I hope this is okay to post here, I never thought I would ever post something so personal, I write these letters when I have struggles I can’t sort out in my head, I don’t talk people about my OCD often because it often centers around things I know most people will think is silly, but to me they aren’t, they are serious and enough bring on my psychosis. My OCD centers around things and hobbies I enjoy and a bookworm so when I start to like something my OCD is quiet for a while then rears it’s head often pretending to be God and starts telling me that if I don’t give the item in question up I’ll go to hell, disappoint God, make Him said or lose my family or something similar, recently I have become interested in Star wars and shortly after I started having OCD issues with it. One would think that after all this time I would recognize OCD as soon as it starts up, but I can’t at least not at first. I don’t know what type of OCD I have but I know other people have it too, after writing this letter I felt a pull to post them and I really hope this will help someone else.
These letters are pretty much in their raw form, with minor grammatical and structure changes, they take place four days apart a lot has happened and my state of mind is significantly better. I have a tendency to speak to myself using the pronouns “we” as well as “I”, and use “us” and “our ” in reference to myself, some people think that’s weird, but it’s just what I do so when you see those pronouns in the letter, I’m referring to myself.
Letter to myself on our current situation.
August 23rd 2017,
Do we need to give up star wars?
Are we putting it before God?
Is it and idol?
Is this fact or OCD?
For about three weeks we have pondered these questions feared them, believed them, even now we are unsure, confused and worried. My head says one thing, my thoughts another, and my heart yet another.
My head says “drop it, it isn’t worth the risk.” -what risk?-
My thoughts say “God will not forgive you if you mess up, tread lightly.”
My heart says “Don’t give up yet, we’ve been through this before, this will not end until you face it, I believe God wants us to keep this- at least for now and use it appropriately, it was -almost- an idol but God showed us the error in our ways. We can continue and use it the right way.”
Still another piece of me says “We have made an idol of this, there is no hope, it is tainted, jump ship before it is too late.”
Thinking back, I am able to admit that I certainly spent a lot of time on star wars stuff and not enough on God. Nonetheless you know we are trying to remedy that both by thinking more about God and honoring in my other thoughts. But has this gone too far? Am I regarding idols in my heart?
While I admit that I spent a lot of time on star wars, I know for certain it is not and was not more important than God, nor do I love it more than God, so my interest in star wars does not fit all the qualifications of an idol nonetheless, I am still upset that I’ve neglected God by not spending quality time with Him, I believe that God prefers quality time over length of time so don’t worry about how long your prayers are too much.
There are a lot of things I am unclear of right now, I am unsure of why I felt peace actually I felt kinda tingly like a weight had been lifted off of me when I told God I thought star wars might be and idol, still it didn’t compare to the energy I felt when I decided to trust God enough to believe that if He didn’t want me interested in star wars He’d take it away, there is no doubt in my mind that that feeling came from God and I doubt anything will ever top it. Still I am not above thinking God changes His mind if I mess up. I felt fear before confessing, like if i didn’t do it something bad would happen.
It is important to remember that you have OCD and you are constantly worried about displeasing God, remember when we doubted our salvation? Thought we would go to hell over Kung fu Panda and My little pony? Or when we were ten years old and swore off half a book series to stop God from killing your family?-I can’t believe I forgot about that for so long- This is not new, still it warrants attention mainly in the vein of looking to God more.
I am not in my right mind right now and need to take verbal thoughts claiming to be God very carefully. The Bible turning to verses pertaining to idolatry is interesting and warrant attention, however they may be a warning or they may actually be pertaining to your apparent trust in your thoughts (the voices that claim to be God) and feelings. I am unsure but I will be watchful. We are going through a hard test right now and you should be careful what you say or do to try to soothe yourself especially if you are unsure if it is the right thing, like confessing to a sin you aren’t sure you committed. Do you remember we told God we thought star wars might be and Idol? Do you remember why we did that?
Because a thought said “You need to admit this and repent then it will get better.” and we said, “Okay.” cheerfully I must add.
That doesn’t make it true.
We are going through a lot right now, my darling pet, Baby is dead, I don’t know why but I do know that the first thought I had after I got into bed and calmed down was “God took him because of star wars.”
Not true! I refuse to let you think of God like that. Still I believe that this may have influenced our confession that occurred a mere twelve hours later, we also got a nasty infection the same day Baby died which we immediately thought was punishment because of our interest in star wars, more likely we neglected some hygienic aspect of caring for our body, after Baby died we opened our bible to calm ourselves and we read out God laughing at people’s calamity and we had a breakdown, we doubted, we feared we would lose everything if we didn’t give up star wars, I refuse to believe this.
For no we will defect to our original decision to trust God enough to take star wars away if it is a problem, just like he took the bad things I was interested in as a kid away -scary supernatural stuff I couldn’t handle- it was easy then and there was no doubt. For now I think God is fine with star wars as long as I am mindful. I am going to use the things I learned about Idolatry to help me with this and to make sure I don’t have any idols. At this point loosing star wars wouldn’t hurt me too much because of that and the other reasons stated I don’t think it is and “actual” idol, at least it wasn’t yet, I don’t think. Still lets not get caught up technicalities or titles we still have work to do.
I am going to continue my interest in star wars-carefully- not out of defiance or desire to just do what I want to but out of confusion and the belief that if this is not what God wants He will remove it and not give up on me.
