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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.

213. Pt 2: Why Scrupulosity is so Complicated and Hard to Treat

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

In this episode, Carrie continues exploring why scrupulosity can feel so layered and difficult to untangle. She examines the hidden fears, spiritual experiences, and beliefs about God that may be quietly fueling the struggle.

Episode Highlights:

  • How scrupulosity often attaches itself to other OCD themes
  • What it means to identify the “primary obsessional doubt” beneath the surface
  • Why theology and personal history both matter in recovery
  • How early relationships can shape your view of God
  • Why healing may require examining both belief systems and identity
  • What it looks like to move from an identity rooted in fear to one rooted in being loved

Episode Summary:

Why Is It So Hard to Trust a Therapist When You Have Scrupulosity?

Welcome back, OCD Warriors.

In Part One, we talked about the lack of awareness in church spaces, beliefs about mental health and medication, and how Christians sometimes struggle with thoughts and feelings. Today, I want to go deeper.

One of the most complicated layers of scrupulosity is this: distrust.

Many Christians struggling with OCD come to me after trying to get help from someone who simply did not understand what they were going through. Sometimes the first person they talk to does not have the clinical training to treat OCD well. Other times, they sit across from a therapist who does not share their faith and cannot grasp why certain fears feel so spiritually intense.

That experience lingers.

It makes you cautious. It makes you hesitant to try again. And sometimes it makes you question whether real help even exists.

Why Does Getting Help for Scrupulosity Feel So Complicated?

Scrupulosity lives in a space where faith and clinical treatment intersect.

Because the fears sound spiritual, it makes sense to seek spiritual help first. But OCD follows a specific reasoning pattern, and without understanding that process, reassurance can unintentionally make things worse.

On the other hand, working with someone who does not understand why certain fears feel eternal can feel just as unsettling.

That tension alone can delay healing.

Why Does Scrupulosity Rarely Show Up Alone

Another layer that makes this theme so complex is that it often attaches itself to other OCD struggles.

Relationship doubts can turn into fears about being outside of God’s will. Intrusive thoughts can morph into questions about salvation. Contamination fears can become spiritualized.

Now the anxiety feels heavier. Not just uncomfortable, but ultimate.

And if we only focus on the surface issue, we may never get to the deeper fear underneath.

What Is Beneath the Surface of the Fear?

When we slow down enough, there is often something more vulnerable at the core.

Not just “Am I right?”
But “Am I still loved?”
Not just “Did I sin?”
But “Am I disconnected from God?”

Until that layer is acknowledged, treatment can feel like circling the same arguments again and again.

How Do My Experiences Shape My View of God?

For some people, scrupulosity is intertwined with early experiences of authority, correction, or fear.

If you grew up feeling constantly criticized, it can subtly shape how you imagine God responding to you. If you learned that love was conditional, that belief can follow you into your spiritual life.

Sometimes the nervous system is reacting to old patterns, not to God Himself.

Healing may require looking gently at where those patterns began.

What Happens When My Identity Begins to Shift?

If you have long believed you are disappointing to God, stepping into the identity of beloved child can feel unfamiliar at first.

New beliefs require a new identity. And even good change can feel destabilizing.

Scrupulosity is layered for a reason. It is not simply a lack of faith or effort.

In this episode of Christian Faith and OCD, we continue unpacking why this theme can be especially complicated to treat and what that means for your healing journey.

If this resonates, I invite you to listen and lean in. 💛

Explore Related Episode

141. Is OCD Keeping You From Reading the Bible?
154: Using Christian Meditation to Go Deeper with God, an interview with Jennifer Tucker
Transcript

Welcome back, OCD Warriors, to part two of Why Is Scrupulosity So Complicated and Hard to Treat? Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife, and mother, and 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.

I got really long-winded, so we did part one last week, where I went over three points in greater detail. I would encourage you to go back and listen to that episode if you haven’t already. As a quick review, the first three points were: a lack of awareness in the church or biblical counseling circles, which leads to a delay in treatment; two, all kinds of beliefs about mental health and medication in the church; and number three, the Christian church has an unhealthy relationship at times with thoughts and feelings. So let’s dive right into the next point.

Number four, why scrupulosity is so complicated and hard to treat, is a severe distrust of non-Christian providers, as I spoke about in terms of the biblical counseling examples. Unfortunately, Christians who are struggling with OCD, often the first person they seek help from lacks the necessary skills and experience to truly be able to help them. I find that really sad, but that’s the truth.

Now, some people don’t trust non-Christian providers based on past negative experiences, and I’ve heard all of the stories from you guys about trying to seek help and really just feeling like the person just didn’t get it. I mean, I think as clients—I’m someone who’s the therapist, but I’ve been to several different therapists—sometimes you sit down with a therapist and you can just exhale. You’re like, ah. They get it. They understand what I’m dealing with. They’re able to make empathetic reflections and say, yeah, that makes sense to me, and here’s why. It seems like you’re feeling this way, and there’s this sense of relief that comes over you, like, okay, this person is gelling. But then there are other times where you meet with therapists and you’re like, this person just has no idea what I am going through right now. They may have difficulty empathizing with your experience.

This can be true if someone doesn’t believe in God or value religious experience. They may have a really hard time empathizing that potential blasphemy or potential sin is really distressing to you, or this idea that you might be outside of God’s will or that you might not go to heaven. It can be just hard for them to get that. Maybe at the same time, there have been negative experiences where people have done non-religiously sensitive exposures, haven’t really worked with a pastor or spiritual leader, as IOCDF really recommends and proposes, just making sure that the clinician is working with the church, especially if they’re unfamiliar. Sometimes those things have happened.

Also, I’ve heard stories about therapists maybe making fun of hell, for example, trying to kind of make things more lighthearted or get the client to not take it so seriously. However, of course, this is going to be very distressing to somebody with scrupulosity who believes hell is a real place.

I just want to say a note here about, okay, in an ideal world, you would be able to find a Christian who has good clinical knowledge about OCD and is able to treat you. What if you have to go into maybe an intensive outpatient treatment program, a residential treatment program? What if you really, really need to use your insurance? You’re financially limited in the providers that you can see. Maybe there aren’t a whole lot of people who take insurance that are treating OCD. I would say, I think a lot of times people fear being led astray, but typically those people that fear that are pretty strong and grounded in what they actually believe. And I would say, don’t underestimate God’s ability to use nonbelievers.

What I mean by that is you look at this whole situation with Moses and Pharaoh, for example. Ultimately, God used Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, who were not following Him, in order to bless the people of Israel. They essentially got all of this gold and other things that they gave them for their journey, let them release them from slavery in the end, of course, after all the plagues and all that. This is shown through Scripture, even God using other nations to discipline Israel. So don’t underestimate the ability for God to use nonbelievers. If you need treatment and you need help, if you find a really good clinician, they’re going to be somebody that wants to work with you from your particular faith experience and your particular belief systems.

Now, people may think that it’s easier for me because I’m a Christian who works with Christians. Newsflash: it’s not. I still have to do this work myself because there are so many different denominations and streams of Christianity. I have to ask a lot of questions often to find out where people are coming from, and people don’t always hold the same beliefs or practices that I do. And so I’m really looking at where are they coming from, how are their symptoms affecting them, and how maybe their beliefs are intertwined. The OCD is intertwined with the particular belief system, and understanding the belief system and the practices, of course, helps.

I can tell you just from personal experience that working with somebody who’s Catholic versus somebody who’s in the Orthodox church versus somebody who’s a Mennonite versus somebody who’s in a charismatic church—their beliefs and practices may be very different, and that’s okay. Regardless of where you’re coming from, you can still recover in your OCD journey. You don’t have to completely change denominations or anything of that nature.

Number five, scrupulosity often does not exist by itself but becomes an offshoot of other OCD themes. It’s pretty rare that I find somebody who is only dealing with scrupulosity. Typically, they have had a history of other OCD themes, or they’re starting with one OCD theme, and then scrupulosity interferes and almost adds this whole other layer on top of the theme.

So even if someone has, for example, themes about relationships—should I be with this person or not?—then that can go into, well, if I marry this person, then I’m somehow messing up God’s will for my life if it wasn’t meant for us to be together. It could be a situation where I have some type of contamination OCD, but then that gets blended in with, it’s a sin to be contaminated, or I’m unclean in some type of way because of my sin. And so then I’m doing some type of hand-washing rituals because of certain thoughts I’m having.

So I’ve seen this come up quite a bit. Any type of sexual themes also ends up feeding scrupulosity. What kind of Christian am I if I have these thoughts? Maybe that means this about my faith. I don’t really love God because I’m having these types of intrusions or I’m having sexual intrusions. And then, like I said before, confusing that temptation for sin. So scrupulosity getting combined with other forms of OCD creates these extra layers to deal with, right?

So we’re not really at the root of the issue sometimes when we’re just dealing with the scrupulosity if it is connected to another theme. So it may be helpful to look at what someone was obsessing with before the scrupulosity came along and latched onto the top of it. Even something like I gave the example before about the denominations. It’s like, are we really at what ICBT would call the primary obsessional doubt? You can get caught up in the weeds a lot in scrupulosity, which makes it super hard on the treatment end.

So for the example that I gave earlier about which denomination to follow, is that really the primary obsessional doubt? Or is the primary obsessional doubt at a deeper layer, such as, what if I offend God, or what if I make the wrong decision and I’m outside of what God wants me to do? People can spend a lot of time in therapy hashing out these ideas or ruminating about, well, this denomination says this and that denomination says that. You can get super in the weeds about Calvinism versus communionism and these other things that may be really bothering someone, but then you’re never actually getting down to the root of what is actually scaring them.

What are you actually concerned about? And typically what I’ve seen is there’s some type of worry or doubt about being disconnected from God in some way, shape, or form. Whether that’s present disconnection from God—I’m going to be sinning and God’s going to be displeased with me—or whether it’s future disconnection from God in terms of I’m not going to be saved and I’m not going to be going to heaven. You’re not going to really be able to deal with the issue if you can’t get down to the primary obsessional doubt in terms of ICBT or some type of core fear that you’re experiencing.

Oftentimes, it’s really hard for people to go there because it’s very scary. It feels very vulnerable, and it’s hard to even maybe know in your own mind, what am I really doubting in this situation? If you do get down to that point—this fear of disconnection from God or fear of punishment or being unsafe, somehow missing something, and then if I miss it, I’m somehow going to be displeasing or rejected—when you get there to that vulnerable, scary place, then you can be able to recognize the obsessional reasoning process, the arguments that OCD is using, and get to what your alternative narrative needs to be.

Now, when you hit that primary obsessional doubt and, in essence, this core thing that you’re afraid of, then we get to point number seven, where treating scrupulosity requires that you take a hard look at your theology and where it came from. We get all kinds of ideas about God, whether that was from a pastor you grew up with who was hellfire and brimstone. You may not believe those things about God now, but it’s still stuck back in there in your subconscious, and your nervous system remembers that fear, that intense fear that you felt when you heard that pastor.

You may have had parents that quoted certain Scripture verses to you or were very harsh toward you in their discipline, and they may have somehow incorporated God into certain things. OCD-wise, God doesn’t want you to be a lazy person. God doesn’t want you to be dirty. Cleanliness is next to godliness, whatever it was. Those ideas from people got mixed in with your theology. You have to be able to examine, how did I come to believe the things that I do about God? I think that is crucial.

Oftentimes, there are things that we don’t recognize because it’s just the water that we’ve been swimming in. Until you get in treatment or talk to another therapist where they’re like, where did you come to have that belief? Or how did you get to that point? It’s like, well, it just is. It’s black and white, right?

There’s a lot of conversation nowadays about deconstructing your religious beliefs that you were taught and that you grew up with. You really don’t want to have deconstruction unless you’re going to have some type of reconstruction, right? What are we going to believe now about God? Are we going to use Scripture to inform our belief systems, or are we going on our own experiences?

Knowing that your experiences with God, if you have a relationship with Him, there may be experiences that you have that really challenge what you were taught. There may be Scriptures that you read in the Bible where you say, wait a minute, I wasn’t taught that. I was taught that I was nothing in the sight of God, that I wasn’t important, that I wasn’t valued, that I was just kind of here for God’s purposes. I was basically taught that I was scum. Now I’m seeing all these verses in the Bible about how God rejoices over me with singing, that we talked about on the love episode on the podcast, how God has loved us with an everlasting love, how God sees me as His child. And I look at my own children and see how I see them, and if God sees me that way, then wow, that’s completely different than what I grew up believing.

Whatever it is for you, I think you have to be able to take a hard look and recognize maybe something that I believe is not true and it’s not in alignment with my relationship with God.

I’ll give you a very small example in my life that is not of huge relevance, but I was taught as a child, growing up in the Baptist church, that speaking in tongues was not a thing, that it was a thing in the Bible. My dad was a very strong cessationist, where they believed that there was a point where speaking in tongues ceased and it was no more. Since being an adult and going to different churches, I’ve met some people that I consider to be very godly people and strong believers who speak in tongues. So I have a respect for those people, even though I haven’t been given that gift myself.

