So worried

[Yogi89]

I have been procrastinating going to confession. I think it’s been about 3 years! I have not taken Eucharist either because I haven’t been. Please don’t judge me, I just am so worried. This happens to me when I wait this long, which is my fault. When I went to confession before, I would make it more regular and it was so easy for me to go. I have some ocd/scrupulosity, but I have improved dramatically. However, when it comes to confession, my scrupulosity comes back. A lot of my sins I feel deep down were not mortal, because I was not aware of them at the time. But, they are mortal sins (for example - sexual thoughts - I used to intentionally have them), but I never knew it was a mortal sin and once I knew I stopped having them. Same with other sins from
The past. I just never felt comfortable taking Eucharist until I confessed though, and the last time I went to confession I did confess a lot (it was also a face to face confession). But, the priest felt that some thoughts I didn’t want them, and I don’t know if I did at the time when I had the thought - I feel like I did. That’s where my scrupulosity comes in, because I felt my confession was invalid. This is what holds me back from going… I’m worried I will forget something. I do just want focus on the mortal sins, but I am worried I will find something else after confession and then feel it was invalid. I am also scared to confess everything. I feel so sad as I am furthering my relationship with Jesus, and confession is on my mind a lot. I want to go sooo bad. I plan to make an appointment with a priest, I just hope I will make it very soon and go. Please pray for me!!

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

I have been procrastinating going to confession. I think it’s been about 3 years! I have not taken Eucharist either because I haven’t been. Please don’t judge me, I just am so worried. This happens to me when I wait this long, which is my fault. When I went to confession before, I would make it more regular and it was so easy for me to go. I have some ocd/scrupulosity, but I have improved dramatically. However, when it comes to confession, my scrupulosity comes back. A lot of my sins I feel deep down were not mortal, because I was not aware of them at the time. But, they are mortal sins (for example - sexual thoughts - I used to intentionally have them), but I never knew it was a mortal sin and once I knew I stopped having them. Same with other sins from
The past. I just never felt comfortable taking Eucharist until I confessed though, and the last time I went to confession I did confess a lot (it was also a face to face confession). But, the priest felt that some thoughts I didn’t want them, and I don’t know if I did at the time when I had the thought - I feel like I did. That’s where my scrupulosity comes in, because I felt my confession was invalid. This is what holds me back from going… I’m worried I will forget something. I do just want focus on the mortal sins, but I am worried I will find something else after confession and then feel it was invalid. I am also scared to confess everything. I feel so sad as I am furthering my relationship with Jesus, and confession is on my mind a lot. I want to go sooo bad. I plan to make an appointment with a priest, I just hope I will make it very soon and go. Please pray for me!!

Your confession is not invalid if you forget to confess something, and then remember it afterwards. I know how you feel, though. My religious OCD nags at me a lot about sins I forgot while confessing. You just have to practice serenity - don’t go out of your way to mull over the validity of your confession, and if you forget something, mention it the next time you go.

 

[Yogi89]

Your confession is not invalid if you forget to confess something, and then remember it afterwards. I know how you feel, though. My religious OCD nags at me a lot about sins I forgot while confessing. You just have to practice serenity - don’t go out of your way to mull over the validity of your confession, and if you forget something, mention it the next time you go.

Thank you! Its also hard for me to confess all these sins at once. I know priests have heard a lot, but I still feel ashamed and/or embarrassed confessing them, especially when I have a lot to confess. But, I have to just force myself.

 

[AmericanFighter]

I have been procrastinating going to confession. I think it’s been about 3 years! I have not taken Eucharist either because I haven’t been. Please don’t judge me, I just am so worried. This happens to me when I wait this long, which is my fault. When I went to confession before, I would make it more regular and it was so easy for me to go. I have some ocd/scrupulosity, but I have improved dramatically. However, when it comes to confession, my scrupulosity comes back. A lot of my sins I feel deep down were not mortal, because I was not aware of them at the time. But, they are mortal sins (for example - sexual thoughts - I used to intentionally have them), but I never knew it was a mortal sin and once I knew I stopped having them. Same with other sins from
The past. I just never felt comfortable taking Eucharist until I confessed though, and the last time I went to confession I did confess a lot (it was also a face to face confession). But, the priest felt that some thoughts I didn’t want them, and I don’t know if I did at the time when I had the thought - I feel like I did. That’s where my scrupulosity comes in, because I felt my confession was invalid. This is what holds me back from going… I’m worried I will forget something. I do just want focus on the mortal sins, but I am worried I will find something else after confession and then feel it was invalid. I am also scared to confess everything. I feel so sad as I am furthering my relationship with Jesus, and confession is on my mind a lot. I want to go sooo bad. I plan to make an appointment with a priest, I just hope I will make it very soon and go. Please pray for me!!

