Help?

@Megan Banks I hear you. I constantly feel like I have to do something to stay saved. I constantly feel responsible for my salvation. This perfectionism feeling like you have to DO something for Jesus is SUPER COMMON with religious OCD. I have watched a ton of videos by Mark DeJesus (who has OCD himself). He talks a lot about how people with OCD really struggle to accepting God's grace. And he is so right. He also talks a lot about OCD and religious perfectionism. I think we are all in the same boat!!!! Don't worry if your religious OCD has never felt like this before. OCD constantly morphs into something different as we begin to acclimate to its current strategies. It will always morph into something else. My mother-in-law once told me that OCD is like a octopus with a lot of tentacles. The heart of it is the same (which is fear), but it will always reach out with a different looking "arm". The good news is that once you learn to cut off one of the OCD arms, you will have strategies and tools to cut off the other ones. But just don't be surprised when something "new" attacks you. OCD is constantly throwing "new" things at us to try to make us miserable.

@Tea and Honey I copy and pasted my summary of ERP therapy below:):):) -------------------- If you put ERP in a nutshell, there's a couple main tenants that are REALLY important to understand. Here they are... 1.) You have to treat the thoughts as though they don't mean anything (because, in real life, they actually don't mean anything!) 2.). You have to deny yourself any safety behaviors that you do because of the thoughts (because these are all compulsions) 3.). When you deny the safety behaviors (i.e., the compulsions), it will cause your brain and even your body to go into anxiety mode. (In other words, your brain freaks out because you feel like you did something that was NOT SAFE.) 4.). But you have to "ride out" the anxiety feelings until they subside on their own. The more you practice doing this, the easier it gets. The anxiety spikes will get smaller and smaller. Eventually, you will be able to prevent yourself from doing compulsions without feeling anxiety. ----------------------//////-------///////------- Okay, so let's talk about each of these things, one at at time. ERP can be done on your own, but it's easier with someone else's help. First things first, a therapist will sit down with you and make you write a list of all the things you are scared to do, from the least scary to the most scary. And then you will go out and practice doing those things, starting with the easiest things. Okay, let's start with #1. You have to treat the thoughts as though they don't mean anything. There's a few things that are important to understand here. Remember that I said that you have to TREAT the thoughts as though they don't mean anything. I said this because you are always going to have doubts and fears. You are always, at some level, going to half-way believe that that your thoughts actually have meaning. But that's okay! You don't have to believe this fully. You only have to ACT as though they don't mean anything. OCD is called the "doubting disease" for a reason. For every decision you make, you will always have doubts. And that's why recovery from OCD means that you have to learn how to "take the leap" and go forward EVEN THOUGH the doubts are still there. I can assure you that the thoughts don't mean anything. And you can mostly believe it. But even if you don't believe it fully, you have to make the decision that you are going to ACT as though they don't mean anything. In order to recover from OCD, everyone has to change their relationship with their thoughts. Everyone starts out afraid of their thoughts. They believe that their thoughts are DANGEROUS and that there is some connection with their thoughts to the outside world. This is the big trap of OCD. But we all have to learn that the thoughts mean nothing. However, we also have to learn that WE CANT STOP the thoughts. And we should not try. We have to stop fighting off the thoughts. We have to learn to ALLOW the thoughts while at the same time doing nothing about them. I'm going to copy and paste something that I wrote previously: -------////////--------------////////-----------//// The key is to STOP fighting off the thoughts. You need to just accept that they are in your head, and that they are MEANINGLESS—and it doesn’t matter if they are there or not. This is very important for OCD recovery. ERP therapy trains us to never fight the thoughts. If you try to fight them off, they’re just going to get worse. My therapist explained it like this: Imagine a tree planted by river. The leaves from the tree fall off and float down the river. You watch the leaves fall, but you don’t try to stop them. You just let them float down the river. This is the same with ALL intrusive thoughts. It doesn’t matter if these are bad thoughts about God, violence, sex, attractions, etc. All intrusive thoughts are the SAME. You just let them fall off the tree and float down the river. Here’s another analogy: Imagine a swarm of angry bees around someone’s head. The bees can’t really bite or sting, but they are very annoying as they swarm around the person’s head. They’re not really harmful to the person, but they are disturbing just because they are there. This is the same thing as the intrusive thoughts. They can’t really harm anything, and they don’t have any real power. But they are distracting and disturbing because they are there. If you take a stick and try to fight them off, they’re just going to swarm around even worse and get even stronger. It doesn’t work to try to fight them off with a stick. They will always keep swarming. In the same way, we can’t fight off the intrusive thoughts. It’s impossible. Besides, the thoughts are meaningless, and they can’t hurt us anyway. So don’t try to fight them off. Here’s one more analogy: Imagine