I would say that that’s one belief that has changed based on my own review of the Scriptures for myself as an adult and through personal experience of talking with other believers. I think we have to free ourselves to acknowledge that maybe our past self was wrong about something, and that’s okay. And maybe our beliefs can change. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I know that Steve and I have talked about this with some other non-essential beliefs, that some of his views on certain things have changed over time based on reading the Bible, prayer, personal experience, and talking with other people. So it’s okay and, I think, healthy every once in a while to examine what you believe about God and understand where that came from and why you believe that.

Number eight is you have to be willing to examine how your relationships with others are impacting the scrupulosity, how they’ve impacted your view of God. Specifically, those early relationships that we had with parents, teachers, coaches, grandparents really can influence how we view God. Oftentimes, we take those experiences from other people and place them onto God.

If you just felt like people were constantly disappointed in you, like you could never live up to their expectations, it makes sense that you would believe that God is that way. If you feel like people were just very harsh and always pointing out what you were doing wrong, or you were constantly being punished, maybe you really struggled to please people but you always seemed to get in trouble, and the punishment maybe didn’t quite fit the crime, was maybe harsher than it needed to be—I don’t know what your experience was—but that might be another example where you feel like, okay, God is really harsh and is coming down on me pretty hard.

I had a father who was pretty big and could be pretty scary when he was angry. Not in an I’m going to be beat up kind of way, but more of an authoritative, verbally scary type of way. I definitely put that onto God, like maybe God is like Dad and He’s going to yell at me if I get in trouble, or He’s going to be upset with me if I do the wrong thing. And it took me a while into my adulthood to be able to even call God Father. That just didn’t seem quite right to me.

This understanding now of God as a loving Father has completely changed and shifted things for me. It’s been a healing journey and very therapeutic for me. But it took me a while to get there because, as I shared on the very first episode of this podcast, when I was growing up, God seemed to be very harsh to me. In the Old Testament, God seemed very angry. Now I have a much more balanced view of that because I can definitely see God’s love throughout different pieces of the Old Testament. But back when I was a kid, things didn’t quite make as much sense for me.

I also didn’t see God as wanting to be intimately involved in every aspect of my life. I think my parents did a really good job of taking us to church and talking to us about God when it came to the big things and the moral things. But I really want my daughter to know something that maybe my child self didn’t know, that God cares about your math test on a Tuesday just as much as He cares about you making the right decision over here about something. God wants to be intimately involved in your life. He wants you to go to Him over all types of different things. Things that seem small to us are not insignificant to Him, and He has enough space to hold them. It’s not like we’re going to bother God. If we go to Him about our math test, He’s not going to be like, why are you talking to Me about that? He’s going to be like, I’m so glad that you talked to Me about that. God wants to give us peace.

I didn’t get that picture of God growing up, and now I’m able to tell my daughter, you can talk to God about anything, whatever you need to. And she just has these really sweet prayers at night where she thanks God for different toys in her room, and I just think that that’s beautiful.

Oftentimes, we overcomplicate our connection with God. Jesus said, come like a child. So if we look at how children approach God, then it’s much more simple and much easier than trying to follow a huge, long list of rules or picking apart every little thing to determine whether or not it’s a sin or it’s okay. I think that children have a greater understanding of things being about the heart and doing things out of love.

So how have your relationships with caregivers impacted your view of God? This is really where I believe a great EMDR application can come in. Because if we do have some of those wounding experiences that are stuck in our nervous system and you’re able to process through that and come to the other side where you’re feeling calmer and recognizing, oh, okay, I was hurt by certain people, or I understand I’m making a connection now between a parent and viewing God as harsh, or this super critical parent and viewing God as critical. That type of work typically isn’t going to enter into typical ERP or ICBT treatment.

One of the things that I think is really important and critical is to look at individuals as whole people, to look at the various aspects of what’s happening for them versus looking at them from a lens of diagnosis. When I was much earlier on in my career, someone would come to me and say, hey, I have trauma. I’m like, hey, great, I do this trauma therapy called EMDR. We could handle that. Or someone would come and say, hey, I have anxiety. Oh, great, here’s some tools that I can give you for anxiety. There’s also some things that we can do with EMDR that will really help you get down to the root and not have to carry so much anxiety around in your nervous system.

And it was this much cleaner process, right, of here’s a problem that someone has, and then here’s an appropriate intervention. And it’s also somewhat what we’re taught in school. The longer that you go along, the more complex individuals you find and the more you recognize different approaches can be helpful in different circumstances and situations. I don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all treatment process for anyone.

New beliefs require a new identity. If you are going to embrace new beliefs about faith, new beliefs about God—if you are no longer the unworthy stepchild in the family of God and you are going to be the beloved child—that requires putting on a new identity in Jesus. Sometimes shedding that old identity that’s comfortable or familiar to embrace your new identity in Christ can be really, really challenging if you’ve lived for a really long time believing God was disappointed in you or that you weren’t good enough or that you weren’t ever going to be able to meet His standards.

And now you’re trying to shift over every day into believing that you are absolutely and completely loved, that you have been saved, that the cross is the finished work of Jesus Christ, and there’s nothing else that you need to do to earn God’s love. Ephesians 4 talks about putting off the old self and putting on the new self and understanding who you are in Christ. Freedom is going to be uncomfortable at first if it’s a new experience for you.

What do you think about these points that I came up with? I would love to hear from you. If you’re a therapist that treats scrupulosity, if you’re a person that struggles with it, if you have a family member or a loved one, I’d love to hear your honest feedback on this episode because I just want to know, are other people seeing what I’m seeing in the world and talking about the complexities that get brought into the scrupulosity equation?

If you are struggling with scrupulosity, my hope is that you’ve gotten a few things out of this episode. One is that there is hope for you, that there is a pathway forward, that it may be complicated, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get help with this. Number two, I hope that it’s validating to you that if you’ve struggled, if you’ve been to a couple different therapists, if you’ve tried the biblical therapy and then tried a clinical counselor who wasn’t Christian and tried to find this happy medium of what you were looking for between solid biblical truth and clinical skills that are going to be able to help you, know that you’re not alone. We get emails from people all the time who are seeking to find that.

If you happen to be a therapist that you feel like is aligned with that vision, where you’re a strong believer and also have strong clinical skills, please write to us. Please reach out via the podcast. You can go to kerrybock.com/podcast. There should be a contact form on there. If not, you can hit us up on the main contact form on the website. We’d love to hear from you. We probably could provide you some referrals because we do have people that reach out to us and ask, do you know anyone in my state? And unfortunately, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.

So if you are a Christian counselor who has some things you want to talk about or have conversations about on the podcast, we’d love to have you and love to be able to add you to our very small, at this point, referral list for Christians who are struggling with OCD.

And if you feel like you’ve only been getting a one-size-fits-all approach, it’s a really great opportunity for you to advocate for yourself and to figure out, okay, what’s the next step? What do I need? I provide consultations for people. I provide intensive experiences, multi-day therapeutic retreats. I have an online course called Empowered Mind for Christians who are struggling with all types of OCD, but many people in there are specifically struggling with scrupulosity. Come join that program and really squeeze all of the goodness that is in there out of it. It’s been able to help a lot of people at this point, and I pray that it continues to be able to help people who feel like they haven’t been able to get the help that they needed before, where it’s been out of reach for some reason for them.

You can reach me at carriebock.com. I love hearing from you guys. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

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.

212.  Pt 1: Why Scrupulosity is so Complicated and Hard to Treat

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

As we continue the Scrupulosity Series, Carrie unpacks the hidden layers that make religious OCD uniquely complex, especially when spiritual doubt, fear of sin, and confusion about God’s character get tangled in the OCD cycle.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why scrupulosity (religious OCD) is more complex than other OCD themes and why it often feels harder to treat
  • How church culture and biblical counseling can unintentionally reinforce the OCD cycle
  • Why reassurance about salvation, sin, or blasphemy can actually make scrupulosity worse
  • How mental health stigma in Christian spaces delays proper OCD treatment
  • The difference between intrusive thoughts, temptation, and actual sin from a biblical perspective
  • How black-and-white theology and fear-based thinking keep religious OCD stuck

Episode Summary:

Have you ever wondered why scrupulosity feels harder to untangle than other types of OCD? Not just distressing or intrusive, but deeply personal. Like it’s wrapped around your faith, your salvation, and your relationship with God in a way that makes everything feel higher stakes.

When I sat down to record this episode, I truly thought I could cover it all in one sitting. I couldn’t. There are too many layers. So we’re taking this in two parts.

If you’ve been feeling stuck or confused about why this struggle feels so intense, I think this conversation is going to bring some clarity.

Why Does Scrupulosity Feel Different From Other OCD Themes?

On paper, OCD follows similar reasoning patterns across themes. But when it attaches itself to your faith, it hits differently.

You’re not just afraid of being wrong. You’re afraid of sinning. You’re afraid of losing your salvation. You’re afraid of disappointing God.

That spiritual weight changes everything. And it’s one of the reasons scrupulosity feels uniquely heavy.

Why Do Christians With Scrupulosity Go to Pastors First?

Because the fears sound spiritual.

If you’re thinking, “What if I blasphemed?” or “What if I’m not truly saved?” of course you’re going to seek spiritual guidance. That makes sense.

But what if what you’re experiencing isn’t primarily a spiritual problem?

What if it’s OCD attaching itself to the thing you value most?

That distinction matters more than you may realize.

Can Reassurance Make Scrupulosity Worse?

This one is tender.

Reassurance feels comforting in the moment. But if the doubt keeps coming back, if the relief doesn’t last, if you find yourself asking the same question in slightly different ways, that may not be weak faith.

It may be the OCD cycle strengthening itself.

Understanding that changes how we approach healing.

Is Taking Medication for OCD a Lack of Faith?

I hear this concern more than you might think.

Some believers quietly carry shame about therapy or medication, wondering if it means they’re not trusting God enough.

But you can love Jesus deeply and still need professional support. Sometimes God’s provision shows up through doctors, therapists, and medication. That doesn’t make you less spiritual. It makes you human.

Why Do Intrusive Thoughts Feel Like Sin?

Scrupulosity blends categories in painful ways.

A thought feels like an action. A temptation feels like a moral failure. A doubt feels like proof.

But having a thought is not the same thing as choosing it.

And learning to separate those pieces is a huge part of healing.

Press play and join me for this conversation.

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.

So what’s the deal? Why is scrupulosity so complicated, so hard to treat? I’ve said before that the obsessional reasoning process is the same, and so it doesn’t really matter what theme that you have. Inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy, or ICBT, will work for you. However, I’d like to somewhat revise my statements on this because even though ICBT can work for all themes of OCD, scrupulosity, I’ve realized, is a whole other animal. There are so many different layers of complexity to this that we really need to talk about—challenges that people run into when they’re trying to get help for scrupulosity, as well as challenges therapists might run into who are trying to help people struggling with scrupulosity.

I’ve come up with several points.

Number one is the lack of awareness in churches and biblical counseling circles that leads to a delay in clinical treatment for scrupulosity. This is a huge issue because most people see this as a spiritual problem. They’re going to seek a spiritual solution first. That just makes sense. They’re gonna go to a pastor, a ministry leader, a biblical counselor, and say, “Hey, I’m wrestling with this issue. I’m afraid maybe I’ve blasphemed. I’m afraid maybe that secretly I’m really a Pharisee. I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing that the Bible is talking about. I think maybe I’ve lost my salvation.” All of these different ruminations that Christians who are struggling with scrupulosity have.

Unfortunately, many people still have this idea in their head of OCD that it’s like Monk and they’re all germaphobes, or they all have color-coordinated closets. And we really need to do more education within the church. We had a podcast episode that I did with Rachel Kuku Woodward on what I wish pastors knew about OCD. Please share that with your pastor, your ministry leader, deacons in your church. We would love to get that information out there because people need to know what religious OCD looks like.

Oftentimes they don’t know what religious OCD looks like, and some of these issues can be common spiritual doubts among people that don’t have OCD. There is a delay in seeking care. What happens is people will go to these individuals for reassurance. They’ll receive some reassurance, but of course it doesn’t stick. So then the person is coming back and is even more distressed and more upset. Or maybe they’re ruminating about a completely different spiritual issue the next time. So it doesn’t occur to the person that’s talking to them that this is what OCD looks like.

I have gotten to the point where I shudder a little bit when someone with OCD tells me that they’re going to biblical counseling. Now some of you are like, “Carrie, I know that you’re a Christian and I know that you read the Bible and love the Lord. So why would you say that? Are you anti-biblical counseling?” No, I’m not anti-biblical counseling. I think it has its place. I think it might be really helpful for someone that’s, for example, trying to figure out how to emulate a godly marriage according to the Bible. Maybe they didn’t have good examples of that, or maybe they just didn’t grow up in a church that was teaching about how to be a godly wife or how to be a godly husband. Maybe it could be really great for people who are needing to deal with forgiveness. They find themselves having a lot of bitterness or a lot of anger towards things that have happened to them that they wanna deal with on a spiritual level and forgive people. I went through some of that work in college. It was amazing and incredibly helpful for me.

