OCD vs Spiritual Oppression

It probably is from spiritual oppression because if it was not then the medication should have worked for you...something does not seem right.

I would have to say from my own personal opinion it is both physical and spiritual. Which is probably the case with most things. If someone gets cancer, the cancer is most likely something that happened due to physical circumstances, but you can be sure Satan will be their every step of the way telling you that you will die a painful death. That God won't heal you. When you are believing for healing, that God doesn't even really exist and you are praying in vain.
I had obsessions non Christian related long before it tried attaching itself to my faith. But when it did attach to my faith, I can be sure my enemy was making every step towards healing as painful and difficult as possible. Probably even hoping I would give up on my faith in Christ altogether. I think fear is a spiritual thing, since the Bible calls fear a spirit of fear. Either way you are in safe hands, if it is only physical than we can trust God won't hold things against us that we can't help, and also He is the healer of our physical bodies. If it is only spiritual then we know God is much greater than Satan, and we already have our spiritual victory in Christ. So either way, you win! haha.
OCD caused me to fear God to a catastrophic level. To where I couldn't even look at a cross or hear the name "Jesus" without feeling intense anxiety. But like you said, it is fear itself, not the object that is the problem. Obviously the name of Jesus is one of the most comforting names to ever exist, but the fear attached itself to His holy name and created such an ungodly fear.
I don't know if what you have is physically OCD or some spiritual attack, but one thing you do know is that you experience physical symptoms of anxiety, and it is spiritually damaging to your walk with God. So i would say it would be good to pray over both areas.

You don't necessarily have OCD, but it is possible. If you can look into your past and notice a trend in obsessions and compulsions, it might be safe to say. Honestly though, trying to figure out if it is OCD or not isn't a big deal. At least for me it wasn't, all that mattered is that I was able to realize there was something physically unbalanced in my mind. That took 95% of my guilt away.
Then once those chains couldn't hold me I felt like I could fight the spiritual fight much more effectively.
If you feel evil and take ownership of the thoughts and feelings, you will never have the confidence to fight Satan. But once you know these are not your hearts thoughts and feelings, but something else, you will tap into your spirit man, and be able to fight the good fight.

I don't mind, I am still in a learning process also, but if this was a 9 inning baseball game i feel like im at about inning 7 of this thing, lol. Ok so first off, no i don't think finding a label for it is necessary. If you think you are affected by it, it is good to know what OCD is and how it affects other people who have it. But ultimately, just knowing that the thoughts and feelings aren't coming from an evil heart, but an unbalanced mind, really takes a large chunk of guilt away, and fear. It is a fearful thing to feel evil and separated from the God you love.
Sometimes I think people want to prove they have OCD and get need to get it in writing, that way they can carry it around with them? When my grandpa got cancer, it would almost always be the first thing that came out of his mouth when he met someone. Kind of like it became who he was. I didn't want that to be me. First off I believe there is the power of life and death in the tongue, and I don't want to be believing in total healing from this, and on the same note, talking about it like it is who I am. In person, not very many people know about it except a handful, and the people who do know never rarely hear me talk about it. Except my wife, who I talk to only when I am having a rough time and need some godly council and encouragement. Don't get me wrong, I don't think its bad to bring up and talk about, I just don't want it to always be my focus.

Thats the thing that makes it a "disorder", you know that your mind is unbalanced or acting "strange", and you know your behaviors and feelings are irrational, yet you can't stop doing them. If you could stop doing them, then it would be normal and wouldn't be label OCD or whatever.

OK for example, the most horrible part of this is/was my fear of Jesus name. I have been a Christian since i can remember, and have been praising and using the name of Jesus since forever. Now all of a sudden at His name I start having anxiety attacks. In my mind I know this is rediculous, and I could tell myself "OK Aaron, you are about to open the Bible and read about Jesus, it's just a name, it's not going hurt you, you have known this name for 20 years and known nothing but peace from it", and yet I would read it or hear it, and predictably I would experience anxiety.
Thats just 1 of a 100 different irrational obsessions I developed. I use to think that I had to think about every breath I took, and if I quit thinking about breathing that I would suddenly stop breathing and possible suffocate. That is so rediculous and stupid, yet no matter I couldn't stop it. So don't think your inability to stop the thoughts/feelings is strange, that is actually very normal.

