what is wrong w/ me!!!!!!!!

[rachel22]

hey guys i am new here.....i am trying to understand what is wrong with me (spiritually)!! i will try to explain, i HOPE that anyone here can help. i decided in January i needed to come to Christ when i saw a video "To Hell and Back" which was extremely scary to me. only i was very traumatized (very, very) because i felt very unforgivable by that point b/c i had been to church my whole life and rejected the Lord many times, i am 22 now. so i did feel certainly doomed to hell. but then i met some Christian friends who told me i can still be forgiven, and so i have prayed (hundreds??) of times for Jesus to forgive me (i have prayed daily many times for this ever since January), i have been making a lot of efforts to turn from sins. i beleive i have OCD b/c pretty much all i think about is heaven/hell/Jesus. the PROBLEM is that, i know Jesus is Lord. but when i read my gospels i hear awful voices saying "blasphamer", "liar", "son of satan", "evil" when i read or sometimes when i pray or anything. one moment i trust He is God's Son, the next i accuse Him of being the devil (i know it is irrational b/c i know He was born of the Holy Spirit, yet i continue to accuse Him from my mind of being the devil...so it is even irrational). many times i have accused Him in my mind while He was working miracles of being satanic. i have no problem believing in Him in heaven, have had problems w/ believing in Him as a man. i know He was came to earth as a man, i dont know if i am truely trusting enough to be saved. basically i have constant unwanted, evil thoughts as i read my Bible and pray. i do not know if i am having these thoughts b/c i fear them or if they are what i really am thinking. a lot of times i feel demon possessed b/c of the voices. i desperately want to come to the Lord, have prayed many times for His forgiveness yet i do not know if i am recieving that b/c in my mind when i read the Bible i constantly think these evil things. i DO NOT know if i have a mental or spiritual problem & it is so scary to me

 

[babegirl111]

Hey girl, believe me that is exactly how my ocd started out. One day I was reading my bible when all of a sudden this disgusting word popped into my head out of now where and as the years went on it prOgressively got worse. There have been points where I have been scared that i may have spoken something that was in my mind out of my mouth on accident.I had to come to realize that I was sick and that I had ocd. I have been to a psychologist and I am now on meds and doing about 80% better.

You definantly have what pretty much 90% of people on thsi board have and that is religious ocd. This kind of OCD causes us to have scary blasphemous thoughts out of nowhere, but these thoughts are not from us. Some would say that they are from the enemy which is when they start out I believe they were. Then someone told me that this is actually a disease where your brain gets locked on one thought and the more you try not to think about it the bigger it becomes. There has also been studies that people with OCD have different brain funtions than normal brain like lack of seratonin (sp).

Just remember one thing. JESUS WILL ALWAYS ACCEPT YOU IF YOU WANT TO COME TO HIM. GOD SENT HIM TO THIS EARTH FOR A REASON AND IT WAS NOT TO CONDEMN US BUT TO SAVE US. HE IS NOT GOING TO LEAVE US BECAUSE OF A DISEASE WE CANT CONTROL. ALSO I AM SO HAPPY THAT YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE LORD! THAT IS THE BEST THING YOU COULD HAVE DONE!

 

[Jayangel81]

Amen babegirl

Hi Rachel

Welcome to the family of God!!

It sounds like youre on the start of youre journey into this, and I wish i could tell you it will be easy. Mine started like yours with a movie about hell and such, and for the longest time i thought I too was going to burn in hell. Just know that it is youre illness, in time you will learn to put youre trust in the Lord and not into our awful thoughts.

like alot of us youre going to experiance alot of blasphemous thoughts but you must let them be, learn and read up on exposure and response therapy as it can help big time. (It will need alot of practice) Are you seeing a doctor yet? If not please dont wait like I have, you need medical help asap.

Youre thoughts are going to leave you with a condemned feeling, and the enemy might try to use this to make you believe youre unsaved, you must by all means not listen to it. This is so important.

As hard as it may be, stay in Gods Word and rest on His promises, I know when you have this illness its hard because youre mind will sometimes go into a frenzy, mine was constant..And itll try to get you away from His Word. Use His Word to refresh youre mind and keep asking for strength. He is more than willing to give it to you, make sure you ask in faith, than you will recieve it

When you get blasphemous thoughts you must remind yourself that God knows youre heart, and you need to put your trust in that. He hears youre cries every moment, He knows you dont want to blaspheme Him or hurt him in any way.. As soon as you grasp this, things will get better eventually. But if you feed youre ocd than things will get worse and we dont want that..

If you every need to talk you can PM me anytime.

Youre in my prayers

Love,
James

a brother in Christ

 

[rachel22]

james i would love to PM you to talk more about this it seems like you are someone who could help me get going in the right direction however i do not have 5 posts yet. it may be awhile. the thing is i dont have a clue if i am saved. if i knew that it would be sooo comforting but since this all happened at once.....i know that if you believe and repent you will be saved.....but i dont know if i am even a believer. i would not dare consider myself saved in this state b/c i may give myself false assurance.

