Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things)
303
Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things)
303Hardcover
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Overview
In college Abby is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and while she accepts this as an explanation for the counting and kissing and collecting, she resists labeling her fiercest obsession, certain that her prayers and her relationship with G-d are not an illness but the cure. She also discovers a new passion: performing comedy. She is never happier than when she dons a wig and makes people laugh. Offstage, however, she remains unable to confront the fears that drive her. She descends into darker compulsions, starving and cutting herself, measuring every calorie and incision. It is only when her earliest, deepest fear is realized that Abby is forced to examine and redefine the terms of her faith and her future.
Amen, Amen, Amen is an elegy honoring a mother, father, and beloved aunt who filled a child with music and their own blend of neuroticism. It is an adventure, full of fast cars, unsolved crimes, and close calls. It is part detective story, part love story, about Abby's hunt for answers and someone to guide her to them. It is a young woman's radiant and heartbreaking account of struggling to recognize the bounds and boundlessness of obsession and devotion.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781416589457 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Scribner |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2009 |
| Pages: | 303 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
woody's children
Sunday night was usually the best night of the week in my house. Our neighbors, Estherann and Arthur, came over for vodka tonics and crackers and to talk politics. Estherann was always knitting fuzzy sweaters and scarves and she let me sit by her feet and dig through her canvas bag of yarns. Then Mom pulled out the Chinese take-out menu and we each got to choose a dish to order.
"You know what that means, kiddo," Dad would say with a wink my way. I was his special helper.
As soon as Dad and I climbed into the station wagon, he would turn on Woody's Children, Woody Guthrie's radio show where he sang folk songs with a team of banjos and little kids whom I imagined living on a prairie and frolicking through enchanted forests. Dad usually had one palm on the steering wheel and with the other he'd tap out Woody's rhythmic rhapsodies on my thigh. We'd sing "This Land Is Your Land" and "If I Had a Hammer" and scores of songs about love and dandelion wine, rolling into new melodies as effortlessly as the hills themselves. Sometimes Dad went extra slow and switched the headlights to bright so we could search for raccoons. There was never anybody out except for us. In the car, on the road, in the whole world.
It was two months after Aunt Simone died and the cicadas had finally gone; the first snow of the season had just fallen, but it was too clumpy and uneven to warrant a school closing the next day. The grass poked through in little hairy patches and the air was the sharpest kind of cold in my nostrils. The station wagon took a long time to warm up and the vents could muster only small splutters of lukewarm mist that smelled burnt. There was no time to look for raccoons on the way to the restaurant. The food'll get cold, Dad explained. He also didn't sing along with Woody, so I decided I shouldn't either.
When we got to the China Lion parking lot, Dad gave me a fold of money that I squeezed in my fist. I walked past the two stone lions guarding the tall wooden doors, my back stiff and straight, and told the lady at the desk who looked like a China doll our last name. She knew me because this was my job every week. She put the greasy brown paper bag in my hands and made me promise to walk carefully to the car so nothing tipped.
"That's some hot chopsticks. You okay?" Dad said when I got back to the car.
"No prob, slob," I said, nodding proudly.
We were quiet as snow again the whole way home. I held the bag on my lap and opened just one corner so I could sniff the moo goo gai pan dripping into the vegetable lo mein and then into the General Tso's, seeping into a salty puddle on the bottom. My thighs got red and tight from the heat, but I didn't budge an inch. Not even when we got home and Dad turned off the engine and we just sat there in the driveway. The Japanese maple tree that Dad had planted was sighing and swaying above us and the car was ticking and farting out leftover exhaust and I wasn't sure why we were still in the car while Mom and Betsy were inside waiting for the food. I snuck a peek over at Dad but he was looking out at the snow so I looked there too.
Then he said, "Hey kiddo, you know what? You go on ahead. I'll meet you inside."
"Huh?"
"Food's getting cold. I'll be right there."
I didn't want to go, but it felt as though he was waiting for me to leave, setting his face toward the windshield so I couldn't even guess what his eyes were saying. By the time I slid out and walked to his side of the car, he was standing next to it with the door open, letting out a long, heavy breath.
"I'll wait for you if..."
"Just go!" he said, and there was something coarse and ragged in his voice that I'd never heard before, icier even than the night sky.
