Chapter Eighteen:
Never,... ever,... simple
Determined to “beat” OCD and to master myself, and also to become a better hunter, and target shooter, I decided to buy a new shotgun. I wanted a shotgun that I could be proud of,..., and one with interchangeable chokes, and that was of good quality. I wanted something that was nice looking too….
In the fall of 1999, I went to a sporting clays tournament, (sporting clays is a shooting sport similar to Trap and Skeet) and, I had the privilege of using a semi-automatic shotgun. I was amazed at how nicely that shotgun fired! Normally, I was used to a 12 gauge pump, having quite a sizable, noticeable kick to it. But with the semi-automatic, I was dumbfounded by the reduced felt recoil. I had no idea that the semi-automatic action, that was actually gas-operated, used gas from the shell’s discharge to cycle the action, and thereby some of the recoil force was used up in the process. Actually, a lot of it was used up! The gun hardly kicked at all and I loved it!
Now a believer in the merit of semi-automatics, I decided to get one as soon as possible. I put an ad in the Prince Albert “Shopper” (a newspaper), that I was looking for a semi-automatic shotgun and I got a couple of replies. It was October 1999. I got a reply from a man who had a 1964 Winchester model 1400, 12 gauge, semi-automatic. My dad went out to pick up the shotgun, and he was under my clear instructions that he would tell the gentleman that he would pay the asking price for the gun, but he needed to go out and try the gun first, to see that it cycled properly. He got the gun, and he tried it. It fired and cycled fine. He actually picked up two different guns and tried them both. One jammed up immediately, and one didn’t. I bought that gun that worked (obviously?- actually the one that jammed just needed to be disassembled and cleaned, but I didn’t know about that–). It was a beautiful gun to swing and shoot, and it had very little kick to it.
I joined the Gun Club and I started shooting skeets, but my score was lower than most of the other shooters. Mine was about 12-15/25 and the other people were scoring around 17-25/25,.... I hated that! I knew there was the factor of proper equipment, and I wondered how relevant that really was. Did the gun really matter? Well, I used a gun, lent to me by the gun club with a skeet choke-(wider pattern) and then I used my Winchester 1400 that was a full-choke bored out to a modified (tighter pattern). With the wider pattern, my score went up markedly, and instantly…! So, I decided nearly right then and there that I was going to buy a new gun with interchangeable chokes. Interchangeable chokes are tubes that you insert into the threaded inside of the muzzle of your gun and the guns that come with interchangeable chokes usually have about 4 chokes that come with. This gives you options to choose from, depending on what you are shooting at and what kind of a pattern of shot you desire. Some chokes give a tighter and some chokes give a looser, more open pattern.
I knew I wanted a new gun, and for price reasons and recoil factors, I knew I wanted a semi-automatic. In the end I chose a semi-automatic Remington model 11-87 and ordered it. I didn’t know it then but at that moment I was walking into a major “hotbed'' for OCD activity.
When I got to the vendor's place to pick up my new gun, it was still in the box. I panicked. I had to set up the new gun by myself? I didn’t want that. At that time in my life I was generally spending a lot of my time, secretly checking things, and when I did that, it was to lower the amount of anxiety that I was feeling. I would walk past the stove in the house and I would get a shot of anxiety at the thought of “what if I couldn’t stop worrying about the stove being on?” These were OCD thoughts. They were happening every day several times a day, plus there were the old questions and thoughts that were still “on my tab.”
I was so vehemently determined to change myself. I thought it all through in the summer of 2001 before I purchased the gun. I naturally wanted to steer away from tough and anxiety- provoking experiences. Naturally I had a good mind to never get a semi-automatic because it might be a pain, I thought about the prospective purchase, and I thought about how it might cause me to worry. “I accept the challenge '' I said to myself,.... I was worried about potential bouts of OCD, centered around the minutest details of the gun and whether or not it was put together properly, and that it would function flawlessly and safely, and whether or not it would be safe from rust etc. It was all OCD- and I knew it, so I told myself that I would simply get it, and then I would take it apart, force myself to take it apart, and then, I would put it back together and I would just get used to doing it. Boy, was I wrong! But it happened with many different facets in my life, not just with this particular gun….
