OCD Haunting Me

[Hermit7]

Greetings all,
This few weeks have been rough on me in terms of my OCD. Everyday it’s been a battle. And a lot of those moments always has something to do with doing things that I want to do. Like a thought would come in my mind saying something like “Boy I want to get this thing (whatever it might be) done.”
The thought then leads to “Would I rather get this done or keep my salvation?” And then boom. Somehow I say “yes” in terms of thought or action. And then freak out. Here are just four examples that still haunt me up to this point:
1.) Planning a camping trip for my church by communicate details to a friend. Apparentally, doing this or doing anything further regarding will cost me my salvation.
2.) Buying wedding gifts for a friend getting married. Again, same deal.
3.) Faxing a pay stub to a real estate agent. I haven’t done it yet, but doing so would apparently cost me my salvation.
4.) Testing God in order to know if I lost my salvation or not. That would cost me salvation.
Time has past since some of these “events” happened. And though the anxiety subsided. They still bother me. Why does this happen? Is it because I really lost my salvation?
-Hermit

 

[tripletiger1200]

Thankfully it is not. If you had lost your salvation you would not have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is what convicts you of sin against God and helps keep you on the straight and narrow spiritually. If you do something that is a sin, He is the one that lets you know about it and allows you to ask for forgiveness. This does not mean that everyone with a conscience has the Holy Spirit, they don't, and it does not mean that scrupulous thoughts come from the Holy Spirit. People have consciences that bug them if they do something wrong, but the Holy Spirit lets you know if you do something that is against God but not against your natural conscience. Your natural conscience would not care about God, because it is part of your flesh, that nasty part of you that pops up and causes Christians problems. If you're bugged about upsetting God, and believe in Jesus as your Lord and savior, then you're saved. The Holy Spirit is the only thing that would make you care about angering God or losing salvation. If you had lost your salvation then you would not care, and those things would not bug you. You would not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and you would not feel disturbed by OCD thoughts.

 

[OCD=Owie]

Greetings all,
This few weeks have been rough on me in terms of my OCD. Everyday it’s been a battle. And a lot of those moments always has something to do with doing things that I want to do. Like a thought would come in my mind saying something like “Boy I want to get this thing (whatever it might be) done.”
The thought then leads to “Would I rather get this done or keep my salvation?” And then boom. Somehow I say “yes” in terms of thought or action. And then freak out. Here are just four examples that still haunt me up to this point:
1.) Planning a camping trip for my church by communicate details to a friend. Apparentally, doing this or doing anything further regarding will cost me my salvation.
2.) Buying wedding gifts for a friend getting married. Again, same deal.
3.) Faxing a pay stub to a real estate agent. I haven’t done it yet, but doing so would apparently cost me my salvation.
4.) Testing God in order to know if I lost my salvation or not. That would cost me salvation.
Time has past since some of these “events” happened. And though the anxiety subsided. They still bother me. Why does this happen? Is it because I really lost my salvation?
-Hermit

It sounds like this supposed decision you made that you would rather do a particular thing than have your salvation was somewhat involuntary? How can you make such a decision, one that makes no sense given how much you want to make sure you are saved, so quickly and then so immediately freak out about it?

This is textbook OCD. You have some type of fleeting thought or feeling, and it is misinterpreted as being a real, deliberate, conscious decision made by you. This is a mistake. I know for me it took a long time to figure out how my brain was tricking me in this way.

And don't worry, these feelings of dread are not indicative of having lost salvation. These feelings are largely linked to OCD, and me and just about every other person on this board can relate to such intense feelings of fear.

However, just because everything feels so wrong doesn't mean that everything is wrong. Feelings don't equal reality. They are erratic, unpredictable, and abstract. Definitely try to avoid basing decisions (or your reasoning!) on feelings.

I mean, I know that I and many others on this board have had very similar feelings to those that you are having now. If these feelings were really indicators that our fears were true, then I and everyone I love would be dead because I didn't wash my hands. (I'm a compulsive hand-washer.)

Hang in there! The learning curve is tough, but once you start to learn how your mind works, things start to get easier.

 

[Hermit7]

Hi OCD=Owie,

So even though it feel voluntary, it's not real? I mean just today, I had two major incidents.

I was preparing for church this morning when I saw my recent laundry hung up on a railing outside my room. I asked my mom if she did, because one of my OCD things is that I can't have my dad touch my own clothing (long sad story).

