Hi everyone. I have religious ocd and i am muslim and i pray 5 times a day. There is an ablution ritual where we wash parts of body in certain steps before prayer. I get doubts on purity, doubts on my ablution steps, doubts during prayer in each step. I also have tetribke intrusive thoughts where my mind curses god and anything related and it scared me and still does, especially since i hate hearing curses about god or even curses in general. All these things make me always spend so much time making sure i am clean...and make me repeat ablution and prayer. Most times i cannot even begin prayer because i doubt my intention, doubts if i even did a step, get terrible curses against god in my mind, and doubt every step. I try to ignore, especially the curses...but fail every time. I also know some things i do are not logical but still cannot help not doing compulsions like asking god for forgiveness and starting all over. I cant go to a therapist because i do not want to take medications and also do not have the money or means to commit to it. Also, not sure if they can help because it is very specific. Anyone with my type of ocd and muslim? Were you able to recover? How did you ignore and go on doing ablution and prayers? They have become extremely hard. Please be kind. I am in a very depressed and helpless state. Please dont tell me to do anything blasphemous or sacreligious. I love my religion and god and know this is a test. Thanks.

I'm Christian, not Muslim, but as a teen had prayer rituals that got ridiculously long and repetitive. On strategy for me was to limit my religious prayer to communal settings. Having to keep up with everyone else's pace forced me to limit rituals. Maybe you could try doing the preparations and ablutions with someone that you trust to do it "normally"

Hi, my sister had this and she would spend hours in the bathroom just doing ablution. This was when she was 17. She also repeated her prayers over an over again because she thought she made a mistake or she forgot to say one of her prayers. Her OCD was very extreme but since I was only a child at the time I didn't really understand how bad it was until now. She is now 28 and she has recovered massively. It's still there but she is able to live her life without continuous compulsions. She did do ERP. Most of it is just to try to ignore your obsessions which is very difficult but it's really about the mindset you are in. If you believe in an all forgiving God, he will forgive you. He knows you have OCD. He knows it isn't you. He is putting you through a test and that test is to see how strong you can be to resist these obsessions. I know it's hard to accept as I myself have OCD but to be honest the reason why she recovered much faster than me is because she did it on her own. I have a lot of people I can turn to for reassurance but she didn't. At the end of the day it is you who can change it. Try to stay positive even if it's difficult, talk about it with people but don't ask for reassurance. Try to say slowly reduce the amount of times you wash yourself. One last thing, My mother would always tell my sister that there's a reason why you perform ablution 3 times because 3 times makes it perfect. Anymore times after that,it is the devil (ocd) telling you to do it.

You are enough.

Thanks so much everyone for your support. I read so much sbout recovery and yes it is so awesome that God is forgiving and i am convinced and try to prepare myself, but once i start perforning ablution and prayers my mind starts cursing and everything i know gets thrown out my mind and i get fear and anxiety and stop thinking logically. I have so many obsessions related to thus topic and i have to fight the compulsions for each.i also feel j offended god if i said something in a tone that i felt to be displeasing and keep on repeating. I also try to perform all my orayers with someone, but now it is impossible to complete it on my own due to my dependence on others to help me. It is extremely crippling.

I have an upcoming meeting around a prayer time and i had to cancel because i will be trying to pray for hours and never make it. The pressure of the meeting will make it worse. Thus is so difficult. I also wait till my last prayer to eat dinner because i get indigestion (i have ibs, yoo, which has been worse since ocd) and cant even pray. So, i pray last prayer and then eat. I will never make it in time for meeting. I felt so bad and couldnt tell the real reason and had to make up an excuse.

@simm can I ask how you've been since you posted this. I myself am going through something similar.