"The Artist's Way" guest post: What I Know, And What My OCD Tells Me

A leap of faith is the ultimate plunge into uncertainty, the permanent thorn in the side of OCD. Embracing the idea of synchronicity helped me take my biggest jump yet, and I feel unexpectedly serene.

Hi there!

Today I’m excited to share a guest essay from Christy Krawietz, who is participating in The Artist’s Way group I’m hosting. Christy is an LA-based comedy writer and sketch & improv performer. Below, she writes about how embracing the idea of synchronicity helped her regain faith in herself — despite it being very difficult to do given her OCD. And, she does it while being very funny.

Without further ado, please enjoy this inspiring and delightful essay!

Evidence of my charm.

With OCD, you’re never really all in on anything. OCD is marked by extreme discomfort with uncertainty. In fact, OCD can make choice impossible because you can never know the outcome of any decision before you make it. Behind every option is some invisible, unknowable catalyst waiting to set into motion a string of events that only you can stop from happening. Or not.

When every decision feels like life or death, you start to doubt your instincts. Is that tug in your gut a premonition? Is the tightness in your chest a warning from the universe? Or is your brain just overreacting? You don’t know! The safe thing to do is treat it as a threat and act accordingly. Just in case.

But of course, this comes at great cost to yourself. You’re always on alert, scanning your surroundings for potential threats. You can’t relax, and when you do, it feels selfish. There’s a disconnect between your mind and body; hunger cues disappear, the distinction between physical and mental exhaustion blurs. Your circadian rhythm up and quits on you, either because of your medication or your constant state of alertness. Sometimes you feel like you’re in a fog, but most of the time, it’s just terror. You are terrified and trapped in a never-ending cycle of indecision.

Thankfully, when my symptoms are under control, the terror recedes into a gentle, uneasy hum, and decisions feel less critical and more like an inconvenient burden. Fears still play on a loop in my head, but they’re quieter. The threat is farther away and easier to ignore. But the discomfort with uncertainty remains. 

Needless to say, faith is a difficult concept for me as a person with OCD. Not coincidentally, I lost my faith in a god around the time my severe OCD symptoms started to appear circa age 12. Since you can’t really prove with scientific certainty that a god exists, I couldn’t bring myself to believe in one. At the same time, you can’t really prove that no god exists; theism and atheism are two sides of the same coin. Leaps of faith of any kind are out of the question and have been for the past 23 years.

But then. I made a huge leap of faith. And things started to fall into place. A force beyond my control moving in service of my goals and dreams. The antithesis to everything instilled in me by my OCD.

Let me back up. About five years ago, I took an improv class, and I became insufferable.

No, let me back up further. (This is immediate evidence of my insufferability, but I digress.) Since I was very young, I wanted to write. In seventh grade, I signed up for theater, and when I learned to use a camcorder (hello, 2002!), I knew I wanted to make films. Despite my budding OCD, I knew for certain that I would make it in Hollywood, living out my dream in a beach house, working with my favorite actors, the entire cast of Alias (remember: 2002). This was the first Thing I Knew. 

From the 2003 Academy Awards at Alamo Junior High. I remember imagining wearing this dress on the red carpet someday. When reporters would ask me who I’m wearing, I would say, “Dillard’s.”

Long story short, this dream was sidetracked in college by an overwhelming feeling that pursuing art was selfish. The OCD was back, telling me my talents would be better used elsewhere. “You’re smart; go be a lawyer or something and help people.” The inner turmoil of this decision was deafening, and I chose law without being able to discern what I felt about it. But after a particularly painful romantic rejection in 2019, I felt drawn to sign up for an improv class.

Soon, I was writing sketches, and the second Thing I Knew revealed itself: I wanted to write for TV. I taught myself to write a teleplay, and then an original pilot. I took classes that taught me free internet resources are not a great way to learn to write a pilot. Though I felt more purpose and joy than I had in a very long time, I remained doubtful that my dreams would come to fruition. I was no longer certain I’d see my work on the big screen or get to meet Victor Garber.

I continued to pursue writing regardless, and as I did, a series of things happened that, in retrospect, look a whole lot like synchronicity. In 2021, I spent some of my stimulus check at the dentist, with exactly enough left over that when I got an e-mail about a writing retreat in New Mexico, I signed up immediately. In 2022, I tweeted into the ether asking about international writing retreats. Lo and behold, I soon came across an upcoming retreat in Italy hosted by a TV writer (Ali!). After Italy, a friend told me she was starting a local non-profit, and I pitched a comedy fundraising show. It was my first show as a producer, director, and writer. And in 2023, after losing power during another winter in Texas, I decided to move to LA to pursue my TV-writing dreams; I knew, with certainty, it was time.   