 

[OptimisticSmile]

Rachel I can understand where you are coming from. I wen through a long faze where I believed I was condemned and that all the promises of God did not apply to me. I believed that all I had left was to struggle with depression until I could not stand it and kill myself when it became too unbearable. It was the fear of impending judgment that kept me alive.

It will get better but it may get worse first. My advice to you is to stick within this section of Christian forums and Do not , I repeat DO NOT spend hours and hours searching the internet for answers and doing research. This only makes it worse. Also, commit to stop praying a sinner's prayer. There is no sinners prayer that saves only blood of jesus. a sinners prayer is a reflection of the change that God has rendered in ones heart and if you look in the bible only one sinners prayer is found and it goes something liek this "have mercy on me a sinner." the words are not important. It is never about words anyways it is about you recognizing you are a sinner and Christ is the only name under heaven by which you can be saved.

My struggle was "do I really believe this or that" "how do I know I really believe" etc.

one last thing the sinners prayer is a compulsion. We do it when we feel awful thinking it will immediatly make us feel better. I have a feeling it only makes you feel worse and more deeply condemned each time. If it feels empty it is because God is not in it and God does not require it. It is not that he rejects you or the prayer but that he recognizes it as a compulsion. All God requires is a broken and contrite heart. The only correct way that you should worry about being saved is simply putting your trust in Jesus Christ as you have done.

if faith were a feeling it would not really be faith. If faith were a feeling many pastors would not be preaching on sunday morning because of their feelings. I hope that encourages you. Romans 8:24

 

[BeccaLynn]

Rachel,

I understand the fear you're speaking of all too well. Actually, my first post was about me being scared I wasn't truly saved. I've never FELT as if I've really repented, believed, or even had the energy and faith to do so. It seemed so very hard, and I never felt like I heard others talk about feeling once they came to accept Jesus as their Savior. I felt condemned for most of my life. As a child even I thought that one day I might "get it right". Those feelings of desperation and the feeling of being hopelessly lost left me feeling empty and like I had no kind of security in my life at all. I felt I was doomed in life and death. I know about the thoughts too - wondering if I really felt that way toward God, trying to rebuke them as I thought them, and the battle never seemed to stop. Everything I did was out of fear. Sorry . . . FEAR with all capitals is more like it. Please know that there is hope though. I wanted assurance that I was saved, yet couldn't trust anyone who told me I was. I didn't want false assurance because then I would have convinced myself I was saved when I really wasn't, which would, of course, have left me not trying to get saved again, which I needed to do I thought. My life was controlled by it. I thought about hell and had a huge amount of fear about Jesus returning and me not being ready to meet Him practically all of the time. I would hear about others and their experiences with God, which further convinced me I was really lost. Sometimes I would even feel angry at God because I didn't understand what was wrong with me . . . I didn't choose to be born or to be like this. Yet, I felt I myself must have hardened my heart to Him. I always felt He was disappointed and angry with me. I do understand, and it's a form of hell on earth. I finally came to the point of being willing to receive counsel from a minister friend of mine after hearing a sermon that if we wanted things to change than we needed to stop doing things the same way and expecting different results. I had been to counselors, but always was determined I was lost, and no amount of counsel changed that deeply embedded feeling. God led me to this website. It had to be Him because I felt so alone and just knowing that I wasn't helped tremendously. I finally have accepted that I do have ocd. Before, I was convinced that I was just evil, had a deeply rooted spiritual problem, or maybe was even demon possessed. Why else would I think those horrid thoughts about God? I still struggle, thankfully not with my thoughts so much, but with FEELING saved. I will tell you that in looking back where I was, I am evidence that God understands and that we are not hopeless and lost causes. I encourage you to seek godly counsel. I did go to counseling before, but not everyone is a "right fit". I think I had to come to the point of being open to the right person too. I would argue against every reason I was given that I was saved. The fact is, nobody can convince us. Trusting is scary, but God is trustworthy. I can only trust that when He says, "Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead and you shall be saved" (Romans 10:9) that He means it. I also know the argument I had about me saying with my mouth but maybe not believing it with my heart for real, so I know all the arguments that our minds can put out there to convince us we're so hopeless. I prayed to be saved an unreal amount of times. I tried to mean it, be sincere, believe enough, make God save me by quoting scripture, etc. I never got the feeling of release I was looking for. I felt like if I just knew that I was saved, nothing else really mattered. I thought I'd be one of the happiest people alive. I've come to realize that God has put people in my life to help and encourage me and that I have to believe, even if I never have that feeling of being safe in the Book of Life, that He's not going to go against His Word. I've also had to realize that He is nothing like I pictured Him being. I was so afraid that the fear dominated every aspect of my life. I couldn't love a God I thought was dooming me to hell. He is not an angry God who is just waiting for us to make a mistake so He can squash us. That was kind of my opinion of Him. I would suggest that you do pray and search for godly counseling, and also that you DON'T try and read books about being saved. I would make myself read books, listen to sermons, read the Bible to try and get myself to believe enough, etc. It only fed the fear, and thus the ocd cycle. I will be praying for you. You are definitely not alone and God loves you as much as He loves anyone else on the face of this earth. He hasn't left you and hears you when you call out to Him. Be honest with Him about your feelings and ask Him to somehow open doors for you get the help you need.

