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Author: Carrie Bock

Carrie Bock is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Smyrna, TN who helps people get to a deeper level of healing without compromising their faith. She specializes in working with Christians struggling with OCD who have also experienced childhood trauma, providing intensive therapy for individuals who want to heal at a faster pace than traditional therapy.

150. Five Reasons You’re Not Progressing in Your OCD Recovery

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie dives into why you might feel stuck in your OCD recovery and shares powerful strategies to help you break through those barriers and make real progress. 

Episode Highlights:

  • How past experiences and mental health challenges can affect your progress.
  • The role of hopelessness in hindering progress and how to overcome it.
  • How stress management plays a crucial role in OCD recovery.
  • Why trauma can be a major obstacle in your OCD journey.
  • The importance of having the right tools to manage obsessions and compulsions.

Episode Summary:

I’m Carrie Bock, your host, a Christ-follower, wife, mother, and licensed professional counselor who helps Christians navigating OCD find healing and peace.

Have you ever found yourself thinking, Why does it feel like I’m stuck in my OCD recovery? Maybe you’re feeling like you just can’t get ahead, like things should be progressing, but they aren’t. Well, I’ve got you covered.

Today, we’re talking about five reasons why you might be feeling this way.

Reason 1: Hopelessness is Blocking Your Progress.
You might be feeling like there’s no way out, like it’s all too much, and that maybe nothing will work for you. I’ve seen this come up so often in my intensive therapy sessions. It’s normal to feel skeptical if you’ve tried a bunch of things that haven’t worked. But I want you to know something: you can get better. The work we’re doing today is advancing, and we have better tools than ever to help people manage OCD in a more Christ-centered way. The healing God has for you might look different than what you expect, but it’s still available.

Sometimes, the healing you’re asking for might not be what God is offering. Maybe you’re hoping for complete freedom from OCD, but what God wants for you is healing in your heart, teaching you how to trust, persevere, and grow stronger in Him. Don’t give up. Healing can come in many forms.

Reason 2: Stress is Unmanaged.
Let’s face it—life is stressful. Work, relationships, kids, family… It can all feel like a lot. And if you don’t have the right tools to manage that stress, it can fuel your OCD. I’ve talked about this before, and it’s so true: Stress makes OCD worse. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you have to prioritize taking care of yourself—physically, mentally, and spiritually. Stress management might look like saying “no” to some things, setting healthy boundaries, and making time for self-care.

To hear the rest of the reasons and how to overcome them, be sure to tune in to the full episode!

Let’s keep moving forward together. And as always, I’m here to walk with you on this journey of healing and restoration in Christ.

Explore Related Episode:

124. What to do When Compulsions Become Habits and Routines

Transcript

Episode 150. Have you ever wondered why you feel stuck? You feel like you can’t get ahead in your OCD recovery and you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, what is the problem? So I’m going to give you five reasons why today.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Just so you know, we are going to be off for Thanksgiving next week. So we hope that you have an amazing Thanksgiving with your family. You won’t see an episode come out from us. What you will see is an amazing flash sale coming out via email. If you want to be a part of that and get the biggest discount you’re going to see on our January launch of Christians Learning ICBT, you can do that by signing up for our email list, carriebock.com/ocd. One thing that we know about OCD is that it’s a chronic condition that waxes and wanes, typically due to stress. People will tell me, I had years where I wasn’t severely bothered by OCD, or at least it was at some type of manageable level where I could handle it. Then, something hit me, I got triggered one day, next thing you know, I’m down the rabbit hole, and now it’s really hard for me to manage my symptoms.

Obviously, this is very frustrating, because you’re thinking, how did I go through this period of my life and I was doing okay, and then I get to this period and things feel completely unmanageable, and you may feel like, well, I should be able to handle this. If that’s you, just know you’re not the only person who’s felt that way.

Sometimes you need different tools for different seasons of your life. That’s reality. Maybe you’ve done a round of ERP before, and things were flowing really well. And then when you started to have more mental compulsions, you found that some of the things you were doing before with ERP, you weren’t able to apply to your present situation, or you’re struggling with knowing how to apply what you learned in the past to your current symptoms.

One reason you may not be progressing with OCD recovery is you feel hopeless. You may feel like, there’s no way I’m going to get any better. And when we tell ourselves that, it blocks our progress, it blocks our ability to open up our mind and think about potentials. Think about creativity with small ways we could make changes, different types of help or treatment that we could get if we are completely closed off saying, no, I’m just probably going to be this way my whole life.

I’m never going to get better. I’m just going to continue to suffer. And I guess I’ll just have to deal with it and figure it out. I would say if you are experiencing this, I don’t blame you because you probably have tried many different things in the past. It’s interesting since I’ve been doing these intensive therapy sessions, one thing that usually shows up in the very beginning of a multi-day intensive is hopelessness.

Even a one day intensive people will say, I am coming in. I’m nervous because I don’t know how this is gonna go, and I don’t know if it’s actually gonna work for me or not. I can almost predict that people are going to say something similar to that and I’ve just started letting people know that’s completely normal.

If you feel like you’ve tried a lot of things that haven’t worked and then I’m asking you to try something new, of course you’re going to be skeptical and maybe feeling hopeless that it might not work. The reality is that we are learning new ways of helping people and growing in clinical skills every day.

We have different options. You can get better. You can have a better relationship with your OCD than you do right now. Will it go away completely? I don’t know. Only God knows that. It may not go away completely, but you can learn tools to manage it differently. And I really hope that you will join me in January on that journey.

I’m a firm believer that if you are not dead, that God is not done working in your life. God is the author of all healing. Sometimes we look for complete healing and our idea of healing is not necessarily the same healing that God wants to give us. Let me explain. You may want to be healed of the disorder when God wants to remove the shame.

You may want to never have an intrusive thought again when what God wants for you is to learn perseverance and strength under trial. You may want to never have to wrestle with a compulsion again, and God may be calling you to a place of greater dependence and trust in Him. Through learning the twelve modules of ICBT, I would love to have you there as a student just soaking in information, working on homework worksheets, and applying those principles to your life.

The second reason you may not be progressing in your OCD recovery is that your stress isn’t managed well. Maybe you just have a lot going on, a lot of moving pieces, whether that’s work stress, whether that’s home or relationship stress. Whether that’s stress with your children, I don’t know what your particular stress is, but if you don’t have the tools or the boundaries or the ability to calm yourself down, to be able to relax and be able to decompress when you need to, you’re going to continue to struggle with OCD.

I had An entire episode on this talking about how your stress is going to make OCD worse every single time. Stress is important to manage regardless of what mental health issue you’re dealing with, but especially with OCD, you have to have skills and tools and a plan and boundaries and self care to manage your stress.

Otherwise, your symptoms are going to continue to be out of control. And look. Some things are completely outside of our control, related to our stress, there may be other people in your life that are making certain choices that are causing you stress, whether that’s a boss or whether that’s a sibling or whether that’s a coworker or a friend.

And the reality is we have to, in these situations, look at, evaluate, what’s actually in my control about this situation? What can I actually do? Can I evaluate my schedule and determine if I have too much on my plate and see if something needs to come off? Not everything is for this season, so it’s okay to say no, have boundaries, to say, hey, you know what?

I would love to help you in the church nursery, but I just know that I’m having to travel a lot of weekends for work, and so when I’m home, I would like to just be worshipping with my family. I am so sorry that I am not able to help you out in this season, but that may change in a different season. Part of stress management and healthy self care is taking care of your physical body.

You have to be able to make sure that you’re working on things like sleep, eating, exercise, movement. We cannot expect our mental health to be in a good space when our physical health isn’t in a good space. If you were eating junk food all the time or constantly running through the drive thru, that’s gonna affect your gut health, that’s where your serotonin is produced in your gut.

And even though I don’t have specific research to support it, because I’ve looked for that research related to diet and OCD, I have had several clients tell me that their diet makes an impact on their symptoms. Oops. I know when I don’t eat well, I feel lethargic, run down, lacking in energy. When I don’t feel well, that means I’m more impatient with my loved ones.

I’m more quick to anger. I’m not the person that I want to be when I don’t take care of myself. We want to make sure that we’re being good stewards of the body that God has given us. And if you have a lot to work on in this area, it’s okay. Start small. Take it one step at a time. One healthy change is going to lead to another healthy change, to another healthy change, and it’ll just be this beautiful ripple effect.

The third reason you might not be progressing in your OCD recovery is that trauma is in the way. Here’s the deal with trauma and OCD. I mean, I’ve talked about this before on the podcast. If OCD is fire, then trauma is the gasoline. When you take away the gasoline, there still may be some fire, but it’s not going to be raging as intently as it was before.

There are two modules that we look at in ICBT where trauma really shows up. One is the obsessional story of module three, where people will cite personal experience as being relevant to why their obsession is relevant. The second is module four, it’s what we call the feared self. It’s who OCD is telling you that you’re going to become if you don’t engage in these compulsions.

If it doesn’t come out at intake, a lot of times what I see with my clients when we go through modules three and four is that there’s something from the past that they’re stuck on. They may not identify it as like a major traumatic event, But it may have been an intense emotional experience that affected them or something that somebody said.

That really got stuck in their head that they can’t seem to get out. As we unpack those past experiences, it really helps people to have clarity, to be able to move forward. Even something as simple as recognizing I’m not stuck in that past time anymore. I can move forward. I am in a different space in my life.

I’m a different person than who I was in the past. Even just some of those simple things can help people. For situations where there was chronic childhood trauma or a traumatic event that seemed to trigger, OCD symptoms, that is where I will utilize EMDR with individuals to help them clear out that trauma and come to a place of resolution so that they can then jump back in and continue the ICBT work.

This is one of my major criticisms with ERP is that it’s not always trauma informed. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s completely not. Where I’ve seen situations where individuals have been been through ERP and had reported trauma that was never processed or dealt with in any specific way in treatment.

And sometimes going through ERP when people have not dealt with the trauma tends to exacerbate their trauma PTSD symptoms. Remember, we talked about this before, 25 percent of people who qualify for an OCD diagnosis also qualify for a PTSD diagnosis. That’s 1 in 4 people in OCD recovery. If we as the clinicians are not looking at trauma as part of this picture, we are doing you a serious disservice.

I also did a show a while back on being highly sensitive and how that impacts treatment. If you are highly sensitive, you are going to view more things as traumatic than the average person. That’s just the reality, because you’re more sensitive to your emotional experience and empathizing with others, taking things in.

That also has to be taken into consideration. Depending on your situation, if you have a lot of trauma, you may want to pursue trauma treatment prior to pursuing OCD treatment if the person that you’re seeing isn’t able to do both or incorporate those for you. I have to make clinical considerations about this all the time and usually I’ll talk with my clients and help them and we’ll talk through, hey, does this make sense as far as if we go down this pathway and we start with some EMDR, start with some trauma processing.

And then shift over into ICBT, how does that sound to you, or does it sound better to start some ICBT, get some skills under your belt, and then go into some trauma processing, like I said, when we get into modules three and four, it depends on each person’s, like, individual situations. Sometimes if you haven’t had a certain level of OCD treatment, it can get in the way of your ability to process trauma because you’re just going into your head and you don’t have those skills to really be able to sit with your emotional experiences.

If you’re not in touch with your body, you’re not going to be able to process the trauma fully. You may be able to process it from a mental cognitive level, but trauma processing needs to really be a whole body experience. Look at the book The Body Keeps the Score for more information about that. Trauma is really stored in the body.

Number four, you haven’t learned the right tools to manage obsessions and compulsions. This is for my friends who have been in talk therapy, really getting a lot of just reassurance seeking from their therapist, or maybe they’ve had some Christian counseling with someone who has given them the typical Christian tools, like, hey, you’ve got to take every thought captive, or you’ve got to pray about this, you’ve got to learn to let it go and give it to God, These might be some things that would be helpful for if someone doesn’t have OCD, but if you have OCD, you need a specific set of tools to be able to know how to manage obsessions and compulsions as they come up, how to respond to them instead of reacting in that same loop, same cycle over and over and over again.

Some people have tried therapy in the past and felt like it hasn’t worked for them, or Unfortunately, I’ve talked with people that have had negative experiences with therapy. And when you’ve had negative experiences, I feel like it’s about two times as hard to go back and get up and try again. I really want to encourage you, find a therapist you can have a consultation with, whether that’s a short phone call or email exchange or learning what you can about them online.

Reading a blog post, something that they’ve written. That’s one of the beautiful things about this podcast, is that so many people have felt more comfortable about being able to come and see me because they’ve heard my voice, they know how I talk, they know my style and approaches to treatment. I definitely can tell a difference when I’m sitting down with somebody who has listened to the podcast versus just someone that doesn’t have that context or doesn’t know that much about me.

If you don’t feel like you’ve learned the right tools to manage your obsessions and compulsions, please join us in January for Christians Learning ICBT. ICBT is an incredible tool that allows you to see your compulsions as irrelevant. It helps you to slow down your thinking and get in touch with your true identity, not who OCD is telling you you’re going to become.

And that’s the beautiful thing for Christians is that it integrates really well with Christianity. And the fifth reason that you may not be progressing in your OCD recovery is that you’re resistant to trying medication. This is true for many Christians that I’ve talked to, and look, I hear you. I know so many of you want to take a holistic route with your health and not have to be on medication.

I know so many of you feel like you don’t want to be on medication for long term, or you fear becoming dependent on it. I would say that over the past year, I have massively changed my approach to medication when it comes to OCD treatment. Whereas I used to just say, Oh, okay, it’s all right if you don’t want to take medication, let’s try therapy first, see how things go, and then you can reevaluate and determine if you want to get on medication or not.

And now what I’m doing is talking to people in the very first session. about what is your openness or willingness to try medication. Research shows us that people tend to have the best outcomes when they are utilizing medication and therapy together. Oftentimes I will see people who either have one part of the equation but not the other.

They’re willing to do therapy but they’re not sure about medication or they’ve been on medication for a while but they haven’t done therapy and so you need those pieces really to work together. Not to be a pill pusher or cause people to feel like they’re forced to do something, but I do really encourage people that it is so helpful when someone is more at a medically stable, medicated state to learn these skills, to grow, to utilize them, than if they’re constantly having to fight obsessions and compulsions.

And it somewhat depends on the severity, obviously, that someone is dealing with. As I started to see more and more people who were dealing with higher levels of severity, I started to having more conversations initially about medication. If someone comes in and they have more OCD tendencies or they have a mild case of OCD, maybe they’re only dealing with one theme and it’s not affecting their functioning level, then we can say, okay, maybe that person doesn’t necessarily need medication.

But if you’re spending hours a day on your OCD, it’s time to consider medication if you haven’t already, especially if you haven’t made progress in therapy. So keep that in mind. Certainly, talk to a medical provider, get all of your questions answered. Look into the medications that are specifically FDA approved for OCD.

Express your concerns, ask about side effects. It’s important to know that information if you are going to take something. But you also don’t want to let OCD or anxiety about taking medication to keep you from potentially feeling better. We did an episode much earlier on medication. You can always go to our website and search for specific episodes if you go to karybach.

com and under the podcast breakdown page there’s a search bar at the top so if you want to search for specific types of therapy Or you want to search for medication, you want to search sleep, you can pull up episodes via different topics that you search for. I’d love to have you guys utilize that because it’s a great feature that we have.

But just for a quick review, we’re going to go through the five reasons you’re not progressing in your OCD recovery. You feel hopeless, your stress isn’t managed well, trauma is in the way, You haven’t learned the right tools to manage obsessions and compulsions, or you’re resistant to trying medication.

Have an amazing Thanksgiving, and I’ll be back the first week in December to talk about three ways to be mindful this Christmas season. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

149. Writing an Alternative Story to OCD’s Default Narrative with ICBT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie gives you an exclusive sneak peek into the upcoming Christians Learning ICBT live training launching in January. She takes you behind the scenes as she explores the process of writing alternative stories, sharing a personal experience that illustrates how she crafted an obsessional narrative and transformed it into a healthier perspective.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to rewrite your obsessional stories by crafting alternative narratives that empower you to see situations from a different perspective.
  • Practical tools to stay grounded in reality and navigate the uncertainty that OCD often magnifies.
  • Examples of stories including Carrie’s personal experience with a car accident and how she used alternative story to reshape OCD’s narrative. 
  • A sneak peek into the ICBT (Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) training modules, including a breakdown of how they can help you or someone you know struggling with OCD from a Christian perspective.

