Chuck Burroughs

Chuck Burroughs was born in 1939 in the small town of Franklin, Ohio. One of three sons of a harsh, demanding father and gentle, meek mother, Chuck was saddled with multiple learning disabilities from birth. He struggled through school, but finally taught himself to read and write well enough to matriculate at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. As a youth, he attended strict fundamentalist churches that demanded perfection in the eyes of God, and fed into a guilt complex and eventual obsessive-compulsive disorder that would dog him all his life.

Chuck eventually married his college sweetheart, Gail, and raised three children. After doing odd jobs for a while, he fell into a lucrative, self-made career as a builder and contractor. He also became very active in fundamentalist churches in Oregon and began questioning his faith and the wisdom of such strict adherence to scripture and shaming. He has spent countless hours in counseling, which eventually gave him the courage to stand up for his much more open beliefs about God and spirituality, and largely put to rest his constant OCD ruminations and accompanying anxiety and depression.

Chuck, now reading at a college level, began researching OCD, depression, and anxiety, as well as religion and philosophy. After retiring his contracting business, Chuck began to assemble a collection of helpful articles and books on a variety of topics, from depression and suicide to OCD, learning disabilities and more. He carries these packets along with him when walking his dog in the park. He greets everyone he meets, and if a person responds, he tells him about his life's challenges and how he overcame serious depression and Central Auditory Processing Disorder to become a successful businessman, husband and father to three. Often, he will share one of his packets. Often, if he sees that person again on one of his walks, they will thank him.