Love,
Rebecca

 

[Jayangel81]

reading youre post beccalyn was just like reading my life heh..its creepy how we are all in the same boat.

I remember praising God yesterday that I endured everything so now im capable of helping his other sons and daughters.

 

[OptimisticSmile]

I can give testimony to God answering my prayers in my struggle. He has used Beccalyn and many others here to encourage me and show me that IM not the only one. We have laughed together here and cried together here. Becclyns description just now is exactly my experience. I had been searching my entire life for someone who would understand for once and I found it here.

 

[BeccaLynn]

I'm glad that we can help one another. This website has been such a blessing to so many. We can be honest with one another here and not have to fear rejection. I'm glad that God has taken what I felt was a broken life and used it to help others. What the enemy plans for our destruction, God can use for our benefit and the benefit of others. Many of you have encouraged and helped me so often. In fact, after reading posts from people who had similar experiences as I had, I noticed a huge change in my thinking patterns. The horrid thoughts that haunted me lessened amazingly. I just wanted you all to know that God has used you to help me and, I'm sure, will continue to do so.

Love,
Rebecca

 

[gracealone]

Hi OP - great post!! I wanted to just reaffirm the truth in these two quotes from you.

My struggle was "do I really believe this or that" "how do I know I really believe" etc.
if faith were a feeling it would not really be faith. If faith were a feeling many pastors would not be preaching on sunday morning because of their feelings. I hope that encourages you. Romans 8:24[/quote]

My OCD was just exactly like this - trying to figure out if I was really believing or believing good enough etc.
Something I read from CS Lewis really helped me with this. He said something to this effect - The moment we try to examine our belief to see if we are really believing all feelings of belief seem to disappear. It's like taking your eyes out of your head in order to examine them to see if they are working right. If we do that we can't see at all. Eyes are meant for us to see out of -not to be looked at or examined. Belief is something that we act out of - we can't pluck it out and try to examine whether or not we are really believing. The more we try to do this, or try to muster up feelings of belief the greater the anxiety that we aren't really believing.

I've found this to be a great assistance to my efforts to just let that question, (am I really believing?) alone.

So when it comes to belief - action is more important than feelings. Feelings will come and go but the Faithfulness of God never changes.
Thanks for such a great post OP!!
Mitzi

 

[OptimisticSmile]

also remember that

I am ___________ but God is ________________

you can fill in the blanks anyway you want.

 

[QUannie]

I think what Becca wrote really sums up most of us here on this forum!
Praise God! We finally learned we are not alone.....
A scripture that helped me was when Jesus says anyone who comes to Me, I will no way cast them out.....{can't remember where in scripture it is}
I know it is hard, don't give up, He paid the price for you, He wants you! That is something I am learning too, that He wants me, ACTUALLY WANTS me!
Love,
Q

 

[EternalMoment]

Hey girl, believe me that is exactly how my ocd started out. One day I was reading my bible when all of a sudden this disgusting word popped into my head out of now where and as the years went on it prOgressively got worse. There have been points where I have been scared that i may have spoken something that was in my mind out of my mouth on accident.I had to come to realize that I was sick and that I had ocd. I have been to a psychologist and I am now on meds and doing about 80% better.

You definantly have what pretty much 90% of people on thsi board have and that is religious ocd. This kind of OCD causes us to have scary blasphemous thoughts out of nowhere, but these thoughts are not from us. Some would say that they are from the enemy which is when they start out I believe they were. Then someone told me that this is actually a disease where your brain gets locked on one thought and the more you try not to think about it the bigger it becomes. There has also been studies that people with OCD have different brain funtions than normal brain like lack of seratonin (sp).

Just remember one thing. JESUS WILL ALWAYS ACCEPT YOU IF YOU WANT TO COME TO HIM. GOD SENT HIM TO THIS EARTH FOR A REASON AND IT WAS NOT TO CONDEMN US BUT TO SAVE US. HE IS NOT GOING TO LEAVE US BECAUSE OF A DISEASE WE CANT CONTROL. ALSO I AM SO HAPPY THAT YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE LORD! THAT IS THE BEST THING YOU COULD HAVE DONE!

your right ocd does lock your mind in that certain area but it wouldnt have to do with demons only. trust me, they can make it sound all clever with you thinking you just have a disorder, then they can stay....kick them out!

 

[rachel22]

i don't think i can ever explain to you all how much you have helped me, how ENCOURAGING you all have been to let me know i am not the only one whose been here, how encouraging it is to see your faith and how God has worked in your lives. i have been amazed at some of the things you have said that they are so similar to what i have been experiencing. i read what you have written often and it has helped me to stay in the Bible and in prayer, even when its this hard. so it keeps me going.....the thought that there is hope even for someone like me.....