The border between religious worship and mental disorder seems to be quite thin in the Book of Margery Kempe. Much of the time she is sobbing uncontrollably about something she saw or did that she didn’t think fit her perspective of piety. It is not that far out to say that Margery Kempe is obsessed with her piety, to the point that it sometimes becomes a dangerous like when she was accused of being a Lollard. Moreover, her piety seems to follow a distinct cycle of seeing a certain thing that disturbs her, having an anxiety attack, and then being comforted by the ever-willing Son of God. Margery Kempe, in her Book of Margery Kempe, displays obsessive compulsive tendencies through repetitive anxiety, obsession with piety, and exactness of
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This is a common feature amongst people suffering from OCD and is the cause of all the suffering that comes with the illness. Per the DSM-5, “Obsessions are recurrent and persistent thoughts… whereas compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.” (DSM-5 235). You see, Margery Kempe, like a person with OCD, wants the world to be a certain way. In Kempe’s case, she wants a world full of perfect religious people who all adhere to her personal requirements. When she sees evidence of her perfect world being wronged, she cries and sobs sometimes to the point where she needs to be moved out of churches because the other churchgoers cannot hear the priest. At this point, Margery Kempe is visited by Jesus Christ who comforts her and reassures her that what she is doing is right and that all her suffering will end eventually, being reimbursed by happiness that far outweighs her hardships. Then, with her newly mended sense of piety Margery restarts the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it is hard to determine the cause of her OCD. Two good possible causes are her sexual relationship with her husband, or lack thereof, and her period of mental instability following the birth of her first child. These events are drawn out and could easily have affected …show more content…
As I stated before it is difficult to believe somebody who has confessed to delusional visions and auditory hallucinations. Moreover, the fact that she was experiencing these and dubbed them crazy, but when Jesus came to save her from her delusion she viewed it as a real experience is quite odd. However, Margery seems to use the fact that Jesus overcame and dulled her madness to look more pious. Torn says, “It is a precarious position to take, but by using madness as a metaphor for her spiritual ecstasies, Kempe pre-empts any accusations of madness by others.” (Torn 7). It is parts of The Book of Margery Kempe like these where we must admit that even if she was a bit crazy, she was equally or more cunning. Whether she experienced the madness or Jesus or anything at all, she cannot be accused as crazy, in her time, because she will use it only as a metaphor for her piety. Even so, if it were the case that these were lies, it would only strengthen the possibility that OCD plagued her. For lying about and suppressing your obsession is frequent in cases like Margery Kempe, where there is an absence of insight. In fact, the only way to say for sure that she is suffering from OCD is if it could be disproven that she did not see any angels or
This is a common feature amongst people suffering from OCD and is the cause of all the suffering that comes with the illness. Per the DSM-5, “Obsessions are recurrent and persistent thoughts… whereas compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.” (DSM-5 235). You see, Margery Kempe, like a person with OCD, wants the world to be a certain way. In Kempe’s case, she wants a world full of perfect religious people who all adhere to her personal requirements. When she sees evidence of her perfect world being wronged, she cries and sobs sometimes to the point where she needs to be moved out of churches because the other churchgoers cannot hear the priest. At this point, Margery Kempe is visited by Jesus Christ who comforts her and reassures her that what she is doing is right and that all her suffering will end eventually, being reimbursed by happiness that far outweighs her hardships. Then, with her newly mended sense of piety Margery restarts the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it is hard to determine the cause of her OCD. Two good possible causes are her sexual relationship with her husband, or lack thereof, and her period of mental instability following the birth of her first child. These events are drawn out and could easily have affected …show more content…
As I stated before it is difficult to believe somebody who has confessed to delusional visions and auditory hallucinations. Moreover, the fact that she was experiencing these and dubbed them crazy, but when Jesus came to save her from her delusion she viewed it as a real experience is quite odd. However, Margery seems to use the fact that Jesus overcame and dulled her madness to look more pious. Torn says, “It is a precarious position to take, but by using madness as a metaphor for her spiritual ecstasies, Kempe pre-empts any accusations of madness by others.” (Torn 7). It is parts of The Book of Margery Kempe like these where we must admit that even if she was a bit crazy, she was equally or more cunning. Whether she experienced the madness or Jesus or anything at all, she cannot be accused as crazy, in her time, because she will use it only as a metaphor for her piety. Even so, if it were the case that these were lies, it would only strengthen the possibility that OCD plagued her. For lying about and suppressing your obsession is frequent in cases like Margery Kempe, where there is an absence of insight. In fact, the only way to say for sure that she is suffering from OCD is if it could be disproven that she did not see any angels or