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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.

229. Navigating OCD, ADHD, and Autism: A Personal Story with Erica Hackworth 

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

In this episode, Carrie welcomes Erica Hackworth to share how discovering the connection between her ADHD, autism, and OCD transformed her relationships, faith, self-understanding, and journey toward recovery.

Episode Highlight:

  • Discover how ADHD, autism, and OCD can overlap and influence one another in unexpected ways.
  • Recognize the hidden signs of OCD that extend beyond contamination fears and perfectionism.
  • Identify the difference between OCD-driven fear and genuine spiritual conviction.
  • Learn practical ways to communicate neurodivergent needs within relationships and family life.
  • Apply ICBT principles to break free from shame, intrusive thoughts, and self-condemnation.

Episode Summary:

Why Do So Many Women Reach Adulthood Before Discovering They Have Autism?

For years, Erica knew ADHD was part of her story, but there were pieces that never quite fit. As life became more demanding through marriage, parenting, and everyday responsibilities, the coping strategies that once worked started falling apart in ways that couldn’t be ignored.

What struck me most about Erica’s experience was how easily autism can remain hidden, especially in women who learn to mask their differences from a young age. Her story highlights why so many people spend years believing they’re simply “too sensitive” or “too much” before finding answers that finally make sense.

Could Neurodivergence Be Affecting Your Relationships More Than You Realize?

One of the most powerful parts of our conversation was hearing how Erica’s neurological differences created misunderstandings within her marriage. Things that felt obvious to her internally often looked completely different from the outside.

I’ve seen many people carry deep guilt because loved ones misinterpret forgetfulness, overwhelm, or sensory struggles as lack of care. Erica shares what changed when she stopped viewing herself through a lens of failure and began helping others understand her experience more accurately.

What Hidden OCD Symptoms Are Many Christians Mistaking for Spiritual Sensitivity?

When people think about OCD, they often picture contamination fears, checking locks, or arranging things perfectly. Erica’s experience looked very different.

As she explored her faith, she began noticing patterns of guilt, excessive responsibility, and rigid spiritual routines that felt holy on the surface but were actually keeping her trapped. Her story opens an important conversation about how OCD can disguise itself in ways that are difficult to recognize, especially within faith communities.

How Can You Tell the Difference Between OCD and the Holy Spirit?

For years, Erica interpreted constant feelings of fear, guilt, and urgency as spiritual conviction.

Through treatment and deeper reflection, she began noticing critical differences between condemnation and genuine conviction. What she discovered brought tremendous freedom, and her insights may challenge assumptions many believers have carried for years without realizing it.

Why Does Understanding Autism Change the Way You Care for Yourself?

Receiving an autism diagnosis didn’t change who Erica was, but it completely changed how she understood herself. Instead of viewing sensory overwhelm as a character flaw, she began recognizing it as a real neurological need.

Sometimes the path forward isn’t forcing ourselves to endure more discomfort. Sometimes it’s learning how to honor the way God designed us and responding with compassion instead of criticism.

What Makes ICBT So Effective for Breaking Free from OCD?

Erica describes her experience with Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as life-changing. By learning how OCD creates doubt, fear, and imagined threats, she began seeing patterns that had influenced her thinking for decades.

When people understand how OCD operates, they gain opportunities to respond differently. That shift can open doors to freedom that once felt impossible.

How Do You Stop Living Under the Weight of Constant Shame?

For years, Erica believed something was fundamentally wrong with her, shaping how she viewed herself, her faith, and her relationships. In our conversation, she shares how learning to challenge those beliefs brought greater peace, self-compassion, and freedom from self-condemnation.

Erica’s story offers hope for anyone navigating ADHD, autism, OCD, faith struggles, or chronic shame. 

Listen to the full episode to hear the insights and breakthroughs that made a lasting difference in her recovery journey.

Transcript

Carrie: Welcome back everyone to our personal stories series on the podcast for this summer. I know that all of you really enjoy hearing from other people who are struggling with similar best that we’ve gotten on the podcast is to talk a little bit more about intersection of different types of neurodiversity, so intersection between OCD and ADHD, intersection between OCD and autism.

Carrie: So today we have a personal story that really encompasses all of those diagnoses with Erica Hackworth. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad that you’re able to join us today. Thank you so much for having me. Tell us a little bit about kind of like your treatment journey, kinda what caused you to first get into treatment for ADHD, and how did this kinda lead to finding out about other diagnoses?

Erica: Yeah. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in elementary school, and I was treated for it all the way up through college, and then I went to a church and participated in biblical counseling where they basically told me it wasn’t real. Wow. I was on other meds too for depression and other things, but I got off all my meds.

Erica: Was actually doing okay for a while.

Carrie: I was coping okay. Do you think that was because you were out of school? Like, when you were in school and you had certain expectations that you had to meet, then having the ADHD medicine kinda helped you meet those expectations, and then getting out of school, maybe you didn’t need it as much, or?

Erica: I think to a point. Maybe in high school it was like that, but then college, like, I actually never graduated because everything fell apart. Like, I couldn’t just rely on my intellect anymore. I had to be able to do the executive functioning, planning, writing papers, doing those things, and I didn’t have the structures I needed.

Erica: Plus, I had a depression, a lot of other things going on that caused my life to fall apart. So yeah, I don’t know about that.

Carrie: This biblical counseling, though, that created a lot of shame then, I would imagine.

Erica: I think confusion too. Initially, it was kind of like, “Oh, well, there’s nothing wrong with me.” I was told for a really long time that I have all these things, like, it’s not real.

Erica: And so I think initially it felt like a blessing and like it was freeing, but then as time went on, I realized I think there’s actually something to all of this. Where I got married, I had my first child, and then my second, and then my third, and the stuff that I used to rely on to cope and keep everything together just totally fell apart.

Erica: Like, I couldn’t just get through the way I was getting through before. About a year ago, I started to kind of revisit the idea that maybe there is something to this ADHD thing. I think particularly because my husband and I were having difficulties. I would forget all manner of things. He kind of felt like it was personal, like I didn’t care.

Erica: I was like, “No, I do care.” And so that’s kind of what caused me to be like, “No, this is real. I’m not just a lazy, forgetful, horrible person. There is something going on neurologically.”

Carrie: I think that’s huge. I just wanna pause there for a moment, because it’s so hard sometimes to communicate to other relationships in our life, like, what our internal experience is like, and it, things can be misperceived.

Erica: It was so hard. The amount of times that I heard him say, and he meant well, but he was like, “I don’t understand you. My experience is nothing like what you’re describing.” For a while, that made me feel pretty alone, but then that was the impetus to be like, “Okay, so let’s help you. How can we help you understand what I’m dealing with?”

Erica: I had gotten some coaching back in my 20s from the ADHD Center of West Michigan. If you’re in ADHD circles, that’s Tamara Rosier’s group. I went back there and decided that relationship coaching was gonna be a good way forward to help my husband kind of understand what was going on. And then kind of in the background, I’m, like, on neurodivergent social media now, kind of, ’cause I’m trying to educate myself.

Erica: There was a video that came up that was like, “You might be AuDHD if blah, blah, blah.” It was like, you think about social interactions for days after they happen, and you feel, like, drained after spending time with people even though you love it, and all of these things. There were more things to it, but I just remember, like, the bottom dropped out.

Erica: I watched that and I was like, “Oh.” So it might not just be ADHD. ‘Cause I felt like ADHD fit who I was, but, like, not 100%, ’cause there was this other part of me that’s pretty routine oriented, pretty regimented, pretty structured, like things just so. I do things the same way every day, that kind of thing. And so that’s where I think the autism kind of

Erica: That was the other thing that kinda clicked into place, like, oh, okay, so it’s not just ADHD. It’s probably AuDHD. I better seek out a diagnosis for these things, just to kind of help me understand myself, help my husband understand me, and chart a way forward.

Carrie: I think with some women getting diagnosed later in life, like, their experience looking different than maybe a male autistic experience, can you talk a little bit about that?

Carrie: Like, oh, I think a lot of times when people think about autism, they think about people who are severely impaired, for example, or-

Erica: Or they’re thinking of someone of what the stereotypical Asperger’s kind of male guy looks like, who’s very high intellect, but just kinda socially awkward. This, I think, it looks different.

Erica: I think as women, we’re kind of socialized early that fitting in is survival. I learned over time, if I’m gonna stim, I’m gonna keep it small. I’m gonna keep it internal. I’ll stim with, like, my tongue around my teeth or, like, my hand in my pocket or things like that. And I learned to work really hard to appear like everybody else.

Erica: I can pretend to make eye contact. I really look at your nose or middle of your forehead or your chin, things like that. Or, like, if I’m in a situation where I really wanna rock, but I know it’s … Other people are gonna look at me and think it’s weird, maybe I’ll resist doing that. But all of that masking builds up, and it gets exhausting.

Erica: And you don’t really ever feel like anybody really knows you.

Carrie: Does it create a lot of internal anxiety and tension, just kind of like trying to almost fit this square peg in a round hole? Like, I don’t really quite fit in here, but I’ve gotta pretend like I do and be just like everybody else. Absolutely.

Erica: It’s pretty painful. And I remember in high school feeling like this just immense sense of loneliness, and it, that carried with me for a long time, just feeling like nobody knows me And if they find out, then they’re gonna realize that I’m crazy or weird, or they’re not gonna love me.

Carrie: Tell us about that process of then when you did get the autism diagnosis, what was that like for you, or how did that shift your self-perception?

Erica: I think it really helped a lot. Initially, it was kind of like, “Okay, what do I do with this?” Like, I’m still the same person. But I think what it really did for me was to realize that the things about me that I felt were too sensitive, too needy, like, “Why am I reacting like this? I should just be okay.” For example, my husband and I just traveled in an airport, and instead of having a big meltdown that was very mysterious to me, ’cause I would always meltdown on travel days, and I didn’t really get it.

Erica: I was like, “I’m just a difficult person. I’m really annoying. My husband shouldn’t have to deal with me,” which is also kind of some OCD thoughts, you know? But, like, instead of doing that, I wore headphones, and I was able to communicate to him and say, “Hey, listen, I’m struggling with all of this. I need a few minutes.

Erica: It’s not that I’m upset with you. This is a lot.” And so I allowed myself to accommodate myself. I wore headphones the whole day, even in the car on the way to our Airbnb, because the overstimulation was too much, and it prevented me from becoming a meltdown-y rage monster.

Carrie: That’s good. They also have these things like sunflower tags or badges, something like that.

Carrie: Have you seen those for airport workers? I’ve seen them.

Erica: I haven’t utilized it, but I’ve seen it. Yeah,

Carrie: for anybody out there that may be struggling, it’s to identify someone who has a invisible disability such as autism, or it could be used for OCD. Maybe airports really spike all of your OCD symptoms or other things.

Carrie: So people can, the airport workers can kinda know to treat you with a little bit more gentleness or understanding that, understanding that people may need more time and so forth when they see the sunflower badge. That was something that I saw last time I traveled in the airport that I thought, “Oh, this is really wonderful to have out there,” because my husband walks with a cane, but for a long time he just had vision issues, and people wouldn’t realize that he couldn’t see them in his side line of vision.

Carrie: And I thought, “Wow, that would’ve been really helpful for us to have some kind of communication like that.” He’s struggling, kinda watch out a little bit. Tell us about now when you have these sensory needs, it sounds like you’re able to accommodate a lot more for them. Like, how have certain things changed for you in your relationships, like within your family or friends, or just kinda day-to-day life?

Carrie: What does it look like differently now that you’re aware of this diagnosis?

Erica: Yeah, I think I have been able to communicate effectively to the people in my life about the diagnosis, and they expect me to have headphones on. They expect me to need to take a minute if I’m feeling overstimulated or overwhelmed.

Erica: I can say the word meltdown, and they know what that means. I think it’s just, like, deepened my ability to trust the people that I love dearly because now they get it. And it’s not that I’m difficult or bad like I believed for so long. It’s that I have a different sensory profile, and I process the world differently, and that’s okay.

Erica: It doesn’t have to mean anything bad about me.

Carrie: Yeah. So how did OCD show up? Like, when did that kind of come onto the scene or into your awareness?

Erica: Yeah. I have always thought I’ve been a very spiritually sensitive person, and conservative Christian circles where I kind of run around, that’s a very good thing, right?

Erica: It’s good to be sensitive spiritually. But as I was kind of uncovering the ADHD and the autism and starting to kind of lean into my special interests and, like, realized, oh, I don’t just get obsessed with things, and it’s not idolatry. It’s a special interest. It’s something that I find regulating, and it’s okay that it’s regulating.

Erica: As I started to kind of do that, I started to feel some immense guilt because I would spend a long time researching certain things for a while. Autism was my special interest, so I was, like, researching, researching, researching, trying to figure everything out. And I would spend hours, and then I started to feel like, oh, but I don’t read my Bible that long, or I don’t pray that long.

Erica: Maybe God’s mad at me for doing this. Maybe I’m sinning. Maybe I’m this, that, and the other. I mentioned that to my ADHD coach. She was kind of like, “Have you ever thought about OCD?” And I was like, “No,” ’cause I’ve had friends with OCD. Mine doesn’t look like theirs necessarily. But after that session, I did a couple self-tests, and I was like, oh, highly likely.

Erica: Great. Okay. Another diagnosis that I need to pursue. Let’s see here. So I went back to the place that I got diagnosed and said, “Hey, can we do OCD testing?” And they did, and it came back positive, and severe, actually. I think realizing that OCD doesn’t always look like symmetry or germaphobe or these other things.

Erica: It can be excessive thinking, excessive apologizing. It can be checking the relationship. Are we okay? It can be, for me, it was also, like, I had to do my devotions in a certain order, and if I didn’t do it in a certain order, it didn’t feel like God would be happy with that. Like, it’s not okay. It’s not done enough.

Erica: Or if I didn’t write down my prayers, then they weren’t real, things like that. All of these things felt very much like a prison for a really long time. And I just didn’t even know that I was living in it. It was kind of like I just thought I was sensitive and a nice person, ’cause I always wanna make sure everybody’s okay.

Carrie: That really, like, inhibits your relationship with God if you feel like I have to write down all of my prayers. I mean, that can be time-consuming, and then it doesn’t give you any kind of freedom to just say, like, “God, I need help right now,” or, “I just need some sense of comfort or peace or reassurance that you’re here.”

Carrie: Yeah, so it’s interesting how these symptoms overlap, right, with the autism of wanting the craving for, like, structure and routine and things being the same, and then the overlap of OCD saying, “No, it has to be this way, or else something bad is gonna happen, like, if you don’t do it.”

Erica: And then I think also with the ADHD in there, too, I have very much, like, flighty thoughts, right?

Erica: They all feel like hot air balloons that just kind of float away. I think sometimes I do crave that concreteness of thought in order to kind of keep a train going, which is not a bad thing, but when it becomes a necessary thing in order to feel like I’m okay,” that’s where I think it becomes more prison-like rather than a tool to help.

Carrie: Right. Tell us about your experience with inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy, ICBT. What was that like for you?

Erica: It was life-changing. I actually just graduated, and we did the Y-BOCS again, and I’m subclinical now, so that’s really cool. Um- That’s awesome.

Carrie: Yay.

Erica: Yeah, I went from severe to subclinical, so I’m praising the Lord every day for it.

Erica: I really appreciated learning about how OCD functioned, how the patterns of thought, what they looked like, what they sounded like, and I realized that so much of my shame and my fear and my sensitivity was actually just this, like, yucky, faulty alarm system in my brain that was telling me I was in trouble all the time, that something bad is gonna happen.

Erica: And understanding the patterns behind the thoughts helped me to realize, like, I don’t have to enter the bubble. I can make a choice now that I know what this is to go the other way and trust what’s around me, trust myself. I think that’s been one of the biggest thing, is that I’ve learned to trust myself.

Carrie: When you say trust myself, like, you’re talking about, like, my true intentions, my true desires spiritually, like, those types of things.

Erica: Who am I as a person, right? Who did God make me to be, especially now that I’m His child? I can trust that I have remaining sin. I don’t have the reigning sin. I don’t have the sin that I’m enslaved to anymore, which is such a freeing thought.

Erica: I think, too, because of the other neurodivergence, I have struggled to socially trust myself. A lot of times when I was younger, something would happen that I was completely bewildered by. Somebody rejected me, and I had no idea why, and so I think I made these rules of like, “Oh, it’s because I’m bad. It’s because I didn’t care enough about them, or they didn’t think I cared enough about them.”

Erica: And so realizing that, like, I can trust myself now in a social setting, I can be myself and it’s okay, and I don’t have to constantly be scanning for renet- relational, like, danger anymore.

Carrie: Right. That’s really good, and I think very helpful ’cause that causes you to be in your head and be disconnected from the people that you’re trying to connect with in that moment.

Erica: Right. And never quite feeling like you can do it right. Pretty isolating. So it sounds

Carrie: like that the feared possible self versus the real self, like modules, those concepts were really helpful for you. The OCD bubble, like if I understand kinda how I get into this OCD reasoning process, then I can know, oh, hey, I don’t have to follow that train of thought, like when that obsession comes up.

Carrie: That feels really good. Yeah. I even

Erica: started to recognize what OCD feels like in my body. I often would have this, like huge knot in my stomach that basically lived in my body for 30 years, and I thought it was a sensitive conscience and the Holy Spirit talking to me, and it’s not. Basically, this nervous system reaction of fight or flight all the time.

Erica: And so once I was able to distinguish the difference between, like the Holy Spirit convicting and OCD condemning, and really make that difference clear in my mind, I could recognize that that bodily sensation was imaginary, too. It’s happening, but it’s not based upon a spiritual reality. It’s not the Holy Spirit convicting me.

Carrie: Was that a hard thing to recognize? I think I’ve talked to different people where they’ve said separating that out, the Holy Spirit- Versus OCD has been challenging for them, as well as going, “Wait a minute, I thought that I was constantly being condemned or corrected, and now I’m having to learn this new way of being with God.”

Carrie: Like, what was that process like for you? It

Erica: was kind of the last domino to fall with the OCD therapy. I suddenly had this realization, ’cause I started engaging again more into my special interests. I’ve been in autistic burnout, and so one of the things that helps with that is really leaning into those special interests.

Erica: Well, as I was doing that, I started to have that gnawing sensation in my stomach, and was like, “Well, maybe this is the Holy Spirit.” And then it, it just kind of occurred to me, like, what does Scripture say about how the Holy Spirit operates? What does condemnation in the life of a believer look like? It’s gone.

Erica: I think it’s been really freeing to have a relationship with God that’s based upon love for Christ, love for His Word, love for truth, and not based upon, “I’m afraid He’s mad at me. I’m afraid that God hates me. I’m afraid that I’m a bad person and not successful as a believer,” those kinds of things.

Carrie: It sounds like just this concept of this verse that talks about perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

Carrie: And so if you’re able to connect with God is loving, what I see in the Scripture is God speaking to people in a still, small voice, that not a loud, booming, “You have to do this right now,” urgency level of OCD. I think that’s a huge distinguisher for people, right? Like, oh, OCD gets really loud and really urgent, and I have to do it absolutely right now and perfectly.