Episode Summary:

Are you tired of battling OCD? Maybe you’ve tried exposure therapy or sought help from a Christian counselor who didn’t fully understand your struggles. If that’s you, know that I’m here to support you. 

I’m thrilled to announce that starting in January, I’ll be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT, diving into one module each week until the end of March. Can’t make the live sessions? Don’t worry! Everything will be recorded and available in an online course. If you’re even slightly interested, join the waiting list at carriebock.com/ocd.

Now, let’s talk about alternative stories. Often, the narratives we tell ourselves about our obsessions can become our default. The more we dwell on them, the more ingrained they become. But remember, your brain can change! We can rewire those patterns and explore new possibilities instead of just following the old, anxiety-ridden trails.

I’ll be sharing my own obsessional story related to a car accident Steve and I had shortly after buying a new car. While the actual event is true, my initial thoughts were full of obsessional doubts. I questioned whether I was being greedy for buying the car or if it was a sign from God. But after reflecting, I realized these thoughts were rooted in anxiety rather than reality. My faith reminds me that sometimes things happen for reasons we might not understand right away.

Through this training, we’ll learn to identify and replace those obsessional stories with healthier narratives. It’s important to understand that we’re not arguing with OCD but rather acknowledging the uncertainties in life and leaning into our faith.

I’d love for you to join us on this journey of healing and discovery. Let’s create new stories that lead us to peace and freedom from OCD.  Sign up for the waitlist today!

Explore Related Episodes:

148. Your Obsessional Story: Christians Learning ICBT coming Jan 2025! 
133. Looking for an Alternative to ERP? Find out if ICBT is Right for You

Transcript

Episode 149. Last week, I gave you a behind the scenes sneak peek into my self teaching Module 3 for our group this fall, where I taught all 12 modules of ICBT. This is happening again in January, and I want you to get on board. But today, we’re talking about Module 9, which is writing an alternative story to OCD. I can’t wait for you to hear a snippet of this training.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right in to today’s episode. Brothers and sisters in Christ, OCD warriors. Are you sick and tired of fighting with OCD? Have you tried exposure therapy or tried finding counseling from a Christian perspective and just have come up short? I know so many people have told me that they have a Christian counselor, but that person doesn’t know about OCD or they’ve gone to OCD counseling and something just didn’t feel right because the person didn’t understand their faith.

I want you to know that I’m here for you, and that’s why I’m excited to announce that in January, we’re going to be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT. We’ve talked about ICBT in more depth in episode 119 and episode 133. I will be teaching one module per week from mid January to the end of March.

If you can’t make the live trainings, everything’s recorded and put in an online course platform for you to access. If you think you might even slightly be interested, or you’re interested in being interested in finding out more information. Please join our waiting list at kerrybach. com slash OCD. About three fourths of the way down the page, there’s an option for you to put in your name and email address.

The obsessional story does not have to be your default narrative, and you can consider an alternative story. These stories that you’ve been telling yourself have been rolling around in your brain, and like, the more that we focus on them, like, the more that they’ve grown, the more that they’ve solidified, the more that they’ve become a automatic, right?

Your brain can fire very quickly, like with all those neurons kind of wired together related to your OCD. And so much of this process has been slowing down your thought process, really slowing things down to get into like, what is the obsessional story. And so now what we’re trying to do really is rewire that pattern.

And recognize, like, okay, my brain’s default is to go down trail A. And I’m starting to retrain it to go, well, I could go down trail A, and I know where that’s going to lead. That’s going to lead to more compulsions. That’s going to lead to more anxiety. That’s going to lead to being stuck. Or I could, like, go down trail B or C, even.

And recognize, like, maybe this story that I’ve been telling myself isn’t valid. And maybe there’s an alternative story. You’re drawn in with this really believable story. It’s sensational and OCD is causing you to fear you’re going to become this version. You don’t want to be. I don’t want to be that person.

So then I do these compulsions and that obsessional doubt. It comes from the imagination and that makes it irrelevant. Not actually based on sense data of what’s happening right now. And once you cross over into that OCD bubble, remember our little bridge, it’s difficult to get out. It doesn’t feel good in there, but it doesn’t feel good outside of there, and kind of the more like you get sucked in further and further, the harder it is to get out of there.

But we can use that sensory information in the here and now to stay grounded in reality, stay on that, that different side of the bridge or to get out of the OCD bubble. Important things that we need to know that the alternative story is not the following. We’re not trying to argue with your OCD. We’re not trying to say things like, Oh, well, you know, it doesn’t look like I’m going to die because I went to the doctor last week and I got a clean bill of health and they said all my any health conditions are like managed in a healthy way, blah, blah, blah.

We’re not trying to argue back with it. It’s not to be used as a compulsion, so it’s not like, Oh, okay, OCD is telling me this story, and I’m repeating, like, compulsively the alternative story in my head. Not what we want to do there, either. It’s not really a true versus a false story, because sometimes there are uncertainties of life that we have to accept.

We don’t know, sometimes. It’s not a, oh, this is the right story and the OCD is the wrong story, or this is, like, the true narrative and the OCD is completely, like, false. We know OCD, like, the obsessional doubt, right, is based in the imagination. And so in that sense, the obsessional doubt is false and is not relevant.

Here’s what we are trying to do with the obsessional story. We’re trying to dislodge it as a default narrative, just like I was talking about before, where it’s the thing that kind of has made the loop, it’s made the rounds in the brain and like it’s become that well worn neural pathway. So we’re trying to introduce a different neural pathway into the brain so that we can say, You know, like it could be this over here.

What do we think about that? And if we’re talking about possibilities, you know, we also have to talk about if we’re going to say that that’s a possibility, then we have to open up our minds and our ideas to other potential possibilities. It’s a possibility that I could get in a car accident on the way home.

It’s also possible that I could have a normal, everyday life, you know, drive home that happens on a regular basis. You know, takes me about 15 minutes to get home. Could be just completely normal. It could be that there’s an accident on the interstate and it takes me an hour to get home. Like, there’s many different possibilities here.

When you’re writing your alternative story, as you’re going through this process, it’s a tangible OCD thing, it might feel a little bit easier to do that one, but if it feels like, okay, it’s something spiritual, or it’s something more existential, it might be, if you can write like a potentially different alternative of that story, if there’s multiple alternatives, that might be a good process for you.

For this next snippet of the training, I’m going to be going through an obsessional story that I wrote about a car accident that Steve and I got into. You may have noticed last week that when we write obsessional stories, they have reasons for the obsessional doubt. There’s a variety of those in ICBT.

rules, hearsay, personal experience, and all the way down to it’s possible, which is a pretty much catch all category because OCD tells you that anything is possible. We then spend some time examining the obsessional story and then going into the alternative story. Here’s my story about the car accident.

This first part of the story is completely true, and I wrote an obsessional piece about the next part of the story. Steve and I received some money from my parents passing away, and after some consideration, we decided to buy a newer used car. After two years of squeezing a walker, stroller, and other things into a sedan, we decided to look at a Honda CR V.

Everything went smoothly through the selection and buying process until we went out, went to pull out of the dealership lot. A man driving a truck was in a hurry. He thought I had pulled off when I had only slowly moved up to survey the traffic. He accelerated and hit us in the back. This is a now kind of a funny story about being hit on the way out of the dealership, which who does that happen to except for my crazy life.

All right. Here’s my potential obsessional story related to the accident. This part is made up. Surely, this is a sign from God that I was not supposed to buy this vehicle. Maybe I was being greedy in doing so. What if this was a sin, or God is angry at me, or punishing me in some way? There’s a whole lot of things that we could potentially break down there, but I’m going to call that the obsessional doubt.

My treasure should be in heaven according to the Bible rules. I could have spent this money on feeding starving children in Africa. That is a fact. I watched this YouTube video warning against greed and how the wrath of God is going to come on down to Americans. That’s completely made up, but we’ll call that hearsay.

And I shouldn’t have been greedy last week when I ate that piece of pie instead of offering it to my husband. Personal experience, I’m going to repeatedly repent and confess the sin of buying the car and then ruminate about whether I should sell it or not as a sign of true repentance. That’s the compulsions there.

We had gone through the potential obsessional story. These were some things that came out of it. Like felt positive about buying the car. Maybe this was some kind of like vulnerable self, like maybe it was my fault, distrust, a connection with God. And so this was what we had originally wrote, like, something bad happened.

I don’t have any evidence in the present to support this obsessional doubt that I’m a greedy person who shouldn’t have bought this car. I don’t have any spiritual sense data to support that God is upset with me. Like, I’m not sensing anything from the Holy Spirit. In fact, this decision was made prayerfully and carefully.

My recent personal experience of being greedy and the YouTube video is irrelevant to this present moment experience with the car. This is actually this last paragraph here that I’m going to share with you. The next paragraph is actually something, my genuine feelings about the car accident. And. It’s interesting because it’s very vague of like, why does God allow certain things to happen in our life?

Like, I don’t really know, you know, sometimes we don’t always have a clear answer. Sometimes we have the answer when we look backwards like, oh, like, it makes sense that I went through this because then I met that person or like, yeah, why God led me here and then here makes sense. But some things don’t always make sense like that, or we can’t always see it at the time.

I got into a car accident, I’m not really sure why God allowed it to happen right after I bought the car. I wonder if the accident was a wake up call to the guy driving the truck to be more careful. He saw our car seat and recognized that our daughter could have been in the car. This seemed to bother him.

We’re very thankful to God that no one was hurt. In faith, my daughter was not in the car. Maybe it was a reminder to me that my family is much more important than things. Maybe it was an opportunity to show grace to the other driver instead of freaking out on him as he expected us to do. I understand that i’m not going to have all the answers and this gives me the opportunity to trust god in face day by day.

And obviously, you know, this was not a huge issue. Everything got fixed, you know resolved and it’s fine And we didn’t have to pay for it because it wasn’t our fault. But you know when we go through situations in life Um, you may have been through something a lot bigger where you might be questioning like some of these things like why Is God allowing this to happen or you could even be having this thought process maybe about your OCD?

You want to think through like going back to that acceptance piece that we were talking about earlier The piece that I’m having to accept in the uncertainty is I’m not going to have all the answers or I’m not going to understand everything that happens in my life. And that may be something in a mindful space that’s really hard to sit with.

Just like if you’re having an obsession about death, it may be really hard to sit with not knowing when that’s coming. Or if you’re having an obsession about Something spiritual and maybe there are some things that people get stuck on spiritually start obsessing about like Calvinism versus Arminianism is one of them that people can get really stuck on or how do we explain some of these things that happened in the Old Testament where the Israelites were told to wipe other people out?

Like how do we reconcile with our faith and who God is? When you look at all those things, like, there has to be this level of acceptance of faith, and that faith, I like to say, faith requires faith. So, it means that there is some element of trusting God outside of yourself, and that you’re not going to have all of the answers, or understand everything.

I wanted you to hear the connection between the obsessional story, and the alternative story. However, in ICBT, these two are taught weeks apart as the obsessional story is module three and the alternative narrative is module nine. In between, we’re learning a lot more information about how to stay grounded in reality instead of moving towards the imaginary outcomes that OCD is telling you will happen.

I would love, love, love for you to come and join us. There is going to be a huge Black Friday sale on these trainings happening in January from mid January through the end of March. Please go to karybach. com slash OCD to get on the waiting list and you’ll receive all the information about ICBT, these trainings, and the sale.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

148. Your Obsessional Story: Christians Learning ICBT coming Jan 2025! 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie takes you behind the scenes of one of her ICBT training sessions, which she designed specifically for Christians dealing with OCD. She shares a snippet of Module Three, exploring how OCD weaves compelling narratives that can draw you in and offers guidance on rewriting those narratives to gain a deeper understanding of OCD’s mechanisms.

Episode Highlights:

  • The power of stories: How OCD creates vivid, relatable narratives that captivate our attention.
  • The importance of self-awareness in recognizing and rewriting your obsessional story.
  • Common pitfalls of telling ourselves negative stories and the role of shame in our experiences with OCD.
  • Exploring the concept of obsessional doubt through relatable examples.
  • Writing alternative stories as a method for reframing experiences and perceptions.
  • And more about what’s inside the Christians Learning ICBT live training, including practical tools and resources to deepen your understanding and application of these concepts.

Episode Summary:

I’m Carrie Bock—a counselor, Christ follower, wife, and mom. I’m here to help Christians facing OCD find healing through faith. Today, I want to share a bit about my ICBT (Intensive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) training, focusing on Module 3, where we learn to recognize and rewrite those pesky obsessional stories that OCD throws at us.

Feeling Stuck with OCD?

If you’re tired of battling OCD on your own or have tried exposure therapy without much success, I understand! Starting in January, I’m launching a 12-week course where we’ll go through each ICBT module together, wrapping up in March. If you can’t join live, don’t worry—you’ll get access to all the recordings!

Join the Waiting List!

Interested? Sign up for our waiting list at carriebockcom/OCD. Together, we can transform your relationship with OCD in 2025!

Let’s Talk About Stories

We all have narratives that shape our lives, influenced by our past and our beliefs about God. It’s important to ask: Are these stories coming from God or from our fears?

OCD is great at creating emotional stories that can feel very real. Think about how a gripping movie can make you feel intense emotions, even if it’s just a story. That’s how OCD works—it hijacks our thoughts and feelings.

For example, if I tell you about an “amazing” pen found in a sketchy place, your feelings about that pen would change based on the story. This shows how changing our narratives can change our perceptions.

Rewriting Your Obsessional Stories

Today, I’ll help you recognize and reframe those obsessional stories. Instead of getting stuck in doubt, we can challenge those thoughts and find clarity.

Tune in to the full episode to learn practical tips for identifying your obsessional narratives and rewriting them in a way that aligns with the abundant life God wants for you. Let’s start this journey of healing together!

Explore Related Episode:

133. Looking for an Alternative to ERP? Find out if ICBT is Right for You

Transcript

Hello, do you love going behind the scenes? Well, today I am taking you behind the scenes to one of the ICBT training sessions that I did this fall on module three. Module three is all about how OCD draws you in with a really good story and then teaches you how to write your obsessional story to become more aware Of how OCD works and gets you drawn in.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bach. I’m a Christ follower wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christian struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD. God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Brothers and sisters in Christ, OCD warriors. Are you sick and tired of fighting with OCD? Have you tried exposure therapy or tried finding counseling from a Christian perspective and just have come up short? I know so many people have told me that they have a Christian counselor but that person doesn’t know about OCD or they’ve gone to OCD counseling and something just didn’t feel right because the person didn’t understand their faith.

I want you to know that I’m here for you, and that’s why I’m excited to announce that in January, we’re going to be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT. We talked about ICBT in more depth in episode 119 and episode 133. I will be teaching one module per week from mid January to the end of March. If you can’t make the live trainings, everything’s recorded and put in an online course platform for you to access.

If you think you might even slightly be interested, or you’re interested in being interested in finding out more information. Please join our waiting list at kerrybach. com slash OCD. About three fourths of the way down the page, there’s an option for you to put in your name and email address. Let me help you have a different relationship with OCD in 2025.

Today we’re talking about stories, the obsessional story. As I started to think about this obsessional story process, I thought, we tell ourselves stories all the time, right? And it’s not always an OCD story. We go through life, we have experiences, and we interpret them, and we tell ourself a story based on our past experience, based on other things that we’ve heard, based on what we know about God and scripture.

It’s not just about OCD. It is, that’s what we’re here to talk about and have a better relationship with, but just noticing, like, When you have experiences, what are you telling yourself? Are you telling yourself the shoulds? I should have done better, known better, been better, whatever. Are you telling yourself, yeah, you know, you should have expected that to happen because it happened in the past?

Uh, you know, a trauma story of, yep, you know, there you go again, experiencing this. Just kind of be aware of that. So, you are, as a Christian, tasked with not trusting everything that you see or hear, but really testing and seeing, is this coming from God or is this from falsehood? So, our main ideas are that OCD draws you in with a good storyline.

And that awareness of that storyline is the first step to changing it. I like to say that OCD has like these lifetime movie versions that they tell you. It’s so vivid. Sometimes you can see it happening. There’s a lot of intense emotions that goes along with it. Just thinking about stories in general, I put this little Incredible Hulk guy on here.

They draw us in with a certain level of emotion. Stories are believable or relatable. Even though we’ve never seen a guy turn into this giant green man and start destroying something. We feel related to this story because we’ve all had anger in our lives. Maybe we’ve been destructive at different points and he doesn’t want this to happen.

