Personal Testimony – Carrie Bock – By The Well Counseling

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

Written by Carrie Bock on February 11, 2026. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

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

Episode Highlights:

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

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

Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie: How old were you at that point?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie: Through the messiness that we have going on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie: What does recovery look like for you today?

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

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

So tell us the name of your book again.

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

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

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

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. Opinions given by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

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

Written by Carrie Bock on January 21, 2026. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

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

Episode Highlights:

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

Episode Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript

Carrie: Today we have a special personal story episode from Ashley Lawrence. Ashley made the decision to join the live ICBT training that I was doing about a year ago. For those of you who are new to the show, I run these trainings twice a. We are changing the name to Empowered Mind to really capture the transformation that people are experiencing.

Ashley decided to jump in and learn ICBT when she had difficulties finding a Christian therapist. In her area and really wanted someone who could understand scrupulosity and speak to it from a Christian perspective. Through the process of recording this episode and then further conversations, Ashley ended up actually becoming my virtual operations.

Administrative assistant, and she’s just been in that role since about the beginning of December. In fact, some of you may have conversed with her via email if you had questions about ICBT or setting up a consultation time with me. Ashley’s been instrumental in that process. If you’ve been wondering at all is this opportunity right for me, I really hope that Ashley’s story will help you make that decision prayerfully.

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

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

Carrie: Ashley, welcome to the show and just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me, Carrie. I’m super thankful for this opportunity. I’ll just start off by saying I am follower of Christ. I am a wife and a mother and an artist. I’m also a homeschool mom. I spend a lot of my days just.

Being with my kids and soaking in these years while they’re young and just having fun with that. So that fills a lot of my time.

Carrie: Yeah, for sure. What types of OCD themes have you struggled with kind of through the years?

Ashley: The main theme that I’ll probably hit on most today is scrupulosity. I’ve also struggled at times with contamination OCD and relationship OCD, but definitely not as heavily as pulos, which I feel like sometimes might be a lesser known theme of OCD.

At least it was for me when I first discovered what it was.

Carrie: You understood you had OCD, like when contamination themes were coming up, it’s like, oh, this makes sense. This is what I perceive or have heard about OCD. But then when you started to have spiritual obsessions, did you just think like, oh, I’m just trying to figure some things out spiritually and didn’t really necessarily tie it to the ocd?

Ashley: Yes. And kind of talking about like OCD diagnosis. I was first self-diagnosed and that was just in the beginning of 2024. It was nine years of me kind of struggling, not even knowing it’s what I had. I thought I had just was dealing with a lot of anxiety and I would have this contamination stuff, but I thought, oh, I’m just like a germaphobe.

And yeah, that was definitely more if I were to say, oh, I have OCDI would’ve fallen into, I’m like a germaphobe and stuff. I would’ve never thought it was related to faith. And that’s really what I thought I was dealing with for all those years was faith problem. I never knew that OCD could kind of present itself, like with mental compulsions.

I thought it was a lot of hand washing and light switches and the things I saw on TV when I was younger about OCD. So when I finally learned that OCD can present itself with like these mental compulsions. Ruminating and intrusive thoughts, reassurance seeking and things like that was very freeing for me.

How did you find that out? It’s such a long story, but I’m gonna try to just keep it shorter here for us today, basically in the end of 2023, I hit rock bottom because like I said, I had been dealing with this OCD for years, never knowing what it was, and I think my brain and my body just got to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore.

And I started dealing with like panic attacks, really bad. So it’s kinda like my body just couldn’t take it anymore. It was a really scary season. It was months of panic attacks and it made it really hard to drive in a car because that’s when they would come up. And then when that began happening, I said, I need to get to the bottom of this.

I need to figure out what the root of this is. So it led me down a path of just, I started kind of learning about panic disorder, but then just getting deeper. And as I was in that process, I stumbled across Ted Whittick on YouTube talking about OCD Scrupulosity, and as he began, it was like a 40 minute YouTube video.

I listened to the whole thing, then I had my husband listen to it and all of the symptoms he was talking about for Scrupulosity, I was checking every box and I was like, oh my gosh, I never heard this ever, like, it was a very positive thing for me. It was a very relieving thing because I was able to finally like identify what was going on.

Carrie: So you had been talking to your husband about these things and like trying to figure out the perceived faith problems and, yes.

Ashley: For years, I guess I should say. So all started in 2015. I’ll kind of briefly just share my background. I grew up in a Christian home and I loved the Lord at a very early age. I experienced just the presence of the Holy Spirit and was taught the gospel from an early age, and so the Lord was always a part of my life, but I basically ended up in a season of backsliding.