Carrie: It’s true.

Erica: I think the other thing that I recognized is that OCD often can be very ambiguous, so it’s a lot of like, “You’re bad. Something bad’s gonna happen. You’re a terrible person. You are a bad mom. You’re a bad wife.” When it’s the Holy Spirit, it’s, “I’m convicting you about this thing.” It’s specific, it’s targeted, and it’s not based upon who I’m as a person.

Erica: My personhood isn’t on the line anymore. It’s, “I want to sanctify you. I’m going to grow you. I’m going to make you look more like Christ.” And it’s a beautiful thing, and it’s a gentle thing. Sometimes there’s chastisement and stuff like that, but I feel like in the life of the believer who really loves God, I think it’s gonna be a more molding kind of movement, rather than, like, He’s gonna tear me apart and I’m gonna get struck down.

Carrie: I like that. I like the specificity in terms of, like, this particular sin is the one that you need to handle and deal with and confess and walk away from. You know, what does it look like for me to turn my back on that and to do– act in a way of repentance, something completely different versus, “Oh, no, something vague, bad is going to happen to you because you didn’t read your Bible in the exact manner that I prescribed.”

Carrie: Isn’t

Erica: actually in scripture. Right.

Carrie: These were just rules that either OCD made up or somebody before you said, “Hey, do it this way,” and it didn’t mean that you had to do it that way every single time. It’s just, “Hey, here’s a general guideline,” that maybe OCD hopped on. This is really good. Sounds like for a lot of your life, just a general sense of feeling shame and bad, and I run across a lot of people who listen to our podcast that feel that way.

Carrie: And stepping out of that shame of who you actually are can be really, really challenging. Any other, like, encouragement or advice that you would have for those folks that just feel like they’re stuck in the “I’m bad space”?

Erica: I think for me, in my ICBT, there was an assignment to write an autobiography. I really found that extremely powerful because in those moments when I’m feeling that condemnation, “I’m a bad mom, I’m a bad wife, I’m a bad Christian, I’m not doing anything right,” I can look at the truth of what I actually know about myself and what do I see around me.

Erica: I think a lot of times, again, there’s this ambiguous cloud of bad, but if my OCD is telling me that I’m a bad mom, but I can look around and see that my children are smiling and fed and happy and we love each other, that doesn’t mean I’m a perfect mom, but I don’t have to believe that I’m a bad mom. I can get more specific in my own mind.

Erica: Okay, is there something that I wanna adjust with my kids? Maybe. Then let’s think about that. Let’s not do the condemnation hamster wheel that doesn’t actually get us anywhere. I think, too, the more I’ve allowed myself to do things because I want to and not because I’m afraid what if I don’t, has been life-changing as well.

Erica: It’s like I’m allowed to enjoy my life, you know what I mean? It doesn’t always have to based upon fear.

Carrie: Yeah, I think that’s a good word for parents. We do have a lot of parents that listen to the podcast, and it’s like you’re never gonna be a perfect parent. There is no such thing. You’re gonna do things that don’t land very well with your kids, and sometimes you don’t know until after you do it, and then you’re like, “Wow, that didn’t really go well at all.”

Carrie: And so looking at God understanding, like, your heart and where you’re at and looking at very specific things. “Okay, that didn’t work,” or, “I didn’t handle that situation well. It’s an opportunity for repair with my child. It’s an opportunity to look at how could I handle that differently next time.” But I find that when people are really stuck in this shame, it’s very paralyzing because it doesn’t actually help you make positive change.

Carrie: Like, if you constantly believe that you’re a bad person, you’re gonna continue to engage in behaviors that you feel like are bad so that then you can go back and punish yourself, and it’s not conscious. It’s very, like, under the surface that that happens,

Erica: right? I think for me, the reverse bridging in those moments when I’m feel like I’m getting sucked into that feeling of condemnation, like, okay, notice where I’m at, notice the thought.

Erica: What is the thought? Okay, the thought is that I’m a terrible mom. Okay, look down. What are the feelings that make me feel like I’m not doing enough? And recognizing that they’re imaginary. If it’s imaginary, I don’t have to do anything. I can turn around. I can reenter reality. I can hug my kids. I can notice my life instead of constantly being in my head.

Erica: I think my desire is to be present Yeah. That’s huge. I can do that.

Carrie: Yeah. This is really great. I mean, what you had said before about, like, the– for anybody that doesn’t know that Y-BOCS two assessment, uh, is where you score kind of how much time obsessions are taking and how much time you’re engaging in compulsions, and what happens if you try to resist, and how hard is it, et cetera.

Carrie: So there’s those questions. And so to go from a severe range to a subclinical range, like, that’s incredible. That’s amazing. What does recovery process look like for you nowadays?

Erica: It looks like being okay With having the beginning of an OCD spiral, ’cause they’re gonna happen, and even the middle of an OCD spiral.

Erica: But when I can recognize what’s happening and be like, “Oh, that’s OCD, I don’t wanna do that,” I can make the choice to move along. The other thing that it looks like is I can talk to my husband, or I live with my sister and a friend of mine too, and just be like, “Hey, just so you know, I’m fighting an intrusive thought, and I’m gonna pull myself out of it.”

Erica: And sometimes we’ll talk a little bit about the substance of it, but I have to be really careful not to do a sneaky check or, that’s what I call it, is a sneaky check is like, “I’m having an OCD thought that you’re upset with me.” Like, don’t do that. And I always am clear to be like, “Please don’t reassure me.

Erica: I don’t need that.” But just, like, letting people in can help too sometimes. Sometimes I don’t need to. Sometimes I can just be like, “Oh, I had this thought. I don’t need to engage with it. I can move along.” I think for a while I was having fears about, like, oh, well, if, if I’m in the spiral at all, that means I’m failing, and that’s just not true.

Erica: ‘Cause it’s gonna happen. You can’t make the OCD go away totally, but you don’t always have to listen to the fire alarm or the screaming baby. You can just kind of, like, “Okay, I hear you. We’re concerned about something, but we can move along. It’s okay.”

Carrie: Yeah, and then it’s like, okay, just reengaging with the present moment and what’s actually happening and moving towards my values and what’s most important.

Erica: I think the physical sensation was one of the hardest things for me to get past, because it was like this perpetual feeling of just nervous energy, anxiety, and gnawing at me all the time. And the fact that I have tools now that I can trust, that’s not gonna be around forever. Like, okay, you feel bad.

Erica: That’s okay that you feel bad. You’re not gonna feel bad forever. We can move along.

Carrie: That will die down as I don’t engage with it. If I engage with it, it’s gonna become bigger and worse and scarier, but if I don’t disengage, then that is gonna eventually die down. I think is really good for people to know.

Erica: Yeah, ’cause it’s imaginary

Carrie: too. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this. I hope that you are enjoying the Personal Story series. I’m so glad that Erica was willing to share her personal story with us. I know we’ve had people ask about OCD and autism occurring together. We had an episode previously on ADHD and OCD.

Carrie: So we will have one of our previous guests, therapists, come back and talk about OCD and autism together in the fall. I’m very excited to bring you that episode. And of course, if you have any guest suggestions, you can always contact us via the podcast, carriebock.com. I’d love, love, love it if you would sign up for our email newsletter.

Carrie: It comes out once a week, and it lets you know just little devotional thoughts about OCD, managing that, as well as things that are going on in my life, podcast direction, upcoming things that are happening. You’re gonna become the first to know, and you can sign up for that on the homepage of carriebock.com.

Carrie: 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

228. A Missionary Follows the Good Shepherd: A Personal Story with Ana 

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

In this episode, Carrie sits down with Ana, a missionary who shares her journey through scrupulosity OCD, navigating fear and major life decisions while discovering Jesus as her Good Shepherd, faithfully leading her through missions, marriage, and deeper trust in Him. 

Episode Highlights:

  • How scrupulosity OCD can distort your view of God and His will for your life
  • Why fear and anxiety don’t necessarily mean you’re making the wrong decision
  • Practical ways to discern God’s direction through prayer, Scripture, and wise counsel
  • How to move forward in faith when you don’t have complete certainty
  • Why OCD and mental health struggles do not disqualify you from God’s calling and purpose

Episode Summary:

How Does Scrupulosity OCD Change the Way You See God?

When Ana was just twelve years old, anxiety began showing up in ways neither she nor her family fully understood. What started as fears about sin and salvation eventually grew into compulsive prayers, constant repentance, and an overwhelming need for reassurance that God hadn’t abandoned her.

OCD can twist our perception of God’s character, yet some of the most important breakthroughs often begin when we start seeing God through the lens of grace rather than fear.

Why Is It So Hard to Make Big Decisions When You Have OCD?

Many Christians with OCD struggle to trust themselves when making important life decisions. Every choice can feel loaded with spiritual consequences, making it difficult to move forward with confidence.

Ana shared how this played out in her own journey as she wrestled with questions about college, missions, and God’s will for her future. What stood out to me was how God often provided direction one step at a time instead of revealing the entire path at once.

Can You Follow God’s Calling Even When You’re Terrified?

Fear didn’t disappear before Ana took a step of faith. Her first mission trip required her to face some of her biggest fears, including flying for the first time, leaving her family, and stepping into an unfamiliar environment.

I think many of us assume that if God is leading us somewhere, we should feel completely confident before we move. Yet over and over, we see that faith grows when we take the next step, even while our knees are shaking.

How Does God Confirm a Calling Without Giving You Every Answer?

We all want certainty, especially when facing life-changing decisions. Yet God’s guidance often unfolds through a series of experiences, convictions, opportunities, and confirmations rather than one dramatic moment.

As Ana pursued missions, she found herself drawn toward a specific people group and a specific place. The process wasn’t quick, but over time God continued to deepen that burden and confirm the direction through prayer, wise counsel, and a growing sense of purpose.

What If You Never Feel Completely Certain About Marriage?

For people who struggle with OCD, dating and relationships can become a breeding ground for endless questions. How do you know you’re in love? How do you know someone is the right person? What if you make the wrong choice?

I appreciated Ana’s honesty about the fears she faced while dating her now husband. Her story highlights an important truth that many of us need to hear: healthy relationships are built on character, commitment, shared values, and trust, not perfect certainty.

Can God Still Use You If You Struggle With OCD?

This may be one of the biggest lies I hear from Christians who are battling OCD. They assume that because they still struggle, they are somehow less qualified to serve God or fulfill His purposes.

Ana’s story tells a different story. Throughout Scripture, God consistently works through people who feel weak, inadequate, fearful, and unqualified. The common thread isn’t their strength. It’s God’s presence. He doesn’t wait for us to become perfect before inviting us into the work He’s prepared for us.

If you’ve ever questioned whether OCD, anxiety, or fear could keep you from God’s plans, you’ll want to hear the full conversation. 

Transctipt

Carrie: [00:00:00] Welcome back to our personal story summer series. Today, we have with us Ana, and we’re just using her first name since she is a missionary and do the work that she’s doing. I think y’all that have been around a while can read in between the lines on that one. But she wanted to come on and share her story with us today of dealing with OCD, but also this beautiful, hopeful piece of finding Jesus as a good shepherd in the midst of making some very big life decisions, going on the mission field, getting married, lots of good things.

So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Thanks for being on the show, Ana.

Ana: Yeah. Thank you so much for allowing me to come and share my story and what God has done.

Carrie: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how scrupulosity showed up for you, and then what it looks like a little bit today.

Ana: So I always struggled with fear for as long as I can remember in childhood and things, but lived a great life, great family, went to [00:01:00] church.

When I was in sixth grade, so I was around 12 years old, I noticed my anxiety and fear growing I think it was from multiple things just combined together. My older sister moved away to go to college. I was a sheltered kid who was going to public school, and sixth grade can be kind of wild, and there was some stress going on in other areas of life, and just a lot of changes.

And I was going to program at school. It was a Christian program, but they really stressed, like, sin and hell, and really focused on that area. And so I think with all of those things combined, and just hormones and all of the things, it just was a great storm to bring scrupulosity. So that’s when I started noticing just fears of Jesus leaving me, so I’d hold my hand over my heart all of the time to, like, where it would hurt, and I would just say like, “Jesus, please don’t leave me,” and I would just compulsively repent and [00:02:00] confess the Lord.

I became more isolated because I felt like I just needed to read the Bible or pray.

Carrie: Like, all the time?

Ana: Yeah, like, all the time. I used to love family, like, game days and stuff, but I remember one day being like, “I have to stay inside and read the Bible. I can’t go outside and play with my family,” and different things like that.

And I was became scared to eat because I was scared I would go into gluttony and sin against God, so I became very unhealthy. And my family obviously started noticing all of these symptoms and became worried, and they talked with different people, and then they finally found Christian counselor who knew about OCD and scrupulosity, and knew what I was going through.

And I went to counseling, and it really gave me a lot of hope. I was scared to go at first as a 12-year-old.

Carrie: Sure, yeah.

Ana: Yeah, I was scared of, like, all the stigma or whatever it may be, which looking back, it’s like, I would recommend that everyone go to counseling at some point in their life, ’cause we all have things that God wants to heal and meet us in.

And [00:03:00] so the counselor, our first meeting, he said, he took me to a verse in the Psalms, and it talked about God lifting my life out of the pit. And he’s like, “God’s gonna do that for you.” And that gave me so much hope, because in the moment, I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening with my mind. And I just knew I was different, and I was struggling with a lot of fears.

It was seven years of doing, like, cognitive behavioral therapy and just discovering more of the heart of God and His love and His grace and His mercy. And I did– I had medication for two years, which helped just ease some of the symptoms, so I could do cognitive behavioral therapy. And over time, I just saw improvements, and there were setbacks, but then more improvements, and people were– came around me and, like, prayed for me, those who were close to me in my life.

And yeah, I just saw God bring– meet me in those really hopeless and hard years through the whole seven years.

Carrie: Right. How did you make the decision to go on the [00:04:00] mission field, and what was that like? I mean, d-decisions are really hard sometimes when you have scrupulosity because you’re concerned about God’s will and what you should and shouldn’t do.

And if I take this path, that means I’m saying no to this path. So tell us a little bit about some of that processing.

Ana: Yeah. So when I was 18, I really had a greater understanding of God and His love and the gospel, and God had done so much healing in my life, and I was at a, a lot healthier place. And I was in a worship service and just clearly to myself just heard, “Go.”

And it– we were singing Oceans and A song about like pertained to that, and I just knew it was the Lord, and I wasn’t used to, like, hearing His voice or anything, but I just knew I’m supposed to go on the mission fields. I looked up trips, and I found a week-long trip to go to Haiti and first did that. And I was terrified of going on an airplane.

I was terrified of leaving my family and everything. But-

Carrie: Had you been on an airplane before that

Ana: experience? No, I had never been on an airplane. [00:05:00]

Carrie: Wow!

Ana: Very attached to my mom because of everything I was going through, so it was like leaving her for a week, and my two siblings went with me. So I went on the airplane and was terrified, but God met me there.

My brother was like, helped me through it, too. And I got to Haiti. I was terrified of storms, and we didn’t have windows, and it stormed. I was so scared, but God met me there. And it was just like the Lord so gently led me to all these things that I was fearful of but met me. And then I realized, whoa, I can actually, like, they’re not as scary as I thought.

I actually love airplanes now and stuff. So that was the beginning. And long story short, I went on different short-term mission trips. I learned about unreached people groups, and I went to college, and I prayed a lot about that. Should I go straight to the mission field or college? And through wise counsel and just prayer, felt to go to college first, and that’s where I learned about unreached people groups.

And so it was probably another like seven-year process of [00:06:00] knowing, oh, I feel called to the mission field, but I don’t know where or what it’s gonna look like. I am scared, but I know in Matthew twenty-eight, nineteen, it says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” And so I think with the word of God just clearly saying, like, that’s God’s will is to go and make disciples wherever you are into the nation and wise counsel.

Carrie: I wanna back up for a moment because I liked what you said earlier about facing these things that I was afraid of, the airplane, the storms, and all of that, but, like, God met me in there. So I think sometimes we feel like if I’m doing God’s will, like the ocean needs to be completely calm of my life, and I don’t think that’s not what we see in examples in scripture, right?

People went through suffering or persecution. Daniel got thrown in a lion’s den. I’m sure he wasn’t just like, “Oh, yay, I get to do this,” right? People in the Bible had feelings, too. And so tell me about that tension of, like, that you’re going on this mission trip, and a part of you is like, “Yes, this is totally God.[00:07:00]

I have that assurance,” but there’s also, like, this terrified part, but at the same time, I know God’s with me. Was it a little bit like that, kind of some back and forth for you?

Ana: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was always like all the fears I face, I’m always like, “Oh, I can’t do it.” And the truth is we can’t do it on our own strength, but I just know that God is so real, and he meets us with his presence.

We experience those things when we step into what we’re afraid of. So I think I would have never experienced, like, God’s peace in the way I did or, like, his presence. I mean, I’m sure he would make himself aware in other situations, but, like, through stepping out into what he called me to and into the unknown and the difficult places He’s always met me in the hard things, whether that be with- through His Word or through just His presence or His peace.

And so I think in those tensions, I just felt so strongly I’m supposed to do this, and I was so terrified, and I don’t even know how I did it. I just, the Lord led me. And I remember on [00:08:00] the airplane, like, I had so much anxiety, but I remember my brother, like, holding my hand. I’m sure we prayed and stuff. And the Lord just meeting me there.

And so yeah, I think it’s the thought of, like, if I don’t do this, like, I’m gonna miss out on what God has, I guess. But-

Carrie: Yeah. It’s interesting ’cause James, I was thinking about, talks about how faith without works is dead. Like, there’s, we can say that we believe something. Like, I believe God wants me to do this, or I believe that this is the call of God on my life.

But then until we actually put our feet into it, until we actually step into it, our belief transfers into action, and that’s what I feel like faith is. It’s like, okay, I’m gonna take this step. I’m not exactly sure, like, where we’re going here, Lord. I have, like, pieces of the puzzle. So you get out of school, and I imagine maybe in college that you went on more trips during the summers or breaks or things like that, and you’re learning about unreached people groups, so there’s a puzzle piece, and then have experience [00:09:00] maybe going to a couple different countries and seeing what missionary life is like.

So God starts putting more of these pieces. And then what was the process like really of getting to where, where you are? You don’t have to go into details about where you’re at. But was there some type of confirmation that happened as you were praying, or did OCD try to come in and say, “Are you sure about that?”

Or, “How do you really know?”

Ana: Yeah. I was, like, staffing at this mission training school, and I was planning to go somewhere in Asia through different things, and then the Lord was teaching me about surrender in that season. And the Lord would ask me to do little things of surrender, like do something that, little things that would, might be uncomfortable with surrender.

And then I learned about this team. I actually went to where I’m living now with a team, and then a long-term team was being formed from that. And I kept thinking, oh, I’ll probably go to Asia. Like, my friends are on this team. I’m gonna go here. When I learned about the people group in this nation, [00:10:00] and they were 99.99% unreached, and there’s a lot of workers going to them, God started gripping my heart for them, and I met people from that people group and started gaining a heart for them.