So I think there is a place for biblical counseling—not when it comes to OCD treatment. The reason for that is because 97 out of a hundred times, that person is going to said biblical counselor who doesn’t have any knowledge about OCD, how to treat OCD, and that person is just providing reassurance or co-ruminating with the individual with OCD, which is only strengthening the process, once again delaying treatment and causing the OCD to strengthen and get worse. Think about this for a minute. Someone is gonna get help and the help they’re seeking is actually making them sicker. This has gotta stop. We have to educate and coordinate our faith communities as therapists and be working arm in arm together to help support people in the best way possible—spiritually, mentally, emotionally, medically.

Number two, scrupulosity is really complicated and hard to treat because there are all kinds of different views about mental health and medication in the church today. Now I believe that we have come a long way. I am very hopeful. The reason I’m hopeful is because when I started this podcast over five years ago now, there was just very, very little to nothing in regards to Christianity and OCD. Now that has changed. There have been more personal stories that people have written or shared, knowledge that is coming to the forefront. But I searched, I dug down in the Google search, and I just didn’t have resources. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m here talking about this with you guys, because I became very burdened that there’s nothing that’s clinically sound and biblically sound mixed together.

I was hearing from too many Christians that they were just getting the easy kind of answers, the pat answers in the church. “You know, you just really need to pray about this more, and if you just trusted God with that. I mean, just let it go. Just trust God. You know, if you have enough faith, God will move the mountains for you.” All of these things are not particularly helpful when someone is in an immense state of suffering.

And of course, it’s helpful to pray. Of course, it’s helpful to read your Bible. But if we have somebody who’s up in debt, up to their eyeballs, we’re not just gonna throw them a Bible, say a prayer for them, and walk away. I hope you wouldn’t do that if they came to you for help and said, “Hey, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. I’m struggling.” I hope that you would be like, “Hey, can we find you a financial counselor? Maybe somebody that can sit down with you and look at what you owe, look at your interest rates, find a pathway out of this if that’s something that you’re willing to do.” Most people who are in really bad shape like that can’t get out on their own.

And so the same thing with mental health struggles. If someone is coming to you and they have a severe medical problem like diabetes or cancer, of course we’re gonna pray for that person. Of course, we’re gonna maybe send them encouraging scriptures. We’re not just gonna leave it at that. We’re gonna say, “Hey, what is your doctor saying? What’s the plan? What does the treatment plan look like? How is your diet? How are other things going on in your life?” We wanna really care about people at a deep level and meet them where they are and help them meet their needs.

But somehow when it comes to mental health in the church, we’ve got this idea that we should be able to throw some kind of Jesus Band-Aid on a gaping wound and that that should be fine. “Well, Jesus is all you really need,” and just move forward.

Wisdom comes from God. James 1:5 says if we ask God for wisdom, that he’s gonna give it to us. And sometimes that comes from scripture. Sometimes that comes from the Holy Spirit speaking to you. But many times it also comes through other believers, through people who can speak truth into your life or knowledge that maybe they have received educationally that they can then pass on to you. God calls us as Christians to live in community.

If you talk to anyone who has been through an addiction and has become sober for any length of time, they will probably tell you that there was some type of community involvement that helped them in that process. Typically, people don’t just stay in their bedroom and get sober and shut the whole world out. Typically, they’re involved in some type of support group, or they have some type of mentorship happening or sponsorship happening, because we need other people. Sometimes it takes this huge level of humility to be able to say, “You know what? I need help.”

And when somebody is coming to us in the church with immense emotional burdens—we can see that it’s affecting them physically. Maybe they physically look super tense, fidgety. Their voice is shaking when you’re talking to them. They’re crying all the time. We need to be able to support them in getting the professional help that they need, whatever that looks like. I think unfortunately, many churches have dropped the ball on this and haven’t provided encouragement or referrals to professionals.

I wanna say a few words about taking medication. I’m not a doctor, so this is coming from a therapist, but I sincerely believe that you can have Jesus, love the Lord, take medication, and go to therapy, and that those things are not in opposition to each other. Sometimes people in the church feel like, “Oh, if I take medication somehow that’s a sign of weak faith.” It’s not.

I love what Tiffany S. says in her book Anxious with Jesus. She talks about praying while taking your medication, and just this combination of allowing God to use the resources that we have and understanding and elevating him as the ultimate healer. JP Moreland wrote a book called Finding Quiet, where he talks about taking medication for anxiety as a believer, and I believe that’s a really great explanation for anyone out there. I would love to get in touch with him. So if you happen to be buds with JP Moreland, I’ve tried to reach out to him via his website, I think, and really haven’t been able to get in touch with him. So if you are a networker, connector, I’d love to have him on the podcast. You can share this with him.

You’re not less spiritual for taking antidepressants any more than you’re less spiritual for taking chemo drugs or less spiritual for taking diabetes medicine. Let’s say it louder for the people in the back. Okay? We have to really get this sunk deep down into our psyches that it’s okay to take these medications, especially when you are in the midst of treatment and really trying to learn new skills. You’re struggling, it’s hard, or you’ve just gone through a really rough bout where your symptoms have become more severe. Don’t be afraid. Talk to your doctor. Talk to a psychiatrist. Utilize these things as resources.

I really encourage you, if you have OCD, to look into the FDA-approved medications for OCD because sometimes doctors get a little wild and just start prescribing various antidepressants. And so if they are prescribing something that’s not on that list, I would just say, “Hey, what is your thought process behind that? I’m just really curious. I did my research and I noticed that these were the medications that were FDA-approved specifically for OCD.”

Point number three is that the American Christian church has a really unhealthy relationship with thoughts and feelings in general. I know that is a very broad statement, but it’s something that I’ve seen over and over in my work, where there’s almost this subtle idea that we’re having to fight all the time with our thoughts and feelings. And how much energy does that take? That consumes a lot of energy—trying to fight with these things that are natural, that we all deal with and we all have to face at one point or another.

It’s much easier to take a more flat mindfulness approach of like, okay, it’s here. I may not like it, but I still have to figure out, okay, now that it’s here, I can either acknowledge it’s here or deny that it’s here. If I deny that it’s here, it’s still gonna be there and I’m still gonna have to deal with it at some point or another. It’s gonna keep coming back up and keep bugging me.

I think there’s this emphasis in the church to do one of two things: either to take our thoughts and feelings super seriously and put a lot of energy into them, or to deny them completely. And either is an issue. We have to find a balance point, a middle ground.

So if we’re putting too much emphasis on thoughts, it’s like bad thoughts have to be feared. We have to watch every little thing that comes into our mind. “You have to watch your thoughts because your thoughts will become your behavior.” That is not always the case. There are lots of things—trust me, I do not have OCD—but I’ll tell you, there are lots of things that come into my head that I do not act on. I’m like, “That is a really bad idea right now. Do not do that.”

This is why we have filters in our mind of past experiences, of things that we’re like, “Okay, if I do A, I know B is probably going to happen, and so I’m gonna not do A, even though I may really wanna do that right now.” I may really want to get defensive in this argument, but I know that it’s just gonna continue the argument and cause more relationship problems. I may really wanna scream right now because somebody is not listening to what I’m saying, but I’m gonna stop. I’m gonna walk away. I’m gonna take five deep breaths, come back, try this situation again.

Could you imagine if you acted on every thought that you had? How many of you have had a thought this week that said, “I don’t wanna do this,” and what if you acted on that thought? Even today, I’ve been recovering from a cold. I still am dealing with some sinus issues. I was losing my voice earlier this week and I said, “You know, I just am not sure that I wanna record this podcast episode.” Yet here I am recording because it’s important, because I wanna talk to you, because I know that if I don’t do it this week, it’s gonna get pushed off to next week and then I’ll have more to do next week. All of these things can go through my mind. They’re being filtered through my values at that point. And my values say, “Hey, even though we don’t feel like it right now, we’re still gonna show up and do the thing.”

You may feel that same way about work. There may be times where you do not wanna play with your children because you’re exhausted, but you still do it because you know it’s important and you wanna connect with them. Just think about that last time that you really thought, “I’m not sure I wanna do this,” and you did it anyway. See, you acted against a thought that you had.

When we overemphasize our thoughts, we may get really stuck on taking every thought captive, really having to activate quite a bit and do something about these thoughts. I talked with someone recently who was a former pastor who dealt with OCD, and he said, “Man, the pastor told me to take every thought captive. That just ruined me.” Now we have a whole podcast episode on that. You can go back and listen to it another time of what it means for OCD.

What happens when you overemphasize or place greater meaning onto thoughts than they really need to have in OCD is that it only makes them stronger. It only makes them come back more. If you’re trying to suppress thoughts, if you’re trying to neutralize them—like, “Hey, I’m gonna think of a positive memory because I just had a harm OCD thought. I’m gonna try to neutralize it with a positive memory”—rebuking thoughts, those types of things only make them come back more and more and make the OCD worse.

It seems to somewhat conflict with maybe some things that you’ve been taught in church. One thing I find particularly helpful is this concept from metacognitive therapy that says thoughts are like buses or like trains or subway cars—however you wanna think about it. Let’s say that thought bus comes along. You get to decide whether or not you are getting on that bus and continuing that thought direction or not. Or you can say, “You know what? I’m gonna let that bus pass by.” I’m not gonna get on there because if I get on that bus, it may lead me down this road that’s gonna take me to anxiety, intense fear, depression.

If I’m just ruminating on my past mistakes all the time, it’s gonna lead me to a sad place, and you know that. Obviously, if you have OCD, I’m not saying that this process is easy—to just detach from your thoughts. But the idea is that at some level we do have a choice of what we do with these thoughts as they come up. You may not have the choice of what bus decides to drive by. You may have lots of intrusive thoughts and you’re like, “Hey, I didn’t call for that taxi,” or, “I don’t wanna be at this bus stop where all these buses are trying to pick me up.” But you can decide whether or not you wanna continue on that bus.

Some people see any type of negative thought or temptation as sin. Having a negative thought is not automatically a sin. Having a tempting thought, such as a sexual thought, is not automatically sin. Once again, you get to decide what to do with that thought. You get to decide whether or not you’re gonna continue to go down that road of, “Oh, I had a lustful thought and I’m gonna give in to that and continue to visualize,” for example, versus, “No, I’m gonna disconnect from that and turn my eyes away. Leave that thought alone.” Temptation is not the same as sin, and that’s really important for us to wrap our minds around.

Those types of things can get easily blended in scrupulosity. So I’m blending being attracted to someone and lusting. Those are two different things. You have to be able to separate that out in order to work through it. Or I’m blending, “Hey, I just had a sexual tempting thought,” versus, “Oh no, now I feel like I’ve sinned and I have to confess and do all of these things.” Or, “I had some type of selfish thought and now I have to jump on that and automatically confess it.” Just be very careful about some of those things. Being able to recognize when you’re blending is super important.

In terms of thoughts, there’s a tendency to reinforce black-and-white thinking over certain theological issues. For example, the non-essentials can all of a sudden become essentials that people get really stuck on. Examples of this: Which denomination do I need to be a part of or follow? Scrupulosity will have you going round and round on that one. I talked to a person many years back, I believe, who said this just kind of had consumed all areas of their life because one of the denominations they were looking at was pretty strict and rigid in terms of what you could and couldn’t wear, how you dressed, how you did makeup, those types of things, what you ate. So everything in their whole life just felt really restricted. A lot of confusion over that.

I’ve had somebody reach out not too long ago asking about denominations and things of that nature. Scrupulosity can get really stuck on things that are non-essentials and see them as black or white, like there must be one that’s right. Somehow, if I follow this denomination, it must be right. That means that this one is wrong. “Oh no, my friend’s a part of that denomination. What does that mean? Does that mean that they’re not following Jesus right?”

We have to remember to keep the main things the main things. We’re about following Christ. We’re about spiritual practices that are going to get us closer to Jesus. That’s pretty simple: love God, love other people. That’s what we’ve boiled the first two greatest commandments down to, right?

I’ve had people stuck on Calvinism versus Arminianism. The problem is that you can find YouTube videos or reels on Instagram where people are gonna be speaking very strongly in one direction or another. “We’re right. We’re the Calvinists and we’re right, and here’s the scriptures to prove it.” Then the Arminians are over on the other side going, “We’re Arminians and we’re right, and here’s the scripture to prove it.” This creates a lot of confusion, obviously, for people with scrupulosity.

When we have this type of black-and-white thinking in a church, I think it’s much more balanced to be able to say, “Okay, what are the actual essential things? What are the non-essentials? About the non-essentials, some people believe this and some people believe that. One person isn’t necessarily right or wrong.” We’ve got to let go of some of the black-and-white thinking on the non-essential issues.