I understand. I am not OCD but there are times I had gon to confession then thought “did I really make an honest confession?” I put off confession for about 4 months once I entered the seminary because of the shame I felt and I didn’t want to have anyone think less of me.
However it was Saint John of the Cross and Saint Francis De Sales that brought me back on the right path.

What you are going through is not abnormal. In fact it could be thought of as a good thing as it is a challenge you are facing because of your spiritual growth. John of the Cross speaks of spiritual growth as Nights. A person journeys through these nights in their search for union with God and through each night there is a purification and change. John of the Cross describes many vices we will have to face along the way. This sounds like the vice of pride for someone begging on their journey. Someone who is not embarking on this journey would not experience these difficulties. What you are doing is not good to be doing and you need to stop but the fact you have these feelings means you are growing.

John of the Cross talks about beginners on the journey and said the vice of pride will hinder their confessions Saint Francis de sales has similar things to say as well. They say beginners will fear confession because their pride makes them feel so much shame because they assert they should no better and are embarrassed. This is you pride speaking as your pride refuses to let you realize your not perfect, and tells you your too good to fail. remember your only human a flawed being. Don’t let your pride keep you from confession. I know it did me but not anymore. Pride can also make you without realizing it cast yourself in a positive light to your confession where you justify and make excuses instead of accuse.

Here is my advice:
set up an appointment with a priest for confession. Setting the appointment will give you an obligation to someone to show up. If you say you are going to go during regular confession times you will always come up with some excuses and go I’ll catch it next time but you never do.
The night before sit down think long and hard about all you have done write it down. Also write out what you plan to say and read it to be sure you are accusing not justifying or casting in a positive light or Lessing the grave nature. There is a big difference between:

I had a moment of weakness and did a stupid thing because I felt stressed and had sexual fantasies for pleasure and stress relief and I won’t do it again.

As opposed to

I have sinned. Under stress and frustration I buckled and fell into unclean sexual fantasies. There is no excuse for my actions I know what I did was wrong. I do not do it now and moving forward I will try my best to not sin again.

You may be scared that you will look like a bad person but you are a good person and it is the ones that don’t go to confession that should be worried.

Believe me you will feel so much greater after an honest confession and have a clear conscience.

 

[Yogi89]

I understand. I am not OCD but there are times I had gon to confession then thought “did I really make an honest confession?” I put off confession for about 4 months once I entered the seminary because of the shame I felt and I didn’t want to have anyone think less of me.
However it was Saint John of the Cross and Saint Francis De Sales that brought me back on the right path.

What you are going through is not abnormal. In fact it could be thought of as a good thing as it is a challenge you are facing because of your spiritual growth. John of the Cross speaks of spiritual growth as Nights. A person journeys through these nights in their search for union with God and through each night there is a purification and change. John of the Cross describes many vices we will have to face along the way. This sounds like the vice of pride for someone begging on their journey. Someone who is not embarking on this journey would not experience these difficulties. What you are doing is not good to be doing and you need to stop but the fact you have these feelings means you are growing.

John of the Cross talks about beginners on the journey and said the vice of pride will hinder their confessions Saint Francis de sales has similar things to say as well. They say beginners will fear confession because their pride makes them feel so much shame because they assert they should no better and are embarrassed. This is you pride speaking as your pride refuses to let you realize your not perfect, and tells you your too good to fail. remember your only human a flawed being. Don’t let your pride keep you from confession. I know it did me but not anymore. Pride can also make you without realizing it cast yourself in a positive light to your confession where you justify and make excuses instead of accuse.

Here is my advice:
set up an appointment with a priest for confession. Setting the appointment will give you an obligation to someone to show up. If you say you are going to go during regular confession times you will always come up with some excuses and go I’ll catch it next time but you never do.
The night before sit down think long and hard about all you have done write it down. Also write out what you plan to say and read it to be sure you are accusing not justifying or casting in a positive light or Lessing the grave nature. There is a big difference between:

I had a moment of weakness and did a stupid thing because I felt stressed and had sexual fantasies for pleasure and stress relief and I won’t do it again.

As opposed to

I have sinned. Under stress and frustration I buckled and fell into unclean sexual fantasies. There is no excuse for my actions I know what I did was wrong. I do not do it now and moving forward I will try my best to not sin again.

You may be scared that you will look like a bad person but you are a good person and it is the ones that don’t go to confession that should be worried.

Believe me you will feel so much greater after an honest confession and have a clear conscience.

Thank you so much for the encouragement. I agree that It is important to have a very honest confession.

 

[St_Francis]

First, you only have to confess number and kind: I shoplifted five times; I coveted a friend’s belonging every day for several weeks; etc. Anything which made the sinnworse should also be included: I shoplifted 5 times and I talked my friend into it once.

