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Have you other Christian’s delta major shift spiritually. I don’t know what’s to come but I feel heavy in my spirit and I’m kind of scared. That I’m uncertain and everyone’s emotions are very high right now.

I worry about my salvation like every second of the day I don’t know how to have a normal relationship with the one true God

As a practicing devout Catholic I am often very conflicted about determining my moral culpability and if my thoughts and actions are mortal sins. A lot feels at stake here since it’s about offending God and whether or not I need to go to reconciliation so I don’t go to hell. It doesn’t seem prudent to say “maybe, maybe not”. What am I to do?

I’m realizing that maybe my OCD gave me all the doubts about God and that’s what helped me be able to leave my religion (Christian Baptist Fundamentalist). Everyone around me never doubted as much as me or had as much skepticism (at least not out loud) and I never understood why I was so different from them. What is your experience with OCD and religion? Did it make you decide to leave? To stay? How do you feel about religion and OCD now?

Another reason why I'm not so sure if I should step away from religion is watching certain shows like Hazbin hotel because I have a favorite character and it's Alastor!!! I heard that they had a Jesus character comming up in season 2 and I did not like that cause I'm like i guess Christan or I believe in Jesus Christ and have religious based beliefs. Like I didn't like Adam cause if you seen season 1 he's pretty bad. But I like the other characters. And I think people might be getting the show mixed up. But my point is here that I feel like I shouldn't be watching this show cause people have been saying the show is blasphemy and I do not wanna commit that religious or not. I just don't wanna do that period. Like I love alastor's character but the other characters always seem to be making hell like a good place but its not!!! In every religion hell is usually seen as bad. I know it's just a tv show but I just cannot help with the thoughts. And I don't know if I should even have a favorite character from this show.

I write a long summary of ERP therapy recently. I'm going to copy and paste it here if anyone wants to read it. Love to you all 💙💙💕💕🩵🩵 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.

I write a long summary of ERP therapy recently. I'm going to copy and paste it here if anyone wants to read it. Love to you all 💙💙💕💕🩵🩵 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.

I need help. I went to church today and it was scripture John 6:66 which stressed me out then the D word came up not Devil . The name for his followers . How am I going to go to church ? If I’m going to get triggered! Prozac helps but it can only do so much. How do I over come this ?

I'm sorry if I'm bringing religion into this but I grew up around those beliefs. Listen I really don't like the thought of considering that I could homophobic cause of religious-like beliefs. This has been bothering me which is why I kinda stepped away from religion and faith cause it just seemed way too hateful and controlling. I'm a heavy people pleaser and an empath. I would like it if lgbt people and religious people could help me feel better <3 I'll try to explain how I feel. I have religious beliefs that being gay is a sin. I grew up around Christan beliefs but I was taught to hate the sin and not the person <3 like respect the person. Always! I respect people for who they are cause I was taught we're all born sinners in the end but I'm also taught in my religion that it's important to try and stop sin. But we can always be forgiven if we catch ourselves sinning that's the beauty of it no matter the sin except for blasphemy of course. I just do not understand the gay agenda. And that's just me that doesn't mean I'm going to go around hating and bullying others. I don't that that's not right period. Religion or no religion. It's just wrong in general especially if someone is just being their selves or figuring out who they are. I just think people get this mixed up. Like I just don't get it I'm not one to be attracted to the same gender I'm just not that person. I'm more traditional. But I don't like being a hater... but I still want to respect others. Like I even had intrusive thoughts of being attracted to the same gender because I thought someone was pretty 😂 but it's not like that I'm more like ("slay queen!"). But attracted??? No, to me it's just weird for me in my perspective doesn't mean I don't respect others, I do I really do. I just don't understand. And I hate having the thoughts that I may sound hateful cause of such religious like beliefs. I even had an old couple of friends in school a long time ago or knew a few people and I always respected them! <3 because a few of them were super nice and were cool. Like idgaf as long as you're nice and chill!