Let’s talk for a moment about feelings and either paying too much attention to our feelings or not enough attention to our feelings in the church. I’ve seen both sides of this. A lot of times younger people—teens, young adults—go through this. I remember going through something like this. It’s like, “I don’t feel close to God. What does that mean? If I don’t feel him right now and I’m in this worship service and everybody just seems to feel God and I don’t feel him, and I don’t feel like he loves me.” We’re just way too feeling-absorbed at that point because feelings aren’t everything.

I love my husband and sometimes I feel very close to him. But if I wake up tomorrow and I don’t feel close to him, I still love him. I’m still gonna do things to care for him. I’m still gonna ask him about his day, how he’s doing. I’m still gonna tell him I love him even though I may not have all these warm, fuzzy feelings inside. The same thing is true with God. There are some times where you may feel really close to God, but you can love God and not necessarily have all the warm fuzzies. We’re not gonna have those all of the time. Not all of life or all of spirituality is a mountaintop-type experience. You’re gonna go through some valleys in your life. You’re gonna go through some struggles and some wrestlings. All of that is very normal. All of it’s very biblical. Go read the Psalms.

There were times where David was on a high—defeating his enemies, life’s good, God’s good, everything’s awesome. Then you flip a couple Psalms later and he’s like, “God, where are you? What’s going on? Why are my enemies triumphing over me?” We have to find a more balanced view of our feelings and know that they can’t just dictate and rule our life and spirituality.

On the flip side, I’ve also heard statements in churches like, “Well, you just have to fight your feelings with faith. It’s not all about your feelings. You just gotta speak the truth and move forward, and it doesn’t really matter how you feel.” That’s completely on the opposite extreme. That’s in a different ditch on the side of the road. Two ditches on the side of the road. One, we’re completely all about our feelings and absorbed in them. The other is we’re just like, “No, gotta fight those. They’re not godly.”

God has created us in his image. God is an emotional being. Therefore, we are emotional beings. We’re not perfect, so we do not always handle our emotions in a perfect and holy way. But part of our sanctification process is learning how to manage these emotions as they come up. I really do believe that. God can use emotions in our life to connect us with other people in intimacy and close relationships, and I think that is very important.

I don’t think that we need to fight our feelings with faith because I don’t believe they’re in opposition to our faith. Even if I feel not close to God or I feel abandoned by him or I feel like he doesn’t care about what’s happening in my life, that’s a great and golden opportunity for me to then bring those feelings back to God and say, “Hey, here’s what I’m feeling. What’s going on? I don’t feel like you care about this.” God can handle all of those things. Typically, when you get all of that out, by the end you feel better and you remember, okay, I’m not in control of this. God is in control. Somehow things are gonna work out for my good and it’s gonna be okay.

I am encouraged and I hope that we can grow in this process with the church of having a healthier understanding, a more balanced relationship with our thoughts and feelings—where we don’t feel like we have to pounce on every bad thought, where we don’t feel like we have to shove down feelings that we don’t think align with God, that we can ultimately experience these things without being ruled by them. We don’t have to be ruled by our thoughts or ruled by our emotions. We can recognize that these thoughts, feelings, and body sensations are there. They’re a part of our experience. Ultimately, we’re making choices. Those things may inform our choices at times, and that’s not always a bad thing.

Sometimes you may have a feeling that you really need to pay attention to. If your body is in pain, if it’s sending you a signal that you are physically in pain, you probably need to pay attention to that. I think the same is true with emotional pain. There’s some kind of healing that God wants to do in your life. If we just ignore that emotional pain and we say, “No, I have faith. God is good. Everything’s fine,” then we miss out on that opportunity for God to do that deeper-level emotional work in our life and for us to receive that healing from him.

Join me back next week as I continue this conversation on why scrupulosity is so complicated and hard to treat. If you love Jesus and are struggling with scrupulosity, I would love for you to check out the resources on my website. We’d love to have you join our weekly newsletter. I put out one a week. You get it every Wednesday morning. Not only do we tell you about what podcast episode is coming out, but I really strive to make that valuable. I tell you some stories about things that God is teaching me in my life and how I see some of those things relating to the struggle of walking the Christian walk, and tie that into how it applies to OCD. So I’d love to have you hang out with us reading the newsletter.

Our email insiders are also the first to know about things around here because we’re on about a three- to four-week delay in podcasting world time, because it takes time, obviously, to edit and get things out there. If you’d like to be the first to know, head on over to kerryb.com to sign up for the newsletter.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

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.

211. Embracing God’s Love 

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

We’re kicking off the Scrupulosity Series by starting at the foundation, God’s love. 

In this episode, Carrie explores how shame, church hurt, and feelings of unworthiness can cloud our view of Him, and how Scripture invites us to receive the steady, unchanging love of Christ that nothing can take away.

Episode Highlights:

  • How scrupulosity distorts your view of God’s character and keeps you stuck in fear
  • Why embracing God’s love is foundational to healing from religious OCD
  • Common reasons we reject God’s love, including church hurt and shame
  • The difference between accepting God’s forgiveness and compulsively seeking reassurance
  • Practical ways to notice evidence of God’s love in everyday life
  • How speaking Scripture daily can help renew your mind and strengthen your identity in Christ

Episode Summary:

Why Does God’s Love Feel So Hard to Receive When You Have Scrupulosity?

If you struggle with scrupulosity, you probably already know the “right” answer.

God loves me.

You have heard it your whole life. You may have even said it to someone else. But deep down, it feels just slightly out of reach. Like it is true for everyone else, but not fully true for you.

As we begin this new scrupulosity series, we are starting at the foundation. Not with more rules. Not with more checking. But with something deeper. We are talking about what it really means to embrace God’s love when OCD has tangled it up with fear.

Because scrupulosity quietly shifts how we see God. And when our view of Him shifts, everything else does too.

Why does God’s love feel real for everyone else but not for me?

So many of you have asked this.

You can believe Jesus died for sinners. You can believe in grace. But when it comes to your intrusive thoughts, your doubts, or your past mistakes, something feels different.

In this episode, we gently explore why that gap exists and why it makes sense that your heart feels guarded.

Did church hurt affect how I see God?

If you have ever been rejected, criticized, or overlooked in Christian spaces, that pain does not just disappear.

Sometimes without realizing it, we begin to assume God will treat us the way people did.

But God is not like man. He is not withdrawing from you because you struggled this week. Scripture paints a very different picture of His heart, and we take time to look at that together.

Why do I still not feel forgiven?

Scrupulosity loves to replay things.

Did I confess correctly? Was I sincere enough? Do I need to go back and make sure?

There is a difference between chasing the feeling of forgiveness and accepting what God has already said is true. That distinction can bring tremendous relief, and we begin unpacking it in this conversation.

How can I actually begin to notice God’s love?

Sometimes the issue is not that God is absent. It is that your brain has been trained to scan for danger instead of grace.

I share a simple exercise in this episode that shows how powerful our focus really is and how shifting what you look for can begin to change what you see in your everyday life.

It may sound small, but it is not insignificant.

Scriptures Mentioned in This Episode

  • 1 John 4:16
  • Romans 8:38 to 39
  • Jeremiah 31:3
  • Psalm 103:12
  • John 15:13
  • Romans 5:8
  • Psalm 139
  • Psalm 36:7
  • Psalm 18:19
  • Zephaniah 3:17
  • Ephesians 3:18 to 19

Tune into this week’s episode of Christian Faith and OCD, and let’s begin rebuilding your view of God together. And if someone you love is quietly battling scrupulosity, share this with them today.

Transcript

Hello, OCD Warriors, and welcome back to the podcast. I am excited today because we are kicking off a scrupulosity series. This series was really birthed from you guys, from surveying the audience and looking at what topics you were interested in. I know we have a lot of people who listen because they’re Christian and they’re really struggling with scrupulosity.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Kerry 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 into today’s episode.

That’s something we’ve talked about on the show in the past, and you can certainly search for that topic via our website. On the podcast breakdown page, you can type in any topic that you’re interested in, whether that’s prayer or Bible, and it’ll pop up those episodes for you. Today, I am talking about embracing God’s love.

I thought that would be an appropriate topic since we just passed Valentine’s Day. I also really believe that one of the keys to working through scrupulosity is changing your theology. And when I say changing your theology, what I’m meaning is lining it up more with an accurate biblical theology of what we actually see of God.

And if you believe that God genuinely loves you, deep down in your core, for me, that just has changed everything in my life. And so I definitely want that for every person who’s listening here. And I know from talking with people who deal with scrupulosity that God’s love often feels like it’s out of reach.

It feels like some type of concept that’s available for others, but not necessarily available for you. It’s theoretical. It’s kind of out there, but it doesn’t feel tangible. It doesn’t feel like something that’s close to your heart that you can really, deep down, know. Not just at a surface level, like, oh yeah, yeah, God loves me, but how can we really embrace it?

Before we get into embracing it, if we want to move from one place to another and feel stuck in our current situation, we first have to reflect on how in the world did I get here in the first place. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that happen in your life where you’re sitting there going, wait a minute, I’m in a pickle. How did I even get in this pickle in the first place? I need to understand this so that this doesn’t happen again.

So what are some of the reasons that we reject the love of God in our life? I would say the number one is that we’ve been hurt by people, sometimes by people who don’t claim to love God, but many times by people who do claim to love God. I know that I have been deeply rejected and wounded by other Christians. That has had a profound impact on my life.

I mean, people that I used to be close to, used to eat with, used to talk to on the phone on a regular basis, and now we don’t speak at all. That’s hard. Maybe you had a church hurt situation where people rejected you because you didn’t live up to their particular expectations. Maybe it hasn’t been an overt rejection, but maybe you’ve experienced just being outside the inner circle, maybe just a lack of acceptance from other people in church where you felt alone or isolated.

I know that has happened to me at various points in my life where I felt like I’ve tried to get close to certain people, but it’s just been met with challenges.

Another reason I think we reject the love of God is because we feel this sense of being unworthy, like we have personal defects, and how could God love me if I am dealing with this particular sin in my life or I don’t know. I’m the awkward person. Does God really love me? I’m not the person that’s going to be picked for homecoming queen, or I’m not the guy that’s going to be picked to be the quarterback of the football team.

One thing I know is that if you don’t have any sense of self-love, it’s really hard to receive, to open yourself up to receive love from others, including God. And what I mean by self-love is not this selfishness or overinflated sense of pride. I’m talking about recognizing your worth and value as being created in God’s image and being loved as His child.

That is what I refer to as self-love. I realize people may use that differently in different ways, and sometimes it has a bad connotation. But Jesus said that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And so if we don’t love ourselves at all, if we don’t see any value in who we are as human beings created in God’s image, then how are we supposed to see that value in someone else who has also been created in God’s image and who is also deeply loved by Him?

My sense of self-esteem was pretty low when I was growing up. I looked around me and really felt this sense that other people were more talented than I was. This person was good at music, or that person was good at art, or this person had dance, and I didn’t really understand that my skills and abilities just may have looked different from other people’s.

I was certainly involved in extracurricular activities, but I never really felt like I found my thing, whereas I saw that in some of my other friends. They found that thing that made them come alive. Being a highly sensitive introvert going into even high school and college, that wasn’t seen as an asset.

If you have a hard time talking to people because you’re so shy, because no one has ever taught you how to make small talk or how to make conversation, I would think with my parents being in ministry that somehow I would have absorbed some of that. But for whatever reason, I didn’t. I think I needed some type of social skills training or something because I was pretty much afraid to talk to people and had to learn over time how to do it.

You combine that with the fact that I have the most serious look when I’m straight-faced ever. Then I also had to learn that I needed to smile a little bit more so that people didn’t think that I was staring them down or that somehow I was subtly angry at them.

The point is that I think at one point or another, we all feel unlovable. For some reason, we feel like there is no way that someone could love me. We reject God’s love because we just don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to us. We can’t comprehend it from a human standpoint.

So if you’re a deep thinker and you analyze everything, which I know many of you do, it can be really hard to sit back and say, okay, God loves me unconditionally. Because we don’t have a template for that in our society. We’re all humans, so we’re all imperfect. We’re not going to love other people perfectly. Other people aren’t going to love us perfectly.

It’s really hard to understand unconditional love when we say, I just wouldn’t have patience for this person or what they’re doing, or I don’t think I could love someone who does that. Fill in the blank, whatever that is.

We reject God’s love if we haven’t embraced and accepted God’s forgiveness. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. Forgiving yourself is not in the Bible. Accepting God’s free gift of forgiveness is believing in faith that if I have confessed my sin, as 1 John 1:9 says, that He has forgiven it.

I believe that God has removed my sin as far as the east is from the west, as Psalm 103:12 says. When that sin comes back up into your mind, however it comes back up, you say that sin was covered by the blood of Jesus on the cross. I do not need to go back there. That is what it means to accept God’s forgiveness, and sometimes it is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment situation.

You’re imperfect, and you’re going to sin again, and you’re going to ask for forgiveness again, and that is just part of the process. Until we get to heaven, we’ve got to get comfortable with that.

