# Suffering a lot with OCD



## Gattuso (Feb 19, 2018)

I suffer with religious OCD for a long time. But I wasn't so religious, only recently I started to take religious more serious, and, it seems, my OCD is worst than never.

I think sometimes that it's a kind of spiritual warfare...

It comes in two forms: vows - I feel an urge to make a vow of something, and sometimes, in my mind, a made the vow aloud, so I start to think about (it is like a compulsion, checking compulsion).ar

The other form is fear to blaspheme. I am very worried to commit an unpardonable blaspheme, paradoxically this makes me with a strong desire to do it. When I am anxious or nervous, the desire is stronger.

Today, I was feeling particularly happy. I was taking a coffee, and I start to thought that maybe I should make a vow because I should do something because my life was good, a vow of professed poverty. Yes, I know that Westminster says those vows are sin, null and do not pleasant to Our Lord. But the OCD makes me think that, mainly because I know that I could not keep a vow like that. 

I started to worry if I made the vow aloud. If I said "I swear". I start to try to check... Since "I swear' in Portuguese is "(Eu) juro", I start to test if I could had said without notice. I start to say "Eu ja" (because I would not test with "Eu ju", because maybe I could be making an oath with this. But I perceived that "Ja" is a form to say the name of God, and I started to use another syllabe... But I said after "Ja", for some reason. And I don't know exactly what I was saying before... I was saying or "Jiro", or "Jiri", or "Gero", something like that. So I started to worry, thinking what I could be saying. In my mind, I started to think that maybe I said something bad before... And even started to remember saying those things. 

I went to a swimming class after that, and maybe the nervous, maybe the
Chlorine, I start to feel a strong burning in my stomach. At the same time, I was trying to check what I could have said, and start to become angrier. And I started to be afraid if I could blaspheme or curse while I was feeling that pain (wasn't so strong, but it's the OCD...) And I am thinking now if I made those things or not... If I said that I wasn't any more to the swimming class, making a vow...


Sorry to bother you with my story, I know that it's something crazy and poorly written (I don't speak English very well), but I am so sad with that...

Reactions: Praying 2


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## a mere housewife (Feb 19, 2018)

Dear Gattuso,

I'm so sorry you are suffering with this. Have you been able to see a doctor and get medical help for it? There are brain chemical issues in something like this that really can be somewhat alleviated with medicine -- and some kinds of therapy (behavioural modification therapy) are especially effective.

Please know that God's grace is bigger than the sins you are worried about. The thing to do is not to try to figure out if you've committed them -- but just to dump your worries in *HIS* hands. Let Him sort them out. Christ said that He would never for any reason cast out those who come to him. You don't have to come 'just so' and say or feel exactly the right thing. He repented perfectly for us; he prays perfectly for us; he hopes and trusts perfectly for us. Even if we come faltering and worried, He will not cast us out. 

Think of the Israelites painting the blood up over their doorposts the night the angel of death passed over the land in Exodus. Some of them in their houses may have been stricken with fear. Maybe some of them had OCD and were worrying if they had committed the unpardonable sin! But that blood was over the door and they were safe, no matter how they felt. Just ask Jesus to cover your sins with His blood.

And then distract yourself. Think about something else. Read a book, play a game, engage your mind in something different. That really is the best thing you can do here. You can't untangle this by delving further in. Leave the sin and fear of it with Jesus -- He can handle it! -- and you can be free to do something else.

Reactions: Like 1 | Edifying 2


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## py3ak (Feb 20, 2018)

Gattuso said:


> I think sometimes that it's a kind of spiritual warfare...



You are right about that. The obsessive temptation to blasphemy is a dreadful trial. I think the real point of it is not so much to tempt you to say particular words, as to lure you away from trusting in Christ, depending on his righteousness rather than your own, and serving him gladly. The circumstances that allow this temptation can hopefully be changed; but in the meantime, ask God for grace to reject these suggested thoughts and be glad that Jesus Christ is in heaven to defend you from accusations made against you by answering your deepest guilt with the worth of his own blood (1 John 2:1-2).

Here are some thoughts from Martin Luther about this subject:

But what I am saying regarding the more flagrant temptations of sexual desire, anger, etc., applies also to the temptation of blasphemy. Satan is so successful in disguising himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) and into the image of God that he entices us away from prayer and the Word and then attacks and overpowers us in our nude and helpless condition.
And when he has succeeded in tempting us with blasphemous thoughts, he immediately raises the charge against us: “Just see what kind of heart you have! Are you not a sinner?” This our heart must, of course, grant. But then he draws the conclusion: “Is it not true, therefore, that God is angry with you? How can He feel otherwise toward sin?” If you yield to this charge in the slightest degree, Satan will completely overpower you. Truly, Satan has murdered many a Christian with this form of attack.
Therefore one must exercise control in order to be able to resist the enemy and to be assured that God knows one’s weakness and that God is not offended as long as one does not give way to the temptation. That you are a sinner and that you humbly confess yourself to be a sinner—such humiliation before God pleases Him. He Himself enjoined it through Moses and the prophets and revealed His Law to us in order in this way to bring us down to our knees.
But all temptations which Satan employs in order to drive one to despair or to cause one to disdain and blaspheme God must be regarded as merely sufferings but not as ultimate realities due to divine judgment. When, for instance, a son is chastened by his father, he does not look upon the rod as a symbol of disinheritance. Even though the rod causes pain, he is persuaded that his father is still his father and will continue to be his father. Again, a person afflicted with a serious disease bans from his mind the thought of disease and looks and hopes for recovery.
Therefore such thoughts of blasphemy are indeed terrifying. But they are nevertheless good, provided that one controls them and uses them to one’s advantage. They include those “sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26) which “pierce the clouds” (Ecclus. 35:21) and, as it were, compel the Divine Majesty to forgive and to save.​

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 13: Selected Psalms II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 13 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 109–110.

Reactions: Like 1 | Edifying 2


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## Reformed Covenanter (Feb 20, 2018)

Gattuso,

My brother suffers from severe OCD, so I can empathise with your situation. I pray that you will be given the grace to cope in the time of need.


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