It was around the time of 2015. Actually, lemme back up a quickly. When I was 18 years old is when as a more mature, full adult, I really recommitted my life to Jesus and just experienced him in a new way. Um, really began living for him as the Lord of my life. But some things had happened after that, and I ended up in a season of backsliding.

The Lord tells us that he chastens those whom he loves and he will discipline his children when we are going astray. And that’s what had happened to me. I experienced his discipline in my life. That was in 2015 when I kind of hit rock bottom. And along with that though, is when this introduction of the thought of I could have lost my salvation, or did I commit the un parable sin?

After that season of backsliding really entered, and I had never really considered that before. In all the years of knowing the Lord, I didn’t think that was ever a possibility. But in 2015, after that season of backsliding, I was reading the Bible and I came across some warning passages and Hebrews, which I’m sure you might be familiar with, other people I know have struggled with these things, and I read them and I thought that I lost my salvation.

I really thought I did. That began a season of just really, it was the lowest point in my life. It was very scary and there was a lot of anxiety. I had panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep, but the, in that place, I sought the Lord like I never had before. And so, God, like I said, he went after me and he didn’t allow me to continue on that path.

And it caused me to just seek him in a whole new way. And the Lord so graciously helped. To me through that time, through his word, so many passages in the Old Testament about his people being unfaithful and him telling them to return to him and of his forgiveness, especially like the Book of Hosea, all these places he ministered to me so much in that time.

But this fear, this possibility would just always come back. Did I commit the un parable sin? What if just this lack of assurance in my salvation and it would cause such internal distress. Because I didn’t know what I was dealing with and because it kept resurfacing, I thought, surely this is a problem with my faith.

The Lord must be so displeased with me because my faith is so weak. Like I keep becoming so fearful. I keep being so attacked with doubt. It was just like, it would be just an onslaught of doubt over my assurance, and even after the Lord spoke to me in his word and confirmed it through our pastor’s message.

Devotions and things like that just keep coming up. And every time I’d go to my husband and after a while it wore him down too because Sure, you’re his child, like he loves you. Like why is this happening again? So it was a lot of years of that.

Carrie: I think what you’re highlighting here is a couple different things.

One OCD, using personal experience against you saying, oh, well look at what happened back here. And maybe that is an indicator of what’s going on right now when it’s not necessarily connected. And then the other piece was that doubt often follows some level of sensory information or assurance. So you would hear this message in church and be like, oh yeah, that’s God speaking to me, that I’m his and that I belong to him.

And then OCD comes along, it’s like, no, you need to doubt whether or not you’re saved.

Ashley: Yes. And it will attack. What is most valuable, important to you? A lot of times is what I’ve learned about OCD since a child. Jesus was always like my foundation and such an important part of my life, and obviously eternity.

That’s an important thing. It definitely latched onto that and it’s like, well, if that is true, if you really did lose your salvation, my brain was firing off. This is extremely important. We need to worry about this. All these compulsions, which I can get into kind of what it looked like for me. ’cause I know that’s helpful sometimes for other people to hear like, oh, they’ve been through that too.

So it definitely latched onto that. And it was just years, yeah. Of me thinking this was a faith problem on my part. Kind of early into that. It was after I was married, so. It had already been years that I was dealing with that, but I found John Bunyan’s book, grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, I think, and I could barely read it because it kind of like gave me P-T-S-D-A little bit because the things in that book were so similar to the fearful thoughts I had had, whether it was blasphemous thoughts about the Lord.

Doubt, unbelief. John Bunion talked a lot about that, but I found it comforting in a way like, oh wow,

Carrie: but also triggering.

Ashley: He’s very got man, but it was triggering. So I kind of put that down and at that point I didn’t know yet that it was OCD. I just thought, again, issue, I don’t know where I should go here next.

Carrie: What were some of the compulsions that come up for you? Were you doing a lot of research? Were you like, did you have prayer compulsions? Were you like feeling like I’ve gotta pray the center of prayer every night before I go to bed, or,

Ashley: yes, definitely. Rumination would be the first one. I would hear a message on a radio about like Pharaoh hardening his heart or judis or something like that.

And then my brain would just ruminate the whole day, like along with rumination, like internal checking. Do I sense the Holy Spirit in me? Do I sense the fruit of the spirit in me? How do I feel like, do I feel close to the Lord right now? That was a huge one for me, is feeling like, do I feel far from Jesus?

Do I feel like he’s there? We can’t go by feelings. It was a lot of that stuff. And then seeking reassurance. There were times where I did speak to my pastor and I think there’s a level of importance with that. Like I did have a season of backsliding. There are real spiritual things going on. That’s what makes it so hard is ’cause OCD just can intermix with that.

