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Hey y'all, I've been noticing a lot of people on here are religious. It's been years since I've been religious myself, and I'm just curious as to whether it helps and how it helps with OCD.

Our quest for certainty in the universe demonstrates our intrinsic recognition of a source or entity that possesses Absolute Knowledge, often referred to as The All-Knowing or Allah (God in Arabic). When we cease our pursuit of identifying this source of certainty and instead embrace uncertainty, we are, in essence, submitting to this deity—known as God, Allah, Elohim, and by other names. This submission is an acknowledgment of the existence of a deity that holds the Absolute Truth with certainty. May we all find healing through our submission to The One Source of Truth, whom we call God or Allah

I started seeing every little thing as a sin. Or at least things that will bring bad karma. Everything, even little things like listening to music or enjoying a meal. In my eyes, everything everyone is doing is mostly sins and it terrifies me to death. It scares me to the point of paralysis and I can’t even do anything anymore because everything is a sin in my eyes. I’ll definitely spiral if I think about it more, but if I don’t, I feel like I’m lying to myself. I don’t even have confidence that this is OCD anymore. What if I’m right (I’m not necessarily wrong according to my religious doctrines, not that I’m a 100% sure) and nothings going to help me, not even therapy? And if most things humans do are sins anyway, what’s the point of anything? (See how it starts relating to an existential crisis) I’m terrified that no one’s gonna be able to help me anymore. I feel like I’m at wits ends. I don’t practice Christianity btw. Any insights or even “me too”s would help.

Does anyone else feel like they think these horrible things on there own or on purpose. I feel like I'm intentionally trying to hurt god and the holy Spirit now and idk what to do. I feel like I'm becoming my worst fear. Idk what to do I feel like I'm losing touch with myself and idk what to do. And I'm really worried God is going to turn his face from me or I'm going to do something I am going to regret. I'm not really sure whats happening to me, but I'm scared I'm going crazy.

