The Gift That Won’t Go Away

Perseveration…

This is a good and worthy word that describes a thought process of mine, one that I’d like to be rid of.

I’ve analyzed it to “death,” sealed it in a “tomb,” but continue to retrace my steps to the sealed entrance, where, inside, the word that captures my bedeviling habit – perseverating – awaits me.

I perseverate, and then perseverate about perseverating!

It’s not crippling or debilitating, but to say the thought process is simply annoying would be to understate its impact.

Have you ever asked yourself a question, come up with an answer, but revisited, clung to, and worked the question ad nauseam even when the answer is reasonable and true?

It’s a personal disorder not (yet) found in the diagnostics and statistical manual (DSM-5), the diagnostic bible for mental health professionals, but it is real for me. Merriam-Webster defines perseveration as “the continuation of something (as repetition of a word) usually to an exceptional degree or beyond a desired point.” There are DSM-5 disorders that include perseverative thinking and behaviors as symptoms: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) for one.

There are good and useful words I resist using because they are too academic, or are employed to impress the listener: algorithm, pedagogy, rubric, and trope come to mind. I’d like to excise perseverate from my personal dictionary, free my mind and soul of it’s presence by relegating it to the shelf where the aforementioned words collect dust.

I cannot do it.

Both perseverate and perseverance come from the Latin root persist, but the latter suggests: tenacity, singleness of purpose, grit, backbone, and pluck. There’s nothing gritty, tenacious, or doggedly courageous about my perseverations.

A priest friend of mine once suggested that my doubt and questioning, and I might add perseverating, were God’s gift to me.

It’s unopened, God, take it back—please.

Easter Sunday has come and gone. Jesus’ body is gone from the tomb in which it was placed. Resurrection has occurred, Mary weeps, and the disciples don’t doubt her tale of the empty tomb, but they doubt Jesus has been resurrected. Perhaps his remains have been stolen, maybe misplaced—who knows, but missing for certain.

The painting on my website, Caravaggio’s portrayal of Thomas requiring “hands-on” proof that his Lord is risen, captures my state of being with a personal wrinkle. I’d leave Jesus’ presence, knowing how persuasive he was, walk away, wonder and perseverate about his scarred hands and abdominal wound, thinking (and perseverating) there’s got to be an explanation: I’m hallucinating, good make-up job, a sleight-of-hand miracle worker, maybe a stunt-double—people don’t rise from the dead!

When faced with compelling client conflicts, trauma, and struggles, I frequently wonder if I make the best decisions, and lock into that wondering beyond what is reasonable: Do I listen closely enough to my clients? Are the warranted interventions working? Did I miss something? All good and appropriate considerations, but when the questions persist to the point where their existence becomes annoying and repetitive—I’m perseverating.

In my family of origin I knew my parents loved me, but I often wondered if I met their expectations for what a “good enough” son should be. Praise and affirmation were rarely served around our dinner table. This wondering persists in my personal relationships: am I a good friend, partner, or spouse?

On the outside I may appear confident, savvy, perhaps even smart and charming, quick of wit, thoughtful, and maybe even wise. Inside, my soul is equally rich in rational and irrational thoughts and feelings that create doubts and questions about the above traits. Some perseverations are trivial—did I unplug the coffee pot?, turn off the bathroom light?, while others are significant—was I loving, attentive, and present enough?

Ernest Hemingway’s words give me hope: “There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things, and because it takes a man’s life to know them, the little new that each man gets from life is very costly, and the only heritage he has to leave.”

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