has drums, it's evil. But you let us listen to classical which has the timpanis and other percussion. And that always kind of amused me.

Debra: Somehow my my mind did not make that connection in the same way.

Brenton: No, it was, I found plenty of music to listen to in whatever genre growing up. It all worked out. Um but to tie us back in, um we were last talking in Utah when you started going to the Baptist church and um there was a funny story there. You had talked about idols being the root of sin instead of idolatry. pride. And one of the only memories I have from that church was being in the children's choir and we were singing um might as well pray to a bail of hay.

Debra: Yeah. King Josiah and Yeah. King Josiah.

Brenton: So it's interesting you're saying some of this and it ties back in interestingly, right? But so after like during some of that time I know in the book you mentioned you couldn't even go to the grocery store and select like a can of green beans.

Debra: No part of my scrupulosity rendered me incapable of making decisions because for a person with scrupulosity there's only one right answer to any question to anything. There's only one right answer. So not everybody's scrupulosity ends up like this, but for me, so I I talk about the can of green beans.

Debra: So I'm in the grocery store, I would have panic attacks in the grocery store trying to choose a can of green beans because in my mind there was only one can of green beans that was the right one. And it wasn't so it wasn't this, oh, God has a a plan for which can of green beans I can pick and I have to figure out which one God wants me to pick. It was that the the green beans themselves, there were only a certain one that Christians would pick.

So, um, for instance, if I pick this one, the generic, it has bits and pieces in it that, you know, a vine and and your dad didn't like those. And so, if I'm loving, I won't pick those. I can't pick this one because they might support something immoral and I I don't know. So, I might be supporting something immoral if I pick that one. And this one's overpriced. and you know which one. So out of all these bad choices, which one is the only right good choice? And I I couldn't even pick a can of green beans.

Brenton: Did that present even which grocery store to go to? Because different stores would have different selections or was it more just once you're in the moment?

Debra: It was more so just in in the moment. I mean, we were we were not very rich back when dad was a young airman, and so we shopped wherever it was the cheapest.

Brenton: I remember growing up a treat was going to the thrift store and getting a 25 cent book.

Debra: Yep. And so yeah, it was but it was once I was in the store. I mean, it was it was at home. It was when you kids would come up and ask, "Can I go outside and play?" What's the right answer to that? Is is it okay for what if something bad happens to them and I told them they could go outside and play? Then I was evil for letting them go outside and play. I wasn't I I was not a good Christian hearing God's voice. And I don't you know what's for dinner. That would shut me completely down because I could open the pantry as soon as I open the pantry door the overwhelming choices would just shut me down.

And um you know people talk a lot about well the the women cook. No in our house dad cooked. Um it started out because I couldn't make a choice to cook. I couldn't I couldn't function. And so he without any complaint without any any making me feel bad at all without shaming me in any way, shape or form he took over the cooking. And that bled over into the grocery buying. I didn't go grocery shopping by myself. I couldn't um not only because I couldn't leave my house by myself, but because I couldn't make the choices. So, we always went grocery shopping together and he could pick up the slack of doing that. I couldn't handle meat for many years. And so, he naturally cooked because I couldn't handle the meat because of the germs.

And um just every what I wear today, you know, is the color purple going to cause me to be proud of how I look? You know, am I going to sin by being proud? If I do something right and somebody gives me a compliment, oh no, I'm going to let pride grow in my heart and I'm going to sin. And so just daily living was was awful.

The thoughts of, you know, if I'm bathing my child and I could drown my child, the the thoughts that happen for so I mentioned earlier about thought action fusion and how thoughts enter our head. So we gather thoughts all the time as we're driving down the street. We see billboards. We see signs. We see stuff on TV. We see magazines. Our brains are gathering information all the time. And sometimes it it'll just make a connection and spit out something that's irrelevant. And most people can just dismiss it.

But for a person with scrupulosity, we as I mentioned, we think if we thought the thought that we're guilty of the action. So fighting intrusive thoughts because the thing with thoughts is the more you try not to think them, the more you think them.

Brenton: It's the pink elephant.

Debra: It's the pink elephant in the room. You don't try not to think about the pink elephant. What? So what are you going to picture? A pink elephant. And the more you try not to, the more that you do.

So, in recovering from scrupulosity and recovering from from intrusive thoughts like that, you have to learn to not react to them to to just say, "Okay, there's a bad thought. There it is. I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to quote scripture." You know, growing up, you hear, "Well, you know, Jesus fought off temptation by quoting scripture. So, you should always quote scripture if you need to fight off temptation."

