How Growing Up With OCD Prepared Me For “Donald Trump’s America”
Disclaimer: There are many forms of OCD. It would be hard to condense everything in this article about OCD or all of my struggles with OCD in one article. This article only focuses on the aspect of OCD that prepared me for “Donald Trump’s America”
For those who don’t know, OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder. Most people assume it’s an just about being neat, but that’s not the case.
It involves anxiety attacks,as well as intrusive images and thoughts that constantly pops into your head.
I will say, for the most part, the TV show the “Monk”, is a good representation of how OCD.
People with OCD are 82 percent more likely to die than the general population, from both natural and unnatural causes. It is ranked in the top 10 on the list of most debilitating illnesses in the world, even ranked ahead of Cancer and AIDS.
Although, I was officially diagnosed at 16 years old, the first time I would show symptoms of OCD was 9 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was MLK weekend 2003, I heard “In Da Club” by 50 cent on the radio for the time, and the show that So Raven had just made its debut that Friday . Fast forward to that MLK Monday, my family watched a documentary on the murder of Emmett Till.
Emmett Till was a 14 year old black boy who was brutally murdered and mutilated in Mississippi, then had his body thrown into the Tallahatchie River. This took place in 1955. In order to hide the evidence, the killers tied a 75 pound cotton gin fan to his neck, to keep his body submerged under water. He was killed for whistling at a white woman. Despite the clear evidence, the killers were found not guilty, and about a month later they admitted to doing it and sold their confession to a newspaper.
Emmett Till’s mother decided to have an open casket, to show the world what was done to her son. His lynching helped galvanize the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks said that she thought of Emmett Till when she decided not to move to the back of the bus.
Below our graphic photos of Emmett Till after being lynched and thrown in the River.
Mamie Till (Emmett Till’s mother) said her son’s eyeball was hanging out of its eye socket, the bridge of his nose looked liked it had been chopped with a meat cleaver, and his tongue was “choked out”. He was also shot in the head. Mamie Till said that she saw evidence that the men took a axe/hatchet and split his head open. (I do not know if they split his head open with the axe while he was alive or after he was shot dead.)
The documentary made me sick to my stomach. I remember not being able to eat my favorite ice cream (Twix Ice Cream)that night due to how sick it made me. I remember going to bed hoping it was going to be sunny outside the next day. I felt if it was sunny outside, it would make me forget about the murder of Emmett Till. It was not sunny the next day, but instead everything felt dark and gloomy.
The best way to describe the intrusive images aspect of OCD, is the movie Jumanji, but instead of physically getting teleported into the board game, your mind does. My mind constantly felt like it was trapped in the time period of Emmett Till and Jim Crow.
The visuals of Emmett Till’s mutilated face, the elderly Black Women passing out when they saw his face while his body laid in casket, etc all were in my head and I could not get them out.
Lynchings and other images of racial terrorism would constantly replay in my head , on and off while growing up. It felt I was constantly at the scene of the crime of a lynching.
Each time these images would pop into my head I would go into a depression.
If God told me, “I can make you the wealthiest human alive but you have to live with these images. OR I will remove the images but you won’t become the wealthiest man alive.” I would turn down the money and ask him to remove the images.
Along with the intrusive images, came the “rituals.” An OCD ritual is any type of action you try to perform to try to take away from your anxiety.
I could be doing any daily activity, for example washing my hands, then the image of Emmett Till or a lynching would pop in my head. I would have to keep washing my hands over and over and over again until I felt like the images were gone.
To make matters worse, a few months after watching the Emmett Till documentary, movie about James Byrd was playing on HBO or showtime.
James Byrd was a Black man in Jasper Texas, who was chained to the back of a pick up truck by White Supremacists, and dragged for miles by his ankles until he was decapitated. This was not from the 50’s or 60’s. This occurred in 1998. The same intrusive images would continue.
It seemed as if I could not escape hearing about the racial terrorism in America. The same intrusive images of Emmett Till and other incidents of lynchings would replay in my head for years and years , on and off, from 9 years old until I was 21.
One of the most effective ways to treat OCD is a treatment called “exposure therapy.”
Exposure therapy is the act of exposing yourself to your biggest fears over and over again until the anxiety surrounding that fear is decreased.