I started up the walk, hugging the bag close. I could hear the wax paper from the egg rolls crinkling and my corduroys rubbing together. I could hear everything. Especially something rumbling behind me. A horrible noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. When I turned around my father was crouched on the lawn. I ducked among the hedges so he couldn't see me and through the tangle of frozen branches I watched his body roll forward, the muscles in the back of his neck clenched together. He vomited into the snow. It made a small, steaming hole in the ground. He stayed there on his hands and knees, staring into it, this place where his insides had gone. I stayed staring too. At the moon falling on his head just where his crown of hair curled up at the ends. At his shoulders rising up like looming hilltops under his jacket and his jaw drooping open like a dog's. At how small he was all of a sudden.
Then he leaned back on his heels, took a scoop of fresh snow, and covered the hole so it looked like this moment had never happened.
I crept into the house through the side door and delivered my leaky parcel to Mom, then went to wash my hands. When I got to the dinner table, Dad was already there, licking his lips.
"Mmm, I'm hungry," he said, and gave me a quick smile. I didn't look at him for the rest of the meal.
After I'd helped with the dishes, when I was supposed to be getting ready for bed, I slinked into my parents' room. It was completely dark except for the light from the street, and the blue spotted wallpaper looked like a sky turned inside out. I went to the window to find the hole my father had covered up. It was under the snow somewhere, I knew it, and I had to find it and see if it had grown bigger or deeper. I needed to know where it led. I had this queasy feeling it could be tunneling down all the way through the ground like sour molten lava. Only, when I got to the window, I couldn't see anything on the ground except white. In school they had made us cut out paper snowflakes and then write about how each one was unique and delicate. That was a lie. This snow was not delicate at all. It was monotonous and hard and it made the entire universe slowly sink into its unyielding hush. And I knew something ugly and sinister was lurking just below it.
"What are you doing?" Betsy was standing in the doorway in only her underwear and bra. She had a line of cream bleach on her upper lip.
"Nothing. What are you doing?"
"Nothing. You shouldn't be in Mom and Dad's room, you know."
"You shouldn't either." I wanted to sound tough, but my voice came out thin and whiny.
"I'm just getting the nail scissors. What are you doing?"
"I'm just...looking."
"At what?" said Betsy, putting her hand on her hip.
"Never mind," I snarled as I stomped past her. I wasn't about to tell her that I was looking for a pile of hidden puke.
"Freak," I heard her grumble as she closed her bedroom door.
I checked every night from different windows in the house. The snow turned gray and splotchy and then it broke into warped continents across the lawn, but there was still no sign of the hole. Not even a speck. I tried to measure where the car was parked and where Dad's knees could've sunk in the ground, but any mark he had made was gone. I didn't even know what I was looking for after a while; I just knew I had to look for it. It was as if the dirty snow had swallowed this fermenting secret and every time I stepped over it, or worse, on top of it, I was driving it farther into the earth's core. I hated that I was the only one who knew it was there and that I had become its sentinel, watching to see where it would surface. One night when Mom was tucking me into bed, I tried to tell her that I had seen something that maybe I shouldn't have. Just in case Dad hadn't told her; I didn't want him to get in trouble.
"I think I might've seen Dad maybe get sick."
"What do you mean, sick?"
"I think maybe throw-up sick. Maybe."
"I don't think so, sweetie. But even if he did, you know sometimes his gas gets bad. Don't worry. I'll make sure he eats more Tums."
Then it snowed again and this time it fell in thick, imposing flakes. I knew I'd never find the hole after that, no matter how hard I looked, but I couldn't stop. I also decided that for the rest of the winter I would enter the house only through the side door and I would step on the stone wall to get there. I didn't trust the frozen front lawn at all.
Inside our house wasn't much better. The radio was still on continually, but it had subsided to a muted chatter and I knew without asking that we were not to raise our voices above it. Dad began staying home from work a lot and going to doctors' appointments. Mom said that something was going on with his kidneys, a genetic disease. The doctors were working on it, but in the meantime, we had to leave all the cranberry juice for him and not make too much noise.