Well, that's nice for for common folk, for regular folk, but for those with scrupulosity, that's bad advice because then you have to keep quoting the scripture and then the thought keeps coming back and the more you fight it, the more it comes back. And so you have to learn not to react to it, which is a really difficult thing. That's where counseling is really helpful in teaching you the skills to ignore the bad thoughts and ignore.

You know, blasphemous thoughts are really common. Um blasphemous thoughts about God, they will enter your mind and whatever. So it seem with scrupulosity, it's common that whatever your particular tenants of faith cover, that's where your problems will be.

Brenton: That would be denominational even like whatever is most taboo within that specific even within a specific church of a denomination wherever you're at whatever is most taboo that's going to be a sort of focus and so then you're worried about not having that enter your mind. So then it's that pink elephant now you think about it.

Debra: Uhhuh. And then you think you're evil for thinking about it. And and it causes this vicious vicious cycle. And you know, it's it's just learning to deal with those kind of thoughts are one of the most difficult especially the blasphemous thoughts are the one of the most difficult because you're afraid. Well, I had a blasphemous thought therefore I've must have, you know, blasphemed the Holy Spirit and I'm I'm doomed.

And learning, no, that wasn't my thought. It was just a thought that came into my head. I had no will behind it and I'm not going to keep thinking about it. I'm not going to ward it off. And the less you try and ward it off, the less you actually think about it.

Brenton: This brings me to something. I don't know if you told me this as a kid or if I picked it up somewhere else, but you don't want to meditate because if you're quiet, if you're silent, then Satan's going to slip into your mind.

Debra: That is what I was taught.

Brenton: And so I remember there were times where it's like men have what's called like the nothing box. Like there's times we just literally think about nothing. But I remember internalizing that for a while. It's like well I need to fill this with something. What do I think about? What do I focus on? What do like…

Debra: Yeah. silence is a is a spiritual discipline and meditation is a spiritual discipline that many many um religions use. But I was taught within the conservative holiness church that meditation is wrong and that you know the an idol mind is the devil's workshop. So you you don't ever just sit and meditate. And I was terrified of it.

Silence terrified me because I just I the thoughts would start coming and prayer was difficult because as soon as I would start to pray, awful thoughts would start coming into my mind as I there were years I I couldn't pray at all. I'm like, well, how can I be a Christian? I'm not praying. But I couldn't pray because then bad thoughts would happen.

And so I it it it's finding that balance of of saying, "Okay, I'm going to pray. If a bad thought happens, well, it's there and I I well, God, you know me. You know my thoughts. Here's a bad thought. I'm not going to try and wart it off, so I'm going to keep praying."

Brenton: In your book, you likened it to your brain is like a stream.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: Everyone has sticks floating down, but with scrupulosity, it's like if the stick there, it's not a stick that floats. It's a tree that suddenly appears in the middle and it's just stuck there.

Debra: Yeah. And you've got to get it out

Brenton: instead of focusing on not noticing the tree. You just need to let the stream flow, and it flows on instead of sticking.

Debra: Yep. And it's it's a difficult thing to learn, but it is possible. It's possible to learn. And um counseling helps with that. I learned that skill back when I before I ever knew I had scrupulosity, I learned it with my other OCD things like um washing your hands. Okay. I just have to live with the knowledge that I might not have got them 100% clean. Yep. And keep going. I won't I can't go back.

And so like with I mentioned the scripture reading earlier, when I was getting over that particular obsession of I have to read every word, I would allow myself to reread it one time and it didn't matter if I still thought I missed a word or whatever. I could reread it one time and then move on. Now I don't even generally even reread it. Um I just move on. And not worry about it. But it's a skill that has to be learned and to not react to things to um Yeah.

Brenton: The image that comes to my mind is from the show Monk.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: Where he's walking along touching each sign. He misses one. I got to go back touch it. Uhhuh. I got to go back. Touch it.

Debra: Yeah. There are people who um will get stuck like at there's a lot of people with scrupulosity who can't go to church because they'll get there and like if let's say they're a Catholic and they they need to cross themselves um genuflect I think it's called um and they will do it over and over and over and get in the caught in this am I doing it right am I doing it with the proper reverence and they will do it over and over hundreds of times in a row.

I had a friend that um years ago, back before I knew about scrupulosity or really even OCD, I'm pretty sure she had OCD. And one of the things that she would do every intersection she came to, she would cross herself. She was Catholic and she had to cross herself at every intersection just in case there was a a a Catholic church down the road that she might not know about. And that's the kind of things that scrupulous people do. And you have to learn, well, there might be a church down there. I'm not going to cross myself. And I'm not going to go to hell for not crossing myself, you know. And um now living with uncertainty, it is absolutely learning to live with uncertainty.