It is extremely relevant to note that this very process of exposing oneself to that which he is afraid of, and doing that which he is afraid of doing is the operating theory behind the very prevalent modern theory in Clinical Psychological circles of Exposure and Response Prevention, otherwise referred to as ERP. Theoretically, in Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), one exposes oneself to that which he is afraid of and then after stimulating his anxiety through the exposure he prevents himself from responding, which is the typical compulsion. ERP is a type of CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that works on the theory of habituation.
I bought the new gun. I went out to Trap shooting on Thursday evening, and things went well. The gun shot fine. Sunday came, and I went out to Skeet. It alsowent well. One of the members of the club was quite knowledgeable about the cleaning process for the semi-automatic shotguns. He offered to show me and another fellow how to go about cleaning the gun. I was interested in cleaning the gun, because I had read that semi-automatics tended to “Jam”- when they got too dirty. Now, this is really important also– that you understand what exactly I mean by all this talk of "jamming."
A "jam," with a semi-automatic gun– well…, first of all, what is semi-automatic? Semi-automatic means that the firearm is first of all, not a single shot,..., that it is a repeating firearm, usually it can hold at least 5 shots. Secondly, the semi-automatic refers to the action or how the gun cycles one empty cartridge out of the chamber of the firearm, and at nearly the same time, in the second stage of the cycle, takes another cartridge from the magazine of the firearm and directs it into the chamber for the next shot.
Every firearm has an action. A semi-automatic action uses gas from the cartridge discharge, at the time of firing, to push a piston backwards toward the butt of the gun, extracting the spent casing, and then the spring in the action retracts and the action closes, and, in that closing stage of the cycle, a new unfired cartridge is guided into the chamber for firing. It’s quite interesting, to me…. There are many different aspects to a single cycle, and the inventors of these systems had to design and analyze a lot of things. Semi-automatics were called semi, because they were not fully automatic. A fully automatic firearm was one that you pulled the trigger on and held the trigger in the pulled position and the gun just fired fully automatically, firing, and ejecting and chambering all by itself. With a semi-automatic, the shooter has to pull the trigger and release the trigger for each individual shot to occur. With the use of a fully automatic gun, you get very rapid fire. With the semi-automatic you still get fairly rapid fire, but not as rapid as fully automatic. Of course the implications for these two configurations were many, especially in war and combat….
Now, fully automatic weapons are used mainly for combat, and they are, for the most part, totally illegal in many places in the world, including Canada. Semi-automatics are also used for combat, but they are also used in sport- shooting and law enforcement. They are also used for hunting. A few advantages to a semi-automatic firearm are that the shooter need not do anything except pull and release the trigger and concentrate on acquiring his target. With other repeating actions, the shooter must pump or lever or work (bolt action) each individual cartridge in and out of the chamber of his or her firearm for each individual shot. The other big difference is that a semi-automatic tends to have far less recoil. Recoil is the force that kicks back when a firearm is discharged or fired. If you are shooting hundreds of shots in a day, as you do in sporting clays or skeet shooting, it's nice to have a low amount of recoil, as well as the luxury of simply having to pull the trigger for each discharge of the firearm. The only disadvantage of the semi-automatic action, or the primary disadvantage, in my mind, especially at the time, was that semi automatics could Jam if they got dirty, but what even is a jam?
A jam is when the casing that is empty and was just discharged in the chamber of a firearm does not get transported successfully out of the chamber and gets stuck in the breech of the firearm, or something similar occurs, thereby stopping or jamming the firing cycle, … If that happens, there is no danger to the shooter, from the firearm itself, but the shooting sequence is stopped, until the jam is cleared, and the empty casing or stuck fresh cartridge is guided on its path by the shooter, and things are corrected, and then shooting can continue. Why do Jams occur? They usually occur after a significant amount of gunpowder residue has accumulated in various parts of the firearm. How is Jamming mitigated? By cleaning the firearm,... specifically, by removing the stuff that is causing the jams from the specific areas of the firearm that are relevant. What is the importance or significance of a jam?
In war or combat, when you were shooting your firearm and your weapon jams, you could be left vulnerable to your enemy and killed. In hunting, if your gun jams, you might only get one shot, or, you might not get as many shots as you could have gotten, if the gun hadn’t jammed…. This translates into not as many potential targets hit in target competition, or not as many ducks killed on a hunt. This translates into damaged pride, more or less…., but in combat it translates into lost lives.
