Do the thoughts feel like your own?

[gtp40]

I'm honestly at the end of my sanity. I've been living in horrible fear about vows these last couple weeks. I'm pretty much flunking out of school and simply can't handle the work of it when I am non-stop worrying constantly about whether or not I made a vow to God. People in my family believe (or at least appear to) that these problems are make believe. I recently got a prescription for Zoloft and Klonopin, and my father is telling me that I "can't just pop pills" for everything. I've managed to keep the OCD at bay since around 2007 but in December it started getting really bad.

So anyways, I finally confessed that I'm in big trouble at school. To put a long story short, I transferred to a full University in fall 2010, made the wrong major choice and got D's and F's. Was horribly depressed through the spring (next) semester as well, dropped all my classes but one, and got an incomplete in the class I stayed in. After I decided to change my major my grades improved tremendously, but now because of the grades I got when I first started I can't change my major on paper, so I can't take the classes to complete my degree unless I retake the classes that I failed. I simply can't retake those classes and be fine, there was a reason I failed them before and I'm going to do it again. At first when I told them this they were actually really sympathetic.

Within an hour or so my father changed his tune completely. I was so surprised when he was sympathetic, but he went back to the usual telling me I'm just not trying. He eventually told me to commit suicide. This is the second time I've been told that in the last year or so. Last time it was by my ex after I found out she had cheated on me. About a year or so my father was also on the couch sobbing to his mother telling her how I was a "f***ing embarrassment" because of how I was doing in school.

To make it clear, when you have a disorder that makes you have extreme fear of God, you don't commit suicide. I know you guys already know that, but I want to reiterate it, I'm not going to commit suicide. Just so I don't freak anyone out.

Ok, so now to get on to the problem. I had some intrusive thoughts last night, I was worried that I had vowed to God that I would dedicate my life to Him. This is one of my recent fears. Obviously if I dedicated my life to God I wouldn't be able to do the things that I have planned in life. That's why I'm so scared of doing it. I finally fell asleep despite the thoughts. When I woke up this morning I remembered the fears from last night. One of the things I have been doing lately when I feel trapped in these vows is compulsively say "well if I said that then I just...." then I complete that phrase with something about giving up my faith. Of course when I do that I freak out and ask for forgiveness, you get the idea. I would never give up my faith. So this morning I am freaking out about being trapped in a vow, and I almost say that I would stop being Christian, but I catch myself. This is where it gets bad. I think I may have - in panic - said that I would dedicate my life to God. I don't feel that this was an intrusive thought. I feel like I was saying this to "save" my faith or something. Now I'm freaking out. Was that for real? Was that OCD? It didn't feel intrusive. For people with OCD, do you sometimes say things without it being an intrusive thought? I don't know what to do. I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop out of school this week. I just want to sit and stare at the wall. I don't remember having OCD symptoms like what I had this morning. I always think of people who vow to God when they think they are going to die. It says in the Bible that God holds them to it. Is this what I did?

 

[redblue22]

so, I take it you live with your father and he is adding to the stress. that stress is making things worse. and your ex obviously didn't help this year. and you are worried that you are making vows to God. and you feel that if you are making vows, then you have to keep them and not do the things you really want to do.

 

[gtp40]

so, I take it you live with your father and he is adding to the stress. that stress is making things worse. and your ex obviously didn't help this year. and you are worried that you are making vows to God. and you feel that if you are making vows, then you have to keep them and not do the things you really want to do.

I have a town house near school but I've had to come home and be with my parents because I am afraid to be alone. My ex has schizophrenia/bi-polar (not sure 100% which/how much) so at least she has some excuse for saying those things.

And yes, EXACTLY. "and you are worried that you are making vows to God. and you feel that if you are making vows, then you have to keep them and not do the things you really want to do." You hit it on the head.

When I thought I was going to give up my faith I feel like I said ok I will, or something to that effect, meaning that I would dedicate my life to God.

My mother just called me worried, and all she says is that I'm just "giving up". NO ONE understands. I'm so glad I have this forum.

 

[gtp40]

I can't tell if saying ok I will is a compulsion or me. It's so easy to know it's OCD when it's an intrusive thought, but when you say it without it being intrusive it's hard to know.

 

[kaykay9.0]

Sounds like all of this mess( your thoughts, fears about vows I mean) are OCD. Also I would point out that as a Christian you have already dedicated your life to God. Please understand that doesn't mean God is going tomake you go live in a hut in Africa or something! Sometimes we fear if we surrender to God, He will make us miserable!
Whatever you are doing to treat your OCD it's clearly not quite enough right now. I would recommend trying to find a therapist who understands OCD. Also you may need to see a psychiatrist to have your meds adjusted. If you are already seeing someone, go back and tell them how badly you are struggling.
I also recommend just not "attending" to these thoughts. Don't ruminate or try to figure out whether they are "intrusive" or otherwise! I know this is hard but this is where the rubber meets the road with OCD. This is the best way to help them lessen their grip.

About your father, honor him for the position he has, but don't take what he is saying too seriously about this. Sounds like he has some issues of his own to work through, but that's not your problem!

 

[cmsracing]

gtp40

I know it has to hurt for your father to be treating you the way he is, and I'm not making excuses for him, but people who have never experienced this themselves just don't understand. People who don't understand are like that old joke where the man is telling his Dr. that "it hurts when I do this" (he moves his arm or something) and the Dr. says "well then don't do that".
As far as your vows go, you can't be responsible for every fleeting thought that runs through your head. A true vow to God is something that you make after you have calmly and intentionally made a choice to do so. And you will be at peace for making it.
The best part is that God knows our hearts and is aware off our weaknesses.