OCD feeds on the illusion of permanence. It convinces us that a single thought can last forever, that a mistake will stain us permanently, or that failing to perform a ritual means something irreversible has been set in motion. In that world, everything feels heavy, final, and eternal. But take a step back, not by 200 feet but by 200 years. What will really remain? Nothing we obsess over today will leave even a fingerprint on time. The most successful people in history and the people who made the gravest mistakes all eventually fade into the same silence. Billionaires, beggars, saints, and criminals end up in the same soil. Our names might be remembered for a while, but eventually even that passes. Life is like writing in sand at low tide. The waves come, and they erase every mark, no matter how grand or how small. Think of life as a novel. Every one of us has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The beginning is birth. The middle is our striving, fumbling, joy, and heartbreak. The ending is death. OCD is like a character inside the book who tries to grab the pen from the author. It says, “Wait, we need to rewrite Chapter 6 or the story is ruined. What if Chapter 8 has a mistake? We must fix it before turning the page.” But the story unfolds anyway. The ending is already written. What makes it good is not whether each chapter was perfect but that the story has an end. Without endings there is no story, only endless noise. We are often taught to see death as a tragedy. But what if death is a promise? Death is what frees us from endless revisions. It closes the book. Whether our lives play out as comedy or tragedy, they become whole. A sunset is beautiful because it ends. Imagine if the sun never set. Its glory would fade into monotony. OCD wants to pause the sunset and replay it frame by frame to make sure it is “done correctly.” But life was never meant to be dissected that way. It was meant to move, to end, and to be received as a gift. This is where God enters the picture in a way that challenges many traditional narratives. Religion often tells us that we need to earn God’s approval through strict rules, moral codes, or by fitting into some framework of perfection. But if God is truly eternal and infinite, then our obsessions and mistakes are not permanent stains. They dissolve in the sea of His eternity just like everything else. Picture God not as a judge with a scorecard but as an ocean. Every drop of water eventually falls into it. The drop does not bring its résumé, its guilt, or its compulsions. It simply becomes part of the source from which it came. OCD is like a drop of water worried that it will not make the right splash. But the ocean receives every drop the same. Here is where the cure begins. OCD insists that “this matters infinitely.” Perspective answers back, “In 200 years none of this will matter. So why not live with fluidity, the way nature intended?” When we stop resisting impermanence, we stop fighting the natural flow of life. Instead of carving our identities into stone, we learn to move like ripples across the surface of water. We let God’s ocean carry us. Suddenly, the demand for absolute control dissolves. Control was always an illusion. Permanence was always a lie. Impermanence is a gift. OCD tries to immortalize every thought and every mistake. But life, death, and God remind us that nothing is immortal except love. Death is not the eraser of meaning but the seal that completes the story. No matter how messy the chapters have been, the ending is a good one simply because it ends.

Help me I'm really struggling to trust God I know that I am saved by faith alone How do I identify ocd thoughts vs. Spiritual attack thoughts Help please help God help me

Ok so TRIGGER WARNING if you are not in therapy for SOOCD or are early in therapy for SOOCD please don't read this. Hi, I'm Maddie. I'm 19 and bisexual and diagnosed with OCD (mainly harm OCD and contamination OCD). I am religious and am a nonacting bisexual that happens to be married to a man. Despite this I am still attracted to women. I have also dealt with SOOCD or internalized homophobia, I'm not sure which, where I have second guessed my sexuality over and over and had intrusive thoughts about kissing random people, mostly girls. It took me from 6th grade to 9th grade to finally accept that I am attracted to women as well as men. I would compulsively take sexuality quizzes, avoid thinking about women I found attractive and a lot of things that were definitely compulsive, but I am not sure this was SOOCD or not because I actually am bisexual. At the time however I was thinking I was straight and absolutely terrified of being gay. Now I have accepted myself (conveniently after finding a boyfriend during my questioning) and the compulsions have passed, though some avoidance still occurs. This said, I am wondering if what I experienced was SOOCD or just internalized homophobia from being a Christian? ( Now I believe that being gay is not a sin but acting on it may be, though I don't know for sure. Please don't hate me for that, it's something I only apply to myself not to others. I have no desire to force others not to act on their feelings or beliefs)