But I still questioned, like, oh, I don’t know how to make the decision. I don’t know. Should I stay at this team or that team? And just over time, just continual prayer and learning about the nation and the team. And then there was a time in worship where I just, like, completely surrendered to the Lord. A lot happens during worship for me, but I was just surrendering to the Lord, and I just hear, I’m like, “God, I will do whatever you want.

I’ll go wherever. Like, you’re worthy.” And I just hear that nation in my head. That just all that came to mind. I was like, “That’s so weird.” So I, like, talked to some friends about it, continued to pray. Another day, going to the Lord, and I hear that nation in my head. And so I’m like, “Okay, God, if this is you…”

This story sounds crazy, but I was like, “God, if this is you, like, would you give me a vision or an image or anything?” Like, I was so scared to make the decision. I was like, “Would you confirm it?” [00:11:00] And I saw an image of this people group, and God broke my heart for them, and I heard, “Who will go?” And I said, “Okay, God, I’ll go.”

And that’s kind of when it was done. And then I talked to leaders in my life, and they felt like that’s where you’re supposed to go, and they prayed with me. My parents felt peace and said, “That’s where you’re supposed to go.” And so I think it was when I make hard decisions, I really struggle with it. But I found, like The Bible talks about going to wise counsel, and so going to people who really love God and are surrendered and have the best in mind for you, and it really helps in decision-making, I’ve found.

And going to His Word. He says, “Go to all nations,” and so I don’t think there’s a wrong nation to go tell people about Jesus to.

Carrie: So Yeah, I think that’s huge, and I resonate with that story in a weird way, ’cause I get very emotional thinking about Christians with OCD that are suffering and don’t have the resources.

And you’re saying this people group is just [00:12:00] 99% or over 99% unreached, and God utilized, like, these various things to break your heart, and there’s things that God has called us to, like the church globally, as obviously, like, going and making disciples and going to… But there are things that God will break your heart for individually, whether that’s single mothers or people in prison that are incarcerated.

I mean, like, there’s just so many different people that need the Lord and need discipleship and need the gospel, and I just think it’s so cool how God does that individually with each of us, ’cause this wasn’t, like, anything I planned on doing. I didn’t, like, get out of graduate school and be like, “Yeah, I think I’ll go work with Christians with OCD.”

Like, that was zero on the radar. And so it’s just been, like, this whole, like, gradual process of God really working in my life and leading me professionally and personally, I believe, towards this end. So I love that it’s been a process, and so, like, through that and then [00:13:00] just seeing how God spoke to you clearly at different points and then confirmed it, like you said, through people that were also praying with you and also connected to God.

Obviously, we don’t wanna just, like, get counsel from anybody, but, like, if you have those really strong believers in your life that you know are also connected with the Lord and you’re saying, “Hey, what about this?” You went on the mission field full time, and not that this always happens, it’s not a, like, prescribed formula, but God brought you a husband over there.

Ana: Yeah, one of the guys who moved over the same year, we moved with the team together. So we met in training school, and then we moved to this nation And God broke his heart for this nation. And the first year we did not date or even pursue anything. And then the second year, like three months into the second year of living here, he’s began pursuing me, and then we just got married in October.

Carrie: Wow. That’s awesome. We were like swapping stories beforehand ’cause we both got married in October, so [00:14:00] it was really fun. We’re like anniversary buddies. That of course obviously was like a gradual process of getting to know this person, and then how did God leading you to work through those doubts to make that decision to get married?

Talk to us about kind of like that good shepherd piece there.

Ana: So when we began dating, we already knew each other very closely because in mission life and team you see each other almost every day, and you’re doing teamwork together, and so we knew each other very well. And so we went on our first date and I was like, “Wow, this is like the best date, one of the best dates I’ve ever been on.

Like, this is a great sign, and he’s a great guy, has the same values, same vision for life, and loves God and is pursuing me in such a godly way, like setting healthy boundaries and like respecting me and loving me.” So there was really no like red flag to start getting anxious or anything.

Carrie: Yeah.

Ana: But like a few weeks in, then it starts moving to another [00:15:00] level of, okay, now we’re gonna like make it official and date, and I was like, said yes, but immediately I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is terrifying.

Like, how do I know if I’m in love?” And the anxiety just like came full fledge, and it wasn’t like a new experience. That’s kind of my whole dating experience in the past was the same thing, just full of anxiety, full of what ifs, full of like, how do I know if I’m in love? How do you know if it’s the one or anything like that?

And so when I talked with some friends, two friends pointed out to me like, “Anna, this is normal for you.” Or one friend said like, “This was not you, Anna. I would have concern that you’re anxious, but this is like your normal pattern.” I realized, okay, I’m 28 and I really wanna get married someday and build a family, and I’ve had great Christian men pursue me in the past, and now this man who is on the mission field with me, who loves God, is pursuing me.

I don’t want to miss this chance. God can do things, but like God’s giving me a man I’ve, like that [00:16:00] I’ve prayed for. He meets a lot of the things, and so I don’t wanna just miss this because of fear again.

Carrie: I just wanna pause, I just wanna pause there for a moment, ’cause I think if anybody is single and listening to this, and I think this applies to, like, you’re going on a mission field as well.

It’s like sometimes we pray about things for a while, and then we don’t always recognize when it’s, like, smack right in front of us. This is the answer. Here it is. But I think, like, that’s part of the wrestling is obviously God doesn’t, like, insta answer many of our prayers. Sometimes he does, and we’re like, “Okay, I need help right now,” you know, and God comes through.

But about these bigger, like, life decision things, we’re praying for it. But I also think as believers, in faith, we also have to be looking around us and saying, like, “What is God doing here? Inter– Oh, God’s bringing unreached people groups into my life, and I feel something. Like, I feel some kinda way about that.

Like, we need to be reaching these un-people– unreached people groups,” you know? And so just, like, us looking at what I would call, like, the spiritual sense data. [00:17:00] Okay, what’s the spiritual sense data about what God is doing in my life? I’ve been praying for X, Y, Z things in a guy, which if you’re single, please be doing that.

You’re not gonna find Mr. Perfect. But if you know, hey, I’m praying for a man who loves the Lord, I’m praying for somebody that’s passionate about ministry, and I’m praying… That was, like, one of my prayers was to find a guy that was involved with his church. Because I saw many of the single men that I had encountered, they were kinda, like, half in the church, and I was like, “I don’t want that.”

I believe the church is a hope for the world, and I want somebody with, like, both feet in there and butt in the seat. And not just a consumer of the church, but somebody that was involved. And so then when I met my husband, he was like– We were just talking at that point, and he was like, “Oh, yeah, I was kinda helping out with this little thing, you know, this little thingy we had at church.”

Of course, he’s, like, trying to minimize his involvement, right? Anyway. So be on the lookout. Don’t just pray. Pray, but also be out on the lookout for, like, how is God answering this? And then when you [00:18:00] do, like, start to see some of those things, then it’s like, “Oh, okay, God, I get it.” And also, like, I think the beautiful thing that is kinda running through your story is, like, you can be anxious about something and also still move forward in faith.

‘Cause I was pretty anxious when I was dating, too. It’s like, ugh, for different reasons. But I don’t know, like, it’s kinda scary to be vulnerable and put yourself out here again, right? So you do that, and then you had lots of, it sounds like, different obsessions about, am I really in love? Is this really the right one?

Is this really the one God has for me? And how did you work through those?

Ana: I journaled a lot with the Lord and prayed, and I think you just mentioned, like, the sense data. I’ve never heard that word.

Carrie: I made it up.

Ana: Oh, what?

Carrie: I made up spiritual sense data because in ICBT, we talk about sense data. So I’ve been really trying to apply that to faith and say, “What is the spiritual sense data in these situations?”

So anyway, go ahead.

Ana: That’s so good. ‘Cause I think when I was talking to some people, like healthy voices in my life who [00:19:00] loved God, and they were kinda walking with me in this season. And I went back to my values of like, okay, what are the actual values I have in a person? I’m not talking about physical values, but, like, what do I want in a long-term person and a person that’s gonna father my future children and, like, be with me through hard times, like in the hospital or through sickness?

And so I started looking at that, and he values family. He values God. He prays about decisions when he knows his need for mercy, and he gives mercy to others when they mess up, and he seeks wise counsel. And, like, the way he treats me is he loves me, and the Bible says to love and things. And there’s definitely, like, in our year and a half of dating, there were definitely imperfections that we saw in each other of like, we’re not perfect.

And so sometimes that would bring up anxiety of like, oh no- Of course, he’s not perfect, so maybe he’ll make a mistake, and I would get anxious and then realize, whoa, [00:20:00] actually, like, what did he do when he made a mistake? That’s, like, a huge thing. So I think changing my perspective on certain areas of I’m not gonna find a perfect human, and if I do, they wouldn’t want me ’cause I’m not perfect.

Like, I mean, Jesus is perfect, and he loves… So I think that really helped me overcoming some of the fears and just saying that’s, even in the midst of fear, I see this, and I’m gonna choose him because of this, not some days I feel so in love, whatever that is, and then some days I have no idea. I’m overwhelmed at the thought of what that even means and feel numb.

Because I’m so anxious, but I know what is true, and he has these qualities, and I’ve seen him consistently live that out. And so I think at that point, and just praying and feeling like the Lord was saying, “Trust me,” and God did give me confirmations, but I was hoping he’d be like, “Yes, marry him now.” But instead, I felt like the Lord and his leadership gave me a choice of like, “He’s a good guy, and you can trust me that I’m leading you in the right way.

Like, he’s a good op- like, guy to marry. But I’ll let you have the choice,” is what [00:21:00] I sensed from the Lord. And that also made me realize, okay, I have a choice, and it’s a good option. And when we get married, I’m sure there’ll be ups and downs because it’s life, but the Good Shepherd who’s leading me in this dating is gonna lead me through our marriage, too.

And he’s gonna walk with me in all of it. And so I can trust God, even if I don’t know the future. I can trust that the Good Shepherd’s gonna be with me, and he’s gonna continue speaking into my life and leading me and leading my husband, too. And so I think that always gives me comfort.

Carrie: One of the best pieces of marital advice, he’s actually another counselor.

He said, “My wife and I have been married for almost forty-five years now.” And I said, “Oh, tell me the secrets. Give me all your good advice.” And he said, “Well, love is a choice.” And I said, “Yeah, and you have the opportunity to make that every day.” And he’s like, “That’s right.” I think in the culture sometimes we want all the warm, fuzzy, like, feel-good things, and then at the end of the day, it’s like sometimes you just have to make the choice to be kind, even if the other [00:22:00] person is stressed out and not kind, or we have to make the choice to forgive our spouse when they hurt us, and we have to make the choice to open our mouth and communicate about things that we appreciate about them and things that bother us, if they’re important enough to address.

And that was really helpful, I think, for me. And I think it helps with some of that OCD-type stuff of trying to find the perfectionism. But yeah, all of that sounds really good. I think this has been really great. I wonder, because I do meet people who say or talk with people, and I believe this is a big lie of the enemy for any Christians out there with OCD, red flag alert, that they’ll tell me things like, “Well, Carrie, my OCD is just so bad.

I don’t know if I can ever get married. Carrie, my OCD is so bad, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to serve the Lord in this way,” or whatever, fill in the blank. Tell us in part of this personal story series, had a pastor, we have a missionary coming on here, so I think hopefully we’ve debunked that lie just by personal testimony, praise the Lord.[00:23:00]

But give people out there some hope or encouragement if they’re feeling like, “You know what? I’m just too broken. I’m too damaged. I got too many mental health issues to be able to actually be effective for the kingdom.”

Ana: So I’m actually really passionate about that, because I think even… So I’m on the mission field, and there’s days where I’m like, “God, can you still use me?

Like, my OCD’s ramping up. Maybe I should just go home.” And then the Lord, when I go back to His truth, I see people like Moses in Exodus 3, and it says, “But Moses asked…” This is, like, when God was calling Moses to go and lead the people out of Egypt. And Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

And He answered, “I will certainly be with you.” And that, God didn’t say, “Oh, you’re perfect. You’re great. You’re gonna be okay.” All He said was, “I will be with you.” I think sometimes OCD can feel so lonely. Even other Christians don’t really understand sometimes. But realizing, like, God is with me, and if He’s gonna [00:24:00] call me to the mission field, He’s gonna be with me, and He’s gonna be with me through the valley of the shadow of death, or if I’m going up to a person that’s scary or sharing the gospel, like, He’s gonna be with me.

And that’s the good news that we get to share with others, is not that we’re perfect, and so I can disciple you, but it’s no, like, “Hey, I found a God who’s with me. I found a God who wants to come into my mess and your mess and bring life and healing.” And sometimes in an instant, and sometimes it’s years.

But I think realizing that God doesn’t rush us. And I think that’s something I’m learning, is that God is with me in my mess. And He’s not saying like, “Okay, Ana, you have to be free of OCD tomorrow.” I think I’ve been struggling with this for so many years, but I’ve encountered Jesus through all of the hurt, the brokenness, the fears.

And He continues to use me. And I believe He wants to use each person out there who’s struggling with OCD. And so I just wanna encourage you that [00:25:00] God welcomes you in your brokenness, and He loves to use human beings who are imperfect. And He’s our strength in our weaknesses.

Carrie: We talked about, on an episode about the Holy Spirit, like, God doesn’t just give you an assignment and say, “Hey, here’s your assignment,” and then you’re booted out the door, and go figure it out yourself.

It’s, no, you’re empowered to do that work by the Holy Spirit in you. And God isn’t gonna leave you in the midst of the hairy, scary stuff that comes along with what He’s calling you to do in faith. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with us today and sharing your story. This has been just encouraging and life-giving to me, and I know it will be for other people as well.

Ana: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. So thankful for this podcast and what God’s doing through your work and all of these, everyone’s stories.

227. Finding Paternal and Maternal Love in God: A Personal Story with Chris Russo

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

In this episode, Carrie sits down with pastor Chris Russo to discuss how religious OCD, intrusive thoughts, childhood trauma, and fears surrounding salvation shaped his relationship with God and how counseling, community, and faith became important parts of his healing journey.

You Will Learn:

  • How scrupulosity can create intense fears surrounding salvation and judgment
  • Why childhood trauma and loss can quietly affect your relationship with God
  • How intrusive thoughts can distort the way Christians interpret scripture
  • The difference between intellectually understanding God’s love and emotionally receiving it
  • Why counseling, community, and healthy relationships played a major role in Chris’s healing journey
  • What practical OCD recovery can look like while continuing to pursue faith, family, and purpose

Christian Faith, OCD, and the Fear of Losing God

What happens when your relationship with God becomes driven more by fear than freedom? In this episode, I sat down with Chris Russo, a pastor, husband, and father of three who has spent years navigating the complicated intersection of faith, intrusive thoughts, childhood loss, and religious OCD. Chris shared how losing his mother at nine years old quietly shaped the way he viewed safety, relationships, and eventually God Himself. After becoming a Christian in college, what should have felt life-giving slowly became overshadowed by intense fears surrounding salvation, judgment, and the possibility of losing his relationship with God. What I appreciated most about this conversation was Chris’s honesty about how exhausting it felt to constantly seek reassurance while secretly believing God might reject him at any moment.

Why Do Christians With Religious OCD Feel Constantly Afraid of God?

Chris described spending years terrified that he could accidentally cross a spiritual line and lose his salvation forever. One scripture in particular around blasphemy against the Holy Spirit became an obsession for him, even after talking with pastors and searching for reassurance. He explained that no matter how many answers he received, the fear never fully settled because OCD kept demanding certainty. I think this is something many Christians dealing with scrupulosity quietly wrestle with but rarely know how to explain to others.

How Does Childhood Trauma Affect Your Relationship With God?

As we talked more deeply, Chris connected his fear of losing God to losing his mother so suddenly as a child. He shared how that experience created this underlying belief that anything meaningful or safe could be taken away without warning. Hearing him make that connection was incredibly powerful because so many people carry similar wounds into adulthood without realizing how much those experiences shape their faith, relationships, and emotional responses. Sometimes what feels like a spiritual struggle is connected to unresolved grief that has never fully been processed.

Why Is It So Hard to Believe God Truly Loves You?

One moment from this episode that stayed with me was when Chris shared that someone once told him, “God adores you,” and it almost sounded unbelievable to him. Even though he knew scripture and had gone through seminary, he still struggled to emotionally believe that God genuinely delighted in him. He talked about how counseling and healing relationships slowly helped him recognize how distorted his view of God had become over time. I think many believers intellectually understand grace while emotionally living as though God is constantly disappointed in them.

What Does Healing From Religious OCD Actually Look Like?

Toward the end of our conversation, Chris shared that he intentionally structures his life in ways that “annoy” his OCD every single day. As a pastor, husband, and father, he refuses to let fear isolate him from the very things God has called him to pursue. Instead of waiting until every intrusive thought disappears, he continues showing up for relationships, community, ministry, and growth anyway. I think that picture of healing is incredibly important because recovery is not always about eliminating fear completely. Sometimes it looks like learning how to keep moving forward while trusting God in the middle of the uncertainty.

If you’ve ever struggled with intrusive thoughts, fear surrounding salvation, or feeling emotionally disconnected from God’s love, I really encourage you to listen to the full episode.

Connect with Pastor Chris here:

www.officialchrisrusso.com

Transcript

Carrie: Okay., Chris, welcome to the podcast today, and just tell, give us a brief overview of who you are.

Chris: Yeah. So,, I’m Chris Russo, and I live in the Charleston, South Carolina area., I’ve been a pastor for about 20 years. I’ve got three sons who are,, one actually just turned 16 today. Okay. So I’ve got a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old, and a 10-year-old, and my wife Abby and I are coming up on 20 years of marriage in January.

Chris: So yeah.,,, I’ve been pastor… I’ve been the lead pastor of a church for about three years, and before that I was on staff at Seacoast Church,, in the Charleston area for about 18 years. So,, yeah, I became a Christian when I was in college, and that was a crazy experience and it’s been a, it’s been a cool journey.

Carrie: Awesome. A wild ride ever since.

Chris: Yes.

Carrie: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, like, your OCD story in terms of when did you, the symptoms come out and when did you make the connection like, “Oh, hey, this is what’s actually going on,” and

Chris: Yeah, so I think that probably,, it initially started when I lost my mom at age nine to cancer.

Chris:, I, I think it, it was at that point that I subconsciously adopted a script that the world is a really scary place that can take anything from you at any time. But I wouldn’t say I was really… I, I u- throughout middle school and high school, I used so many numbing techniques when it came to any anxiety.

Chris: And on, on top of that, mental health lingo, at least I,, growing up in Connecticut, really wasn’t, like, a popular thing. Like, I don’t even know that I knew about anxiety until later on in life. So even though there may have been some prevalence throughout middle and high school, I would say,, it really started actually when I became a Christian.