Brenton: Yep. I I remember as a kid I was diagnosed OCD. Um it was more environmental situational on stuff I had going on, but I remember a couple ticks that I had. If I touched my thumb to one finger, I had to touch the others an equal number of time. Or if the cracks between my fingers, those had to touch. So I I refused to walk with my hands in my pocket because as you're walking, they'd bump and then and then you're thrown off. Wait, did they touch an equal number of times? And I would pause and it's almost like a panic. I I don't know if I did it right and I would shut down. But I notice actually even to this day if I'm particularly stressed, I've not I've done it a couple times even as my hands been sitting here where it's touched and I start to do it. It's like, wait, stop. Let it go. Yeah. But I still notice those things where, oh, they touched. Now I got to touch an equal number of times.

Debra: Well, mine, one of my funnies is so part of my OCD is counting everything. Don't even realize I'm doing it. I still do it to this day, especially if I'm very stressed. But I remember one time um we were living up in Washington and dad was getting ready to go overseas and um we had to sell his car while he was at work and I was absolutely terrified of lightning storms. Terrified to go outside.

Brenton: Where was this at?

Debra: This was in Washington.

Brenton: Not Tucson.

Debra: No, not Tucson. Washington State. And so it we were having a storm. It was lightning and and but I had to go out and show dad's car because dad had to be at work. And I went out and um just terrified. But I I did go out and as I'm walking along, I just I was going to pray. I I knew I needed to pray and and ask God's help. And so I started praying 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. And that's I didn't even realize that's what I was praying until all of a sudden like, wait, you're counting. But my counting was prayer in in that moment. And I knew that God knew what was going on.

But yeah, the the strange things that we do with OCD that we don't even always recognize we're doing. Um I I still, like I say, I'll count stuff. It's really helpful to know how many dishes you've loaded in the dishwasher. Very helpful.

Brenton: I had a couple things. So my degree’s in math, right? One of the things that led me to math was I used to be, I can't do it so much now, but I used to be able to look at any line in a ceiling and say, you know, that's like half a centimeter higher on one side of the room than the other. But then my mind would go further and I wanted to go into geometry and calculus and let's calculate the law of cosiness. Let's calculate all these other things. Let's see if I can do the math in my head. I had this OCD thing where I had to do the math in my head.

And I know that was frustrating to you homeschooling me because I didn't show any of my work. But I remember for the longest time, I had to do it in my head. It was I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. I'm not smart unless I can do it in my head. And I put, I was obsessed with that. I had to do it. It presented in counting tiles in I would just run math equations in my head. If I saw a number of ceiling tiles, I had to find different ways to calculate them. not just how many were on the ceiling, but what are the different math um problems I can make out of it? Whether it's length times width or are there patterns of threes like Yeah. breaking that apart into as many patterns as I could find in it.

Debra: OCD is a fun fun thing.

Brenton: Yes. So, going back to we had talked about um some of the green beans and we're moving a little bit past that. Um that was um Utah. I forget where you moved on from that in the book.

Debra: Um, so from there I I had started in Tucson working on the agoraphobia and getting outside and doing stuff. I was in counseling for the the other OCD and and all of that kind of stuff. And um started making good progress and and started being able to function more and all of that stuff. And that that continued every move that we made. And every year that passed, I improved more and more. And then um had some spiritual breakthroughs along the way that helped me progress and um but still wasn't diagnosed with scupulosity until about 10 years ago.

Brenton: That's a long road to walk with a lot of challenges.

Debra: Yes, it is.

Brenton: Um, I'm curious because most people don't know, but I know you homeschooled us, but I know there were a couple times you had some breakdowns. Um, like I remember middle of third grade to end of fifth grade. Um, because a lot of this caught up to you.

Debra: Yeah. Yeah. I had I my social anxiety got severe, my depression got severe, and one of the issues I was having was the medications that they were putting me on were actually making me worse. So, twice I ended up in the mental hospital psychotic because of a medication to help my depression. And um I'm a big proponent for taking medication to help, but there are some people, and I'm one of them, that medication can actually have very detrimental effects on.

And so during that time in Tucson, I didn't know that it was the medication, but it was making me really psychotic and I was very, very depressed and um walked through some really dark times down there. And thankfully I had a wonderful church family that cared for me through all of that. It was actually Pastor David who took me down to the mental hospital, convinced me to go to the mental hospital and and took me and then came and visited me every single day while I was in and um just was so encouraging and uh but once I was off the medications..

Brenton: A lot of it resolved.

Debra: A lot of that resolved, but the depression was still there and the the it was so what we didn't recognize through all of that is it was the scrupulosity that was causing the depression. It was the scrupulosity that was causing almost all the other issues. So until I got those dealt with, the depression and all was just going to keep coming back.