When I feared His name I would think "Am I evil", "Am I possessed", "will this ever end", "what is wrong with me", "am I truely saved", "I need to get right with God", and a million other thoughts. My goals had to be redefined once I figured out the "man behind the curtains". I quit trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I quit trying to "fight" it. Instead of saying Jesus' name 1000 times over and over, I decided "next time I feel the fear, im not going to do anything". And believe it or not that worked. It took a loooong time but it works. When it did happen, I would just keep going like it never happened, if a thought did try to accuse me of something I would say "this isn't my thought" or "God doesn't hold this against me". Basically miminizing the importance of it. I quit having "spiritual warfar" against the thoughts at that very moment. It sometimes made things worst. I am 100% for spiritual warfar and speaking the Word of God over myself, but I do it when i'm calm and in a right state of mind, not when i'm in panic mode.

My Pastor talks about thoughts quite a bit, he talks about his proneness to anger. And he has violent thoughts against people he is angry with sometimes. He is one of the greatest soldiers of Christ I know. His walk with God is so close it's crazy, and in the 13 years ive known Him he has become more bold and on fire. So for a man like him to have thoughts, it's a huge thing in my book. When he talks about holding thoughts captive, he doesn't describe it like a huge prison break, and he's wresting all of these thoughts back into their holding cells. He says thoughts are like seeds, the ones that are bad you just have to let blow through. You can't stop a bad thought from coming, but you can keep it from taking root in the ground of your mind. He doesn't beat himself up when he has violent thoughts, he just lets them blow through and goes on with life. Instead of battle with that thought, he just diverts his mind to more godly ones.
Without knowing your specific thoughts and fears, i can't really give you specific help. But I hope what I said helps you somehow.
For me the journey was long and very painful. It can still be at times. I have always had a positive outlook on this whole thing. When I was about 3 or 4 months into this, things were so dark I didn't even want to live anymore. I decided to try out for our churches praise and worship team, which is only like 4 or 5 very good singers. So not only was I now going to church and experiencing this anxiety, but I was on a stage with people looking at me, and leading the praise and worship to my Lord. And I would leave that stage soaked in sweat from the extreme anxiety, but I had an "I don't care what I feel" attitude. And I do it so my God in heaven can see my effort, and meet me where i'm at.
Someday these anxieties and obsessions will be just distant memories to me, I still will never be that person I was over a year ago. I will be so much better and refined. I realized the Lord is trying to help me get better, and i'm going to work with Him and not against Him. So I do what I know works, and I try not to do things that are counter productive to my healing.

I hope that helps you out

I am sorry to heart about your brother. I can't imagine how hard that would be. I guess I am realizing something about a Christian walk. I use to think once we were saved God would sort of "control" us and have us feel certain ways, act certain ways, think certain ways. In reality, God doesn't control us at all. He offers peace and joy and faith, on a platter(in a sense). But we have to be partakers of it to recieve it, we have to reach out and take it. I use to think that if I felt fear and despair and sadness, I must not be a Christian. I thought that God forces those things on us when we surrenderred our lives to Him. But I realize that if im not experiencing those things, its not because i'm not a christian or because God doesn't exist. But it's because i'm not able and willing to take those things that are offered to me.
Anyways, I am so glad to see that you are doing good and won't give up. That is a sure sign the Holy Spirit is within you, that you just can't give up. That is why you see Paul in the Bible saying "Those who left us, were never really with us to begin with." But that tug on your heart to have faith in God, in the Bible, and a heart desire to be what God wants us to be.
Have a great weekend
~Aaron

Just passingthrough21, during the peak of mine, whenever anyone mentioned God or Jesus in front of me my whole body would get tense and I would get stress pains all over. I agree with you that it is probably a little bit of physical as well as spiritual. I think this is one reason why God told us that our body is our temple. If satan sees that we have OCD you can be sure that he will do everything in his power to try to make things worse.

I think the keys here are to told on as well as get the spiritual counseling and medical help that we need.