Second, trust the priest. It is his job to elicit information so as to have clarity when he absolves you and to offer some advice. If he said it sounded like youndid not consent to sin mortally, he is probably right. And if he is wrong in his assessment, it doesn’t matter, because as long as you have made a good confession (telling him all the grave sins that you remember, not deliberately leaving any out), your sins are absolved.

Here is a note I keep because I found it helpful and post it from time to time:

Quadrupani note

God is not trying to trick you. Think of the teachings of the Church as an owner’s manual rather than an IRS tax code

Here is an article which talks about temptation pretty thoroughly. He mentions but doe not emphasize as much as I once would have needed, that if we do not give in to the temptations, we have not sinned. No matter how strong the temptation is, no matter how long it lingers, how many times it returns to us, if we do not give in, we have not sinned. The quote I was actually looking for when I found this. . .

Which I have finally found!

The more persistent the temptation, the clearer it is that you have not given consent to it. “It is a good sign,” says St. Francis de Sales, “when the tempter makes so much noise and commotion outside of the will, for it shows that he is not within.” An enemy does not besiege a fortress that is already in his power, and the more obstinate the attack, the more certain We may be that our resistance continues.

1. Your fears lead you to believe you are defeated at the very moment you are gaining the victory. This comes from the fact that you confound feeling with consent, and, mistaking a passive condition of the imagination for an act of the will, you consider that you have yielded to the temptation because you felt it keenly.
   From *Light and Peace * by Fr. Quadrupani

This is a great book and pretty short! And can also be found in audio at Librivox.​

 

[TwoNames]

I have been procrastinating going to confession. I think it’s been about 3 years! I have not taken Eucharist either because I haven’t been. Please don’t judge me, I just am so worried. This happens to me when I wait this long, which is my fault. When I went to confession before, I would make it more regular and it was so easy for me to go. I have some ocd/scrupulosity, but I have improved dramatically. However, when it comes to confession, my scrupulosity comes back. A lot of my sins I feel deep down were not mortal, because I was not aware of them at the time. But, they are mortal sins (for example - sexual thoughts - I used to intentionally have them), but I never knew it was a mortal sin and once I knew I stopped having them. Same with other sins from
The past. I just never felt comfortable taking Eucharist until I confessed though, and the last time I went to confession I did confess a lot (it was also a face to face confession). But, the priest felt that some thoughts I didn’t want them, and I don’t know if I did at the time when I had the thought - I feel like I did. That’s where my scrupulosity comes in, because I felt my confession was invalid. This is what holds me back from going… I’m worried I will forget something. I do just want focus on the mortal sins, but I am worried I will find something else after confession and then feel it was invalid. I am also scared to confess everything. I feel so sad as I am furthering my relationship with Jesus, and confession is on my mind a lot. I want to go sooo bad. I plan to make an appointment with a priest, I just hope I will make it very soon and go. Please pray for me!!

Dear Yogi!

I suffer from a really really bad (OCD) scrupulosity as well - even my psychiatrist was amazed that I was not hospitalized when I urgently came to visit him, after 1 year of what I am confident to say that it was and is and ever will be the worst year of my life. To let you know how bad it was - I started having false memories. Confessing stuff that I was 99% sure it did not happen, but because I could not prove it to myself, I confessed some really really bad stuff. I had a whole drawer of my confession notes (everything had to be written in a precise -word to word- manner). And everything even darker than it was, just to be sure. I was unable to throw away any of the notes, because those were my only proof that something was confessed in a sufficient way - or if it was confessed at all. I kept remembering my past sins. Repeating confessions (general confession (that took even an hour to complete) more than once a week).

I have since then improved to the point that I am happy again and can see the nonsense of many things that I was worried about.

Please listen to this audiobook: youtube.com/watch?v=4l1Hu-jhXuk

Also, what happened to me was to realizing that I was making my OCD worse and worse by constantly exploring if I confessed something and asking reassurance.

Please first (before the audiobook maybe) check out this youtube.com/watch?v=oy-mM9fG6e4

This girl speaking knows what OCD is and knows how to treat, and it works. In fact. You will see that the Church used exactly the same techniques for centuries. The video I sent you is precisely about religious OCD (Scrupulosity), but I listen to every talk of her, where she anwsers questions, beucase OCD is OCD… just the theme in our case is religion.

Please, feel free to contact me my brother. I know your suffering. You don’t have to suffer. It’s not what God wants of you. He may have other crosses for you, but definetly he doesn’t want you to carry a cross of doubt in his mercy and validity of the sacraments He established.

Just private message me and I will share my email with you, so we can talk.

God bless you. Don’t worry.

 

[Wesrock]

Forgetting mortal sins doesn’t invalidate a Confession. Only making an explicit, conscious choice to withhold confessing mortal sins does. A slip of the mind, a trick of the subconscious, etc… doesn’t invalidate.

Please go to Confession, and also let yoyr priest know of your scrupulosity. Then be at peace.