It just is something that kind of takes over him and happens. So even though you look at Marvel comics and things, there’s lots of stuff happening or people being able to control time or see all of the outcomes, right? That’s one of the characters, I guess, can see all the potential outcomes that could happen and people are flying and different things happening, but they’re, it.

Some of the core storylines, the characters, we really relate to them, we feel for them. I wasn’t really into a whole lot of these movies, and I went with one of my friends, and people were just, like, wanting to go see Endgame, and people were just crying in the theater, right? Like, these are characters, you know, they’re not real, but we are drawn in and we feel something, and that’s what makes a good story, right?

Like, that’s a really good story that draws you in. There’s some kind of outcome or ending to them. So there are some factual elements that can be woven in even to OCD stories. All right, now for a story about my pen. This is a pen that I have in my office. It’s a purple pen. I like the color purple. So let’s say that if you were in the office and I was like, Hey, do you want to write with this pen?

You probably would say, Sure, why not? Like, I don’t know, it looks like a good pen, it clicks, it works, you know, I’ll tell you, yeah, it writes really well, I like it. So you probably would feel okay with this pen, unless you like had major contamination and you were like, no, I don’t touch other people’s stuff, that type of stuff, and then you might be like, I’m not sure about that.

But if I could tell you a story about this pen, where And I said, yeah, this is a really great pen and I want to tell you the story of how I got this pen. I mean, I didn’t just get this pen at the store. I was out in, you know, the park and there was a pile of dog poop and I noticed this pin sticking out and I thought, oh, that pen looks like it would write really good if I cleaned it up or hey, my favorite color is purple.

I think i’ll take that pen and I took it out of the dog poop and I washed it off and I Clorox wiped. It’s fine. Everything’s good. It’s all right. Like I mean, what’s the problem? Do you notice feeling any differently about wanting to hold the pen now versus when I first started talking to you about it?

Most people, when I tell them the story, are then like, Oh, that’s gross. Like I’m not touching that pen. You know, who does that? But the point is, what changed? Did the pen actually change, or did we just change the story about the pen? And then when we changed the story about the pen, that caused us to feel differently about it.

Not only your five senses, which do get distrusted at times in OCD, but internal sense data. What do you really want? And how do you know that? Like, I can say, just random example, like, I really want pizza for dinner. Like, how do I know that? I’ve been just craving pizza, I like pizza, whatever. I’m just making stuff up as we go along, right?

But really being able to tune into your own emotional experience or your own desires is really important. I’ve talked to people before OCD will make you feel like you have an urge to do something but an internal like urge or pull towards something is not the same thing as a desire is actually wanting to do that.

So that may be something that you have to tease out in your own story and then what you actually value or believe. Jenny’s obsessional story goes like this. My husband didn’t kiss me this morning before he left for work. That is a true statement. That did really happen to her. But now this obsessional doubt injures then, what if he has fallen out of love with me?

I mean, Sally is going through a divorce right now and her husband just left her out of nowhere. That’s the hearsay evidence. Just because it happened to Sally doesn’t mean it’ll happen to Jenny. But that’s what OCD wants her to believe that it will. My ex boyfriend did something similar. Personal experience.

OCD feels like it’s really like, hey, I’ve really got some evidence here for you. I read an article about how if your man doesn’t kiss you before you leave the house, that is one sign he’s out the door. He could be cheating on me. It’s possible. Now we’ve got like, you know, almost like another obsessional doubt coming in there, right?

Like, oh, what if he’s cheating? People leave and get divorces all the time. Yeah, I really can’t argue with that fact. Um, What if I’m next? I couldn’t handle it. Consequences of obsessional doubt. This piece, like, of not being able to handle it, that kind of dips the toe into the water of the feared self theme.

You may be saying, like, Oh, well, that’s a nice story carry. Now what do I do with it? Just remember that you’re still in the phases of building awareness. We’re not necessarily intervening right now, but if you can intervene, or you may pick up on like, oh, now that I pick up on that OCD, I’m not gonna give into it as much as I would have before.

I’m not gonna entertain it like I would have in the past. So just kind of be aware of that piece coming down the pike. All right, talking about having a shameful thought, maybe it’s a sexual or blasphemy thought, and then like, oh, that goes into, I shouldn’t be having this as a Christian. What does this mean?

What if this means I’m not a good Christian or don’t love God? And I think I stuck with the don’t love God, because obviously some of these could be going a lot of different directions, right? And then these are some of the things that I’m, the potential consequences that I’m calling myself. What if I don’t love God?

Well, not everyone does. That’s a fact. Rules, you know, take your thoughts captive. Watch the things that come into your mind that you think about. Lots of information on that in various places. Spiritual guidance, pastors, teachers, authors, podcasts, so much, so much information out there now. Personal experience of maybe what a former church taught and then anything possible according to OCD.

So let’s look at this obsessional story. So I have these intrusive sexual thoughts. It’s a fact. I can’t change that. What if I don’t really love God and that’s why I have these thoughts? So that would be our obsessional doubt that we stuck with for this example, but it could have gone, as you see, there were other obsessional doubts.

And so whichever one you choose, that probably is going to take the story a little bit different in a direction. That’s okay. That’s what my previous church said. hearsay. I have to rebuke this thought in the name of Jesus. That’s a compulsion. I have to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.

That is true according to the Bible. When I was addicted to pornography, I was dwelling on thoughts I shouldn’t. That would be a personal experience. And if I don’t win the battle of my mind, I’m giving the enemy a foothold. The consequences of the doubt. So some of you may be, um, a little bit overwhelmed too on, okay, Carrie, I have a lot of different obsessions.

What do I write my obsessional story on? I’m going to give you some guidance. Sometimes, very occasionally, the anxiety about writing the obsessional story or seeing it out like Just out there can be super super high for certain themes So I would say if that’s the case We’re really in the interest of you learning the process right now, right?

If that’s the case if it is too anxiety provoking I mean like gonna give you a panic attack is what i’m trying to say Not to say that writing obsessional stories shouldn’t cause you any anxiety But if you’re like panicking trying to write your obsessional story You Maybe try working on something that is either a past experience, like it’s not bothering you now, but it did in the past, just so that you can learn and process it and sit with it, or picking something that is still an obsession, but it’s a lower level, like not going to send you into a panic.

And then once you feel like you have the flow of what you’re writing and the process of putting those pieces together, then that is going to help you be able to. probably sit with the harder one. Even if we have multiple stories, the feared self or vulnerable self theme is going to run between those stories.

So they’re going to be similar. A lot of times there is a common thread and that’s going to be your common thread. So if you do end up like writing a couple stories, if you feel inclined to do that. I wouldn’t literally like write more than two. I mean, remember, we’re not wanting to like obsess about treatment.

So if you wrote a couple stories and kind of compared them, I was like, Oh, okay. Like there should be some type of overlap or pattern that you’re seeing. Rely, whether it’s, hey, I’m seeing in both of these stories that I’m really relying on hearsay evidence, or I’m seeing in both of these stories that I’m really relying on past personal experience that may be related to my trauma, or I’m noticing it’s like the same exact personal experience, even though the themes may be different for you.

And you would want to look at like, okay, what can I glean from this? What’s the pattern here? Because obviously you’re not wanting, like I said, if you have a lot of different themes, you’re not wanting to run the gamut for every single thing in your life. You don’t want to have to do this, I guess, is what I’m trying to say for every single thing.

And usually information like this will generalize. So, recognize that you only got about 12 minutes of a 50 minute training. Obviously this was not intended to be comprehensive, but just to give you a snippet and a sneak peek inside the training and the examples that I use to help people understand the concept.

mindfulness, a prayer. There’s a scripture verse for every week. And we dive into the lesson, and all of that is so intentional so that we can put our mind, heart, and spirit in alignment and in the right place. We’ve had some amazing question and answer times in the beginning and end, so know that you completely have the freedom to ask questions.

People will type them in the chat or they will email me privately and I can answer it publicly. So there, even if you aren’t able to attend live, there’s still opportunities to ask questions so that you can really get in there and apply these materials. Next week we’re going behind the scenes again to talk through writing alternative stories and I’m going to share a true experience that happened to me, how I wrote an obsessional story about it, I did make up that part, and then what a potential alternative story would be.

Definitely tune in for part two next week. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

147. Does Talking About OCD Make It Worse?: 3 Reasons Why

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Counseling, OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie delves into the reasons why talking about OCD can sometimes exacerbate the condition. She discusses how reassurance-seeking, co-rumination, and the urge to “go deep” can create unhealthy cycles that hinder healing. 

Episode Highlights:

  • The harmful cycle where temporary relief from anxiety can lead to increased obsessive thoughts and compulsions.
  • Why traditional talk therapies may be ineffective for OCD and can sometimes reinforce compulsive behaviors.
  • How to identify when OCD is influencing your thoughts and behaviors, enabling you to take proactive steps towards healing.
  • Discover practical strategies for staying grounded in the present moment, which is essential for overcoming OCD and resisting its narratives.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD! I’m Carrie Bock, a Christ follower, wife, mother, and licensed professional counselor dedicated to helping Christians struggling with OCD find deeper healing.

In today’s episode, I’m exploring whether talking about OCD can actually make it worse, sharing three key reasons why it might. As a therapist, I naturally see value in discussing problems, but when it comes to OCD, traditional talk therapies often fall short. Many people mistake their symptoms for general anxiety, spending sessions sharing worries without finding lasting relief. Here’s why this approach may not work and what we can do instead..

Here are three reasons why:

  • Reassurance Seeking: Repeatedly asking for validation to ease anxiety may offer temporary relief, but it reinforces the OCD cycle, causing obsessions to resurface.
  • Co-Rumination: Constantly discussing worries, especially about unsolvable issues, can deepen distress and worsen OCD symptoms.
  • Going Deep: Trying to understand issues at a deeper level often leads to obsessive thinking instead of grounding you in the present.

Tune in to learn more about these traps and how to avoid them. For additional support, head to carriebock.com/OCD

Explore Related Resources:

5 Ways Therapy Can Make OCD Worse

Transcript

Episode 147. Does talking about OCD make it worse? Let’s find out. I’m going to give you three reasons why.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Keri Bach. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

If you are like me, you like talking through problems. I mean, hello, I’m a therapist, obviously I do this on a regular basis. I’m However, not just with clients talking through their problems, but if I have my own problems, a lot of times I’m going to friends or family members or other people to really try to sort through things, talk it out, and figure things out.

Here’s where we run into problems with OCD though, and this is why traditional talk type therapies don’t work with OCD. There are lots of people who don’t realize they have OCD, think they have anxiety. Go to a therapist to talk about all the things they’re anxious about. And next thing you know, they’re in therapy, they feel a little bit better, they leave, they don’t feel any better.

And they repeat this cycle week after week after week, like, hey, here’s what’s going on with me this week, this is what I’m worried about, it’s what’s bothering me. The therapist provides them some type of solution based or thought challenging or reassurance, and then it doesn’t ever seem to help. That’s why this topic is so important.

The first reason talking about OCD can make it worse is Reassurance seeking. This is a really common one with OCD, right? You have a question, you really want to ask your therapist, or your spouse, or your friend, do you think that I’m a horrible person, or did I offend you, or is this object clean, what do you think?

Reassurance seeking is a compulsion. I know it is super hard to not ask for reassurance sometimes, but it’s important to try to hold off if you can, because the reassurance seeking only continues and reinforces that OCD cycle in your brain, where you have an obsession, then there’s some anxiety. There’s a compulsion, and there’s temporary relief.

People seek reassurance because it works, they do get some relief from it, but then the next thing you know, they are becoming anxious again because the obsession just goes right back. And sometimes you may feel like the obsession comes back even stronger. I feel like we could do an entire episode on reassurance seeking, but I’m going to spare you that for right now.

If you think you might be reassurance seeking, you can ask yourself to evaluate, Am I feeling this urge to get this information? And do I feel like if I get that information, there’s going to be some internal calm or slight relief from this anxiety? That’s a good indicator because you may have gotten really sneaky about how you’re asking for reassurance.

It doesn’t always sound as direct as, is this object clean, or have I offended you or upset you in some way. The second reason talking about OCD can make it worse is that you may be participating in co rumination. I have a confession to make. I was working with a client who had some scrupulosity obsessions about a variety of different issues related to Christianity and the Bible.

I was receiving some supervision, so I was talking with another OCD counselor about how can I help this client better? What are we doing? It just doesn’t seem to be working. And she completely called me out on it in a very nice and loving way and said, you are co ruminating with this client because these issues are so important to you and you see that and so you want to talk about these things.

And I was like, oh my goodness, you know, sometimes you don’t even see what you’re doing and you need someone else to point it out to you. You might be co ruminating with someone if you were trying to solve a level of uncertainty. that we have to sit with. So I’ll give you an example. If you’re really stuck on whether or not God created the earth in seven literal days or periods of time, and you’re scouring over all this evidence for the seven day creation versus the, hey, the word for day means period of time, and so I don’t know, was it, how do we have a literal day when we don’t have the planets yet?

All very interesting and philosophical questions, certainly things that Steve and I have talked about, have talked about with other people, but in those conversations, we don’t have a high level of distress over this. We’re just saying, this is an interesting topic and there’s different views on it, obviously.

If you are spending a large amount of time trying to figure something like that out that’s not solvable, Because it requires a certain level of faith, you might be co ruminating with someone. If you have talked someone to death about the same topic and haven’t come to a resolution about it, you might be co ruminating with that person, or another person’s response might be like, I have no idea why you’re stuck on this, it really doesn’t matter that much to them, but to you, it feels like I have to resolve this, or otherwise that means I don’t know, whatever you’re saying that it means, that you don’t have enough faith or you’re not sure if you can love God unless you understand all of these different nuances of things that occurred in the Old Testament.

Reassurance seeking, co ruminating can be very sneaky. You may not realize you’re doing it, your friends and family may not realize you’re doing it. You can see how reassurance seeking and co ruminating can become really problematic in therapy Obviously, we’re here to talk with you about things, but there also has to be some kind of strategy behind it, and often redirection, for you to notice when you’re in the OCD bubble.

I’ve had clients where I’ve spent a lot of time helping them recognize that what they were dealing with was OCD. Because there may have been a level of lack of insight, just feeling like they’re ruminating about these things all the time and thinking, like, this is my own thought process versus OCD has gotten you completely down an unhealthy rabbit hole.

The third reason why talking about OCD can make it work is a trick that OCD will play on you called going deep. Going deep is where you feel like you just have to understand something more at a deeper level. This may cause a lot of research, but it may also be connected to these other two that we talked about, reassurance seeking and corruminating, because you may be talking to other people trying to gain more understanding. Like, “if I just understand everything there is to know about germs, then I will be able to keep myself safe and not get sick. If I really understand these deep theological issues then that means I will feel more secure in my salvation or relationship with God.” Going deep doesn’t work because it actually just moves you farther and farther into the OCD instead of grounding you back in reality.

This is what we’re trying to do in ICBT is keep you connected to the present moment experience instead of the narrative that OCD is telling you is happening right now or what OCD is telling you is going to happen in the future. There’s a distinct difference, and the more that you understand what we call the tricks and cheats of OCD, the The more that you understand your own obsessional story that OCD is crafting for you, the better that you can do in staying in reality and trusting your sensory experience.

If you want to know more about that, our next ICBT Learning Sessions for Christians will be starting in January. Getting on our email list is the absolute best way to do that, and you can also join the waiting list at karybach. com slash OCD. Can I tell you a secret about our next learning sessions?

They’re going on sale in November. Okay, it’s not a secret. The cat’s out of the bag now. But in all seriousness, the only way to find out about the November sale for the January Learning Sessions is to get on the waitlist. So there will be information to our email subscribers about that and you can go to carriebock.com/OCD.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

146. One Step to Make a Change

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie discusses the importance of making manageable changes in life, especially for those struggling with OCD and anxiety. Learn how starting small can lead to significant transformations as she shares personal stories and practical tips.

Episode Highlights:

  • The power of starting small and setting manageable goals for transformation.
  • How seeking God’s guidance can help clarify your path and provide direction in times of uncertainty.
  • How slowing down can help you recognize those OCD thoughts before they spiral out of control.
  • Practical tips for incorporating mindfulness and self-reflection into your routine.
  • Insights on how small changes can create a ripple effect in various areas of life.
  • Strategies for overcoming feelings of overwhelm and stagnation.

Episode Summary:

I’m Carrie Bock, a Christ follower, wife, mother, and licensed professional counselor dedicated to helping Christians struggling with OCD find deeper healing. 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing we must overhaul our lives overnight. I’ve been there—feeling overwhelmed and stuck, particularly when trying to make health changes. The key is to start small.

