P
PSULucky
Guest
Hello, I’d like to ask for some guidance after (about four) months of being religiously OCD. I have so many tendencies and problems that it’s really starting to get me depressed.
Firstly, I believe in God. Although my mind is now clouded with a million “do you REALLY believe in God”, I think back to the time when I was happy and I was a genuinely nice person. I know I believed in God then and I thought about heaven. I am only 15 years old and I am so confused.
I really do not like what is happening to me now. Everything I hear “God” or see/hear literally ANYTHING involving God my mind thinks something bad. Sometimes they are REALLY bad thoughts, too.
So when stuff like this happens, I start to get stressed and get religiously OCD. I force myself to pray my entire set of prayers, addressing both God and Mary in separate prayers (I pray twice, usually). I don’t even know if you’re allowed/supposed to pray to Mary, but I don’t want to stop because I feel as though I am being insulting that I no longer want to pray to her. Oftentimes I’ll have to re-pray the Our Father several times in a single prayer until I say it perfectly and without any negative thoughts. At this point, however, I’m usually praying so fast and so without meaning that I’m probably committing a bigger sin by re-praying like that.
I also have certain “rules” my mind follows by. For some reason, I have to start a prayer, “Dear God and Mary and Jesus and Joseph”. What I say after that depends on what bad thing my mind has thought of. If I thought something bad about someone, I’ll say, usually word for word “Dear God and Mary and Jesus and Joseph, you know I really don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, so thank you so much for not letting anything bad happen to anyone.” If I don’t say it perfectly my mind forces me to say it again.
Other times I will pray that “I really hope nobody else goes to Hell. I wish everybody else could go to Heaven, or at least Purgatory”.
I usually use the word “else” because I don’t want to refer to myself. I feel greedy if I use myself in a prayer like that, and I fear that if I’m greedy God will punish me. But at the same time, this just leads to an even bigger problem.
This bigger problem is that now my mind is specifically looking for ways to please God. Last year and years before that I just used to be a genuinely nice person. I may still be a genuinely nice person now, but my mind always thinks that “this must be pleasing to God”. I don’t want to be this kind of person anymore. I mean, at least it’s making me be a nice person still, but I don’t want to do something good just because I think it will increase my chances of going to Heaven. This is probably an even bigger sin.
And even now as I post this message, my mind still faintly believes that I’m only posting it to please God. But I know that, under every layer of my mind, I am a nice person.
Other things I’m religiously OCD about include some of my hobbies, as well as my parents (usually my mom). Even as I typed that last sentence I had to switch the order of “my hobbies” and “my parents” to what it is now, because my mind tells me that if I end something while being greedy (like the sentence, which would have ended with “my hobbies”. which shouldn’t take precedence over my parents) that God will punish and be angry with me.
I usually have to redo a lot of things and I’m wasting so much time re-praying. But am I really wasting time, or does God want me to do this. Personally, I don’t think he does. If anything, I’m making a mockery of what is taught in Catholic faith.
Again, I often times have to redo many things. For instance, when I’m writing something, I’ll have to erase some things I’ve written down and rewrite part of it over again until my mind is without any bad thoughts. It’s usually like that for typing and many other things, too.
I feel as though that unless I pray perfectly, I won’t be able to enjoy my hobbies anymore. For instance, I love to write fiction stories. I fear that if I don’t pray enough, well enough, or unintentionally gloat (with my mind) about my skill at writing that God will take it away from me. The same thing goes for my parents/mom. If I don’t pray perfectly, will something bad happen to my mom? I always wonder this question. I love my parents so much and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them, ever.
Whenever I think about new, terrible things like this, I usually punish myself by making me say my prayers, in full (how I say them each night and morning). Sometimes I tell myself to pray to both God and Mary in full twice in order to be forgiven. I haven’t fallen into this OCD trap yet, but I fear I will.
There’s probably a lot more that I can add to this post that I’m forgetting, but I’d like to close it with one final thing.
When I pray at night, I am usually exhibiting OCD tendencies and, before I pray, I’m usually nervous and actually disgusted to pray. I usually don’t want to. Now, I just tell myself that the reason I don’t want to pray is because “I’ll just be a jerk and say something rude and then I’ll have to be superstitious”. But I realized that this might not be true. I thought about when I had actually escaped my OCD some of the time, and realized that at night and in the morning, when I almost always pray (at least now that I’ve become OCD), I actually didn’t want to take the time to pray. Maybe it was because I had just gotten off my OCD, and I was still a bit fried? But still, what if I am secretly a jerk who doesn’t want to take the time to pray in the morning and at night? And when I was younger (and non-OCD) I rarely prayed. Now I’m seriously getting scared that all this might just be out of greediness. The next paragraph describes a similar scenario.