And the last big reason that I’m going to talk about that we don’t embrace God’s love and we reject His love is because opening ourselves up to love can feel really vulnerable. Not only are we opening ourselves up to feel love, we are opening ourselves up to being potentially rejected. Even though God is not going to reject us, we know what that feeling of rejection is like. That is burned into our nervous system, into our emotional muscle memory, so to speak.

So how do we accept God’s love that is there for us? Number one, embrace that God is not the same as man.

I never got to meet my paternal grandfather because he died before I was born, but my dad always talked about how he knew that his dad loved him. I guess his dad was not very verbal or expressive about saying the words, I love you. And my dad made a commitment and decision that he was going to verbalize those words to his kids, and he was going to say, I love you.

I don’t have a chance to ask my dad now because he’s in heaven, but I wonder how that affected his view of God and if he ever struggled with God loving him or not. I do think we take things from our parents oftentimes, and it could be parents, but it also could be other authority figures, whether it’s teachers or coaches, other people that spoke influence into your life.

Maybe it was a grandparent or an aunt or uncle who had an instrumental part in raising you. But we take how those people acted towards us and we often overlay that onto God.

Well, this person maybe was particularly harsh or strict, or maybe they were withdrawn. Maybe they were disinterested. Maybe your parent got mad at you and they just withdrew and went to their room, and you didn’t hear from them the rest of the night. Maybe it was something in the way that you saw your parents interact that you’ve laid onto God. Maybe your parent didn’t do that towards you, but your dad might have gotten mad at your mom and not talked to her for three days.

God is not like our parents, our coaches, aunts, uncles, or grandparents. God is love. That’s what the Scripture says. 1 John 4:16 says, So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

And even though you may have been rejected by a lot of people, as I have, God’s love is not removed from us. It’s not based on our behavior. Romans 8:38-39 says, For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen. We could stop the podcast right here. Nothing can separate you from the love of God.

One of my favorite verses that I have embraced, Jeremiah 31:3 says, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. God’s love is everlasting. That means it’s not ending. It’s not going anywhere.

That’s incredible. Such a beautiful gift that He gives to us. God is not the same as man.

And two, I want you to look for God’s love in your life. If you’ve been around the podcast for a while, we talk about ICBT. That’s inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s an evidence-based treatment for OCD, and we talk a lot about sense data. And I really do believe that we have spiritual sense data as believers. After all, we have the Holy Spirit inside of us.

So how can we look for that in our life? How can we look for God’s love? I want to do a little exercise with you right now, and it may seem a little silly. I don’t want you to do this if you’re driving because part of it involves closing your eyes, okay? So don’t close your eyes if you’re listening to the podcast on the way to work. It would not be wise. But if you’re just around the house and you have the opportunity, first I want you to look for all of the red things in your environment around you.

Where I’m at, up in my home office, I see some books and they have a red spine or maybe burgundy, I guess that’s in the red family. I have some folders over here, like a binder that I see that’s red. A light that’s red, not on, that’s red in here, maybe a little bit on a pencil. And as you look at those objects in your room, hey, I’m drinking some tea, and that kind of has some reddish hue to it.

Now take a moment and close your eyes, and I want you to tell me what you saw in your environment that was blue.

Now you might be laughing a little bit like, well, that’s funny, Carrie. I don’t know what’s blue in my environment because I wasn’t really looking for that. I was looking for all the red stuff that you told me to look for.

This exercise shows us that when we’re looking for things, we’re going to find them. But if we’re not looking for things, a lot of times things will go unnoticed.

For example, I’m sure this has happened to you when you’ve bought a car, and all of a sudden you start to see that car everywhere. I feel like our car has a unique paint job. It’s not quite blue, and it’s not quite gray. I don’t even really know. I don’t remember what the color was. You know how they name these colors of paint jobs, and it was like that when we bought it. We didn’t have it painted or anything, but I thought, this is kind of a unique color. I really like it. There is something kind of peaceful about it.

All of a sudden, I started to see that color everywhere on different people’s cars. I was like, oh, well they have that same color too. Well, that’s nice. Oh, wait a minute, that’s the same model of car that I have. The same make and model. Oh, look at that car over there.

Of course, because now it was in my environment. It was right in front of my face. And so when we put something in front of our face or in our minds, sometimes we can’t help it.

We think about that friend that hurt us. We think about that church that really didn’t minister to us well and hurt our feelings. We felt like they dropped the ball. That’s happened. We bring those things up in our mind, and then we’re not looking for what are the good things that are going on around me. Where is God’s love displayed in my life right now?

And it could be something as simple as a flower blooming. There was a time where I went out to my mailbox, and it was just a hard season. I started to notice that my flowers were coming back from the winter where they go dormant. What do you call that? Perennials. You have bulbs, and they go dormant. They look like they’re dead and they’re toast after the winter. But then over time, as spring starts to come, as the ground starts to warm up, as they get that spring rain, the flowers start to come back out.

And so just even noticing that in itself is a gift.

When we have food on our table, when we have the ability to pay bills that have come up. Sometimes unexpected bills happen, and then you think, how am I going to pay for this? Or how am I going to be able to get the help that I need? And then God miraculously provides in some way. We weren’t expecting it, but finances work out or come through somehow.

It sounds really ridiculously silly, but I was going through a really hard season trying to recover from my divorce in 2015. I was talking to some friends just about the lack of physical contact in my life, the lack of touch, and I said I was thinking about just buying this gigantic pillow so I could kind of have this artificial hug.

Now I think they have these sleep pod things that are supposed to feel like a hug. Anyway, I don’t know anything about that, just seeing commercials. I probably would have bought one, though. I would have been in the market for something like that ten years ago. And they were just trying to encourage me and minister to me, and they were like, do what you need to do in this season in your life.

Feeling just really down and discouraged about not having anyone, I went to the store and there were pomegranates there. I love pomegranate. Such a side note, but it felt like, oh, this is like a silver lining in my day. It sounds really silly now, but it meant a lot to me at that moment. Like, okay, thank you, God, for this pomegranate. I’m so glad they’re back in season now because they have such a short season in the winter.

It’s like, oh, this is so great. I can go home and enjoy this part of my day after it’s been so dreary and just so sad and kind of depressed about being lonely and not having anyone. To me, that was God’s, in a very small tangible way, expression of love for me.

What happens when you read the story of the prodigal son? If you’re struggling with God’s forgiveness, what happens when you read that story and you put yourself as the prodigal son and God is running? I’m pretty sure in that culture that was kind of an embarrassing thing because just the way they would have had to pull up their clothes and all of that, it wasn’t something that would have been seen as honorable. But he ran to his son, welcomed him back into the household.

Not just that, but it’s like, hey, you’re back. I’m so glad to see you. Let’s throw a party. Not like, oh hey, I’m mad at you because you basically asked for your inheritance before I died. I mean, that’s what he did. Like, give me my share of the inheritance. His dad wasn’t even dead yet.

Some of us look at that and we’re like, yeah, I’m not letting him back in my house, much less throwing a party. But that just shows God’s longing to be in relationship with us and the deep love that He has for us.

And while I’m asking you to look for the day-to-day examples of God’s love in your life, I also want you to remember the greatest act of love that God could ever give you has already been given in His Son, Jesus. John 15:13 says, Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Unfortunately, as Christians, we hear this so much, Jesus died on the cross for you, that we’ve become desensitized to it. And I don’t want you to be desensitized to that.

I want you to take a moment of reflection and say, if I were to ask you, hey, would you give your child over for a murderer, for somebody that is abusive, for someone that has no care, no repentance, no concern for making the world a better place, your child over to that person? I would not. But God saw us in our mess of sin, and He chose to give His Son for us.

I just don’t think that we can ever really grasp that fully, that level of love. I think it’s worth contemplating and worth allowing deep down into your heart and mind and soul that this is the ultimate demonstration that God loves you. And that’s what Romans 5:8 says. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I think this is just a human flaw that we all have, to look at the deficits instead of looking at the good things. And we have to fight against that. As believers, we have to say, let me not find all the things that are wrong with today, but let me praise God that He is good. Let me focus on the things that I am so incredibly grateful for.

I so take it for granted that my house has electricity and I wake up in the morning and I turn a light switch on and bam, there’s a light. I don’t have to light a candle. I don’t have to get a lantern. I don’t have to figure out how I’m going to see to be able to work today.

My house is heated right now in the winter. As I’m recording this, we’re in this Middle Tennessee winter ice storm deal, and a lot of people are without power. And I don’t think I have ever been so thankful for my electricity lately because we were very fortunate and blessed not to lose power and had some plans and contingencies if we did lose power of what we were going to do. But I’m just so grateful even to have that opportunity.

Right on to number three, recognize God’s love in other believers.

Steve did something super sweet for me when we were dating, probably only a few months that we were together. I don’t know if you remember that toilet paper shortage of 2020, but it was a thing. The toilet paper companies had not caught up with the fact that they needed to produce less commercial toilet paper because people weren’t at the office and they weren’t at school and they weren’t in government buildings. So therefore, they needed to up their manufacturing of at-home personal rolls of toilet paper. So there were empty shelves when it came to toilet paper. And then of course, when there’s a shortage, people buy extra and it just perpetuates the problem.

Anyway, Steve shows up at my house one Saturday morning and he hands me a twelve-pack of Quilted Northern. I’m like, this is a good man right here. He anticipated a need in my life and he filled it, and that was just super sweet of him to do that.

Of course, there have been many, many ways that Steve loves me, large and small, over the years since we’ve been dating and married for five years now. But really a few months prior to Steve and I dating, my pastor’s wife at the time said to me, I think God wants to prove His kindness to you.

Steve was really an answer to many, many prayers of myself and other people in my life who had seen what I had gone through, the hardness of being single during my prime childbearing years. God has been so gracious to us.

But I wonder for you, who are the people in your life who have loved you at your lowest point when you didn’t deserve it, when maybe you hadn’t necessarily treated them great? You have a parent or a grandparent who is just always in your corner, always praying for you, always loving you. Sometimes God’s love shows up in a meal on a Tuesday night because you’ve had a crisis in your life and you just can’t. Sometimes God’s love shows up with someone showing up for you.

It could be a happy time in your life where they’re celebrating with you, or it could be a time where you’re sad and grieving and they don’t know what to say, but they just show up and spend time with you.

If you’re someone who has a tendency to push other people’s love away from you, I want to challenge you to allow it to come in. This is going to help you connect with others, and it’s also going to help you connect with God if you’ve been hurt. I know it may feel really vulnerable, may feel super scary. But you can do it. You can open yourself up to that love. God wants you to receive that.

There are so many one-another passages in Scripture that we can’t live out the Christian life God calls us to live on an island by ourselves. We need to be able to love other people, and we need to allow those people to love us as well.

The last point on how to embrace God’s love that is there for us is to speak the truth to yourself daily until you believe it. I want you to get up in the morning and say, God, I believe that You love me, and I want to accept that love today. I want to allow that love in.

I believe that Psalm 139 says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I believe Psalm 36:7, how precious is Your steadfast love, O God. I believe Psalm 18:19, He brought me out into a broad place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. I believe Zephaniah 3:17, The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; H He will exalt over you with loud singing. How amazingly beautiful is that if you get up every day and you read some scriptures about God’s love, meditate on them, memorize them. Allow that truth to absorb into your mind and into your heart. That is a life changing. God will use that word planted in you to produce fruit, and you’ll be not only be able to love yourself in a healthy way, but you’ll be able to love others, the way that God desires you to love them.

If we don’t have the love of God in us, it’s gonna be hard for us to love other people. I wanna leave you with Paul’s prayer for the believers in Ephesians three 18 and 19. I pray that you have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breath and length, and height and depth to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Lord, we ask that all who hear these words would believe and trust in your love, that you would allow them to see it in their day-to-day life, that they may be changed by it. Amen.

Check the show notes for the verses we used in this episode, and next week we’re going to be talking about why scrupulosity is so complicated and difficult to treat. So stay tuned for our next episode. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Christian faith in OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a sub. For seeking mental health treatment in your area.

210. Understanding Grace and Accepting God’s Forgiveness with author Nathan Clarkson

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

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Nathan Clarkson, an actor, author, and podcast host, to talk about how scrupulosity, guilt, and contamination fears shaped his faith and how grace slowly rewrote that story.

Episode Highlights:

  • Nathan’s early experience with OCD and how it shaped his faith
  • How contamination OCD and scrupulosity often intertwine
  • Why OCD creates a distorted, harsh view of God
  • The difference between OCD guilt and true conviction
  • What it means to accept God’s forgiveness—even when it doesn’t feel true
  • How healing can grow in small, almost unnoticed steps when you walk with God and safe people
  • Nathan’s book I’m the Worst

Connect with Nathan Clarkson: www.instagram.com/nathanjclarkson/

Transcript

Welcome back, OCD Warriors. Today on the show I’m talking with Nathan Clarkson. He is a film and TV actor, besting author, indie filmmaker, and podcast philosopher on his award-winning show, The Overthinkers. Nathan is here to talk about his book that just came out towards the end of January called I’m the Worst. A powerful testimony that he shares with us regarding his lived experience with OCD. If you struggle with Scrupulosity at all, you’re really gonna enjoy this episode because we get into some juicy topics regarding grace, sin, God’s forgiveness. I know that you’re gonna be blessed by this episode.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie 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 into today’s episode.