It took me almost a year to put in my notice at work and start selling my stuff. During this time, I spent months applying to remote legal jobs online to absolutely no avail. (Not to go full-on old-man-yells-at-cloud about this, but back in my day, we wrote our resumes for a human audience, not a robotic one.)

What I really wanted, though, was to just show up in California and figure things out, but that felt reckless and irresponsible. It was too much uncertainty for my OCD, and I didn’t know enough Things to feel comfortable making that jump. 

By January 2024, it felt like the move would never happen. While I didn’t need to add one more thing to my plate, I joined Ali and her Little Things readers in working through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way because I knew, with certainty, that centering my creativity would improve my overall well-being. 

In The Artist’s Way, Cameron embraces synchronicity, which she loosely defines as “a fortuitous intermeshing of events” or “answered prayers.” With this concept, Cameron calls on us to trust that the universe will deliver back what we put out into it. In other words, she asks us to make a leap of faith.

Look, I wanted to be completely, totally on board with synchronicity. I’ve wanted some kind of faith in the universe for a very long time; really, I wanted the confidence that everything would be okay. I wanted permission to let myself be happy without waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I still had 23 years of strong doubts that would not give way to some lady in some book.

But then. Then Cameron shares a quote from mountaineer and writer W. H. Murray that changed everything: 

Until one is committed, there is a hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

I stopped reading and stared into the middle distance. It was an unintentionally dramatic moment, and as a performer, I love romanticizing my life. I only wish I had a cigarette to really let the moment land, and maybe it could have been raining.

I realized, dramatically but earnestly, that by waiting to secure a job I did not want, I was not fully committed to chasing my dream. Maybe the months of rejection were a gift from the universe, a sign that it was safe to finally step away from the 8-to-5 lifestyle I could feel slowly killing me. The next day, I did the math; I could afford to barista for a few months while I figured things out. I decided to jump.

I was brought to tears several times that day. I knew, truly knew, that this was the right move. I cannot understate what a big deal that is for a person with OCD. For someone who labors under the weight of grocery-related decisions, this feeling, this sureness, is practically unheard of.

And almost as soon as I put this choice out into the universe, things started to come together as if by magic. I put a deposit down on a dream apartment. I snagged the last spot in a class from a writer of one of my favorite shows. My play, “Paul Blart: Vatican Cop,” was picked up for production this summer in LA after a successful run in Austin. I got an opportunity to write for and perform in a local sketch competition. I was asked to write this post.

I don’t know if this is synchronicity in action. I’m starting to believe the universe will guide me, but a lifetime of OCD-reinforced beliefs will probably not be erased quickly or easily. Regardless, my faith in one thing has returned: Faith in myself. If you had told my 12-year-old self that she’d soon be living near the beach and putting up her own show, she’d have been like, “Yeah, obviously. Now where’s your Oscar?” But if I had said that to myself at 30, I wouldn’t have believed it. Or at 32. Or even at 35, frankly, because I didn’t believe until very recently that I had the power to set such big, good things in motion for myself.

All I had to do was jump. This whole time, it was really that simple. However, I do believe everything that happened before now prepared me to make this jump. Without having learned what I’ve learned on my journey, I’m not sure I would have the confidence to keep pushing toward my goals. The key to it all was embracing the faith I misplaced in favor of OCD so long ago. We all have great power within ourselves, and that power is worthy of our own worship. 

I’m not saying I am God (yet), but I mean… we all have the power to move mountains. 

Now, knowing the Things I Know, I can better parse what’s OCD and what’s intuition. The distinction is infuriatingly simple: intuition brings clarity, and OCD brings chaos. If something is intuitive, I’ll feel peace embracing it. In jarring contrast to the OCD, I’ll feel powerful. And the confidence I had when I was 12 fills me once more.  

I’ll briefly recap the most important Things I Know, and I encourage you to do the same. I’m all in on my dreams at this point, and I have faith in myself to make them happen. I have faith that when things get hard, I can return my focus to the goal. And I have faith that one day, I’ll watch Sliding Doors without panicking about chaos theory or Gwyneth Paltrow’s British accent.

I know I can live and work as an artist. I know art is not selfish. I know taking care of my own needs is not selfish. I know centering my creativity heals me.

I know that if the universe doesn’t catch me, I’ll catch myself. 

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