Often when I came home from school, Dad was already in his drippy dungarees and cream-colored fisherman's sweater, shuffling around the living room in his moccasin slippers with his hands in his back pockets as if he was holding his kidneys into his sagging frame. Sometimes he was asleep in the big armchair, his head listing backward, the skin of his neck collecting limply like a plucked chicken's.
I'd clear my throat and he would jolt forward to declare groggily, "Well, hello there, madam!" scrambling to rearrange his face into a genteel grin as if he hadn't been asleep and I was a Southern belle sidling up for lemonade.
"Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?" I'd ask. I didn't intend to sound mean, but I didn't like it when he was home before me. I'd think about all those other dads coming up the hill from the train with their blue suits and briefcases and get impatient with him for being so droopy and pale.
"Oh, you know," he'd say.
I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I never learned the whole story. I didn't know how that hole had dragged us all down into its evil silence. I didn't know why Dad's sweater had grown so long and loose that he was lost in it and I was too scared to ask where he had gone. I didn't know when the diagnosis had changed because first Mom would say it was a fever and then Dad would say it's nothing and then Betsy and I were in the bathroom one night and in between spits of toothpaste she whispered, "It's really bad. Like, this is serious."
"Serious how?" I asked with an annoyed shrug.
"Serious serious."
"Shut up. You don't know that." I turned on both faucets as far as they would go, hoping to drive her away in a puff of steam.
I don't know how much my parents shared with either of my siblings. I don't know what they knew themselves. I just knew it was my obligation to trust them when they said it was a nothing fever. Each night as I gripped the windowsill and bore my eyes into the matted ground, I was convincing myself it was something out there that was rotten and not right here — this close and this real.
Dad had dealt with bouts of pain caused by his polycystic kidneys, but never like this. Now there were overnights at various hospitals where they tested my father for all kinds of diseases and pumped him with antibiotics. When Mom brought us to visit, he pulled his arm quickly under the covers so I couldn't see the IV needle pricking his cloudy skin. I hated when he did this, especially when I caught him in the act, the small tubing snapping lightly on the starched sheets, dribbling some radioactive-looking elixir into his veins. I wanted to tell him he wasn't being sneaky enough; I could see he was trying to hide something, I just couldn't figure out what it meant.
"The doctors are working hard on it," Mom kept saying as she kissed me good night. "They're really good, too."
Months later when the ground thawed and the first crocuses shot up, my father took off his grimy sweater and he'd shrunken in half. Still, nobody said anything. I decided I wasn't talking either. At my sixth-grade graduation, even though it was almost ninety degrees out on the playground, Dad showed up in his blue corduroys and winter oxford, his Nikon hanging around his neck, pulling him toward the blacktop. He kept asking me to gather my friends together for more pictures but I politely explained that we were very busy signing yearbooks and making summer plans and then I ran away from him and hung out by the bleachers for the rest of the afternoon.
That night, even with my bedroom door barricaded shut, I couldn't tell my diary the real reason I took off. I was too hot and twisted up inside. I was mad at Dad for being so rickety looking, huddled over in a sorry crescent, like he was making a game plan but there was no team beside him. I was mad at Mom for her outdated haircut and flimsy-looking smile. And I was mad most of all at the doctors for being fine and good and working so hard.
My father's decline was swift, though of course I'll never know how much he suffered. I don't remember much about that summer, except that the cicadas swooped in again in their screeching gales and Dad's hospital refrigerator was only big enough to hold cans of vanilla drink that he said tasted like glue.
I still hold on to the slivers of sunlight that we shared.
My mom rented a cabin in Massachusetts with a dock that bobbed absently while we dipped our feet in the lake. When I looked down at our legs in the water, I thought Dad had seaweed climbing up his until I realized those were his veins. The lake was cool and still and looked like a big bowl of muddy soup to me, but Dad said it was the best lake he'd ever seen and I said, "Me too," because I just wanted us to be the same.
The glass cups of orange sherbet that he ate meditatively, longingly, his lips slick and stained as he smiled with humble relief.
The strings hanging like cobwebs from the bottom of his dungaree shorts.
I remember Betsy coming home from summer camp prattling incessantly about her new boyfriend, showing me his clumsy sonnets of adoration and saying that one day they would run away together and it would be better that way because things at home were only going to get worse.