He will never leave me nor forsake me.
A prayer for tonight.
“Lord, please teach me to me remain silent when in doubt, when pressured or being tested. Please teach me to analyze before answering to see if the problem or thought lines up with your word, please do not let me confess to things that I am unsure I’ve done. Watch me keep me Lord for I am lost and cannot do this on my own. Forgive me for my brashness and help me through this, teach me to put things in their places.”
These letters are pretty much in their raw form, with minor grammatical and structure changes, they take place four days apart a lot has happened and my state of mind is significantly better. I have a tendency to speak to myself using the pronouns “we” as well as “I”, and use “us” and “our ” in reference to myself, some people think that’s weird, but it’s just what I do so when you see those pronouns in the letter, I’m referring to myself.
Letter to myself on our current situation.
August 23rd 2017,
Do we need to give up star wars?
Are we putting it before God?
Is it and idol?
Is this fact or OCD?
For about three weeks we have pondered these questions feared them, believed them, even now we are unsure, confused and worried. My head says one thing, my thoughts another, and my heart yet another.
My head says “drop it, it isn’t worth the risk.” -what risk?-
My thoughts say “God will not forgive you if you mess up, tread lightly.”
My heart says “Don’t give up yet, we’ve been through this before, this will not end until you face it, I believe God wants us to keep this- at least for now and use it appropriately, it was -almost- an idol but God showed us the error in our ways. We can continue and use it the right way.”
Still another piece of me says “We have made an idol of this, there is no hope, it is tainted, jump ship before it is too late.”
Thinking back, I am able to admit that I certainly spent a lot of time on star wars stuff and not enough on God. Nonetheless you know we are trying to remedy that both by thinking more about God and honoring in my other thoughts. But has this gone too far? Am I regarding idols in my heart?
While I admit that I spent a lot of time on star wars, I know for certain it is not and was not more important than God, nor do I love it more than God, so my interest in star wars does not fit all the qualifications of an idol nonetheless, I am still upset that I’ve neglected God by not spending quality time with Him, I believe that God prefers quality time over length of time so don’t worry about how long your prayers are too much.
There are a lot of things I am unclear of right now, I am unsure of why I felt peace actually I felt kinda tingly like a weight had been lifted off of me when I told God I thought star wars might be and idol, still it didn’t compare to the energy I felt when I decided to trust God enough to believe that if He didn’t want me interested in star wars He’d take it away, there is no doubt in my mind that that feeling came from God and I doubt anything will ever top it. Still I am not above thinking God changes His mind if I mess up. I felt fear before confessing, like if i didn’t do it something bad would happen.
It is important to remember that you have OCD and you are constantly worried about displeasing God, remember when we doubted our salvation? Thought we would go to hell over Kung fu Panda and My little pony? Or when we were ten years old and swore off half a book series to stop God from killing your family?-I can’t believe I forgot about that for so long- This is not new, still it warrants attention mainly in the vein of looking to God more.
I am not in my right mind right now and need to take verbal thoughts claiming to be God very carefully. The Bible turning to verses pertaining to idolatry is interesting and warrant attention, however they may be a warning or they may actually be pertaining to your apparent trust in your thoughts (the voices that claim to be God) and feelings. I am unsure but I will be watchful. We are going through a hard test right now and you should be careful what you say or do to try to soothe yourself especially if you are unsure if it is the right thing, like confessing to a sin you aren’t sure you committed. Do you remember we told God we thought star wars might be and Idol? Do you remember why we did that?
Because a thought said “You need to admit this and repent then it will get better.” and we said, “Okay.” cheerfully I must add.
That doesn’t make it true.
We are going through a lot right now, my darling pet, Baby is dead, I don’t know why but I do know that the first thought I had after I got into bed and calmed down was “God took him because of star wars.”
Not true! I refuse to let you think of God like that. Still I believe that this may have influenced our confession that occurred a mere twelve hours later, we also got a nasty infection the same day Baby died which we immediately thought was punishment because of our interest in star wars, more likely we neglected some hygienic aspect of caring for our body, after Baby died we opened our bible to calm ourselves and we read out God laughing at people’s calamity and we had a breakdown, we doubted, we feared we would lose everything if we didn’t give up star wars, I refuse to believe this.
For no we will defect to our original decision to trust God enough to take star wars away if it is a problem, just like he took the bad things I was interested in as a kid away -scary supernatural stuff I couldn’t handle- it was easy then and there was no doubt. For now I think God is fine with star wars as long as I am mindful. I am going to use the things I learned about Idolatry to help me with this and to make sure I don’t have any idols. At this point loosing star wars wouldn’t hurt me too much because of that and the other reasons stated I don’t think it is and “actual” idol, at least it wasn’t yet, I don’t think. Still lets not get caught up technicalities or titles we still have work to do.
I am going to continue my interest in star wars-carefully- not out of defiance or desire to just do what I want to but out of confusion and the belief that if this is not what God wants He will remove it and not give up on me.
He will never leave me nor forsake me.
A prayer for tonight.
“Lord, please teach me to me remain silent when in doubt, when pressured or being tested. Please teach me to analyze before answering to see if the problem or thought lines up with your word, please do not let me confess to things that I am unsure I’ve done. Watch me keep me Lord for I am lost and cannot do this on my own. Forgive me for my brashness and help me through this, teach me to put things in their places.”