But I would talk to my pastor about it. Reassurance seeking to Googling, just searching the Bible. Tons of commentaries. What did this person think about this verse? More obsessively than the average person I would say. And then I would get intrusive thoughts. I remember one Easter morning at church, the message was so good, but the whole time I was just plagued by these intrusive, blasphemous thoughts.

There was a period where I just could not read the gospels because every time, like I saw Jesus’s word in red. There would just be intrusive thoughts attacking his words, and that was so difficult. It was a lot of that type stuff. And also, yeah, like if I did sin and just confessing that to the Lord, but getting kind of obsessive with it, feeling like, did I pray that right?

Did I confess that right? And just doing it multiple times and way more than an average Christian would do. So it was a lot of that.

Carrie: Once you found out what Scrupulosity was, did you seek out any like therapy or medication help?

Ashley: I started looking around my area for Christian counselors or Christian therapists, and I found one, but she didn’t really treat OCD.

This was actually before I really was self-diagnosed with OCD. I thought maybe it was OCD and I talked to her about it and she kind of brushed it off. So that one didn’t really work out and I just moved on. It would’ve been helpful if I was diagnosed a little bit prior to, but I started Googling more in my area around the time, so this was early 2024 when I really knew I had it, and I just could not find a Christian counselor or therapist that dealt with OCD around where I lived.

So I just kept informing myself with all the resources online at that point, and a lot of Ted Whittick stuff. I think I tried to find some books, and then it was in June of 2024 that I found your podcast. I just searched in Spotify, Christian, OCD. I was pretty desperate at that point because I hadn’t really gotten a ton of help.

I talked to my mom a lot. I’m very close with my mom, so I would tell her about it and then my husband, but I needed a little more so, so then I found your podcast. In the first episodes I started listening to, I remember like perfectly, I was cleaning out the basement and I found your podcasts and. I started listening to the personal stories ’cause I’m like, okay, that’s just where I went first and I started listening.

One of the first ones was Michael K. And it was so helpful for me. It was so encouraging to hear other people walking through and hearing it from themselves, all the things that they had struggled with. So I just started there and I bought, um, Michael K’s book and at that point, that was just last summer.

I would take that book to a coffee shop and I would read it and highlight it. It was kind of like a form of therapy for me, and when I read that book, it felt like someone was speaking my own language, like for the first time. That was a huge help. My mom actually purchased the book too, to read it with me, so I did have some great support, although I didn’t have a counselor or anybody yet in your podcast.

I listened to tons and tons of episodes on it, so I was getting so much information from that and the book and that alone, being able to identify what this thing was. OCD, and then for knowledge. So informing myself how OCD works and just reading and listening to a lot of the personal stories. So much healing for me came from that.

And even my husband was able to tell just a huge difference. And the first thing I noticed is just. The things that once brought me so much internal anxiety and turmoil and would affect me through the whole day. That was lessening. The anxiety levels were beginning to go down, but at that point, this is like kind of getting into the fall last year.

I still notice that even though I know what it is now, it’s still really hard to resist it.

Carrie: Tricky.

Ashley: Even though I know God loves me, he’s confirmed to me. I don’t know how many times Jesus has helped me and helped me to know I belong to him. Yet when this comes up, when I get triggered by my theme, I can’t shake it.

Like it was still really hard to shake it. So that was really frustrating. But that’s when I started. Hearing a little bit through your podcast about the ICBT training, I then decided I think I need to pursue this. I think this next level of just information and therapy, I think this could really help with this portion.

I listened to your podcast with Crystal Probes, I think her name is, and she talked about how ICBT helped her be able to shut off those mental compulsions, and that’s a lot of what I dealt with. So I decided to give it a try. And then fast forward to, I took your 12 week. ICBT training and learned so much about it and it helped me so much.

Carrie: That’s awesome. That’s a really great testimony. I’ll hear from people probably on a weekly basis, like looking for Christian OCD therapist in my state, or I’m in this area and I’m trying to. Reach out and find people, and it’s a challenge just to find OCD specialists, but then it’s an extra challenge to try to find someone who’s a strong believer and you feel like, I can’t go explain this to someone else who’s not a believer, because they’re just not gonna get the level of intensity and severity that I feel about this issue.

Ashley: And also for me, that was the first thing when I found your podcast is I’m like, okay. She says she’s a Christian, so I just wanna listen and see where she’s at. And that’s what made me feel safe. Obviously with someone who struggles with scrupulosity, the Lord is very important to them, so you wanna make sure the source that the information’s coming from.