I remember Jon coming home from his summer job teaching tennis and retreating to his room without a word. I only knew he was there because I could smell the salami sandwiches he loved to microwave or hear him socking tennis balls against the wall.
I remember the night Mom made sure Betsy and Jon were both out of the house. She cooked my favorite meal — crispy chicken, peas, and onion rye bread, which tasted extra delicious and salty until Dad said that he had something to tell me. The doctors had decided it wasn't the kidney thing after all, it was actually cancer and they're working on it but they're not sure what kind or where it all is and it could be spreading through his lymph nodes but there isn't really any way to treat it because his kidneys can't process chemo and whatever they tell him he promises to tell me and he'll make me a deal that if he gets impatient or crabby just know that he still loves me and it's just that he's not feeling well and if I have any questions or I feel worried I can always ask him and he will promise to tell me everything except we don't know everything yet but he's still my dad and he always will be and does that sound fair?
I wagged my head loosely, which passed for a yes. Then we ate for a little while longer until Mom asked why I hadn't touched my peas. She said she thought they were the kind I liked.
"C'mon, Ab. Just a couple," she coaxed.
"Leave her alone, Joan. She's got a lot to digest right now."
"I know, but she needs her greens."
Usually I liked when they were both talking about me and not my siblings, but not that night.
"Hey, Ab, you want to be excused early?" asked Dad.
I nodded to that too. Dad gave me a big smile and a wink as if we were business partners and I'd just made a smart decision.
Then I went up to my room and lay on my bed and squeezed my hands into fists in my pockets so I couldn't be tempted into touching the wallpaper. I just stared at it with my cruelest glare instead. Those flowers and polka dots had known about this all along. They had their own secret language they spoke with the squiggles and stripes and they recognized when someone was going to explode and someone was going to get cancer and they had been laughing at me this whole time while I thought it was the kidney thing. The flowers had hideously wide toothy smiles and the curlicues were bouncing up and down, soaring gleefully off some invisible trampoline, and I hated them all. They were phony and babyish and liars. As I was scowling, even though I didn't want to or mean to, my hands came unleashed. I traced vigorously, stormily, plowing through the pastel brush, trying to make it all better somehow.
The rest of the summer was trips to the hospital and then to the pool. Mom worked half-days and went straight to visit Dad. Sometimes she stayed the night with him while Betsy, Jon, and I ordered Chinese takeout. But it wasn't Sunday night so it tasted off and all the fortune cookies had messages I'd heard before.
One day in early August, Mom told me that instead of going to the pool, she was taking me to work with her and then we were going on a date to Pizza Hut. We each ordered personal pan pizzas and the all-you-can-eat salad bar buffet, which included croutons and black olives, so I was particularly pleased. Mom tucked my hair behind my ears and said, "Remember Dad promised to tell you what was going on, even if it was bad?"
"Yeah."
Twenty-two minutes and eleven seconds.
I had one eye on my watch to time our pan pizzas because if they didn't come out in exactly a half hour, the whole meal would be free.
"Well...so...things are not so good."
"Okay."
Twenty-three minutes and three seconds. I couldn't let the waitress see me timing her because I wanted it to be a surprise.
"So...yeah. It's not so good and the doctors want Daddy to stay in the hospital but he has decided to come home and we'll make the New Room like his bedroom with a special bed and a nurse." The New Room, where we watched TV and played board games, wasn't really new — we had been calling it that since Mr. Finneman built it for us nine years earlier.
Twenty-four. It wasn't even that busy in the Hut. This waitress was really cutting it close.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yeah, sure. That's good, right?"
"Well, good that Dad'll be home again. But...it'll be different. First of all, there won't be much TV watching going on."
That wasn't big news, since we didn't watch that much TV to begin with, but Mom was acting very serious, so I scrunched my eyebrows to let her know I was hearing every word she said.
Twenty-five and forty-four seconds. I smiled into my napkin. I loved the number four and took two in a row as a very auspicious sign.
"So, I just thought I'd tell you. And also, I thought maybe it'd be fun if Betsy and you went to visit the Massachusetts cousins for a week or so. That way, Dad can get settled back at home, and you two can get a few days at the beach."
Twenty-seven...and fifteen seconds. This meal was definitely going to be free.