As I thought about the small changes I’ve asked my clients to make over the years, I wanted to share some ideas that might inspire you. I had a client years ago who was super stressed and driven at work. They had so much responsibility and anxiety, and I taught them some breathing strategies to help them relax. When I suggested they take time to breathe deeply, they responded, “I don’t have time for this!”

I said, “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. Can you commit to taking three deep breaths before getting out of the car?”

I also faced challenges organizing my home office. With a coach’s help, I broke the task into manageable steps and realized the importance of starting small. This approach not only eases anxiety but also creates momentum for further change, which is crucial for those dealing with OCD.

We need to learn to break things down into smaller steps and understand the ripple effect of doing so. You take one step, and then you realize you can take another, and then another. I’m reminded of how God’s word says that His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, guiding us without revealing the entire route.

More Episodes to Listen to:

112. Finding Motivation to Finish with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcript

Episode 146. What is your one step to making a change in your life?

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, a licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you. With practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right into today’s episode. Happy October. I hope that you are enjoying all the fun things that fall has to bring. Here on the podcast we are doing a very special giveaway in October. We are going to be giving away a 100 gift card to Amazon for anyone who is an email subscriber to the list and who rates and reviews our show on iTunes.

There will be full instructions for entering the giveaway in our show notes, because I don’t want to take up too much time here. You can always reach us for further information at kerrybach. com slash podcast. Let’s talk about how people usually approach changes, making changes in their life. Typically goes with some all or nothing thinking, and you know we’ve all been guilty of this. Like, I have to do all the things all at once, I have to change everything, have a completely new life by Friday, I’m gonna reach for my entire schedule, I’m actually gonna get up early and I’m gonna eat right, exercise, throw out all the carbs. Have no sugar in the house, run a mile, read that entire book that I’ve been wanting to read, and spend five straight hours organizing my house.

Does that sound completely unrealistic when I say it back to you, but any of you find that familiar? I know that I’ve been in that space before where I want to do so much, and I want to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time. When we’re looking at making changes in our lives, we have to start small.

What happens when we see a huge task or huge area that we need to change, like our physical health or our mental health, the tendency is to feel overwhelmed and then frozen when it comes to making changes, so we end up doing nothing. Honestly, this has just happened to me recently in a couple areas, which partially was why I thought about doing this episode.

I was feeling really stuck trying to lose weight and had made some dietary changes. I was doing walking workouts, Pilates, different YouTube workouts that I found on a regular basis and I was like, okay, well, I’m in this rhythm of working out, I’m trying to watch what I eat, trying to eat more protein, less carbs, but not be super strict or religious about it.

And I went to the doctor and said, this weight loss thing is just really not going anywhere. I’m trying. I’m making the efforts. Here’s what I’m doing. And she said, I think you need to change your workouts. I was like, duh, why didn’t I think of that? I mean, I’ve been working out for years. Like, I understand the concepts of how this works, but it was something that I needed somebody else to say to me, like, make things a little bit harder on yourself because you’ve gotten used to what you’re doing and it’s a little too easy for you and your body’s not being stretched as much. So I decided, how am I going to motivate myself to work out, first of all, with something a little harder? And the best that I could come up with was let’s make it fun.

Let’s make it something that I want to do. So I got a miniature trampoline, partially because I’ve been watching my daughter jump on hers, and that looks super fun. But hers is a kid’s size, so I would break it if I got on it. I got a miniature trampoline. And I also thought back to what were some of the workouts that I really enjoyed when I was going to group exercise classes.

Now, it’s been quite a while, like pre COVID, since I’ve been to any group exercise classes. But there was a step class that I did when I lived in Colorado. And the gym I went to had, like, over a hundred classes a week. It was amazing. Never found anywhere else quite like that. But they had this step class on Monday nights that they got rid of because there were only about five of us in there and replaced it with some horrid boot camp class where the guy literally wore an army hat and yelled at people.

I thought, that looks terrible, I don’t want to do that. Side note. Back when I was in my twenties at this time and I was doing this step workout, which makes me sound just like an old person, old soul, I guess, but I thought, you know what? I’m going to get a step. I’m going to buy a step and I am going to do some step workouts at home.

So I found some online. I really enjoy it. It’s may not be everybody’s thing, but I enjoy it because it actually makes me have to think while I’m working out. And the thinking part makes me forget how much I’m actually sweating and feeling like I’m gonna die because it’s hard and I’m not as agile and I don’t move quite as fast as I did when I was in my 20s.

But the point is, I was stuck. I was feeling discouraged, and I don’t know what to do. And someone else said, Hey, here’s how you can make a change. Try something different. Well, the other thing I found out about the trampoline workouts is that if you jump for 20 minutes on a trampoline, it is equivalent of running for 60 minutes.

And I thought, Hey! More bang for your buck there. I like that 20 minutes versus 60 sounds good to me now If you ever jumped on a trampoline for 20 minutes, I cannot do that much right away. It is a lot Working my way up on that but the trampoline workouts They have you jump a little bit and then sometimes you do other things like get off and do abs or lift weights or other things Like that, so they’re good.

They’re fun And the only reason that I have a regular workout routine is because I have decided to take time to get up before my family members get up. Fortunately, they are both pretty heavy sleepers, so when I’m, like, stepping up and down or bouncing around on the trampoline, they’re not waking up.

Just super nice. The only reason I am able to get up before the rest of my family and have this time early in the morning is because I made a decision to go to bed earlier. What I’m trying to show you is that each of these little changes built on each other, the going to bed earlier, if I am typically asleep by 10 p.m. at night, I’m at least in the bed by 10 p. m. at night for sure, would love to be asleep by then, and I get up somewhere around 5, 5. 30. And that gives me time to work out and get a shower and a few days a week before the family gets up. And then other days I do more meditative activities in the morning and read and things like that.

It has definitely been a process. I did not become a morning person overnight. I did not just decide to stay up till whenever and then set my alarm for 5 a. m. The process of going to bed earlier then started naturally waking up earlier and I don’t have to set an alarm. Usually my body will just be done sleeping and wake me up and that feels really, really good to me.

So I never thought that I would be that morning type of person. I’ve always liked sleep and like to just lay in the bed. But lately, it’s been just a real gift to get up before everybody else and take that time for self care and for spiritual renewal, time to pray and connect with God as well. Another area of my life I was feeling literally frozen in.

I was organizing my bonus space upstairs. I have my little office space. I did organize quite a bit of that to get it to a functional level. But I have things that I took from the attic of the old house that I never had time really to go through and sort. And a lot of it was things I needed to get rid of, trash, give away and purge declutter and I got going on that process but got to a point where it just felt so big and I was getting down to more organizational pieces of I don’t know if you’re like this at all but I have bins and I have containers and I have little like drawer divide I have all these like organizational Things, a file organizer, and I don’t always know how to get the stuff in the bins or the organizing like in a way that makes functional sense.

So realizing that since we have a much smaller attic here and I can’t put all of this stuff in the attic. I have room for it for storage in the bonus space, but just figuring out how I’m even storing it was a challenge. And I was like, I don’t think that I have the right furniture, shelving, space, organizational materials that I need, even though I have all this stuff.

And I got together with someone else who I’m going through some business and personal life coaching with. It’s like a little bit about managing your personal home life, time, and managing your business, and how those two intersect, for sure, for moms. So I went to her and said, Here’s my problem with my bonus room, and I’m pretty stuck.

And she was able to get me unstuck and say, Hey, I want you to organize everything. Just put it in piles. All the like items. I want to have part of this as my workout space up here, but I’ve been working out downstairs. She said, okay, put all of your workout stuff in one area. Put all of the things that you need to store in another area.

Make sure all of your office stuff is in the office. And I was like, okay. I can do that. I feel like that is a much more doable way to break things down for myself into smaller steps. I ended up working on it on a rainy weekend that we had where I couldn’t really go anywhere and do anything. We stayed indoors and Faith came upstairs with me to hang out, play with her stuff that’s up here.

I was able to find two more bags of items to donate and threw away one and a half bags worth of trash. It’s not 100 percent yet, but it’s getting there. At least there’s movement. There’s progress. We have to learn how to break things down into smaller steps for ourselves and then understand that the ripple effect happens after that.

So you do one thing and then you’re like, Oh, I can do that. And then you do the next thing and then you do the next step. And I just think about how God’s word says that his word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It’s so that we can see where we’re going. God guides us. But he doesn’t always give us the whole path.

Sometimes he does give us visions of the future. And it’s interesting because sometimes God will show you something like, okay, I believe the Lord wants me to do this. And I’m wrestling with one of those things right now. I’m like, okay, God, I believe that there’s some calling to do this, but I’m not really sure the middle part, like, I don’t really know how I’m going to get there, but all I really need to know is the next step.

God gives you that next step, and as you follow him in obedience, then he will give you the next step. Like the light will still be in front of you. It’s like this in movement towards behavior changes in our life. You’re not going to be able to wake up tomorrow and run a marathon. You have to figure out how to not even run your first mile, I mean, your first quarter of a mile, if you’re not a runner at all, and then your first half a mile, and then you can run three quarters of a mile, and then maybe you can run a mile, and learning that process and rhythm, I’m not a marathon runner, so I wouldn’t know, but I imagine it takes some time to become a marathon runner.

You don’t just do that. We live in such a microwave society that we want it all right now. I can flip through a bunch of videos on my phone and just swipe up if I don’t like part of it. And that’s not how change happens in our life. It’s not that quick, fast dopamine hit. Sometimes things take time to grow and nourish and develop.

I started to think about the small changes. that my clients have made or that I’ve asked clients to make in the past. And it’s been super interesting for me to go back and make this list for you, but I thought it might give some of you some ideas about what is your one step towards change. So I had a client, this was many years ago, Super high stressed, I’m very driven at work, had a lot of responsibilities, and I was trying to help this person relax because they had a lot of anxiety, and I was teaching some breathing strategies, like, okay, let’s really do some deep breathing together, focus on calming down your body, and he says to me, I don’t have time.

I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to deep breathe. I’ve got too much going on and I said, okay, okay, here’s what I want you to do. Do you think that you could just make a commitment to yourself to take three deep breaths before you get out of the car and go to work? Is that manageable for you?

Do you think you could do that? Yeah, I think I can do that. And I don’t know what he thought I was asking him to do. Maybe he thought I was asking him to deep breathe for ten minutes or something like that originally. Maybe that was why there was some pushback. But what was interesting, the ripple effect of this starting point of taking three deep breaths before going into work eventually became You know what?

I decided yesterday that I was going to leave work and go take a lunch break and I went and took my lunch break and I didn’t think about work or get caught up in any work responsibilities. Wow! That’s incredible. And then slowly starting to develop more and more work life balance and work life boundaries.

Leaving work at work. Being able to have a personal life being able to enjoy time outside of work. It took a while It was a process, but what I want you guys to know is it started with those three deep breaths before work That’s where it started. It was small. It was incremental. It was manageable It was something that he felt like he could commit to Oftentimes we try to make commitments initially that are too big And then we get frustrated when we fail, or it doesn’t go as smoothly as we wanted it to, and then we give up.

Versus saying, let me set myself up for success and pick something small and manageable that I know I can do. I’ve had several clients that my first OCD treatment was, you need to stop Googling. Some of them were very new to the OCD diagnosis and didn’t realize how the Googling was a compulsion, how that impacted them, and if they were able to not Google, or if they recognized, Hey, I didn’t Google yesterday and I ended up feeling a whole lot better versus I noticed the day that I did.

I spent a lot of time on it and really got sucked down this rabbit hole to an unhealthy place. Clients who have a really hard time being in the present moment, either because they’re disconnecting due to trauma, dissociation. Maybe they’re having a really hard time sitting with their emotions or body sensations in the moment.

I said, Hey, why don’t you just try a mindful moment? One minute of mindfulness doesn’t have to be a super long 20 minutes of meditating on something. Just give yourself one minute and see how that goes and you can always build on that but starting small Once I told someone to do five minutes of something and apparently that was too much I didn’t realize at the time.

I thought it was a manageable or workable goal for them They came back and just felt really bad like being in this place of shame. Carrie. I couldn’t do the five minutes I’m like, it’s okay. It’s not a big deal Can you do it for two minutes or three minutes? It’s okay if you can’t do five, just use that as data and back yourself up a little bit.

And then once you feel really comfortable with what you’re doing, you can stretch yourself a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And oftentimes that ripple effect can just happen gradually and naturally as you become more comfortable with changes that are happening. have encouraged clients to make all different kinds of health changes, to cut back on caffeine to reduce overall anxiety, if they’re feeling nauseous in the morning, to eat some protein for breakfast.

If clients aren’t exercising at all, I’ll often encourage them to see what they can do for a short amount of time, whether it’s a short walk or some stretching, yoga exercises, and see how they feel afterwards. In working with clients with OCD, I often see that people may be working really hard to, quote, fix their OCD.

I need to know everything right now, give me all of the coping strategies, tell me exactly what to do. I’m going to binge all your episodes, Carrie, and figure it all out and fix myself. What I’m telling my students who are in our fall ICBT learning sessions is that sometimes we have to slow down to speed up.

This is very true in terms of learning ICBT. Learning to slow down your thought process, what is actually there, getting deep dive into the obsessional story. As they slow down and they start to recognize like, Oh, this is where this obsessional doubt is coming from. Oh, this is what OCD is using as justification, but it’s really irrelevant to everything that’s going on.

As they slow down is allowing them to make momentum to make change. to recognize OCD at the first go. If you can recognize it very early before it sucks you into the story and what we call the OCD bubble, then you’re going to be able to shift a lot more easily. And if you get way down, like, and engaging in a lot of compulsions, then it’s a lot harder to get out of.

I like to use a potato chip analogy. There was a potato chip. You can’t eat just one. But, and then the more potato chips you eat, the more potato chips you want. Like with compulsions. Instead, if you’re able to catch that first potato chip and say, oh, okay, whoa, I ate the potato chip. I don’t need to eat anymore.

I’m just going to put these down and instead get a better snack for me. That’s going to be a whole lot easier than if you just sit there mindlessly eating the potato chips and next thing you know, half the bag is gone. So it’s about learning to be intentional. It’s about learning to be present and mindful.

So my question is, what’s your one step? What are you going to do today to move towards positive change in your life? I would love to hear about it. You can email me at podcast at kiribach. com. That email will be in the show notes for you. Remember to enter our review giveaway. A lot of people are not going to follow these steps, so you’ve got a good chance of winning and you’ve still got a few more days to do it.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

145. Remaining Sane in Your Marriage While Parenting a Toddler: Our 4th Year of Marriage

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

In today’s special episode, Carrie is joined by her husband, Steve, as they celebrate four years of marriage. They share relatable insights about the joys and challenges of family life, and explore the realities of raising a toddler.

Episode Highlights:

  • How Steve and Carrie’s lives have changed since they got married.
  • The importance of navigating shared responsibilities as parents.
  • Steve’s reflection on how their daughter’s perspective on everyday things helps them appreciate the world anew.
  • The challenges of building friendships as parents.
  • The connections between parenting and God’s relationship with us.

Episode Summary:

Welcome back to Christian Faith and OCD! I’m Carrie, and in this special episode, I’m joined by my husband, Steve. Every year, we take a moment to reflect on our lives and share relatable insights about marriage and parenting, hoping to help you feel a little more normal in your journey.

In this episode, we celebrate our wedding anniversary and discuss the ups and downs of parenting our toddler. From her constant questions about the world to the challenges of potty training, we share our experiences with humor and honesty.

We also talk about the struggles of maintaining friendships as parents, navigating social situations, and creating a supportive community for ourselves. It can be tough, but we’re learning and growing together.

To celebrate October, we’re hosting a special giveaway! Anyone who subscribes to our email list and leaves a rating and review for our podcast on iTunes will have a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card.

To join, follow these instructions:

-Subscribe to our email list at https://carriebock.com/podcast/
-Rate and review our podcast on iTunes.
-Screenshot your review and email it to us at podcast@carriebock.com.

Join the fun and good luck!

Thank you for joining us on this journey of faith and parenting. Let’s dive into today’s episode!

