WASHINGTON D.C.
The Washington Post
October 22, 2018
By Patricia Lawler Kenet
I worried about hell a lot when I was 11 years old. My older brother once coaxed me into saying the first syllable of “helicopter” aloud. I panicked and cried hysterically for an hour, certain I was destined to suffer for eternity for uttering a blasphemy. I spent afternoons in my bedroom closet pawing glow-in-the-dark rosaries as I sought atonement for my perceived misdeeds.
When I turned 12 in 1971 and could barely be coaxed out of bed, sick with worry about the state of my sin-soaked soul, my mother took me to a doctor who told her that I was suffering from “acute scrupulosity.” He explained that acute scrupulosity is a mental condition, a sub-variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which a person suffers a pathological degree of moral fastidiousness often based on the fear of committing a mortal sin. The illness is well documented in the psychological community as well as in the Church. Catholic leaders recognize the danger of this condition; even Saint Ignatius declared that acute scrupulosity was a “dangerous trap laid by the devil to keep the soul enslaved.” It has also been described as a “widespread pernicious ailment” by early popes.
I later learned that the onset of puberty combined with a tendency toward scrupulosity can land a one-two punch in the vulnerable psyche. It certainly did with me. Every sexual feeling or impulse, every fleeting jealous thought, every unkind word sent me into a spiral of worry, fear and anxiety. I wandered around in a daze, disassociated (Am I even real? Is the world real?) weepy, weak and feeling worthless. I tried to play the part of a free-spirited teen, but I lived in fear of missing Mass on Sunday.
Though I didn’t physically harm myself, my mind turned against me with constant accusations about what wrongs I committed. When I accidentally walked out of a Chinese restaurant holding onto the cloth napkin provided during dinner, I insisted on walking 10 blocks back to return it. If my mother became upset by something done by my brother, who was addicted to drugs, I scoured my conscience to glean whether there was something I had done or not done to cause her unhappiness. The internal verdict was always “guilty.”
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