In my mind, I think I asked to please let it be my mom rather than my dad, in exchange my salvation. She did say yes and I still dread it. So much so that I'm even afraid to use my laundry for the next week.

Today, I was helping newcomers in my church find a passage for them during service. My pastor and the group was waiting for me. And I felt very pressured to find it fast. And again same deal thing occured my mind. And just then the passage found.

Even writing about all these things, causes the "deals" to come up again. Even writing and posting these things is causing another "deal" to come up in exchange for my you know what.

But would God recognize these deals? I mean, when this happens I think about Esau and Jacob, and how Esau exchanged his birthright for some soup. Technically, would it be Scriptural to conclude that you could trade your heavenly birthright for something? And therefore lose it forever?

hermit

 

[OCD=Owie]

Hi OCD=Owie,

So even though it feel voluntary, it's not real? I mean just today, I had two major incidents.

I was preparing for church this morning when I saw my recent laundry hung up on a railing outside my room. I asked my mom if she did, because one of my OCD things is that I can't have my dad touch my own clothing (long sad story).

In my mind, I think I asked to please let it be my mom rather than my dad, in exchange my salvation. She did say yes and I still dread it. So much so that I'm even afraid to use my laundry for the next week.

Today, I was helping newcomers in my church find a passage for them during service. My pastor and the group was waiting for me. And I felt very pressured to find it fast. And again same deal thing occured my mind. And just then the passage found.

Even writing about all these things, causes the "deals" to come up again. Even writing and posting these things is causing another "deal" to come up in exchange for my you know what.

But would God recognize these deals? I mean, when this happens I think about Esau and Jacob, and how Esau exchanged his birthright for some soup. Technically, would it be Scriptural to conclude that you could trade your heavenly birthright for something? And therefore lose it forever?

hermit

I don't think any genuinely saved person would trade their salvation away so that they could do some basic, everyday task.

What you're describing is typical OCD. It comes up with crazy ways to make you think that something terrible has happened, or will happen. That's just how it operates. Despite the fact that the thoughts and fears are usually ridiculous, it feels very real to you. And there's actually a physiological reason as to why that is.

People with OCD have a serotonin deficiency in the brain. What is serotonin? It's a neurotransmitter, which basically means it's the chemical that your neurons squirt towards other neurons to relay a message. Since we have too little of it, some parts of our brains don't function quite like they're supposed to. In somebody without OCD, one part of the brain, the part that controls fear, sends a signal to the prefrontal cortex (the front part of your brain, right behind your forehead). The prefrontal cortex is the "logic" part of your brain, and it assesses the "fear" signal sent by the other brain part. From there, it decides whether the fear is realistic or not. If the fear is reasonable, it doesn't stop the fear signal, and you get scared. If it is not reasonable, it stops the signal, and you never feel afraid.

Unfortunately, for those of us with OCD, the prefrontal cortex doesn't completely do its job. It gets that fear signal, and doesn't seem to be able to stop it. So you get scared over trivial things, even when they're silly. Worse than that, the fears feel as real as if you were about to jump out of an airplane with no parachute.

(Just FYI, I might not have gotten all of the facts about the inner functionings of the bain 100% correct. I haven't read a book on OCD in awhile, and my memory might've failed me in some areas. The gist of it should be good though. )

So basically, to answer your question, I don't think that you are really making these deals in the first place. OCD sufferers tend to misinterpret feelings and fleeting thoughts as deliberate, planned, and serious efforts by themselves. In reality, however, they just had some random thought or feeling pop into their head. Such thoughts and feelings are often involuntary from the start.

Thinking about it like this might help. If you had two buttons right in front of you, one to keep salvation, and one to do some simple, everyday task, which would you push? You'd probably push the salvation button.

That, of course, is an absurd scenario, and would never be true. I think it does prove something, however. Despite all of our desires to the contrary, we fear that we might've purposefully given up our salvation.

I think you're being too hard on yourself, and giving way too much legitimacy to the random thoughts that pop into your head. I mean, aren't you ever just sitting around on the couch, and then, out of the blue, you think of hippos driving mini-vans? You don't plan such random thoughts, they just happen. Our brains are weird like that. So try not to make mountains out of molehills!

And just so you know, I know what it feels like. No matter how much you want to stop the thoughts from coming, they never seem to stop. It's awful, but you start to get better when you begin to figure out how you think and stuff.

Hang in there!