your little brother is always saying mean things to you. Sometimes he shout means things; sometimes he whispers mean things; sometimes he shows you ugly pictures that he has drawn. He’s always trying to tease you and always trying to get you upset, and he’s always saying horrible things to you. If you shout at him to stop doing it, he’s just going to do it more. You have to accept that you can’t stop what he says. But if you ignore him and don’t give him any response and don’t get upset , he will eventually get bored and stop trying so hard. It’s the same with the intrusive thoughts. You can’t stop them. But if you get upset every time they come into your head, you are giving them power. You OCD (like a little brother) is going to feed you more of the things that “rile you up.” But if you don’t get upset and don’t care if these things are coming into your brain, then you can go about your life as normal. In this way, you are showing that these thoughts really have no power over you. Your OCD will try to trick you into giving “meaning” to the thoughts by saying maybe you will like them or maybe you will accept them, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah. Don’t listen to the OCD. Practice strict ERP no matter how you feel and no matter how the OCD tries to tell you the danger you’re in if you start ignoring the thoughts. The truth is the thoughts don’t mean anything, so you can ignore them. You can’t make them go away (like the bees), but you can give them no power by acknowledging that they are meaningless. -----///////--------///////---------//////-------///- Okay, let's talk about #2. You have to deny the compulsions. When you boil them down, all compulsions are SAFETY BEHAVIORS. They are designed to negate the thoughts and keep you safe. It's important to remember that AVOIDANCE can be a safety behavior. For example, if you avoid saying certain words because you don't know the intentions behind it, then you are actually doing a compulsion. In ERP therapy, you have to practice denying the compulsions. However, you don't do this all at once. That is way too scary, and no one can handle that. Instead, you start with the very easiest compulsions. It's also important to know that many compulsions can be inside our heads. In my case, I had all these terrible sentences in my head toward God. And I thought I had to put a "not" next to every sentence in my head in order to "negate" the sentence. And I was exhausting myself trying to remember every sentence and make sure I put a "not" next to them in my head. I was doing these compulsions all day, every day, hundreds of times a day. I remember the day that I first stopped doing this compulsion. I stopped fighting the sentences in my head, and just let them "run" freely. It was a huge step for me. Now, I am no longer a slave to these sentences at all. Remember to not get discouraged if the treatment takes longer than you expect. The OCD journey tends to take a long time, with baby steps, and lots of circling back and starting over, lol. Just remember that this is part of the process. -------///////--------////////--------///////-----// Okay, let's talk about #3: The Anxiety Episodes When you deny compulsions, it feels unsafe. It feels like you are going to die or that someone you love is going to die. It feels like the consequences are huge, like the end of the world or some terrible disaster. Let me give you an example. When I feel like I did something "unsafe," I can usually pass over it and realize that I am okay. I have had years of practice doing this. But every once in a while, when I deny a compulsion, it feels so UNSAFE that I spiral into an anxiety pit. It can take hours, days, or weeks before I feel better. What you have to understand is that this is a NORMAL part of the recovery process. It seems strange to say this, because the episodes feel so awful. But in order to defeat OCD, we actually have to practice putting ourselves though the terrible anxiety that always accompanies "breaking the OCD rules." ---------///////---------//////-------------///--- And lastly, let's talk about #4: You have to "ride out" the anxiety episodes. There's no way to defeat OCD without pain. It takes a lot of work. But if you put the work in, you can get to the other side and start living the life you have wanted to live! So, it's important to understand this going in to journey. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take "pain" in the sense that you are going to make yourself experience these awful anxiety episodes. However, this is the only way to recover. But you have to take it slowly. Start with the simple things. And then take baby steps. If you don't, you will be overwhelmed and it won't work. Let's put this into an example. Let's say Jake has OCD, and he is afraid of crossing bridges. First, the therapist will ask him to just THINK about a bridge. If that causes anxiety, then Jake can practice thinking about bridges and then accept the anxiety that comes. The next session, the therapist might ask Jake to sit next to a bridge. This might cause even more anxiety. Jake has to practice sitting next to the bridge and "riding out" the anxiety that comes. The next time the therapist might ask Jake to put one foot on the bridge--and so on. The point is that at each step, Jake is successful at the required task, and he allows himself to experience the waves of anxiety that come. Yes, anxiety is like a wave. It has a peak, and then it slides downward after that. No one can stay in full anxiety mode forever. So we have to train ourselves to allow the anxiety to run its course. Eventually, it will get better. And the more we practice, the anxiety peaks will get smaller and smaller. And eventually, we won't have anxiety at all when we deny our compulsions. Okay, feel free to write back and talk to me about what you think. :):) I aways enjoy talking to people on this app.