Brenton: It's kind of like taking Tylenol to treat a headache when you have a misaligned back.

Debra: Yes. Exactly. You're It's just going to keep coming back. And it did. It just kept coming back. Wherever we moved, I still was dealing with it. I would um talk with my pastors about it and and at times do better and then have times where I didn't do so well. Wasn't able to homeschool for a couple of years because I just I was too depressed. I couldn't function. Um yeah, those were those were tough times.

And then when we moved up to Mountain Home is when I really started having some spiritual breakthroughs that that started making those changes. And even though the scrupulosity wasn't diagnosed yet, I started I I started understanding grace a little more and that I didn't have to work for everything, that I didn't have to earn my salvation and um that I was saved. I came to an assurance that I was saved and that I was right with God and just kind of planted a planted it and said, "Okay, I'm not revisiting that."

And when it it still tries to come back and haunt me every once in a while, I'm like, "No, that's just that's decided. Not not revisiting." And so I just refuse to revisit it. Although I have to say when um Franklin Graham comes on the TV and prays the sinner's prayer, I I confess I still pray it with him. But uh it just feels strange not to. Yeah. But maybe someday I won't.

Brenton: Some of that's just muscle memory almost just like you're not even thinking about it. It just it comes up and that's what you do.

Debra: Exactly.

Brenton: Um, in the book you talk about some of the time in Mountain Home like part of going back to like the stream, letting thoughts just float through your head. Part of that is facing your fears.

Debra: Yes.

Brenton: And that's part of the anxiety problem is I can't just let the stick go. I have to worry about it. I have to stress about it. Um, so continuing on that journey, I know you started facing some of your fears in Mountain Home, especially when you went specifically to a women's retreat.

Debra: Yes. So I when I say I was afraid of everything, I was afraid of everything. Anything that could cause death, I was afraid of. I was terrified. I couldn't climb up on a ladder. I could hardly climb up on a two-step ladder or onto a chair. I was a just terrified of heights and um and of other things.

But I went to a ladies retreat and um there was a zipline at the ladies retreat. At the time it was the longest in Idaho. It may still be, I don't know. But um so to do the zipline, you had to climb up a tree like I don't know maybe 30 ft and then they would you climbed out on this tiny little it seemed like a postage stamp sized platform and they hooked you up and and you had you went across on the zipline.

Well, the ladies that I had from my church that went to that retreat with me, it was a lady a women's retreat. Um, they all decided they were going to do the zipline and I my social anxiety kicked in and I'm like, I can't look stupid.

Brenton: I can't say no.

Debra: I can't say no. So, I have to do the zipline, but how in the world am I going to do this zipline? And so, the closer I got for my time to do it, I I was terrified and shaking. But I'm like, I I also have a very, very strong, stubborn streak that has stood me in good stead over the years. And this was one of those moments cuz I I'm like, "Okay, I will do it."

So, they hooked me up. I signed my life away on the form that said I won't sue them to death if they if I die. And I climbed up the tree and um that part wasn't bad, but as soon as I got on the platform, I started having panic attacks and I was paralyzed. I could not move my body at all. Nothing. I was hugging the tree and I could not move.

Um, if anybody's ever experienced panic attack where you are paralyzed, it was complete paralysis. I couldn't move. And the the man that was up there helping and hooking me up, he was very kind and he's like, "There's only two ways to get down. You can climb back down the tree." And I knew there was no way I could do that. He's like, "Or you can do the zipline." And finally he said, "Well, you can sit down if that's if that would be easier. You can sit down and scoot over the edge as opposed to stepping off.

Brenton: Cuz you had to go off yourself. They couldn't push you off or help you.

Debra: They would not push you. You had to do it on your own. You had to make the choice and do it. And so finally, I'm sitting down there and I'm like, "Okay, God, here we go." And I pushed myself off the platform and went zipping along. And um I I share in the book that I had a moment of of stubbornness where I made a Superman pose in defiance and then I went back to sobbing my eyes out. But um I got to the other side and survived obviously.

And um when once they unhooked me I had started cry I had started crying when I was having the p panic attacks but I cried for hours. I literally could not stop crying and I didn't know why. I didn't know what had happened and and why it was that what it why I was crying.

Brenton: And you weren't an overly emotional person.

Debra: No, I say I cry once a year just to make sure everything works. I don't cry real often, but that time I just I couldn't stop and I cried and I cried for hours and hours. And the um what one of the things that came out of that is I overcame my fear of heights because I did it and all of a sudden I wasn't afraid of heights anymore. I could walk along the edge of a cliff. I could climb ladders. I could I don't have that fear of heights anymore.