At least for me, I wanted them to share the same faith that I. And that made me feel very safe and that’s why I also felt safe listening to Ted Wiig because he is a pastor as well. It is very hard to find, I feel like, so I’m very thankful to my dear resources.

Carrie: What modules of ICBT did you find most helpful for you?

Ashley: Yes, there was definitely a lot. Honestly, there’s parts of each one that was so helpful, and I’ll just start off by saying like, overall, just to give someone an idea who doesn’t know much about it, it helped for me to disarm OCDs threats and what made OCD seem so convincing. The ICBT helped me. Disarm all of that, which then makes it much easier to just deflect or ignore when it comes up.

Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle at times. I really believe it’s a journey and a process to retrain your brain to think differently. It was nine years for me of living really in a state of fear and my brain thinking a certain way. So I think it takes a lot of practice to undo all of that, but it’s not like an overnight thing, but it is like a healing process and journey.

There’s 12 modules and they kind of build upon each other, and I haven’t really looked at my notes since the spring when I took the class. I just remembered a lot, but going back to look at all the notes was really helpful just to gimme a refresh again. The one thing though, without even looking at my notes that helped me was from module two, which is just kind of figuring out the reasoning behind and the logic behind OCD.

The course teaches that OCD will use facts, rules. Hearsay past experience and the possibility of things to all kind of get all of this evidence that you really need to be afraid of this thing. So to take one of those possibility piece, the Bible has these warning scriptures about apo from the faith.

That’s a possibility that that could happen to somebody if you read it, if you’re interpreting that way. And then it will just take all of these. Facts and things to make it seem real to you. When I was able to break down what OCD was using or past experience is another one I backslid, and that’s what OCD would latch onto for me.

Oh, well that past experience that you backslid, that means you could have fallen away permanently from the faith for each person. It will take certain things just to try to make it seem real. Once you’re able to identify those. You understand why the OCD feels so convincing to you. So that was a helpful piece for me.

Another helpful piece was from module five when I learned that OCD isn’t 100% imaginary. It’s hard because OCD does take real things that happen in the world. Oh, this person, look at you knew that person and they once were a believer, and look it, they’re not following the Lord that could happen to you.

So it takes all these things that are real situations, but it makes it true for you, which is not.

Carrie: That’s the imaginary piece. I think people get like really offended by that. When they first hear it, they’re like, what do you mean? This is all in my head? It’s like, no, that’s not what we’re saying. We’re not saying that you’re making this up.

It does feel really, really real. But the idea is, like you said, OCD is taking like maybe a present moment, uncertainty, and then blowing it up into all of the futuristic thinking that happens. The imagination pieces of like, oh no, I’m gonna be separated from God. Or, oh no, I’m gonna lose my family ’cause I’m not following Jesus.

I’m gonna be over here. Just can go run the gamut of all kinds of what if stories, and so we’re saying it’s like that’s where OCD really misuses your imagination and kind of just hijacks and takes over and creates all these negative scenarios.

Ashley: Yeah. Once you understand that it is a hundred percent imaginary in my case.

There’s freedom in that because what God says about me is true, and I can live in that place what OCD is saying, and that’s for anybody’s theme. It’s very freeing to not have to live in the bondage of what OCD is saying is true for you, whether that’s fear of contamination, fear of sickness, whatever the fear is for the person.

That was helpful. I don’t have to live by what OCD is saying. It’s not real. I can live in the truth over here, and that’s where freedom is and that’s where freedom from fear is. So that was very helpful.

Carrie: Do you feel like it’s like the Wizard of Oz, it’s like this big scary loud thing and then what we’re doing with I CCB T is like, let me show you the tricks.

Like let me show you the sound effects. Let me show you the lighting. Let me pull back the curtain. Like there’s really just the guy back here like running some levers and all this kind of stuff.

Ashley: And then it’s like all your worst fears of what you think is so scary, it’s not even true. So, yeah, I a hundred percent think that’s a perfect picture of what OCD is like.

And it’s so crazy because people that struggle with the OCD, it is so real to them and it creates such turmoil, but it’s not a real threat in reality. Whatever OCD is trying to lie to you about and say, but it’s so convincing to the person struggling with it. I just so sympathize with anybody dealing with it because it is really hard.

Carrie: Yeah. And honestly, like one news story can just spiral people out. One Bible

Ashley: verse for me, in the past, it was one verse that would just spiral me out, and you’re living and your whole day is ruined, or your whole day is spent ruminating on that thing, and it’s just stealing so much away from the person.

It’s really hard to be present, to have joy, to have peace. When you have that all going on in your mind.