Your right about Aaron, he gives awesome advice. The word is strong in him

Both you Kelly, and Christian Catholic are so awesome! You are way nice to me! lol. Also Kelly, I wanted to mention, my wife is pretty good with dealing with me. But not the "best". But I don't expect that, because unless you have been through that personal hellish torment, its hard to understand. I have heard comments like, the only reason you can't get over it is because you keep talking about it. Or because you keep thinking about it.
Which is the opposite, the reason I talk about it or think about it, is because it won't go away! haha. That is only a few times she gets frustrated about it, overall she's been the best. When I talked to my Pastor about it, he said that I needed to find brothers from church, to open up to, that way I don't over burdon my wife. I opened up to a guy friend of mine, which helped also. But now I don't really bring it up anymore, except on this website to help people. Mainly because it isn't dominating my life anymore. And ShelovesChrist, has been such an encoragement, her faith is rediculously strong. I remember reading her posts a while back thinking, "man im never gonna get to where she is at". But I am getting their.
I always wanted to be a preacher or an evangelist, and when this hit, I was so broken. I couldn't hear anything spoken relating to God, without have a freakout session. I was like, well their goes my dreams. And like 6 months after this started, my Pastor said the Holy Spirit wanted him to pray over those who have evangelism on their heart. Not one ounce of me wanted to go up front. So I never did, I just stood in the back and had a pitty party. But honestly it sucked because whatever flame was in me seemed to be compeltely extinguished.
I told my wife I was so empty and I wanted God to speak to me. I am a computer programmer, and I had a laptop that I used all the time to practice coding and stuff. It was my baby, I loved that thing. Anyways I sold it, and gave the money to my church for a special offering. I basically told God i'm not doing anything until he does something in my life. So I was computerless, and really bored, lol. Then about a month later my Pastor pulled me up front during a church service, and said he felt the holy spirit wanting to say some stuff to me. He actually began to speak about my mind (which I had never mentioned anything to him before). The Holy Spirit said my mind looked like a dog track, with dogs chasing an electronic rabbit around the track. Which is a perfect example of OCD. We chase thoughts around and around our mind until we wear ourselves out. He put his hands on me and said "calm down" a couple times. Then he spoke to me about some other personal stuff.
Anyways God supernaturally met me that day, and I strongly believe it was in direct connection with me giving up an important part of my life, and laying it before Him as an offering.
I have transcribed that service out, and I read it when I am struggling. I think it was Paul that said to Timothy, that we are to equip ourselves with the prophetic words that we receive to build ourselves up.
Christian-Catholic, it's good to hear that my specific obsession was also experienced by someone else. Actually a few weeks ago I was on youtube, and was watching a bid about exorcisms(btw, if you have OCD don't watch anything like that!!! haha). After watching that, I started getting worried I was possessed. And it felt like all of my progress was for nothing! All of that peace I had started getting went out the window, I was having a hard time sleeping. I was starting a new job, and was stressing out. And within less than a week, I had shaken it off, and refused to accept it. I started sleeping good again, and started growing again. It was at that point I realized, I was so much stronger than I thought. a few months ago, watching those videos would of total ruined me, and would of taken me forever to get over.
You guys are awesome, I love seeing people overcome physical and spiritual obstacles through Gods Word. Faith use to freak me out, because it seemed so hard! I love faith now, it is so spontantious and the rewards are endless.

justpassingthrough21: All I can say is WOW you helped me

Sasha37 said:

Well you made my morning. It's always nice to be told you're awesome! haha You know, the more you share, the more I am convinced that the enemy has been trying desperately to keep you from your purpose. And he's putting so much effort into it because what God has for you is so amazing that he sees you as a great threat that must be snuffed out and held at bay. Don't let him do it!! And you're not, so those are unecessary words I guess. But I just kinda liked saying it anyway The Youtube possession thing seemed to be sort of a last ditch effort on his part, the creep. But it failed because God's strength is in you, and because of your perseverance and determined faith, you are experiencing the FULL impact of it. So proud of you!! Yay! I can tell you this...I want some of that!

God has given you a gift, Aaron, that I have seen and felt intensely in just the short time I have talked with you and seen your conversations with others. So, if you ever wonder if the path is being cleared for God to use you...stop wondering. It is so obvious to the rest of us. The Word IS strong in you. And others can sense it and are encouraged by it, God's spirit flowing through you to heal others. Your ability for compassion is overwhelmingly clear not only in what you say but in how you say it. Talking to you is like getting a little piece of Jesus. This kind of compassion can come only from Him. I have read some of your other posts, too. And my impression of you is the same as yours is of sheloveschrist. She was actually one of the first people whose posts I poured over when I first joined this site. So, I know what you mean about her. Anyway, I am inspired by you, and I'm just grateful to have met you. You are going to be awesome in whatever God is calling you to do. Humility like yours gives God sooooo much to work with. I can't wait to see what He does in your life.

I want to give you these verses that God gave me to renew my hope in His plan for me. They are in Jeremiah chapter 30, verses 10 and 11, which say, "'So do not fear, O Jacob my servant; do not be dismayed, O Israel, I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their exile. Jacob will again have peace and security, and no one will make him afraid. I am with you and will save you,' declares the LORD."

Bless ya!