How important is all of this in life? To me, back then in the year 2000, I obsessed about these things, far too much. Obsession itself is inherently excessive. Obsessing a lot is waaaay too much. I thought it was so very important. I spent hours and hours thinking about it all, and painstakingly “cleaning” different guns. I knew it was overdone. I was painfully aware that what I was thinking and doing was irrational and excessive. I used to spend so much time doing it, and when I did it I would be terribly anxious and panicky. I’m not proud or happy about it, but I do think- I am certain that it was part of my illness. Some would make jokes about this kind of excess,..., I couldn’t, wouldn’t and won't make jokes about it. It wasn’t and isn’t funny for me. It was my life, and it was out of control. It was out of control because I was obsessed with being in total control of so many things, including my mind and my emotions, because I have OCD.
I eventually put together a gun cleaning kit, consisting of push rods for different guns, bronze brushes, patches, rags, gun oils of different kinds,… and I put it all in a nice box. If you ask me, today, I personally think that cleaning most guns is, for most people, for all intents and purposes, unnecessary, but I felt compelled to do it. I would get the thought in my head that the gun might be rusty somehow, somewhere, and then that rust might somehow cause an accident. Then I would be overcome with anxiety and the torment would begin.
Many times I would try to not clean the guns. Indeed, doing the opposite of what you feel compelled to do in OCD theory, is one of the proposed methods of dealing with OCD. In some cases I think it might work, and in some cases it’s harder to implement. Don’t clean your shotgun, ok, you can try to not do it. Don’t wear a condom during sex? Maybe not so easy or smart. Treating OCD is not easy, and it's not simple either. Do not fall for the catchy books out there that have titles that make bold sweeping claims of curing OCD, of curing yourself of the illness. In my experience it is not the case, and it is certainly the exception to the rule, if it- curing –even does exist at all.
When I started cleaning my guns, I was usually caught in a state of mild panic and I would be anxious the whole time I cleaned them, as well as during the hours before and after the cleaning. When wasn’t I anxious? Pretty much never. I wasn’t very anxious when I was drunk….That’s why I drank excessively, then, because I drank excessively, I got Colitis.
When I cleaned a gun, especially my semi-automatic shotguns, I would have to take the gun apart, or disassemble it. This involved, getting out the owners manual, and reading the steps and following the directions. I did it at first, thinking I was just going to simply clean it, and put it away and just go on with my day. That’s what I wanted to do. It’s not what I did though.
It’s not enough to simply desire to change. I desired to change, intensely, for over 20 years. It is very demeaning to tell people that they don’t desire it badly enough, and therefore, it is their fault that they do not change themselves. In fact, it was an unfortunate characteristic of OCD, that even when I moved to Japan, in the end of 2001, thousands of kilometers away, from any of my guns, I would still become caught in the jaws of terrible anxiety and panic because I couldn’t remember the exact features or characteristics of a certain part of one of my guns! It was embarrassingly and extremely disempowering (derailed my self confidence). Because it was disempowering, it was extremely impairing,…, because it was extremely impairing it was catastrophic. Again I wish to mention that I also worried about other things too like the location of objects, random objects, (papers, gas lines etc). and “what if they spontaneously combusted and caused my parent’s house to burn down?” Totally irrational. But it happened a lot. Guns themselves are not inherently evil. It was precisely because the subject matter of my obsessions was varied and not limited to any one area that I knew the problem was in my mind and not in reality itself.
The aforementioned anxiety due to inability to recall certain memories, facts or events happened very frequently from the time I was about 18 and it can still happen, although meditating helps a lot. It happened sometimes even as a child before 18, and it can still happen now. Other OCD sufferers report the same experiences. I have read the articles of experts, hundreds, if not thousands of times. I spent a great deal of my time in Japan from 2001-2012 reading articles on OCD, what about the expert’s opinions? That too, is a different chapter….