Nathan, welcome to the show. We’re glad to have you here.

Nathan: Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Carrie: I understand you’re gonna tell us a little bit about your OCD story. You talk in your book about like just days spent with a lot of compulsions, showering, cleaning rituals, and like what was the process of coming to an understanding of your OCD?

Nathan: Oh yeah. Well, this has been a story since I was very young. My mom, before I even can really even remember, she has a story about me being a very, very little boy, maybe two or three. And she’s putting shoes on me, and she’s tying the little shoes and the laces are uneven, and I start crying and she can’t figure out what’s wrong, and she’s trying to comfort me. My little 2-year-old boy struggling for words, and I’m crying and then fidgeting, and she’s trying everything, and I keep on pointing to my shoes. She straightens, she evens out the little laces of my shoes. I go, oh, thank you. Thank you mom. And it was at that moment she kind of learned something different. OCD of course was had been talked about a little bit, but not quite so ubiquitously as is now. You know, we didn’t know as much and there wasn’t as many resources as there are now. Something in her mom brain said, Hey, there’s something different about my little boy. And she would notice all these little things from very, very early on, like that story in a million different ways.

I’d be lying in bed at night and she would come and kiss me goodnight and five minutes later I’d go and wake her up and say, I need you to come back. I can’t remember it. I would ask her over and over again, compulsively, I need you to come and kiss me goodnight again because I forgot if you did it. Wow. And I would ask her, you know, 15 times a night. I was really lucky to have a mom and a dad who were gracious with me and who were understanding, but they clued them to understanding something in my little brain at that time was different.

And as I grew older and older, those compulsions and rituals kind showed up in a myriad of different ways and then it was kind in my teenage years that it really, really kind of ramped up for me. And luckily there’s a few more resources at that time. And we got a counselor and talked to a psychiatrist who officially diagnosed him with OCD, and I remember that moment. It was so interesting to me kind of sitting in the therapist, the psychiatrist office, and they were telling me what OCD was and that I had it. There was of course this kind of frustration with, oh my goodness, I’m different. I have this label attached.

Carrie: How old were you at that point?

Nathan: I was, I think I was about 13, maybe 14 years old when I got formally diagnosed, and that was right around the time I was also diagnosed with ADHD and a couple of dyslexia. But the OCD was kind of the one that showed up with most life altering, particularly in those kind of early teenage years. And I remember just being so like, wow, I must be broken. There’s something wrong with me, but there’s also this kind of feeling that will go hand in hand with it, which is a weird feeling to relate. Like I can finally put a name and understand. There was both kind of a frustration that like, you know, God, why did you make me like this? And also this, oh. So that’s what it is. I’m not just crazy, I’m not just broken. There’s a thing that I can be understood and it kind of gave me a hope that, you know, I could figure out a way forward.

So that’s kind of the moments that led it up to me understanding that I had OCD, but it was very early on, kind of always knew I had it, my family was aware of it, and then we realized what it was called and what it was in that moment, like that just office.

Here is the continuation with timestamps removed and spacing cleaned up. I have not changed wording — only formatting.

Carrie: When it got really bad in your adult life later on, I’m assuming you probably were on medication or had some type of treatment along the process there if you were seeing psychiatrist, but at some point or another, you said it just consumed your whole day, like what was going on for you spiritually and emotionally, just internally as you’re going through this wrestling of not being able to stop these compulsions.

Nathan: Yeah, it really ramped up come from that moment in the psychiatrist’s office. It definitely ramped up, and that kind of began the journey of trying to figure out how to live with it. And there were good things and good times and hard times, but according to the psychiatrist, diagnosed with a particularly severe case of OCD, and one of the reasons it was severe is because, as you know, there’s kind of different kinds of OCD. There’s guilt OCD, and contamination based OCD and health OCD. And I had like layers of different where it kind of worked its way into all sorts of different ways. So I would have a health OCD that was mixed with contamination OCD that was mixed with guilt OCD. It was kind of permeating all these different areas of my life.

It was a really frustrating thing to deal with. And frustrating isn’t a big enough word to encapsulate the kind of just utter despair or frustration. I need a deeper word to explain what many of us go through who have OCD, but there were times in my life where I look back, I think the closest word I can find is just utter despair that I would experience.

And I wrote a poem many years ago and I put it on YouTube. It went viral, reached a lot of people. But in the poem I described just the frustration of not being able to touch the ones I love and ask for a hug. Not being able to live freely and enjoy life. Not being able to wake up during the day and just have fun without thinking of all the different rituals that I was gonna have to perform to enjoy my day, even in a small amount. And how it was this ever present, nonstop voice that never ended.

I remember just multiple moments in my life where I kind of came to the end of being able to ignore that frustration or just continued fighting it or kind of grin and bear it, and just got to this place where it felt so overwhelming and I felt so kind of drowned underwater from it. I experienced such deep despair, and that despair kind of left me not so much doubting God, but frustration and questions of his goodness. You love me? Why would you let me deal with this? Why would you let me have this? If I’m someone I’m supposed to believe that you care about me, why would you let me every day, every minute of the day live in this kind of agony?

There have been moments which I’ve really, really had to wrestle in my relationship with God as a result of kind of the despair and frustration and agony that OCD has brought in my life. And of course there’s a redemptive and wonderful flip side to that. I’m sure we’ll get to more of that, but I absolutely have experienced those really dark, kind of walking through the night moments multiple times on this journey of OCD.

Carrie: Yeah. What I see sometimes with Christians is like contamination gets somehow mixed in with sin too, like cleanliness and sin and godliness, and I’ve gotta keep myself uncontaminated physically, but it somehow has this spiritual relevance. Did that happen for you?

Nathan: Oh, absolutely. One of my main kind of central ones I still deal with is contamination based OCD. Kind of the dirtiness, right? You have in your mind this idea of how the world should be and kind of physically how it should be in this almost idealistic perfectionism that your clothes should be, your hands should be, or whatever it might be, how the world should be. And whatever your mind has deemed dirty, it’s almost unbearable to try to figure out how to make it clean again.

And that kind of contamination based OCD mechanism absolutely finds its way into kind of the morality aspect or the spirituality aspect of OCD where you are constantly on guard for any perceived sin or slight or failure, and you all of a sudden feel a load of guilt on your back and fear that you are upsetting or disappointing God. So absolutely that’s something that I have dealt with throughout my journey with OCD, that kind of contamination based both on the physical and the spiritual.

Carrie: Yeah, and I think it’s a good example for people of how these themes get intertwined. You spoke to that a little bit earlier. It’s not just one thing. It’s like I start to unravel something and then I end up in some other type of theme. And that can be really confusing. And I find that that happens a lot with Christian spirituality. It’s like we start with contamination or a health OCD, and then we’re over into scrupulosity now, or yeah, we started with something else and now we’re stuck in some type of… How did, like, what shifted for you? What changed? Was there like a breakthrough moment? Was it a process over time?

Nathan: I think there’s, I’m trying to find a word for it. It’s cyclical, but also moving upward. So I found myself in my story through times of deep despair, acceptance, and healing and growth. Back again to that despair. But every time I’ll find a little more healing, a little more growth and a little less despair, kind of this really baby step process over many years.

But as far as kind of the other side of that despair that I talked about earlier, there’s a few things that really, really helped me on my journey towards kind of living more freely in it. One was, I think for whatever reason, my personality is one that I always wanted to be able to be independent and never rely on anyone.

Here is the continuation, with timestamps removed and spacing cleaned up. Wording has not been changed.

Nathan: I think the more in my life that I’ve learned to rely on people. I think many of us with OCD know how embarrassing it is sometimes to explain it to people because you get those funny looks, right? You look crazy. You look really, what you talking about? So a lot of times we keep it in and we don’t tell people around us, and we might just avoid situations and people rather than having to face the embarrassment.

But I have noticed that when I kind of get over that embarrassment or that kind of fear or trepidation of telling — and not to everyone, I don’t think we need to entrust everything to everyone — but when you find someone who’s trustworthy, who’s proven, and who even has shown a desire to walk with you in your frustration or your difficulty of OCD. I have a couple friends who have verbally said, I wanna be a partner with you in this and help you in this. And those words meant so much to me.

And that allowed me to kind of open myself and be vulnerable and tell them, this is really difficult for me and this is hard for me. But when I did, having people walk with me through it and being careful with me and being gentle with me — and that’s something I’m able to offer to others as well — I think it’s been such a helpful thing to have people who actually care enough to walk with you.

And it takes a little bit of bravery of opening yourself up to trustworthy people, obviously, and kind of getting over that embarrassment and say, this is how my mind works. So that’s one thing that has been a huge conduit to healing and living better — surrounding myself with people who are walking with me in it, who both push in ways where I can grow. “Nathan, I think you can grow in this area. I think you can do this. You can be strong in this area. I know it’s overwhelming.” But also who can say, “Hey, that’s really tough. Would it be helpful if I did this or didn’t do that? Or can I wash my hands? Or is there something that I can do right now to make this moment better?”

And that’s been such a blessing for me. A reminder — and they’ve kind of been God’s hands and feet in my life — where I have people walking with me through it. And you know that’s what we offer. Everyone needs, OCD or not, is people who are willing to walk with us through our struggles.

Carrie: Through the messiness that we have going on.

Nathan: Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. OCD sometimes convinces us that we’re the only kind of messy people or only ones with obsessions or funny minds. Everyone has a mess they’re walking through. And if we can get over embarrassment and go, “Hey, we’re all messy here. Let’s love each other and walk with each other.” I think that’s one of the ways that it’s been a huge, huge conduit to my health and being able to function in the world in a healthy way.

And of course it’s not perfect. There’s good days, there’s bad days, but having people around me who respect and understand — or try to understand — has been a huge conduit to that. And even my wife… when I went about finding someone who wanted to partner with me, there’s no way when she said, “Of course I’ll marry you,” she could know the full extent of what it meant to live with an OCD person. But her willingness day to day to love in that — that is such a blessing on the journey of that and has enabled me to live a healthier and fuller life.

Carrie: I think that’s really hopeful for a lot of our single people who listen, who just wonder, am I ever gonna find love, have these problems with OCD and will anybody really understand? And so it’s good to know there are people willing to partner with you, like you said, to help you. And everyone has stuff. And so just when you come together as a married couple, it’s like you have to help each other unpack some of this stuff in a different way because you’re not able to do it on your own. It’s actually really beautiful and it’s obviously a picture of the gospel and God’s love for us.

I wanna talk with you about grace, because that seems to have made a big difference in your life in terms of your relationship with God. What was that process of understanding grace for you?

Nathan: Yeah, it’s a great question. I said earlier that I’m someone who kind of wants to be independent and figure it out on my own, but I think early on my OCD was something that was terrible in so many ways. But one of the good things was it forced me to come to terms with kind of some of my messy parts and the broken places of my mind and heart and soul. It forced me to realize I wasn’t perfect and I couldn’t do it on my own at an early age.

Realizing my need for grace, my need for love, my need for God’s willingness to be with me was a really meaningful thing. That’s something that’s carried on into my adult world and life as well. The more I can accept that I need God’s grace, the more that I allow it into my life, the more I get to reap the benefits of it.

I almost feel, in a weird way, lucky that I had to learn to work out that muscle from a young age — that I needed God’s grace and I needed help — because it enables me to more intuitively accept it and look for it in my day-to-day life now as an adult.

Here is the continuation through the end, with timestamps removed and spacing cleaned up. Wording has not been changed beyond light formatting for readability.

Carrie: Yeah. What would you say to somebody that’s really struggling? They just don’t feel like God is forgiving towards them. They feel like God is waiting for them to mess up. God doesn’t necessarily have good things for me. My life is a mess with all this OCD. Like what would you say to somebody that maybe has that viewpoint of God?

Nathan: Well, the first is I have struggled with that, and you’re not alone in those thoughts and those fears. I have had all of those voices in my head. But the thing I’d tell you is, and this is what we tell about any OCD kind of thought, your mind might be telling you one thing, but we know that that’s not necessarily the truth.

And what I would tell you, even in the midst of those cloud and rainstorm of thoughts that can feel so overwhelming, is that there is a truth and that truth can be known. And the truth is found in God. He has told us through scripture that we’re loved, that we are valuable, that there’s nothing we can do to separate us from his love, that in all of our imperfections we’re accepted and invited.

We can find that truth in his words over and over again in scripture. It reminds us of what is true, and that will often come up against and contradict what our mind tells us is true. But at the end of the day, it’s so difficult and I totally understand how hard it is when those thoughts are just pounding our mind. But we need to choose. There is a choice to be made to believe what is true.

