Recently diagnosed with OCD/ Need advice.

[Hoskosw]

Hi my name is Bill and I was diagnosed about 3 months ago with ocd. I'm still unable to come to terms with whats wrong with me. Every morning I wake up hoping God will heal me.

Everything seems to be centered around my Faith. Every morning is so hard to wake up and get out of bed because I don't want to deal with it anymore. I keep getting these doubts about my faith and doubts of whether Jesus is really there. Then I feel horrible for thinking these thoughts and start questioning whether or not I'm really saved. These thoughts are not the thoughts I want to think and not the way I live my life. Why is the most important thing in my life, God at the center of my obssesions? Why do I doubt whether Jesus really died for me at times, when deep down those are not the thoughts I want.

So every night I start researching proof for my faith and proof for Jesus and I find everything I know and yet it feels as though my mind will not let me accept what I see and want to think. I feel so alone everyday and sometimes just wish God would take me.

All I want is to know that when I die I'm going to heaven, but I have this overwelming fear of not being saved because of the thoughts I have. I have a horrible fear of dying and having Jesus saying I never knew you depart from me.

I grew up going to church, but its only been couple years that I really started putting my Faith in God. I started researching and reading everything I could about Jesus and the Bible. My Faith felt so strong and all of a sudden something triggered in my mind. Seemed to corrispond to about the same time I found out a good friend of mine was an athiest. I don't know if ocd is triggered by something or if its something I've always had.

I wake up every morning feeling depressed and not wanting to get up. I try so hard to pray to God whenever I feel this way and I even try to stay in God's word everyday by reading the Bible. Yet everyday I wake up feeling like I did the day before. I just started googling and ran into this site and notice other people deal with this stuff to. I just don't want to feel so alone in this journey anymore.

 

[justpassingthrough21]

Wow your story is like a mirror to mine. I will try to help. All of my doubts and fears centered around Jesus. I felt as though me and the Father were good, but my mind was resisting His Son. It is true that no amount of evidence well cause your mind to snap into shape.
I remember not wanting to wake up in the morning, not being able to sleep at night, life seemed pointless because when I felt like I lost Christ, I felt like I lost the reason for life. I grew up in church and also recently in the last few years decided to really follow Christ.
I never stopped going to church, I never stopped reading my Bible or talking to God. At first I just found every verse that talked about Jesus and read them hundreds of times over the course of a few weeks. This helped a bit, then I started carrying around verses about salvation, and anything related to Jesus and what he did or is doing in my life.
Finally about a week ago I heard a CD and there was something that really helped even more. There was a story about a lady that went to a pastors house crying and waling that she had been up all night crying out to God and He had left her. And that she wanted to find Him, but she couldn't find Him. This pastor said, "God is inside of you, and when you cry out to Him like He is far away, it just grieves the Holy Spirit". It would be like if I stood in front of you and cried out asking where you were at, even though you were right in front of my face. Well I really started working on that, every time I felt alone I would put my hand on my belly and say "the Holy Trinity lives in me, the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit". It would just instantly stop that lonely pain.
You will find things that work and don't work as time goes. Keep pressing towards God, and those revelations of Jesus Christ will re-illuminate your mind.

 

[SoldierOfSoul]

Hi HoskosW, I suffer from OCD doubts too among other OCD related things, my doubts seem so strong sometimes and sometimes I give them more room in my mind then I should, the doubts are always there constantly and faith very seldom.

But I can tell you one thing that has helped me in my trial (ongoing trial) was to learn to trust God even when my mind and reason were telling me something else. I have come to realize that I must trust in the Word of God before I can trust in my reason...If you start to think like this than it doesn't matter what your mind tries to tell you, if the bible says differently than you know who to trust.

Fact is fact, thoughts are thoughts, Jesus is was born, died and rose again for our justification no matter what our minds try to say, it is fact whether we believe it or not...you don't have to submit to your mind, your mind must submit to the Lord Jesus and to His word!

C.S. Lewis once said "Faith...is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted, despite your changing moods."

[let me also add that our reason is an important part of us and it can be trusted sometimes in the spiritual, but only insofar as it conforms to what God has said in His word.]

Faith is an art, it is something that must be refined and learned and with OCD it makes it even harder, but all suffer with doubt even those who don't suffer with this disorder, and we also know that the Lord is merciful to those who doubt, look at Thomas and John the Baptist...

All I can say though bro is don't go down this road of discouragement, it may seem dark now but the light will shine again, Jesus hasn't left you and I'm sure the Lord Jesus will use this time for good in your walk with Him, use this time as a time to strengthen your faith in Him, read the Word and apologetics until your reason lines up with your heart.

And when your mind tries to tell you something that contradicts the Bible, you know who to believe, your mind is not the final authority, the Holy Lord who can not lie is, the One who created the concept of truth, He can definitely be trusted in all things.

 

[kaykay9.0]

Good posts above! What you have described, as you can see here, is very typical with Christians struggling with OCD.

 

[Hoskosw]

I really appreciate all of the advice you all have given me. For so long I felt as if I was the only one on earth dealing with these thoughts and obsessions.

I still have a really hard time accepting its ok and that I have ocd. Every morning I feel like I am starting over from scratch and have to reassure myself its not really me. How does one finally come to terms and be ok accepting its ocd and not ones true thoughts, when they feel so overwhelming and powerful.