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Amen

justpassingthrough21 said:

Both you Kelly, and Christian Catholic are so awesome! You are way nice to me! lol. Also Kelly, I wanted to mention, my wife is pretty good with dealing with me. But not the "best". But I don't expect that, because unless you have been through that personal hellish torment, its hard to understand. I have heard comments like, the only reason you can't get over it is because you keep talking about it. Or because you keep thinking about it.
Which is the opposite, the reason I talk about it or think about it, is because it won't go away! haha. That is only a few times she gets frustrated about it, overall she's been the best. When I talked to my Pastor about it, he said that I needed to find brothers from church, to open up to, that way I don't over burdon my wife. I opened up to a guy friend of mine, which helped also. But now I don't really bring it up anymore, except on this website to help people. Mainly because it isn't dominating my life anymore. And ShelovesChrist, has been such an encoragement, her faith is rediculously strong. I remember reading her posts a while back thinking, "man im never gonna get to where she is at". But I am getting their.
I always wanted to be a preacher or an evangelist, and when this hit, I was so broken. I couldn't hear anything spoken relating to God, without have a freakout session. I was like, well their goes my dreams. And like 6 months after this started, my Pastor said the Holy Spirit wanted him to pray over those who have evangelism on their heart. Not one ounce of me wanted to go up front. So I never did, I just stood in the back and had a pitty party. But honestly it sucked because whatever flame was in me seemed to be compeltely extinguished.
I told my wife I was so empty and I wanted God to speak to me. I am a computer programmer, and I had a laptop that I used all the time to practice coding and stuff. It was my baby, I loved that thing. Anyways I sold it, and gave the money to my church for a special offering. I basically told God i'm not doing anything until he does something in my life. So I was computerless, and really bored, lol. Then about a month later my Pastor pulled me up front during a church service, and said he felt the holy spirit wanting to say some stuff to me. He actually began to speak about my mind (which I had never mentioned anything to him before). The Holy Spirit said my mind looked like a dog track, with dogs chasing an electronic rabbit around the track. Which is a perfect example of OCD. We chase thoughts around and around our mind until we wear ourselves out. He put his hands on me and said "calm down" a couple times. Then he spoke to me about some other personal stuff.
Anyways God supernaturally met me that day, and I strongly believe it was in direct connection with me giving up an important part of my life, and laying it before Him as an offering.
I have transcribed that service out, and I read it when I am struggling. I think it was Paul that said to Timothy, that we are to equip ourselves with the prophetic words that we receive to build ourselves up.
Christian-Catholic, it's good to hear that my specific obsession was also experienced by someone else. Actually a few weeks ago I was on youtube, and was watching a bid about exorcisms(btw, if you have OCD don't watch anything like that!!! haha). After watching that, I started getting worried I was possessed. And it felt like all of my progress was for nothing! All of that peace I had started getting went out the window, I was having a hard time sleeping. I was starting a new job, and was stressing out. And within less than a week, I had shaken it off, and refused to accept it. I started sleeping good again, and started growing again. It was at that point I realized, I was so much stronger than I thought. a few months ago, watching those videos would of total ruined me, and would of taken me forever to get over.
You guys are awesome, I love seeing people overcome physical and spiritual obstacles through Gods Word. Faith use to freak me out, because it seemed so hard! I love faith now, it is so spontantious and the rewards are endless.

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Justpassingthrough, I kind of look up to you dude. You have been through the worst and have gotten through alot while im still in the thick of the struggle with my disorder. Your posts give us all hope that one day we will also survive the brunt of our attacks. Its funny that you mention sheloveschrist, as I also have a tremendous respect for her also, but whats also funny is that you mention that you never thought you would get to where she is at. Man I was thinking the same thing about you lol, that I hope I can be where you are at right now one day, especially when you say that faith is so spontanious.

A very good friend of mine who I respect so much told me that when things get really bad to just hold on and to hold onto the cross as this is the foundation of our hopes and Gods promise to us.

I remember I made a promise to God 6 months ago to say this one prayer everyday for the rest of my life. Today it was 5 am and i still hadnt slept yet(thoughts were hitting me full blast), and I was half awake so I sat up on my bed, wore my beanie and began my prayers. I was half awake-half asleep but every part of me want to keep reaching to God , and it was very important to me that I dont break my promise to the lord. I started by praying for everyone here and all my friends and family (which took 45 minutes to an hour), then I started the prayer. It was 7am when I finished my praying. I felt so exhausted that I finally went to bed.