"Does that sound good? Hey, Chicken? C'mon, sit up straight."
"Sure. Sure." Should I stand up and yell Time's up! I wondered, or should I just let them —
"And here we are. Sorry for the delay, there. We have one personal pan with green peppers and onions, and one with extra cheese and black olives."
Damn it!
The waitress's name tag said Kiki. She had silky hair and a pert ski-jump nose, which only made me feel more gangly and defeated. Twenty-eight minutes and forty-three seconds. I wanted to tell her that she almost didn't make it.
"Be careful not to touch the pan 'cause it's super hot!" Kiki sang as she galloped away. Mom folded her napkin into her collar because she didn't want to get her plum work suit dirty.
"Do you have any questions for me, Chicken?" she asked. Everyone was always asking if there were more questions but I felt like she hadn't given me any information except that we were rearranging the house and I was going on a forced vacation and meanwhile I'd lost the free pizza race.
"Nope!" I declared loudly, shoving a slice into my mouth. It was delicious and crowded with olives, but I felt gypped. Big-time. I knew my mother was still talking but I couldn't hear what she was saying because I was trying to chew in time to the second hand of my watch. Its rhythm was logical, predictable, much more definitive and comforting than the open-ended question-sentences Mom was spewing.
Two days later, Betsy and I packed up our duffels and boarded a train to stay with the Massachusetts cousins, who were on Mom's side of the family. Any other time, I would have liked hanging out with my cousins, but all they wanted to do now was talk about boys with Betsy. I pretended to be absorbed in the biography of Anne Frank that I was supposed to read for school. But from behind the jacket cover, I glowered at them bitterly, thinking, You'll be sorry when my dad dies and I'm the most important, even more important than boys.
The one place I found calm was underwater, where the world was nothing more than a muffled blur. I felt the deep cradling me, protecting me from my cousins and my anger and all the questions that led to more questions. Betsy was a great swimmer and I loved it when we held contests to see how long we could hold our breath and pick up treasures from the mushy bottom. I lasted to nineteen and got sand dollars, mussel shells, snails, and the entire backside of a hermit crab. At night we laid the ocean's floor on the wooden porch railing so it could dry out in the sun. My cousin Eddie boiled up big pots of clams and afterward we dumped out jigsaw puzzles on the floor so we could look for the corner pieces first like Dad taught us. There were no cicadas up here, only a night so clinging and close it lay on top of us like tar. With no patterns to track in the walls, I often tossed and turned, and one night I even wet the bed. When I told Mom about it she said it was okay, there was a lot going on, and I should try enjoying the beach.
So I plugged my nose and plunged under the horizon, trying to blot out everything on land, everything in the sky, everything unknown.
Copyright © 2009 by Abby Sher
What People are Saying About This
"An inspiring story for young people who may be facing similar problems, rendered in charming, self-deprecating humor." —-Kirkus
Reading Group Guide
This reading group guide for Amen, Amen, Amen includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Abby Sher. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
In this vivid, humorous, and candid memoir, Abby Sher invites us into a life consumed by rituals. When she is ten, Abby’s favorite aunt and father both grow ill and pass away unexpectedly. Overcome with a grief she does not know how to handle, she takes to rituals of comfort: kissing her father’s picture repeatedly, singing songs as she passes familiar landmarks, and praying incessantly for the safety and health of others. Soon, her fervent prayers for the protection of those around her have consumed her life. As Abby transitions into adulthood, her compulsions manifest in new and darker ways. This is her tale of living with obsessive compulsive disorder—a life filled with tragedy, impermanence, and uncertainty, but also joy, passion, and comedy. And, most importantly, an unshakable faith that both nourishes and confounds her being, forever and always, amen.
Questions for Discussion
1. Abby provides a number of examples of early compulsive behavior. Are these innocent childhood habits or do they indicate a predisposition to OCD? Do you think her father’s and aunt’s deaths in some way led to her OCD?
2. Discuss Abby’s experiences with death as a child, a teenager, and an adult. How does David’s death make the imagined accidents more real? How do her ideas about guilt and responsibility evolve with each new experience?
3. Discuss the role of prayer in Abby’s life and the different things she prays for. How are her fears of death and danger related to what she prays for? In what ways do her prayers help her and hinder her?
