Jennifer Traig didn't just have a quirky childhood. She had a full-blown, hand-scrubbing, soul-crushing battle with a ghost most people didn't even have a name for in the eighties. Honestly, if you grew up in that era, "mental health" wasn't exactly a dinner table topic. You were just "high-strung" or "difficult." But in her memoir, Devil in the Details, Traig lays out a reality that’s way messier than your average "coming of age" story.
She was a kid obsessed with God, but not in a Sunday school way. It was more of a "will I go to hell if I use the wrong fork?" way.
The Scrupulosity Struggle
Most people think OCD is just about straight lines and color-coded closets. It's not. For Traig, it manifested as scrupulosity. Basically, it’s a hyper-religious form of OCD where every tiny action is weighed on a spiritual scale that’s constantly broken.
Think about it.
You’re twelve. You’re living in a household with a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. Neither of them is particularly intense about religion. But you? You’re diving headfirst into the Old Testament laws because they provide a "rulebook" for the chaos in your brain.
Why the details mattered
Traig describes rituals that would exhaust a saint. We’re talking about:
- Scrubbing her hands for thirty minutes before a meal.
- Washing every single thing she owned because her sister microwaved bacon (the "pork fumes" were a real threat in her mind).
- Feeding her stuffed animals before she could eat.
It sounds funny in a dark, "I can't believe she did that" sort of way. And Traig writes it with a sharp, self-deprecating wit that makes you laugh out loud. But underneath the humor is a kid who was literally bleeding from the knuckles because she couldn't stop washing.
It Wasn't Just About Religion
While the religious aspect is the hook, the book touches on how these "neural loops" bleed into everything else. Traig dealt with anorexia—which she calls "flare-ups"—and a constant, nagging hypochondria.
She describes herself as a "half-breed" (like Cher, she jokes). This duality of being half-Jewish and half-Catholic added a layer of confusion. Which set of rules do you follow when your brain is demanding perfection? She chose the Jewish path, specifically because the laws were so detailed. They offered a structure, even if that structure eventually became a prison.
"There’s a fine line between piety and wack-ass obsession, and people have been landing on the wrong side for thousands of years."
That quote from the book pretty much sums up the whole experience. It’s a desperate attempt to find safety in a world that feels inherently contaminated.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Memoir
Some critics found the book "flippant." They thought she took a serious illness and turned it into a stand-up routine. But if you’ve actually lived with chronic anxiety or OCD, you know that humor is often the only way to survive the absurdity of your own brain.
The lack of a "magical cure"
Unlike a lot of memoirs that end with a neat "and then I was cured" bow, Devil in the Details is more honest. She goes to therapy. She takes medication. She goes off to college (Brandeis and then Berkeley).
Things get better, but they don't disappear.
The "devil" is still there; she just learned how to stop inviting him to dinner. This is probably why the book still resonates decades after it was published in 2004. It doesn't lie to you. It doesn't promise that you’ll wake up one day and never want to check the stove again.
Why You Should Care Now
In 2026, we talk about OCD all the time. But we usually talk about it in clinical terms or as a TikTok aesthetic. Traig’s account is raw. It reminds us that at the center of the "disorder" is a human being trying to make sense of a confusing family dynamic and a body that feels like it’s betraying them.
If you’re looking for a clinical breakdown of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy, this isn't it. But if you want to know what it feels like when your brain decides that the floor is sacrilegious, Traig is the best guide you’ll find.
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Moving Forward
If you struggle with similar "sticky thoughts" or religious guilt, there are real resources available now that didn't exist when Traig was a kid.
- Look into the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). They have specific resources for scrupulosity.
- Read the book. Not as a medical guide, but as a reminder that you aren't the first person to feel "crazy."
- Find a specialist. General therapy often misses the nuances of scrupulosity, sometimes even mistaking it for genuine religious devotion rather than a clinical compulsion.
The "Jenny Show" might have been a "kooky sitcom" to her family, but for the reader, it’s a masterclass in survival through storytelling.