I am a pastors kid, my parents lives are rooted in ministry and worshipping God. I experienced existential OCD back to the age of 7. I knew something didn’t feel right, but it’s the only thing I knew, I could I believe any different. But I started having real questions and they got mixed with existential obsessions, I got so overwhelmed and was left with extreme anxiety and terror. I remember going to my mom just hugging her as tightly as I could, holding onto her shirt, trying to feel some comfort. But it felt so real, and I thought it was. But anyways, still going through existential obsessions and questions, everyone is telling me “that’s good, that means you care! Keep seeking!” But seeking is what leads me in this cycle. I don’t know what to do. And going to church every single week, is really really hard. I just have to shut down my mind because going to church is the only social thing I have right now. So it helps, but it hurts.

Meg615, I know how you are feeling. I’ve have been dealing with existential ocd for about a year now, and it’s awful. I have been deeply religious and also skeptical my whole life (a doubting believer, so to speak) and to feel like I am now unsure whether God exists or why any of us exist is terrifying. reading philosophy and theology are things that I’ve always enjoyed, but when I started dealing with this recent crisis, I found myself doing a lot of reassurance seeking, searching online and reading early church history and listening to scholars. It was compulsive and I couldn’t stop myself, which is exactly what ocd does. I think most people think about questions about God and meaning and existence and what happens when we die, but because I have OCD and because OCD attaches itself to the things we love most, my love for learning mingled with my love for the things I believed and everything got so tangled that I couldn’t figure out what was real and what was a compulsion, kind of like you describe in your post. I am trying to get through this myself, working with my ocd therapist, so I don’t have many good suggestions for you. But I will encourage you to remember that NO ONE has the answers to these questions. No one. People think they have the answers, but no one does, not really. And if you have OCD, any reassurance you find will never be enough to satisfy the kind of reassurance that ocd always demands. See if you can identify what your compulsive rituals are (for me it’s ruminating, reassurance seeking from books/podcasts/people, trying to argue with the doubts), and as best as you can try to stop engaging in them for now. Rest in the assurance that you are here now in this moment, and that you belong. I wish you peace and grace in your recovery.

@meg615, I’m so glad my response was able to bring you some comfort. This app has really been helpful to me too, and has brought me encouragement when I needed it most. Can I ask whether you are doing therapy or anything to try to deal with the obsessions and compulsions?

Hi @meg615. I’ve been having a harder time with the religious doubts this week, so I came back to read my own old post to see if it would bring me comfort. I’m trying to do exposure scripts and trying to go full on into it, writing about how I may not believe any of this, how I may not believe in God and God may not be real, etc. It sucks. Anyways, you may be able to find an ocd therapist online who does therapy through Skype or FaceTime. Perhaps you can try looking at iocdf.org, contacting a few therapists listed there, and ask them if they can do therapy over Skype since you don’t have anyone near you who can help.

@puppychino it helps me to go back and read the response you gave me. I’m in church again this Sunday and going through the same thing. So much uncertainty, and my brain is exhausted to even take it on. Which makes me feel guilty, and useless like I should be handling my uncertainty and searching, but I’m exhausted

Yeah, I’ve found that too. And actually, I don’t have a therapist right now, we’ve searched all over but have not found one who understands. And I’ve moved a lot, so I haven’t been able to stay with the same person and have had to start over so much and it just shakes things up so much to try and find a good one. Which is hard. But I am finding ways that help me. I am doing my own sort of OCD and trying to rewire the neural pathways in my brain to show it that it is safe, it is okay for my thoughts to race and I know they feel important, urgent, or even like a lifeline. But I don’t give in and it doesn’t ruin my life to fight urges. Its been very hard. Ive been in hospitals and now I’m just kind of on my own trying to help myself. It would be nice to have a therapist and a community but things are just so intense right now, an I know that’s when we need it most, but I’m just trying so hard to keep things steady. I don’t know

Thank you, I’m sorry you’ve been struggling harder. It’s been tough for me lately as well. I’ve been learning a lot lately about the brain. (Like listening to podcasts and reading articles about how our brains work and how much control we really have over our decisions and values) and I enjoy learning, but it also triggers more questioning. Like questioning whether people really have a right to teach about God as if it’s true. We can’t know, how do I know they are just speaking what makes sense to them in their brain. Doesn’t mean it’s true. Anyways I don’t know if that’s relevant or makes any sense. But then I think “well, don’t research so much, just learn to accept uncertainty” but I don’t want to just shut my brain down you know? I want to be able to think through things and not be afraid of them

I know what you mean. I really do love learning too and thinking about philosophy and theology and stuff. I had to just get out of the podcasts and the books and all of it for a little while because it was so bad. It’s gotten better and as it has, I’ve been able to integrate some of that back into my life. And I’m better able to distinguish whether I’m reading, etc, because I want to learn, or because it’s compulsive and I’m trying to answer a question that I’ll never actually be able to answer. I think the thing with the religious stuff, I grew up in an conservative evangelical wing of Christianity, where absolute certainty was expected, and so realizing that no one can be certain about God or about anything, really, was especially difficult for me to come to terms with. I hate not knowing, but I’m trying to come to terms with it. I guess I’m at the place where I don’t know if God exists and if God does exist, what kind of being God is. But I love Jesus, and I think that even if it turned out that Jesus was just a man and not the also the representation of God on earth, and even if it turns out that there is nothing after death and this world and life is all that exists (and it might be), I would still choose to follow the teachings of Jesus because I believe that being open and sacrificial and loving and humble is the best way to live. And that’s the best I can come up with for now. If you are looking for things to read (not for reassurance) Richard Rohr, Pete Enns, and Rachel Held Evans have been really helpful for me.