The upside to having my disorder was it caused me to develop a passion for fighting for my community. So much so, that Michael Brown of Homleand Security/Fema labeled me an “enemy to America” in his podcast and Tim Pool (a Maga Supporter) dedicated a segment on his podcast to my activism, calling me an extremist. A long way for somebody who was once 9 years old and was scared of white supremacists coming after me.
(Tim Pool’s segment on me)
In my early 20’s I told myself “if I’m going to be an advocate for my community like Malcolm X, The Black Panther Party or Tupac, I can’t be a bitch. They were fearless”
Learning about how people like Malcolm X and Tupac, truly helped me face my fears of White Supremacy. Without knowing it, I was practicing “exposure therapy.” I was constantly diving into the history of my people, reading all about the terrorism we faced for 400 plus years in America. The fear I once had, went away, and was replaced with anger. How could I be a fan of Tupac and be scared of these images of racial terrorism? He’s the same man that confronted two white men beating a black man, then shot them both in self defense.
Exposure Therapy for Donald Trump’s Presidency.
In these next four years, watch everything you can find on the terrorism our people have faced. Look at photos of lynchings on the internet, watch documentaries about lynchings . You must force yourself to be uncomfortable. During this process you will see that “Donald Trump’s America” can’t compare to the horrors of what our ancestors went through. Not just what “our ancestors ” went through, but what our grandparents and parents went through. It is a fact that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi’s were inspired by Jim Crow.
I repeat: Black people, your parents and grandparents survived an Apartheid System so brutal, wicked, and terroristic, that Adolf Hitler was inspired by it.
Think of all the scenarios and fears of what Trump and his policies will do to you and write those fears on paper. Spend about 5 minutes a day practicing meditating on those fears. Due to living in a world that advocates for manifestation and positive affirmation, writing down your biggest fears may sound taboo. But trust me, you must embrace your fears.
You can’t control what Trump will do, but you CAN control your FEAR of what he will do. Constantly exposing yourself to those fears will decrease your anxiety.
Another aspect that help me put my OCD into context was Epigenetics.
Epigenetics is the scientific study of how trauma is passed down from generation to generation. This means you can store trauma from your ancestors that you never experienced yourself personally. (Feel free to view the links below for more information on Epigenetics)
Imagine what Epigenetics means for people who descend from the horrors of Slavery and Jim Crow.
My family (my mother’s side) is from Mississippi. Mississippi is where more Black people were lynched than any other state in America. To be more specific they are from Jackson, Mississippi and Greenwood , Mississippi. They lived literally around the corner where the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in front of his house by a KKK sniper. Greenwood is near where Emmett Till was murdered and also where the trial for his murder was held. Greenwood is also where Freedom Summer took place. Freedom Summer was the summer of 1964 and it was a campaign to register Black people to vote
During “Freedom Summer” 1964, my grandfather was the only Black doctor in that area, which means the victims of the racist terrorism were treated by him. My mother would attend some of these home visits my grandfather made and I remember her speaking about a woman my grandfather treated who was stabbed at a protest. He also treated the civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) who was listed by the FBI as “The Black Messiah”, one of the biggest threats to the government, and the activist who was “most likely to succeed Malcolm X.” Stokely Carmichael also coined the term “Black Power” and helped inspire the Black Panther Party. My grandfather also treated another black activist named Silas Mcghee, who was shot in the head for trying to integrate a movie theater.
Despite living where Black people were lynched more than any state in America (Mississippi), my grandfather organized a vigilante group and told the white leadership that if any community members were harmed they would retaliate. This type of threat made by my grandfather in Mississippi, was one of the most dangerous things a Black man could do in America at that time. During this time, a Black man wasn’t even allowed to look a white man in the eye, let alone threaten violence towards them.
What my grandfather did could be considered a death wish. That was in the 1960’s and my grandfather would go on to live a long successful life until he passed away in 2012. How can I be scared of Trump and MAGA knowing that my grandfather stood up to 100 times worse than Trump, during a time that was more dangerous? The trauma of our ancestors were not the only thing passed down to us. They also passed down their fearlessness and courage, it is up to us to tap into that.