Chris:, I, I wouldn’t say it necessarily started, but it really showed up in force because I stopped, I stopped the drugs. I stopped,,,, I stopped the use of pornography. So I stopped a lot of the numbing agents that I was previously using, and then I really didn’t ha- I mean, all of a sudden, I’m starting this walk with God without these crutches that I’d used for so long, and these struggles started coming, what felt like out of nowhere.

Chris: Yeah. And then it wasn’t… And so I became a Christian when I was 18, and, and I wasn’t diagnosed with OCD by a psychiatrist until I was 27. I mean, it wa- it was a hard road.

Carrie: Yeah. I’m sure., what were some of the, like, themes that,, have come out for you that you struggled with?

Chris: So the first one, I mean,, I didn’t grow up…

Chris: Like, I grew up,, going to Catholic church once a year. So I mean, I went to catechism, but I, I was not a practicing Catholic. I had no real relationship with God. I,, I would pray that I would sink a putt on the golf course or win a baseball game., but it was when,… And sorry, repeat the question.

Chris: I just wanna make sure I understand it.

Carrie: Yeah., like what are some of the themes that you dealt with?

Chris: Yeah. So as soon as I became a Christian, I was so filled with life like I had never felt before. But as I was reading the Bible, I had no previous understanding of scripture. So I’m like, I went from a worldview, and I don’t think a l- a lot of people that didn’t grow up in church can really appreciate this.

Chris: I went from an agnostic, like maybe there’s something out there, maybe there’s a God, maybe there’s heaven, that thing- Mm-hmm… to reading this Bible, talking about heaven and hell, and angels and demons, and all this stuff that I really,, didn’t even believe in 20 seconds ago. And then I started coming across scriptures that through, for a variety of reasons, started to feel like, “Wow, there, maybe there’s a possibility that I could lose this wonderful salvation, this wonderful relationship with God that I just received.”

Chris: So the major theme that I felt like would never end was the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Like, I just, I didn’t understand it really, but to me, I felt like I had stumbled across a crack in the salvation landscape. And it didn’t matter who I talked to. I would talk to as,, I would seek reassurance from pastors and as many people as I could.

Chris: And no matter who I talked to, and no matter what theology text I saw, there was still something that was like you could ste- It felt, it felt like, honestly, as silly as it sounds, it felt like you could step on a crack and break your mother’s back. I felt like I had to tiptoe around God because somehow, and it’s a terrible Trinitarian view, but somehow I’m like, “Okay, the Father is really loving.

Chris: Jesus still creeps me out because all the stained glass windows that I saw growing up, he was never smiling. He never seemed happy.” So I was always, like, a little freaked out about Jesus. But the Holy Spirit, I’m like, “Apparently, he’s, like, the really sensitive member of the Trinity, and if you say the wrong thing to him, he’s gonna peace out and you go to hell forever.”

Chris: So I was terrified of the Holy Spirit.

Carrie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and, and you can joke about it now, but, like, when you’re in the midst of that, like, storm, it feels, like, so super real. Like, this is, like, this is really, really bad. And, and I think that that’s interesting, that parallel between losing your mother and at a very young age, which,, impacts you profoundly developmentally, and then this sense of,, now I’m afraid that I’m gonna lose God.

Carrie: I’m gonna lose this, like, really positive connection that I have, and, and childhood taught me basically that things could be ripped away from you, and now,, there’s this parallel over here that,, my relationship with God could be ripped away. Like, how do you feel like losing your mom and, and maybe some other things that you went through as a result of that affected your view of God?

Chris: Yeah,, that’s a really interesting insight you brought up that I remember– I’ve been in,, professional counseling now for,, about 10 years, but that insight that you just brought up, I mean, I can’t remember how many counselors have told me, like, “Chris, like, it happened to you.” Like, everything was ripped away so quickly that, — A-and just drawing the connection between that and that fear, like, it,, I, I still– I, I wouldn’t say I’ve worked through that, but I would say that definitely made me feel– I think that sort of, and I really don’t understand it, but I would say that sort of primed me for feeling like, yeah, like, this, this could happen.

Chris: It has happened, and I don’t think I sub– I don’t think I consciously, like, logged as a nine-year-old- Sure… like, everything could be taken away from you, but su-, however subconscious priming works, I think that, that developed,, a mindset or a defense mechanism in me where it’s like, yeah, the most important things in your life can be stripped away regardless of what they are.

Chris: So,, don’t,,, don’t,, don’t get too excited. Don’t allow yourself to enjoy or to really rest in anything because it’s probably not gonna last.

Carrie: Yeah. I think a lot of people,, buy into that, to that lie. Like, don’t, don’t hope too much, don’t get too excited, don’t feel too good because it’s,, just– it’s all gonna be dashed and all gonna be taken away.

Carrie:, so h- tell us about, like, your view of God, like from this really fearful lens, it sounds like,, to a more loving father heart of God view.

Chris: Yeah. So it’s,, it’s definitely been a journey. So I would s– I remember actually being at a worship service one time, and this lady came up to me. And this is when I started to– One of the moments when I started to realize that I had a really,, warped view of God.

Chris: I remember her coming up to me in this service. Her name was Migsy, and she came up to me in service and she said, “God just adores you.” And I, I was probably in my twenties at that point. I’m forty-three right now. And I just remember how ridiculous that idea sounded, like God adoring you. I just felt like,,, like I was at a place right then that- E-even though, like, intellectually I sort of understood the gospel, I was at a place right then where I thought, “God’s definitely frustrated with me.

Chris: Maybe He’s rejected me. At best, He tolerates me, but adores?” Like, that sounded psychotic. And yet there was some deep resonance even when she said that, that felt like that was true, but why can’t I absorb that? And so– And then I,, once I started really seeing a Christian counselor, she told me that through the concoction that we’ve talked about, losing my mom,, not having a super close relationship with my dad growing up, that me receiving the gospel…

Chris: And she wasn’t trying to be mean to me. She was just like saying, “This is what we’re up against, like we’ve gotta drain the swamp.” She said a lot of the theology that I had voraciously taken in through seminary and,, a million books or whatever, it was like pouring water on a rock, that I just couldn’t receive it.

Chris: And so I started to realize that, okay, may… And that’s when I started to think, “Okay, maybe God is way more loving than I, than, than I can, than I can conceive of,” but it still was, like, a long time from that point to really actually believing that He, that He was truly loving. So, like, people would tell me things like, “Quote Matthew three seventeen,” like, “Hey, Chris, like, G-because of the gospel, God sees you as His, as His beloved son with whom He’s well pleased.”

Chris: And there’d be some part of me that, like, the, the ice would chip a little bit.,, I, I think I started to ask the question like, “Okay, God can be a great,…” G- I, I hear all these messages about how God can re-father you and all that stuff, but can God re-mother you? Like, I, like, that, I just didn’t hear that message, but I didn’t have any reason to think otherwise.

Chris: So then a passage like First Peter five seven, like that really, that really stuck to me. Like, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” And I think that idea of God caring for me was really one that, that hit that maternal point where it was like, “Oh, like, so You’re, like, in the water with me.

Chris: It’s not, You’re not this austere God that sits on the far off side of some chasm or,, sees me drowning from the beach, hopes the best for me, maybe throw out a, a raft, but isn’t gonna come and, isn’t gonna come and get me.”, it’s actually funny. I do remember actually a vivid– I don’t have many memories of my mom, but I do have a vivid memory of I was like, I was probably like, I’ve always been short, but I was really short when I was growing up, and I was like in probably five feet of water, and I might’ve been five one or something like that, and I was like starting to drown, and my mom came into the water in a, in a full sundress and rescued me.

Chris: She’s the only one that saw me. It was a crowded pool. It’s random that, that, that came up. But yeah, so slowly but surely, and I think through some… I’ve had all female counselors, and I think that that’s been,, except for one. I’ve had all female counselors, and that’s been really restorative for God to work through.

Chris: Not,, I don’t think I like deified or idolized any of these women, but the, but God working distinctly through, the, these women to show me more of his caring, maternal qualities has all, ha- has all contributed to me feeling like, okay, God pursues. He’s close. He, He cares., but it’s still a struggle.

Chris: It’s still, like, one of those spots that I need more strengthening in, but I believe it. I’ve at least learned to doubt my doubts a little bit. Like, I know that when- That’s good… I know that when the tube of toothpaste gets squeezed,, when life hits, the storms hit and whatever, and I default to, “God, you probably don’t care,” I can at least flag it in my mind and say, “Wait a minute.

Chris: Hold on. That’s a familiar message. I don’t trust that. God, I know you care.” like a, “Lord, help my unbelief” moment.

Carrie: I think it’s one of the things I wanted to touch on, the seeing a counselor of the opposite sex because,, and I almost recorded an entire podcast episode on this one time and I ki- and I scrapped it.

Carrie: So I may run back to it at some point or another, but I think that in,, certain church circles, it’s very taboo. It’s like, if you’re a man, you need to see a man. If you’re a woman, you need to see a woman. And there are things that we can get from the opposite sex that we can’t get,, from the same sex.

Carrie:, the things that you’re talking about. Like, like, there were some type of, like, unmet needs that God really used these female counselors in a very professional and appropriate way to give, to show you that love and that caring, and I think that that’s so valuable., I know for myself, because of what I’ve just spoken at, I know that there are, are several men that have seen me and they’re like, “You’re my first female counselor,” and they’re just a little bit terrified about that.

Carrie: So I guess I wanna talk,, just throw that out there,, not to derail the conversation, but I think that that’s, that that’s important for people to know, like, it’s okay to see a counselor of the opposite sex as a Christian, and that can still be a really professional place for you to get certain needs met.

Carrie:, I went through, when I was going through trying to date again at,, post-divorce,, I saw a male counselor and it was incredibly helpful because I needed that opposite point of view,, in essence, and I needed him to speak certain things into my life that I don’t think I could have gotten from, from a female counselor.

Carrie: So I think that that’s, that… I, I believe that’s really beautiful that God,, used those people in your life for that purpose.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause I think I’ve always responded pretty well. Not that, not that I d- haven’t– ’cause I’ve had male mentors before. Sure. Like, I’ve sought them out. So I’ve had,, restorative,…

Chris: And my relationship with my dad has gotten much better since when I was a, a hell-raising teenager., so I’ve had b- between him and a lot of,, male mentors, I’ve had those, those,… I’ve had my dad, I’ve had different father figures. But,, yeah, it– as I think about, it wasn’t like one day I set out and I’m like, “I need to see a female counselor.”

Chris: It was, it felt… I would say when I think back on each female counselor that I did see, it was pretty serendipitous in the way that I connected with them. Like, it was recommended. It was,, it, so I, it really felt provisional. It wasn’t– I don’t think I, there was some part of me that felt like I need to…

Chris: ‘Cause the approach in counseling in general, especially in the beginning, was such a mysterious realm for me. I mean, I’m thankful for– it, it feels like the church has really,, and the mental health community have really formed a closer relationship. But when I first was starting on this journey,, I, it, it felt very mysterious to me.

Chris: So there wasn’t some part of me that was like, that n- I didn’t have any idea what I needed. So I’m really thankful that I feel like God helped lead me to these different female counselors, because now in retrospect, I look back and I’m like, gosh, I really think them being females really helped in that,,, in that nurturing, that,, providing some things that maybe I couldn’t have gotten from a male counselor.

Chris: But that was not really an intentional, calculated decision on my part., that was more a, a provisional thing if it, when I really think about it.

Carrie: Yeah. I was thinking too, as you were talking about these,, female characteristics, how, like, Jesus said about Jerusalem, like, “I long to” something like, “I long to gather you like little chicks,, but you were unwilling,”?

Carrie: And, and just this picture of seeing their,, their need for God and their, their brokenness, and it’s like, “I really wanted to nurture you in that way.” I know in the Old Testament, there are some scriptures about,, comparing,, I’d have to look those up, but talking about, like, nursing and nursing mothers and things like that.

Carrie:, we’ll look those up and we may put that in the outro. But,,, there are, there are these pictures of God. So if your, if your view of God is this harsh, staunch, male, militant figure, it might be helpful for people to meditate on some of those other scriptures and really look into that.

Chris: Yeah, I, I think I would benefit more from that because it is, it’s super easy.

Chris: I mean, especially, I mean, and I won’t even start going through them ’cause I don’t wanna trigger anybody, but there are definitely passages of scripture that I… And I,, I just, my wife and I just read through the New Testament, and right now we’re doing a whole Bible plan, so I really try to, like, go th-, embrace God’s Word for what it is.

Chris: But there are definitely passages where I have to, that, that trigger that fear response of like, oh,. And I’ve just learned to just sorta like,,, allow the emotions to sit and not to just trust that the lens that I’m seeing them through, it must be the way that they are.

Chris: Because there are some times where I’m like, “Jesus, you seemed really harsh.” Like, there have been times where I’ve heard people talk about the Bible as a love letter, and ultimately I believe it is. I really do. But there are times where I hear people say that, and I’m like, “Have you read it?” Like- There’s

Carrie: a lot of people that die in there too, right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Chris: There are moments, there have been plenty of times where I’m like, “God, why did you provide this book that feels so scary?” But I,, as I learn the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, seeing what,, the difference between seeing what scripture actually says versus seeing what,, through my,, brokenness and my, my personality, my dysfunction,, all those different things, I’ve learned to not just take my initial gut reaction as gospel, so that, that, that’s really helpful.

Carrie: Yeah., we’re coming with our own lens that we often don’t realize that we have. And I, I can think of a, this is a non-biblical example, but I think it shows the point., the analogy is I watched a certain movie, and let’s say it was about some women that struggled in a time in America where there was, like, a lot more racism and,, different things that were happening that were clearly not godly.

Carrie: And I watched that movie and it,, it talks about these women’s struggle to overcome. My friend watched the movie and she said, “I couldn’t watch it all the way through.” She said, “I, I had to turn it off.” And I was like, “Why?” And she was like, “It was just, it was just too much,” like what they were going through was too much.

Carrie: And so she missed the, the overcoming piece and the inspiration, I think because of her own lens and her own probably experience with racism- Mm-hmm… and other things, that,, that was her, that was her lens of how horrible it was versus, hey, there were some things that were, that were overcame here, and there was a- actually, like, the whole point of the movie is to be inspirational, like that you can come o- overcome hardships.

Carrie: Yeah. And we, we bring, like, different lenses to, to the Bible, the lens of how our parents raised us, the lens of how,, that, the really harsh teachings that we have heard in the church,, and, like- You gotta, you gotta get it together. And, and unfortunately, I think like Like, I don’t know. I heard a lot of teachings growing up that it was like, it was almost like you gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps, like the Christian version,?

Carrie: It’s like, get it together, get your spirituality together, stop playing games with God, that type of language. And I– it was like, “Oh, hey, here’s the gospel that saves you, but you get to sanctify yourself.” And I was like, a- as an adult now looking back on that, I’m like, what is that? That makes absolutely zero sense.

Carrie: Like, we have to kill the works-based sanctification and, like, it needs to die. Die. Because we have to be able to say, like, the same God that saved me by grace is purifying me. Like, and leading me to be more like Jesus with that same grace, and that same love, and that same fruit of the Spirit., he’s not sitting there going, “Gosh, Jeri, can’t believe you really messed it up today.”

Carrie: He’s like, “Yep, you need me more today.”? “Here I am.” I’m like, “Yes, I messed up again. Thank you. Like, I need, I need you to, to rescue me once again and tell me what I need to do differently so I don’t fall into the same hole that I keep falling into.” Amen. Cool process.

Chris: Yes. Amen.

Carrie: Yeah., talk with us about, like, just other things that, that…

Carrie: So I think what we’re– Sorry, let me re-say that. I think what we’re learning from your story is, like, there’s been a lot of healing in community, which I think is, is a really beautiful thing. As picture of the church, you’re a pastor. Mm-hmm. We’ve got more people,, not showing up at church than ever before.

Carrie: Look, COVID’s over, y’all. Stop trying to phone it in online, okay? Like, find a local body and get in there. That’s my, that’s my little soapbox. But because we need that, like, face-to-face, like, we need to hug some believers on a Sunday. Like, we need people who are gonna text us a scripture on, like, a Tuesday morning and be like, “Hey, I was thinking about you, and God gave me this verse, so I just wanna share this encouragement with you.”

Carrie:, we need those people that are gonna,,, show up and say, like, “Here’s a meal,” or, “Let me pray for you as you’re going through this hard time.”, and, and even if they don’t understand the OCD piece of your story, they’re just so important for us to have that biblical connection and community.

Carrie: And so I just really encourage people, if you’re not there at that point, like in your, in your walk with God, that you look,, continue that church search, show up, visit,, check, check things out. Yes. Meet some people. Don’t– And don’t just show up and leave and sit in the back row of a mega church and never get in a small group and never serve anything and never,, never get to know anybody.

Carrie: That’s To me, that’s not church either. I’m glad that people are showing up and doing that, and hopefully that’s a step on the front porch to get them all the way into the door.? We would like to, like, keep, like…, I think we just have this distorted view of what, what it means to be, I don’t know, in the church almost.

Carrie: It’s like, it’s not just about being in the building and sitting on the back pew. It’s about really being involved in the community, and that’s where these healing relationships can happen., and, and so I love that about, about your story and this, like, the mental health piece as well was really important for you.

Carrie:, a- anything else that has really helped shift some of the OCD for you? Like, are, are you just more aware of, like, when it comes around now?

Chris: Yeah, there’s been– I mean, gosh, I, one thing I am on is a learner, and so I,, I love…, there are times where I’ve gotten discouraged, and I think in the beginning of my journey, I felt like I had this thing that– and I didn’t know what it was, and even when it was labeled OCD, I,, I can’t tell you the number of men’s hikes or,, prayer sessions that I just thought God’s gonna take it away.

Chris: And once I started to,, embrace that this was gonna be more of a, a road and a journey that I was gonna be delivered through rather than from,, I would say there have been moments and I– that occasionally still resurface where I’ve gotten, I don’t know if jaded’s the right word, but discouraged, felt,, felt moments of despair like, gosh,, life would…

Chris: I can’t even imagine what life would be like without this,, gorilla on my back. But at the,, where I’ve gone in healthier moments and that has been, that has kept me, I, I tend to be a,, I don’t know how many Enneagram followers there are out there. I am a seven and I,, I d-, and hopefully a somewhat healthy seven, so the joyful, the joyful person.

Chris: And, and I do tend to be optimistic and I am, and I am a learner. So,, as I connect to,,, podcasts like yours and,, I’ve, and all kinds of,, different books,, on this,, not just on this subject but,, different apps that help me to slow down,, that help me to,, rest in God’s love.

Chris: I’ve really found that there’s,, a lot of gold to be dug up in this journey and so I’ve found,, like you said, healing relationships and I’ve, I, I don’t know if this is– I don’t know how healthy or prescriptive this is. This is just what I’ve done. I’ve got, like if I told you every… Like I’ve got a spiritual director who’s also, she’s also a licensed counselor but she serves as, as a spiritual director.