 

[gracealone]

Hi GT, (I think I'll just call you that because I think it has something to do with a cool car.) This is going to be long so I hope you can hang with me for all of it.
For starters, you aren't at the end of your sanity because your post is obviously still lucid. It sounds as if your OCD has gotten pretty debilitating at this point. Not your fault anymore than how any other illness can interfere with our functioning abilities. So even though people make it seem like it's your fault, I promise you that it's not. I'm sorry you are encountering that. I think people would rather make our mental illness our fault because that's more comforting to them. Thinking that way makes them think that they have control over their own brain and that therefore they can avoid a mental illness. It's fear that really motivates that kind of thinking so try very hard to forgive them. God understands your pain and that's what matters.
Now on to Vows and OCD. Since you are obviously aware of what the scripture says concerning Vows you understand that to make a vow to God is a serious thing to be taken seriously and not to be made lightly. So you have that knowledge but you also have OCD. OCD will come at us in any area of our life that is precious or most important to us. So you are a Christian which means that your relationship with Christ is the most precious and important. So the OCD finds ways to threaten that. OCD is a fear based disorder. There is an overabundance of fear emotions in your brain and body, therefore the mind searches for something to be afraid of. Now since you know about the Vow stuff in scripture you realise that it's not a good to make Vows to God. So you think, I don't want to do that. Then the OCD using that knowledge, begins to make you think that you want to make a vow, but it goes even farther than that by causing you to actually think of Vow like statements in regard to all sorts of things.(If you had Tourettes this would also come out of your mouth.) OCD is like having "tics" of the mind. The more you resist those Vow statements the more you think of them because resisting them is the very thing that makes them become more frequent and more intrusive. So then you feel that you've done something to irrevocably harm your relationship with Christ. So then comes the compulsion. "I need to fix or take back or undo this Vow or I will need to be sure that I carry through on the Vow no matter whether I really meant it or not." The root fear of your OCD really has nothing to do with the idea of Vows but rather that you might lose your eternal standing with Christ because you made vows you can't keep. The Vow obsessions are just a way to keep you in a state of continual doubt which in turn keeps you compulsing. These vow like statements are really no different than an unwanted blasphemous thought, or a thought that says something like.."I want to be an athiest!"
I can see your pattern is to have an unwanted Vow pop into your mind which makes you feel trapped, then you try to undo or cancel it by saying something to the effect of "well I won't be a Christian then" which ends up being yet another unwanted/intrusive thought you felt you had to make to cancel the previous one. Then of course that won't do so you have to ask for forgiveness again... but then wham! another Vow crops up and...here we go again. Exhausting and draining work!!
So last night when you were actually meaning to perform the first undoing/canceling statement which you see as a statement of choice, you got mixed up and made a vow statement instead. Now since you did this at the "wrong moment" so to speak you are seeing it as a statement of choice. So now you feel that unless you give up on all your plans and head out for the mission field your pretty much doomed since you see it as a vow of "choice". Funny how just a moment or so earlier you viewed it as an unwanted/instrusive statement but just doing it at the wrong time made it seem like you really wanted to say it.
Here's how I see it; your unwanted/instrusive vows and the compulsions that follow them are firing off so quickly that you got mixed up in your usual cycle. This is common. Sometimes the obsessions and compulsions run together in such a way that it all seems like just one big tangled up mess where you can't sort out one thought from another.
Now... what you really need to do is to completely stop trying to undo or take back or fix the Vows that pop into your head. Let them ring out in your brain and no matter what they say or how they make you feel or if you think you meant them or not you have to refuse to attend to them in any way shape or form. Do not ask someone else if they think you need to keep them. Do not ask God to forgive you for having them. Do not try and cancel them with undoing statements. Don't try to analyze why you thought them. Don't do anything about them at all. You must begin to do this no matter how scary it feels. Think of them as if they were a real annoying itch that wants to be scratched so badly, but if you scratch it, it will spread and get worse until you itch all over. If, however you let that itch be and refuse to keep on scratching it, it will over time heal and stop bothering you.
Try to learn to categorize your OCD episodes so you can recognize which part is the obsession and which part is the compulsion. Then stop the compulsion and let the obsession lie there unattended. This is key; the compulsion will always be the thing you do to try and reassure yourself or make your self feel better about the obsession.
Hope this helps some. Sorry it was so long.
I'll be praying for you and for your family who all need to get educated about your disorder. You can tell them I said so if you like.
God Bless,
Mitzi

I'm honestly at the end of my sanity. I've been living in horrible fear about vows these last couple weeks. I'm pretty much flunking out of school and simply can't handle the work of it when I am non-stop worrying constantly about whether or not I made a vow to God. People in my family believe (or at least appear to) that these problems are make believe. I recently got a prescription for Zoloft and Klonopin, and my father is telling me that I "can't just pop pills" for everything. I've managed to keep the OCD at bay since around 2007 but in December it started getting really bad.

So anyways, I finally confessed that I'm in big trouble at school. To put a long story short, I transferred to a full University in fall 2010, made the wrong major choice and got D's and F's. Was horribly depressed through the spring (next) semester as well, dropped all my classes but one, and got an incomplete in the class I stayed in. After I decided to change my major my grades improved tremendously, but now because of the grades I got when I first started I can't change my major on paper, so I can't take the classes to complete my degree unless I retake the classes that I failed. I simply can't retake those classes and be fine, there was a reason I failed them before and I'm going to do it again. At first when I told them this they were actually really sympathetic.