More Episodes to Listen to:

81. On Becoming Parents: Year Two of Marriage with Steve and Carrie Bock

Transcript

Carrie: Welcome to episode 145. I am back with my husband. Today, for those of you who are new to the show, every year we get together and do a anniversary episode and I think it’s still relevant. It’s helpful for people to know a little bit about our lives, but then also the things that we talk about on these episodes really are relatable as far as marriage and parenting and those types of situations that I know other people are going through too. So hopefully it helps you feel more normal.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

Happy October. I hope that you are enjoying all the fun things that fall has to bring. Here on the podcast, we are doing a very special giveaway in October. We are going to be giving away a 100 gift card to Amazon for anyone who is an email subscriber to the list and who rates and reviews our show on iTunes.

There will be full instructions for entering the giveaway in our show notes, because I don’t want to take up too much time here. You can always reach us for further information at kerrybach. com slash podcast. I will tell you, Steve, that one of our more popular episodes on the show is our dating episode.

Would you believe that?

Steve: No, I would not.

Carrie: Anyway, well, I guess there are a lot of other people like myself who were anxious about dating, who are going through anxiety about dating. That’s a relatable episode to individuals who are struggling with that. And I know a lot of people have relationship anxiety based on past relationships.

So I’m glad that people are benefiting from that episode that we recorded over four years ago now on the floor of our old walk in closet.

Steve: Yes, thankfully we have upgraded slightly here, so that’s good.

Carrie: Yeah, people can’t see that now. Has it really been four years? Wow.

Steve: I mean, it makes sense, we’ve been married, but still, wow, time flies.

Carrie: Yes. That’s good. This episode is actually coming out on our anniversary day.

Steve: Well, that’s a good day for this to come out.

Carrie: Yes, it was a slightly chilly morning in October when we got married.

Steve: Yes.

Carrie: At a park during COVID. So here we are, four years later, life’s quite different than it was back then. We got married and we had a daughter and now we are in the toddler parenting years.

Steve: Oh yes.

Carrie: Do you want to tell the folks some of the fun things that we get to hear on a regular basis and deal with? I love you so much. Me too.

Steve: I hear that one quite often. What else? She has a lot of phrases. What is this? I always was prepared for the constant question of but why, but why, but instead our daughter chose the route of what is this?

And it could be anything, it could be her foot, it doesn’t matter, and after you tell her she’s going to ask it again and again and again, but the same thing. What is this? I have told you 25 times that is your foot, but that is how she gets attention and learn.

Carrie: Sometimes she doesn’t know what it is, but sometimes she does know what it is and you’re like, why are you asking me?

Like, you know, that’s a dog. I don’t understand. And then I’m trying to figure out, is she asking me, is that a particular type of dog or is she asking me something specifically on the dog? Like, is that a collar? Like, what is it that she’s really wanting to know? Because sometimes it’s a little bit more detailed.

Steve: And I will say it is fun and interesting to kind of learn from her view of things. Things we take for granted that we just know. We know what those are. We know why we say this or do that. But to learn things for the first time from her view and her perspective, that’s kind of neat. And she always, not always, but almost always replies with, uh huh.

She just suddenly understands now and you know she has no clue. It’s just a response. But anyways.

Carrie: In a lot of ways, it’s been a really good year with her. There’s been a lot of highs, her taking some swimming lessons this summer, which was really sweet. And she started out just being totally terrified of the pool and the concept of being in the water.

But then she really warmed up to it and enjoyed her lessons. And now occasionally she’ll try to float in the bathtub, which is cool. So that’s nice. There’s also been some lows of lots of big emotions when you’re two, like lots of screaming and tantruming and

Steve: overwhelm and Yes. I know now I know why older people are hard of hearing because maybe just possibly they had children that screamed for 10 straight minutes because they didn’t get their way.

And that’s probably why our parents have ringing of the ears and all of those things because of all the screaming. So it’s part of it.

Carrie: Yeah. Sometimes I just have to plug my ears and walk away cause she’s got some lungs on her and she can scream really loud and she never loses her voice. That is a thing that does not happen at all.

So here we are. What are some of the challenges that you feel like we’ve experienced in terms of parenting her? Potty training. What was the question

Steve: again? I’m sorry. Potty training. Potty training. And do we let her just wear a diaper, not wear a diaper, wet her clothes? Go naked. Go naked. What do we do here?

Potty training, what? How long does this take? Huh. Oh, we could do this in a weekend. Yes, you can go insane in a weekend too, but I don’t know if that’s the route I want to go.

Carrie: She is.

Steve: As much as I joke about it, and forgive my sarcasm, that’s my coping mechanism, but she is beginning to get it, I think. She constantly informs me and us that, hey, I’ve gotta go potty, I’ve gotta go the other way, I’ve gotta whatever.

Of course, at this point, it’s part of the learning process.

Carrie: The ship has already sailed by that point, so she’s saying something about it.

Steve: Right, exactly. But we’re getting there. We are getting there. It’s just a slow go. And I’m sure every parent has tips, and the thing we’ve noticed from others the most is that was the worst part about parenting.

And going into it, we’re like, Don’t tell us that. But now that we’ve been through it a little bit, and we’re not finished, but we would agree with you that’s probably the worst moment in all honesty, or at least from my perspective, I would agree.

Carrie: That we’ve been through so far. Yeah. I think part of the problem is that you have these expectations, right, or people tell you like what to expect.

Oh. Do this, just pump them up with a bunch of juice and have them go naked and have the little potty seat, do the songs, dance around if they go to the bathroom, and like, you’ll be fine, and they’ll get it, and then you realize over time as a parent, you’re like, okay, everything does not always work the way you want it to.

that people are saying it will go and for me I have to reframe that and say that doesn’t mean I’m a failure as a parent because it didn’t work out exactly as I thought it was going to go but more how can I learn my child and what’s going to be best for her how is she going to be motivated to learn and what’s her timeline what’s her process which may be different than someone else’s timelines though so that’s been.

Challenging conception. I think so much to where as parents in this bubble, it’s like being in a, this glass bubble and you feel like everyone is looking at you or are they judging me because I wasn’t able to potty train my child in a weekend. It’s a school wondering, like, what’s going on? You keep sending her in pull ups.

Is she trained yet? Is she not? They’re asking me, like, uh, how’s the potty training going? I’m like, uh.

Steve: And of course you have to wonder, surely we’re not the first parents who have potty trained their child for you to understand that, and nothing against the school, but when they keep asking, you have to wonder, like, what are these other parents doing?

Do they, does the weekend thing just work for them? Because I think it doesn’t, given the responses I’ve heard from other people, but other parents.

Carrie: And maybe it does when you just hit him at that right time and maybe we started too early. I don’t know.

Steve: I don’t know. But I know that we’ve tried to be patient and diligent and we just gotta keep with it.

But it’s hard. It is definitely hard. I know last night, Oddly enough, and I don’t think I told you this, she didn’t want to wear her diaper to bed. I said, Oh, you know, honey, that is daddy’s comfort zone right there. No, we’re not going to bed without a potty. No, no, can’t do that. But I appreciated the idea that tells me that she is slowly getting it.

She’s getting used to at least the idea of it. Maybe not fully understanding the science behind it, but the idea of it.

Carrie: Long term goals, child. Long term goals to go to bed in underwear for sure.

Steve: Yes.

Carrie: One thing that’s certainly a challenge, you have different challenges earlier on in your relationship. Like when you’re first getting to know someone, and then you live together, there’s other challenges that come up that you have to kind of figure out and navigate through.

And then when you have a child, there’s this shared responsibility of the child trying to be on the same page and do the same things for them. Then also trying to figure out how do we have time for ourselves as a couple? What does that look like? Date night was super easy when we were first married and didn’t have a kid.

It’s like, oh, no problems. We’ll just go out, whatever. We want to kind of within reason and finances, but we didn’t have to worry about getting a babysitter or making sure our kid was in bed by a certain time. We didn’t have to have those challenges. And that’s hard.

Steve: Yeah, that is hard, especially when, not just for date night, but people will invite us places or church will have an event or whatever and, oh yeah, it starts at six or let’s meet at six, whatever.

Yeah, that’s not gonna work because we want to start the process of putting her to bed at like 630. That’s not a routine you want to break. There are a lot of routines that I’m willing to break for one night or whatever, but going to sleep is not one of them. That is a hard no, most of the time. And, uh, we miss a lot of things.

Carrie: There’s a challenge too, I think, with making friends with children who also have toddlers because a lot of times somebody in the family will be sick, you’ll be trying to get together with people and then it’s like, oh, well, so and so in our family is sick. And that can be a challenge, I think, to make connections.

We have a really great friend group and really great supports. A lot of people that don’t have children that are married. But. We don’t really have a whole lot of, that’s something that I’m kind of continually processing in my own mind. How can I get my mom tribe? They haven’t really showed up on the scene yet, so if you want, if you’re in the area and you want to join, I’m available.

That’s hard too.

Steve: We had children later in life. so most of the people, at least my age, I’m even older than you, they’re on grandchildren now. And I heard somebody recently that was actually a year younger than me talking about their seven year old grandchild. And I thought, oh my gosh, that’s, no, I don’t even have a seven year old.

I have two and a half year olds. We’re later, so it’s hard to find people in our same mix, which fortunately for us, it’s making friends with people doesn’t mean they have to be our age.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: That’s a blessing, but it’s difficult.

Carrie: It’s hard to make friends, though, as an adult. I hear this a lot from clients, not just you and I have certainly talked about it, but other people too.

It’s hard to find reciprocal relationships where you can kind of go back and forth and invite people and they invite you and those types of things. It’s a challenge.

Steve: It is.

Carrie: Well, when we were talking about date night, one of the things that we were challenged by that we’ve been going through this year is grace marriage.

So grace marriage emphasizes a few different things. For those of you who don’t know what grace marriage is, it’s a marriage enrichment program that meets four times a year at church. They have little videos that you watch and then you. break up into a small group, you may have some small group discussion about the specific topic, but then you have one on one time with your spouse, a lot of break offs kind of with your spouse where you can talk about specific topics in your relationship, which has been really interesting.

It’s different. We’ve never done anything like that before. What’s your overall impression been?

Steve: Well, I think that grace marriage is a wonderful, wonderful tool for any couple. A lot of people might think that that’s something that you go through once you have difficulty, but every relationship has its difficulties.

And if you’re the relationship that says, we have none, I suggest you get the information and go quickly because everybody has a problem. It just, every relationship has an issue. And so it’s good to build your foundation on as a couple. And grow from, and we’ve had times where we watched our little video segment, whatever.

And then we went off to the side and discussed some questions about what we just saw or heard. And there have been situations where, or questions that I didn’t realize that answer was going to be what Kerry said. I had no idea. I was like, Oh, I didn’t know that’s how you felt. Wow. Okay, that changes some things.

And for good, usually. It makes you more aware. You go into things thinking you know everything, but usually you don’t.

Carrie: Right, I think there definitely have been some surprising moments, even when they ask you, like, what do you appreciate about your spouse? And then you share that with each other, you make a list, like, here are some things that I see in you, some positive qualities in these different domains in your life.

And I was like, oh, wow. That was really nice that Steve said that about me.

Steve: And isn’t that the thing though, that it’s good to hear the good things. We always like, ugh, you never, you this, that, whatever. We complain about one another. That’s just how couples are. I mean, we don’t go around complaining about one another all day, I hope.

But it’s not as often that you hear the good things of what someone thinks about you. I think that’s a, I don’t know if misnomer is the right wording for that, but it’s assumed that the other person already understands what you feel.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: But even if they know what you feel, they need to hear it every now and then.

Yeah. That’s something I’ve definitely had to grow on and learn from.

Carrie: Yeah, it’s something that we’ve been to two of these so far, and it’s something that they essentially kind of started out with on both of them was talking about appreciation for your spouse. Because it is, it’s easy for us in our minds to get focused on the negative, not just in your relationship with your spouse, but other areas of your life.

Like, oh. Let me think about all the things I don’t like about this job instead of, oh, here are the really good things about this job, or here are the positive things that are happening in my work situation. And so if we have to really retrain our brains in that sense to focus more on things that are good and true and lovely.

Like the scripture tells us to do, I think that that’s crucial for our sense of contentment and joy in our life, really focusing on those positive things, but Gottman, who’s a marriage researcher, talks about, I think it’s like a seven to one ratio talking to your spouse, like, Seven compliments for every one criticism is a good ratio to have.

Steve: I gotta get back on the ball. I’m behind.

Carrie: No, you’re good. You’re good. That was one piece of grace marriage that we really got out of, but then another piece had to do with what we were talking about earlier, this sense of dating your spouse and how we put a lot of emphasis in early on in our relationship as we’re getting to know that person, to Go out and do fun things or spend time together, but then life gets busy in our marriage, jobs get busy, your parenting gets busy, then there’s church responsibilities that we have, we have a small group that we lead once a week, so that takes up some time to plan that, certainly, and all the other things that we have going on, and then to really make our relationship a priority, and that’s something that we’re kind of failing forward in, I would say, Sometimes we’re really good at the date stuff, and sometimes for us it looks like a date day while our daughter is in school.

If I can carve out some time on a Wednesday during the week, or if we can get somebody to watch her or go to drop in child care, things like that, we have like an evening out.

Steve: And wasn’t it in the past, and I may have mentioned this before, but the, that my doctor said, Doctor appointments are not a date, that doesn’t count, because we’re always together on those, almost always, and it’s often just the two of us, but what we have done, is you go to the doctor appointment, and then afterwards, we might go out for coffee, or for lunch, or something.

And I’ve enjoyed that. In a sense, it’s also a reward for getting past the doctor appointment, which if you have to go to the doctor often, as I have had, it’s a real treat to get to do something special, even if it is just going for coffee. So it’s nice.

Carrie: And I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but there’s this really good taco place across from Vanderbilt.

Would we go to see you? You’re a neurologist. And so it’s like, yes, because usually you have to wait a while. You’re waiting a while around there and then you get to see the doctor and then it’s like, okay, let’s go get tacos afterwards. Yes,

Steve: absolutely. And I’m normally not as much, I like street tacos and I like authentic tacos.

Some people call those things tacos. They are not tacos. But that’s just my rant. But this place was wonderful. It had a good atmosphere and really good food. So I’ll leave it at that. But that was definitely, that’s a place I want to go back to.

Carrie: Yeah, for sure. One of the things that we’ve done over this past year through church, well, we’ve got a couple of things going on.

I’ve talked about this before, but we are part of a church plant that we are trying to plant a church from kind of the main church over where we’re going to and then put one in Smyrna. So, that’s kind of, we have different activities and outreaches for that. We don’t really have a name yet. We don’t have a pastor.

It’s a very bizarre type situation. We do have several small groups that are going and outreach events that are happening. But we are also reading through the Bible, which has been interesting part of the process this year. I know that you’ve probably read through the Bible before. What do you feel like has been different about this year as you’re reading it through?

Steve: Well, we’re doing it chronologically,

Carrie: Which is a big difference.

Steve: By going through the Old Testament, it can be very difficult to get through all the sections that are like begat and so and so’s name and this many years and this much measurement and those things. But then when you can have the order that it was put in, it becomes more relevant.

Because when you’re reading the Bible as we have it now, it doesn’t make as much sense to me. Now it makes more sense on some of those areas.

Carrie: They intersperse the prophets with chronicles or, you know, kings and chronicles, the parts that overlap, put those together and they kind of, this one did something interesting with the Psalms.

It kind of interspersed them throughout the different pieces of the Old Testament. where they felt like they were relevant. When I was reading through a different chronological Bible, they grouped the Psalms together almost by topics. Here are the Psalms about this for worship and here are the Psalms about this.

I think the thing that has stood out to me about it is a couple of things. One, There are just some weird parts of the Bible. There’s no other way to say it. There’s just, like, there was one time Like the talking donkey? Well, there’s the talking donkey, but I mean, there was a time where God told something like Jeremiah to throw his underwear in the river.

Yeah. And then Ezekiel hit some of the stuff that he did was just very strange. And

Steve: statues with all the faces, yeah, yes,

Carrie: yes, a lot of symbolism. And if you look at the whole theme of the scriptures, reading through chronologically, it’s like God has certain commands, God’s holy, and he’s like, Hey, I need you to follow these laws.

But because God’s all knowing, he already knew people were going to mess it up. It’s like, here’s your commands, of course they didn’t do what they were supposed to do. God said, okay, you’re getting shipped out of here, like, I’m going to have some people come in and conquer you, you’re going to be exiled, but I’m going to bring you back.

And so there’s this interesting parental balance. And I feel like we go through it as parents, right? It’s like, okay, strict versus gracious and loving. It’s like, you got to be strict at times and say, no, you’re not getting away with that. Get your little butt in time out. You know, you’re not acting right.