Brenton: Dad could take you on his four-wheeling adventures.

Debra: Well, yeah. Those are still frightening to a normal healthy person, but for I'm not afraid of the heights part of it anymore. And but what's what came out of that is facing one of my one of my worst fears started all all my other fears and phobias just started melting away. Um, I could see I could kill a spider with my bare hand and not run away shrieking finding someone to kill a a minuscule spider.

Brenton: Well, I'll admit fear on that one. I'll call you to kill the spider.

Debra: That'll work. I'll come and kill it.

Brenton: But that comes from being bitten and getting cellulitis and almost losing my arm.

Debra: Yes, that that's a different story. But yeah, and plugging things in and and not having to say the sinner's prayer before doing everything. I started overcoming all of my and my goal is to overcome every phobia that I have, every single one. And there's still some that are are lingering, but one by one as I as I realize them, I face them. And I am determined to overcome all of my phobias cuz phobias held me captive for for way too many years.

Brenton: There is a lot of power in facing your fears.

Debra: Yes there is. There is a lot of power.

Brenton: That's that's actually one of the reasons I have a tattoo is I was needle phobic. Um you say in the book like you couldn't hear someone curse or say bad words. You had to scrub your mind out or things like that. I think one of the only times I ever let a bad word out around you was actually that spider bite I referenced. We were in the hospital and they had to draw blood and they had to draw it from one arm then the other then go back to the other arm and I think you were laughing just out of being nervous.

Debra: Yeah, I was nervous.

Brenton: Um but it's like mom it's not funny and I swore at you but it's like I didn't want to live in that fear. So part of it was like there was a lot of meaning involved in it but part of it was actually okay I'm afraid of needles. let me go get it hundreds and hundreds of times just so I can force myself to go face it.

Debra: And fortunately for you cuz allergy shots.

Brenton: Yeah. Now I get allergy shots and um the past four or five times I've gotten my blood drawn. It hasn't affected me. But I remember for a long time even just the side of the needle they had to use smelling salts to keep me up. It was…

Debra: I remember that

Brenton: I did not do well with needles.

Debra: Yeah. Overcoming one fear helps the whole rest of of your life. It gives you power. It it takes your power back from that object.

Brenton: I want to say it's called Have you heard of the parietal distribution?

Debra: No.

Brenton: Um so most people think of like a normal distribution is like a bell curve where it's really shallow on the ends and then there's a normal average in the middle. The parietal distribution is almost exponential. It's kind of like the hardest part is that first step. And they see this in a lot of stuff. Um, and I may have the word wrong. It might not be parietal , but what I'm referring to is things typically accelerate once you start.

So, you'll see this in authors once they've written their first book, that hardest part. Almost nobody's written a book, but once you've written one book, you're much more likely to write a second. Once you've written two, you're much more likely. And so it's just getting that first step. And you see that with facing fears.

Brenton: When you face that first fear, now all of a sudden you find you have the courage because the internal story is I don't have to be afraid of everything. I do have courage. I can face this first thing. Now I have strength to face more and more and more and more.

Debra: Right. Yeah, it does. It cascades and it builds and and to find freedom is so incredible. It's just really incredible that that freedom that comes from not having to live fearful of everything.

Brenton: Yeah. So as you got past some of that fear and moved forward, you started making a lot of progress. Move forward to where you actually discovered scrupulosity.

Debra: So when I discovered I had scrupulosity. So all those years I I wondered am I saved? Is am all of that? And then I reached that milestone that I talked about where I just kind of drove a stake down and said, "I I'm not revisiting that." It would still try, but I just wouldn't go there. But then about 10 or 11 years ago, um, I was struggling again and I had I had been part of an online Nazarene community for many years.

Brenton: Naznet?

Debra: Naznet. For many years. And I hadn't shared much on there, but I had started just in about 11 years ago started sharing a few of the things that I was struggling with. And a lady on there and I I feel awful that I don't even remember her name, but she private messaged me and she said, "You know, you sound a lot like my husband and he has this thing called religious scrupulosity OCD."

And so I am a researcher. I love research. So immediately I got on the computer and I started researching and as I read I'm like this is my life story. This is me. This is describes me to a tea. And it was I mean it was lifechanging to realize there's something real here. This isn't I'm not an evil person. I'm not disobedient to God. I'm not all these things. I have a mental illness and I already knew I had other OCD and all of that. And so it made perfect sense to me.

Now that is unusual for a person with scrupulosity. Most people who are faced with diagnosing with scrupulosity will be resistant to it because they're like, "Well, if I believe that, what if I what if I'm deceived and and allow myself to sin because I think it's a mental illness?" But I was ready to receive that diagnosis.

