Hey! Any Christians out there? This is part of my OCD homework: What ways can we connect with God? One of my biggest compulsions is prayer. My therapist is giving me homework to see any other types of ways we can connect with God in a way that is beneficial. Please let me know, thank you so much 💜

Thank you Carl!

Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much! Yes, I have kinda exhausted prayer through OCD. So, something that is meant to bring comfort or seen as a good thing, I now dread. I dread it but I do it constantly. I'll even be crying for 20/30 minutes still trying to squeeze out prayers about all the things OCD is shouting at me to do. I search and search and search for comfort, but as you know 😅, the compulsion gives no comfort. It's quite a big thing to explain as its my "go-to" compulsion... I am just totally depleted by it, and yet I can't stop because of the fear God will be disappointed in me if I don't pray. I hope I can get through it.. The one thing that is meant to bring us comfort, our relationship with Christ, is contorted and mixed in with OCD for me 😔 Thank you for commenting!!

@ButterflyStar Yes I feel that too if I stop praying (as a compulsion) that I am harming my faith and it is troubling to me! But I do recognize it can become a compulsion, for example for so many years I would always say “in Jesus name I pray amen” without any other prayer, just saying that, and not only that but I would say it multiple times to make sure I said it “just right” and I still do this! And my OCD didn’t explode into what it is today until last year but I’ve been doing that compulsion since I was a teenager. Also before I knew I had OCD (I was diagnosed in March this year), I thought it was a spiritual attack, so I pushed myself completely into my faith, praying a lot, reading my Bible a lot, listening to worship music a lot, etc. It was later that I realize I did that not because I wanted to personally increase my faith, but really because I was looking for relief and escape from the OCD thoughts and fears!

@Evelyn4416 Oh wow this was like I wrote this! I TOTALLY relate!!! I'm glad I'm not the only one.. Because this has felt like hell for the past 3 years and I wondered if I'm the only Christian whose OCD has manifested in ways like this. I say in Jesus name amen too! Not by itself but ANY type of prayer I MUST say it, or 'it won't count /I've been rude to Jesus'. I have 'just right' perfect prayers... This is so excruciating hard 😔. I will start crying as soon as I say 'Dear Lord' but I must continue because of the fear. I have totally pushed myself into the Bible, prayer, worship, repeating scripture... Basically all the things someone would advise you if they don't understand OCD 😔 How have things been for you? Where did you get help from? Thank you so so soooo much for commenting and sharing with me. It's actually given me a bit of a relief that I'm not the only one. Take it one step at a time ♥️🙌 Thank you so much!! 💜

@ButterflyStar YES it’s so hard to not do it like there’s this huge urge to say the prayer or it’s like you’re betraying God somehow! Before I knew it was OCD my dad and grandma were the ones to tell me to push hard I to my faith to overcome this “attack” aka OCD and they don’t know anything about mental illnesses so I believed that, not to say that pushing into your faith is bad because I want to be closer to God! But not in the way that was becoming a compulsion and making me worse as a result. I have stopped now doing the excessive Bible readings and music etc, the prayer compulsion had gone done somewhat but I still have that repeating one that I have to make sure it was “just right” or it’ll bother me. I think it could be a compulsion too where I HAVE to make sure I pray before I drive for safety or I’ll get into a car acccident and I HAVE to pray I have good dreams before bed or I’ll have nightmares, if I don’t do this I become incredibly anxious and feel that God is showing me if I don’t ask for it I won’t have His protection? Oh and another thing I have is that if I’m reading or watching something that is talking/showing about other religions or deities, spirits, demons, or even making jokes about my faith, I HAVE to pray and agonize to God or I have to say “Jesus is my Lord” or something along those lines so I don’t fall out of my faith somehow. It has helped me with my OCD to start therapy with an OCD specialist and do ERP which has helped a ton with my other themes (such as suicidal ocd and existential ocd) but I actually haven’t done ERP yet for the religious stuff and I’m not sure why! I should try that

@Evelyn4416 * apologize, not agonize

@Evelyn4416 Yes wow! I totally relate. I'm sorry you've had a number of years with this so prevelant. I am happy for you you ha e started therapy and ERP😊🙌! Yes definitely bring it up with your therapist. I am sure they will help you with it, and you will be able to find more freedom in your relationship with God by that😊 Oh gosh I'm the same! I HAVE to pray or if it goes 'wrong' I take it as a sign of God showing me how I messed up. I also find it very very distressing when I watch or listen to things that are against what we believe. I think I am sinning myself if I hear TV with swearing or perverse language, if music has perverse topics, I will feel so uncomfortable and I will start to pray. The list is endless if I really shared what I always use this compulsion for. I have been in therapy for 2 years now, there seems so so so many themes I want to bring up for my therapist to help me. At the start of my journey I also had existential and suicidal OCD, so I really emphatise with you. ♥️ May the Lord help us.. Do you ever question God why has He allowed this to happen to you? Sometimes especially on my worst days, I just feel so hurt as to why He has chosen me for this 😔.. I know we shouldn't think like that because we are going to suffer in life, and His plan is sovereign.. But that's how I feel 😔I do hope to move through this and accept it more.

