It Is No Longer I Who Do It
It Is No Longer I Who Do It
Reading Romans 7 with OCD
Emily Lund
“I have these thoughts that Dr. Singh calls ‘intrusives,’ but the first time she said it, I heard ‘invasives,’ which I like better, because, like invasive weeds, these thoughts seem to arrive at my biosphere from some faraway land, and then they spread out of control.”
I recently read this passage in John Green’s novel Turtles All the Way Down, where teenage protagonist Aza Holmes details the dark contours of her mental landscape. Although everyone experiences invasive thoughts at some point, “for some people, the invasive can kind of take over, crowding out all the other thoughts until it’s the only one you’re able to have, the thought you’re perpetually either thinking or distracting yourself from.”
I continued reading, trying to ignore the increasing hammering of my heartbeat as each sentence rang out true. “Now you’re nervous,” Aza says, “because you’ve previously attended this exact rodeo on thousands of occasions, and also because you want to choose the thoughts that are called yours.”
Me too, Aza, I thought. Me too.
I set the book down, texted my fiancé: “I started reading the John Green book and I can’t decide whether it’s going to freak me out or whether I’ll love it.”
Eleven days earlier, a psychiatrist had scribbled some notes as I sobbed out the thoughts and images that shadowed my brain each day— thoughts of death, violence, torture, things I could barely say out loud. She looked at me, when I paused for breath, and said, “Don’t think too much about the ‘disorder’ part, but you have obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
The demon had a name.
Now I sat reading this young adult novel that a friend recommended when I told her about my diagnosis, wondering whether it was a good idea to read something so reminiscent of my own shadowed mind.
I found lines from Paul’s letter to the Romans flitting there into the fears.
I do not understand my actions.
How many times had I read Romans 7 throughout my life? Many, many times.
For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
How the words struck me differently now—how they brought to mind my own “invasives,” my own dreadful obsessions.
It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
I read Romans 7:14-25 just a few days before being diagnosed, and the passage’s frustrated circularity now seemed a little too familiar. Counselors and friends, all well-intentioned, had told me I had more agency over my thoughts than I believed I did. I could choose to set aside the dark happenings of my imagination. I was just anxious, that’s all.
I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
Why couldn’t I do it? Why couldn’t I choose the thoughts that are called mine?
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
These verses in Romans are strange and winding, a spiral of sentences sandwiched between the more optimistic portraits of the Christian life presented in Romans 6 and Roman 8. According to chapter 6, “sin will have no dominion over you”; instead, we are “slaves of righteousness.” In chapter 8, “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
Gage Forster
What did it mean, then, that my mind was such a scary place to visit? Why did it seem impossible to direct my thoughts toward the things of the Spirit? Why did it seem like sin and darkness and death could still choke me?
What was I doing wrong?
An actual diagnosis answered that last question, at least: obsessive-compulsive disorder is a biological condition, sometimes exacerbated by stress but not caused by it. I had been doing everything “right.” I just hadn’t known what was happening. I wanted to choose my thoughts, in the way others seemed to do so easily. I wanted to will, and do, and think what was right.
I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
This language of captivity, a lack of control, a crack between the hope for one’s life and the reality of it: it sent a jolt of familiar fears through me when I found it in both Paul and in John Green. But with familiarity came a sense of solidarity, a comfort in the knowledge that I am far from alone in these feelings and fears.
And that’s what John Green hoped for readers who struggle with mental health issues. But what did Paul mean? I know that my own particular comfort-seeking reading of Romans 7 may not have been his intention. Paul is talking here about the law and sin, and according to many biblical scholars, he is likely not even talking about his own personal experiences. He is probably not talking about obsessive-compulsive disorder.
I do know these things, intellectually. Yet I can know these things and also believe—in a much more stirring, much more spiritual sense—that these verses still say something to me in my own specific suffering. They still express the reality of a world battered by the devil and his temporary powers. They show how we can be saved by grace and still cognitively compromised, vulnerable to sin and death.
As biblical scholar Marion Carson notes, regarding this passage, “the problem of whether Paul is referring to himself or speaking in general terms need not hinder its use in the encouragement of believers. In both cases, Paul can be seen as telling a story to which his readers can relate, and we can take comfort in the fact that he recognizes the reality of humankind’s struggle with sin.” Yes, context is always key—but comfort can be key, too.
I do wish, of course, that belief in Christ might keep evil and strife—even within my own brain—far from me. Yet I’ve found that the blueprint for audacious prayers of both lament and thanksgiving are not just found in the Psalms. Paul’s letter to the Romans gives me bold permission to repeat his own whiplash-like lines for myself:
Wretched [wo]man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Emily Lund
Writer & Communications Specialist
Emily has been published at Christianity Today & Image Journal
Photography by Gage Forster