Hello everyone! I'm from Bangladesh and I'm 22 years old. I'm a Muslim. And I've been dealing with this religious ocd issue for almost 2 years now. And my issue is about modesty. So there's a term called hijab(head covering)in my religion and I've always seen woman wearing it and I've always known that it was an obligation but I wasn't bothered by it because I knew my intentions weren't bad. But one day while I was sitting in my prayers matt a thought came that "I don't wear hijab and I'm doing sin". It came just one fo a sudden and point to be noted is before having this thought I was actually having some continuous argument on this topic with some of my friends. So after that thought I went mad and I started to research online a lottttttttt, I mean I used to invest 24 hours, I even used to calculate while I would be sleeping. So at one moment I fought out it wasn't an obligation and I was relieved but then the issue arrised that "maybe my intentions are bad behind wearing any outfit, maybe I wear outfits to attract boys and maybe I wear them only for boys" this kind of thoughts. So the issue becomes even more complicated when I try to say "no I don't want to look pretty in front of boys at all" and this is a total contradiction kind of thinking because I do wear and go Infront of people either they are boy or girl to look good, so I can't really say that I don't want to look good in front of boys but when I include boys into this, this is very triggering and sounds really bad. Then I found a scholar who said that "A woman would wear something to show it, and this is very normal" so after hearing this my anxiety went off but then it shifted to something else. So one day I was looking in the mirror and was trying to sit with cross legged to see how I look. And one of a sudden I felt like I'm an arrogant person and by sitting cross legged I'm trying to show my superiority. And arrogance is a hugeeee sin in islam , people with an atom of arrogant can't go to heaven. So it was extremely suffocating and anxious. I would search online that "how we can tell if someone is arrogant?", "If a girl sits with legs crossed are they arrogant?" And this kinda questions and many answer would even say that "Yes they're arrogant" so it is even more triggering. Then I had even removed one of my pictures in Facebook where I was standing with a cross legged pose and it triggered me. And I actually make stories in my head from my childhood. For example"I'm crying to death in real by imagining someone really close to me died but in real they are alive, I'll put myself in many characters in those imagination like Maybe I'm a very successful woman and I've many servants in my home lol." So I'm the arrogant phase this "imagination" started to work like poisen if I imagine myself as an successful woman who is so rich , I would see myself treating so badly the poor people and with the servants and to lower my anxiety I would even try to act extra nicely with those people in my imagination. And me sitting with cross legged actually had a reason like I want to look confidence, bold, strong, someone you know valuable. So there is a mixture or something there which I actually want and that looks so much like arrogance. And I've struggled a lotttt in this theme then idk how it just turned of and while I was researching a lot another theme came which was "what if my religion is not correct? What if there's no God? And how I would even know ever that God is real or my religion is real?, Did the prophets really ever exist?" And yeah nobody can find the truth because for sure I can't go back to the past to see what was real and god wouldn't come to earth to make me understand that he is real. So I started to reaseaoto prove I'm in the right religion and this kinda things. And at one point it was soooo terrible that at one side my faith is shaken and at another side I used to find myself seeking forgiveness even in my sleep. It was this huge. I used to face a lot of anxiety while talking to someone from a different faith than mine. I remember one day a girl of my class came to me who was a Hindu and was talking to me and inside I was continuously calculating "Why im Muslim and she is Hindu? No no I'm in the right religion, there's nothing to worry" this kinda thoughts. And I even used to have some disturbing images and words for Allah while praying. And idk how I calculated and this theme had stopped. But I'm still stuck on my modesty issue. This is the only theme I've now. I've searched a lot and I've known Allah haven't prescribed any specific dress code for woman but woman should be just modest. So everything is fine but I doubt my intentions a lotttt!!! I feel like there's a huge mess in my intentions. And maybe I only want boys attention and I can't even deny that, but if I'm not denying that, that doesn't mean I want that. So this is sooo confusing. And my modesty matter is not only about me being sinful but it is also about myself that I don't want to be that kind of person who is always thinking about boys and boys! I don't want to. I have seen many girls saying that they wear for themselves and this really makes me sad, I mean I used to consider myself like them as well but now I don't have the courage or confidence. And many times I won't even believe it is ocd, I feel like it is a message from Allah to change me because how bad I've been in my whole life. And i would even be afraid to look good Infront of someone I like. As if I'm such a characterless person. And some scenes from my past events would come related to my modesty like in 2013 I was 10 years old so I just randomly had liked someone and I scene is being replied that "how had I flipped my hair in front of them?" It feels very lousy as if my act was very seductive or something bad. And I wish it was false, I just wish. And as I said I make stories in my head I also make stories with those I have ever liked like celebrity, someone from my region or friend and would create romantic scenes. So now this also make me realize that I actually wear or talk or whatever I do in front of boys it is to provoke them sexually and I just seduce them and my intentions are bad. And there are days when I wouldn't feel any anxiety and that is also scary as if I don't have ocd and everything is real. And sometimes I even feel afraid to be cured from ocd because then everything would be on me and I'll actually be responsible for bad acts. And I've not taken any medicine or therapy or anything, I had went to a counselling session in Bangladesh but it was such a worst experience. And I actually found out it was ocd through myself actually and the doctor also had confirmed that I've ocd. And another thing I forgot to tell is that I've also been suffering from panic attacks for the last 6 years now. In my whole Religious ocd Allah feels very contradictory to me. As if what I want Allah doesn't want that and what Allah wants I don't want that. And the second one is so bad to even think I mean I'm nobody to say I don't like it. May Allah forgives. Thank you so much for your time and sorry for this long text. I'm really struggling!

Anyone else have a hard time discerning conviction vs OCD? Been in a relationship with someone for 2 months now. We’re both believers in Christ and are active in our communities. It started off with me experiencing relationship OCD where I was struggling with doubts of my attraction towards my partner but now I’ve started to wonder if God doesn’t want me in this relationship. I’ve recently been having thoughts that I’m disobeying God and that all of this is happening as a result of me ignoring him. I’m having a hard time understanding whether I’m intentionally ignoring a conviction or if OCD is the culprit. This sucks, haha.

I was talking with a relative. We were discussing our commonalities. Im muslim revert samd my familys christians. My brother was talking about God being a father and as muslīs we dont believe that. I didnt correct him and just let him talk. But i didnt want to create arguement but i worry should i have corrected or educated him becsuse they dont know that.

TW: Mentions of pornography To start off, I won’t get into all of the reasons, however I am personally against pornography, especially in a relationship (these reasons are not related to my OCD). I am single and have found this boundary very hard to navigate especially in the current dating scene and it has caused me a lot of distress. I am extremely ashamed to admit it, but a few days ago I viewed something online intentionally and immediately felt so much guilt and regret for doing so, I am absolutely disgusted with myself and I feel like such a fraud in my beliefs. How can I ever expect to find someone who matches these standards if I can’t even myself? I feel so hopeless and angry with myself. I know that I messed up and the fault is 100% on me, but it is taking such a toll on me. It’s all I can think about really, everything in my day to day life reminds me of this issue and the guilt and disgust I feel for abandoning my values like that just stings. I can’t enjoy doing anything these last few days and I feel especially hopeless in my future dating prospects, an issue that normally bothers me anyways. I want to be able to move past these negative feelings and forgive myself however I feel as though I don’t deserve it at all, I am very lost on what to do and am just stuck in this endless loop of thinking.