4. Abby’s various compulsions/obsessions evolve and take shape over the course of her life. From singing the cement mixer song to picking up sharp objects to kissing her bike to pounding her head. List and discuss her rituals and compulsions. How do these rituals relate to the circumstances of her life at different times? What are the motivations behind each of them?
5. After going on medication, many of Abby’s compulsions are eased but, she writes, “I had the sense that G-d was not pleased with my decision to medicate.” Why does she feel that acknowledging her OCD undermines her piety? Is her faith distinct from her illness, or is it connected? Does the medication make her less devout?
6. How does Abby’s intense friendship with Ruthie challenge her notions of self? How is their relationship similar to that of Abby and Ellyn or Abby and her mother? Consider the ways that Ruthie both broadens Abby’s horizons and becomes an unhealthy obsession.
7. What does Abby relish about being on stage? How do her feelings about performing change over time and why?
8. What factors contribute to Abby’s progression from counting calories to over-exercising to self-mutilation? Why do you think her adult compulsions are more self-directed than earlier ones? How do her prayers change as these behaviors manifest?
9. Consider Abby’s romantic relationships with Will, Tristan, Mark, Ben, and Jay. How does her reverence for G-d, and for her father, complicate these romances? What expectations does she have of the men she loves and what expectations does she have of herself? Ultimately, she and Jay find happiness together; what compromises and epiphanies allow them to make it work?
10. Abby relies on and adores her mother, but their relationship isn’t always close. How does it shift over the course of the book? Which events draw them together or pull them apart? Does her mother help with or enable Abby’s illness and her compulsions? Discuss the significance of the chapters “the incredible shrinking truth” and “start spreading the news.”
11. Abby’s mother values restraint, she writes, and rarely reveals distress. How does her restraint affect Abby and the way they communicate? In what ways does Abby follow her mother’s example or reject it?
12. How do the lists, prayers, and photographs help to frame Abby’s story? Does the way she writes about the formation of new prayers and the manner in which she must say them help you understand her thinking?
13. Abby’s love for her parents shapes many of her beliefs and experiences. How does the advent of her own parenthood change her outlook on her past, her faith, and her health?
14. Discuss the various ways that Abby is “faithful.” Faithful to G-d, to her father, to her ideal of family, and others. Does faithfulness or loyalty become an obsession for her?
15. Look for passages in the book in which Abby describes her feelings about G-d and her relationship with Him. What does she believe He wants from her? How do those passages change over the course of the book? At the end of the book has she found a balance between her understanding of Him and her illness?
Expand Your Book Club
1. We all have rituals, routines, and superstitions. Have each member of the group describe one of theirs. Have any of these habits become compulsions? Discuss the borderline between the two.
2. Visit http://www.ocdonline.com/ to learn more about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Have one group member present the technical definition of the disorder to the group.
3. Produce some lists of your own, in the same spirit as the author’s. Can you come up with ten things you believe fervently? Or five things that you do every day?
A Conversation with Abby Sher
1. When and how did you decide to write a memoir? How long did it take you to write it?
I actually wanted to write a memoir years ago, but then decided it would be too painful and I didn’t really have resolution with my story. Then a personal essay of mine was published in SELF in 2007, and I got a lot of good feedback from readers, including an editor who wondered if I would be interested in expanding it into a book. From start to finish it probably took me two years to write, although it will never feel finished.
2. What was the process like? Were there things you remembered that surprised you? Did the shape of the book or the way you presented your story evolve or change over the course of writing it?
I loved writing this story. It was incredibly freeing. First structuring a proposal and finding some of the through lines, then having a purpose and goal to my writing each day. I usually have to write everything by hand first, then go through and put it in the computer, editing as I do this. Writing by hand often makes me wander and that’s where I find the memories that could be somewhat hidden. My fabulous editor really challenged me and helped me dig in deeper on each draft.
3. Throughout the book you mention not wanting to discuss your prayers or mention Him. Yet here you have written a book about them. How and when did you arrive at a point when you were more comfortable writing and talking about your faith and your relationship with G-d?
This is probably the hardest part about publishing the book. I still want to keep my faith secret in many ways. But as I continue to work on my obsessions, it gets more important for me to be honest and open. Secrecy has always been for me a sign of anxiety.