Therefore, I cleaned guns. A lot. While still thinking about all the other topics that were on my tab. I bought a new gun in 2001, and it owned me in many respects, more than I owned it. I hid this fact from everyone or at least I tried to, but over time, I began to realize that hiding my symptoms, “what did that really accomplish?” I was the person, whose mind was “not his own.” I was the one whose mind was taken hostage without warning for great lengths of time, by its own mind. The mind affected itself- in a negative cyclical pattern. A fundamental aspect to understanding this cycle is to understand who was actually thinking about it all. And it’s not who you think!
The person who was thinking about the problem was and is an illusion of sorts. The mind that thought of the problem was, the mind that was part of me,…. When I say me, I really mean consciousness itself. As consciousness itself, I am aware of thoughts which are the mind in action but the part of me that is my mind (the mind) thinks and believes it is a person. The mind contains memories and ideas and runs the limbic system but it isn’t really a person. It thinks and it analyzes all sensory data, including sights, sounds, tastes, and sensations, and smells and, it believes that it is a person, but that is an illusion of sorts. It's precisely because the mind is not a person thinking, that I couldn’t stop the thoughts. You don’t talk to yourself. The mind, that is, the thinking aspect of You (consciousness itself), talks to itself. I never ever had any understanding of this. Not until about 2020. When I began to understand and explore these concepts, I began to experience brief experiences of stillness. The clouds of thoughts and obsessions began to dissolve. Many people won’t really care. But if you have OCD, I know you’ll care. I am quite certain that those people who are in the grips of extreme anxiety or other personal hardships, are likely to stop and consider what it is that is being stated here, and whether or not it is relevant to their lives. That is one of the primary reasons for my writing this.
Admittedly, these ideas are, no doubt, dismissed by the majority of people as being too complicated or far fetched etc. but that doesn’t matter to me. I never started to even ponder or contemplate these ideas until I was about 43 years old. I will continue to explore these topics, because I have found that salvation (relief from problems of the mind) lies within that area. Salvation lies within the realm of awareness. Understanding what the mind is, and my relationship to the mind, as I am conscious awareness itself. In other words, I am conscious awareness, and I observe the existence of mind which is the occurrence of thoughts etc. I didn’t invent this stuff. Buddha and many others pointed it all out. I just happened to see it. I got lucky and was blessed with the sweetest of fruits off of the proverbial tree of wisdom which is the realization that I am fundamentally, awareness itself. I am the Noumenal– awareness- of what is (perceived reality),.... I am not the phenomenal- which are the thoughts, ideas, and feelings about what is. Think about that.
A quotation comes to mind that seems to fit right here and now. It was written on the first page of Walden, or life in the woods by Henry David Thoreau. I read it back in about 1998 when I sat dejectedly, feeling lost in thought and anxiety at the University of Saskatchewan library on a sunny winter’s afternoon,....The words, when I read them, sent chills down my spine, and filled me with a wonderful energy…. I will never forget them: Here they are again:
“Whatever thy failures have been hitherto, be not affected my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?”-Vishnu Purana
No matter your situation in life, it might be very wise and beneficial, to stop what you are doing or thinking and ask yourself the question, in meditation..., “Who am I? Who is asking that question, and who is answering it?” In many ways I feel that if you're fortunate enough you may never have to, or wish to ask those questions…. On the other hand, perhaps, if you do ask them, and then you begin to grasp the answer, or rather what the question can show you about life, about what is (reality itself), and then thoughts about what is, you may be thankful that you did,.... What we think is not what is. What is, is reality. What we think about reality, is not reality,… it is the mind’s analysis and movement based on the past thoughts, memories, ideas, experiences….
Meditation is the key to unlocking the doors to awareness. For me Meditation is like a key to unlocking the doors of respite and it feels to me what I imagine must be the feeling of Salvation. All of the problems, solutions, ideas, mantras and principles in the world of thought disappear, all of the dreams, plans, and stories vanish gently and I enter into the new world of Divine Consciousness, which is unlike anything I ever could have imagined. It was the discovery of this pleasant state that compelled me to write this story,..., and yes, I am more than just a little excited about it! For when I found myself at a loss too great for words, at a point of desperation and anguish that defied all comprehension, the new “stateless state” manifested in me, during meditation and I was filled with a new kind of knowingness and with that, found myself restored and full of beautiful hope, —but that didn’t happen until 2021.