And so, um, immediately I'm like, "Oh, I know what to do now. I know what to do when when a blasphemous thought enters my head. I don't fight it. I don't. I just let it move on. I just recognize that's not my thought and go about my business. And um not and I knew like with the scripture reading, no, you're not going to repeat it. No, if you yawn in the middle of the Lord's Prayer, you don't have to start it over and and say it from the beginning. you can just finish it out.

And um or if you say it wrong or if I don't do I I used to have to pray in a certain order, you know.

Brenton: I forget the acronym.

Debra: Acts, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I used to have to I I would throw out a prayer to God. Oh God, please help me. I'm like, oh wait, I haven't I haven't done adoration yet. I can't be asking for help if I haven't done adoration and confession. And so praying, you know, I I threw all of that out the window and said, I'm just going to pray. I'm not going to force myself into these. So I knew how to deal with it.

And um very quickly at that point was able to of course it had been years of of counseling for all the other stuff but the the scrupulosity very quickly I was able to bring it back under control and like I say I will probably have some of it for the rest of my life.

Debra: I still struggle with some of it and off and on if I'm really stressed it comes back a lot but I know what to do with it now and so I it doesn't I don't get caught back in the cycle of it and um it's been very freeing and very to to realize I don't have to have certainty.

I can and I in my book I even mentioned, I even titled one of the um chapters the idol of certainty because it becomes an absolute idol. I must have de certainty. I demand I have certainty. Well, life isn't certain. Things that aren't certain. My relationship with God isn't certain in the fact that I can't lay it out on a table and inspect it and look at it and say, "Oh, yeah, there it is right there." No, it's faith.

Brenton: I mean, you go to the core of Christianity, the very fact that God gave us free will takes a lot of certainty out of everything.

Debra: Well, and and I was raised that the opposite of faith is doubt. That if you have doubt that you're not having faith, but the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is unfaith. It's choosing not to believe. You actually cannot have faith without the possibility of doubt because then there's there's no you don't need faith if it's certain. You don't need faith.

Brenton: Yep.

Debra: And so getting that key there that it's okay to have doubts. It's okay to struggle. That doesn't change my faith in God. And so it's it's been a wonderful journey. And I'm still on that journey. Obviously, as I mentioned, you know, the the thing at church at Palcon the other day, you know, not able to enter the church. Every once in a while, my brain still glitches,

Brenton: And you find a way through it.

Debra: And I find a way through it. Yeah.

Brenton: So, you, why did you write the book? What motivated you? How did you get past some of your social stuff? Because writing a book is very much putting you out there.

Debra: Yes, it is.

Brenton: That's putting you front and center. Come read what I wrote. Even if you're not intending it that way, even if it's just here's a resource, I want to help people. Like I'm sure that would be very tempting to be viewed as look at me, look at me.

Debra: It I so I've wanted to write a book for a long time um for years and years, but I never I part of my scrupulosity is this perfectionism. So I could never write anything down unless I wrote it down perfectly. So if I had to erase stuff or change it, then it wasn't good enough. And so I had to get over that.

But what led me to write the book was so all those years, 40 years essentially of suffering was scrupulosity. If just one of my pastors or counselors would have known about it, I think my life would have been very different because I could have gotten the help that I needed specifically for the scrupulosity. So, I wrote the book because I want others not to have to suffer like I suffered for so many years. I want others to find help and hope far earlier. I want pastors to have the resources that they need to help people like me and to protect themselves. In those situations.

And so it it was just this kept growing in me this conviction that I I want to share my story so that others don't suffer. And so several years ago I had friends also that were telling me you need to write a book. And and I share in the book how my friend Carol uh one day she again said Debi, you really need to write a book. And I'm like, "Well, my problem is I can't write without a deadline." And she's like, "Okay, here's your first deadline. In one month, you need to have a table of contents."

And she was serious. She was a, she was a a retired university professor. So, she knew how to do this. And so, I took it upon myself and every month she gave me a new deadline and I wrote the book. And um it was one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. And it it just seemed to flow out of me what I needed to say and how I needed to say it. And and um it came together really quite quickly overall.

But it was part of it was laying aside the social anxiety part that says people are going to know things about me now. People are going to know my struggles. They're going to know I struggled and still struggle. And choosing to say I I will I can handle that if it will help somebody, if it will help other people.

Because back part of my story back years ago when I was um between my first and second year of college when I had no hope one day I I hadn't been reading my Bible at all cuz I just couldn't. But one day I opened it and I opened it to 2 Corinthians the first chapter where Paul talks about if I have suffered it's for your consolation. If the God of all comfort will comfort you.