Chris: I’ve got a Christian counselor. I’ve got a couple of different men’s groups that I’m in. Like I’ve got so many,, between exercise and worship music and just encouraging voices I have in my life, I feel like I just have tried to turn the volume up so high on,, on the, on positivity, on God’s Word that,, not that it makes the OCD go away and there are still really tough days,, but I just have felt like I just am like, what?

Chris:, I’m, I’m not gonna back down. I’m gonna feel the fear and I’m gonna try to steer into the things that I’m afraid of. Like, honestly, as a pastor, I feel like there, and having kids, like, there’s a lot about my life, like if I were to go along with the OCD, I would sequester myself. If I did what, like just what the OCD wanted me to do, like being a pastor would be the worst idea ever.

Chris: Like, I would sequester myself. I would be alone. I probably wouldn’t have kids. I don’t know that I’d be married, and I would stay away from every environment I couldn’t control. Hmm. So I, I feel like I’ve really structured my life to shortcir- Like the, the OCD, I, I would say I, and I w- I, I don’t think I’ve ever said it like this before, but sort of intentionally, I annoy my OCD every single day.

Chris: I like it. Like my life is structured around annoying my OCD. So,, a- and, and I’m thankful for that. Even though there are days where I’m just like, “I wanna just go along with it, hide alone in a room, stay in a protective bubble, and never interact in any environments I can’t control.” I’m like, my life is structured to,, upset the OCD.

Chris: ‘Cause I fundamentally, I mean, as much as I’ve learned about from the physiological side of neuroplasticity to the emotional, mental side, I’m like,, and even, yeah, I mean, just knowing that Jesus overcame the grave itself, I’m like, there is nothing… And not to be like overly preachy, but I just am like, I fundamentally know that you can overcome this, God.

Chris: And I’m like, “I don’t know how it’s gonna happen, and I don’t know what the process is gonna look like, but I’m not gonna stop putting myself out there.”

Carrie: Yeah. Yeah. That’s so great. I think that’s such a great,, witness for the people who are listening to say, “I’m not gonna let OCD get in the way of my values and pursuing what I know God has for me,” whether that’s parenting or wait, ’cause somebody needs to hear that.

Carrie:, or whether that’s,, sharing the gospel with other people, or whether that’s speaking on a stage. Like, whatever that, that looks like that people know, hey, God’s calling me to this. Just having that sense of,, in righteous, indignant anger of like, “Not today, OCD.” Nope. Like, “It is not happening. We are gonna,, fulfill and walk in, in what God wants us to do.”

Carrie: Well, that’s, that’s awesome., it sounds like,, for you recovery looks like engaging in all these positive things that are gonna be helpful for you, whether that’s,, exercise,, mentorship, and having other people pour into you., being really honest about where you’re at.

Carrie: I think that that’s great.

Chris: Yeah, it’s, it,, it’s, it continues to humble me. Nothing, I, I, I haven’t fully adapted the whole, like, this is the thorn in my side, like,, 2 Corinthians 12. But,, it, nothing draws me to my knees more. And,, I’m not… I wouldn’t say I’m, like, so thankful for that.

Chris:? Like, I wish there were,, I,, but at the same time,, I, it, it is really humbling, and I’m thankful. And I, and I will say, I am thankful for the number of times it’s brought me to the feet of Jesus saying, like,, I think it was C. S. Lewis that said something like, “Some of our questions are like asking God is yellow a circle or a square?”

Chris: Or how many hours are in a mile. And I’m like, sometimes that’s my brain. I’m like, I’m going to God, and I’m like, “I recognize that I am so confused. I’m asking the wrong questions,” and I’m, like, going to the doctor, and I’m like, “I just need you to do whatever it is in my life that you wanna do, and I’ll follow you no matter how ridiculous the road may feel because I fundamentally don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Chris: And so whatever you wanna prescribe, I am open.” And that’s the mentality I try to embrace.

Carrie: Yeah. Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks so much for,, sharing your story with everybody today. I’m glad that you, you found the podcast and- Mm-hmm… got connected., I think it’s gonna be encouraging for others.

Chris: I hope so.

226. Found ICBT after ERP Wasn’t Effective: A Personal Story with Dr. O. Alan Noble

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

Carrie sits down with author and professor Dr. O. Alan Noble to share his deeply personal journey through years of OCD treatment, intense suffering, and ultimately finding hope through ICBT.

Episode Highlights:

  • Why traditional talk therapy and reassurance can unintentionally keep OCD cycles going
  • How ERP may help some people while still leaving others feeling stuck and exhausted
  • The key differences between ERP and ICBT in treating OCD
  • How ICBT helps people recognize the difference between reasonable doubts and obsessive doubts
  • How faith, community, and hope can sustain people during seasons of deep despair
  • What real recovery from OCD can look like, even when intrusive thoughts still occur

Episode Summary: 

What Happens When ERP for OCD Stops Working?

I never expected to sit across from someone who had done everything right and still felt stuck. Dr. O. Alan Noble is a professor, author of four books, and a contributor to outlets like The Atlantic and Christianity Today. But behind all of that, he spent years battling severe OCD, doing ERP faithfully, and still watching the relief disappear every time. If you have ever wondered whether ERP is truly enough for everyone with OCD, his story will change how you think about treatment.

Can You Spend Six Years in OCD Therapy and Still Not Get Better?

This is something I hear more than I wish I did. A caring therapist. Reassurance given session after session. A client who left feeling okay until the doubts rushed back in before he even got home. Six years of that same cycle. There is something in this pattern that every person with OCD and everyone who loves someone with OCD needs to hear.

What Is ICBT and Why Did It Work When ERP Did Not?

When his ERP therapist finally admitted “this isn’t working,” it cracked open a door. Inference-Based CBT introduced ideas that ERP had never touched, including that not all doubts are created equal and that the content of OCD thoughts actually matters. What Dr. Noble discovered on the other side of that door is something you need to hear him describe himself.

What Does ICBT for OCD Actually Look Like in Real Life?

Dr. Noble still gets intrusive thoughts today. What changed is what happens next. Using tools from ICBT like the bridging exercise, he described working through an intrusive thought that very morning in about three minutes before moving on with his day. Three minutes versus hours of rumination. That shift is what his wife calls miraculous, and after hearing his full story I completely understand why.

How Do You Stay Hopeful During OCD Recovery When Nothing Seems to Work?

There were days Dr. Noble sat on the edge of a bed in tears, convinced nothing would ever change. What kept him going was not a clinical strategy. It was something much deeper. The people, the scriptures, and the perspective that carried him through his darkest moments are all part of this conversation, and honestly this section moved me the most.

Can Christian Faith and OCD Treatment Actually Work Together?

Dr. Noble’s journey started with a biblical counselor who offered scriptures to meditate on. For most people that feels like a lifeline. In his case it became more fuel for rumination. This tension between Christian faith and OCD treatment is one of the most misunderstood areas in mental health, and Dr. Noble speaks into it with honesty that only comes from living through it.

If you have been searching for hope around OCD recovery, wondering whether faith and evidence-based treatment can coexist, or just looking for proof that things can get better, this episode is for you.

Connect with Dr. O. Alan Noble here:  

x.com/TheAlanNoble

www.instagram.com/oalannoble/ 

//substack.com/@oalannoble

To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times

Transcript

Welcome, OCD warriors, to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast, where we are all about reducing shame and stigma of struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories, and replacing uncertainty with faith as you develop practical tools for greater peace.

I’m Carrie Bock, Christ follower, wife, mom, and licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. I pray you are blessed by today’s episode. If you have been around the podcast a little while, last summer we did a personal story series, which was really great. And always whenever we have personal stories of Christians who have struggled with OCD, we always get really good feedback.

It helps reduce a lot of stigma, and people feel encouraged to keep going and feel like there’s hope for them when they hear someone else’s story. So I’m excited to bring that back to you this summer. And today on the podcast we have Dr. O. Alan Noble. He’s the associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, and author of four books, including his latest, To Live Well: Practical Wisdom for Moving Through Chaotic Times, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living- That was a really challenging book for me.

I’ll just throw that out there. Definitely prompted a lot of thoughts and took me back to definitely some times where I felt depressed and didn’t wanna get out of bed. That was rough. You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, is that also the name of your Substack?

Dr. Alan: Yeah, You Are Not Your Own Substack is the name of it.

Carrie: If you have not read Dr. Noble’s Substack, we’ll put a link in the show notes. You need to get over there and read the posts. They’re good. He’s had also a variety of articles published in different places, The Atlantic, Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity. And you’re also married with three children.

Dr. Alan: That’s correct.

Carrie: We decided kind of talking ahead of time to really focus your interview on your treatment and kind of your shift from talk therapy and ERP, eventually over to iCBT, and that was how I got connected with you, actually, was one of our podcast listeners has a Substack, and she had, I think, linked one of your articles or talked about your book on getting out of bed.

That was how I found out about you, which is a really great connection. So if anybody has any guest suggestions out there, please always share them with us. We enjoy hearing those as well. Tell us a little bit about your journey of what it was like for you trying to find the right treatment for OCD.

Dr. Alan: I started with biblical counselor. That was my first move, was with a biblical counselor, and that was not helpful. This person really tried. He was a very sweet man. He really had a heart for God, and he was very kind and gave me a lot of scriptures to think about. But the scriptures just gave me more to ruminate about, trying to make a decision about what I was ruminating about and trying to figure things out, right?

That’s one of my ruminations, one of my fixations, is trying to figure things out. Those scriptures just gave me more fodder to figure things out. He did tell me one thing, the last thing we said to each other that was helpful and was true, which was that I needed to understand God’s grace for me better and the meaning of the cross.

And I’ve found through my therapy that that piece of truth was true. Even though he couldn’t help me with ERP or iCBT, he did understand that I do struggle with understanding God’s grace. So I went from that. I came from a church background where seeing therapists was not what was done. That’s why that was my first step, and then I went off to grad school, and my next step was after talking to a pastor, I decided I’m gonna take this big leap and I’m gonna see an actual therapist, a quote unquote secular therapist who is actually a Christian, but they studied in secular school, so it didn’t count.

And a secular psychiatrist, and this was a big step, and I prayed about it and I talked to a pastor, and he’s like, “Yes, you should do this.” And so I felt like, okay, I’ve got this blessing. I’m gonna do this. And the psychiatrist was helpful with the medication side, but the therapist, we did some light ERP and didn’t really help too much.

I moved to Oklahoma, was in a small town, and the only therapist I could get was somebody who did talk therapy. And at the time, because I’d only done some light ERP when I was in Texas, I really didn’t know that ERP was the quote unquote gold standard. I didn’t know what I was missing out on, and I just thought therapy was therapy.

And the therapist I got in Oklahoma said, “Yes, I treat OCD. I’ve treated OCD before.” So these were the magic words I was looking for, right? I didn’t know any better. I was expecting– That’s what I was looking for, somebody who says, “I’ve treated this before.” And I went to her for about six years, and she gave me reassurance for about six years.

I would come to her with various fears I had. My doubts have to do with fears about having harmed people and being negligent, and she would be like, “No, you haven’t been negligent. You’re okay.” And I would walk away feeling fine until I started my car and then The doubts would come back, ’cause that’s how OCD works, and I would say, “What if she doesn’t know?

What if she doesn’t understand? What if? What if? What if?” So I kept going back to her because it was almost addictive really. Wow.

Carrie: Did she ever, like, say, “Hey, you’re coming back with some of the same things, and we’ve already talked through this”? Did it create any kind of red flags for her, like my- No … the client isn’t getting better?

That’s really concerning, kinda scary. Uh, however, I will say that your pathway is very familiar to me, that I’ve heard this from a lot of- Yeah … different people that I’ve talked through the podcast or who have sought help from me. It’s like, “Well, I went to this person that was a Christian, and they really understood my faith, but then they didn’t understand the OCD piece or didn’t know- Yeah

how to help me.” Unfortunately, there are therapists out there saying, “Oh, yeah, like, I work with OCD no problem,” but then you get in there, and they’re not providing evidence-based care, which is problematic.

Dr. Alan: Yeah, and again, very kind person, very caring, concerned about me, but was not equipped with the tools to address what needed to be addressed with me.

And then I got connected with somebody who actually treated OCD with ERP. I started actually listening to some podcasts, I think, and that’s what sorta tipped me off. And I saw this person who treated OCD in Oklahoma City, which is 45 minutes away from where I lived at the time, so it was a sacrifice. But I said– I reached out to him and asked, “Maybe you can help me.”

And I explained my symptoms, and he said, “Yeah, you have OCD, and there’s this thing called ERP, and that’s what you need.” I was like, “Okay, let’s try this.” And so I tried that with him, and then I tried it with another therapist, and I tried some intensive ERP. I tried it for at least two years of just intense ERP.

And you introduced me as Dr. Noble, and I do have a PhD. I’m a good student. I would imagine. I’m good at doing my homework. I have four books. I’m good at doing my homework. So when you give me an assignment, I’m doing my homework. And so I did my ERP homework. And I really wanted to beat this because it was severe on the scale.

It was not light OCD. It was taking up long hours of my life and really disrupting my family life. I was serious about beating this because I needed to get my life back. And so here I was practicing the ERP for two years, just doing the exposure scripts. I was listening to exposure scripts. I was doing different exposures that I was assigned, doing everything that I needed.

I would see some relief. I would see some improvement, but then it would just come back again.

Carrie: So it was, like, a little bit of relief, but it seemed to be temporary or short-lived. That

Dr. Alan: was exactly- Yeah … the problem. If my OCD was at an eight out of ten, it would come down to, like, five. And stay there for a little while after practicing ERP just vigorously, and then it would just go back up to an eight again.

It wouldn’t come down. I was applying the tools. I was doing what I was supposed to. Really, applying the tools was my life. Wow, yeah. This was what I was doing.

Carrie: So then it was like recovery was taking all of your time, it seemed like. Did you almost feel– I think sometimes people can get obsessed about their recovery.

Did you feel that way? Like, “I’ve gotta do this, and I’ve gotta do it exactly as prescribed,” and all the things. I

Dr. Alan: didn’t feel obsessive about it, but I did feel obsessed about it. So it wasn’t like a compulsion, but I was obsessed about it in a non-compulsive way. I was like, “This is what I have to do. I’ve gotta beat this.”

It was in the back of my head almost all day. I was either doing a compulsion by ruminating in my mind, ’cause that was my main compulsion, was rumination, or I was practicing ERP or thinking about practicing ERP all day. So it was like my life was OCD. That was it. And it was just so draining, and also so boring.

It’s like, I don’t want OCD to be my life. My life is so much bigger and richer than this. I thought it was, and now it was just this.

Carrie: When you were going through that level of intense suffering with the OCD, how did you remain hopeful to keep going? Yeah. Because I think a lot of people just say, “ERP is the gold standard.

It didn’t work for me. I’m just giving up. I’m tapping out right here.” And there are some people that just say, “Well, I’m just OCD. You gotta live with me. Like, this is all there is to it.” Like, how did you keep pushing or keep going?

Dr. Alan: That’s an excellent question because there were times when despair was tapping at my door when I thought that exact question.

I thought, “Okay, this is the gold standard. This is what I’ve been told. I’ve heard all the podcasts I’ve done. I’ve read all the books. They’ve said this is it. This is how you get better, and I’m practicing this religiously, and I’m not getting better. I’m not seeing these results.” Maybe this is as good as it gets.

Maybe I’m not gonna see any more improvement over this, and I just have to come to peace with this. And a couple of things gave me hope. One is in Romans 8:28, Paul tells us that God works together all things for our good. So just believing that God is somehow working my good through this suffering, and I didn’t know how.

I didn’t know the particulars of what that good looked like. I didn’t know how he was redeeming that good, but I knew that he was working my good through that suffering and just resting in that. Also having a group of friends and family who are cheering me on and telling me, “Don’t give up. Keep going Keep fighting, keep pressing on, keep striving for wellness.

Because God desires our good, because we are given stewardship over our body, which includes our mind- Yeah … it is honoring to God for us to desire recovery. We’re not gonna get perfect bodies and minds until the resurrection, but it’s good for us in this life to fight for, to strive for, to work towards healing.

So I was committed to that, and I would look at my kids, I would look at my wife, and I would say, “I have a duty to do this. I don’t get to roll over and give up.” The other thing is that even though these therapists, these ERP therapists, they were great therapists. They were just wonderful therapists. They weren’t seeing the results that they wanted to see in me, but they were great therapists who were using all the tools that they had, and they didn’t give up on me.

They said, “What is it gonna take to see you get better?” It was the last therapist I was working with who actually introduced me to iCBT- Okay … who said, “Allen, this isn’t working” What we’re doing isn’t giving you the relief and the progress that we need to see, that we want you to see. Why don’t we try something different?

And if I can’t provide that for you, maybe somebody else can, because I don’t want you to give up. I know that you can improve. And hearing that meant a lot because, like I said, I wanted to give up. I did wanna roll over. Maybe I’m still gonna have some intrusive thoughts, but it doesn’t have to take up hours and hours and hours and hours of my day.

That’s what I needed to hear.

Carrie: Therapeutically, I’ll just say from the therapist side, that’s a really hard conversation to look at somebody and say, “I believe in you and I believe in your health, and I am in the way of that now.” Like, “I have-” Yeah “… literally given you every tool I have in the box, and I want you to succeed, and that means that you have to kind of fly on away from me.”

Because sometimes people can take that personally of like, “Oh, you’re giving up on me?” It’s like, “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you need a different toolbox than what I have-” Yeah “… right now. And for your best interest, it’s not good for us to keep on clients for long periods of time that are not making progress.”

That’s not ethical.

Dr. Alan: Yeah. It was a hard transition, and starting iCBT was hard too, but it was what I needed, and that’s what made the difference for me. I still clung onto that hope. I needed that hope, that belief. What I’ve come to realize myself is that desire for recovery, in my opinion, is the most important key to recovery.

It was at least the most important key to my own recovery because all throughout this journey that I just described, the ups and downs, if I gave up desiring to recover at any point, it would’ve stopped. I had to have this drive to recover. I had to have this belief that it’s my responsibility before God and before my family and before my friends, before my church, and before myself.

Like, I owed it to all those individuals and myself to get well, as well as I could get. I had to have a hunger for that. I had to advocate for myself. I had to keep looking for therapists, the right therapist, the right medication, and that took a drive.

Carrie: Yeah. I think the beautiful thing about living in Christian community is there are days where we don’t have it for ourselves, but somebody else can have it for us.

Yeah. And in your book, on getting out of bed, you talked about this guy that you just kept calling him- Yeah … all the time and felt bad, “Sorry, I’m calling you all the time to help me through these dark places,” and he’s like, “That’s what I’m here for.” And we need that inside ourselves, that drive to get better, but we also need other people to hold us up on the days that we just don’t have it.

Dr. Alan: Yes, absolutely. There were definitely many, many days where my desire was not there, and it was other people carrying me. Three or four friends, plus my wife and my children in their own way, and who I would contact when I was in despair or tempted to despair, and they would give me the hope, comfort me with the comfort of Christ when I didn’t have that comfort, as Paul talks about Corinthians, I believe.

Just give me that comfort when I felt like I didn’t have it, and they would share that with me, not to reassure me, but just give me that comfort so that I could move forward.

