It seems like ocd jumps around like hyper child . I have experience majority of all OCD types and when one gets calm , one comes back .I have a fear of going to hell and burning forever. God turns me away because my mind can't make itself up . One second I believe and the other I'm telling myself I don't believe to protect myself . Then I go through is religion real? And how do we know this is the right one ? And after that I freeze . I find myself staring out the window looking for a sign of the world ending and eating something to make me feel better. Sometimes all I want to do is throw myself to my knees and pray over and over again. I wish I wasn't born or had a different mindset because this is so painful. My parents used religion as a behavioral tool to keep us in line , Sunday was about church and taking about going to hell and burning in the lake fire 🔥if you disobay and if you was bad you would have to read from the book of revelations . I'm scared . I don't want to have theses thoughts , I just want to live and be happy

Hi Martha 😊 I have a similar story & i also eat to get rid of fear & unwanted thoughts. I’ve been working on my religious stuff for years. I’ve come to believe that the book of revelations is not (in my opinion) a good book for kids. It gave me nightmares! Today I think of it sort of like a metaphor: it’s like my parents read me ‘little red riding hood’ & told me the wolf was real & would get me if I didn’t visit my grandma. So I was terrified my whole life of grandma & the woods. After reading the Bible, I was terrified to live. I was raised in the church, went to a church school, and the only people in my life were in the same religion. I was told that other religions were evil & that everyone who didn’t believe what my family believed was going to hell. “Even babies?” I asked. & my mom would nod her head sadly. That didn’t sit well with me. & I was getting so many contradicting messages: God is love. God is jealous. God says ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ God says ‘an eye for an eye.’ I would ask my father about it & he would get angry with me & tell me I just had to believe. That it was god’s word & that is all I needed to know. So I lived in that limbo of terror you’re describing. I even prayed that god would send me to hell or show me the devil so that I’d know he was real. It’s been a long journey. Almost 25 years since my doubts in god began. Here are some things that have helped me through my fear & allowed me to live more freely: -I reach out to people like you, who listen to me & can understand my fears & doubts. (My line used to be “did Jesus mess you up, too? Let’s talk.”) -I journal about my fear & write about what I was taught to believe & what I believe now. -I started meeting people who believed in different gods, no gods, and other agnostics, like me, who aren’t sure if there are or arent gods. -I’ve read books about other religions, and books about the history of religions (mine & others). -I’ve read fiction about religion, like ‘The Book of Pi’ & ‘Midnight’s Children.’ -I met people who talked about religious trauma syndrome. -I’ve had discussions about faith & hope with my brothers & sister. -I watched the movie ‘Religulous.’ -I now have people in my life who encourage me to explore what god means to me. -I found this Marcus Aurelius quote that I’ve hung onto: ‘Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them.’ -I pray sometimes. But now it’s more a prayer to the universe, to love & to kindness. I like the St. Francis prayer, too. It starts: ‘Lord, Make me a channel of thy peace. That where there is hatred, I may sow love ...’ It reminds me that I’m not alone. Today I believe I have no control over what happens to me in the afterlife & so the only thing that matters is how I live today on this earth, one minute at a time. The other OCD stuff, well, that’s the next step for me. But the religious part runs deep, from infancy. So that’s the part I chose to explore first.

Thank you so much for your words of wisdom. This just started with me obsessing and getting stuck in a loop with my thoughts. It's is a relief that someone also feel this way. I wish we can go back in time and relearn the things that we have been introduced to as a child and be taught with it loved instead of fear and torture. Recently I have found myself being more spiritual and accepting the fact that I'm trying to unlearn being so fearful and replacing it with the love and compassion of God. but sometimes especially right now during these time I find my mind wandering off thinking about the afterlife and if I'm following the right religion. Thank you so much for your words . Thank you so much