Firstly, I believe in God. Although my mind is now clouded with a million “do you REALLY believe in God”, I think back to the time when I was happy and I was a genuinely nice person. I know I believed in God then and I thought about heaven. I am only 15 years old and I am so confused.
I really do not like what is happening to me now. Everything I hear “God” or see/hear literally ANYTHING involving God my mind thinks something bad. Sometimes they are REALLY bad thoughts, too.
So when stuff like this happens, I start to get stressed and get religiously OCD. I force myself to pray my entire set of prayers, addressing both God and Mary in separate prayers (I pray twice, usually). I don’t even know if you’re allowed/supposed to pray to Mary, but I don’t want to stop because I feel as though I am being insulting that I no longer want to pray to her. Oftentimes I’ll have to re-pray the Our Father several times in a single prayer until I say it perfectly and without any negative thoughts. At this point, however, I’m usually praying so fast and so without meaning that I’m probably committing a bigger sin by re-praying like that.
I also have certain “rules” my mind follows by. For some reason, I have to start a prayer, “Dear God and Mary and Jesus and Joseph”. What I say after that depends on what bad thing my mind has thought of. If I thought something bad about someone, I’ll say, usually word for word “Dear God and Mary and Jesus and Joseph, you know I really don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, so thank you so much for not letting anything bad happen to anyone.” If I don’t say it perfectly my mind forces me to say it again.
Other times I will pray that “I really hope nobody else goes to Hell. I wish everybody else could go to Heaven, or at least Purgatory”.
I usually use the word “else” because I don’t want to refer to myself. I feel greedy if I use myself in a prayer like that, and I fear that if I’m greedy God will punish me. But at the same time, this just leads to an even bigger problem.
This bigger problem is that now my mind is specifically looking for ways to please God. Last year and years before that I just used to be a genuinely nice person. I may still be a genuinely nice person now, but my mind always thinks that “this must be pleasing to God”. I don’t want to be this kind of person anymore. I mean, at least it’s making me be a nice person still, but I don’t want to do something good just because I think it will increase my chances of going to Heaven. This is probably an even bigger sin.
And even now as I post this message, my mind still faintly believes that I’m only posting it to please God. But I know that, under every layer of my mind, I am a nice person.
Other things I’m religiously OCD about include some of my hobbies, as well as my parents (usually my mom). Even as I typed that last sentence I had to switch the order of “my hobbies” and “my parents” to what it is now, because my mind tells me that if I end something while being greedy (like the sentence, which would have ended with “my hobbies”. which shouldn’t take precedence over my parents) that God will punish and be angry with me.
I usually have to redo a lot of things and I’m wasting so much time re-praying. But am I really wasting time, or does God want me to do this. Personally, I don’t think he does. If anything, I’m making a mockery of what is taught in Catholic faith.
Again, I often times have to redo many things. For instance, when I’m writing something, I’ll have to erase some things I’ve written down and rewrite part of it over again until my mind is without any bad thoughts. It’s usually like that for typing and many other things, too.
I feel as though that unless I pray perfectly, I won’t be able to enjoy my hobbies anymore. For instance, I love to write fiction stories. I fear that if I don’t pray enough, well enough, or unintentionally gloat (with my mind) about my skill at writing that God will take it away from me. The same thing goes for my parents/mom. If I don’t pray perfectly, will something bad happen to my mom? I always wonder this question. I love my parents so much and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them, ever.
Whenever I think about new, terrible things like this, I usually punish myself by making me say my prayers, in full (how I say them each night and morning). Sometimes I tell myself to pray to both God and Mary in full twice in order to be forgiven. I haven’t fallen into this OCD trap yet, but I fear I will.
There’s probably a lot more that I can add to this post that I’m forgetting, but I’d like to close it with one final thing.
When I pray at night, I am usually exhibiting OCD tendencies and, before I pray, I’m usually nervous and actually disgusted to pray. I usually don’t want to. Now, I just tell myself that the reason I don’t want to pray is because “I’ll just be a jerk and say something rude and then I’ll have to be superstitious”. But I realized that this might not be true. I thought about when I had actually escaped my OCD some of the time, and realized that at night and in the morning, when I almost always pray (at least now that I’ve become OCD), I actually didn’t want to take the time to pray. Maybe it was because I had just gotten off my OCD, and I was still a bit fried? But still, what if I am secretly a jerk who doesn’t want to take the time to pray in the morning and at night? And when I was younger (and non-OCD) I rarely prayed. Now I’m seriously getting scared that all this might just be out of greediness. The next paragraph describes a similar scenario.