And what is true is that God cares about you, loves you. Nothing can separate you from your value or his love for you and his desire for goodness for you.

Carrie: Yeah. I think it’s hard, like what you’re saying, that sometimes things feel really true in OCD that we know scripturally are not true. And so there is that decision point to say, I’m going to feed my mind with the scriptures that I know are true about God’s love for me, true about God’s forgiveness for me. I’m gonna meditate on those things instead of focusing on what feels like this OCD version of God. That’s what I call it. It’s like OCD little g god is really loud and demanding and telling me all these things about the Lord that aren’t true, but I’m gonna choose to listen to the voice of the Spirit and the voice of God.

You talk in your book about admitting like I’m the worst, and this not as a way to beat yourself up like condemning yourself, but just as this opportunity or entrance point for grace. Tell us a little bit more about that piece.

Nathan: I think so many of us long to believe we are loved and valued, and the way we do that is we try to convince ourselves how good we are. And one of the ways we do that is point out everyone else’s badness and faults and failures, right? And that makes us feel better. We convince ourselves we’re good and we’re okay and we’re whole.

And the reality is if you’re a human, you’re broken and you have messy parts and you have fractures. We can run away from those, and that’s something I have many times in my life, and try so hard to convince myself and the world around me of this image that I wanted to hold up of Superman, that I’m good.

And it was to my detriment that I ignored the darkness and the fractured inside. The book title is meant to catch attention, I’m the Worst, but it’s something that Paul says in scripture, “I’m the worst of sinners,” and this is a man who was redeemed, who went on to be the foundation on which a faith is built.

But this man was willing to admit his dark places. And I think so many of us run from those dark places and avoid admitting and coming face to face with our broken parts because we fear that it’s gonna be a wall that we’re gonna crash into. It’s gonna break us, it’s gonna overwhelm us.

What I found is when we’re honest enough to face our darkness and to face the reality of our broken pieces, our mess, and we’re brave enough to do that, it’s not a wall, it’s a bridge. And that bridge leads us to redemption and love and grace.

And it’s a really beautiful thing that I’ve experienced in my life, and I want so badly for others to experience it in their life too. It’s a scary thing and it can be difficult. It can even be painful, like going to the doctor. But when we face our broken places, that’s where we end up finding God’s love and forgiveness. That actually starts the journey towards wholeness for us.

Carrie: Yeah. This is really great because I think you’re talking about wanting to present to the world that I am a good Christian, for example. And I think a lot of people would probably say that whether they have OCD or not. I want to be this person. I’ve shown up at church and I’m serving and I’m doing all the right things and I’m praying and reading my Bible.

But at the end of the day, we all are in need of a savior desperately every single day. We’re living in this tension of wanting to be Christlike while also recognizing that we have a day-to-day sin battle that we’re in.

When I’m radically vulnerable with God and other people, then I’m coming to this place where I can see his grace enter in. But if I just put on this persona of, “Hey, this is who I want you to see me as,” then people don’t really get to know us. We don’t have that deep and true intimacy with God either because we’re hiding in our relationship from God, even though he already knows us. There’s a rupture there.

Nathan: Yeah, I love that. I think acknowledging the difficult parts of our journey and ourselves and inviting both God and other people — who are the hands and feet of God — into that to walk with us is actually the conduit to freedom that we all ultimately long for.

Carrie: Was there a particular scripture or Bible story that you resonated with?

Nathan: I really connected with the story of Gideon as a kid… and also David, and Peter, and Paul. Over and over again, God uses people who don’t fit the image. People who don’t feel like heroes. God loves showing his strength in the midst of our weakness.

Carrie: Yeah. And when Jesus is involved, the story’s not over. We want to encourage people that feel like they’ve screwed things up — God’s not done with you yet. Forgiveness is one of the things you also talk about in your book, and it’s harder sometimes to receive forgiveness than offer it. Tell us more.

Nathan: Particularly for those of us with OCD, believing that God forgives us and accepting it can be difficult because OCD is a series of voices telling us untrue things. They’re relentless. But scripture tells us what is actually true about us — that we’re forgiven when we repent, that we’re his, and we can’t be separated from his goodness and his love.

The more we practice listening to God’s voice of truth, the easier it gets to recognize it.

Carrie: How has accepting God’s forgiveness changed you?

Nathan: It allows me to live life unencumbered by guilt and shame. It also allows me to offer forgiveness to others. There’s a freedom when we let go of our mistakes because God has. That freedom has been really meaningful in my story.

Carrie: What does recovery look like for you today?

Nathan: Recovery looks like getting a little stronger every day. Accepting a little more help every day. Not expecting everything to change instantly, but choosing by faith to walk step by step and get a little stronger every day with people around me and with God.

Carrie: I think that’s why it’s important to document progress… to look back and see how far you’ve come. Things are going to get better.

So tell us the name of your book again.

Nathan: The book is called I’m the Worst: How Freedom is Found in Admitting Your Faults. It’s available wherever books are sold. I’d love for you to grab a copy.

Carrie: Thank you for coming on and sharing your story. Remember, if you want to share your personal story about OCD, you can contact me at carriebock.com/podcast. I think it’s very important to get these stories out into the world and let people know there’s hope and opportunities for healing to have a different relationship with your OCD than you do now.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you.

Christian Faith and 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.

209. Three Common Objections to ICBT 

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

Carrie explores three common objections to Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) and explains why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all. 

Episode Highlights:

  • Why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all and must be tailored to the whole person
  • How ICBT addresses the unique reasoning process behind OCD obsessions
  • Why struggling with OCD does not mean you’ve lost the ability to think or reason well
  • The difference between obsessional reasoning and everyday, present-moment reasoning
  • How trusting sensory data can help break free from “what if” thinking
  • Why ICBT is not about arguing with OCD, but expanding beyond its narrow story
  • How faith, identity in Christ, and ICBT work together to bring hope—especially for scrupulosity

Episode Summary:

Today’s episode came straight out of real conversations I have with clients and listeners—especially those of you who have been told, “ERP is the gold standard for OCD treatment,” and now you’re wondering what it means if ERP didn’t work for you… or didn’t feel like a good fit.

Maybe you’ve tried Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and felt overwhelmed, discouraged, or even ashamed when it didn’t bring the relief you hoped for.

Maybe you’ve been curious about ICBT, but you’re thinking, “Is this really legitimate?” or “Am I just avoiding the hard work?”

We talk about all of that in this episode.

I share why OCD treatment is not one-size-fits-all, why ERP can be helpful for many people and still not be the right approach for everyone, and how labeling one method as the only “right” option can quietly leave people feeling broken when they’re not getting better.

We also unpack a big misconception—that ICBT is just “arguing with OCD” or trying to think your way out of a disorder. Instead, we talk about how OCD uses a very specific reasoning process, and how ICBT helps you recognize when you’ve slipped into OCD’s imagined future instead of living from the present moment—where God’s grace actually meets you.

This episode is especially for you if:

  • You’ve done ERP and are wondering what other options exist
  • You struggle with scrupulosity or faith-based OCD
  • You’re asking, “Will anything ever work for me?”

I want you to hear this clearly: ERP not working for you does not mean you’re hopeless. There is still a path forward.

🎧 Tune in to the full episode and let’s walk through these objections together.

Transcript

 Welcome back OCD Warriors. Today we’re talking about three common objections to ICBT, so let’s get into it. 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. Number one that I often hear is, well, I’ve been told that ERP or Exposure and response prevention is the gold standard of treatment for OCD. Can I just tell you that I’m so tired of hearing that.

I’m so tired. I’m so done. I’m so over it. We’ve gotta stop saying that there is no one size fits all for OCD treatment. I have met many, many people struggling with OCD. Some of them need a little bit of DBT skills woven in because they just have no tolerance for any kind of emotional distress. I’ve met people who have had just very poor relationship skills.

They struggle in their family relationships. They struggle with boundaries, communication, assertiveness. I’ve met with people with trauma. His trauma is feeding into their OCD. We’ve got to stop acting like if OCD is the nail, then ERP is the hammer. I’m done. Now, this has been said many times over and over, and quite frankly, to throw them out on Front Street io.

CDF is responsible for a lot of this language. Now we know that there have been many, many studies done that have shown exposure and response prevention to be effective. We also know on the flip side. That ERP has a high dropout rate. It’s very difficult. I’ve talked with many of you who are looking for alternatives and who have done some ERP and really didn’t feel either that it was effective for you or didn’t feel like that was a road that you wanted to go down because of your spiritual beliefs and how exposing yourself to certain things did not align.

I do think there is a way to do ERP that’s spiritually and religiously sensitive and sound hats off to the many, many clinicians out there who are doing that. What happens when you tell someone that something is the gold standard of treatment? And then it doesn’t work for them or they don’t find it effective.

Creates a lot of hopelessness. It creates a lot of shame. It creates a lot of, what in the world is wrong with me? Because if this is the gold standard and I did the gold standard, then shouldn’t I be better? And so I really wish that they would adjust that language to say that people with OCD. Have complex things going on and they need to find possibly a blend of treatments that will work the best for their unique situation.

They’re coming from a good place because they want people to get evidence-based care, and I understand that and I do appreciate the promotion of evidence-based care, but I also know that people are people, they’re not study participants. Many, many of them are not study participants and many, many of them would not qualify for an OCD study due to the massive other things that they have going on in their life or in their clinical presentation.

I’ve talked about that on the podcast before, so I won’t be labor that point either. ICBT has also been researched. ICBT is being used by many clinicians. Are having great success, and I see this all the time, not only with my own clients and my own students, but from talking with other ICBT clinicians who have been able to help many, many individuals.

There is no one size fits all for OCD treatment, whoever you decide to seek help from, please make sure that they have the training and experience needed in OCD to be able to treat you. If you are going to seek, whether it’s E-R-P-I-C-B-T, or some other form of therapy, ask the questions, ask the hard questions.

Ask your therapist, what percentage of their caseload do they see? Who has OCD? Ask them what kinds of themes they’ve worked with, if that’s something that’s a concern for you, or how they might treat your particular theme. The second objection that I hear pretty frequently is people say, well, wait a minute.

I have a mental health condition and you’re telling me that I need to use my brain. To reason my way out of OCD, well, you have the ability in your everyday reasoning process to reason many different types of things. I have seen people who are struggling with OCD, who are incredibly successful. They’re problem solvers, they’re engineers, they’re in tech.

They’re doing just amazing things, super smart, and they have the ability to reason a variety of different ways. Yes, of course. Your brain has that ability to be able to change and shift the way that you’re thinking about things. That’s the beauty of neuroplasticity. Also, we know that there is a OCD way of thinking.

And an everyday reasoning process way of thinking that we talk about in Icbt. So people will say things to me like, yeah, and I do this and I have to do this compulsion because of this. And I’ll say like, I mean, I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m like, well, it does like in OCD world, it makes complete sense to me what you’re saying because I understand that obsessional reasoning process.

But we also know that we’re in everyday reasoning processes. All day long day where we are determining if situations are safe or not, and we’re not using those same rules that OCD uses. So the key thing is if you can start to recognize when you’re in a non obsessional reasoning process, like what’s the difference?

ICBT says you’re able to really trust your sense data of what’s happening. In the present, in the here and now without going into this land of imagination of all kinds of what if hypotheticals, and you do that on a day-to-day basis. When you get in your car, when you look both ways across the street when you go into a store or you’re kind of like scanning the environment, okay, there’s somebody over there that’s loitering or I’m not really sure what they’re doing, they’re kind of out of place.

Maybe I’ll just kind of walk the other direction. You might have had situations like that, I know I have, where you have to be on a little bit more high alert for your safety based on the location that you’re in or what you’re doing, and you’re able to use your sense data to determine that. There may be times where you’ve looked at packages of food and it was just very clear that for whatever reason it was spoiled.

You didn’t get to it fast enough in the refrigerator. Senses of sight and smell are able to tell you like, Hey, that food is not any good. What OCD does is it’ll read the tag on the package of chicken that says it expires tomorrow. And OCD will say something like, what if it actually expires today? And what if that means that there might be some harmful bacteria in this chicken and we could cook it all the way?

How do I know if it’s really done? It’s still may. Maybe it’s a little pink in the center. I might really need to look at like that’s the obsessional reasoning process versus just really trusting in your senses and not going into the land of futuristic thinking, I’m gonna be sick all of a sudden from this chicken, which is perfectly fine for me to cook in a normal, healthy way.

So yes, you do have the ability, even though this is a disorder that affects your thought process, you have the ability to think differently about it, to look at alternative narratives. The third objection that I hear about I ccbt is that it’s really just arguing with your ocd. That’s all you’re doing.

You’re saying, well. You’re writing some type of alternative narrative, and that’s just engaging with the Ooc D in a way that you shouldn’t, and you should just be disconnecting from that and being able to move towards your values or expose yourself to things that are scary. And we’re not arguing with OCD, we’re not saying that some of these things are not possible.