Like you don’t get to just haul off and hit me because I didn’t give you what you wanted. You have to get in time out. And then. There’s also these pieces of like, Hey, I love you. Come sit over here and let me talk with you or tell me about your day or what happened today. And I see that with God too. God saying, Hey, you’re in the wrong.

There were so many things going on. They’re like, you’re not treating the poor correctly. You’re not taking my ceremony seriously like that. He was speaking through the prophets, but then he said, okay, but I’m going to bring you back. And I love you. And I’m not letting you go. And I’m not ever giving up on you.

So, even when we mess, God has good plans for us. God wants to bring us back into relationship with him. That door is always open and anybody that’s hearing this, it feels like they’ve gone too far from God or they’re like, I just can’t get it together. God knows that and understands. He might be disciplining you through this process, but it’s before you’re good because he wants to bring you back into relationship with him in a healthy way.

Steve: And I’ve heard people say this, I’m just too far gone. There’s no such thing. You’re still living and breathing. You are not too far gone. I can think of an individual in my mind who was on their deathbed, taking, I don’t even know if they had seven breaths left in them, and they wanted Jesus right then and there.

They’re like, yeah, I knew him as a child. Let’s go back to that. And I thought, golly, they went their whole life practically from their twenties onto their deathbed. Just running, running from him, and then on their last few breaths, they realized in the reality of everything and their shame and their pride and whatever was holding them back before, he still loves me.

He hasn’t given up on me, even in your last seven breaths or whatever it is. So it’s never too late. He just wants to love us. Like you said, it’s the same way with parenting. A good parent, you always love your child, even in the midst of the kicking and the screaming and the chaos. And just like with God, you just want to spend good quality time with your child.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: When God wants out of us, spend some quality time with me. My goodness. Slow down for a minute. Stop being so selfish.

Carrie: And sometimes when we’re having a bad day, we just need love. Absolutely. Recently, with Faith, I’ve been telling her if she starts to get kind of whiny or fussy, I’m like, do you want me to hug the cranky out of you?

And sometimes I say that to her first thing in the morning because she wakes up a little cranky. So today I said, do you need me to hug the cranky out of you? And she’ll say, yes. And I’m like, okay, well, come here.

Steve: Yeah, I think she wakes up like I do, a little cranky, a little out of it, and she comes around.

And for the record, she’s 99 percent of the time, she’s sweet and fun loving. She’s at her best when other people are around though.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: So I used to joke and say, let’s just put a bunch of mannequins in the house or always have people over or something because that’s when she’s her best.

Carrie: That’s when she’s her best self.

Steve: I don’t think I want to potty train that way though.

Carrie: Uh, no, that’d be a little awkward. So give everybody your update on your SCA. So you have Spina Cerebellar Ataxia. And how has it been going this last year? Because that was kind of took up some of our first few episodes.

Steve: Well, my unbalanced is a little bit more balanced.

Don’t know if that makes sense, but I have a disease that part of it is, is that I’m unbalanced and nothing has really gotten worse for the most part. I’m still going through some of it. I still have the aches and the pains and the different little things. I’ll spare y’all the wah, but you take it day by day and you just deal with it.

Everybody has something, right? So, I haven’t really gotten anything major that’s new, which is great news. When I go to the neurologist next, I’m kind of interested to see if they see any changes, but my regular doctor, everything’s normal, good, with me in general, so that’s a good thing.

Carrie: As far as we know, your vision hasn’t changed over the last two years hasn’t changed.

Steve: There’s some minor things that I get, but it’s part of it. So yeah, having it not change any further, that’s a real blessing. If I lost complete sight today, I’d be okay with it. I mean, I could live with that. My prayer was answered in that I just wanted to see my daughter. That was it. And I’ve gotten to see so much of her, especially when she’s dancing around and being silly.

She’s got some dance moves, I’ll tell you. But anyways, it’s good to see that.

Carrie: Even in spite of all the challenges that we face and that you have, we’re living a blessed life right now and just are thankful for each day that you’re here and able to spend time with Faith and able to see her and able to be involved and do the things that you do.

So love and life in our new house and yes,

Steve: we’ve had a lot of changes this year haven’t we?

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: Goodnessvgracious.

Carrie: We have.

Steve: But all good. All good. I remember a couple years ago finding out my diagnosis and having faith and some of those things that went on. That was a tough year. Those changes were difficult.

These changes were things that do help us.

Carrie: Yeah. Things that we’ve been wanting. So now I have a bonus area upstairs where I can work and record the podcast, but for the most part, you don’t come up here. You did come up today, but for the most part, you don’t come upstairs.

Steve: This might be my fifth time upstairs, maybe.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: Fifth, I think fifth, but I do not come upstairs very often. That is not something I enjoy doing. That’s part of the reason we moved out of the other house was because of the stairs.

Carrie: Yeah.

Steve: But it’s nice for you. You can get away from me and not have to deal with me for a little while. Not that I’m that problematic, but it’s nice.

You can come up here and be by yourself and no issues.

Carrie: Well, thanks everyone for listening to our show today and telling you about our fourth year of marriage update. We are happy to be here and hopefully you got just what you needed out of this episode. That’s our prayer, but it’s a nice little, I think, almost journal entry for us once a year that we do.

Kind of update people on our relationship and on our year. Hopefully you can learn something from our stories. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person.

And leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith in OCD is a production of by the well Counseling Opinions given by our guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or by the Well counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

144. God Loves Me, But I Don’t: 5 Ways to Increase Self-Compassion

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie dives deep into the importance of self-compassion and how it is essential in overcoming perfectionism, OCD, and healing from past trauma.

Episode Highlight:

  • How self-compassion is rooted in faith and mirrors the love and grace of Jesus.
  • Why self-criticism often leads to increased feelings of guilt and shame.
  • How to recognize and counteract negative self-talk.
  • The importance of nurturing your inner child to cultivate more compassionate self-talk.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Episode 144 of Christian Faith and OCD! In today’s episode, we’ll explore the transformative power of self-compassion, a crucial element for those facing the challenges of OCD and perfectionism. Many of us struggle to reconcile God’s love for us with how we view ourselves, often leading to feelings of shame and self-criticism.

Join me as I explore how to cultivate self-compassion through a Christ-centered lens. We’ll discuss practical strategies for letting go of self-criticism, embracing imperfection, and viewing ourselves with the kindness that Jesus offers. I also share insights on how to engage authentically in Christian community and live a fulfilling life, free from the burdens of shame and judgment.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by trauma, OCD, or anxiety symptoms, I invite you to explore therapeutic retreats or multi-day intensive sessions designed to provide healing and hope. I would love to sit down with you for a consultation to discuss these options further. Remember, there is hope and healing on the other side of what you’re dealing with right now. For more information, visit my website at carriebock.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing, and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

Happy October. I hope that you are enjoying all the fun things that fall has to bring. Here on the podcast, we are doing a very special giveaway in October. We are going to be giving away a 100 gift card to Amazon for anyone who is an email subscriber to the list and who rates and reviews our show on iTunes.

There will be full instructions for entering the giveaway in our show notes, because I don’t want to take up too much time here. You can always reach us for further information at karybach. com slash podcast. Hey, if we’re going to develop more self compassion, first, let’s define what self compassion is.

I believe that’s responding to ourselves in a way that Jesus would respond to us. Jesus knows there are going to be times where we mess things up, where we make mistakes, where we sin, where we have areas of our life where we need to grow, that we have things we need to work through in our relationships.

And we need to be able to connect with that love that God has towards us and be able to point that towards ourself in our own flaws. Otherwise, we get stuck. We get paralyzed. We end up not doing things for the kingdom of God. We end up not taking risks because we say, God can’t use me. We disqualify ourselves from ministry and putting ourselves down can also keep us from connecting authentically in Christian community.

As Christ wants us to do when we look at the greatest commandment of love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And also love your neighbor as yourself. If you do not like yourself, it’s going to be really hard to put yourself in situations where you’re around other people trying to authentically connect in community, because you’re going to say, nobody wants to be my friend, or I’m unworthy, or I’m not enough to be in this particular circle.

They don’t know what I’ve done in the past. I want to be really clear that we’re not talking about some kind of woo woo, I love myself and I’m giving myself all kinds of positive affirmations about how wonderful I am. We’re not trying to bend towards this direction of pride. We’re trying to say, how can I have a balanced.

View of myself, love myself and others the way that the Lord loves me. Speak kindly to myself as Jesus would speak kindly to me. Even if it was in correction, I can still speak kindly to myself. So if you have a lot of self criticism in your life, and you’re trying to grow self compassion, step one, let’s be curious and find the function of this self criticism.

It didn’t just show up there out of nowhere. There’s some reason it got built into your system. And I find that we often criticize ourselves. To avoid criticism from others, so just take a moment for yourself and reflect on where did I start doing that? Where did I start holding back and saying, Oh, no, I can’t do that here.

That’s too much to avoid other people from criticizing me. When did I pour over what I was doing? In an unhealthy way, just so that in an effort to keep someone else from putting me down, whether that was a friend, mentor, a teacher, a parent, pastor, whoever that was. Usually we internalize a critical spirit from someone else who was constantly critical of us.

That’s not always the case. I have had clients that have just always been critical of themselves, and I think it can come somewhat from personality subtypes that are harder on themselves, and maybe their parents weren’t necessarily harder on them or weren’t particularly strict, but you can think about this even in terms of if you were raised in a very strict religious environment, you were that you may have felt the need to be perfect or be a certain way in order to please God.

So finding the function of that self criticism and then realizing that the function is actually working against what you’re trying to accomplish. People say, well, if I wasn’t so hard on myself, then I wouldn’t be pushing myself to do certain things. But then you find out that they’re so critical of themselves, they don’t end up doing the things that they want to do.

I want you to think about this. You’ve all had different types of employers. If you’ve been in the working world, now which boss would you rather work for? Boss A is always pointing out everything that you do wrong. He or she doesn’t see anything that you do well. Just says, okay, you need to go and you need to fix that.

Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t say that. You look stupid over there. What are you thinking? Would you rather work for that boss or would you rather work for boss B who says, Hey, you did a great job on this area over here. You’ve got some needs improvements in these areas. How can I support you in that?

Let’s work together. Let’s develop a plan to help you get to a different place in your work. But hey, I just want to also say that area C over here, you’re doing amazing with that. You’ve got great working relationships with your co workers, always supportive, always encouraging. How can I help you? How can I come alongside you?

Of course you would want to work for Boss B. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anybody who said, Oh yeah, sign me up for that horribly critical micromanaging boss that points out everything I do wrong. You may have had a boss like that. It’s not very comfortable working for them. Why do we do this with ourselves then?

Why do we think that having boss A with ourselves and pointing out everything we do wrong? Why do we think that that’s helpful for us? It’s not. Instead, we can take a much more balanced approach when we’re evaluating our own behavior and say, Okay, here are some things that seem to be going well in my life.

I have set aside time with God in the mornings. I have developed a healthy rhythm. I have made changes to pray for specific people or at specific times of my day, but I know I’m lacking in this area of my life. I know that I have some forgiveness prayers that I need to pray and work through and some resentments I need to let go of.

I have too quick to anger at times. Whatever the situation is in your life that you’re dealing with, it’s healthy for us to examine ourselves. There are, self examination is scriptural. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. I think it was Paul that said, test yourself to see if you’re in the faith. So this sense of self examination is not bad.

Now you can overdo it if you have OCD, so don’t go down a huge rabbit hole where you’re self examining forever. Step two is to expect imperfection. One thing I used to do to myself all the time was I would create these really long to do lists and I never sat down and thought Actually, how long are these tasks going to take me?

I would just think okay I need to get all of this stuff done today because these are important things and they need to be done And I’m sure I would get distracted in the process, whatever But then I would just beat myself up if I didn’t accomplish enough things off the list And I’ve had to realize that I have to have more realistic expectations for myself, that I can plan out my day, but that life happens, crises occur, unexpected things happen.

My husband woke up sick one day and that meant that I had to get my daughter ready and it meant that there was a lot more TV time in the morning because things were just shuffled around. And it’s okay because it’s life, but I also know too that I can be really hard on myself if I feel like I didn’t make a good decision about something and maybe you struggle with this too.

We have to be able to not only expect the unexpected, but to expect that we’re not always going to get it right. And that can be very difficult if you have perfectionistic tendencies because you would like to get it right every time and you would like to make good decisions and you would like to make sure that things work out well for you because you’ve made a good decision.

All very good goals, excellent goals, however sometimes we make the decisions based off of the information that we have and when we have later information, we go, oh man, now that I have later information, I would never have made that decision back there. This happened to me so recently, guys, I know I will tell you about it more in detail on the podcast sometime, but I was sitting in shame for days about a business decision that I had made and a group of people I had decided to work with.

And I told myself I should have known better than to get involved in this situation with these people. That was a really unfair judgment on myself because there was a lot of information that I didn’t know and I was acting on the information that I did know. The positive reviews this company had, how many years they had been in business, the information, the meeting that I had with the head of the organization.

All of these different pieces, but then later on down the road, other things transpired and other information was received and other things happened without going into all the details or throwing anybody under the bus. And I sat there and I was so upset that I had made the decision to work with these individuals.

That was It’s really, really hard for me to sit with and acknowledge. And what I came to a place of peace about today is that God knew that this was going to happen, number one, and that I can use this as a learning experience. I’ve had a lot of hard learning experiences, which happen when you do new things in your business that you’ve never done before.

New things in your life, you learn, you grow, sometimes you learn by making mistakes, and even though those decisions were made cautiously, prayerfully, with consideration, I did not see the outcome coming out the way that it did, and there was no way for me to predict that. So I can’t judge the present information that I know and that I have right now.

I can’t judge my past self based on that information that I know now. This is point three that I wanted to give to you. I’ll have clients that are processing through trauma, things that they did when they were in active addiction, things that they did when they were far from God. They may have been a Christian, but they ran away from God.

Things that they did before they were Christian and they’re like, man, I cannot believe that I did that. And I’m like, okay, but where are you now? Bring yourself back into the present. Would you do those things now? Well, no, of course not. You’ve grown and you’ve learned from them and you’re in a different place spiritually.

So you can’t judge your past self based on your present self of where you are today. If you are stuck in a place of shame, and I was just stuck in some recently, so I know how bad that feels, stop judging your past self on your present self. You’re not doing those things anymore. And you have different information, and you’ve grown, and you’ve learned from your experiences.

Transcribed As far as the east is from the west is how far God has removed our transgressions from us. Scripture says there’s a reason for that. God is not living in the past bringing up your past. The only ones that do that are us and our enemy. Those are the only ones that bring up the past and hold it against us.

Your past is under the blood of Jesus Christ if you are a Christian. My fourth tip is to picture your inner child. Now this may sound a little far fetched for some of you who have never done this type of work, but if you’re having a really hard time speaking kindly to yourself, if you’re overly critical, would you imagine saying some of the things that you say to yourself to a child?

The dialogue that goes, you’re stupid, or you’re worthless, anything negative. How would you kindly guide and direct a child as they’re going through life? You know, we are to come to God as children. And we need to learn to retrain our inner self talk, to be kinder and to speak to ourself in a way that’s more patient, and to be kinder and to speak to ourselves in a way that’s more patient.

and gentle in that process. So if you can picture your inner child, if you’re struggling with having self compassion towards yourself, can you love on that inner child who is lost, Wounded, sometimes lonely and broken, and hurting at times. Can you love on that inner child? Can you sit with some sense of care or reassurance?

If you can’t think of your inner child or that seems a little weird for you, you can also think about, would I talk to my best friend like this? Would I put someone else down this harshly? No, you probably wouldn’t. You’d probably have a lot more grace or compassion for your best friend. My fifth tip is to meditate on a time where you felt a positive, healthy connection with God.

If you can bring that up from a sensory level experience, where were you, what were you doing, or what was going on around you? What were you feeling? What was that sense of being connected with God like in a healthy way? And from there, really looking at what does the Bible say about God’s love for you?

Maybe you take some of those verses and meditate on those. You can also meditate on verses that talk about God being a good father that may be hard for you to connect with, but allowing God to restore this view of who you are in a healthy and balanced way so that you can respond to yourself in the way that God would respond to you.

What I’ve seen time and time again is that many people have difficulties with self compassion due to past trauma and wounding relationships in their life, broken attachment relationships with parents or other caregivers. If that’s something you’re dealing with, I do therapeutic retreats or multi day intensive sessions with individuals who have a lot of trauma and OCD symptoms or lots of trauma and anxiety symptoms.