Within an hour or so my father changed his tune completely. I was so surprised when he was sympathetic, but he went back to the usual telling me I'm just not trying. He eventually told me to commit suicide. This is the second time I've been told that in the last year or so. Last time it was by my ex after I found out she had cheated on me. About a year or so my father was also on the couch sobbing to his mother telling her how I was a "f***ing embarrassment" because of how I was doing in school.

To make it clear, when you have a disorder that makes you have extreme fear of God, you don't commit suicide. I know you guys already know that, but I want to reiterate it, I'm not going to commit suicide. Just so I don't freak anyone out.

Ok, so now to get on to the problem. I had some intrusive thoughts last night, I was worried that I had vowed to God that I would dedicate my life to Him. This is one of my recent fears. Obviously if I dedicated my life to God I wouldn't be able to do the things that I have planned in life. That's why I'm so scared of doing it. I finally fell asleep despite the thoughts. When I woke up this morning I remembered the fears from last night. One of the things I have been doing lately when I feel trapped in these vows is compulsively say "well if I said that then I just...." then I complete that phrase with something about giving up my faith. Of course when I do that I freak out and ask for forgiveness, you get the idea. I would never give up my faith. So this morning I am freaking out about being trapped in a vow, and I almost say that I would stop being Christian, but I catch myself. This is where it gets bad. I think I may have - in panic - said that I would dedicate my life to God. I don't feel that this was an intrusive thought. I feel like I was saying this to "save" my faith or something. Now I'm freaking out. Was that for real? Was that OCD? It didn't feel intrusive. For people with OCD, do you sometimes say things without it being an intrusive thought? I don't know what to do. I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop out of school this week. I just want to sit and stare at the wall. I don't remember having OCD symptoms like what I had this morning. I always think of people who vow to God when they think they are going to die. It says in the Bible that God holds them to it. Is this what I did?

 

[gtp40]

Everyone, thank you SOO MUCH for the replies. I don't have time to address much now but I will be back probably tonight. I wanted to say thank you to ALL of you though. You guys are #1 at this point in helping me through this.

 

[tripletiger1200]

I'll pray for you. I understand the feeling of failure from school, I used to get great grades then due to a series of poor decisions I failed a semester. Then I transferred schools and failed another semester because the OCD started and I couldn't handle it.
You know, dedicating your life to God does not mean that you have to go into ministry. Not everyone is called in that direction or gifted with those gifts. Dedicating your life to God means to committ yourself to following His leading for your life, even if it means that you may miss out on some of the things that you want to do. It sounds scary, but if you really think about it, it is not.
You see, God will give you the strength to go on every step of the way, even when it feels like you're about to fall. God loves you and cares about you deeply. What He has waiting for you is far greater than what this world can offer. And following the Lord does not mean a joyless life, it means a life filled with Joy and the knowledge that you are doing what God has purposed you to do. If you are afraid to surrender your life to God, ask Him to work that desire and strength to do so in it. He is more than happy to help!

 

[gtp40]

I have a lot to say, but my head is swimming, it's been a pretty rough day. I'm going to tackle everything with two posts, one as a reply to replies, and then another one, in general. Once again, extremely blessed to get replies from you guys!

Sounds like all of this mess( your thoughts, fears about vows I mean) are OCD. Also I would point out that as a Christian you have already dedicated your life to God. Please understand that doesn't mean God is going tomake you go live in a hut in Africa or something! Sometimes we fear if we surrender to God, He will make us miserable!
Whatever you are doing to treat your OCD it's clearly not quite enough right now. I would recommend trying to find a therapist who understands OCD. Also you may need to see a psychiatrist to have your meds adjusted. If you are already seeing someone, go back and tell them how badly you are struggling.
I also recommend just not "attending" to these thoughts. Don't ruminate or try to figure out whether they are "intrusive" or otherwise! I know this is hard but this is where the rubber meets the road with OCD. This is the best way to help them lessen their grip.

About your father, honor him for the position he has, but don't take what he is saying too seriously about this. Sounds like he has some issues of his own to work through, but that's not your problem!

Thanks for your reply! I technically just started medication. This is the first time I've been on an SSRI. I have taken xanax off and on for years, but nothing other than that. I have found that Klonopin doesn't tackle the extreme cases of anxiety so I am supplementing it with xanax.

My psychiatrist has a good background, graduated from Harvard, but she's not religious and it seems that she would like to say "stop being religious". At this point I feel that I need to get a separate psychologist to do therapy with, and keep my psychiatrist for medication.

I have also spoken with someone who knows scripture extremely well and am meeting with him again Monday. He helped a ton last time.

I agree with your comment about my father. That's what's hard about OCD, no one understands without extreme study or having the problem. And yes, he does have some problems of his own, I wish he would see a therapist.

gtp40

I know it has to hurt for your father to be treating you the way he is, and I'm not making excuses for him, but people who have never experienced this themselves just don't understand. People who don't understand are like that old joke where the man is telling his Dr. that "it hurts when I do this" (he moves his arm or something) and the Dr. says "well then don't do that".
As far as your vows go, you can't be responsible for every fleeting thought that runs through your head. A true vow to God is something that you make after you have calmly and intentionally made a choice to do so. And you will be at peace for making it.
The best part is that God knows our hearts and is aware off our weaknesses.

I definitely agree! People don't understand. What you say about vows seems logical, I mean I imagine that if I REALLY meant that then I would remember that I meant it. It's so hard though. I said it because I was freaking out about losing my faith (which I'm sure wasn't happening at all) but I just can't tell if it was OCD or not.