I feel like i am fighting against God all the time and that He is against me. It’s painful because i love Jesus and want to serve Him. Can anyone relate? I don’t want to fight against God, i want His will to be done. I want to walk in the freedom that God has given us in Christ. I know there is nothing wrong with skateboarding or taking care of my body. These are the themes i tend to struggle with. I guess this is just scrupulosity but i still feel like i am rebelling against God and He doesn’t want me to enjoy these things. Life is more than this. It’s about serving God and others. Just struggling and want to overcome. To have a good relationship with God instead of feeling like this all the time.

For people who are religious. How do u meditate on the Bible to counteract negative thoughts and feelings, because I feelike the negativity is winning and like the truth of the Bible is not sinking into my heart.

I love and believe in Jesus. I always have believed in Jesus. I don’t know why my thoughts are saying that I don’t believe anymore. I think it might be because I feel like I’m so close to a breakthrough from OCD and spiritual warfare, but I have no idea. I feel like God is going to deliver me soon, so the devil has been attacking me more. I don’t know, but I seriously am so scared. If you’re a Christian, please give me advice.

Hello, I want to share my ocd story as I’m struggling with it severely right now. I was a very anxious child, when I was nine I started to have intrusive thoughts/fear/theme that I was somehow “pregnant”. Now this was concerning because I was nine..and a virgin CLEARLY. I hadn’t even gotten my period. The reason this scared me so much is that because i was a virgin, I was afraid if I was pregnant and the baby came, no one would believe me and everyone would hate me. When I was 13 this soon transitioned to being the same fear only this time because I had my period I was afraid that I either got gr@ped in my sleep, or somehow sp3rm was on the toilet seat and it well yk. However, none of this made any sense and I made myself sick worrying about it. My ocd would take a turn when I developed emotophobia, the intense fear of vomit and vomiting and so alot of my intrusive thoughts regarded vomit. As I got older they would switch and I was ALWAYS under some sort of stress. That’s when things got worse, I’m also diagnosed with anxiety so all the therapists were just treating me for anxiety but the main cause of this anxiety despite other things, is my ocd. I started to have “religious” ocd, as I consider myself a Christian and it’s a big part of my life, doing compulsions like “read that verse again, you messed up” ect. Which consumed a lot of my life. Here’s where things get hard to talk about, I started having what they call moral ocd? I was at least 15? And I thought my life was over, now the thing is when I was a kid I was messed with once, which gave me a lot of anxiety over the years and I didn’t end up telling anyone till I was older, I thought it was my fault. So I know that I would never, ever want somebody else to go through something so horrific. This fear eventually subsided, until this past year. When I was sixteen, my boyfriend sa’d me and I didn’t really have time to realize what had happened. We broke up right after which hurt a lot but I was relieved. Ever since then I was always very cautious about people, I knew what that felt like, so much shame, and not feeling like you can do anything about it. Eventually I started to get that moral ocd back, things like “what if I’m attracted to so and so” a family member ect. This would repulse me. I also watched a lot of true crime which didn’t help anything, this caused me to develop pocd/moral ocd. Now, I feel trapped I feel like I’m not at all what my intrusive thoughts say, I would never do them, and I want to isolate from EVERYONE. I feel like I don’t deserve to be here, I feel ashamed like God is ashamed of me and I have just cried and cried. I really need some encouragement or at least advice.

Hey guys lol So the longer I’ve been in OCD therapy, the more my meds have helped quiet my mind: I realize how many things I have been doing that was compulsive that I didn’t realize was compulsive. And for some reason I felt like those compulsions helped me to feel closer to God. Like felt closer to my values. And now that I’m recognizing what I’m was doing and now that my medicine has helped create space between my thoughts and what to do next, I feel like fear was what helped me be close my values? Can anyone else relate? Or does anyone have tips on how to still feel close to your values with the absence of so much fear and paranoia caused from OCD?

i am a christian. i am constantly terrified of offending God and going to hell. i love God so much but this so scary. i feel like a really bad person. i have to pray in specific ways at specific times of the day in a specific order and sometimes it feels like a chore. i feel so bad about this. the reason i became a christian in the first place was mostly out of fear. i feel so bad admitting all of this but i really need help. i wanna continue being a christian i think but it’s all so scary and stressful. praying has become a compulsion, i feel like a terrible person with every sin, and it’s so exhausting. also, i’m a lesbian and i’m so scared God will send me to hell for that. i can’t change my identity. i’ve tried, but i just can’t like boys. i’m so scared and sad and terrified and stressed. i have no clue what to do.