Carrie: Was there a particular concept in ICBT that stood out for you or that you found particularly helpful?

Dr. Alan: Just the basic premise that there are reasonable doubts and obsessive doubts.

Just that basic premise itself is really powerful for me, I think. So there are a couple things. That one’s really powerful for me, that I can look at my doubts and say Based on my senses, is this a reasonable doubt? Do I have sense information based on, including my common sense, to evaluate this as a reasonable doubt?

Is this relevant to the here and now? And that kind of rocked my world and flipped it upside down and made it seem like, well, okay, this makes a lot more sense, as opposed to just seeing things in terms of, well, just not even thinking in those terms at all. That really helped me, I think especially because I’m somebody who thinks a lot, and so just having that ability to use my mind without getting stuck in the weeds of the content- Yes

was really powerful. Another really important concept is the feared possible self. Just that idea that this is coming from somewhere, that these thoughts aren’t random. That’s another thing that ERP always felt like it was lacking that didn’t make sense to me from ERP, is that the content is totally irrelevant.

Well, is the content totally irrelevant? Because it seems like it has a pattern. It seems like it all stems from somewhere. So like for me, like it all centers around being a negligent self. Well, that tells me something, and that probably points to something, and that probably matters. So why aren’t we talking about that?

That seems worth poking at, and why aren’t we poking at that? And so ICBT does a good job of addressing that, of bringing that elephant into the room. I really appreciated that.

Carrie: Yeah. And I like that spiritually in the context of the- Yeah … real self. If we’re saying the content doesn’t matter at all, then the content is connected to things that you value.

So it’s like, well, so you’re saying my values aren’t important- Right … versus recognizing like, okay, this is a lie, a false self, and then this is who I really am. What are your thoughts about this spiritually, just in terms of like sense data evidence? ‘Cause we have a lot of people that wrestle with things like sin.

Yeah. Did I sin versus not?

Dr. Alan: That’s a great question. I think we can trust our senses. I think that God has given us senses to use as reasonable tools as best we can to make sense out of the world, and I think that our senses can be fallible. I think there are two things to think about. One is that it’s reasonable for us to trust our senses unless we get evidence otherwise, and that’s what ICBT teaches, right?

If you get data that says that the video you watched was AI, then you change your information, right? Mm-hmm. But otherwise, you trust your senses. But for the person with OCD, the analogy I always like to use is they come up to the street corner and instead of crossing the street, looking once, checking for cars, I know for me, I wanna check like a million times before they cross the street, over and over and over again, instead of trusting their senses, right?

Right. Normal person trusts their senses. They look once, they trust their senses, and then they cross the street if there’s no cars coming. It’s reasonable. God has given us good senses. It’s reasonable for us to trust our senses. And the other thing we can do is, and James talks about God giving us wisdom, and I think that we can pray for wisdom and clarity and trust that God gives us those things, and trust that our senses are good, and let it go at that, and not doubt our senses.

I don’t mean that compulsively. I’m not saying compulsively pray for wisdom, but just in general, pray that God gives you wisdom and trust that He does that, and then move forward in confidence, resolute.

Carrie: How have you wrestled at all, like, with the concept of healing and desire for healing and recognizing, like, okay, God allowed this intense suffering as a part of my story?

Dr. Alan: Yeah, that’s hard. There have been a couple of things that I’ve thought about. What’s hard about this, it’s not just my suffering, but it’s affected other people, right? Sure. That’s the reality, is it’s affected my family, it’s affected my friends. It has ripple effects. Even if you’re living alone, it’s gonna affect your coworkers, your neighbors.

Suffering always ripples. That’s what makes it so difficult, is that you can’t say, “Well, my suffering taught me this lesson, and so it’s been redeemed.” You also have to acknowledge that other people were hurt by it. But I’ll say a few things. I’ll say, one, Paul teaches as a truth, in Romans chapter five, I believe, “Through suffering, I’ve been taught perseverance, I’ve been taught endurance.”

And he says, “Endurance builds character, and character builds hope.” And that’s been true for me. When I look back at what I have been through, this just hit me a couple of days ago. I was just walking along or driving or something was happening, and I just thought, “Allen, do you remember how much despair you were in?”

Just sitting on the edge of a bed crying, just hopeless, just the OCD, just absolute control, feeling like you were the worst monster in the world. You made it through that. Isn’t that amazing what God has taken you through? I didn’t mention this, but thanks to iCBT, through the last year and a half or so, my wife calls it miraculous, the change that has happened because of iCBT compared to ERP.

“It’s just been miraculous,” she says, and I agree with her, and I thank God for it. Yeah. But just seeing that change, part of what I’m looking back at is I’m looking back the change that’s happened in me, the hope that I have, knowing that God can do miraculous things, that He can take me through hard times and bring me through them, and I’m not the same person Another thing that’s happened is that I have been able to help a lot of other people through my own suffering, and Paul again talks about this when he talks about comforting others with the comfort of Christ.

It doesn’t mean that my suffering isn’t serious. It doesn’t mean that my suffering didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean that other people didn’t suffer because of me. But it does mean that that suffering has meaning, that it does something. I have been able to walk with other people who have OCD and tell them that they have hope, that they can get help, that they can do something, that they have agency in their lives, that they can advocate for themselves and get the proper therapy, whether it’s ERP or iCBT, whatever it is, get the proper help.

I can pray for them. I can encourage them. I can teach them not to get reassurance. I can do these things because I have been there, and I can love them. The gratitude I’ve received from that is just so powerful. And then finally, again, I just go back to Romans 8:28. Somehow, God is working my good through this suffering, and He’s working the good of my family through their suffering that they experienced through my suffering and my friends and anyone else who was affected by this.

I don’t know how God is weaving that But I know that God is good. I know that He loves us. I know that He’s just, and I know that He’s caring for us, and I know that He’s almighty, and I know that He’s a good God, and I know that He’s gonna work these things out. I have hope that somehow He’s working these things for the good.

And somebody could look at that and say, “Well, it’s just wishful thinking,” but I would say, “No, I’ve seen Him work miracles.” Yeah. I, I have hope.

Carrie: I think that one of the biggest lies that people believe when they’re in the midst of suffering is it’s always gonna be this way.

Dr. Alan: Yeah. It’s

Carrie: always gonna be this bad.

I’m never gonna be able to get out of this. And that’s the lie, and we know that God can use anything and to change and transform people. And I’m glad that you got over that hurdle of getting into, quote, “secular therapy from a Christian person.” Yeah. And you went on that journey and eventually found the right help.

And the idea behind having podcasts like this and people finding your writings is to get people in good treatment faster so that they don’t have to- Yeah … go through that long journey where everything is just- Getting more and more difficult, and think that this is very hopeful for our audience. Yeah. I think sometimes people think the goal is, like, to never have another intrusive thought again.

Mm. And so we just wanna debunk that as well. Yeah. When you think about recovery- Mm … what does it look like for you today?

Dr. Alan: Yes. I mean, even for today, I still have intrusive thoughts. I still have things that come up, and I use my tools, and I apply them. So today, intrusive thought hit me, and I used the bridging tool that it, ICBT teaches, and visualized myself on a bridge, and made a choice not to go into the bubble, and moved on with my day.

For today, it took me about three minutes to make that choice. Now, later on today, I might not make that choice. I might slip up and make the choice to go in the bubble, and that might happen. But overall, my recovery looks like making that choice less and less and making the choice to move towards my family and what I believe is the life that God has given me, has called me to over and over again.

As I said, overall, this change has been miraculous. There have been bad days. There have been bad weeks. Sure. There have been bad months. That is a reality, and a reality that I work on with my therapist still. But the overall trajectory has been so much better that it is still amazing. Thank you for bringing that up.

Yeah, that’s a really important point. It’s not that I don’t get intrusive thoughts. It’s that they don’t run my mind anymore. I have tools that I can use to choose what I’m going to do next, and most of the time now, I can choose to move toward my life.

Carrie: Awesome. I know a lot of people have told me that they found the bridge exercise very empowering.

It’s like, “Oh, I feel like, hey, there’s a pause here.” If I can find that pause, right? And you don’t always find it, but the more that you become aware of how you get there, the more you find it, and then I feel really empowered to know, “Hey, I found the pause. I have a choice right now.” Yep. Yep. I can either go right or I can go left, and I know what the consequences are gonna be depending on what I choose.

Awesome. Tell us a little bit before we go about your latest book that just came out.

Dr. Alan: Yes. It is called To Live Well, and it is a book about the seven virtues, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, and love. It’s about how to live well in a chaotic time. I think we live in very chaotic times. I don’t think that’s too debatable.

It feels very confusing to live in the modern world. It feels like everybody’s values are up in the air. It feels like the definition of love and of justice and of what is true is constantly being contested, and that makes it hard to move, hard to act, and very easy to get stuck. And so this is a book about how to move, how to live well, how to act in the modern world, the contemporary world.

And so I move through these classic virtues Grounding them in the Gospels, because it’s a biblical book, and grounding them in Jesus and His actions in the Gospels, and work through what it looks like to be a virtuous person for God. Not to earn God’s favor, because we already have that, but because God loves us, we wanna act virtuously and understand what it looks like to live virtuously in, uh, chaotic times.

Carrie: Yeah. It’s a crazy world out there. There’s a lot that gets thrown at us, and things are changing all the time, so any help for how we can live out Jesus in this environment I think is helpful, for sure. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you for sharing today. I’m really thankful for Dr. Noble for sharing his story, because I think there are many other people out there with this story that feel like they’re doing all the right things that they’re supposed to be doing and just aren’t getting better.

It’s important for people to know that there is hope out there, and to not give up, to keep going. I think for a long time in my own life, I was like, “Yeah, God has a plan for all this craziness,” but I really doubted whether or not it was a good one. And looking back, I can now see, like, God’s goodness in the course of my life, and I’m so thankful for that.

If you’re in the midst of just a really dark place with your OCD, I want to remind you that God hasn’t given up on you, and just encourage you not to give up on Him, to keep leaning in even when things are hard and they don’t make sense. I am currently working my way through to live well, and it’s been a slow go for me because I keep having to stop and think about things.

Definitely challenging in a good way, for sure. I hope that you guys will come back next week and join us as I interview a pastor about his OCD journey. 

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.

225. Is Empowered Mind Right for Me?

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

In this episode, Carrie shares why so many Christians feel trapped in exhausting OCD cycles and how Empowered Mind: Christian ICBT for OCD offers a different approach to finding peace, clarity, and lasting healing.

Episode Highlights:

  • What makes inference based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) different from traditional OCD treatment
  • Why so many Christians struggle silently with scrupulosity and intrusive thoughts
  • How Empowered Mind helps simplify OCD recovery into practical, faith based steps
  • Why being “functional” doesn’t always mean you’re truly free from OCD
  • Who Empowered Mind is designed for and how to know if it’s the right fit for you
  • Why lasting OCD healing requires consistency, self awareness, and intentional change

Why Are So Many Christians Secretly Struggling With OCD?

I’ve heard from so many believers who feel trapped between their faith and intrusive thoughts, silently wondering if they’ll ever experience real peace. That’s one reason I created Empowered Mind Christian ICBT for OCD, to help Christians finally understand what’s actually happening beneath the fear and shame.

For many Christians, OCD doesn’t just create anxiety. It creates confusion, guilt, and spiritual exhaustion that can feel impossible to explain to others. In this episode, I share why so many people suffer silently for years and what starts to change when shame finally loses its grip.

Could ICBT Change the Way We Approach OCD Recovery?

What drew me to inference based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) is how differently it approaches OCD. Instead of constantly battling anxiety, it teaches you to recognize obsessional reasoning before you get pulled into compulsions. That shift alone can completely change how you respond to intrusive thoughts.

I also talk about why ICBT has been such a game changer for many Christians struggling with scrupulosity and fear based thinking. Once you begin understanding how OCD builds its stories, you start seeing why trying harder or seeking more reassurance never truly brings peace.

What Makes Empowered Mind Different From Other OCD Resources?

Empowered Mind isn’t a quick fix or another overwhelming pile of information. I created it to simplify ICBT into practical, faith based steps that Christians can actually apply in real life. The course walks through the OCD reasoning process in a way that feels understandable, approachable, and deeply connected to faith, especially for those struggling with scrupulosity.

Inside the course, I guide listeners through examples, exercises, and real life applications designed to help them recognize OCD patterns more clearly. I also explain why healing takes consistency and practice, not perfection or instant breakthroughs.

Who Is Empowered Mind Actually Designed For?

I created Empowered Mind for Christians who are tired of OCD running their lives and are ready to start making meaningful changes. It’s especially helpful for people who may not have access to specialized OCD therapy yet or who want a faith based approach that truly understands scrupulosity.

I also share why this course requires self motivation and intentional effort. Healing from OCD isn’t about passively consuming information. It’s about learning new mental patterns, building awareness, and slowly stepping out of the cycles that have kept you stuck for years.

Is Being “Functional” Really the Same as Being Free?

So many people tell me, “I’m functional,” while internally battling intrusive thoughts all day long. But surviving isn’t the same as living abundantly. In this episode, I share why OCD recovery is about more than coping. It’s about finally stepping out of the exhausting mental cycle.

I want listeners to know there is hope beyond constantly fighting mental compulsions in the background of everyday life. Freedom may not happen overnight, but healing becomes possible when we stop accepting exhaustion as normal.

Don’t miss the deeper stories, faith insights, and practical ICBT tools shared in this episode.Tune in now.

Use code MEMORIALDAY25 at check out to receive 25% off Empowered Mind. Sale ends Monday, May 25 at midnight.

224. Remaining Hopeful When Past OCD Treatment Has Failed

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

In this episode, Carrie shares how to move forward when OCD treatment, ERP, prayer, or recovery programs leave you feeling stuck, discouraged, and questioning whether things can really change. 

Episode Highlights:

  • Why failed OCD treatment can feel emotionally devastating for Christians
  • The mindset shift that changes how recovery and progress are viewed
  • What may actually be missing when therapy does not seem effective
  • Why more people are exploring ICBT after difficult ERP experiences
  • How faith, resilience, and growth can still emerge from disappointment

Episode Summary: 

Why Does OCD Treatment Sometimes Fall Short Even When You’re Committed to Recovery?

I’ve worked with many Christians who invested significant time, money, and emotional energy into OCD treatment, only to feel discouraged when the results did not match their expectations. Opening up about intrusive thoughts, scrupulosity, anxiety, or fear takes tremendous courage, which can make disappointing treatment experiences feel especially painful. But what if those setbacks are not the end of the story?

Could Your OCD Recovery Be Limited by the Way You Measure Progress?

One of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve learned is that healing is rarely linear. Progress does not always look like immediate symptom relief or dramatic transformation. Sometimes the earliest signs of growth are quieter, and if you are only looking for huge breakthroughs, you may miss the deeper changes happening underneath the surface.

What Happens When OCD Treatment Is Not Truly OCD-Informed?

I’ve seen many individuals enter therapy believing they were receiving specialized OCD treatment, only to later realize their therapist lacked a deeper understanding of intrusive thoughts, scrupulosity, or evidence-based OCD care. When faith is involved, that disconnect can feel even more discouraging and confusing than people expect.

Why Are More Christians Exploring ICBT for OCD Recovery?

Many Christians have shared with me that traditional OCD treatment approaches felt emotionally overwhelming or failed to address the deeper reasoning process driving their fears. That is one reason I became passionate about Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, because it approaches OCD from a completely different angle that many people have never heard explained before.

Could the Fear of “Never Getting Better” Be Strengthening OCD?

OCD often keeps people trapped in constant analysis about whether treatment is working, whether they chose the wrong path, or whether they are somehow beyond help. I’ve seen people spend years searching for certainty instead of taking the next healthy step forward, and that cycle is more common than most people realize. Sometimes the deeper struggle is not just the OCD itself, but the hopelessness and discouragement that quietly grow alongside it. And when that happens, it can start to feel impossible to believe that things could ever change.

There’s more hope here than OCD wants you to believe. Tune in now.

Transcript

Today we’re talking about how do you remain hopeful when OCD treatment in the past has failed. Welcome, OCD warriors, to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast, where we are all about reducing shame and stigma of struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories, and replacing uncertainty with faith as you develop practical tools for greater peace.

I’m Carrie Bock, Christ follower, wife, mom, and licensed professional counselor in Tennessee. I pray you are blessed by today’s episode. Let’s face it, we’ve all tried something new that hasn’t worked out, whether that was the strategy on how to meal plan, how to organize your home, new fitness or diet program that you tried that you were really excited about, hopeful it was gonna change your life.

Maybe it was a new parenting program you got involved in, and then things just seemed to crash and burn and didn’t work out in the end. It can be really hard to restart a-anew when something has failed. I know for me, in my own personal counseling journey, it took me a while to find a counselor that I really gelled with, somebody that I felt like was empathetic towards me.

I went to a particular counselor at one point, and she was just very cold, very judgmental over my present situation, and I had explained to her that I had had some negative counseling experiences in the past when I tried to seek help, and there wasn’t really empathy for how hard it was for me to try again.

Fortunately, I kept trying until I found a really great therapist that helped me when I was struggling with some work and home things towards the end of my first marriage, and then really walked me– I was glad that I already had her in place, and she helped walk me through my divorce process, which was very traumatic for me, and I talked about that way, way back on the first episode, what God brought me through in that situation.

But I’m glad that I didn’t give up, and I’m glad that I didn’t stop and say, “Well, maybe therapy is…” Obviously, I believe it was a good thing because I was a therapist at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t say, “Well, maybe there’s just not someone out there for me,” or, “Maybe I just can’t get the help that I need.”

When you’re trying to get help for a mental health issue, something not working out is even more devastating because it’s so vulnerable to open yourself up and to try to get that help, and then to essentially have hope feel like it’s just dashed. It’s harder, I feel like, to recover from that. In the OCD space, people are just desperate for answers due to the high amount of suffering, and maybe you’ve even been through something like an intensive outpatient program.

Maybe you’ve gone to a residential program, and you just didn’t feel like you got the full results that you were needing. So how do you remain hopeful after an experience like that? Obviously, you’ve invested a lot of time, mental, emotional energy, money. These things are not cheap that we’re talking about.

Out- intensive outpatient programs, even with insurance, these things are not cheap. And it’s easy for you to get in this space of feeling just totally defeated. And then OCD likes to come in and say, “Well, see, you’re just too broken to get help.” And these things are lies that I want you to be able to identify.

Some other thoughts you might have, that means there’s something really wrong with you. OCD may even tell you, “Well, the OCD program couldn’t fix you, so see, there’s more here than just OCD.” And I don’t know. There may be different disorders that you’re dealing with that haven’t been addressed that might need to be looked at comprehensively.

Maybe there are some medical things going on that haven’t been explored. It’s hard to know sometimes, and it’s hard to tease those different things out about what you might actually be needing. You may start obsessing about treatment or about finding the exact right path. I know I definitely have talked to many people in this scenario.

