Living with a mental health condition can affect every part of your day-to-day life. It can creep into your relationships, your job or school, your hobbies, and even your religion. One mental health condition in particular, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), can make you feel as if you’re going against your faith. If you’re a Christian with OCD, you may have a hard time managing your symptoms while maintaining your values.
Here’s a deeper look into how OCD symptoms can impact your religion and what you can do to get help.
Experiencing intrusive thoughts that are tied to your religion?
What is scrupulosity OCD?
OCD is a treatable mental health condition characterized by a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts, feelings, urges, and/or images that cause fear and anxiety. Compulsions are repetitive physical or mental behaviors performed to relieve the distress caused by obsessions, and/or to prevent a fear from coming true in real life.
When OCD and Christianity (or any religion) intertwine, this is known as scrupulosity OCD or religious OCD. This OCD subtype “centers around religion, faith, morals, or ethics,” says Patrick McGrath, PhD, Chief Clinical Officer at NOCD. “There’s a lot of fear about if you’ve done something wrong and if you’ll go to hell for it.”
As a Christian, you may experience OCD symptoms tied to fears that you’re going against your religion. You may think things like “‘Will God be mad at me if I say a prayer wrong? What if I violate a commandment? What if I have a thought that I think might be impure or blasphemous?’” says Dr. McGrath.
Common obsessions of Christianity OCD
As a Christian with OCD, your obsessions may revolve around your religion’s beliefs, teachings, or rules. Here are some examples of Christianity-related obsessive thoughts:
- When I pray, I don’t feel connected to Christ. What if this means I don’t believe in my faith?
- What if I have committed the unpardonable sin?
- I have bad thoughts about others, which is as bad as doing bad things.
- What if I have sinned and I don’t remember?
- I may be practicing my faith in the wrong way.
- I have done things outside of my church’s tradition. Am I going to suffer as a result?
- I don’t like all of my fellow churchgoers. Am I unloving?
- If I find reading the Bible boring, I’m not invested in my faith.
Common compulsions of Christianity OCD
Many people with scrupulosity OCD may also perform compulsions to get rid of intrusive thoughts. Below are common compulsions for Christians:
- Excessive displays of devotion.
- Checking for specific feelings to ensure a genuine connection to faith.
- Avoidance of people, places, and things that could create doubt.
- Reassurance-seeking using religious texts, spiritual advisors, family members, etc.
- Engaging in penitence rituals aimed at cleansing a contaminated soul.
- Excessive prayer.
- Excessively avoiding anything that triggers unwanted thoughts that may run contrary to Christian beliefs.
- Avoiding religious practice or reminders of religion due to the fear of being triggered.
- Mental rituals, including monitoring for evidence of sin or blasphemy.
- Excessive religious practices, such as feeling the need to attend multiple Bible studies per week.
- Focusing on one area of religious practice, such as praying in a certain way, rather than building a more holistic practice.
- Demand for certainty, such as asking spiritual leaders for black-and-white answers rather than accepting gray areas.
Are my intrusive thoughts sins?
No, not at all. Intrusive thoughts are very complex and can occur because of OCD, past trauma, your upbringing, or anxiety. The core values of Christianity you uphold every day would be at odds with condemning you for having intrusive thoughts. Instead, they would guide you to seek help for your symptoms.
Does God forgive intrusive thoughts?
Intrusive thoughts are not a sin, so there isn’t a need for forgiveness for having them. Intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic, meaning they typically go against your core values—including those that align with your Christian values.
We understand OCD—even the most taboo and stigmatized symptoms
How can I tell the difference between OCD-related fears and wrestling with my faith?
Sometimes, it can be hard to decipher between OCD-related fears and when you’re actually struggling with your Christian faith. The major difference between the two is finding the answer or certainty to your concerns.
“You wouldn’t see obsessions or compulsions in somebody wrestling with their faith, as they usually find the answer to what they’re seeking,” says Dr. McGrath. “For example, they may go to different churches or denominations and find comfort.”
This is the complete opposite of OCD. “No matter where people with OCD go to find an answer, they aren’t going to find comfort—they’re going to find more doubt and insecurity,” says Dr. McGrath.
And just so you know, it is completely normal to wrestle with your faith as a Christian. This could mean you’re struggling to understand God and his ways or come to terms with what he expects of you. However, it is part of your journey in growing in your faith and gaining more clarity about your purpose in life.
Find the right OCD therapist for you
All our therapists are licensed and trained in exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), the gold standard treatment for OCD.
How therapy can help you overcome your fears
If your OCD is impeding your faith, consider going to therapy. The gold standard treatment for scrupulosity OCD—or any subtype for that matter—is exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. ERP includes two parts: carefully and slowly confronting your intrusive thoughts (exposures) and using response prevention techniques to resist the urge to respond to unwanted thoughts. The goal of ERP is to break the OCD cycle and learn to accept and sit with distress and anxiety.
Dr. McGrath provides an example of an ERP exercise for Christianity OCD: “Let’s say someone thinks that if they goof up a word in the prayer that they have to keep saying it over and over again until they get it just right,” he explains. “I might have them say the prayer, leave the mistake, and not redo it.”
Sticking with therapy can help you get OCD under control and strengthen your faith as a Christian. “Our goal in working with people who have scrupulosity OCD is to get them to live in their faith the way the vast majority of people with that faith live in it,” says Dr. McGrath.
Overcoming OCD as a Christian can be challenging, but it is not impossible. Working with an ERP therapist specializing in scrupulosity OCD can help you manage your religious obsessions and compulsions. Seeking treatment for religion-related OCD symptoms can also bring about a renewed relationship with your faith—one that’s rooted in strength, peace, and hope, rather than fear.