A Rememberance of Things Past: Remembering 9-11 Through My First Post

I’ve been blogging now since March, and since my very first post mentioned 9-11, I’m going to excerpt it, but also give you a link to the whole post should you not have read it. Here is the link to the whole post:

https://ocdbloggergirl.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/in-which-nervous-nelly-explains-how-ocd-thinking-isnt-always-a-bad-thing/

For those of you who would rather not read my whole post, here is the part pertaining to 9-11, plus some background from my childhood:

Example Two – Lisa in “Well, At Least the World Isn’t Ending”

When I was little I was afraid of the world ending, and particularly that either my mom or I  would be roasting in hell-fire for eternity. I went to a Christian school, mainly because the school had afterschool care, and Mom figured I would mainly be saying my prayers and learning about Jesus.  Um wrong.

I learned that I was A SINNER and God spared only those who were true Christians and had the Lord in their hearts.

But I was a SINNER, EVIL, EVIL SINNER and off to Hell I would go where I would suffer eternal agony. Forever and ever. This is a tad much to swallow at the age of 6. Especially when our teacher would say such comforting things like, “If you think you see or hear things in the dark it’s just the devil trying to scare you, but if you’re a Christian he can’t hurt you.” Well joy to the world.  It would have been a comfort to me IF I was sure I was really a Christian. BUT WHAT IF I WASN’T  REALLY A CHRISTIAN???  What if I wasn’t saved? Maybe I didn’t say the prayer right? Maybe I might not love Jesus as much as I am supposed to love Him?

And so I prayed.  And then I prayed, and when I got done with that pretty soon I prayed some more.  Same thing every time. ”Please come into my heart, please forgive me of my sins.”  I didn’t feel Him inside my heart literally or figuratively.

One day, when I was safely delivered from the good teacher and her views of the devil, etc., the end of  the world occurred.  We had a new teacher because thankfully our first teacher got mad and walked out in the middle of class  when her best friend got fired. I  was so happy. God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. This woman actually liked me, where as the previous teacher despised me. In fact, this teacher almost worshipped me. Never before and never since has anyone liked me that much (I don’t think she could have children and me being the odd one out, I sparked an overwhelming  desire to have a child , and my mom worried she would kidnap me -but all that’s another story for another time). Yes, she loved me and it was wonderful, so I doubt it was artifice and she really did think the world had ended.

One day the sky seemed thick and cloudy, and an orange haze filled the air. In fact, there was even big ashes snowing down at intervals. Everyone speculated that the world was ending in our little school, and if the teachers believed it, then it was true, right? I remember being very afraid. What if I never saw my mom again?

Yes, the world was ending…..That is until the principal’s husband showed up and told how there was a bad forest fire in the next county and the wind was blowing ashes and smoke all the way over here.  Jeez, I was a stupid kid, but at least the adults were dumbasses too.

Well enough of this childhood trauma stuff and fast forward to being 24. By that time I had made my peace with Jesus. I now believed that Hell didn’t exist, that a loving God would not condemn  the world to being rotisseried for eternity. I had no interest in judging others when I was such a flawed person myself and believed (and believe now too) that Jesus was a bleeding heart liberal like me though he was cool with the Republicans too.  We’re all people, right? (Except Ann Coulter maybe, heh).  So this is my mindset on that awful day of September 11, 2001, though I still prayed to excess on my simple goal of being perfect, the world ending got filed in the back of my mental filing cabinet of fears.

We hadn’t had the TV on all morning. It was now around 1:30pm and my mom was driving me to class, so I turned on the radio to listen to some music. I had it on an R&B station, but instead of the usual waiting to hear a half-way decent song,  the announcers were talking about praying for the nation and how Washington was under full alert.  No planes in the air, they told, and they don’t know if we’re being invaded or how many thousands might be dead.

Now may it never be said that I claim to be the sharpest nail in the toolbox. What did I think was happening? I had no idea, but it was awful. The sky was finally falling, Chicken Little, like you always knew it would. It flashed in my mind that the world was ending. I felt like that 6 year-old I once was, waiting to be left to hell in the final judgement.   So when I heard what had actually happened, that the world had not ended, Lord help me at the relief I felt.  It was like “Oh, thank God the world isn’t ending. It’s just a terrorist attack!” And in this way. my OCD once again spared me from reality by expecting the worst of the worst and numbing me to the thing that was almost the worst of the worst. I stayed home from school for a couple  days since the state port and federal courthouse are near the community college, but I remember no real panic on my part for myself, but I also could have been in shock. I didn’t have to think the  horror until it was a little easier to take. Numbed by my joy that the world was not ending I didn’t have to think about the things that would later become vivid and terrible in my mind. The terror of the passengers on those planes.  The picture I would see of the priest being carried out lifeless when he had been there giving the last rites to the dying.  Not knowing whether your family and friends were alive. Would I have followed orders and stayed in the second tower like bosses had told their employees?  And the worst one…..having to decide between death by falling out of a window or being burned alive. So I’m grateful for the OCD and/or stupidity that spared me a bit on that awful day.