They’ve spoken with me about the Empowered Mind course and said, “Is this really gonna help someone like me? How do I know?” We’ve been working, and I think I need to update our webpage a little bit, but there is a thirty-day money back guarantee on that program Just so that you know if that’s something that you’re thinking about.

And we put that on there a little while ago because we started to hear such good results from people that were going through it. And I said, “Hey, why not make it a little bit more risk-free for individuals that want to check that out?” So just so you know, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. We haven’t had to refund anybody as of yet.

Knock on wood, hopefully, we won’t have to do that. There’s so much great information, even just on how OCD works and understanding it in your own experience. It’s a really valuable opportunity and has helped so many people. But it’s understandable when people come to me and they say, “I don’t know if this is gonna work for me because I’ve tried this, this, this, and this.”

So if you’re confused about what the next step is for you in terms of your OCD recovery journey, just know that it’s okay and that you’re not alone, that a lot of people go through this. Progress is not always linear. You may have had stressful life experiences happen, such as a grief and loss experience.

Maybe you had a huge job transition or a move and things were going pretty well, but then whatever happened or the life stressors have really activated OCD more in your life. Just know that that’s very common. And so where maybe you felt like, “Okay, things were pretty functional and I was doing okay before,” what I’ve noticed a lot of times is that people don’t get help until it really starts impacting their functioning and they somewhat hit a wall where they say, “I can’t keep living like this anymore.”

I would encourage you, if you know OCD is part of your story, is to not wait until it gets super bad or super loud. Go ahead and get the skills. Go ahead and learn the things that you need to learn in order to handle it when it’s at a much more manageable level. That’s gonna serve you better if things do get worse later due to stress.

Also, obviously, anything that you can do to help reduce your stress is going to help you in your OCD recovery process, whether that’s exercise, connecting with friends and in community. And obviously, some of these things take time and practice. Getting into some type of like meditative, deep breathing, like being able to relax your body.

All of those skills are really helpful to have to just manage day-to-day life stress that we all have to deal with, regardless of whether or not you have OCD. When something fails, I wanna talk with you about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is more stuck in this all or nothing.

Either I’m good at something or I’m not. Either something worked or it was a complete failure. Whereas a growth mindset says, “You know what? There were some things that didn’t work out. How can I learn from this?” Or, “How can I grow into this? How can I look at where I’m at right now and not just focus on the deficits, but focus on the strengths?”

There may have been things that you picked up through some of these past therapies, whether self-help workbooks, whatever it is that you’ve tried. There may have been some gains that you had. By focusing on those and then moving forward, you can kind of identify, okay, what has worked and what hasn’t worked and why.

Unfortunately, of all the mental health disorders out there that I’ve worked with, I have never seen a population so underserved as the OCD community It’s really heartbreaking because so many have been told by therapists, “Oh, yeah, I can see you for the OCD. Oh, yeah, I can work with you on that.” It’s really important that you dig a little bit deeper and ask for a little bit more information before you proceed.

If you are educating your therapist on what scrupulosity is, and you have scrupulosity, they are not equipped to treat you. You need to find someone who has the tools and skills that you need in order to be able to help you. That is really crucial. So I’d like to give you a four-step process on how to remain hopeful when your past OCD treatment has failed.

You’ve tried talk therapy, you’ve tried biblical therapy, you’ve tried talking to your pastor about it, you’ve tried deliverance or healing prayers, and you still feel stuck. Number one, as we talked about a little bit before in terms of that growth mindset, I want you to look at what have been the gains.

Now, this may be really hard for you to see, but I think it’s an important first step. There’s a book called The Gap and the Gain. This is a great book. It’s really more of a business coaching-type book, but I believe that it can be applied definitely to many areas of our life. This idea that the gap is the distance between where you are and where you actually want to be, kind of this ideal destination that you’re trying to get to.

That’s the gap. The gain is kind of measuring where you are now versus how far you’ve come. Like, how far have you come from in the last five years or in the last 10 years? So what have been the things that, over this OCD recovery journey, what have been the gains? Maybe you have shifted, and you don’t feel so ashamed about your OCD anymore or about talking about it.

Maybe you’ve been able to open up with a few trusted friends or close family members about what you’re dealing with. Maybe there has been some shame reduction through some talk therapy, even though the therapy itself didn’t help with the OCD. Maybe just evaluating your life, you’ve had some gains in relationships.

Maybe there’s been some repairs that have happened or some forgiveness after hard conversations. Maybe you’ve accomplished something really important, like finishing a degree program, for example. Maybe you’ve had children. I don’t know, what is it that– how have you learned and grown over this process?

Maybe you feel like you’ve become more dependent on God through dealing with OCD. So where are the gains at? And this is important because if you know that you’ve experienced these positive gains from some of these things, then you have the encouragement to know that you can continue to move forward and continue to have progress and gains as part of your story.

So by measuring backwards, I’ve talked about this in my email, so if you’re not on our weekly newsletter, please go to carriebock.com and hop on it. I did a whole email on measuring backwards and looking at my own life and how that has shown up for me. But that’s also a concept from The Gap and The Gain, so shout out to that book again.

But this measuring backwards and really looking at where you’ve come from and the progress that you’ve experienced, that encourages you as you move forward to say, “Hey, there’s hope for me here.” If I’ve gotten through this hard thing in my life, I always somewhat go back a little bit to birthing my daughter.

I had my daughter naturally, and some people are like, “Does that win you an award?” Like, no, maybe not, but it does in my own mind, because if I go through physical pain or I had a kidney stone and the whole time is very painful, very uncomfortable, like, I birthed a human. I birthed a child. It’s okay. I can get through this.

It’s really hard, and it’s really painful. The very disappointing part of the kidney stone is, like, there’s no child at the end. At least when you give birth, you know, there’s this gigantic reward of going through all that pain. You have your child. But kidney stone, you’re just like, “Oh, great, that’s out of me now.

I’m so happy I no longer have that in my body.” I hope I don’t ever have to go through that experience again. Thankfully, that was many years ago, and I drink a lot of water, so hopefully will avoid future kidney stones if you know on that one. If you don’t, you just pray you never have to go through it.

But for you, my point is, what is that thing that you go back to and you say, “You know what? I did the hard thing, and so if I did the hard thing here, I can do the next hard thing there.” If you can go back and say, “You know what? God got me through this really stressful life experience that I had. I know He’s gonna get me through this really hard season that I’m going through right now,” and that’s huge.

That’s what faith is, saying, “Hey, I don’t know how all this is gonna work out. I don’t know how I’m gonna get to a better place with my OCD recovery, but, God, you’re bigger, and I know that you can walk with me through it.” Number two, I want you to really look at what’s worked, what hasn’t worked. Was it a lack of training from your therapist in evidence-based practices such as ERP or ICDT?

Did you have a secular therapist, but you didn’t feel like they understood or empathized with your faith struggles? Did you have a Christian therapist that was kind of pointing you back to the Bible but didn’t necessarily have the OCD-specific tools? Was it a situation where you started but just didn’t follow through?

I’m not trying to be hard or, or step on any toes here, but maybe you got going and you went for a few sessions. Maybe you went for five, six sessions, and life got busy. You canceled your appointments. There was some reason that you said, “Hey, I can’t do this right now,” and so you never really got to see that process through.

Maybe you say, “Hey, I tried it,” but you really, like, dipped your toe in the water versus getting all the way into the pool like you needed to. And look, there’s no judgment because it’s really hard to face your stuff. Like, whatever your stuff is that you’re dealing with, regardless of the theme, it’s scary, right?

And we know that. You wanna ask yourself, like, “Am I ready to do this work?” Because I do think that’s a huge piece of it. I think you have to be ready to look at these hard and difficult thoughts. Like, where is this obsessional doubt coming from? What’s really the story that’s interwoven here? Looking at this feared self you’re afraid of becoming.

All these things can be really hard or uncomfortable or scary, vulnerable, whatever that is, to look at, so I get that. But that’s a point of evaluation for yourself to say Hey, did I go into this and I didn’t give it my full effort for whatever reason? It was a busy season at work. I didn’t do my therapy homework my therapist was encouraging me to do.

I was kind of only halfway bought into the process. Whatever it was, hey, maybe it would work if I fully immersed myself into that particular therapy. I know for iCBT it can be somewhat complicated. You’re learning all of these different parts and different pieces, and it takes a while. There’s a lot of awareness building that you get to before you actually get to the intervention stage.

And so a lot of times people will come in and it’s like, “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?” And it’s like, “Okay, but you have to become aware first.” Well, that’s not very fun. People don’t want that answer. And as you become more aware, you can start to tweak and change, so it’s not like you don’t develop maybe interventions that on the front end that keep you from engaging with OCD, because you start to see it more.

“Oh, that’s OCD. I don’t need to disengage with that. Oh, that’s OCD. I don’t need to engage with that.” But as far as the skill processes of being able to recognize, like when you’re going into the OCD bubble, what specific thoughts are carrying you over there, getting into like more of the deeper alternative narrative writings, things like that, those steps come later in the process, reality sensing.

And a lot of times what I see with iCBT, if it’s not working, it’s because someone is not understanding the obsessional process that got them into that obsessional doubt. Either there’s multiple different things that can go wrong, not identifying the primary obsessional doubt, not really having a good clarity surrounding the obsessional story, not understanding the obsessional reasoning process of how they reasoned their way into OCD and the difference between that and an everyday reasoning process.

If you don’t have those pieces first, those pieces are really critical in iCBT to understand and a lot of times what I see is people saying, “Well, there’s a sensory gap here. How do I know what sensory information to pay attention to?” There’s a lot of confusion because they’re trying to reality sense too early Or they’re trying to write an alternative narrative too early, and they skipped these very important steps.

All of these pieces have to be able to work together. So know that there’s a time investment. Like, if you’re willing to learn ICBT for yourself, the course that I take people through is 12 weeks long. Originally, there were 12 modules to ICBT. Things have been really shaken up by the Resolving OCD books, and they’re just packaged very differently.

Same concepts. A lot of therapists are still utilizing the 12 modules that were in the original treatment manual. However you’re absorbing it, it’s still just a lot of information to really get into your system, sink down deep, and understand and practice. So keep that in mind if you are looking at, at doing ICBT.

I know from talking with people who have gone through exposure and response prevention in the past, one thing that can go wrong there is people feel like any type of exposure just feels like too much. They don’t feel like they can titrate it and gradually ease themselves into what they’re trying to tackle.

So that can be a challenge. Obviously, a lot of people drop out because it is hard, and maybe they can expose themselves to some things on the lower levels, but then not on the upper levels. I’ve also heard other people say, “Hey, I could totally do it with my therapist, but then I wasn’t really able to incorporate it outside of therapy.”

So there has to be a plan or a willingness if you’re gonna do ERP to have that– bridge that gap, right, between what you’re doing in session and what you’re doing outside of session, kind of to continue that journey on. Number three on increasing your hope when things have failed is to choose to believe that God has more for you, that Jesus promised an abundant life for you.

I’ve been really amazed with some of the people that I’ve worked with because their OCD was just so severe, and I’ve asked them, like, “Why did you keep going? Why did you keep pursuing treatment?” And the overwhelming thought process that they’ve given me is, “I just knew there had to be more out here. Like, if Jesus died for me to give me life, not just life forever in heaven with Him, but a life here that’s rich and full and purposeful, I knew that this OCD that I was trapped in, that this is not it.”

And that helped propel them and keep them moving forward. So I would encourage you that even if it’s hard to latch onto right now or it’s hard to believe, Jesus loves you. God loves you. He has an amazing plan for your life. He wants this to be a full and rich experience for you where you are connected with Him and not terrified to engage in your spiritual practices.

God wants you to be able to engage in community, to love God, and to love other people. I mean, those are the two greatest commandments. And if you feel like OCD is getting in the way of you loving God or loving other people, just know that God wants to meet you on your journey and that He has so much more for you.

And that it may be scary to step out and risk do– trying something new, and it may or may not work, and you kinda have to be okay with that. But just knowing that that’s part of your journey, and that’s part of your process. The reality is that we’re all on a character development track if we choose to be on that with God, that He is conforming us to the image of His Son.

That’s His desire for us, and sometimes that means we go through some really tough stuff and go through suffering, and that’s how I conceptualize OCD as suffering. I don’t conceptualize it as sin or something that you’re doing to cause this. It’s not punishment from God. It is human suffering as a result of the Fall, as a result of brains that are imperfect and don’t always function the way that they are supposed to.

My fourth and last point, which probably could be potentially an earlier point, is I want to encourage you to pray To seek God and to really believe in faith that He’s gonna guide you on this OCD recovery process and lead you towards what is the next step for you. And God has the ability to provide and make a way for whatever it is that you are needing.

There have been various different points in the process of my business, in the process of doing the podcast, where I was genuinely in need, and God showed up and provided what I needed, whether it was a contractor to work with, whether it was a business coach, whether it was a physical location. When I started my practice, I had about basically two months to get all of my ducks in a row to get everything straightened out.

I was in a group practice that essentially kind of broke apart a little bit. The owner decided to do– structure his business very differently, and it was kinda like, “Okay, well, okay, God, I guess I’m just jumping off the end of the pool,” because I knew that long term I wanted to be on my own. But I had become very comfortable with where I was at.

I wasn’t really in a state of high risk or anything of that nature. I had taken a couple years. I had built a full caseload. Everything was going smoothly, and then this shook everything up, and I was like, “Oh, man. God, I just wanted to stay here. It was just so comfortable. This is where I need to be.” And God ultimately made me uncomfortable so that I got out of that situation and ended up starting By the Well Counseling in twenty seventeen I can honestly tell you every single office that I’ve had, there’s some type of God story connected to that.

My very first office, I was driving around calling real estate agents, just looking for signs that said available office space in the area that I wanted to be in. And at that point in time, I didn’t want to move too far because of the clients that I was seeing. I was like, “I need to kinda sorta stay in this area.”

And God totally just provided something. The guy was like, “Oh, hey, yeah, I can show you the office.” We went in. It was the right size that I was looking for. It was this little tiny… It had four offices in it, but the total square footage was less than 1,000 square feet. It was maybe 750 square feet. It had this little tiny waiting room.

It had a bathroom. I was like, “Okay, that’s all we need.” God provided the people in there to rent from me to sublet the other offices. I had a couple other therapists in there, and I was able to keep that space full. There’s just so many things that I could tell you that God has done over the years, just providing me with the right people and connections to work with, but it hasn’t always been easy.

I have had to step out in faith. Not everything that I’ve done has worked out. Trust me, there have been a lot of things that never got off the ground. Empowered Mind is actually my fourth course that I’ve ever created, and it’s been definitely the most successful. My very first course was on anxiety and sold zero.

Failure is just a part of the process, but I say that to encourage you wherever you’re at to keep praying and keep asking God. And as we continue to submit to Him and continue to trust Him, He is gonna lead you on the right path at the right time. A lot of these stories and different things that I’m talking about, I love sharing those on our weekly email newsletter, just different things that God is showing me throughout the week.

Sometimes it’s a thing that has to do with parenting. Sometimes it’s a spiritual truth. Sometimes it’s a story about something from my past where God really showed up. I just believe that God wants us to have a sense of healing and wholeness in Jesus Christ. Does that mean that we’re gonna be 100% healed on this side of heaven?

I don’t think that’s always the case. Obviously, there are lovely Christian people that die of all types of different things, and some point or another, we are all going to pass away. But while we are on this earth, we are responsible at some level for stewarding our health physically emotionally, mentally, and partnering with God in that.

And so as you sit down and pray and seek God, just ask him, “What are my next steps?” And if you feel like God is leading you in a direction and the finances aren’t there, then pray for God to provide the financial way for you to be able to make this happen. And I believe that God will open up those doors as well.

There was a podcasting business coaching program that I got into before I rebranded the podcast almost two years ago now to Christian Faith & OCD. When I first found out about the coaching program, I did not have the money to get into it, and God totally provided for that in a very short period of time.

It was like, “Oh, okay, here’s the money.” And what was crazy was I still questioned it. I still went to my husband and I said, “We did get this money, but, I mean, should we spend it on this? Like, is this the right path?” Even though now I can look back on it, it was clearly God’s provision for something that I was already praying through, like, “Do you want me to be in this program?

Should I do this or not?” And that has completely, essentially changed the trajectory of my business and what I’m doing. I’m very thankful. I can look back over the past nine years of my business and tell you that what I started out doing nine years ago is very, very different than what I’m doing now. But I believe that God has me exactly where He wants me to be, and I’m trusting Him with whatever this next chapter is.

Would love to talk with any of you. If you wanna get in touch with us, you can go to keribach.com. And again, just know that as you’re praying through these different options, know that Empowered Mind Christian ICBT for OCD is an option for you. We have a full workbook that goes along with that course, with homework assignments where you can walk through and practice these skills with your particular OCD themes that you’re dealing with.

Thanks so much for listening. I’m gonna talk with you about some important course updates actually next podcast episode. So if you’re thinking about it, we’re gonna talk about that. And hint, hint, there is a Memorial Day sale coming up if you haven’t heard that. So be sure to check that out. In order to do that, you gotta get on our email list, so keribach.com.

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

223. How Mindfulness is Helpful for ICBT

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

In this episode, Carrie shares how mindfulness and Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) can come together in a powerful way to support your OCD recovery journey. 

Episode Highlights:

The difference between mindfulness and meditation, and why it matters

How mindfulness helps you create space from intrusive thoughts

Why building distress tolerance is key for OCD recovery

What ICBT is and how it reveals what’s really happening behind OCD

How faith, Scripture, and staying present support your healing journey

Episode Summary: 

How Can Mindfulness Actually Help Me Break Free from OCD Thought Loops?

I used to think mindfulness was just about calming down, but I’ve seen it become something much deeper. It creates space between you and the intrusive thoughts that feel so real. And in that space, something begins to shift. Instead of reacting, you start noticing. That small change can open the door to a different kind of peace, especially in the middle of OCD struggles.

Why Do I Keep Getting Stuck in Worst-Case Scenarios Even When I Know They Aren’t True?

Your mind can take one moment and turn it into a future disaster that feels completely real. But what if the issue isn’t the thought itself, but how we respond to it? I’ve seen how OCD pulls us out of the present and into imagined fear. When we gently return to what’s actually happening right now, things begin to loosen, even if just a little.

What Happens When I Stop Fighting My Thoughts and Just Sit with Them?

This is where it gets uncomfortable, but also where growth begins. Instead of pushing thoughts away, mindfulness invites you to stay present with them. To notice without judgment. And over time, you may begin to see that thoughts don’t hold as much power as they once did. That shift can feel quiet, but it’s meaningful.

How Do Mindfulness and ICBT Work Together to Rewire My Thinking?

When mindfulness and ICBT come together, something powerful happens. ICBT helps you understand the story your mind is telling, while mindfulness helps you slow down enough to see it. Without awareness, it’s easy to stay stuck. But once you begin to notice the patterns, you’re no longer completely led by them.

Why Does OCD Feel So Real in My Body Even When I Know It Doesn’t Make Sense?