I still remembered my friend telling me that faith is an act of the will and trusting God even though these thoughts were causing me so much agony. You cant see your faith when being attacked but everyone else could.

This is also why I respect Sasha37 so much. She may not see her faith but to us its as clear as day

That is really awesome Christian that you are staying strong. That encourages me! Their is something about you that really stands out, you def. have zeal for God. Sasha too, her posts have really blessed me and I enjoy reading them. Thank you for all of the awesome stuff you have said to me. That really encourages me! I can't believe it was only around Aug. of last year that I joined this website. I remember when I joined I was such a wreck. I remember at the time I worked as a truck driver. And I had to deliver some stuff to a job site. And I remember standing underneath a crane, and wishing God would allow the crane ball to fall and kill me. Because at the time, dying seemed better than living. Yet at the same time, I was terrified to die. I really felt like a prisioner, everywhere I went. My little boy would watch veggietales, and it would throw me into anxiety. I remember kneeling befor God to pray, and my thoughts saying "What makes you think you need to kneel, why should you have to submit to anyone". And I would get up off the floor, and then get back down. And I would just finally lay on the floor and weep. I can't explain everything, and I am getting to the point where I don't really care that I understand everything. But I know that God was their with me.
Something I heard helped me out a lot, and I still use it. A man of God that I admire, Brother Hagin Sr. said that when people would tell Him that they can't find God and that it felt like God had left them. He would tell them to put their hand on their bellies and say "God is living within me".
And for a while I felt this spiritual dryness that caused extreme emotional pain, and I would lay my hand on my belly and say "God the Father, Jesus Christ and the precious Holy Spirit is within me". And no joke, those pits in my stomach would go away. Sometimes I had to do it many times a day. Now I don't experience anything like that anymore, but I still do it as a reminder to myself.
Also this helped me, someone asked Smith Wigglesworth(another great man of God) how much he prayed to God. He answered, I never pray for more than 30 minutes at a time, but I never go for more than 30 minutes without praying. That helped me, because I would get wore out praying for so long, and I would feel sinful if I didn't pray long enough.
Also my pastor once pointed out that the longest prayer in the Bible is like 60 seconds. So the majority of my prayer time are short meaningful intervals throughout the day. But their are those times you need to get away and be with God for many hours at a time. I personally can't pray normally for very long. Maybe 30 minutes or so, and then I pray in tongues. I can do that all day long if I wanted. And their are many times I would kneel and pray in the Spirit for 1-2 hours at a time. Great times of spiritual refreshing.
It was very hard for me to cling to the cross, when looking at it gave me an anxiety attack, lol. I don't know how I did it, but I somehow did. And I am trying my best to give it all back to the Lord. Their is a song we use to sing when I was younger, it went "I went to the enemies camp and I took back what he stole from. He's under my feet, hes under my feet, satan is under my feet." That is kind of what you have to do. Take back the peace, that has been stolen from you. I still go through hard times. Just a couple days ago I was hit hardcore with all of these questions. And so im texting my wife at work, and asking her all of these questions that are freaking me out. And she gave me some of the most Biblically sounds and Godly answers ive every heard. Shes made a great point, God and the way he works is way to complex to understand. We as Christians should have a good understanding, but by no means will we have answers for every question.
Oh and I also found something that is changing my life yet once again. A man named Asaph. Thank God for Asaph!!!!! He wrote psalms 73, 74 and more I think. I challenge you to read it, he is much like us. He was an upright man, and began questioning God. It got so bad, he began to believe that following God was pointless. And then he said when he went into the house of God, God opened his eyes to truely see what God was doing. And he came back stronger into faith. Asaph said that if he would of spoken his doubts, he would of betrayed the youth of the nation. That is why I am careful who I talk to. I only talk to those who are strong in faith. Because my doubts could cause another to stumble, and God have mercy on me if I caused someone else to fall. I even ask my wife before I come to her with question, if she thinks she is strong enough to handle them. Someone also said to me "if your faith is only based on you having the answers to everything, then your God is your intellect." That really rocked my world, and since I heard that, I have really backed off on my quest to understand everything. And you know what, I have been having a lot more peace. I will just let God teach me what I need to know as I study the Word, and follow my Pastor.
Thank you again for your posts! Don't ever forget that the power if God isn't in some distant galaxy that you are trying to get a hold of. It is right their inside of you, not far away!

Sasha I have dealt with my share of "OCD" and these irrational fears including doubting my own faith. I believe part of it if not MOST of it is spiritual attacks. ou will know when it is since as you start getting closer to God these things will die off...