CPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
Demons?
Interested to know whether anyone here feels there ocd is the result of engagement or exposure - intentional or not - to some occultic practice?
TheocdguitaristTheocdguitarist
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 2y
this is a theme I've dealt with for years, and I'd encourage you to be cautious here. regardless of beliefs (I'm personally christian), the human mind is a very powerful thing. it's important to treat thoughts like that like all other OCD thoughts - by allowing yourself to have them and not feed them. I thought I had been possessed when I was a kid, but now, regardless of if that happened for real or not, I see how big of a hand my OCD had in it. I'm in a much better place now, but I still have difficult days where my mind obsesses over demons/possession. Remember, you are stronger than you know, and although it's counterintuitive, the way to beat OCD is by saying "maybe, maybe not" to your thoughts.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
@Theocdguitarist Thanks, I’m struggling with this because I had a spiritual experience that I found haunting. It is hard to know what is mental and what is objective. I think the spiritual experience was objective. But I guess I can’t do anything about it. Maybe I just say “it’s in God’s hands.” Would that work as a response to ocd?
AnonymousAnonymous
- Date posted
- 2y
@CPeach I don’t know about your particular case, especially since it has spiritual/religious themes, but for me saying “it’s in God’s hands” is helpful. I basically try to give God all my fears and trust that he will take them, even if it is real, even if it is my fault and I’ve done something wrong. For me as a Christian I try to put it all on the cross and trust that God takes my sin, my anxiety, my fears, my wrongdoing, my confusion, everything. This helps me because it’s another way of accepting uncertainty, but it’s a way of accepting uncertainty while having faith. Maybe my OCD thoughts are real, maybe it’s just anxiety, maybe my fears will come true, maybe it’s just chemical…whatever it is, I give it to God and trust that he is bigger than all that, and he loves me, and he is willing to take it all on himself. Also my favorite psalm for ocd/anxiety is psalm 139. Hope this helps! Wishing you the best.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
@Anonymous Thank you. I am a Christian and only recently has OCD turned to become “ugly” fears. This is new to me and I feel so defiled. I feel like the devil is in my head. Learning to live with it when I have had very few impure thoughts in my life is tough. I don’t know who I am in the midst of this.
AnonymousAnonymous
- Date posted
- 2y
@CPeach It’s so, so hard. My experience of OCD is that it twists up the things that are important to me and makes everything feel unsteady, like I’m so lost in my mind that I’ll never be able to get out. It is so scary to not be sure of who you are in the midst of OCD. It’s easier said than done, but I hope you can give yourself some grace as you work through this new theme. God is bigger than OCD, and is bigger than any demon too.
AnonymousAnonymous
- Date posted
- 2y
I mean no disrespect, but I have to caution you on trying to reason on the basis of feelings. This is a cognitive distortion called emotional reasoning. Feelings aren't facts. As far as I can tell, we have no evidence that OCD is caused by occult practices. I believe those practices are unwise, but on separate grounds. You seem to know that God loves you, but are distraught because your feelings don't accord with that. I expect that if you do ERP, eventually you will feel better and your feelings will be more in accord with your knowledge.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
@Anonymous Thank you. My husband would say the same.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
@Anonymous What ERP would you suggest for this? Writing my fears down?
AnonymousAnonymous
- Date posted
- 2y
@CPeach Depending on how much anxiety it causes you, you could either just say "there's a chance my OCD is caused by demons, but I don't need to figure that out right now" or write down a worst-case scenario of your obsession being true, and then reading it over and over until you get bored.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
I know I am forgiven but I feel very much I am being disciplined. I am struggling with this so much. I feel God’s spirit has left me and so pray for it to return, but then is this a compulsion? Ah, how to manage scripturally v psychologically is challenging as the advice is different.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
I know God is loving and forgiving, but I feel he is so far away from me right now I am struggling not to despair.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
I keep praying “Lord please help me or take me home to be with you.”
j.dj.d
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 2y
I have struggled with the fear that I am being disciplined and choosing to ignore God by getting help. But what I have remembered is that the gospel is all about us giving up control and allowing God to work. So I have to rest in that. I trust his will, will be done. So maybe it is punishment maybe not. I don’t have to sit and figure it out. God is not a God of confusion but of peace. Ocd sounds like confusion to me.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
And anyone done rite of deliverance?
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
And whether or not this is an obsession or true is another thing I can’t know the answer to.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
Thanks so much for your support. My ocd used to help with high standards. Now it is dear of harming family and fear of losing faith. I appreciate your encouragement. Is there a way we can stay in contact? Maybe via a private message from time to time? I am new to this app..
AnonymousAnonymous
- Date posted
- 2y
@CPeach I’m not totally sure how it works but you are welcome to private message me! Also new to this app.
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
@Anonymous Thanks! Not sure how.. will try to figure out
CPeachCPeach
- Date posted
- 2y
*fear
ReadyForImprovementReadyForImpr...
- Date posted
- 2y
It is common to want to figure out where our OCD started or why we have it. But it's not helpful. Redirecting focus on moving towards recovery is a better use of your time and energy. If you're on a boat that sinking, it's better to move ashore to safety instead of standing on the boat trying to figure out what caused it to start sinking and drowning with it.
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Godisincontrol
- Date posted
- 24w
Religious OCD
Can anyone share their experiences with Religious OCD and how you came to realize it was OCD thoughts and not a true spiritual experience. Thank you
Godisincontrol
- Date posted
- 13w
Question for those with Religious OCD
Do you think OCD could be one big lie and deception of Satan? It would make the most sense from a spiritual perspective. And motivated by fear - and God does not give us fear.
Anonymous
- Date posted
- 13w
Does anyone else here experience hallucinations as part of the OCD?
My OCD diagnosis is still very new, but now that I know what it is, it is clearly something I’ve had for as long as I can remember. Contamination/bugs and health have been a consistent theme since childhood, but religious/existential themes emerged during adolescence. Around that same time, there was also a good deal of trauma, and during middle school I started experiencing hallucinations. Tactile (like bugs crawling on me or biting me, an eyelash being stuck in my eye, but nothing was really there); visual (like moving shadows or things that would dart past in my periphery, and then I would just have intrusive thoughts of scary things around corners or under things); and auditory (an angry male voice that grumbles or yells indistinctly, or a high pitched noise like a microphone/speaker feedback but muffled and less sharp). Because of the religious denomination I grew up in, I initially assumed these were demons and tried to address it that way, but when I was 14 or 15, it occurred to me that those voices/sounds sounded like the way I felt, and the visual/tactile experiences happened during times of stress too — and so all of those experiences could just be seen as an expression of a fragmented part of myself. That acceptance didn’t make them go away — I still experience them now and I’m in my 30s — but it made those experiences less scary and more manageable. I also see now how these all pop up specifically when OCD obsessions are super triggered and when I’m super sleep deprived. Anyway! Since this diagnosis, and talking about the hallucinations at all, are new to me, I am wondering who else has had similar experiences. I don’t really know how much of the hallucination experience is OCD versus trauma, but it seems like this might all make sense under the “quasi-hallucination” label.
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