And it was like God gave me that promise way back then, that assurance that someday what I had gone through would help somebody else. And and I don't mean that to say that God put me through this so that I could help. That's not it at all. I don't blame in this was not God's will for my life. I don't believe at all that my suffering was God's will. it. It's a result of a lot of things, but I don't I don't believe God wanted me to suffer.

But my belief is he can take the most awful things that he didn't want even for our lives and turn them for good. That's the promise of Romans 8:28. It's not this, well, you're suffering so that you can help somebody. God's making you go through this. But it's God takes the awfulness and still can bring beauty out of it. And that's what he's done. That's what he's done with my story is he has I say God redeems.

He's a redeeming God. And he takes awfulness and redeems it into something beautiful. It takes beauty, takes ashes and makes beauty from ashes. And so um I loved writing the book and it I love the reception of it and I have been amazed. I was amazed at how I was able to do it and that I actually just barged through my fears and said, "I'm not going to listen to you." Uh, when it came to getting people to endorse it, writing for people to endorse it and and figuring out how to get it published, I self-published. Uh well, a hybrid publishing um where I used a a publishing company to help me put it together, but I controlled all aspects and yeah, and all of that. Um and then contacting people for opportunities to do workshops and that kind of stuff. And that's all been…

Brenton: How have you done those? Cuz I I know you've done it like NU. I know you've…

Debra: So I did I as far as workshops I did the Wesley conference in 2020 that was my first that was before I ever wrote the book and that's what actually led to writing the book was that conference because I had to write it out for that and then I've done PLCON which is Pastors and Leaders Conference I'm doing uh NAMI which is National Alliance of Mental Illnesses. I'm doing their faith conference um next week here in Idaho and I have um been invited to speak in um two different well three different times at NNU in um first year ministry classes to to people who are preparing for the ministry.

Um and I have done a number of podcasts as well. So, and none of those, had you asked me 10 years ago if any of that was possibility, I would have said absolutely not.

Brenton: No way in this world.

Debra: No way in this world. I think my kids are stunned probably that I have done some of this because the social anxiety was so severe. So, but yeah, it's been a journey.

Brenton: So, as you're still walking through it, you've written the book. Um, I know you've changed churches um, a couple times in Idaho since you've been back. Have you just taken some of this? And you mentioned going having to go to your pastors and ask for that assurance. So, as you've gone through it, now that you know what scrupulosity is, how do you protect and safeguard about it? Are you telling your pastor, "This is what I have. here's some resources about it so that I don't overwhelm you or how are you processing through that with wherever you choose to be at now?

Debra: Well, the first few years after I was diagnosed, I became afraid to talk to my pastors because I was afraid, oh, it might be scrupulosity. So, I stopped asking for help at all. And that was also not a good choice. Fortunately, I started with a spiritual director and that really helped. and she knew about the scrupulosity and um avoided the pitfalls that go with that. But since I've written my book, my pastors, I actually attend two different churches and uh at the same I I go to one and then I go to the the other and not because I'm super spiritual or any it's not a scrupulosity thing. It's just a life circumstance thing.

And so, um, my pastors at both churches have copies of the book and I have talked with them about it and share openly. Um, and they know my story now. And but I I I'm still working on the balance of when to when to ask for help in a healthy way and when not to. And so I tend to not ask for help when I should. And um I did um I had talked to my pastor about what happened at Palcon because that was an area I just felt I needed an extra person to know so that I wasn't just swirling it around in my head. So um I'm still learning that balance, but it's coming.

Brenton: You mentioned one of the ways to support people with scrupulosity is walking alongside them compassionately. Not in a necessarily, I guess a way of putting it is, in an enabling way, right? Um but to walk compassionately um and I had I had a good friend once tell me the power of your story isn't in the story itself, it's in sharing your story.

Debra: Right

Brenton: And I think some of the same concepts apply to facing your fears or anything. Once you can name it and face it, you're not hiding it. You're not internalizing it. It there's such a shame component to that.

Debra: Right

Brenton: If I can't share my story, I'm like this. Yes. But if I can open up and share it, people can walk alongside compassionately. They can help.

Debra: Absolutely. And that's one of the things that you know you learn in trauma counseling is for people who have been through trauma. The way that they can overcome it is to tell their story. And sometimes it takes telling their story over and over and over. But as they do, every time they tell it, they are becoming freer and freer. More is being released. And it's it's the same with this.

And that's why I did that's why I choose to share openly is because I am I'm determined not to hide in the shame because there's so much shame with scrupulosity. It is you drown in shame and to get it out and talk about it with people you trust and who love you and and just have it out there is so freeing. It takes the power out of it. story. That's why this podcast is important because storytelling is a powerful way of of remaining free.

Brenton: Yeah.

