EXPLORING THE SYMPTOMS

Magical thinking that God will fix you. This symptom is the natural offshoot of shame-based thinking. It takes you farther from reality and deeper into self-hatred and victimization, thus creating a fantasy relationship with God. Believing yourself inadequate and worthless, you sit and wait for God to do things for you. A young woman came to me, confused and angry, and said: “Father Leo, I went to church and suddenly got angry. I didn’t know why I was angry, and I felt 1 shouldn’t be angry in church. I prayed to God to take my anger, and He wouldn’t. I prayed harder, and He still wouldn’t and I was getting angrier that God didn’t take my anger. I didn’t want to be angry and God wouldn’t take it away. I don’t understand why God wouldn’t help me.” I suggested that possibly her anger had a purpose, that it indicated issues that needed to be addressed. Perhaps her energy would be better spent in therapy working on those issues rather than sitting in church childishly demanding that God take away her anger.

Months later, the same young lady came and thanked me. She had indeed sought a therapist, and in the process of working through her feelings of anger had discovered that her grandfather had been very religiously abusive. The resulting guilt and shame had created the anger she experienced in church.

Thus magical thinking unites with non-questioning and black-and-white thinking to keep you farther from God and from yourself. My young friend never stopped to question why she was angry, or why she Felt it was unacceptable to be angry in church. She felt not only rejected by God when her anger didn’t go away on demand but also angry at both God and herself.

Magical thinking also permits religious addicts to accept abuse and to abuse others. Dr. Xavier notes that religious addicts have a distorted conscience and sense of’ guilt. Just having a sexual thought or impulse might send them into a frenzy of self-hate and fear of damnation, but, he says, “these same people often have no prick of conscience in being hateful to people with a different belief system.” ……………………….

Scrupulosity: rigid, obsessive adherence to rules, codes of ethics, or guidelines.

The fear of punishment and the resulting need to be perfect that come from shame-based thinking create an intense need to follow rules. Centuries ago, the Catholic Church noted how some priests gained an exaggerated sense of superiority and self-worth by rigidly adhering to rules, rituals, and doctrines. They were using these rules not to enrich or guide their lives, hut as a means to avoid error and to gain authority and control. This became known as scrupulosity.

Such behavior is dysfunctional because the sense of right and wrong become totally lost in the obsession with minutely adhering to rules and rituals, which can render you incapable of questioning the validity of the rules or how they are applied. Instead, you use rules and rituals to give you self-esteem, authority, and control. Consequently, you often judge yourself and others mercilessly harsh based solely on adherence to rules and regulations. That intense focus on rules becomes a way to escape reality and an avoidance of choice and responsibility.

Religious addicts do this out of overwhelming fear and a desperate need for safety. Rigidly clinging to rules and rituals offers a false sense of control, of safety; you can escape painful feelings by almost hypnotizing yourself with millions of little rituals: handwashing, prayers, mantras — all designed to serve as protection or absolution from supposed evil thoughts. This is one result of both magical thinking and black-and-white thinking: the idea that how well or how often you perform some ritual or saying will save you from punishment. For years, the concept of scrupulosity has been treated as a minor problem within the Catholic Church or as a manifestation of the psychiatric illness known as obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, the more 1 work with religious addicts, the more I see this trait surface. No matter where they are, these are the people who immediately learn all the rules, observe them religiously, and treat those who aren’t equally as rigid as inferior or slightly immoral.

People who have tried to escape religious addiction are often unaware of how they bring this addiction to rules with them to new belief systems or support groups. An example is the members of the support group who told the woman whose child was ill that she could cause her child to die by not totally embracing all the beliefs espoused in a Course in Miracles.

I see this symptom a great deal among people whose professions are bound by codes of ethics, standards, and guidelines: doctors, lawyers, therapists, social workers, and others. Whether they espouse a particular faith or not, they are easily recognizable as religious addicts when they literally make a religion out of the rules and ethics. Fearful and unsure of themselves, terrified of what punishment might result from not doing something right, they cling absolutely, dogmatically to rules. The black-and-white, unquestioning mind-set renders them incapable of evaluating situations on an individual basis, unable to see where certain conditions might demand flexibility or how such rigidity might cause harm. Equating mistakes with sins for which they will be punished, they want to avoid taking responsibility by saying they followed the rules. Rigid adherence to rules gives a false sense of self-worth, based not on who you are, but what you do. This behavior reinforces the inability to see the difference between making a mistake and being a mistake.

The tragic result is that you end up bewildered and angry at God and yourself, when following the rules doesn’t produce the expected rewards. “I did everything right. I followed all the rules. 1Vhy am I still so miserable?” you cry. Rigid adherence to rules and rituals, far from providing safety and self-respect, only serves to rob you of dignity and choices, leaving you feeling victimized, powerless, and out of control. I4aving done things right — said the prayers or chants, gone on crusades, burned the incense, cleansed the crystals, gone to meetings, done the Fourth Step — didn’t help you like yourself any better, and you wonder why you Feel so abandoned by God. Unable to recognize how you’ve made a god of your rules and rituals, you live isolated by your rigidity. You cannot see that, in giving away your power to the rules and rituals, you miss the chance to work as a co-creator with God.

To be continued