4. Were there parts of the book that were harder to write than others? Did you find it easier to write about your experiences as an adult, seeing as they are more recent, or your childhood experiences?
I definitely had more fun writing about my childhood because I have more distance from those memories and could almost observe them unfold. Also, I miss my aunt and father, who died when I was young, very much and it felt like I got to play with them as I wrote about them. The later years were harder because I’m not proud of many of my actions, and it was hard to take ownership of my mistakes and the way I hurt people.
5. In the book you write about the difficulty of reconciling your illness and your faith. How would you describe OCD in your own terms? How do the two coexist in your life today?
I think a lot of people view OCD as an obstacle or struggle. For me it was and continues to be a survival skill. Especially my prayers. They helped me through the hardest times in my life. I still try to pray daily for at least half an hour. I also time myself, to make sure I live life fully. I think my greatest challenge is to think about what I’m saying and doing, before I require myself to repeat it again.
6. You write that anorexia is an imperfect description of your eating disorder because of your OCD. Why is that?
Anorexia felt like it was only addressing what I put in my mouth, not the tornado in my brain. But as many doctors have told me, the starving or bingeing or whatever your disorder entails is just a way to mask what you’re running from.
7. Will your friends and family be surprised by the book? How much of your internal struggle do they know?
Yes, I’ve had a few friends and my sister read the book already and say “I had no idea.” Another friend looked at the cover and said she was scared to read it. I kept most of this secret for much of my life.
8. You’ve described the book as being part elegy, part adventure, part detective story, and part love story. Would you explain what you mean?
It’s definitely an elegy to my parents. I’m still learning how to honor them without idolizing them. It’s an adventure, because I endowed myself with these super powers and I was sure I was responsible for saving the world. The detective part is a little trickier because I wound up being the villain instead of the hero and had to cover my tracks. And the love story is still evolving. I’m still not sure how but I wound up with a great partner and he’s agreed to stick around and love me and make me omelets on Sunday mornings.
9. Why did you choose the title Amen, Amen, Amen?
I’m sure there are multiple definitions for the word, but I learned that Amen translates to So be it. It’s supposed to be the finale, the end of whatever song or prayer or plea you are offering. But for me, Amen just became another word I had to repeat over and over again. It lost its meaning because I was too busy counting out its syllables and making sure they were divisible by five or three or eleven.
10. What would your mother think of the book?
I really hope she likes it. I love being able to write in her voice. I hope I’ve done her justice, and that I used good grammar.
11. What do you find similar or different about performing comedy versus the more solitary process of writing?
I love both processes. And I think performing in a group, especially improvisation, helps me just throw onto the page whatever comes into my head first. I really try to make that first draft be as uncontrolled and messy as possible. I love writing in coffee shops so that I feel like I’m part of a greater creative whole, but also on my own. And I got to write most of this book while I was pregnant so I always had someone (in my belly) with whom to sound out ideas, which was really fun.
12. Your life now seems remarkably settled. Describe an average day in your life. How do you deal with things when your OCD makes itself known?
Yeah, it’s a little scary to think that I’m settled, but I love my home. I love the rituals that I do continue to observe. I pray when I wake up. I feed my daughter breakfast and then go to a café to write and/or go to a yoga class. My husband leaves for work at midday so I either get to play with my daughter for the afternoon or I teach yoga or write some more. We have a dinner, bath time, and bedtime routine. After she’s asleep I make myself dinner and either do some more work or once in a while get to perform at my friend’s theater. I definitely have rituals I have to watch – extra prayers, picking up litter, restricting my food. I talk about them regularly with a therapist. And I am currently on medication because after I gave birth I was having a lot of anxiety and did try to hurt myself once. I don’t want to subject my family to that.
13. What would you suggest to people who read this and feel that some of the behaviors resonate with them?
Talk about it. Talk about it with someone you trust, be it a doctor, a sibling, a friend or even your diary. So much of OCD, and many addictive behaviors, is about secrecy. It’s always helpful to sound out the stories that are playing on repeat in your head. I’ve also included a resources section at the back of the book – just some doctors, books and institutions that have helped me sort through my obsessions.