Mitzi, wonderful reply. I appreciate it! I think I'm going to integrate it into the next post though because I think that makes more sense.

I'll pray for you. I understand the feeling of failure from school, I used to get great grades then due to a series of poor decisions I failed a semester. Then I transferred schools and failed another semester because the OCD started and I couldn't handle it.
You know, dedicating your life to God does not mean that you have to go into ministry. Not everyone is called in that direction or gifted with those gifts. Dedicating your life to God means to committ yourself to following His leading for your life, even if it means that you may miss out on some of the things that you want to do. It sounds scary, but if you really think about it, it is not. You see, God will give you the strength to go on every step of the way, even when it feels like you're about to fall. God loves you and cares about you deeply. What He has waiting for you is far greater than what this world can offer. And following the Lord does not mean a joyless life, it means a life filled with Joy and the knowledge that you are doing what God has purposed you to do. If you are afraid to surrender your life to God, ask Him to work that desire and strength to do so in it. He is more than happy to help!

Thanks for the reply. Glad someone else knows how I feel with school! As far as not having to go into ministry, I definitely feel that I would not be a good candidate for ministry. I have always had a plan to do something for God when I got older, but I hadn't set on a plan.

Thank you all for the prayers. More thoughts are coming, but I am feeling pretty bad and my brain needs a break right now.

 

[gtp40]

So it's been a while since I posted this thread. I've made some progress in some areas, but have gone downhill in others. I noticed that there are a lot of vow worries on the OCD forum here lately and I can see why. I've had many issues of faith with my OCD, the unforgivable sin, worrying that I don't believe, and others, but this (the vow stuff) is by far the most stressful and hard to shake.

I had actually gotten to the point where I was feeling more comfortable about the previous "vows" I had thought I made after making another similar one and realizing how stupid the process was. One thing I seem to do is this:

Have intrusive thoughts > get a bad one that stands out > fixate on that thought and have anxiety over it > when the anxiety gets a little lower start having intrusive thoughts again > get another intrusive thought that stands out > begin to fixate on the new one and realize that the old was isn't anything to worry about for whatever reason.

This is why I was able to get over my last set of worries, I developed new ones, go figure!

I often use "vows" to make certain decisions or cancel out other "vows", and I have seen a few other people on this forum who say they do the same thing if I remember.




So the other day (End of Feb actually) I did a real doozie and it has been really bothering me ever since. It's gotten to the point where I am so used to being in constant fear that it has become less dramatic, but the feeling of hopelessness is still there.



So, in the process of the other "vows" I thought I was making I developed a fear that I had vowed my entire life away. Now, at that time I would make "vows" which I thought would force me to not do certain things anymore (playing darts and taking photographs were two examples), and I kept thinking that I wasn't going to be able to do anything anymore because of it. Slowly I realized that NO, there were a lot of things in life I could do, just not those specific things. Then of course I realized the craziness of it and now I know I don't have to refrain from those things.


The issue is that this fear of not being able to do "anything" created a new vow for me. The "vow" of giving my entire life to God, in other words, not doing ANYTHING that wouldn't be of benefit to Him or basically not doing anything that benefits me and not God. That means not going down my current career path, not going to school, not doing recreational things, just doing things for God, and of course bodily functions, can't survive if I don't eat! The vow was literally engineered by my worst fear, so-to-speak.



I knew eventually I would start using this "vow" with my OCD, I'm so aware in fact of what I end up doing that I was actually standing there one day before this happened and said to myself "I know I'm going to end up freaking out about some vow about giving my life up for God".



The first time the vow popped into my head I was heading for class. I had an intrusive thought saying that if I go to class I would give up my life for God, and because I didn't really want to go to class, I accepted it. Of course I turned around and didn't go to class and basically hid in my house so that I wouldn't think that I tried to go to class.


So, not very long after this, I had a typical OCD situation. I'll give some background. I'm rather interested in weather and planned on becoming a weather spotter for a hobby, possibly completing Skywarn with the National Weather Service. Skywarn is a training class to become an official weather spotter, which people do as a volunteering thing. The only issue was I never had access to data on the go (no smartphone) so it would be very hard to do safely without access to any radar. Well, I recently got a smartphone, so I was pretty excited to start this up.



There was a particular app that I needed to buy to do this, but it's kind of expensive ($10, which is a decent amount for an app) so I was hesitating to buy it. My OCD LOVES to crop up when I'm hesitating, and I tend to use "vows" to make decisions that I am having trouble making. So after some intrusive thoughts, I ended up accidentally saying that if I bought the app I would stop believing in God or something strange like that.


At this point I was pretty upset, because that app was key to doing what I wanted to do with weather spotting. I had to go somewhere so I drove off, constantly thinking about how I could never buy this app and now I can't do something I really want to do etc....



Here's where the problem starts.... I thought (like I've done before) "I know how to fix this" and I said "if I DON'T get this app then [insert "vow" about giving up life for God]". So of course in my mind I now HAD to get the app, which caused me to stop worrying about the "if I buy that app I would stop believing". Now it was easy, all I had to do is buy the app and I'm off! Issue solved.



So I go to buy the app, but I look at my usage data on my phone, since I got the phone I had used about 700MB of data. I have a fear about the mark of the beast, you know the number, I don't want to write it out. I was worried that if I downloaded the app before going over 777MB of data usage the app would be "cursed". So I started messing with my phone to use more data. At this point I'm sitting in a parking lot surfing the internet. I sat there for a while and looked, and I had only used like 1 MB of data.... I knew it was going to take a while so I thought "well I didn't say I had to buy the app NOW" so I drove off and did other things.