OCD doesn’t just live in your thoughts. It shows up in your body, your emotions, and that sense of urgency. It feels real because your body believes it is. Mindfulness helps you stay present with those sensations without reacting right away. And over time, that builds trust that you can handle what you feel.

How Can My Faith Support My Healing Instead of Adding Pressure?

Faith was never meant to increase fear. When we come back to stillness, daily dependence, and God’s presence, it aligns beautifully with mindfulness. God meets us in the present moment, not in imagined fears. And learning to sit with Him there can bring a deeper, steadier kind of peace.

If this stirred something in you, there’s more waiting for you in the full episode. Listen now. 

222. Can AI help with OCD? 

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

In this episode, Carrie explores the concerns of using AI for OCD and shares practical ways to use it wisely while staying grounded in truth, community, and your identity in Christ.

Episode Highlights: 

• Why using AI during a mental health crisis can be harmful and what to do instead

• How AI can become a form of reassurance seeking that feeds the OCD cycle

• The ways AI may unintentionally reinforce negative thought patterns

• Why human connection and godly community are essential for healing

• Practical ways to use AI as a tool without replacing real support

• How to stay rooted in truth and your identity in Christ while navigating technology 

Episode Summary:

Should Christians with OCD use AI for mental health support?

I have been noticing how often AI shows up in conversations about productivity, business growth, and even mental health tools, and I have used it myself in simple ways for my podcast and content. But when it comes to OCD, I find myself asking a more thoughtful question: is this actually supporting healing, or could it be quietly pulling us away from the kind of help God designed us to receive?

Can AI make OCD symptoms worse without you realizing it?

One of the concerns I see in the mental health space is how easily AI can turn into a form of reassurance seeking, which we know keeps the OCD cycle going. When you are already feeling anxious and reach for quick answers, it can feel helpful in the moment, but over time it may keep you stuck in patterns that God is gently inviting you to step out of.

Why does AI feel comforting but not truly healing?

AI is designed to be affirming, quick, and easy to engage with, and that can feel like a relief when your mind is overwhelmed. But true healing often involves being lovingly challenged, gaining new perspective, and sitting with discomfort in a safe way, and that is something technology simply cannot fully provide.

Can AI replace therapy, Christian community, or real relationships?

From both a faith and mental health perspective, the answer here is important. God created us for connection, for relationship, and for being known by others, not just interacting with something that reflects back what we give it. When we begin to rely on AI in place of people, we may miss the depth of healing that comes through safe, supportive relationships.

How can you use AI in a healthy way with OCD?

I do believe there are practical ways to use AI responsibly, especially for things like reducing stress, organizing your life, or finding general information. When used with intention and boundaries, it can support your overall well-being, but it should never replace the deeper work of recovery, therapy, and spiritual growth.

How does your identity in Christ shape the way you use technology?

At the heart of this conversation is something much deeper than AI. It is about where you go for truth, peace, and reassurance. As Christians, we are invited to root our identity in Christ, not in quick answers or external tools, and to trust that God is present with us even in the uncertainty.

If you have been wondering whether AI is helping or hurting your OCD recovery, this episode will walk you through what to watch for and how to move forward with wisdom. Take a few minutes to listen, you may begin to see both your technology use and your healing journey in a new light.

221. Your Scrupulosity Question Answered

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

In this episode, Carrie answers listener-submitted questions from email and a recent survey about scrupulosity to help you better understand it and respond in healthier ways.

Episode Highlights:

  • Carrie’s answers to listener questions about intrusive thoughts and scrupulosity, drawn from real experiences shared through email and survey responses
  • How to recognize intrusive or critical thoughts as OCD, not your true beliefs
  • Why scrupulosity targets what matters most, including your relationship with God
  • How to identify the core fear beneath obsessive doubts
  • The difference between God’s voice and fear-based thoughts

In this episode, I’m answering your questions about scrupulosity and intrusive thoughts that were submitted through email and a recent survey. If you’re a Christian struggling with OCD, especially distressing thoughts about God, you’re not alone, and this conversation is here to help you better understand what’s happening in your mind and how to respond in a healthier way.

Does anyone else struggle with intrusive or critical thoughts about God?

One of the most common questions I received is about having unwanted, intrusive thoughts that feel critical or even blasphemous toward God. If that’s you, I want you to know this is a common experience in scrupulosity. In this episode, I begin to unpack why these thoughts happen and how to recognize them as OCD, not your true beliefs.

How do I handle different interpretations of scripture without falling into OCD fear?

Another question we explore is how to navigate different or stricter interpretations of scripture without spiraling into anxiety. If you’ve ever worried about getting your faith “wrong,” we talk about how OCD can latch onto these fears and how to start shifting out of that pattern.

How can I tell the difference between God’s voice and OCD thoughts?

This is such an important question for many Christians with OCD. If you’ve felt stuck trying to figure out whether a thought is from God or from fear, I share some gentle guidance to help you begin discerning the difference so you can move toward peace instead of staying in that mental loop.

Throughout this episode, I offer simple, practical ways to respond to intrusive thoughts without getting pulled deeper into the cycle of scrupulosity. My hope is that you walk away feeling less alone, more grounded, and reminded that God’s heart for you is peace, not confusion or fear.

220. Getting Unstuck from Spiritual Mental Rituals

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

In this episode, I talk about how spiritual mental rituals are actually mental compulsions in OCD, and five steps to help you recognize these patterns and begin stepping out of them.

Episode Highlights:

  • The connection between spiritual mental rituals and compulsions in OCD
  • Ways to become more aware of when these patterns are happening in your mind
  • Practical strategies to create distance from intrusive thoughts through mindfulness and thought diffusion
  • The underlying fears and “feared possible self” that drive spiritual mental rituals
  • Why OCD’s reasoning process keeps you stuck and what helps you step out of it 

Episode Summary:

Why do I feel stuck even though I’m praying more and trying harder?

I hear from so many of you who are doing everything you know to do spiritually. You are praying, rebuking thoughts, quoting Scripture, and trying to replace negative thoughts, yet you still feel stuck. That can be incredibly discouraging because your heart is in the right place. At the same time, some of these responses, like repetitive praying or trying to cancel out a thought, may actually be mental rituals that keep OCD going instead of bringing peace.

Why are mental rituals in OCD so hard to recognize?

These patterns often become automatic, which makes them easy to miss. You may be responding to intrusive thoughts all day without realizing how much energy it takes. Many people describe it as a quiet background murmur in their mind. As this loop repeats, it strengthens, which is why awareness is such an important first step.

How should Christians respond to intrusive thoughts?

Many Christians feel they need to respond to every thought right away. When an intrusive thought shows up, it can feel urgent and important. However, that urgency is often part of how OCD keeps you engaged in the cycle. There is a different way to relate to your thoughts that allows you to stay grounded in your faith without being pulled into anxiety.

Why does OCD make me feel like something is wrong with me spiritually?

OCD often targets your relationship with God, making you feel like you are not doing enough or that something is off. These thoughts can feel real, but they are often rooted in a feared possible self rather than your true identity in Christ.

What is actually keeping the OCD cycle going?

There is a deeper reasoning process that pulls you away from the present and into a stream of anxious possibilities. Without recognizing this, it is easy to stay stuck even when you are trying your best to do the right thing.

If you have been feeling worn down by intrusive thoughts and mental rituals, this is not an episode you want to miss.

Listen now to begin finding peace and share this with someone who needs encouragement today.

Transcript

 Repetitive praying, rebuking thoughts, quoting scripture or a short phrase, or intentionally thinking a positive thought to neutralize a negative thought. What do all of these things have in common? They are all mental rituals in OCD. Today on the Scrupulosity series, we’re gonna be talking about five steps to get unstuck from spiritual mental rituals.

Welcome OCD Warriors to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast where we are all about reducing shame and stigma of struggling with OCD as a Christian sharing hopeful stories. And replacing uncertainty with faith as you develop practical tools for greater peace. I’m Carrie Bock, Christ follower, wife, mom, and licensed professional counselor in Tennessee.

I pray you are blessed by today’s episode. Number one is be aware of when you are doing it. If you’re gonna change any type of behavior, you have to become aware of how and when it is happening. You wanna know what the triggers are to this mental compulsive ritual. You probably already know that, but sometimes when you’ve been doing something for so long, you don’t even realize that you’re doing it.

It’s just almost happening kind of in the back corner of your head. I’ve met a lot of people with OCD who tell me there’s kind of like this murmur almost in the background going on in their mind. You may be responding at times and you’re not even fully aware of how much time you’re taking to respond to these types of things.

Ultimately, neurons that fire together, wire together, so the more time you engage in this obsession compulsion loop. The stronger it gets and the faster that goes. One thing you can do here is to practice mindfulness. If you’re not familiar with mindfulness, mindfulness is a component of acceptance and commitment therapy.

And what it involves is focusing intentionally on the present moment with a sense of awareness, acceptance, curiosity over judgment. And by doing so, you’re helping yourself be able to slow down, be aware, and take stock of what’s actually going on right now. Many people in today’s culture are moving at a hundred miles per hour.

Our brains are taking in all kinds of information and we’re just moving through life, not really as present as we could be, and mindfulness helps us get back to this sense of being present. I believe this is a very important component for us spiritually as Christians. Because we need to be able to sit in God’s presence and hear what he has to say to us.

And if we don’t slow down enough to even do that and learn to quiet our minds, learn to just let all of the dust settle, then it’s gonna be really hard for us to be able to connect even in our devotional moments that we have with him. Number two, we wanna create a distance, create some separation between you and your thoughts.

You need to understand that you are not the sum of your thoughts. You don’t act on all of your thoughts. We have thoughts all the time that we don’t pay any attention to, and we’re like, oh, that was kind of weird. Or. Oh no, I really shouldn’t do that. Or, Ooh, I wanna say that, but that would really be a bad idea.

Right now the filter comes in, right? We don’t need to super align ourselves with our thoughts and say, oh, well, because I had this thought, then that means something about me. Or create some type of additional meaning that doesn’t need to be there to create this distance. You can do a couple different things.

One, you can look at it from more of a metacognitive approach of, I am having an obsession right now. Or I always say, even if you can’t stop the compulsion, you could say in a mindful sense, I am engaging in a compulsion right now. This lets you and your brain know. Hey, I know what’s going on right now.

Even if I’m not in a place to combat it or stop it, I know that I am on this cycle of obsession and compulsion. That awareness piece, as we talked about is important. Another exercise you can utilize to create some distance between you and your thoughts is called thought diffusion. This is something I learned from dialectical behavioral therapy.

We borrow from a variety of different things on the podcast because I think different therapeutic approaches have little snippets and pieces that can be helpful for OCD, and these are actually considered adjunct therapies. If you go onto io CDFs website, that’s how they would define like acceptance and commitment or.

Dialectical behavioral therapy. I believe they’re under the adjunct approaches, not entirely sure could be under secondary. In order to practice thought diffusion, you’re gonna do something like, imagine your thought is on a leaf, going down a stream, or imagine your thought is on a cloud in the sky.

Imagine your thought is on a car and you’re watching the cars pass by on the highway. And what this does is it allows you to really examine your thought and recognize that you don’t have to immediately get roped into it. Ruminate on it, figure it out, can be really great strategy for rumination to practice this.

It does take practice. It takes time to learn. So you can’t just do it once and think that you’re good to go, but when you do this and you kind of imagine these thoughts moving by, it lets you know, okay, I’m creating some separation between myself and the thought. I’m also noticing I don’t have to act on the thought right now, so that can keep you from compulsing.

I don’t have to immediately do anything about this right now, even though OCD is screaming, you really need to do something about this, and you need to do it right now because OCD is super urgent like that. But when you practice these exercises, you go, okay, I’m having this thought. I don’t have to continue to hold onto it.

I can train my brain. To be able to let the thought come and let the thought go out. Like I said, that takes some intentional practice. It’s not an easy one and done type of scenario. Number three, understand what is contributing to this fear. We know that with OCD, it convinces you that some things are true about yourself that are not true about yourself.

An inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy call this the feared possible self. It’s like if I don’t engage in these compulsions, if I don’t entertain these obsessions in these specific ways, could mean a variety of things. Could mean I’m negligent, could mean I don’t care about my spiritual life, this sense of carelessness.

It could mean that I’m going to be some kind of spiritually unclean, dirty if I don’t immediately rebuke this thought. So figuring out what that is, what the feared consequence is, what the feared possible self is, can be really helpful and beneficial because the feared possible self is a lie. People that are worried about being spiritually negligent are engaged in their spiritual life.

They’re engaged in spiritual practice. Even sometimes when it’s hard or even if you’re maybe avoiding certain spiritual practices, you still care about it. It’s still a value. It’s still on your mind as something you desire to engage in. So understanding that feared possible self is a false sense of self.

It’s not actually who you are. And then looking at what is the story that you’ve told yourself regarding what you have to do with these thoughts? Oftentimes, Christians are told by spiritual leaders, Hey, you’ve gotta take that thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. So anything that comes in their mind, they feel like they’ve gotta immediately pounce on it.

And deal with it. Like, oh, if it’s any kind of negative thought, of course we know that this is not helpful for OCD and actually just reinforces the whole obsessive compulsive cycle. So we’re trying to get out of that by recognizing that taking these thoughts captive means I need to let them alone so that they don’t continue to grow, multiply.

And become an even bigger issue than they are right now. If you believe the thoughts are some type of spiritual attack, it may be really hard for you to let them alone and not feel like you have to rebuke them. Really examining maybe some of the teachings that you’ve heard from spiritual leaders or the council that has been given to you can be really helpful in these types of scenarios.

What have you been told about your thought process and how to handle specifically intrusive thoughts? Maybe the people that you were going to, they may not have known this was OCD, or you may not have known it was OCD, so they weren’t able to provide you a really balanced, helpful Christian clinical standpoint of that.

Hello, that’s why we’re here. Welcome to the podcast. That’s what we’re hoping to do, provide that really great balance for you. Number four, and I think this is crucial if you’re following an ICBT path, is really understanding the inferential confusion, the obsessional reasoning process. If you read resolving OCD one and two, actually it’s covered in volume two.

It’s the OCD trifecta. Essentially where if you understand how you reasoned your way into OCD in this obsessional reasoning process and that you have an everyday reasoning process, it really helps you know how you can get out of that obsessional reasoning process and back into the everyday reasoning process.

In the obsessional reasoning process, I’m going to try to simplify it for you. It’s a little bit complicated and I love that there’s a bit of a depth to it because the more that you learn about it and read about it, the more that you can grow an understanding of it and start to see it in real time is essentially where you’re distrusting whatever the sense data is of the moment.

When we say sense data, we mean things like common sense. Your five senses, your sense of self, who you are. So let’s say I’m distrusting who I actually am. Then what happens? Well, step two of the process is this unchecked and boundless imagination. So I’ve closed the door to what’s actually happening right now.

And in doing so, it’s opened up this alternate door where the imagination runs wild, dumps a bunch of what ifs on there. Scary stuff that I feel like I’ve got to address creates this internal crisis. And then once you believe something or you believe like, okay, this is possible, this really could happen to me.

Then you start to justify it with facts and reasoning and logical arguments. Well, yeah, this could happen. And the reason I know that is because I read a news article on it, or I know somebody that that happened to, or I read this scripture and it seems to support this belief that I believe about God being harsh and not really caring about me, or I’m gonna use this scripture from the Old Testament to support the fact that I believe that God is.

Harsh and judging me right now, even though I’m saved. And even though when God looks at me, he sees the blood of Jesus, I’m gonna take something out of context and utilize it in that way. And you see this all the time in terms of people making arguments for a variety of different things in the world.

And you can find some people that. Very convinced of some things that aren’t true, right? Or they’ve only seen one side of the story. Maybe it’s a complex issue and there are two sides, but they’re really only concerned with their side because that’s all the facts that they’ve gathered. That’s all the evidence that they’ve gathered, all of the arguments, and so they really only know like their side of the story.

And I think OCD. Is very similar in this way, is very selective about what it actually pays attention to. The reason we know this is because if you meet someone with, let’s say, contamination OCD, somebody may be really, really concerned about getting the flu, but they may be, let’s say, less concerned about or not concerned at all about getting the Norovirus.

Someone else with OCD, they are super concerned about any kind of stomach bug out there. They are not concerned necessarily about the flu as long. It doesn’t make them throw up. They’re like, whatever. I’m not really concerned about catching those specific germs. Sometimes people can be super focused on touching objects surfaces and believing that they’re going to be contaminated that way, but they’re not bothered about what’s in the air.

And people would look at that and say, that doesn’t make any sense. ’cause certainly many of our illnesses are airborne. However, that’s just how OCD works. Because if you understand the reasoning process is starting in the imagination and then we use the facts and the logic to back it up, then it makes sense that way.

But if you don’t understand that obsessional reasoning process. Then you just say, yeah, I know this is really weird, but this is what I think and and how I feel. Instead of going, yeah, this is how I got to this point. OC also has this way of starting with a particular belief and then neglecting all of the other things that may be true.

One thing that we learn in ICBT is this concept of affirming the consequence. What this looks like is making a statement like, well, God heals people that he loves, which is true. And then the next part of the equation would be. God hasn’t healed me, therefore he doesn’t love me. It’s like this way of reasoning backwards instead of looking at the situation saying, okay, there are many different reasons why God hasn’t healed you, but you’re focused solely on.

He hasn’t healed me because he doesn’t love me, instead of there may be other things that he’s trying to cultivate in my life and is gonna use this suffering in order to do that. Another example might be serial killers have poor relationships with their mothers. I don’t know if that broad generality is true, but let’s just pretend it’s true and then to say, I don’t have a good relationship with my mother, therefore, I may turn into a serial killer.

OCD can be very sneaky like that and make all kinds of arguments. Number five, if you’re gonna get unstuck from spiritual, mental rituals, may really need to bring in some reinforcements, get some help, whether that’s finding an ICBT therapist online. There’s a great. Resource list where you can do that, or I also have a course called Empowered Mind, Christian ICBT for OCD, and especially for individuals dealing with scrupulosity who have mental rituals or ruminations.

I’ve had many individuals go through this course who have found incredible hope and help for dealing with the mental rituals, the compulsions. They’ve been able to learn the ICBT process through a Christian lens, which helped them feel safe and comfortable having the faith integration piece. And if that’s something you might be interested in, you can just go check it out at kerry b.com/training.

We would love to see you take advantage of that self-help course. It is way cheaper than 12 sessions of therapy. Historically, in the past, there have been 12 modules of ICBT. The way that they’re being taught now is differently than when they were originally proposed in a treatment manual. So I have them broken down and all the concepts in there without specifically them being based on particular modules.

I’ve tried to make them easy to understand, breaking down some of these hard concepts and giving you a lot of different examples. We also are in the process of creating a custom workbook to go along with that course for the students that are in the live training right now. So I’m very excited to release that workbook as part of the course coming at the end of May.

So we are just around the corner with that. If you buy it now, you will have six months access to it. So when everything gets dropped in there in May, you’ll be able to see the most revised version of the material. Thank you so much for listening today, and as always, you can reach out @carriebock.com anytime.

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.