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Because of years of scrupulous OCD the very idea of religious services and activities brings up apprehension and stress. How can I rewire my brain to learn to enjoy these things?

especially since ive recovered a lot from my bad episode of like religious “ocd” (im nto diagnosed) i feel like idk a part of me just wants my ocd compulsions back like i enjoyed all the control i had in my life and like i sort of liked how ill i was and thats so wrong to say but i dont know how to get rid of this feeling because ive had it for months atp

I have to go to church tomorrow and I just feel so embarrassed to even step foot in there. My OCD is really based off of religion, and when I walk into a church or see a religious word or name I freak out. I feel like ik disrespecting God because of these thoughts I'm having. Any tips on how to cope with this?

This is a new thing for me…having a name for the thoughts and feelings I have. As a Christian, having religious OCD is terrifying. I want my faith so badly but I constantly fear “doing it wrong” or upsetting God. Where is my fear coming from? Is my fear evil? What if my doubt is evil? Ugh. Tiring.

Hello! I was wondering if people with religious or moral scrupulosity can relate to this! I identify as gay (I’ve known it since I was a preteen) and I grew up in a religiously conservative household and in a culture that does not accept the LGBT community. Growing up, I’ve made a lot of progress in accepting myself and learning to love myself for who I am despite the lack of acceptance and support from my cultural and family background. …however, it has obviously been a tough road. And recently, I think I’ve started developing scrupulosity around my sexuality. Basically, I wanted to rediscover my faith in a way that helped me, but it ended up just causing me a lot of distress because the LGBT are not exactly affirmed by the Catholic Church. And despite my best efforts, I feel like I’ve slid so far back into a pit of guilt, shame, and disgust with myself. I have so many intrusive thoughts that being LGBT is not natural, is not right, is something that can and should be changed or fixed, even when I know these to not be true. I’m curious to know if anyone else with religious or moral scrupulosity experiences similar feelings of guilt or shame about who they are. Not only do the intrusive thoughts themselves make me feel guilty, but I have intrusive thoughts that I AM bad and that I should feel shame and disgust about myself. I’m hesitant to post this not only because I don’t want to trigger others but also because I don’t want it to be reassurance seeking or a compulsion, but I do have doubt that this isnt just from my OCD and that I should be exploring other forms of therapy to deal with these problems.

TW: existential OCD, religious scrupulosity Hello, I was wondering if anyone else can relate to this experience! For me, a lot of my intrusive thoughts come to me as questions. For example, I have a lot of existential OCD, and a lot of my questions may be things like “What is the purpose of life? Is there even a purpose? Is life worth living without a purpose?” A lot of the times, I come to a conclusion that doesn’t sit well with me and triggers even more anxiety. I noticed this also comes up with religious scrupulosity, wondering if God or Hell exist and constantly churning questions in my mind. I’m curious if this is the case for anyone else. I feel like I’m constantly questioning everything around me, and it’s the questioning itself which causes me distress, because I feel like in questioning the things that I value, I somehow take away their value to me because I can’t quite get an answer that satisfies me as to why they were valuable in the first place (if that makes any sense at all 😂). Thanks!

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

I’ve been struggling more with religious and existential ocd, does anyone know of any works books for either of these types of ocd?

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

Im a Catholic and therfore I have scrupulosity too. Im a man and I cant live with my thoughts regarding sexuality. I find women attractive and I know that is the most normal thing in the world but somehow I dont know when or if it becomes a sin. I cant even look properly around when I am in public because everywhere might be a possibility for sin. I know that I cannot prevent any coincidences but I want those feelings to stop. Is there anything I can do?

so i have a specific fear. i read a verse in the bible. i say to myself “this verse must mean this” (affirming my fear). is it possible that i’m just willing my fear into existence/ giving a meaning to a verse that is actually unrelated to the real meaning whatsoever? i can’t tell. this might be a stupid question, but ocd really does cloud your reality.

I feel really scared doing my erp exercises because I am afraid I am offending God, can I please have some advice and help.

i saw videos on tiktok that people who would pray would end up being gay and i have been praying everyday that i don’t end up gay. I don’t want to be gay but i’m scared that i’m gonna end up changing my mind. What do i do?

I have this boyfriend who i’ve been with for over a year and I love him and I felt like I was ready so I lost my virginity to him and we’ve been having sex for a while. I’ve grown this extreme fear that God hates me and every time I do it, I’m disappointing him or like he no longer likes me because I’ve done it. I tried to pray and ask if I shouldn’t be doing it or if I should stop but I never really get any response or clear answers so I’ve been continuing to do it because I love my boyfriend and I want to be normal and feel normal but the feeling of God hating me seeps and every time we are getting together and every day throughout my life. I go to a Catholic school so every time we pray or God has brought up I feel deep guilt I feel like I’m not worthy of praying, or speaking to God anymore. We had reconciliation the other week, and I finally got up the courage to tell the priest that I lost my virginity and that I felt like God didn’t love me and was looking for some reassurance. the priest responded by saying he doesn’t think God is mad at me but he’s just disappointed in me. This actually made me feel a lot worse because it kind of confirmed the idea that God was disappointed or didn’t like me which to me is very scary and makes me feel sick. A lot of the time it feels like I’m being told I shouldn’t do it and I know I shouldn’t do it but I do it anyway, so I feel like I’m gonna go to hell. But at the same time I feel like if I didn’t have OCD, I wouldn’t be thinking those things and it wouldn’t matter so I feel like I really don’t know what to do.

I'm learning to accept God's love as unconditional. I want this love to inspire me to do good but am afraid that without guilt or fear as a motivation I will end up not caring. Is this a facet of my OCD that I should just ignore or is it a logical concern?

Fear and shame has been the foundation of my spiritual life. Having come to accept this I no longer see a point in even having one. I believe that there is a God, that he exists and has standards. I also believe that acknowledgement by Him has to be more than just believing one's own rhetoric. I don't love God, I don't know how, so what's the point of trying? But that said, I wouldn't be able to escape the knowledge that I made a choice to step away. So then what's the point of living? I'm a slave either way.

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

I put a trigger warning on this for people who have scrupulosity just in case. I have religious OCD and it is really hard to go through. It goes “f you Jesus” “sorry God I didn’t mean that I love you” “f the devil I love Jesus” “I hate the devil I love Jesus” “I love the devil” “no that’s not true I’m sorry God I didn’t mean that” “f you Satan” in my head all day. And then I’ll be listening to the radio and listening to KLove (which is a Christian radio station) and I’ll have what I call contradictory thoughts which is when one or many of my thoughts contradicts the truth of God. Because it will be that Jordan Feliz song and he’ll say “the king is alive” and my brain will say “no he isn’t” and it will send me into an annoyed spiral. “Yes He is I’m sorry Jesus I know you’re alive”. If anyone else goes through something similar to this please let me know so I can feel less alone.

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.