For some reason I did not focus much on that vow that day, I'm not sure if it's because I forgot or because I labeled it as OCD and didn't care. The next morning I woke up and realized something, I hadn't bought the app!



At that point I started freaking out. Did I say that I had to buy the app that day? I couldn't remember.... I said that I had to buy the app or [insert vow] but at what point would I have "not bought" the app? I couldn't remember if there was a particular time frame involved.


I ended up streaming some music that day to get the data over 777MB and then downloaded and installed the app.



Since that day I have spent every day feeling like I have to completely give my life up for God. The crappy part is that I don't even know if I put a time frame on the vow! Do I do the vow since I don't know if I actually made one? Is this all OCD and God doesn't expect me to do this?



The vow wasn't really an intrusive thought, it was me "fixing" the previous vow about "buy the app = not believing". Now, this is one of my OCD responses, but it's NOT intrusive. Does God hold me responsible because it was not intrusive? If He does, does me not holding myself to the vow show that I am not truly saved? If I do the vow because I'm worried that not doing it would indicate that I am not saved, is that a "works" based salvation? And besides salvation, I really can't stand the idea of living a life were I am CONSTANTLY displeasing God by not following through with a vow.



I literally feel like a clear plastic bag is over my head almost all the time. I can see out but I feel trapped. Each day I go without figuring it out is one more day to make my memories more fuzzy and unreliable. I don't even know if what happened counts! Even if I did make the vow I think I followed through. What should I do? I hate this feeling! I KNEW I would end up worrying about this.



I was doing so much better with all of this, when I would get intrusive thoughts I would just let them be and they did reduce. I feel horrible. All I do is get through each day, I don't have hope or happiness at all. I just get up, perform basic functions to stay alive and then go to bed. This is awful. I've even been sick for a while now, I had a horrible throwing up flew and now I have a nasty sore throat. I even have a sty on my eye now, I look so awful I don't even want to go out and see people. I think I got sick and got the sty from all the stress about this.

 

[gtp40]

I can't believe this, I just did it AGAIN. Why, when I worry so much about this do I still continue to do it??????????????????????????????????????????

I've learned that posting things on here help me, and the sooner I do it the better as I can recall the events much better.

So a friend of mine occasionally lights up a cigar, maybe twice a month. I've always had a hard stance against smoking but recently had been tempted here and there with the cigar thing, wondering if it would be so bad to do socially now and then. I've always drank sporadically but have never ever felt any addictive urge to do so. What would 1 or 2 cigars do?

So I was sitting there about 20 minutes ago, hesitating on whether or not I would even try it and here we go again, I felt the idea of using a "vow" to make the decision, ending the hesitation. I ended up thinking if I don't smoke a cigar then [insert vow about giving up life for God]. The same vow from my previous post.

Oh well, I'll smoke a cigar once or twice to fulfill the vow and then never do it again. No harm done.

After that I got thinking, normally cigar smokers never inhale the cigar smoke, but some do. So since I have to smoke a cigar to avoid the "vow", do I have to inhale it? I started getting all nervous, I don't want that crap in my lungs. I suddenly got a ton of regret about that stupid vow and began to get upset. What if I get addicted? I HATE smoking and now because of this I might end up being a smoker for life?

So I was lying in bed, sitting there, and suddenly I felt the temptation to say that if I inhaled the smoke when smoking the cigar then [insert vow about giving up life for God]. Immediately after that I realized that I might now be screwed. If I don't inhale the smoke I might not actually be smoking the cigar, in which case I did not follow through on my end and would possibly have to give my life up to God. But now if I DO inhale the smoke I would have to give up my life for God.

How stupid can I be? I've been freaking about about whether or not I have to follow through with the "give up my life for God" vow for weeks now, yet I do it AGAIN???? WHY? Is it just laziness? Am I too lazy to make a decision so I just force myself to do what I want by making a vow?? Is that OCD? Or just me being indecisive and lazy? How could I be this screwed up? How come if I can't make a decision I don't just relax and deal with it later?

Now the idea for the cigar vow both times was slightly intrusive, but I still made the decision to accept it. I can't take this anymore. I'm about ready to head over the hospital and get a lobotomy.... Ok not really but klagklag;lkdk;lagd;lk!!!!!! Slamming on random keys on the keyboard is how I feel right now.

If you were scared of flying would you threaten yourself withe a cross country flight to help make a decision? If you were crazy scared of heights, would you just randomly go up a tall ladder? I know I wouldn't. Yet when it comes to this other terrible fear, I keep using it to help make decisions. This is insane. It's like putting a revolver to your head with just one bullet in it, but you don't know what chamber the bullet is actualy in so it's a 1/6 chance, saying "if the gun doesn't go off, I'll buy those tickets to the Bears game". It just doesn't make sense.

Problem is it FEELS like it's my fault. It's so easy to understand that the purely intrusive thoughts are not your fault, at least once you've gone through therapy or talked with other OCDers. So many OCD people on this site have talked about intrusive thoughts that they try to block, so it's very obvious that those thoughts are 100% without a doubt OCD. But this, it's so much different. I'm affirming and almost encouraging these thoughts. This sucks!

Thanks for dealing with my rant. I just want to crawl in a hole and hide. I'm not even safe from myself. I need a straight jacket and some sedatives.

What a stupid thing to even make a decision on, smoking cigars.... Really?

I really need prayers right now. Without the people on this site I would be in a much worse state right now. You guys have been helping me since 2007 if I remember correctly.