@Tea and Honey If we put the time and work into therapy, we will get better !!! it doesn't matter if it's religious OCD or contamination OCD or any other form of OCD. The theme does not matter at all. All OCD is the same!!! If we put time into therapy, we will get better and better :):)

@Tea and Honey This literally helped so much and the octopus perspective helped so so much! I’m so glad that I have someone who knows what I’m struggling with and is willing to help! You are literally the best and I’m learning so much right now that I didint know before!!

@Megan Banks I'm right here. Let's keep taking!!! Send me all your questions and doubts. It takes a long time to process. All you need are little baby steps at a time!!!!:):):)😀😀

@Tea and Honey Is what I’m experiencing ocd do you think?..

@Tea and Honey i mean all i know is that i’m ment to just let the thoughts be there and do things despite my thoughts but that doesn’t help me

@Megan Banks Absolutely, that is OCD!!!!

@skiesnotblue Can you practice in small, manageable ways?

@Tea and Honey I think another thing that helps is to just ignore the feelings. As long as you are doing your ERP, it doesn't matter if we feel ugly and icky inside. There is a sense that the feelings don't matter. I have spent a ton of days with dark emotions. I just let them sit

@Tea and Honey Can you possibly check my recent posts?

@Megan Banks Sure, I would love to

@Tea and Honey Thank you so much! I just really need some insight and support!

@Tea and Honey OK, I went back and read your posts. It seems like the struggle has been going on for a long time now. I am thinking you might be hitting some burnout. I know how exhausting it can be to feel like we are responsible for our salvation. I completely understand this. And when the perfection comes in, it's even harder. And when we can't except God's love and grace very well, it's even harder. I have learned that people with OCD really have a hard time connecting with God's love and grace. And when we feel the weight of responsibility and perfectionism, it's easy to hit burnout. And I'm wondering if that's where you are, and that might be why part of you is thinking it's just so hard to follow God. The truth is that God did not design salvation to be so complicated. (I know that I struggle about my salvation every day. But God meant it to be simple and secure, and not something we have to agonize about.) When we have OCD, our minds and hearts are so broken that it takes a long time for us to start understanding Grace. It takes a long time for us to understand that we are not at all responsible for our salvation, because the OCD always makes us feel that way. I totally understand how you feel. Now, I think your biggest question is trying to understand if your thoughts about leaving God are real, or if they are just OCD. I think that it's a little hard to tell. The fact that you are ruminating about them constantly is definitely OCD. And the exhaustion of OCD is definitely lying to you to tell you that it would be easier to leave Christianity, (which is never true, because life is always easier with God). So the question comes down this: What do you do? I think you should stop stop trying to figure out whether or not those thoughts are from you or OCD . This is usually a question that we can NEVER answer with certainty. A lot of people on this app will write about how they are agonizing over whether the thoughts are real or just OCD. And I always tell them to stop trying to figure it out. There is a sense that it doesn't matter. Here is just where you make the decision to follow God no matter what. And then you let all of your emotions and intrusive thoughts rattle around however they want and be crazy. You don't have to stop or prevent your thoughts. You can just let them rattle around. And then you just go on with your life. ---------____-------------- This has been a struggle for a long time, so think this is something that you are probably going to need to talk about A LOT. I don't think one conversation is going to be enough. I think this is something you really are going to need to process through and talk through. So I'm here to talk to you and we can talk about everything in process through it. OCD really stinks. And one of the worst parts about it is feeling alone because we feel like no one can answer our questions. I totally know how that feels. I can be a sounding board for you. I really love to talk on this app, and I'd love to hear from you what you are thinking.

@Tea and Honey This was literally so helpful! You broke everything down so well and I have been diagnosed with ocd by ocd therapists. I just feel like it’s so hard to know that it’s ocd because I feel like the thing I’m struggling with is so uncommon with religious ocd and I also get upset when just thinking about Christianity in general. If you could give me a little more insight that would be amazing and I very much appreciate your support! I really did need this tonight!