We are saying that not everything that’s possible is probable. OCD doesn’t really care if it’s a 0.0001% chance it will still convince you that this is going to happen. So we don’t worry as much about probability because many, many different things are probable. What we’re saying is what data do we have to show that is going to happen?

If we don’t have any data to show us that that’s going to happen, our real sensory information, then that’s not something that we need to be concerned about. It’ll almost be like saying that you’re preparing for a rainy day when it’s completely sunny outside and you look at the weather report, it looks like it’s gonna be sunny or maybe partially cloudy, and you say, well, I really need to put on my boots and my raincoat because theoretically it could potentially rain today.

What we’re doing with alternative narratives in I CCB t is we’re not trying to argue with the obsessional story. We’re not trying to say, oh, this alternative narrative, it’s right and the obsessional story, it’s wrong because that is too black and white in itself. There may be some genuine uncertainties that OCD latches onto and that makes things really confusing.

There are some things that you might not be able to know right now. Like for example, should I marry this person? Maybe you haven’t been dating them or knowing them long enough really to make some type of determination about that, but you could make some determinations about what you’ve seen in terms of how they act or their character.

If nothing else, you can make a determination about, yes, I wanna continue getting to know this person, or no, I don’t. But the general, like, where is this gonna go in the future? Might be a true uncertainty that you have to live with. And when we look at that alternative narrative, we’re just trying to like debunk the obsessional story as like the only story in your brain.

Like this is the only possibility of something that could happen. It’s almost a way of just being creative and expanding your mind to say, yeah, that could happen. Things could go terribly horrible, awful, and all of my deepest fears come true, or things actually could be okay. Maybe, I don’t know in this situation, but as Christians, we can rest and we can trust God.

That comes from knowing that God loves us, that God cares about us, that God has our best interests at heart. If you’re struggling with scrupulosity, those things may be really hard to grasp ahold of right now. That’s one of the reasons that I’m really trying to incorporate more and more tools for Christians in my online course Empowered Mind.

We are getting ready to start up on Monday, this kind of last call, if you wanna get in there and be involved, but I would love to have you. So you are all invited. If you’re just done kind of fighting with OCD and you’re unsure of what to do next, but maybe you’ve tried some different things and, and what you’ve tried hasn’t worked, I just encourage you to try ICBT to just go in.

I’ve yet to have a person who dropped out because they were absolutely terrified or just felt like they needed to avoid all the content. There’s a way to practicing with your particular theme, feels too scary or too daunting. You can certainly look at some other examples and practicing with maybe a past theme that you’ve been able to work through that doesn’t bother you anymore.

Or just a complete different story, something maybe that isn’t emotionally charged for you. So that’s one thing that I really love about it. You don’t have to necessarily use your own stuff in the beginning until you feel more comfortable and more confident in being able to apply the skills. One of the things that I really want to shake up, as I talked about in the beginning, is this idea that there is a one size fits all.

Really have to look at people as unique individuals, what their needs are, what they’re most struggling with, how things have worked or haven’t worked over time, and develop a solid plan for that. So I really encourage all of you to look at what your options are, but hopefully this episode helped you. I recognize or work through some objections that maybe you’ve had to engaging with Icbt, whether you are a clinician or a therapist listening.

Ultimately, your big question may be, will this work for me? Will this work for my particular theme? Will this work if other things haven’t worked for me in the past? In other words, is there any hope of me being able to develop some skills to deal with this ocd? As I always say, I believe that there is hope for you regardless of what you have been through or how severe things are looking right now.

This treatment has been shown to work across a variety of different themes. I feel like ICBT is great for scrupulosity because of the emphasis on identity and focusing on your true self versus this feared false self that OCD has convinced you that you are or you’re going to become if you don’t engage in compulsions.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. 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.

208. Is it OCD Voice or God’s Voice? Hearing from God for Healing with Heather O’Brien

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

In today’s episode, Carrie sits down with Heather O’Brien—minister, author, speaker, and host of the Heal With God podcast—to discuss how to discern God’s voice when OCD and scrupulosity create fear and confusion.

Episode Highlights:

  • How Scripture and the Holy Spirit work together to bring clarity and peace
  • Why you don’t have to be afraid of “missing” God’s will in everyday decisions
  • What it looks like to break agreement with lies and replace them with God’s truth
  • Why God’s guidance produces peace, not pressure, urgency, or shame
  • How Christian community can support healthy spiritual discernment

Episode Summary:

Many people I work with share that they once believed OCD was the voice of God, leaving them overwhelmed by fear, urgency, and constant self-doubt. I hear this especially from those struggling with scrupulosity, people who genuinely love God and want to follow Him, but feel exhausted by constantly questioning their thoughts, motives, and decisions. Over time, that pressure can quietly reshape how we see God, making Him feel demanding, distant, or impossible to please.

In Christian Faith and OCD Episode 208, I sit down with Heather O’Brian, minister, author, speaker, and host of the Heal With God podcast, to talk through how to tell the difference between God’s voice and OCD’s voice in real, everyday life. We discuss decision-making, the fear of “getting it wrong,” and why God’s guidance is not marked by panic, urgency, or threats. 

We also explore how Scripture, listening prayer, and trusted Christian community help bring clarity and grounding, and why God’s will isn’t something you’re constantly on the verge of missing.

If you’ve ever felt afraid to move forward, worried that ignoring a thought might be disobedience, or wondered why following God feels more stressful than peaceful, this episode was created with you in mind. 

Hit play and join the conversation.

Connect with Heather O’Brien:

calledtopriesthood.com

heatherobrien.net

207. Increased Confidence in Who God Created Her to be: A Personal story with Ashley Lawrence

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

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Ashley Lawrence, a wife, mom, homeschooler, and artist who shares her journey with OCD, and how God met her in the middle of years of fear, doubt, and unanswered questions.

Episode Highlights:

  • How scrupulosity can mimic a “faith problem” when it is actually OCD
  • What mental compulsions can look like, including rumination, internal checking, and reassurance seeking
  • How warning passages in Scripture can become triggers for obsessive doubt and fear
  • How ICBT helps “disarm” OCD’s reasoning and make intrusive thoughts feel less convincing
  • How identifying the feared self versus your real identity in Christ can support recovery and peace

Episode Summary:

Have you ever opened your Bible hoping for peace, only to walk away feeling more anxious than comforted, then quietly wondered what that means about your faith?

I sit down with Ashley Lawrence, who shares her personal journey with scrupulosity and OCD and how she spent years believing she had a spiritual problem rather than a mental health one. Like so many Christians, Ashley loved the Lord deeply, yet felt trapped in cycles of doubt, fear, and constant mental checking that never seemed to bring relief.

In this conversation, we talk about how OCD can latch onto Scripture and deeply held beliefs, turning faith into a source of fear instead of rest. Ashley shares how learning about Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) from a Christian perspective helped her begin to understand the OCD reasoning process, separate fear from truth, and loosen the grip of obsessive doubt. We explore how ICBT does not ask you to abandon your faith, but instead helps you live more fully from the truth of who God says you are.

My prayer is that this episode reminds you that struggling with scrupulosity does not mean you are failing God. It means you are human, and God is patient, compassionate, and present with you in the middle of the struggle.

Share this episode with someone who may be silently wrestling with spiritual anxiety or intrusive thoughts.

If you are prayerfully considering next steps, I invite you to learn more about Empowered Mind and see if it may be the support you have been asking God for.

You do not have to walk this journey alone. Healing takes time, grace, and support, and God is with you every step of the way.

206. She Hid the Knives and Prayed She Wouldn’t Die: A Personal OCD Story with Blessing Afolabi-Jombo

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

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Blessing Afa Jumbo, a wife, mother, and writer, who shares her courageous journey with OCD—how intrusive thoughts, postpartum struggles, and performance-based faith shaped her view of God, and how grace, proper treatment, and healthier theology have brought healing and hope.

Episode Highlights:

  • How OCD can disguise itself as spiritual conviction, warfare, or responsibility, placing unbearable pressure on the Christian
  • The heavy burden of performance-based faith and the fear of failing God as a Christian and a mother
  • Postpartum OCD and harm-related intrusive thoughts, and the courage it takes to name them for what they are
  • Finding freedom through proper support, including medication and therapy, alongside faith.
  • Relearning the heart of God as loving and gracious, not punitive.

Episode Summary:

What if the intrusive thoughts you’re battling don’t mean you’re spiritually failing, but that you’re dealing with OCD?

In this episode of Christian Faith and OCD, I sit down with Blessing Afa Jumbo for a heartfelt and eye-opening conversation about how OCD can quietly weave itself into a Christian’s faith, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. 

Blessing shares how fear of death and intrusive thoughts slowly transformed her relationship with God into one driven by pressure, responsibility, and the belief that she had to perform perfectly in order to stay protected.

As we talk, we explore a question I hear often from Christians with OCD: How do I know when something is conviction versus OCD? Blessing opens up about the fear that kept her silent, the shame of believing her thoughts defined her, and the moment she realized that what she was experiencing had a name. We also discuss how learning about OCD began to reshape her theology, helping her see God not as a harsh taskmaster, but as a loving Father who meets us with grace in our suffering.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in your own mind, exhausted from trying to get it right with God, or unsure whether faith and mental health can truly coexist, tune in and listen to Blessing’s story. 

And if you’re ready to develop a more empowered way of responding to OCD, one that helps you recognize when OCD pulls you into imagined stories instead of present reality, I encourage you to learn more about Empowered Mind, my Christian ICBT course, at carriebock.com/training.

205. You’re Not Alone in Your OCD: Survey Results and Upcoming Episode Plans! 

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode. No Comments on 205. You’re Not Alone in Your OCD: Survey Results and Upcoming Episode Plans! 

In this episode, Carrie reflects on insights from the listener survey and shares how that feedback is shaping the direction of the show in 2026. She also explores what healing can look like for Christians with OCD and how to take meaningful steps forward.

Episode Highlights:

  • What the listener survey revealed about where listeners are in their OCD journey
  • How listener feedback is guiding the podcast’s direction in 2026
  • A preview of upcoming topics
  • How the podcast is intentionally designed to support your specific questions and struggles
  • Why evidence-based treatment matters for OCD and what to look for in a therapist

Episode Summary:

What if your voice and your story mattered more to this podcast than you ever realized?

One of the greatest gifts of hosting Christian Faith and OCD has been the opportunity to hear directly from you. 

In this episode, I share insights from the listener survey we conducted around the podcast’s 200th episode and explain why your responses meant so much to me. Hearing your stories offered a clearer picture of the real questions, struggles, and experiences so many of you are carrying, often quietly and for a long time.

I also walk through what many of you have tried in the past, what has and hasn’t helped, and why evidence-based treatment for OCD matters. 

As we look ahead, I share what’s coming in 2026, including a deeper focus on scrupulosity and other listener-requested topics. I also provide updates on my course, Empowered Mind: Christian ICBT for OCD, created to help you build a healthier relationship with intrusive thoughts and grow in confidence, clarity, and peace.

This episode is also an invitation to pause and consider your own journey. What might your next step be? Whether that step feels big or small, my hope is that you’ll feel encouraged to move forward with intention, prayer, and grace. You don’t have to have everything figured out, and you don’t have to take that step alone.

204. Putting to Bed Year End Regret to Start Fresh in the New Year

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in Podcast Episode.

In this episode., Carrie explores how Christians can navigate year-end regret with both honesty and grace, especially when OCD keeps pulling them back into “what ifs” and past decisions.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to acknowledge regret without getting stuck in rumination or shame.
  • Why accepting God’s forgiveness is more powerful than trying to “forgive yourself.”
  • A simple four-step process for moving through regret with honesty and grace.
  • How OCD distorts regret and keeps you replaying the past, and how to step out of that cycle.
  • What Peter’s story teaches us about restoration, calling, and God’s tender pursuit of His children.
  • How to trust God’s sovereignty when you fear your decisions may have “messed up” His plan.

Episode Summary:

Have you ever stepped into a new year wishing you could go back and undo something from the year before? As we wrap up 2025, I am talking about the quiet weight of regret and how OCD can magnify it until it feels overwhelming. 

In this episode of Christian Faith and OCD, I share from my own life and from years of counseling Christians with OCD who struggle to let go of the past, often fearing they have somehow stepped outside of God’s will or His forgiveness.

I’ll walk you through a four step process that helps us face regret with honesty, compassion, and a deeper awareness of God’s presence in our story. You will hear how I have had to apply these steps to my own year, from business decisions that did not go as planned to relational fallouts that left me seeking wisdom and healing.

We also look at Peter’s story in Scripture and how Jesus restores him after his denials, reminding us that God knows exactly where to find us when we feel ashamed or stuck. 

If OCD has kept you replaying your decisions or wondering if you have ruined something God intended for your life, I pray this episode brings reassurance that His sovereignty covers your missteps and His grace is more than enough.

Tune into this episode, and share it with someone who needs a gentle, hope filled reminder of God’s love as they enter a new year.