Help With Coping

[Hermit7]

I have a confession to make.

You see one of things that I do in order to cope with my OCD (especially with the fear of losing my salvation) is to Gideon test God.

Whenever, I get a moment where I have a thought about me somehow “dealing” away my salvation, I would pray to God, not only for His forgiveness (since I don’t want to lose my salvation), but I also ask Him to verify if that “moment” is real or not by showing me sign through my email.

So, if an OCD moment was really Him, I would get something in my email that would indicate that the “deal” was real. If it wasn’t, I would either get nothing or irrelevant email.

So, far this method, worked for me most of the time.
But recently, I had a thought that God will take away my salvation testing Him period.

This thought has become a burden for me, since this was one of the few methods I had to cope with my OCD.

I know, that it isn’t good to test God. And I ask for His forgiveness almost every time I ask for His confirmation. And I pray that someday, I won’t need this to assure me of my salvation.

But now, I’m at a lost. Will my salvation be taken if I test God any time in the future?

Even now, I have fear that writing this and posting this will cost me my salvation.
What do I do?
-Hermit

 

[visionary]

Until you are freed from OCC condition, the Lord will continue to re-assure you that He is there for you.. It might do you and your spiritual life a world of good, to ask for His Word to speak to your heart.. and open up the Word of God and let it speak to you.

 

[OCD=Owie]

You're not sure whether the "moment" that you asked for forgiveness was real or not? Like it just happened in your mind? Or do you mean that you're not sure whether you meant what you said?

I asked for a sign from God when I was having obsessive doubts. We're not supposed to ask for signs from God, but just because we do doesn't mean that we lose or salvation. They are like any other sin, paid for by Christ.

If you've accepted Christ, then you don't have to worry about your salvation being taken away.

 

[pitseleh]

I test him too. I hate doing it. God knows that I hate to be a bother. He's got better things to do than listen to me all the time. But, I ask him to tell my mom if I'm saved. My mom says that God tells her yes. She's a BA Christian too. Then, when I'm having an OCD spell during a thunderstorm I'll say. "God, strike me with lightning if I'm unsaved or if I don't believe you're Holy" and I haven't been struck yet.

I'm so sick of this disease.

 

[tripletiger1200]

I've been there, sometimes I hear thunder and I try to challenge Him to hit me, but something that helps me is to say "He wins" after after clap of thunder, like He was trying not to hit me with every lightning bolt or burn me up, and He succeeded. It's stupid, I know, but whenever I feel the urge to "challenge" Him or His power I feel better when I praise His victory every time I survive a perceived threat.

 

[Hermit7]

@OCD=Owie

I meant whether or not, God is going to hold me on this bargain that I made in mind. Even though afterwards, I knew that I didn't want the bargain and I would ask God to forgive me.

But I just needed to be sure that God still isn't holding it against me.

Overall, this struggle has been very difficult for me. Just today, I had the same thought--if I tested God again, then He'll take my salvation away.

It's really really hard to ignore these thoughts. And even posting this response makes me feel that I'm "testing" God, therefore endangering my salvation.

Sometimes it's feels like there's no way out. What are some of the tricks you do when something like this happens?

-Hermit

 

[OCD=Owie]

@OCD=Owie

I meant whether or not, God is going to hold me on this bargain that I made in mind. Even though afterwards, I knew that I didn't want the bargain and I would ask God to forgive me.

But I just needed to be sure that God still isn't holding it against me.

Overall, this struggle has been very difficult for me. Just today, I had the same thought--if I tested God again, then He'll take my salvation away.

It's really really hard to ignore these thoughts. And even posting this response makes me feel that I'm "testing" God, therefore endangering my salvation.

Sometimes it's feels like there's no way out. What are some of the tricks you do when something like this happens?

-Hermit

Feeling like there's no way out is common of OCD sufferers. You're mind just works against you in any way that it can to make you dread.

