Things that have helped the scrupulous

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Kathrin

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I keep remembering that one sentence somebody here wrote once:
“You won’t go to hell over a technicality.”

Maybe other people who struggle with scrupulosity want to share things that have helped them too?

Kathrin
 
quote: Kathrin
I keep remembering that one sentence somebody here wrote once:
“You won’t go to hell over a technicality.”

Maybe other people who struggle with scrupulosity want to share things that have helped them too?
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An interesting topic, Kathrin.

I see scrupulosity as an opportunity to develop radical trust in God.

The way that Peter had radical trust that His Lord would uphold him -
as Peter walked toward Him, over the waters.
Peter only began to sink, when he took His eyes off Jesus, and saw what was under his feet.
No solid ground - No way to gain purchase.

oneyearbibleimages.com/jesus_rescues_peter.jpg

In an instant, human - wholly self-reliance - was seen to be the
folly that it is.

A person who does not live with scrupulosity runs the risk of thinking
that they “earn” salvation through their religious exercises - thereby
losing sight of the fact that Jesus saves. An attitude of “I’ve kept my
part of the bargain, God. Now’s the time to whisk me into heaven -
You keeping Your part of the deal. I kept the faith, I attended Mass,
I kept the Holy Days of Obligation, and my sins were small.”

A person who suffers the hellish experience of scrupulosity is not
subject to this particular temptation. Each, who suffers in this way,
has to extend God radical trust - in His will to save.
To gently coax their eyes off of self, and the self’s fears of damnation,
and to look for - and to grab hold of, God’s hand.

Just my thought.

reen12
 
Salvation isn’t like writing a computer program, or putting together a complicated piece of machinery. According to the Baltimore Catechism, God created us to know, love, and serve him in this life so that we may be happy with him forever in the next. Those three things- just try to do them as best you can, and you’ll make it.

Before you can serve someone with sincerity, you have to love them. Before you can love them, you have to get to know them. You get to know them by spending time with them- and learning what you can about them. In our relationship with God, this means spending lots of time in prayer and reading spiritual books (including scripture) and apologetics/theology books so that we learn what we can about the Church.

We have to receive the Sacraments frequently, and make the corporal and spiritual works of mercy part of our everyday lives. It isn’t about checking things off of a list- it is about acting on the God-given desire to grow in love for him and to do his will as best we can- and to take advantage of the resources he gives us (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, the Sacraments, etc.). We have a responsibility to be as holy as we can be- and we must ask for God’s grace to become more holy- to resist sin, and to grow in virtue and piety.

Some quick tips for those who are scrupulous:
  • If you have made a sincere act of contrition at your last confession, don’t worry about whatever it is that is troubling you.
  • If you forget something- don’t worry about it
  • Find a good confessor and go to him regularly- tell him that you have problems with scrupulosity. If you cannot find a good confessor, God will send you one- pray about it.
  • Remember that for a sin to be mortal, it must involve willfully turning against God’s will in regards to a grave matter.
  • Don’t confess things “just to be sure”- I’ve heard that advice given many times and it is horrible advice for someone who is scrupulous. If you KNOW something is grave matter and you fully consented to it (meaning you were awake, aware of what you were doing and that it was grave matter, had the opportunity to prevent it and refused that opportunity), confess it. If you don’t, then it wasn’t that time because you didn’t have full knowledge- don’t worry about it.
 
I also want to mention “Scrupulous Anonymous” with their ten commandments for the scrupulous.🙂
 
I was part of this forum quite a while ago, but I left one day and I’m back for this one post.

I have a problem with obsessive and very frequent confessions. I either have symptoms of OCD, suffer from anxiety or am very scrupulous.

This went on for a of couple years and was at the point where I was going to confession daily, sometimes twice a day…it was not working for me and it was not doing me any good. I was miserable.

I finally went to my family Doctor and told him what was going on and although I was really embarrassed…my Doctor took me very seriously.

My Doctor put me on medication and I thought about going to see a therapist…but decided not to.

You know what? The medication is working big time.

My confessions eased off slowly, went to weekly confessions and I have now gone 2 weeks without confession and without the horrible anxiety I used to feel. I cannot tell you the last time that I went 2 weeks between confessions and I cannot tell you the last time that I have not racked my mind thinking of all the bad things I may or may not have done.

I also realize that I cannot frequent this forum or any Christian forums, as all of the debate about sin, theology etc…causes nothing but anxiety and stress for me.

Scrupulous anonymous and the 10 commandments of the scrupulous and all of the news letters are a great help.

Fighting the urge to go to confession helps, but I couldn’t fight the urge before medication…now I fight the urge and I recognize that the anxiety will pass shortly.

Understanding that I do not have any control over random thoughts that pop into my head and that they mean nothing at all about me as a person and they do not represent any desires within me.

I posted this because, well, maybe it will help someone.

For me, going to the Doctor and getting put on medication has helped me beyond anything I ever expected in dealing with obsessive confessions and anxiety over sin.

Best of luck to you all…I hope this helps someone.
 
Thank you so much for posting this!🙂

It really has been shown that OCD is a physiological problem in the brain. Medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy are the things that seem to really really work!

Coming to a point where you can wait out the anxiety and realize it passes without you doing a compulsion… wow, the relief that coems then is much greater than the short-term compulsion-induced relief.

Where I still have a lot of problems sometimes is where there are kind of borderline questions… where I am not sure if this is now already obsessive or maybe not… and since I take my faith very seriously this is often the case with scrupulous questions.

Kathrin
 
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