Ocd / scrupoulosity and religious practices

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Filipa_Guardado

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Hello !

I suffer from scrupoulosity/ ocd , i have blasfemous thoughts that i cannot control and fear of hell …

I think its very hard for me to pray and belong in church activities because my sympthoms sometimes increase , but after these started ( 2 years ago ) i have decided to baptize myself and i really whant to stop these sympthoms and be an active catholic .

What are ur advices ? How can i continue to pray and have trust in God and in my salvation if i curse when i am praying , i have blasphemous thoughts and i hear that i am going to hell ?

Please , some words to guive me orientation …

In peace of Christ =)
 
Wow, i never heard of the condition. My only suggestion i can give is to pray to the blessed mother for help, pray the St. Michael prayer incase if it’s demonic influence instead of a disorder, use holy water whenever possible and keep some in your home.

Bless your home, even if it’s nightly… and ask a priest to come and bless your home.

I dont understand the situation, but to me, it sounds like you have a demonic problem, and i’d start by getting everythign blessed. I’d where a St. Benedict’s crucifix as well as a miraculous medal and scapular, take the container of salt in your cupboard and have it blessed, since most of us use it on a daily basis in most of our foods. Get rid of anything that is occult-like in nature from your homes… even movies and books, wether fictional or not, such as the Harry Potter series and such.

And don’t loose hope. Trust in God that he sees you are having a problem, wether demonic or a disorder. He sees you are trying, and that’s what counts. He doesnt ask us to succeed, but that we try.

God Bless.
 
Filipa, my heart goes out to you.

When these blasphemous thoughts arise, do you reject them with horror? I get the feeling that you do. And I bet the same goes for the cursing when you pray.

If you reject these thoughts as soon as you realize that they are blasphemous, then you are not sinning. In fact, you are doing the right thing by fighting them.

I have a similar problem with thoughts, but I don’t have OCD.

These thoughts pop into our heads against our will. We do not invite them. If we allow ourselves to dwell on the thoughts, then, yes, we are sinning. (I mean dwell on the thoughts themselves, not on the problem of having the thoughts.)

Please find yourself a good spiritual advisor. It might take some form of therapy to reduce the OCD to manageable levels. Don’t be afraid of it - but do find a therapist that respects your faith.

Pray for the intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Go to a Healing Mass.
 
If you suffer from scrupolosity then there is no quick fix. (trust me, I know).

Some things that helped me:
  1. I am sure I am not the first person to suffer from scrupolosity, hence, there** is** a way out of it, and you are not alone in the world.
  2. I found myself getting angry with God, when in reality there was nothing He had done, I was just blaming Him for my mistakes.
  3. Look up and say, “Lord, I feel very far from you right now, but even though I can’t feel your love or even imagine it, please shower it down upon me”
  4. I think scrupulosity for some is a knee-jerk reaction to being so close to God. Suddenly all your sins come to light, and you want to hide them, so you pick at as many as possible, and then start over-reacting, because you can’t tackle that many sins at once. Then you fail, become depressed, and then become worried that depression is sinful etc… I said “Lord, I have many many imperfections, and compared to you, I am as black as coal, but you knew that already, and still loved me, so please help me to clean up all these sins with your grace”
  5. Sometimes we cling to scrupulosity because it means we can say “Look at me, I’m destined for hell, God doesn’t love me etc…” We are searching for pity, and know that God can hear us, and its a lot easier to throw up our hands, point at many different things and say “Look how hellbound I am, woe to me” rather than doing the hard graph and tackling those sins. Thus, when we do give up, we look at everything (e.g eating a cookie on a Friday) as being gravely sinful since it makes it easier to say “Its too difficult”.
  6. God did not make us to go to hell, I can see that clearly in my bible. So, presuming that he wants us to go to hell is revealing a lack of trust in Him, who died on the cross for us. He doesn’t want us to be saints through our efforts, he wants us to say “God, I love you, let your will be done through me this day”. Nothing you do will ‘earn’ you heaven. Your faultpicking should be done out of love for God.
Pax tecum,
 
mommyof4 said:
Scrupulocity first aid kit:

Scrupulous Anonymous:
mission.liguori.org/newsletters/archives.htm#SA

Also the book Understanding Scrupulosity

amazon.com/gp/product/0764803735/103-2190924-2810233

Find a regular confessor and/or a spiritutal director and tell him your problems and dilemma. He will be of great help.

God bless.
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While I respect these kind of things, as an ongoing (but now much milder) sufferer of scrupulosity, the only way to break it is to figure things out for yourself.

A spiritual director can be of great help, but can also be a source of anxiety, since the scrupulous person may find it very hard to trust in their advice, and will usually go one better (i.e, just an extra prayer, or extra good deed, perhaps that will satsify God etc…)

God Bless,
 
I suffer from scrupulosity, and believe me, “figuring it out on my own” did NOT work for me. I was falling deeping and deeper into despair and depression. The only thing that has helped me is to talk to my priest about it and do some research on scrupulosity. The information I have learned from scrupulous anyonymous and the book Understanding Scrupulosityhas taken much of the fear out of me, and is gradually replacing my image of a vengeful, frightening God into a God of unconditional love and mercy.
 
