Faith

I have never been religious despite being raised Catholic. While I’m not religious I also do believe in a higher power. My faith has ebbed and flowed over the years, and that is ok. The nature of uncertainty that faith requires and the nature of certainty that ocd demands are inherently at odds, so ERP would say that whatever your doubt about your faith is, your best bet is to give space for it being possible that your doubt is true. This of course is best done with an ERP therapist, I tried doing erp on my own prior to getting a nocd therapist and it was basically impossible to self administer. I’ll add that the Buddhist philosophy—which can be your faith or simply complement your faith—and the philosophy of OCD treatment have a lot of overlap. I have found it extremely helpful as a complement to ERP to read and learn about Buddhism, especially as I suffered through vicious months-long episodes of existential ocd (am I alive, am I dreaming, is everything a figment of my imagination, are people around me actually robots, am I in a coma, etc) In general I think the things we obsess about are the things we most try to approach with rigidity. If we can find and embrace the gray in something we typically see as black and white, we can probably loosen the grip ocd has on us within that theme. Easier said than done, I struggle with new themes all the time and need to let those grips loosen, but that is my advice regarding your struggle with faith. Good luck and stay strong

hi. yes I am a fairly religious person but now my religious ocd is worse than ever and im struggling with my faith a lot and it’s quite scare

Prayers and love to y’all. I just try my best to continue reading the Bible and start off my day reading it most of the time and that helps me. The more you read the Bible and meditate on Gods word the more you fill you mind with what he says is true.