I want to clarify that when I tell you to "ignore" your thoughts, I'm not meaning to suggest that it's an easy thing, or even something that can be mastered quickly. It took me years to finally begin to figure out how my mind was tricking me.

In answer to your other question, for me, just getting experience in dealing with my OCD helped me to get better. I began to figure things out. Though, I also got a lot of help from social interaction and educating myself on OCD.

Some other things that you can do to curb OCD is get good exercise, and perform stress relief methods throughout the day. These stress-relief methods include things such as deep breathing, and listening to a song on your ipod.

Basically, when you deprive yourself of solitude, your brain doesn't get the opportunity to dwell on all of your obsessions.

 

[Hermit7]

Lately, it's been really hard. Just this week had been tormenting. And again, just now, my OCD attacked me.

Again it was the same thing, regarding my method of "testing" God in order to ensure that this or this action won't damn me to hell.

 

[Hermit7]

Will I be damned if I continue to test God?

 

[tripletiger1200]

No, He knows what you're going through. Besides, even if you can help it, it's a sin and Jesus died to save sinner.

 

[Hermit7]

Hi all,

Had another bout of feeling damned if I tested God again. It's so hard to reason through it. Because I don't know. Testing Him was one of the only ways that I knew doing something won't cost me my salvation.

But what happens if testing Him itself leads to damnation?

-Hermit

p.s. I have to stop this. But I just don't know how to sometimes.

 

[tripletiger1200]

That feeling of being stuck in a hole with no way to help yourself is horrible. I think the same thing, that I need to do something to counteract the bad thoughts but that the thing counteracting it is bad as well so I'm stuck. Sometimes when I know that I'm stuck in a situation where that will happen, or I know I'm going to do something that will trigger a spike I just try to reassure myself that everything in my head is a lie and that I don't know the truth about what has really happened. So if you bargain away your salvation (which is something I've struggled with a little as well) just say to yourself "That didn't happen, that thought is a lie and God is not swayed by the thoughts in my head."

 

[OCD=Owie]

That's a good way to approach it. Basically, your mind is playing tricks on you. That's the nature of OCD. Any time you can get yourself to relax and not focus so much on the random thought (the "bargain") or on the feeling that you're going to go to hell, then you're in a good position. Don't feed the endless thought processes going on in your head. Try to treat the thoughts like they're not that big a deal, even if they feel like they are.

 

[Hermit7]

Thanks OCD and tripletiger,

Today I just had the same thing with testing God. It's hard to just unthink it and not worry about even after a little while has past.

The anxiety still clings to me. "What if it was real?"
"Do I want to take the risk?"

Sometimes I'm just too afraid.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

The anxiety still clings to me. "What if it was real?"
"Do I want to take the risk?"

Sometimes I'm just too afraid.

I know what you mean by feeling sometimes like the anxiety is just too much, I feel this way to sometimes and I give in to my rituals because I do not feel like feeling like crap the rest of the day. It's hard, just know that God looks at the heart and not our OCD actions and thoughts, He knows that we desire HIM and not these compulsions and doubts. We must remember at these times that we have a mental disorder and that God does not judge us for it.

Blessings.

 

[OCD=Owie]

Exactly. Just like soldier said.

And I also want to stress that it isn't easy to give no attention to your OCD fears. It takes time and experience to master the art of letting go of your OCD fears. This is a problem that you have to chip away at, and sometimes, if it's not going fast enough, it's best to seek therapy or medication of some sort.

 

[Hermit7]

This asking if testing God thing is damnation or not is becoming it's own compulsion. Testing God was originally a compulsion itself, but now the very act of testing God is causing another compulsion to come up.

Today, again, I struggled with it. What are some steps that I could do to stop the anxiety, instead of posting on this thread again and again for confirmation?

Should I try next time to wait it out? How long does it usually take for it to fade out?

-Hermit

p.s. at this point, even posting for confirmation is causing another compulsion to form (again, involving the threat of damnation)