Filipa,

I understand your problem as I too have OCD. I can reassure you that this is not a spiritual problem. It is very much a chemical problem (since OCD is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.) Everyday people have crazy thoughts run through their heads—but most people have a “shutoff” switch in their head that tells them “This is a crazy/bad thought”. But for you and I, we don’t have that switch. So we get all these crazy thoughts in our head. Thoughts we would NEVER want to think, but they still keep coming. Part of the crappiness of OCD is that it takes things that are very dear to you and changes them into horrible thoughts. If you loved your brother very much, for example, OCD would for example, possibly make you think of hurting your brother. Of course you’d never actually hurt him or want to hurt him, but you feel like you can’t get rid of those thoughts. Since I was raised in a Christian home, Christianity is very dear to me and central to my life. Thus, every hour of everyday I have these thoughts that I may have accidentally cursed God or thought something blasphemous, even though of course I would never want to. But this is a sickness, like depression is a sickness. God knows that you don’t want to blaspheme Him. In fact, the fact that you are troubled by these thoughts is a sign that you hold God very dear!
But these thoughts can be very troubling to you, I understand. Have you ever considered talking to your doctor or therapist about medication to correct the chemical imbalance? Also, I’ve found that talking to a therapist who is familiar with the disorder is VERY helpful.

If you want to email me or anything, feel free–I understand what you’re going thru, and I know it is not fun!

Playtah
 
Thanks for ur comphreension and suport…
Is hard to deal with these alone , especially when ur think these thoughts are a cause of a spiritual problem and not a menthal one like u have said …
I have been more concerned in casting these " demons " out then understanding the true nature of ocd , has i´m sure alot of people with these desease has …

I dont have a therapist but i have phsichiatric ; im am taking prozac for it , so everything is going in the right direction …

I need an advice , i was recently baptized and just did a confession … so i dont really know " how " too …

I would really like to make a confession to the preast off all the blasfemous thoughts i had in my mind ( i really did ) but i dont know if i should mention the ocd …
what u peps think i should do ? 😛
 
Just simply inform your priest that you have ocd, and then make your confession. You don’t have to go into detail. Just say “I am guilty of impure thoughts,” To be honest, though, I don’t think that your “blasphemous thoughts” really are sins. They are only sins if you WANT to have these thoughts, or willingly entertain them. Go back and read the 10 commandments for the scrupulous.

Remember comandment number 6:

6**. You shall not consider yourself guilty of bad thoughts, desires, or feelings, unless you can honestly swear before the all-truthful God that you remember clearly and certainly consenting to them.

This is a very important commandment. The whole area of impure thoughts and desires causes scrupulous people much anxiety. Unfortunately, scrupulous persons often believe that the very appearance of thoughts or desires in their thoughts or imagination means that they have committed a sin. This is most certainly not the case. In fact, it is humanly impossible for us to have absolute control over our interior faculties. Such thoughts and images are going to happen, whether we like them or not.

Because we simply do not have absolute control over our interior faculties, the emphasis of the commandment is on clear and certain consent. Only a free consent, that is clear and certain, constitutes a sin. You can not accidentally or involuntarily be guilty of sin. **
 
i have blasfemous thoughts that i cannot control and fear of hell …
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The source is evil. You are not evil. But you are being plagued by it, probably because it can see that you are a bit vulnerable right now. That is how weak evil is, It tries to take you out when you are feeling a bit down.

Do not worry, the solution is at hand. It is the Lord who speaks…combat the evil by praising God’s Holy Name every time you get a blasphemous thought. In other words, use the occasion as an occasion to praise God.

This will cause great constanation and despair to that which is tormenting you. It will see that it is unwittingly the source of praising God. This WILL exorcise it I promise you.

Please trust me on this one.

A good formula to say is: In all things may the most holy the most just and the most lovable will of God be done now and for always. keep saying to yourself, out loud if possible [if there is no one to hear], Praise Almighty God victorious and glorious, praise His glorious Son Jesus Christ, Praise the Holy Spirit’.

This will make the enemy recoil, send him fleeing, scared, never to return.

If it does return, just use the above formula again and that will rid it from your life forever.

When it is over, please do not forget to thank Almighty God. 👍
 
i have decided to baptize myself and i really whant to stop these sympthoms and be an active catholic .
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I am not aware we can baptise ourselves. The Lord did say that when two or more are gathered together, He is there in the midst of us’. By the sounds of things you are baptised. It cannot be repeated.

You might wish to annoint yourself with Holy Water but that is not baptism. But do not become to over-scrupulous with this.

I strongly advise you to also discuss the situation with a priest. It does not have to be your PP. It can be any priest. You may wish to go on retreat and discuss it there.

Do not be afraid what the priest will think of you, he will have heard it all before. He will be very understanding.

Remember you are not alone in this.
God is with you. 👍
Your guardian Angel is with you. 👍
The Church is with you 👍
The prayer power of this forum is with you 👍
 
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