I continue to Pray and read the Bible everyday. Even though every morning I feel as if the last thing I want to do is Pray, because I feel so depressed from all of this. I know I will not give up the fight no matter what and I will continue to pray and read my Bible even when my mind and thoughts get in the way.

I appreciate anyone who is willing to pray for me and all of us that suffer with this horrible thing.

God Bless everyone and lets all keep fighting the fight.

If anyone has more advice about things that work for them I am open to listen.

 

[justpassingthrough21]

Took me about 6 months to quit blaming myself for the thoughts. Once I quit that, then I really started to progress. Praying right away in the morning before you get out of bed is powerful. I strongly believe it affects the day. I don't really wake up and start asking God for things. I just thank Him that i'm His child, I think Him that today will be a God day and a good day and anything else I can think of. It puts your mind in the right mindset before you ever stir. It really does get better are time goes on.
That is good that you won't give up! You need to keep yourself armed with that mindset. Eventually as you overcome you will start having days that go really well, and then boom you will get hit with the doubts and instantly feel despondent. Thats when you need to remind yourself that you wouldn't ever quit, and also of your previous victories. Eventually those times you doubt become less frequent and have less power in them. As you improve, and grow in faith, constantly think on how you are improving from week to week. That will be how you rally yourself to keep going strong.
I know for myself I will have a great day all day with the Lord, and then at night I might have 1 strong doubt and it really casts me down. And the devil is there saying "nothing has changed, you haven't improved and you will never get better". But all I have to do is think back on how bad things were 6 to 12 months ago, and know that I am way better today. And also know that in a few more months i'll be even farther along, until it's gone.

 

[greg r]

I'm new here also, but I can share some of what helped me. This was shared with me by a former counselor, and made total sense. While the cross represents a forgiven life, unmerited love; my sin, my wrongs, foul mouth, lies, deceit, etc was the reason for it. Christ died on it , and I had to face the reality that I and my sin were the reason for the cross and His death; and , this important, it is also the reason for my new life in Him. We often neglect the "dirty little secrets" we all hold that were the reason for the cross, and tend to focus mainly on the good stuff; the joy, the forgiveness, the praise, etc. The day I could look at the cross in a balanced view, accepting my faults however grievous and at the same time the outstretched love of God through Christ to me, was a day it was okay to be who I am and God was there and in me because I asked Him. I don't want to turn away from that. The more I became thankful, the less room there was in my mind for doubt. The more thankful I became, the more I desired to change. The change was helped in many ways. Nutrition was a starter for me, Vit D3 and St. John's Wort. You have OCD, I have depression with some OCD, it runs in my family. The point is, it can change starting with thankfulness for who I am, who He is and thankful that Christ is my High Priest to help me. After awhile, the things that bother us don't seem to matter so much and the chains that bind our souls start letting go. It can be a tough row to hoe, but you can do it because God won't quit on us.

 

[shelovesChrist]

i used to think that everytime i had a bad thought , God was far away from me and that my name was blotted out the book of life . but He is closer than we can imagine, esp when we are at our weakest point. but we have to stay in the word, because He says that He will never leave us. our salvation is not based on powerless thoughts that run in and out our mind that we don't want, Jesus knows that. our salvation is based on what He did on the cross. He said He opens a door that no man can close , who is stronger than Him, our thoughts ? sometimes its hard to see things in postive perspectives when you experience so much negativity but its okay to regroup. (= don't get discouraged when you slip, Peter began to but Jesus caught Him, and He'll catch us. keep walking toward Him. i used to suffer real bad and now the thoughts have no power over me, istopped listening to them and kept listening to Jesus. but how can we listen if we don't read the wordl its hard iknow, but im glad youre still reading, even with negative thoughts still read, because the power of His word is greater. as one who has suffered i can say it gets better, everydayyou get closer to the light, even though you don't feel it. He won't let you go.

 

[Christian-Catholic]

Hello Hoskosw, I can completely understand what your going through. I have been going through it myself for over a year now. My thoughts are about Gods existence, then when I get reassurance about that thethoughts switch over to " did Jesus really resurrect" " did he die for us" etc etc. It seems like everytime I do my research and get temporary reassurance the thoughts would come back and hit another part of it.

It all happened during a very stressfull time in my life where everything was going wrong and to top it all off I saw a confused christian woman being rediculed and deconverted on this forum right in front of me. I went into a frenzy and did nonstop almost 24 hours a day appologetics research and got to the point where I was debating up to 25 mid level atheists at onetime. I actually did quite well, then something snapped and it seemed like my ocd took complete control of my thoughts and I was bombarded with unbelief thoughts to the point where I wanted to commit suicide. If it wasnt for the many prayers of the kind people here and someone at the crisis prevention hotline I might not be here today.

Im on meds and fighting the thoughts still but Imade a promise everyday to pray to the lord and share my fears for him. Its ironic as my prayer life has never been stronger even if I feel this numbness and these thoughts pounding me.

The others are right here, We have to trust in Jesus, no matter what our thoughts and feelings are trying to do to us, but its also important to have a pastor or spiritual director as well as a good counselor during thesetimes. If you need to talk just pm me . ok?
Ive added you into my daily prayer list