My recent sessions w/ my therapist have helped me realize that some of my obsessive/compulsions, esp. my brain’s tendency to contact trace-every touch of every surface, every distant encounter w/ other (even masked) humans on my walks, is somatically related to my Catholicism

Accounting for every possible transgression, raking it over in my mind, raking myself over in my mind, is connected to the practice of confession / penance for me.

If I mentally dwell on it, then pay my penance (which is also that repeated reflection & mental self flagellation), there’s the possibility of absolution. But truly there isn’t, bc the idea of the ‘sin’ or the stain has already been implanted and rendered inevitable.

So all that’s left is the anguish and devotional repetition, but no real sense of absolution or reprieve. The mental contact tracing is like my 100 Hail Marys. But no matter how many I do, and how far I crawl on my knees, the consequences of my ‘transgressions’...

...can only be truly known on judgment day. In sum, it’s all pretty f*cked up. But understanding some of where these compulsions come from deep within at least gives me the smug satisfaction of “knowing” more? Ugh.

I also have a read of how I’ve transposed this back into a ‘secular’ and scientific understanding of my own vigilance, and that miserable loop. But I’m saving that content for another day.