Walk With Fear, But Walk

This personal reflection was generously shared with OCD WA by Austrian educator, author, screenwriter and director, Christian Kogler. Through poetic honesty, he charts a unique path to healing: from the early days of being misunderstood, to the transformative power of human connection, place and perseverance.

It’s been 50 years, so it’s hard to say how it all started.

OCD crept in slowly, sneaking into my life until it took up so much space that I couldn’t even reach my bedroom on the first floor anymore. I “moved” into the family living room. At one point, I needed help just to get dressed.

But I do remember the writing. That’s where it began. I’d get stuck on a single letter until my pen broke through the page and tore right through. My German teacher called my parents and said, “Something’s wrong.” But what? It was the early 1970s and we simply didn’t know.

So, we gave it a name: the touching.

It had everything to do with touch. Door handles, for instance, I would grip and grip, until I broke them off their hinges.

I was lucky in one way: my older brother was studying in Salzburg and had friends in the psychology field. Though they hadn’t yet graduated, they needed practice clients. So, I began therapy early, much earlier than I otherwise would have. Over the years I saw many therapists. Each gave me something helpful, but for a long time, the OCD only worsened. I think most of them believed there was no way out.

Raised in a well-meaning but very religious (Catholic) household, many people around me tried to “heal” me through faith. Interestingly, though, it was a religious encounter that sparked the beginning of recovery.

My brother once sent me to a seminar led by a well-known priest. During a private appointment, I began telling him about my struggles. He listened for a while, then said, thoughtfully, “I know I’m speaking against what I stand for, but my advice to you is: stay away from religion. You need something where one plus one equals two: science, mathematics, physics, but not religion.”

So, I did.

The second major turning point came through a German homeopath and alternative practitioner. She visited our home to better understand the environment I was living in and took me under her wing, like a second mother. She created a sense of safety and calm. That, too, was powerful support.

But the real breakthrough came through a volunteer job on the Scottish island of Iona in 1990. I was 28 years old. I worked there from April to June and when I returned to Austria, I was a different person. That was the beginning of my independent life. I went on to complete training, find work, earn two university degrees and have relationships.

I still don’t know exactly what changed on Iona. I’m not religious, but Iona is. It’s been a sacred place since pagan times. Perhaps it was the raw beauty of the landscape, or the warmth of the community. Maybe it was something about being so far from everything else. Whatever it was, I felt safe. Safe enough to begin letting go of many of the compulsions.

Not all of them. OCD still takes up more space in my life than I’d like and I keep working at it. Especially as I grow older, I feel the importance of pushing back against what still lingers. Age brings more awareness of our vulnerability and the inevitability of death. OCD feeds off fear. Because it had such power over my youth, I don’t want it to dominate my old age, too.

Thankfully, times have changed. We know so much more now. Still, I’ve often wondered why it took so long for awareness about OCD to grow here. After all, this is the country where figures like Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung shaped the very foundations of psychotherapy.

Maybe part of the delay is due to our history. I recently worked on a project with a colleague at the university, creating educational media about a site the Nazis used to systematically murder thousands of people with physical or mental disabilities. It was chilling. Reading those stories, I realised that had I lived in that time, I likely would have been one of those victims. My life deemed “unworthy” simply because it was different.

We are far past those times now and things are changing for the better. Remembering what happened then may help prevent future injustices. Yet still, when I look at world politics today, I do worry.

There’s probably one more element that has helped me along the way: a stubborn refusal to let fear win. An inner drive to cross the boundaries OCD set for me. A well-known Austrian writer once published a book called Atlas of an Anxious Man. The protagonist, clearly inspired by the author himself, is someone easily scared (like me), yet he travels the world, from the plains of Siberia to the jungles of South America - I try to do the same. 

“Walk with fear, but walk,” says a Brazilian proverb.

And an Iranian one offers this:

“Throw your heart into the sea.”

These are the responses we can give to OCD.

That final proverb became the title of my documentary film, which explores the lived experience of OCD: its pain, complexity and the quiet courage required to keep moving forward.

— Christian