How do I not allow my ocd to steal the joy out of all of my most joyful moments right now. I know I should pray more for God to help me see the good and peace these amazing situations bring, but I just can’t get this pit out of my stomach. I get angry easily and have a short temper, I hate it. My boyfriend has been so patient with me but although he says it’s okay and he understands it’s still something I don’t want him to be on the receiving end of… Please help. Any and all advice is appreciated, please be nice💕

I constantly think that if I don't pray to God to protect everyone everyday that something bad will happen because I didn't ask to be protected. It's tiring and it sucks. ☹️

Lately, I've been listening to black metal and death metal, and I really enjoy it. However, a voice inside me says that through these songs, satanic or malevolent musicians are casting spells on the listeners. I feel like I shouldn't listen to these songs because if something bad happens to me or my loved ones because of these spells, I will be responsible. Sometimes, I feel guilty when I listen to these songs, and as I mentioned, I think that the people who create these songs are casting spells on the listeners through them.

I pray not to see sixes. Today at the grocery store as she was totalling up my groceries, I asked God to not have it be 6's specifically 3 of them in a row. But really don't want to see any. The bill was 10.66. So I decided to do erp with 6's but all kinds of bad thoughts and other things came up on the search along with 3 6's. I'm so scared. What if I'm cursed with badness from all of these 6's coming up?

I just started high school and my OCD is horrible. It was bad the couple weeks leading up to it but now it’s even worse. All of the stress triggered my pure OCD and now my brain is believing that I am evil. And now whenever I try to pray I feel I can’t. Then when I try to use ERP, it just feels like I am going against God by saying maybe I’ll letting evil in.

A couple of months ago, I was unofficially diagnosed with OCD. It's been one of the hardest silent struggles of my life. Prior to that "diagnosis", I had been struggling with severe intrusive thoughts and religious anxiety that interfered with practically everything I tried to do. I don't even remember what brought it on, it's like a switch was flipped one day. It rapidly got worse and I did nothing about it. I was raised by a hyper-religious mother which definitely contributed/still contributes to the fears that I hold, but it was so bad to the point where I wouldn't even allow myself to be happy and partake in my hobbies anymore (simple things like writing, drawing, listening to music, watching anime) out of fear that I'd be cast into Hell. And because of how ridiculous it sounded out loud, I confined my worries strictly to internet searches, and for a very long time I never let anybody know what was going on in my head. I've struggled with picking at my own skin for as long as I can remember. Even when I was in middle school, I remember sitting in class and picking at my fingers until they were raw and started to bleed. It was something I became incredibly insecure about, and other kids would obviously take the opportunity to tease me about it. For a while, I'll be doing alright, and my hands will start to look okay, but then I'll go back to picking them without even realizing I'm doing it. On top of that, I can't touch anything without feeling incredibly grossed out afterwards. Even my own belongings make me want to rinse my hands off, not even just once but multiple times afterwards, and I've had dry hands for years because of it. My showers are around 30 minutes to an hour, which has led to some conflict in my house as of late due to a spike in the water bill. It's also because I have the habit of washing clothes excessively. I don't know how to explain the feeling of constantly being filthy, and I know it doesn't excuse the amount of water being wasted. My intrusive thoughts led me to doing ridiculous things that had absolutely no correlation to the fear, and I got rid of a lot of valuable things I held dear to me simply because I felt like I had no other choice. When I finally worked up the courage to confide in some of my friends, they encouraged me to bring it up with a professional. I expressed concerns about not just OCD but also autism due to my own concerns about the social interactions I'd have with others. I decided that I'd talk to a therapist about OCD, but before that, I brought it up to my guardian who used to work with other kids who suffered from mental health issues. Both the autism and the OCD was immediately shut down, and I was told that if I really had OCD, "The house wouldn't look the way it does." So I never brought it up to him again, and I still haven't, even though I've technically been "diagnosed" by the therapist I'm seeing. I went to my mother and she outright denied that I had it, told me to just pray it away as if I haven't already tried. I genuinely don't know what else could be wrong with me. I just feel crazy, and I'm not sure if this "diagnosis" I got is even valid. Not to imply that I don't trust my therapist, but I'm still just conflicted about this whole thing. I almost want it to be OCD badly, just for the sake of having some sort of explanation and knowing what steps to take next. But if it's not OCD, then I'll feel as lost and confused as I was before I caught onto the symptoms. I just want somebody in my life to take me seriously when I tell them these things are going on.