Debra: Of having freedom.

Brenton: That's the entire reason I started this podcast. I believe there's power in story in sharing it and viewing pe how other people have walked through their lives. Um at the beginning as you were talking about the different things that your different churches were telling you and competing um I was actually thinking in terms of narratives and story.

Um one of the primar, primary ways we operate in the world is through narrative. One of the primary ways we learn whether value systems, ethics, morals is through story and narrative. Um, I believe that's even why Jesus talked in parables instead of here's an exact rulebook is we learn by walking through what other people have seen, what they have experienced, we can try on that method of living, right, without actually doing it in the physical world. So when other people are going through things like scrupulosity and they feel completely alone, when they hear a story like yours and can see that I'm not alone This isn't something shameful. There is hope on the other side. That's the entire purpose of the podcast to me is share those stories, share those journeys, share that yes, people are, it's life is a roller coaster at times. You're going to hit the lowest of lows and you're going to hit some high points.

Um but what can get you through all of that is seeing that you're not alone. Yeah. hearing some of those other stories, but then also it's um I'm struggling to think of the phrase, but you don't have to make someone else's mistakes. You can learn from someone else's mistakes. So, hearing some of these stories, too, it's like, okay, maybe someone can get help with scrupulosity far earlier because a pastor or a therapist or a counselor knows what to look for.

Debra: Right. And that's my hope. That's my goal with writing the book and with talking openly about my story.

Brenton: Well, with that, why don't you show off your book? And I hear a rumor you're thinking of writing another book.

Debra: I am thinking about writing another book. So, this was my first one. It's been out for a couple of years now and it's doing really well and I'm super excited. It's The Hijacked Conscience: an Informed and Compassionate Response to Religious Scrupulosity.

And the book that I am hoping to write or I'm considering I I have about three books actually I would like to write but the one that's really working around in my head right now is one about um corporate worship as spiritual formation. And so I grew up hearing, well, you don't worship well at church because you don't worship well at home in your private devotions as they as they call it. And I think it's actually the opposite. I think we can learn so much from corporate worship that we can that can inform our lives and and help form us as individuals.

And so I'd kind of like to write a book about that. I'm I'm I'm mulling it over still and and thinking through it and gathering information and maybe we'll see if that happens.

Brenton: Maybe I should set a deadline for you.

Debra: Oh dear, what have I done?

Brenton: All jokes aside though, if people did want to find your book, where could they get it?

Debra: So, it's available on Amazon. Um, it's also available in on Amazon Kindle. So for ebooks, it's also available as an audio book from um Amazon or from most audible book platforms. It's available.

Brenton: Nice. I know there's a little more there. I mentioned at the start of the episode one of the awards. Um but I know that you've been nominated or won several. And how many have you sold?

Debra: I have at this point I've sold 725 or so books which is pretty good for a self-published author. It's not the thousands that you know those that are known out in out in society sell but I'm super pleased with that. That's actually considered very successful

Brenton: And it's in a targeted niche area. It's not just in some ways it's broad for everyone but it's targeted in a specific area. So yeah, I would say that's definitely successful.

Debra: And so that's been that's been really exciting. Far more than I ever thought. Thought if I make 500, I am going to really celebrate. And so we went out for a fancy meal and celebrated. When I sold 500, I'm like that's probably it.

Brenton: But what are you going to do when you hit a thousand?

Debra: I think I want to I don't know, go on vacation.

Brenton: I can see that. Yeah. Well, if anybody wanted to follow you, where would they find you?

Debra: So, on Facebook is the only media platform that I have right now. It's under Debra Peck, Author and um they can find me on there. And it's you mentioned that what the book has been nominated. It was book life's um in my category. It was the finalist in my category for book life in 2023 and then the next year it was listed as book life one of book life's 2024 best books. Um it also got a five-star reader reviews um and a finalist in oh I can't remember the name of the other one but there's been three essentially where I've been at. I haven't won the grand prize, but the finalist prize and one of those um was came with a uh social media advertising campaign, which was very nice not to have to do my own advertising for a little bit.

Brenton: Yeah. Well, I know we've talked a little bit about advertising. That's something everybody has to figure out to some degree.

Debra: And it's not something I relish.

Brenton: Not my favorite thing either, but well, thank you for coming on. It's been a pleasure.

Debra: Thank you for having me. Yeah, you learned some things about your mom you didn't know.

Brenton: Maybe, maybe a few.

Debra: Although you've read the book so…

Brenton: And you've learned some about me and some interesting side stories that still paralleled yours.

Debra: Yep, that's very true. I've enjoyed it. Thank you.

Brenton: Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure and we will sign off. Thanks for watching the Brenton Peck Podcast.