- Date posted
- 2d
Am I a bad person?
First, this is my first post. I am new here. I just had my first meeting with a therapist here. I was watching a video on the NOCD podcast and Dr McGrath mentioned how the idea that being a bad person or rather the uncertainty around it, is foundational to OCD. Speaking for myself, this is absolutely true. I was always a good kid. I was always the “nice” boy. And I had no reason to doubt it. The first time I had a negative and dark intrusive thought about a person, it was horrifying and completely counter factual to who I thought I was. Everything became proof that the nice boy image was a lie. The fact that I kept this to myself instead of talking about it to people who love me is proof that I don’t really love them and worse despise them. During this podcast when the doc spoke about this, I had a memory and a connection I made that I had not made before prior to this. I remembered that a possible source of this anxiety and uncertainty was taught to me by the Christian church at least within the circles I was a part of. One of the concepts that was taught almost on a daily basis was that we are fundamentally wretched human beings. Absolute sinners. Born as enemies of God. Deserving of death. This is the framing for talking about giving your life to Jesus. That if you are - genuinely - repentant, you will be saved from eternal torture. What does it mean to be “genuine”?? There can never be any certainty around something as subjective as that! This idea stuck with me and fed into my OCD over the years. I had just forgotten that it started in church.