Religious OCD and the Obstacles it Creates in Regard to Seeking Help (Long topic – sorry, but if you struggle with Religious OCD or Scrupulosity I urge you to read on.) It’s easy for me to write about this topic because in my past I was very adept at putting up obstacles in regard to seeking help for my OCD. I’m reminded of a quote from Walt Kelley’s Pogo when I recall how hard it was for me to get over all the barriers to recovery that the disorder created: “We have seen the enemy and he is us!” The number one obstacle that a person with my type of OCD, (Pure O) deals with is that for many of us we don’t even realize that what is wrong with us actually has a label. The compulsions of Pure O – OCD are mostly carried out within the closed quarters of our mind in the form of rumination and mental argumentation. But they are still considered compulsions, so in the end Pure O isn’t only about obsessing it also has its own type of compulsions. Some other types of Pure O compulsions include things like; research, reassurance seeking, (wanting reassurance is what drives the research) and avoidance. But these aren’t usually recognized as the classic symptoms of OCD because they don’t fit the stereotype of OCD that most people have. (I have OCD: I’m not a neat freak, I don’t have ordering compulsions, I’m just fine with a lack of symmetry, I don’t check appliances and I don’t wash my hands every five minutes.) Thankfully, my “research” in regard to my Religious OCD led me to a site about OCD without my ever having to type the letters O. C. D. into the search engine. The words I’d typed in to the search engine were; “doubting your salvation” and I was completely confused when a forum on OCD popped up after I hit the enter key. After reading post after post of people who seemed to have gained access to my innermost thoughts as well as my innermost feelings I finally had an answer for what ailed me. It was so strange to read sentence after sentence written by a bunch of people I’d never met that were nearly verbatim to the thoughts which had been plaguing me day in and day out. I remember having this Roberta Flack song going through my mind while I was reading only I’d changed a couple words so that it said: “They write as if they know me in all my dark despair” and “they’re writing my pain with their fingers, writing my life with their words.” My cluelessness in regard to my own condition was one of the motivating factors in my choice to share my story in a book. If I’m not willing to talk about my experience others might not ever know how they can be helped. Yet, even after I understood that I had Pure O – OCD I still struggled in regard to seeking help. The main reason I struggled was because at the time I was struggling with obsessional themes which centered on and threatened my faith. (At least it FELT like my faith was threatened.) I was really afraid that if I sought professional help that I would be demonstrating that indeed I had no faith at all. I remembered one time in my past when I’d struggled with “religious themes” that I’d asked my Pastor for reassurance in regard to them and it hadn’t helped me one bit even though before the mental war began I’d have taken comfort in everything he’d said. Because of that I didn’t even bother approaching another Pastor about it when it came back again. I also had this intense fear that if the psychologist was a secular one that they might try and talk me out of my faith. I figured it might go something like this: “You don’t need to worry about any of this! It’s your religion that has you all tied up in knots. See how bad it is for you? If you just let go of all this ridiculous mumbo jumbo you’ll be better off.” I was so afraid that they might say something to reinforce all those intrusive/unwanted thoughts that it might push me directly over the edge into total unbelief and I’d be lost forever. Then, when I saw my GP and the idea of medication was introduced I thought that taking meds. might also be an indicator that I couldn’t trust God to help me with my problem. I didn’t want to do even the tiniest little thing that might make it seem like I didn’t have any faith. I also worried that the medication my numb my mind to the doubts and questions to the point where I stopped trying to be absolutely one hundred percent certain that I was indeed saved. I began to wonder if I should see a Christian psychologist, but then I started to worry that since they would know what it meant to be a real Christian that their diagnosis might not turn out to have anything to do with OCD. I thought they might end up saying; “you don’t have any kind of mental disorder you’re just an unbeliever.” UGH!! How could I run that risk! I felt stuck in regards to getting any help because I was sure that the help might end up confirming that I was an unbeliever or worse yet an atheist. It seemed easier to go on in my unrelenting cycle of doubt, fear and compulsions than to try and find out if maybe I could be helped. That’s what OCD can do to you. It just paralyzes you with fear and that paralysis will often keep you from seeking out the proper help even when you understand logically that that is exactly what you need to do. It’s not easy to find the proper help for Pure O – OCD. You really have to have the right kind of specialist. You can’t settle for someone who hasn’t had any experience in treating this form of OCD and you especially need to find a psychologist who is adept in using Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy to guide their patients toward managing the obsessional themes. A lot of Christian’s who suffer with OCD will just insist that they can only see a Christian psychologist, and that’s all well and good so long as that doctor has a good deal of expertise in treating this form of OCD. In the end it’s really no different than if you had a serious heart condition that required a skilled heart surgeon. Would you pick a doctor to operate on your heart who had very little experience just because he or she was a Christian over a doctor who wasn’t a Christian but had performed the heart surgery you needed numerous times with great success? I know which one I’d pick just as I know which psychologist I’d pick too. The doctors who specialize in treating this form of OCD aren’t going to try and talk you out of your faith any more than they’d tell you to give up on being a parent because you are struggling with Harm OCD or to quit going out in public because you are afraid you’ll be contaminated by germs. They will do the exact opposite of that by encouraging you to actively expose yourself to the very things that trigger the obsessions. So instead of telling you to stop going to church and to stop reading your Bible they will insist that in order to get better you will need to keep on doing those things. Pressing through these obstacles in order to obtain professional help with Pure O – OCD is crucial for anyone who is greatly debilitated by it. If I was going to a doctor who was a Christian but wasn’t helping me manage the disorder properly, I’d have to look for a new one, even if that meant going to someone who wasn’t a Christian. In a way doing having the courage to visit the secular psychologist is even more beneficial in regard to exposing yourself to the fears that Religious OCD creates. It means that you aren’t going to let OCD bully you around anymore and that’s often the very first step toward getting better.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 22:12:32 +0000
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