 

[gracealone]

Hi GT,
This is only confusing to you because the Vows are both intrusive and compulsive. In other words when they pop up you see them as intrusive but then you make another vow to undo them which when they become a compulsion. God doesn't hold you accountable for either of these 2 symptoms of your disorder. Obsessional Vows which are intrusive and uncontrolled events are not your fault. The horrific anxiety which follows is uncontrolled and it not your fault. And, while performing the compulsion, ie. making another vow to undo the first, is a controlled ,it is still part and parcel of how this disorder effects us. We feel COMPELLED to do these things in an effort to reduce our anxiety. If you didn't perform these compulsions you wouldn't be diagnosed as having OCD. Just because your compulsion takes the form of your obsession doesn't mean that it has any validity. What you are experiencing with your OCD is "magical thinking". "If I do this or that, then this or that won't or will happen."
You need to learn to do exposure to all of this.
What you need to learn to do is to exaggerate the fear that the appearance of the Vows causes you. When a Vow crops up you can choose to set it aside in your mind to deal with it later. You can kind of create a spot in your mind like a file folder where you put it and say to yourself, "I'll take care of this later." Then at a time of your choosing you can sit down, take it out of the folder and begin to do exposure to it. What does exposure mean? It means sitting with the thing that scares you and feeling all of the fear and threats it poses without running away from it in any way. In other words - no reassurance seeking or undoing activity. For instance if you had a vow pop up that said, "If I buy this weather app. I will be vowing my entire life to God" you would go ahead and buy the weather app. but then you put the Vow in that folder of your brain to deal with later on. Then when you take it out here is what you do. You sit down with a sheet of paper and write out all the horrific outcomes that you think will happen to you because you had that vow and you went ahead and bought the app. anyway. Get real creative and try to visualize just how horrific things will be for you right down to the smallest details you can think of. Then read it outloud to yourself, or better yet make a tape of it and listen to yourself reading it. As you are doing this allow yourself to get as upset as possible about it. But do not try to undo any of the feared consequences, just sit with them and refuse to to the OCD's bidding. The OCD is a bully and if you give into him by trying to "fix" the Vow he is not going to leave you alone. This kind of exposure exercise takes practice and patience but it does work. Eventually you will be able to do quick mental exposures when obsessive themes crop up and nip them in the bud before they get a grip on you.
Remember that all fear based disorders are treated through exposure to the fear, even simple phobias. If you fear riding on elevators you'll never be able to do it until you actually get on an elevator over and over and stay with the fear until it begins to subside. In the beginning it's really scary but over time you'd be able to ride an elevator every day without it bothering you. In OCD the exposure must be done to our fearful thoughts by sitting with their threats until our brain just gets over it.
Hope that makes some sense to you. If your OCD is super bad, you might need coaching on this from a professional. Exposure is hard work and it's the instinctive opposite of what we really feel we should be doing. It takes grit, perseverance and courage to stick it out.
I'll be praying for you kiddo.
Mitzi

I can't believe this, I just did it AGAIN. Why, when I worry so much about this do I still continue to do it??????????????????????????????????????????

I've learned that posting things on here help me, and the sooner I do it the better as I can recall the events much better.

So a friend of mine occasionally lights up a cigar, maybe twice a month. I've always had a hard stance against smoking but recently had been tempted here and there with the cigar thing, wondering if it would be so bad to do socially now and then. I've always drank sporadically but have never ever felt any addictive urge to do so. What would 1 or 2 cigars do?

So I was sitting there about 20 minutes ago, hesitating on whether or not I would even try it and here we go again, I felt the idea of using a "vow" to make the decision, ending the hesitation. I ended up thinking if I don't smoke a cigar then [insert vow about giving up life for God]. The same vow from my previous post.

Oh well, I'll smoke a cigar once or twice to fulfill the vow and then never do it again. No harm done.

After that I got thinking, normally cigar smokers never inhale the cigar smoke, but some do. So since I have to smoke a cigar to avoid the "vow", do I have to inhale it? I started getting all nervous, I don't want that crap in my lungs. I suddenly got a ton of regret about that stupid vow and began to get upset. What if I get addicted? I HATE smoking and now because of this I might end up being a smoker for life?

So I was lying in bed, sitting there, and suddenly I felt the temptation to say that if I inhaled the smoke when smoking the cigar then [insert vow about giving up life for God]. Immediately after that I realized that I might now be screwed. If I don't inhale the smoke I might not actually be smoking the cigar, in which case I did not follow through on my end and would possibly have to give my life up to God. But now if I DO inhale the smoke I would have to give up my life for God.

How stupid can I be? I've been freaking about about whether or not I have to follow through with the "give up my life for God" vow for weeks now, yet I do it AGAIN???? WHY? Is it just laziness? Am I too lazy to make a decision so I just force myself to do what I want by making a vow?? Is that OCD? Or just me being indecisive and lazy? How could I be this screwed up? How come if I can't make a decision I don't just relax and deal with it later?

Now the idea for the cigar vow both times was slightly intrusive, but I still made the decision to accept it. I can't take this anymore. I'm about ready to head over the hospital and get a lobotomy.... Ok not really but klagklag;lkdk;lagd;lk!!!!!! Slamming on random keys on the keyboard is how I feel right now.

If you were scared of flying would you threaten yourself withe a cross country flight to help make a decision? If you were crazy scared of heights, would you just randomly go up a tall ladder? I know I wouldn't. Yet when it comes to this other terrible fear, I keep using it to help make decisions. This is insane. It's like putting a revolver to your head with just one bullet in it, but you don't know what chamber the bullet is actualy in so it's a 1/6 chance, saying "if the gun doesn't go off, I'll buy those tickets to the Bears game". It just doesn't make sense.