I would love to sit down with you over a consultation when you talk about those options further for you. Know that there is hope and healing on the other side of what you’re dealing with right now. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple podcasts App on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review.

This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith in OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

143. What if OCD is Telling Me I Don’t Have OCD?

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie explores the common obsession of doubting whether you actually have OCD. She discusses how this uncertainty can impact your sense of self and shares strategies to help you embrace your diagnosis and find peace.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to identify and address doubts about your OCD diagnosis.
  • Strategies to confront and manage the anxiety that accompanies these doubts.
  • Ways to differentiate between genuine symptoms and self-identity concerns.
  • Techniques for dealing with the shame and stigma surrounding OCD.
  • How to process grief and sadness related to accepting an OCD diagnosis.

Don’t miss our October giveaway! We’re offering a $100 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner.

To join, follow these instructions:

  1. Subscribe to our email list. 
  2. Rate and review our podcast on iTunes.
  3. Screenshot your review and email it to us at podcast@carriebock.com.

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Join the fun and good luck! 

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD!

OCD can be tricky, feeding doubts and making you question your reality. This is a common experience, especially when OCD leads you to obsess about whether you’re truly a bad person or if your intrusive thoughts reflect your true self.

In this episode, we’re addressing the common struggle of accepting an OCD diagnosis and the shame or uncertainty that often accompanies it. 

OCD thrives on creating a story that draws you in, often through avoidance or excessive reassurance-seeking. Accepting that your symptoms might not always fit the “typical” OCD mold, like obsessive thoughts about spirituality or relationships, is part of the journey.

If your OCD leads to severe anxiety or doubts about your functionality, professional support, such as intensive outpatient treatment, may be necessary. This doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind—it’s simply a step toward stability and healing.

Join me as we explore how to navigate the emotions tied to an OCD diagnosis and find support through faith. 

For more support and information, visit carriebock.com. 

More episodes to Listen to:

139. Is There a Test for OCD?

Transcript

Have you ever had that experience where maybe you’ve been diagnosed with OCD but then you go back and you start to actually doubt? Is that actually accurate? What if I don’t have OCD? What if I really am this horrible person with deep, dark desires to harm someone?

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

Happy October. I hope that you are enjoying all the fun things that fall has to bring. Here on the podcast, we are doing a very special giveaway in October. We are going to be giving away a 100 gift card to Amazon for anyone who is an email subscriber to the list and who rates and reviews our show on iTunes.

There will be full instructions for entering the giveaway in our show notes because I don’t want to take up too much time here. You can always reach us for further information at karybach. com slash podcast. There’s one thing I know about OCD, and you probably do too, is that it is super sneaky, and an inference based cognitive behavioral therapy, or ICBT that we talk about on the show, We say that OCD is really good at drawing you in with a story.

Everyone loves stories and we can get just really sucked into the imagination of the story. If you’re denying the existence of OCD, potentially it could be a way of avoiding it. Avoidance is super common with OCD. It’s kind of like, if I don’t have to acknowledge it, I don’t have to deal with it, or the need for treatment.

If I don’t go to that restaurant that I find triggering, I’m fine. I won’t have any triggers, and I’ll be okay. Or if I don’t try to do the really hard, scary thing that OCD is telling me not to do, then I give in to that avoidance, but I actually feel okay. And it can be hard to accept this diagnosis. It doesn’t always look the way that people think it should look, right?

So it doesn’t always look like cleaning or checking. Sometimes it can look like a lot of ruminating about spiritual things or getting stuck on relationship obsessions, lots of reassurance seeking. Things that people don’t typically associate with OCD. Hopefully we’re changing that and we’re letting people know more and more, Hey, OCD looks like a variety of different things.

So accepting the diagnosis, there can be this element, for sure, of grief and loss. It’s scary, it’s unknown, and a lot of times it’s just easier in the general populace to tell people, like, oh, I’m dealing with anxiety, I have some anxieties about driving. Because a lot of people have anxiety and people feel like they can relate to it.

Unfortunately, in our society, it’s a little bit become a badge of honor, like, Oh, I have anxiety, somehow means that you’re, I don’t know, really striving or succeeding or pushing yourself really hard. That’s not always a good thing. That’s just a side note. What I want you to know is that OCD telling you, You don’t have OCD is actually a really common obsession.

I’ve had several clients come back to me saying that they’ve doubted the diagnosis, or maybe that they’ve tried to find evidence in their life that they didn’t have OCD. And they can get really stuck on this, like maybe what if I’m making excuses for a sin in my life, like I’m saying that this sexual thought is an intrusive thought, but maybe it’s just really me lusting after this person.

What if I really am going to harm someone and you’re telling me it’s actually OCD and I’m using that OCD as an excuse. Or, what if this obsession is not really OCD, but it’s part of my identity, it’s who I am, like in sexual orientation OCD. What if I really am gay, and then I’m using OCD as some type of excuse to deny my inner feelings?

If you are dealing with this particular obsession about whether or not you have OCD, the first thing to do is identify that this is OCD. That’s your first step, always, is being able to identify when OCD is knocking on the door to say, Okay, I know what this is. I know this is OCD coming to call. The reason I know it’s OCD a lot of times is because it is connected to a very specific anxiety that shows up in your brain, in your body.

It can feel like you want to crawl out of your skin. It can cause your heart to race. It can cause you some mild panic symptoms. And a lot of times these things can happen very fast and you can get sucked into that imaginal story very quickly. Your second step is to identify the emotions that come up for you surrounding the diagnosis of OCD.

Is there shame for having this diagnosis? You need to know that you didn’t cause this. Lots of other Christians struggle too. This is how we can have an entire podcast called Christian Faith and OCD where we get hundreds of downloads every week for people just like you who are also dealing with some of these same struggles.

Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad Christian. Didn’t cause it. It’s just something that happens to people. Is there sadness connected to this diagnosis? It’s okay to grieve that. Don’t. I remember my husband getting his health diagnosis around the time that my mother died. And I thought I was sad because my mother had died, obviously I was certainly sad over that.

But the piece that was missing was that I never really got to grieve that the person that I married was not going to be able to do some of the things that I had envisioned us doing, or being able to travel as freely as we hoped to be able to travel. When you have someone with balance issues, certainly you’re not going to be hiking up to waterfalls like we were doing when we were dating.

I had to grieve those things. I had to grieve the fact that no one understands this. We go to doctors and we’re literally like explaining stuff to them. Or we’ve had medical professionals say, I’ve never heard of that before. And that is really a challenging place to be in. And I know some of you with OCD can relate to that.

Because your OCD doesn’t look like textbook, typical OCD of what people identify with. And it’s okay to grieve that you feel strange or have to constantly explain things to people all the time. It’s something that we’ve just kind of learned to open up about with relatively quickly with people in our scenario because they can see it, it’s a little bit different than with OCD, and it’s gotten easier to deal with over time, but at first it was super awkward and uncomfortable.

And not something that we wanted to talk about all the time, because we were still trying to wrap our minds around it ourselves, you know, and you get all kinds of different responses when you share this type of information, you have the people that are trying to fix you, you have the people that are just really sad or feel sorry for you, you have the people that just don’t know how to respond or aren’t sure what to say.

If you’re sad about your diagnosis, just know that that’s okay, and like, you can process that emotion. Give yourself time to grieve it, and to really work through it, that you have challenges that other people don’t have. You have challenges that other people aren’t going to understand, even if you try to explain it to them.

Maybe the diagnosis for you feels really anxious or overwhelming. It can be pretty common for people struggling with OCD to fear becoming non functional, go into a hospital, or quote, going crazy, like developing schizophrenia that is not the same as OCD, but it can become an obsession for people. I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, is what they will say, which of course is a very vague term.

When you’re having those obsessions, it’s important to bring yourself to the present of what is actually going on right now. I’m not experiencing that. I am functioning in my day life. I do have supports around me and people that can help me through my process. I can also add additional professional supports to that at any point in time.

So if you are at a really low place in your OCD, where you’re constantly obsessing and compulsing, You might need to go to an intensive outpatient treatment, or you might need to be hospitalized until you can get to a place of medical stability, and that is okay. That does not mean that you are not going to be able to be functional again.

It does not mean that you’re losing your mind or going crazy. We all have different needs at different points in our life, and that’s not anything to be ashamed of either, so I want you to hear that as well. Just knowing that you can feel these variety of different feelings, whether it’s the anxiety, the sadness, the shame, and you can work through them to get you to a place of acceptance.

You may be angry about your diagnosis. I know some people are mad at God. Why is he allowing me to go through this? Why won’t he heal me? What’s going on? Anger is a common emotion connected to grief and loss. So feeling those feelings, working through them, talking through them with somebody else, like your therapist or your loved ones, will help you get to a place of acceptance.

And then when you’re in that place of acceptance, then you can really move forward and know what to do. If I’m really, really stuck on the fact that I’ve lost my mom, I can’t move forward and figure out how to live without her. And essentially, that’s what I’ve had to do in this process, is I’ve had to figure out I think that’s a big task of grief that people miss.

Now I have a missing person in my life. I have a missing piece that was there my whole entire life. Your parents are there your whole life until they pass away. And then you have to figure out, like, how to live without them. You’re not ever going to replace them. There’s nothing, like, magically that shows up there.

But it’s almost like things get rearranged and reconfigured in your life. And that’s okay. I want you to see what happens when you say to yourself, I am struggling with OCD. What is it like to sit with that? Some of you may have had a visceral reaction to that when I said it, like, ugh, that doesn’t feel good at all.

But I like to tell this story because I think it makes a lot of sense in these situations where I volunteered for a short period of time and I went through massive amounts of training to be a victim advocate with the police department in Colorado, and they said, if you’re going to go out and give a death notification, which I never actually had to do, but if you’re going to tell someone that their loved one died, you have to actually say the word died, dead, death, You can’t say, so and so, I’m really sorry that your brother is no longer with us.

What does that mean? Where did he go? You have to say, so and so died. I’m sorry your brother died. Because that sinks into that person’s brain. It starts to help them realize this is real. If we start to use all these euphemisms and other things, they’re not getting the full message. And so that’s what we have to do sometimes within ourselves, is sit with hard truths that we don’t like.

I remember going through the divorce process. I was reading this loss book, and there were different things that they wanted you to kind of write on your mirror. And one of the things that I got actually not out of that loss book, but it was out of divorce care. And it was something to the effect of like, I can’t have plan A for my life, which was a huge deal because life had kind of been, you plan out your life in your twenties.

So having that acceptance of now being like a young 30 something saying I can’t have plan A, but I can do the best that I can with plan B. So maybe your plan A of life. Involved not having OCD or not having to deal with the suffering that you’re dealing with right now, and you can’t have plan A, that’s okay, but you can have plan B, and plan B can look really, really amazing and beautiful.

And you know what? God is in the midst of when life throws us a curveball. He is still there and He is still walking with you on that journey. He loves you incredibly. What’s so interesting was I started out this episode Wanting to just come on here and tell you, hey, it’s a really common obsession to have an obsession about having OCD.

And I realized how much of this whole episode has become about grief and loss and getting our way to acceptance, which is so important. So thanks for tuning in for that. You may be struggling. And when we had our monthly gathering, someone said, I’ve shared several of your podcasts with other people in church so that they can understand what I’m going through better.

I just loved that. I thought it was so beautiful. And so if you need someone else in your life who is close to you to really understand what you’re going through, and if these podcasts help you are a good vehicle to do that, then I am so happy for you to share it with someone else who can help you and support you along in your process.

Be blessed as you go today. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

142. How Do I Tell Someone I Have OCD?

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie dives into the challenges of sharing your OCD diagnosis with others, offering practical guidance on how to navigate this delicate conversation. 

Episode Highlights:

  • Key traits to assess if someone is reliable enough to share your OCD diagnosis with.
  • Understand how much detail to provide based on your relationship with the person and the context of the conversation.
  • Effective ways to inform others about OCD beyond common stereotypes, using resources and examples.
  • Insights on how to respond to different reactions, whether supportive or not.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD! In today’s episode, we’re tackling the question: How do I tell someone I have OCD? Whether it’s a coworker, friend, or romantic partner, this conversation can be daunting. But I’m here to help break down how you can approach it with wisdom and care.

Let’s start by considering who you want to tell. Is this person trustworthy? Sharing personal information like your OCD diagnosis requires discernment. Remember, different people require different layers of information. You don’t need to dive into every detail with everyone. 

It’s also crucial to educate those around you about how OCD impacts you personally. People often have misconceptions, like thinking OCD is just about being overly clean or organized. To help them understand better, you could direct them to resources like our podcast or share helpful educational material.

Vulnerability can feel scary, but it’s often healing. You may be surprised at how sharing your struggles opens the door for others to share theirs.

Instead of focusing on worst-case scenarios, try imagining a positive outcome. Pray through the process, asking for God’s guidance in your words and in how you approach the conversation.

Thank you for joining today’s episode. If you want to connect with me further, be sure to sign up for our email list at carriebock.com

More Episodes to Listen to:

118. How Do I know if this Thought is an OCD Obsession? with Carrie Bock, LPC-MHSP

Transcript

Welcome to episode 142. We are talking today about how do I tell someone that I have OCD? This may seem intimidating. Maybe you’re wanting to tell a coworker that you’ve become close to. Maybe you’re wanting to tell a friend or maybe you’re dating someone. You feel like things are getting more serious and you think, you know, it’s time to let them in on my secret.

That’s what we’re talking about today. Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christian struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing, helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

We had a good time at our Zoom Q& A meeting earlier this month. I think I’m going to try this out for about six months and just see how it goes, how many people show up, what the engagement level is like. So if you want to get in on these meetings where you can ask a question, where you can show up on Zoom and get to know me a little bit better, or.

Have a greater understanding of OCD. The only way to do this is to get on our email list. Super simple. You go to karybach. com. Link will be in the show notes. You scroll all the way down on the homepage, like right before you get to the footer, and there will be a place for you to subscribe to the email list.

When you get that first email, you’ve got to click on it and confirm that you want to be a subscriber that protects us from spam. So join the email list, get on our Q& A sometime. We’d I’d love to see you face to face and meet you over zoom and it’d be awesome. I want you to think of a couple different considerations when you’re looking at telling someone that you have OCD.

Obviously, this is personal information. Some people are more open about their mental health than others, so it just depends on where you are at on that continuum, but most people that I meet, this is not something that they necessarily want everyone to know. Partially because it’s so misunderstood and people will be making comments like, I need to have you over to clean my house or organize my closet.

As we know, that’s not everybody with OCD. So why do you want to tell this person that you’re thinking about telling? Is this person worthy of the information? Do they have the ability to keep a confidence? Are they trustworthy? I had an experience recently that was It’s kind of funny where someone was sharing some information with some of my other friends.

And first of all, the information was actually wrong and inaccurate. So my other friends came to me and said, yeah, so and so said such and such was like, no. And then I realized I’m probably not going to be telling this person other things if they’re like going and sharing this information with other people just for gossipy purposes.

You know that friend that’s always gossiping about somebody else? I guarantee they’re gossiping about you, too. It took me a long time to figure this out. I’m a pretty smart person, and I don’t know why that didn’t click for me, but it has clicked for me, for sure. I’m just more careful about who I talk to regarding certain things.

I am incredibly thankful as well that I do have trustworthy people in my life that I can talk to about very personal things without it going anywhere. So let’s say that the person you want to tell is a trustworthy person, and you know they’re not going to be spreading this around for gossip, and Maybe you’re wanting to tell them because you want this person to understand you a little bit better and why you’re acting the way that you do in certain situations.

Maybe you want to tell this person to include them as part of your support system. This would be really huge if you’re dating someone and you believe that the relationship is moving in the direction of marriage. It still may be. A little too early to know that, but it’s kind of at that tipping point where we need to have more vulnerable conversations to continue to make sure that we’re moving in the right direction.

Another question I would want you to ask yourself is what exactly do you want to tell this person? You can think about explaining things in layers of information. Some people just need the glossy top overview layer. Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you have certain ways that you like to do things at work, and it may cross the line over into perfectionism or just right OCD.

You may have some concerns about your boss being upset if things aren’t done a certain way. So you may say something to your boss like, Hey, I just want you to know that I struggle sometimes with perfectionism. And I’m okay if you need to tell me to move on to another task that I’m taking too long to try to make this one perfect.

That would be kind of a high layer glossy overview. You’re not going into the details of Just Write OCD and how it affects you. Probably your boss doesn’t necessarily need to know all that information. But they may need to know that there are some levels of this that’s affecting your work, just so that you don’t get stuck.