As a Christian there is many times where I struggle with my faith. These days have been quite difficult. I dealt with ocd for a couple of years. Just last year I officially overcame POCD. During this time I had supportive family that took everything I was going through seriously. But before I told them I only told God because I was ashamed of my thoughts and what I was going through. I prayed to God all the time for help. And there was many times where I opened my bible and read, tried to understand, cried and prayed. Though I might’ve not understood the Bible verse I felt comfortable being vulnerable with God in those moments. As I continued to pray I slowly gained the courage to tell my family what I was going through. And slowly I started to open up and gain the support I needed. Fast forward now I’ve been struggling heavily with having faith I often wondered if these things that I say was God was just me. I wondered if God was really guiding me through my family or if it was just them being kind because they felt like it. I struggle with believing that God has help me because I didn’t feel his presence like everyone says they do. Or I don’t hear his voice. Like how do ik what is God or just others free will… I also struggle with reading the Bible. I start for a week or two then stop because I don’t get it or because it’s confusing or hard to comprehend. I just feel like such a bad Christian because some people believe effortlessly whereas I barely have enough faith. I love God and want to follow him I just don’t know why I’m struggling so much right now… I could really use guidance or advice

I am 18 years old and I have really bad OCD and anxiety I think and I used to type all of my thoughts in the notes app and I recently deleted them because I felt like God wanted me to but now I regret it because I know there’s things in my notes That I might have acted on and I didn’t get the chance to tell my mom and now I don’t remember them and I cry and I cry because I don’t wanna be a bad person, but I do sometimes do my thoughts not like actually hurt someone, but for instance, I was touching my monitor. Weird whenever I didn’t have to, and I kept touching it after I had an intrusive thought and I should’ve stopped, but I didn’t and if I did that, what else have I done and I just wanna get back to my normal life and I can’t even do normal tasks all the time and I know the thoughts that I’ve acted on was not the check to see if anything happened. What if I did it for bad reasons what does that make me now? I just wanna grow up and be a Christian and just have a family and then I will be happy. I don’t want these thoughts anymore, but I’m so scared of my past please help

Hey! This is my first post here and I’m not sure quite how to put it but I’d love to connect with people who have struggled with obsessive thought loops,? Sometimes I’ll think the same thought over and over for hours, days or even weeks every now and then. It can be a simple thought like about a painting i’m going to work on or it could be a thought about something horrible in my past. No matter the degree, the thought just plays over and over, sometimes it even carries to my dreams. It’s exhausting and I can hear a ‘second’ voice in my head begging it to stop but I have no control. This is actually the very first symptom of my OCD that I’ve ever experienced and it’s what made me realize that my thoughts are definitely unwanted and uncontrollable. I mean literally the same thought plays over and over. Like a song, but just a thought or memory. It can make me spiral horribly into magical and spiritual OCD and I’ve yet to find anyone to talk to about this. Thank you!

I feel like whenever I'm at church I'm not doing good enough or my praying isn't enough. I'm also disabled and half the time am unable to stand for long periods of time. My ocd keeps telling me that I'm not worshiping good enough because I'm sitting down or because I can't sing that hymn. It makes me feel so alone when I'm at church like god doesn't love me because I am not worshiping correctly.