Problem is it FEELS like it's my fault. It's so easy to understand that the purely intrusive thoughts are not your fault, at least once you've gone through therapy or talked with other OCDers. So many OCD people on this site have talked about intrusive thoughts that they try to block, so it's very obvious that those thoughts are 100% without a doubt OCD. But this, it's so much different. I'm affirming and almost encouraging these thoughts. This sucks!

Thanks for dealing with my rant. I just want to crawl in a hole and hide. I'm not even safe from myself. I need a straight jacket and some sedatives.

What a stupid thing to even make a decision on, smoking cigars.... Really?

I really need prayers right now. Without the people on this site I would be in a much worse state right now. You guys have been helping me since 2007 if I remember correctly.

 

[flowerforever7]

Hi Gtp40,

Just want to comment on some things:
You said: "The vow wasn't really an intrusive thought, it was me "fixing" the previous vow about "buy the app = not believing". Now, this is one of my OCD responses, but it's NOT intrusive. Does God hold me responsible because it was not intrusive?"

No, the vows are not intrusive thoughts, they are compulsive vows. That is the compulsive side of OCD, doing something to "fix" the anxiety, OCD thoughts and obsessions. What you are describing is part of the normal OCD cycle. Even though these are not intrusive, it is still part of the OCD chain of events in the OCD cycle. The key is breaking the cycle.

I am going to post some pieces of responses I gave to some others on the forum, as they may contain info that may help. One of them I altered a little bit to fit your scenario. This will be long, but hopefully you may find some helpful information in it. Here we go:
__________________

"I understand how frustrating it can be to live with OCD. You have an anxiety disorder, that can be treated. Do not give up; still continue going to therapy. The last two days I have been fighting intrusive thoughts hard by trying not to give them importance. It has been hard work, but I notice that I have greatly reduced the amount of things I do to compulsively compensate for the thoughts. Whenever I have a vow pop into my head, or I make a vow as a reaction to something I percieve I did as wrong (in order to show I am repentant) I stop myself, and then pray to God to ask Him not to honor that vow. I also try to remind myself right there that vows do not remove my sins or make up for them (only the grace of God can remove my sin, make me right before God and save my soul). If I have turned from a wrong behavior I have repented and that is enough, and I do not need to fast from something to prove my repentance or make up for it. I have been refusing to give intrusive thoughts much importance and also I have been refusing to give into things I do compulsively, and I have been purposely pushing myself to break reactionary vows. It has been work. But at the same time, you know what, I have to say, it is actually starting to get easier since I have been doing this CBT therapy type of work. I am not cured, and it has been anxiety provoking to not give into urges to make vows, fast from things, do things out of compulsion, and to ignore intrusive thoughts (but) I find the OCD behaviors actually lessening as a result of going through the temporary anxiety I experience when I have to confront these OCD situations. Less OCD situations means less OCD. KEEP going to therapy. I think it is KEY to understand the OCD cycle, and to avoid feeding the cycle. Last night I had a genuine desire to pray for something that was NOT fueled by compulsion. It felt different. I actually wanted to do it. It wasn't out of guilt. It was different than my other prayers that I have repeated over and over again out of guilt and fear. The prayer felt good. It felt right. Keep going at fighting the OCD and you will start to see it lessen.

I want to share some Scriptures with you that can help.

This one has given enormous help to me and I am keeping close to me and reminding myself of it:

Matthew 5:33-37 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

In that Bible passage Christ is speaking. When the urge to vow comes up, I tell myself something like "no, Jesus says not to swear an oath at all". Or if I have made a quick reactionary vow, or find myself caught in a vow that seems to have no meaning (or done as a way to repent of my sin) I tell myself something like "Jesus said not to swear an oath at all, so I am breaking this vow" if I feel really uncomfortable, I will just ask God to pretty much not count the vow and release me from it. Whenever I have a "but what if..." feeling or thought I try to immediately ignore it and do something else.

The next Scripture is:
Matthew 6:34
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

(TRY to live in the present each day. Do not live ruminating on the past, or worrying about the future; I know this is hard especially with OCD. But you literally ONLY are in today. It may help OCD seem less overwhelming to you if you are just dealing with the issues happening today as they are happening. Ruminating on the past and worrying about the future can produce anxiety which can make OCD worse. Plus just focusing on what is immediately in front of you can help you narrow your focus to work on eliminating OCD symptoms and your anxiety in manageable pieces; which can help put past OCD related situations (and possible future ones) into perspective later on down the line. But for now and until you really get the OCD greatly reduced, I would still try just living in the present moment and fighting little pieces of OCD as they appear. (It can help train your brain to have the right response, take a huge load off your shoulders, and help you to see OCD for OCD when it appears because your vision and mind is cleared and dealing with just what is happening today.) Even should you get good handle on OCD, the Lord still tells us not to worry about tomorrow, and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. We should live in the present.

This leads me to the next Scripture (which has helped me recently):
Psalm 37:8
"Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil."

Sometimes if I find myself anxious and panicking in my prayers or about an intrusive thought, I remind myself of this Scripture, make myself breathe slower and tell myself to calm down so the anxiety and OCD doesn't become worse in that moment. It can really help!
--

Some thoughts on OCD in general:
The behavioral aspects of trying to control (compulsions) are a logical response to the brain sounding a dramatic alarm in response to an intrusive thought that is out of your control. With OCD it is especially important to try to reset the alarm back to normal healthy levels. A fire alarm does it's job when it alerts people in the house if there is a real fire present; but if the alarm is going off because there is a fire on tv, someone says the word fire, or you see a picture of a fire in a magazine, then the alarm is not functioning correctly (even though it knows it needs to respond to a fire -which is correct). OCD is similar to this.