@ButterflyStar Wow I relate so much!! I’m so glad we are able to talk with other about this because our situations are so vastly similar! 💛 also hearing you went through the existential and suicidal themes gives me hope for myself that I’ll get through it! And YES absolutely like in the past I have broken down in tears asking God why he wasn’t listening to my prayers and why I continued to suffer with these other themese. That then changed to a sense of betrayal because I didn’t start on the road to recovery until I started therapy, so I was like God why did you not answer me when I asked you for help constantly and I had to see out “man” for help and it did work? I love God so much and I continue to believe in Him but that honestly took a hard hit at my faith. Interestingly enough also, when I was still not aware what I had was OCD/doing my obsessive faith stuff, I was going to church a lot as well including those Bible study meetings during the middle of the week, and one Wednesday meeting I was there and struggling very hard with the suicidal ocd theme and my pastor mentioned something about suicide and I broke down sobbing, so after the meeting I pulled him aside and confined in him what I was telling with mentally. I was fully expecting a “holy” answer of how I should push in faith more but what he actually told me was to seek out a mental health counselor and talk with a professional! I was honestly shocked and kinda mad he said that but I also knew he was right so that started my journey to find a therapist, which lead me to consider it was ocd, to changing therapists to a specialist, to getting diagnosed and now doing treatment for the last 7 months! So I now try to look back at that and see that God led me to my pastor and had him direct me to therapy because God also blessed these therapists with the knowledge and skills to help us. It’s still hard not gonna lie with my faith but I was to grow closer to God while battling this and not blaming him not not answer my prayers the way I expected him to

@Evelyn4416 I'm very glad to talk to you too! Seriously! Aw wow yes I believe too that the Lord lead you and used the pastor to bring you the best advice. I suppose it must be have been really confusing because you had your dad and family advise you to do more, which we now know with OCD as a disorder that only feeds it more. The existential and suicidal themes were so hard too, I relate. I even got to a convinced point that perhaps suicide was 'God's plan' for my life! I was a completely new born again believer, so I was just newly saved with no sound doctrine to know that of course it is never God's will for anyone to commit suicide. I recently watched this video on Why does God allow suffering? Perhaps it will help you too: https://youtu.be/g5H3jD6TiR4 I split it into 20 minute watches over a week ❤️

@ButterflyStar Omg see that’s what OCD does! Causes confusion and doubt about the themes we deal with but God never wants that for us. Can I ask how you got through these themes? Also thank you! I’ll check out that video 💛

@Evelyn4416 That's true.. 😔 To be honest they naturally passed, I didn't get any help or anything. I didn't start therapy until 10 months later. They passed but unfortunately all my attention was brought to other themes. But this should be even more encouraging because you are actually in therapy right now!! So amazing! Do you ever feel like you can never do enough for God? One of my main themes is I feel I don't do enough. No matter how much I study the bible, no matter how much I pray, how much worship music I play, I feel I am not doing enough or spending enough time with the Lord. Then the guilt, so I pray, and pray and repent and pray and repent and spend more time again and again. I understand this sounds very works based, and I realise it IS. But also I have OCD, so just answering my doubt with more theological answers sometimes don't help 😔. A big part of recovery is correcting our illogical thinking.. So I hope to grow in that. But yeah I guess I was just wondering if you ever went through that? 🌻

@ButterflyStar I think when I was dealing with the undiagnosed OCD last year I was doing something like that, but it was more waiting for a “just right” moment, like if keep reading chapters in my Bible until it felt just right to stop and it seemed like enough, but of course then later in the day I’d pick it back up and read more because in my head the more i pushed myself the closer I would get to my miraculous healing

@ButterflyStar We are part of a solar system that is part of a galaxy that is part of a super cluster of billions of galaxies, and even that is just a small sample of what may be the total scope of potential observable universe. Recorded human history begins around 5000 to 6000 thousand years ago. Before that, humans lived in small groups of 50-60 people for the better part of 200,000 years. And before that, millions of years of transition of life forms took place from humans stretching back to dinosaurs back to single-cell organisms occurred unrecorded and lost to time. If you condensed the entire scope of history from 14 billion years ago to today, our existence as a species would account for the last minute, of the last day of the calendar year. We have barely been here a flicker of time from the perspective of the cosmos. We are so small, so insignificant that we aren’t even an echo of a whimper in space-time. I say all that to say, speaking as someone non-religious, that I certainly hope that whatever cosmic entity or deity that may have created the incredibly machinery of the universe and space-time, who has witnessed eons of history, has larger concerns than how often you pray or if your music is appropriately religious or not. Wouldn’t god be bigger than that? No reason to make your god so small.

@Evelyn4416 Haha yes that's me! For real.. You put it perfectly

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Hi Carl. It's not about putting God in a small narrow perspective, it's my OCD, and a lot of other people's OCD. The aim of your comment I can see is to challenge my thinking, but the way you've put it it hasn't at all, it's more so hurt my feelings. I don't find your comment helpful and I hope you might research Dr Ted Wiztig for some great pointers on working with people dealing with scruplosity from a counsellor's point of view. It might help learning a bit more why respect the Lord with their lifestyle in general.. Because once you look into why we honour the Lord with our lifestyle this would help you understand any person you work with. I can see your intent, and I think you meant well, but im unsure if you wanted to share with half a heart of your own disagreements to what I believe in, in terms of Christianity. And the other half trying to share a technique on thinking.

@ButterflyStar Yes. The intention is to challenge your thinking, and perhaps see that overvaluing your individual significance to god might not have a coherent logic. That being said, of course, OCD isn’t a disorder of logic rather than emotional regulation. So, it can become attached to virtually anything (including someone’s religious ideology, obviously) and I certainly understand that. It can be difficult to read tone or facial expression through internet or text communication. The hope was to make even a perspective of god to seem bigger and even more expansive (thus perhaps attributing to god a more substantial role in the universe) rather than challenge a specific ideology.

@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Thank you! I can understand this much more with more context given. Yes, very true about tone and expression via the Internet. Thank you for responding I appreciate it.

Thank you!!