Hi there, MTCatholicKid.
I’m 24 and filling out an application to the seminary now. I can tell you that I personally would have been able to write the very same post that you did a few years ago.
I have throughout my life struggled with OCD. I used to have it really badly, until I became a person of faith. At that point I realized that it was all nonsense and basically superstition. God was in charge, so I didn’t have to worry about that stuff.
However, the OCD really didn’t go away so much as morph into a religious sort of OCD. Instead of worrying about doing the things I’d been worried about before, now I was worried about sin and asking for mercy literally at least twice every minute. I had an evnil thought of some kind or other go through my mind, again literally, every 10 or 15 seconds. It was horrible!
The reason I’m telling you this is because with lots of work on it, asking questions as often as I could or felt the need about what was a sin, what wasn’t, etc., with lots of Confession and Communion, and ultimately with lots of events and circumstances in my life that I never would have associated with God in any way whatsoever and 90% of which I today still don’t even recognize as being anything other than day to day happenings, God brought me out of those things.
I used to worry a lot about how I might be a priest with all these problems, so I know how you are feeling. What I can tell you is that you are only 18. When I experienced these things I was 21 and 22, maybe even 23. It takes time, and maybe it even takes plain old fashioned getting older and the physiological changes and life experience that come with it, but the stuff will go away, or become very managable, if you never give up.
That’s really the greatest thing. Just never give up. God is God, after all. He will bring you through your problems to salvation for sure, and if He’s called you to be a priest then of course He’ll sure as heck give you whatever you need to go ahead and do that.
Fell free to PM me if you’d like. I’d also really suggest you do find a good solid priest to help you in whatever way they can. Just try not to expect a priest to give you some magic advice or formula that fixes all your problems just like that. Like every thing in the spiritual life, it takes time, and that time is the time that God - for whatever particular reason in any particular case - chooses for it to happen in.
So, pray to God that you’ll find that right priest, lay person, book, or anything else that’ll bring you to where He wants you, and stick with Him. He’ll take care of you. Remember how much more valuable you are than a sparrow…