CBT therapy helps a person with OCD train their brain to acknowledge actual threat levels to various stimuli and help them respond with an appropriate level of anxiety and response (if one and/or the other is required). This is why it is so important for people with OCD to try NOT to give into anxiety and attempt to control by compulsions because it reinforces the brain to believe "a fire on tv" or hearing someone say the word fire deserves the same level of anxiety and immediate response that a real fire does.

OCD can become increasingly worse without treatment. An example of how an OCD thought process can turn anxiety into something paralyzing could be something like:

A person reads in the Bible about the experience of Christ being beaten before being crucified, not wanting to be like that towards Christ the person experiences emotions such as aversion, anxiety or fear (an understandable normal response). That same person afterward, may be exposed to something in their environment that reminds them of the account they read in the Scriptures. It could be catching a glimpse of a fight on tv, seeing a man’s bathrobe in a catalog, or seeing someone spit. It is normal for the brain to make these associations, and to possibly feel anxiety again linking it to the pre-crucifixion account read about Jesus. If you have OCD, you may experience panic and immediately seek to fix the fear and avoid anxiety producing scenarios to feel safe inside and as a safeguard. As a result, you may immediately make a compulsive vow to never watch a boxing match on tv, or make similar compulsive vows on purpose concerning stimuli in your everyday life that reminds you of the account. At minimum you may develop a (non declared) mental aversion to these things and just start avoiding them in daily life. This can have multiple effects, like experiencing emotions of aversion and anxiety when seeing certain things your brain associates with the event. For example seeing the color purple (the color of Jesus robe) may remind you of what you read. So you may start to feel inner resistance toward things of that color, or feel panic when confronted with things of that color. It may play out like, you are online looking to buy something and notice something in the color purple on a website, so you make an immediate vow that you will not buy anything on that site in the color purple, or perhaps you may feel a compulsion to leave that site immediately. Afterward, you may ruminate on this and come to conclusions (or compulsions) like vowing or feeling that you can never visit that website again, or starting to wonder if you should throw out things you already own that are that color. If you are invited to lunch at someone’s house and they serve you food and you notice something purple on the plate, you may immediately feel panic and try to avoid eating it, or wonder if you should eat it. You may buy something at the store and later realize there is purple on it, and feel a compulsion to return it. You may feel that if you do not return the item with purple that something bad may happen to someone because you feel like you are being disobedient; (which you are, but to your OCD and not to God). Some of this sounds ridiculous but this is how intertwined OCD can get. You can see how having OCD can lead to excessive anxiety, avoidance, and compulsive behaviors that can be far removed from what God wants for us and what the reality is of the situation. This is why OCD often needs CBT therapy to reverse the process and restore normal perceptions.

The reality of the example situation mentioned is that reading the pre-crucifixion account of Christ may produce revulsion and anxiety. Seeing elements that remind you of that account in your own environment can produce anxiety (that can be a normal response)... But, right after that is where a potential OCD process can be prevented. In the anxiety, you would tell yourself "it is normal to feel anxiety about this" and then turn your attention to something else. You have responded appropriately and dropped it. In the example OCD scenario, that first compulsion to "fix" the anxiety by avoiding the color purple (either by making willful vows or by plain avoidance) lead to a number of other anxiety provoking situations, "what ifs" and behaviors. You can see in the example how the OCD increasingly appeared in multiple life situations in multiple ways. In a situation where you would feel the urge to avoid something out of fear, is where you would intercept and say to yourself something like "I am experiencing an inappropriate level of anxiety right now. I am going to calm down and breathe slowly. I am not going to take any action until I can think through this scenario logically. Now I am going to think what about what the appropriate response to this stimuli should be." Is the appropriate response to feel some anxiety? If so, you can move on now, because you already have experienced the anxiety.

It is important to use CBT techniques, properly assessing what level of anxiety and type of response is really appropriate, then act on that information. Also, it is important especially with scrupulosity to refuse to give into urges to "fix" things, when Christ has said "do not swear an oath", or God's word teaches that it is only the blood of Jesus that can atone for and remove our sins. Though it is needed to live righteously the way God has told us to in the Scriptures, it is God's mercy and grace that saves us. God does not expect us to live perfectly and save ourselves by that; He does want us to live right before Him while He extends us grace. We are at His mercy; (and thankfully He is merciful), so reminding ourselves of that can put OCD urges back into perspective and see more clearly."

Hope this is helpful in some way. God bless you, and I will pray.

_________
Acts 22:16 "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name"

 

[kaykay9.0]

Just want to add that I think gracesA lone and Flowerforever have given you excellent advice here. I especially recommend you go back and re-read what grace
alone told you on her first post to you and try to really understand that you must Not attend to any of these "vows.". This is a disorder and you are going to have to treat it as such. I am glad you are beginning to get professional help with this. I tend to frequently say "treat the root, not the fruit" Right now you are fixated on vows but OCD can morph into other areas as you have mentioned. So It's a very good thing you are treating the OCD itself. Again, right now I suggest, as I said, you really heed what Grace alone told you about giving no heed to this vow situation. It is very similar to intrusive other types of thoughts and the quickest way to break the cycle is to force yourself to give no attention to these types of thoughts. I know this is not easy and can be scary but really, this is a disorder and it must be done!