“TEACH YOUR CHILDREN SCRIPTURES EARLY AND THEY WILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS ARMOR THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY HAD.” For me, I am always blessed and HIGHLY FAVORED. You don't have to be a strong religious Bible thumper to understand. You don't have to believe in someone's GOD. Just believe in something greater then you. So, what does this mean for you. There is not perfectly right or wrong answer. Grounded

I feel pain in my chest and can't breathe I always wake up anxious with intrusive thoughts that I'm unforgiven I'm scared so scared please I need anyone to talk to i can't breathe i can't get out no matter how hard I try and take my medication or talk to my therapist I'm so so tired.. I don't know who am I anymore I wanna be with God because of love not fear why I have all these bad intrusive thoughts I just can't enjoy because I have these thoughts always with me and always afraid and anxious can't enjoy anything

Hey, I am a 19 year old girl, who have since February 2024 begun questioning if I am a lesbian. I have always LOVED boys, and have always known that I do not like women sexually, but I remember one night I got the thought “what if you like women” and I have not been able to not think about it since then. I remember I began questioning this during Covid when I was home alone in 2020, but has since then been able to be 100% that it was just a fase where I was curious, but had since then been able to talk openly about me not liking women without it triggering something. But since February I have thought about it EVERY day and every single minute of the day. I have a boyfriend of 3,5 years who I love so much, but since I began having these thoughts I cannot feel attracted to him. I need to ask him for reassurance 10+ times a day “pinky promise I’m not into women but only men” and have to ask him a certain way. I also think “oh I feel the need to look at women’s private parts and get a tangly feeling 3 or more times before I can look away cause it has to feel right. I also feel like I can’t listen to eg “I kissed a girl” or “born this way” because if I do I will feel attracted to it. Another example is that I constantly seek reassurance from Google, ChatGPT or TikTok and it is so draining because in the end I keep thinking “I don’t have a OCD diagnosis what If im in denial and is just a lesbian who is lying to me bf” I feel as im in denial just writing this. I have lived with it for a year now and is starting to question “what if I have just changed and must accept that I don’t like boys and is masculine e.g.” but the thing is, I have ALWAYS loved makeup, and loves girl stuff, but when I have these thought I can’t feel as I am in control of who I am. It makes me question myself to the point where I feel as I have to go out and be with a women because it is what my brain tells me to do. During a 5 month period in between this year the topic changed to “what if I have cheated on my bf without him knowing because I don’t remember” and I went down another dark hole. I have thrown all my clothe from that period of time out because I felt guilty and as it held “bad memories” and now I regret it because the topic has changed. But during that time I had to seek reassurance from friends “have I flirted - do u think I talked flirty or looked at them, have I done anything” and I had to have it IN writing, otherwise it wasn’t valid. I even promised God that I would not go out clubbing until New Year’s Eve at 12 am, because then he would forgive me and it would make me a not lesbian person. But it did not help a bit, the topic just changed and my “am I a leabjan” spiral started again. And it makes me so sad because why can it not just think “okay you are bisexual” NOT JUST “oh you are either heterosexual or ONLY into women” it is like my mind is afraid. So I guess my hope and question is, is there anyone who can tell if this sounds like OCD, and if I am into women. Before gaining these thoughts I was certain, and I know i don’t ONLY like women, but I can’t even be sexually active with my bf because if I think of women during it, I must get turned on by it and be a lesbian. I am so exhausted. Sorry for the long question, I am just so drained. Backstory: my family has a lot of mental illnesses on my dads side, and when I was a child I dealt a lot with having to wash my hands until they bled and crying because i did not know why I lived. I was never diagnosed.

I have had a series of the same intrusive thoughts theme since I was almost 13... I want to obey & love God with all my heart, mind, and soul. I trust Him to work this out for my salvation. My thoughts: "Give your s*** away for xyz" - various themes - feel real (ocd) - as in 'temptations' - have disabled me, I am failing university, etc. - don't want to live with them anymore - don't want to leave the USA, afraid that God will send me back to my home country because of whatever reason - WANT TO BE FREE MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD My question: should I treat this as a mental problem or a spiritual one? I have diagnosed ocd and am in therapy (with compulsions under control).