I have had Religious OCD/ Scrupulosity symptoms since I was a teenager (Im now 32) and I can truly say that day by day, those heavy chains of doom that OCD brings are falling off and it is because of the life-changing Word of God!!!!
My pastor gave me an assignment a couple years ago. He wanted me to pinpoint the area(s) in my life that I needed deliverance in then study the bible to find the truth of Gods word concerning those issues and meditate on those scriptures every chance I got. My focus was healing from OCD. I took a sheet a paper, folded it in half and wrote the religious OCD symptoms that were plaguing my life on one side and scriptures that addressed those problems on the other side. It was life changing for me. God has since then revealed so much more to me as it relates to this illness and I just want to share some of it with you all (sorry for all the reading)
My pastor gave me an assignment a couple years ago. He wanted me to pinpoint the area(s) in my life that I needed deliverance in then study the bible to find the truth of Gods word concerning those issues and meditate on those scriptures every chance I got. My focus was healing from OCD. I took a sheet a paper, folded it in half and wrote the religious OCD symptoms that were plaguing my life on one side and scriptures that addressed those problems on the other side. It was life changing for me. God has since then revealed so much more to me as it relates to this illness and I just want to share some of it with you all (sorry for all the reading)
- I know that some people might have an issue accepting this, but I had to realize that God DEEPLY loves me (1 John 4:10), He is not angry with me (Hebrews 8:12) and He is NOT inflicting me with this illness (James 1:17 and Galatians 5:7, 8). I didnt understand that my faulty view of God was producing within me fear, guilt, and hostility towards Him which was just the right fuel to continue igniting the flames of OCD.
- God showed me that my low self esteem was also playing a key factor in my constant ordeal with religious OCD symptoms. There was apart of me that thought I deserved torment and didnt deserve to have peace. There were times when I would be happy about something and my mind would be at rest, then all of a sudden I would conjure up some bad thought or a bad thought would just pop into my mind that would kick the OCD cycle into full gear. Having the OCD symptoms caused further damage to my self esteem as I began to view myself as a horrible and disgusting person because of the thoughts I was having. I was bound so much by this illness that I actually was comfortable being uncomfortable.
- My mom does not experience OCD symptoms so I asked her what she does when she have an unwanted thought and she told me that she just ignores it and thinks of something else. God has shown me that the only difference between OCD sufferers and non OCD suffers is PERCEPTION of the circumstance (Numbers 13:33 and Numbers 14: 1-9). It wasnt the OCD that defeated me; it was my perception of the thoughts that entered my mind. The moment I labeled a thought as harmful to me or a threat to my salvation/relationship with God, I felt doom and distress and performed some kind of ritual to get rid of the thought. As much as I would try to think of something else, the thought would constantly reoccur and my entire day (sometimes days and weeks) would be dominated by fear of the recurring thought and being sensitive to the slightess thing that might spark its return (I had gotten to a point of omitting certain words or vowels from my vocabulary and even was mindful of how I yawned, in fear that it would sound like something I was trying desperately to ignore)
- Over the past few months, God has constantly been showing me the word rest. I will talk more about this in the next thread.