@Megan Banks I'm here for you. When people haven't experienced OCD, it's just so hard to understand. But I've lived with OCD for so many years, I totally understand everything you are saying. Let's keep talking!! It's going to take a long time for you to process through this, but it will be really good for you! When I say make a decision to follow God no matter what, I do not mean to get saved again. We don't have to try to get saved over and over and over. One time is enough that, even if the OCD screams at us that we are not safe. But I have made several other kinds of decisions in my OCD journey. I didn't have to put the decisions through the OCD-machine of agony and crazy doubt. They were just actual decisions like any normal person would make. In your case, I don't think you need to be saved again. Actually, I don't think you NEED to do anything, because you are secure in Christ. But I think it might be helpful to just make the decision that you are going to follow God no matter what. It is a decision that cannot be touched by OCD. And then don't go back and question it or second-guess it or change it. Once it's made, it's made. (lol, my OCD has caused me to always want to double check my decisions, but I have learned that I can't check them or change them. I have to just let my decisions stand.) After you make that decision, you can ignore all the OCD noise. It literally doesn't matter what intrusive thoughts OCD sends you about leaving God or that you are not saved or that you don't want to follow God. All of that is just white noise. And then you go and just live your life. And if you are in burnout, I suggest that you live your life in a very gentle way. I don't read the Bible a lot, because I get triggered. And I don't pray a lot either, because I know that I am too mentally tired to do that--and God understands that. I am really gentle with myself and avoid a lot of triggers, and I practice a lot of self-care and buy a lot of lattes and give myself lots of treats. I do this to protect against the mental burnout that is always lurking at the door. So it's really good to engage in a lot of self-care. In fact, for a year or two I took a mental vacation. I didn't read the Bible or do Bible studies, but I just focused on a handful of verses that really encouraged me. That's it. I was heading toward burnout and I needed more than a full year of letting my mind rest. What do you think? What are your questions or objections? We always have questions and objections and worries when it comes to the OCD recovery path. What are your thoughts and feelings?

@Tea and Honey Also, I think your theme could be somewhat common with religious OCD. I've definitely heard of people struggling with similar things. OCD will choose things like that and ruminate about them over and over and over and over. That's OCD's job. ------------------------ I wouldn't worry if you get upset when you are thinking about Christianity. This could mean one of two things (or both). It could mean that you are experiencing burnout and things within Christianity trigger you, and you are tired of battling. You also just might have OCD-negative feelings toward God and Christianity. I actually experience these every day. Sometimes I will look at a Bible and have a bunch of negative feelings, for example. And I often think very negatively about church. I have learned that emotions are just the same as intrusive thoughts. These emotions are not actually scary. And they don't condemn us. We just need to treat them the same way we treat intrusive thoughts. This means that we don't fight off the emotions. Instead, we ALLOW all the emotions to just be there. We might be uncomfortable with the emotions, but we just let them sit there all day if they want to. I have to tell you that I have spent countless days with negative emotions about God clouding my day. I feel the emotions are there, but I just ignore them. I just ignore them the same way that I would ignore intrusive thoughts. I have learned to go about my day, even though the feelings make me uncomfortable. AND HERE'S THE THING ... if I hadn't learned to let the emotions be there, I would be in such a bad state right now. If I was afraid that my emotions meant something about me, I would be so mentally tired. If I thought I had to fight off the emotions, I would be in mental agony. Maybe this is where you are? One of the key things we all have to learn about OCD recovery is that we are NOT SUPPOSED to fight off the thoughts (or emotions or images or anything else). We have to learn to let them run their course, even though we are uncomfortable. This is the heart of ERP therapy. And I think that so many people with OCD are in complete misery because they are trying to fight off these intangible things that can't be fought off. But the truth is that our thoughts and emotions only get worse when we fight them. It's a paradigm shift we all need to make. But it will really help you! we can talk about this more. If you are currently feeling like you have to fight off your emotions, it will be a game changer for you to just let them run freely while you go about your day.

@Tea and Honey I’m so glad it’s somewhat common! I was so scared this was literally just me and that I was doomed for hell. The concept of hell and judgement is very terrifying to me but I’ve also had thoughts and feelings of maybe wanting to go to hell even though I immediately said “no!” This is just so crazy and I constantly get in my head all day about all these issues! You are a literal life saver and yes, I would like to talk more about emotions!

@Megan Banks Yep. That's exactly what OCD does. It will bring thoughts just kind that, saying that we want to go to hell. That is very typical !! But once you know that that is what OCD does, you won't be surprised when it happens again. So when OCD brings up the thought that you want to go to hell, don't fight the thought off. You don't have to say "No." You have to learn to just let the thought be there--while you go about your day. It doesn't mean anything. The fear of having this thought actually makes the situation worse. But when you know that you are safe, even if OCD brings up that thought 24 hours a day, the fear goes away.. You need to know that you were safe, even if the OCD is bringing up uncomfortable or terrible thoughts. You don't need to fight them off. I'm going to send you my summary of ERP therapy. It's really long, but it talks about this. You'll have to tell me what you think of it.

@Tea and Honey This was so so helpful thank you and yes please send me it! I’m really wanting to start ERP again with NOCD. I did erp with Roger’s and it was a very traumatic experience so I ended up stopping. I’m hoping that NOCD will be more gentle with the level of the exposures, starting at level one first instead of level five like Roger’s did! 😂

@Megan Banks In my experience NOCD was gentle with ERP. They won't make you do anything against your beliefs :):)

@Tea and Honey I love NOCD:):) I'm so happy you might start up with them. I have used them for therapy twice. I learned so much from them and highly recommend them :):):)