Suicidal ocd/Christianity/Emotions/helplesness

I’m saying this as a fellow Christian: do not listen to the whole “OCD means there’s something wrong/dark” (or whatever words they use) narrative. Please. This is not helping people with OCD at all and I know they mean well, but they don’t understand what OCD is. It’s a physical problem in the brain, probably combined with genetics and circumstances. The intrusive thoughts are just thoughts, no matter where anyone thinks they originate from. In the end it doesn’t matter. They can not make you do things. Intrusive emotions, intrusive sensations….same thing. They’re just things generated by your body in response to your fear for them. The more afraid you get the more the thoughts, feelings etc. will come up. This is the OCD cycle. First of all: know that exposures are not meant to take your fear away. They are meant to drive UP your fear, so your brain gets the learning experience that even though you’re afraid, we’re not going to do compulsions and then we see that we don’t do anything dangerous. Your compulsions are mentally checking your thoughts and emotions to “make sure” that you don’t like the idea. But: A) The reassurance will NEVER come. Stop trying to get it. B) By doing these compulsions you are making the OCD worse and it will feed you more and more of the thoughts because your brain wants to get rid of the fear. I feel like your exposures are not quite working because you are still compulsing after the “maybe/maybe not” statements - You’re still analysing what happens inside when you say that. Next time a thought comes up, do nothing. No “maybe/maybe not” or “Yes I’m going to do it.” - Ignore the thought completely and make sure you do something that requires a lot of brainpower or something that gets you out of your head, like naming all things that are green around you. Smelling and listening to what’s around you etc. The thoughts and feelings will come up a lot at the start. Keep distracting yourself. Ignore them, pay no attention at all to them. Not because thinking about it is dangerous (it’s not), but because you need to get out of that checking habit. You need to stop the compulsions. At the end of every day, realize that you didn’t harm yourself. That’s all you do: noticing what didn’t happen. Then go on with your evening again. If OCD is especially naggy, tell it: “I’m not going to spend any time on you, OCD. I see you, but I have more important things to do.” You need to starve it. And THEN the fear will go away. Not before, unfortunately. Keep in mind during treatment that “fear is my friend” / “Fear will help me get better” - Again this is another thing Christians often say: “God says that we don’t need to fear.” I don’t think that applies to ERP and OCD. I think God asks us to *act* like we don’t fear. Which is exactly what we’re doing when we do ERP. It’s a choice not to fear, even though we still *feel* it (our emotions are hard to control but can be shaped through our repeated actions). Hoped that helped any.

Hey I am a Christian who has dealt with this in the past would love to talk to this about you. 470-503-5433

First,I do know that exposures ment to get my anxiety higher, but when it gets so bad that i know i just would do a compulsion, i know its not good cause im just scaring myself Second, whenever i do that i just cant control myself to not focus on the emotions and thoughts, to act like its not there, cause i get really scared and then im angry why i cant do it the right way and i get hopeless Or i do what you said that i try to do something but that itself becomes a compulsion when i try to focus so much on something that i dont feel the feelings. Like kinda the emotions go away. If i do things with the emotions being there, i just behave like that and the emotions stay cause sooner or later i attach myself to them. Other thing whenever i use agressive method like "yes it is, im going to do it" i feel like im agreeing with them and i say its the reality, i dont say it in a sarcastic way, and then im behaving like the thoughts are true and thats just makes me feel worse about myself, or whenever i say the same thing im afraid that even if it goes away, i will believe what i said, that that is going to happen so in me this belief will stay that that thought is true, im just not afraid of it... Whenever i did react to ocd good, it was when i choosed that its ocd, i started believing it that its ocd and then quickly the thoughts went away and i could laugh at them, i didnt do any compulsion, i just was so tired of it that i got motivated and i guess my emotions changed and they worked for me... but this doesnt happens everytime, i can say i choose that its ocd, and even be sarcastic but if the emotions tell me its dangerous, whatever i do i just end up tired and hopeless... my biggest fear is that even if these thoughts go away it will remain in my mind that those things were true to me cause that was the last thing i said to them...Sarcasm works when my emotions work with me and i believe even just a little that its ocd, but when im fully anxious I just start to feel worse cause im agreeing with them... This is why i feel really bad, its really hard