Or they don’t ask you, well, why did this project not get done? And it’s because you didn’t feel confident that the boss was okay for you to move on from the first project. Maybe you had it in your mind, like, oh, they’re not going to be okay with this. They’re going to be upset with me if it’s not exactly perfect or exactly done a certain way.

My point is that what you tell a boss probably is going to be completely different or a different layer of information than what you would tell someone you’re dating. How much you tell might also depend on the severity of how this is impacting your work. or your relationship. Let’s say that you have a friendship where you’re always concerned.

There’s some relationship obsessions about whether or not you’ve offended other people and you keep asking that person and now the person is kind of withdrawing a little bit or they’re frustrated with you. Might be helpful to give them a little bit more of an explanation of what’s going on from your end.

This is going to give them a little bit more compassion for how you’re struggling, as well as if you can tell them certain things of how they can best support you. Often people in your life probably need to know that when you’re reassurance seeking, them reassuring you is only going to help very temporarily in the moment.

It’s going to help for a little bit. There’s going to be that slight relief, and then it’s going to toss back into that obsessional cycle, and next thing you know, you’re going to be asking for reassurance all over again. So it’s important for your support systems to know. What’s going to benefit your OCD and what can actually harm your recovery process?

If you are late every day to work because you can’t stop checking things before you leave the house, that might warrant a conversation with your boss regarding this being a mental health issue versus your boss just thinking, oh, you’re lazy, can’t get up on time, or you can’t manage yourself in the morning to get here on time.

Obviously, if someone understands what you’re going through, then they may be able to help problem solve it with you. Like, what can I do to support you in this? Do we need to make sure that you’re getting off of work early or during lunch so you can go to a therapy appointment so you can get help for this?

What are you going to need so that the needs of your work are met as well as your mental health needs are met? If you have relationship OCD or scrupulosity or other themes, you plan on getting married to someone someday, you think you’re in a positive, supportive, helpful relationship, You want to share with this person, Hey, this may show up in our relationship.

I may have doubts about whether or not I love you. I may have doubts surrounding whether or not God loves me. And this may cause difficulties for me in our interactions or in my interactions with the church. Here are some things that you can do to help support me. Here are some things that I’m working on within myself or with my therapist.

How that person responds is going to tell you quite a bit about the relationship and the level of safety that you have. We’re hoping that this person is going to be supportive and say, okay, let me learn more. Or how can I help you? Or how can I support you? When this gets bad, what do you need me to do?

It’s important to let those close to you know that during times of high stress, even positive stress like planning a wedding or having a baby, there is a tendency for OCD symptoms to go up because the higher your stress level, the more that can cause you to get triggered and get derailed by OCD, even if you’re in a manageable state.

You’re most likely going to have to do a lot of education. of this other person regarding what actually OCD is because the average person thinks of monk and that’s their picture of what OCD is. It’s really a shame if any of you work in TV or movies. We need a different representation. We need someone who’s having some type of relationship obsession or scrupulosity obsession or sexual obsessions of some kind so that other people can understand how vastly different these subtypes present within OCD.

You’re going to probably want to give the person that you’re telling some educational information either from a website or you can point them to some of our podcast episodes, the ones that you feel are most relevant to you. We have a great FAQ episode on OCD. We don’t talk as much about treatment on there specifically, but I just kind of go through these different themes and how OCD shows up and so forth.

Regardless of what your story is, learning to be vulnerable and learning to share your story with other people is so important. When we get vulnerable in safe relationships, it can be so therapeutic and so healing because we grow closer. to that other person as we share with them, and oftentimes it allows them to open up about themselves and say, you know what, I really appreciate you telling me that, and I want to share this piece with you so that you know that this is something that I struggle with, or this is something that I’m going through right now.

If you’re concerned about how that person might respond, I encourage you to grab a resource, and it’s going to sound a little strange for this episode. But it’s called Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. It’s a marriage book. However, the best part of this book really is not 100 percent about marriage.

It’s about confrontation and relationships and sharing what he calls the four healing emotions. There’s a chapter, uh, I think, I believe it’s chapter 13, where he goes through these different emotions and writing what he calls a love letter to your spouse, but he also talks about writing a response letter.

Maybe that person doesn’t know how to respond to you, or they’re not exactly sure, like, what you’re needing. You can write a response letter of, these are some things that I really feel like, after I share this with you, that I need to hear from you. So, And it could be like, I support you, I love you, it just depends on the relationship, obviously, what the response letter might be.

It’s really valuable for you to think through what you want to say to someone else, maybe even jotting down on a post it note a few major bullet points so that you can express yourself well. This is something that I’ve had to learn over time when you have hard conversations, sometimes your brain, you know, isn’t fully online because that anxiety puts you into the whole fight, flight, or freeze situation, or maybe it triggers some like fear of rejection coming up for you or feeling unworthy.

If you have your little post it note with like the three main points maybe that you want to convey, that’s a good start and just say, Hey, I jotted a few things down and I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget to tell you these specific pieces. I realize that OCD may throw some worst case scenarios at you about how this person is going to respond.

Our brains have a natural inclination to veer towards the negative in efforts to keep us safe. So what we have to do consciously to combat that is ask ourselves, what if this went well? What would that look like? What would the situation look like if it went really well and was really positive? Focusing on that outcome, praying through that process.

While it may not go exactly the way that you want it to, communicating to your brain how you would like it to go is so powerful. Ultimately, spiritually, we then lay these things before the Lord and say, this is what I sense is the next step in the relationship. You know, give me guidance and wisdom on what to say, how to say it, and that I can be an acceptance of whatever the result of the conversation is.

That’s all for today. I want to read one of our recent reviews that says, I just started to listen to this podcast and Carrie Bach does a great job with multiple topics and great questions. I really appreciate the hard work she puts in and intend to support further. This is from Rob. Thank you, Rob, for saying that.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.


141. Is OCD Keeping You From Reading the Bible?

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Blog, OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie explores how OCD can disrupt regular Bible reading, leading to either obsessive or avoidant behaviors. She offers practical advice for engaging with scripture in a healthier way.

Episode Highlights:

  • How obsessively engaging with the Bible can feed the OCD cycle and strategies to manage this behavior.
  • How past experiences or distorted beliefs might influence your OCD symptoms and relationship with God.
  • Techniques for limiting your Bible reading to prevent it from becoming a compulsion while still engaging with spiritual practice.

Episode Summary:

I know how much you want to make Bible reading a regular part of your life, recognizing its importance as a spiritual discipline. Yet, OCD often gets in the way, complicating this sincere desire. Let’s dive into this issue together.

In episode 78, we touched on moving from “should” to “want” in Bible study. Today, we’ll look deeper into the struggle when OCD disrupts your Bible reading.

OCD often manifests in one of two ways for Christians: overdoing or avoiding. Some feel the need to read the Bible for hours, obsessively studying and over-analyzing every word, driven by anxiety and the fear that they’re not doing enough to please God. On the flip side, others avoid Bible reading altogether, overwhelmed by anxiety and intrusive thoughts when they try.

For those who find themselves overdoing it, it’s crucial to set limits on your Bible study time. While it may feel uncomfortable, this is necessary to break the OCD cycle of compulsive activity. Remember, your relationship with God is not about how much you do, but about resting in His grace.

For those avoiding Bible reading due to anxiety, start small. Engage with scripture in ways that feel safe, perhaps focusing on specific verses about God’s love or peace. Gradually, as you feel more comfortable, you can expand your reading.

Whether you’re overdoing or avoiding, it’s important to examine the underlying story you’re telling yourself about God and your relationship with Him. Are your thoughts rooted in grace and the truth of Christ’s work, or in performance-based theology?

Remember, healing is possible, and I’m here to help. Reach out to me through carriebock.com, and let’s work together to find a healthier approach to your Bible reading and spiritual growth.

Explore Related Episode:

78. Bible Study from “Should” to “Want” with Keith Ferrin

Transcript

Hey Christian, so you want to read your Bible, you know it’s an important spiritual discipline. You’re striving to have this in your life on a regular basis, and then bam, OCD gets in the way. Let’s talk about it. Insert the jingle here. Happy to announce to you all that carriebock.com is live. We will make sure you have that link in the show notes.

I always like to tell people verbally, it’s Bach, like the chicken sound, not like the composer. Anyway, this website project has been massive and ongoing to combine my counseling practice website and podcast website together. What’s really cool is if you go down to podcast breakdown, it’s a page. You can actually search all of our episodes, so if there are specific topics you were looking for like prayer or ERP or ICBT, you can search for those specific episodes, which is really cool.

We’re also working on fixing our categories so that hopefully on the side of the page you’ll just be able that everything will be categorized the way we want to. If you want to hear about personal testimonies from other Christians, you can click on those. Those tend to be early. Popular episodes, and we are certainly looking for new guests.

So if you want to tell your story or know someone else who wants to tell. Their OCD story. We’d love to talk with you about being on the podcast. You do not have to be a big celebrity. Not a requirement at all. Just an openness and a willingness to talk about what God has done in your life. Today we’re talking about reading your Bible.

So we had a previous episode on Bible study from Should to Want. That was episode 78. If you want to go back and Check that one out where I interviewed Keith Farrin. It was a really good conversation. But I want to talk with you more specifically today about, let’s say that you are struggling with your Bible reading because OCD keeps getting in the way.

Usually what I see in my practice is that this goes one of two ways for Christians. Either they are obsessively reading the Bible, Like, I need to be reading the Bible hours at a time. I need to be studying or poring over and understanding what does this one word mean. And even with all of that study, there’s still this level of anxiety that somehow it’s just not enough.

I’m not doing as much scripture reading as I feel like I should or as I feel like God wants me to in order to please Him. I like to say with OCD that we have doers and avoiders. So this would be the doer category. I’ve got to do, do, do, perform, perform, perform, then perhaps God will be pleased with me. Or at least I’m going to do everything that I can in order to not have this anxious feeling.

And then we have the avoiders. Who say, okay, if I don’t go do the hard thing, then I’m not going to feel the anxiety, and so therefore I’ll just be over here, not doing that thing. Yeah, I know I’m supposed to read my Bible, I want to read my Bible, but every time I sit down to read my Bible, I get super triggered, I have a lot of anxiety, scrupulosity obsessions come in.

What if God doesn’t love me? What if God isn’t real? What if I don’t have enough faith? All the what ifs that OCD likes to throw at you. What if I commit the unpardonable sin? What if I didn’t really read that correctly and now I need to go back and re read it so that I make sure I fully understand it?

As you can tell, this can go a lot of different directions. Ultimately, it’s frustrating, right, because the very thing that you desire to do and you want to engage with, you can’t find a way to engage with it in a healthy way. This can happen with other areas of your life as well, like eating or cleaning or, or practicing caution.

None of these things in themselves are bad, but then when it comes to OCD, Things get taken to an extreme and go off the rails. So let’s talk more specifically. What do you do if you’re that person who approaches a Bible study and it just feels like it’s never enough. You feel like you need to be spending more time.

You need to be understanding more. You need to be diving deeper. You don’t feel like God is pleased with you because you’re not reading all the time. To kick OCD in the pants, you’re really going to need to limit yourself, and that may be hard to hear, but if you are reading compulsively, then you are feeding that OCD cycle of, I’m hearing this obsession and then compulsively responding to it with massive amounts of activity.

So it’s going to feel uncomfortable, but you’re going to actually have to dial back your Bible reading and limit yourself to a certain amount of time or a certain amount of chapters, something of that nature, so that you don’t get caught up in doing this spiritual practice compulsively. I wouldn’t say don’t go to an extreme and not do it at all, although I think some people might encourage that for a time period.

I wouldn’t necessarily encourage that because you want to be able to practice your spiritual disciplines in a healthy way, in a way that is typical of other practicing Christians. I would also encourage you to examine the story behind this compulsive Bible reading, because there’s a story there, right, that you’re telling yourself that a lot of times is rooted in performance based theology.

That’s what I’m going to call it, for lack of a better way to call it. It’s not rooted in grace. It’s not rooted in Christ’s work on the cross. It’s rooted in What I’m doing to maintain my relationship with God, and unfortunately, you think it’s more spiritual because you think you’re focusing on God more, but really you’re focusing more on you.

And your own activity. And I know that that’s super hard probably to hear because that’s not where you want to be. And that’s not what you want to be focused on or your heart. But if it’s all about what I’m doing to maintain my relationship with God and not resting and being and trusting and abiding in who God is, then I’ve got things backwards.

Speaking from a place of personal experience of living with performance based theology in my earlier walk with Christ, I did not have obsessions or OCD about it, but I definitely felt like, oh yeah, Jesus saved me, I’m saved by grace, but now that I’m a Christian, it’s my job to jump in here and do all the things that I’m, quote, supposed to do that are the good.

moral right things and spiritual disciplines, whether I feel it or not. And there was so much weight and so much burden. And I never understood that scripture where Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I was like, I feel so heavy all the time. Like there’s a list of rules. And there’s a checklist, and there’s all these things that I have to do, and I’ve got to get it together, and if I mess up, it’s like, I’m done.

Like, it’s all over, and I’m a horrible person, and I’m worthless. That is not how we are to be living as Christians. Our actions are to be an overflow of the Holy Spirit’s work in our life. Here’s what I have come to learn through study of the Bible and walking with God. Is that if I could not save myself, I certainly cannot sanctify myself, meaning I cannot make myself more like Christ on my own.

Let’s look at Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Paul is saying, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working in you, both to will and to work according to His good purpose. We have the responsibility to show up and engage with God, but God is doing the work within us. So awesome.

So awesome. We can’t idly sit by and say, Okay, just, like, fill me up with the Holy Spirit. We do have to engage in that process. But if I’m trying to make everything happen, that’s only going to lead to more frustration. So, More disappointment in myself, more feelings of not good enough and worthless. It’s a never ending cycle.

I would love nothing more than to help you get off that hamster wheel. Send me a message through karybach. com and would love to talk with you about what opportunities we have to help you get there. Let’s talk for a moment if you are in the avoidance category. Maybe you would say, I haven’t read my Bible in days, not because I don’t want to, but because OCD really runs rampant and throws a bunch of obsessions on me when I try to engage in scripture reading.

I would really encourage you to re engage in small ways that are going to feel safe for your brain and body. Once you do that, you take the small steps, and you can certainly always add to them a bigger step, right? Sometimes people will say, okay, I am avoiding certain passages that then grows and maybe leads to more and more avoidance.

So you want to find ways to like dip your toe in the water, maybe even just meditating on one or two scriptures where you really feel like the Lord wants you to focus in on. It could be a topic for example, like peace or God being our father. It could be that you meditate on specific verses about God’s love for you.

If that’s something that you’re having trouble connecting with emotionally, maybe you’re struggling with uncertainty and need to meditate on specific scriptures. involving faith or trust. One thing I do know is that God is so gracious and he will meet you where you are at. Be honest with him about what you are thinking and feeling.

Then we have to ask ourselves too if God doesn’t feel safe to sit with in terms of reading, his love letter to you. Where did that come from? Did that come from a church hurt experience? What’s the story? What’s the deeper story behind that? Did that come from a harsh parent and now you’ve projected that onto God?

What’s the story that you’re telling yourself about God? And what’s the story that you’re telling yourself about you in terms of your position into who you are in Christ? So whether you’re doing too much and you’re overdoing your Bible reading or whether you’re avoiding, what I’m learning so much with scrupulosity is you have to be willing to look at your theology.

What are your actual thoughts about God? And then where did those things come from? Are they rooted in foundations of scripture and healthy spiritual practice, or are they coming from a place of woundedness, hurt, or intense fear? You can get caught in a thought loop and thinking the same thing over and over and over.

Or you can take a step back and re evaluate and re examine. One of the things I love about doing ICBT with Christians is that we can look at the reasons for the obsessional doubt. Like, there’s a reason that you are stuck on this particular OCD theme. There’s a reason that you’ve come to the conclusions that you’ve come to.

And sometimes once your eyes are open to that, even though it’s a early stage in the treatment process of building awareness, sometimes people are like, Oh, that’s an OCD reasoning structure. This is OCD getting in the way versus before maybe they just thought, Well, I’m anxious about this situation. It’s like, No, I actually have a doubt that I’m believing and holding on to, and it’s a lie that OCD has told me.

I want you to know that if you are struggling with scrupulosity, that there is hope. Healing is possible, and I’m thankful for each one of you who are tuning in to listen to this. I hope it helps you engage with your Bible reading in a healthier way this week.