Carrie: This is something that I’m really thinking about a lot and as the more that I teach this, the more I’m trying to incorporate, I Ccbt talks about sense data as believers, like we have the Holy Spirit, we have a connection with God.

I know you did a lot of like internal checking and like searching and things like that before with in a compulsive nature, but what do you feel like you clinging to as. Spiritual sense data. Like I know that this is true, that I have a relationship with Christ and I can stand on this versus like what OCD is telling me

Ashley: the word of God.

It says, thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So even in those darkest times. And if my feelings weren’t matching what the Bible was telling me, I clung to the Bible. I clung to God’s word in his promises because that is true no matter what we’re feeling. And that’s true for any believer going through any type of suffering.

And that was my rock through all of it, even if I did it in perfectly. Even if the Lord will never leave you nor forsake you. But I had doubt going on because I was experiencing such a storm of fear. And all this OCD, so it was obviously, I could never a hundred percent say I believed, with no doubt, but Jesus says we need fate the size of a mustard seed, and I would just cling to his promises.

And so his word was really what kept me grounded. And there’s so many Bible verses that have meant so much to me through those times about his keeping power for the believer. That really helped me.

Carrie: I like what you said earlier too, about Hosea. If we really read the Old Testament prophets, like we see God’s heart for people, it’s like, Hey, you’re not doing what I told you to do.

I, like, I’m reading through Isaiah right now and he talks about like this vineyard, I planted this vineyard and like I really wanted it to go well and like produce some good grapes, but all the grapes are sour. You know, because they’re not following. The Lord and, oh, you’re doing all these religious activities, you’re throwing these festivals, but your heart’s all wrong.

You’re not caring about poor people in your community and so forth. And it, there’s a very stark contrast because God will say, Hey, you’re not doing these things. But it always goes back to this hopeful message of like, Hey, I’m going to. Redeem you. I’m gonna bring you back in, like you’re gonna be my people.

Almost like it’s just this back and forth, almost like dance of sin and salvation or redemption and it’s just really, really beautiful. I don’t think that we read those or focus on those enough in the American church in my opinion, because they’re really, can be kind of scary, I think sometimes to read some of those things, but then also recognizing like God’s truly heartbroken when we.

Are far from him and Jose is just a really beautiful picture of God’s redemption. So I love that. I think there’s so many stories in the Bible where we can see how God’s hand is in different situations, and it’s like we can see our story and other people’s stories too. When we read those, it’s like, oh, I get that now.

Maybe a little bit deeper. I relate to that, or I’ve had these experiences.

Ashley: For sure, and one of the things I’d like to say is the worst points of the ooc DI told people close to me is like, I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy of how tick it can feel when you’re going through that. But coming out into the light, which the Lord has graciously brought me, there are times I’m like, well, I ever get over this.

And he has brought me out into the light. And I used to think because year after year would go by, like there’s something wrong with this. Sometimes the suffering that we go through or the test that the Lord allows in our lives, they go longer than we think sometimes. And the one really good gift I feel like OCD has taught me is the depths of God’s long suffering for us and his patience and forbearance towards us because there were so many times I felt like I was on the cusp of like, am I about to lose my salvation here?

That battle I went through, the Lord endures with us and he’s so long suffering, and had I never gone through this, I would’ve never seen it in that way. Another verse that really helped me through that time was it talks about Jesus in Isaiah 42 that a bruised read, he will not break and a faintly burning wick, he will not snuff out.

There were so many times going through OCDI felt like barely holding on like that little bruised reed or that burning wick that’s about to go out. But he will not sn that out. That’s not the character of the Lord. And so that helped me in my time of suffering just to know how gracious and gentle the Lord is in that.

It’s interesting ’cause you think of the Old Testament and a lot of people will think of, that’s more of a picture of God’s judgment and there is that in the Old Testament, but when I was going through my hardest time after backsliding, that’s where God brought me. There’s so many instances of his love for his unfaithful people in the Old Testament, and that’s what really helped me get through that time.

And then I gotta, I have to, and then I’ll say really quick, I have to apply it now. So I’m obviously, we all mess up day to day. None of us are perfect. So that’s been a huge struggle. Okay, I got over, I didn’t lose my salvation. But when I fail, when I do sin, I can be really hard on myself. I think still with that tendency, having kind of sensitive conscience, but we need the gospel.

Just the hope of the gospel, like being able to preach the truth to yourself every day, even over the little things. OCD has kind of, actually, another good thing that came out of it is just I can never make up for my sin or any of that. I have to just thrust myself upon what Jesus has done for me. I just have to abandon all of that.

Worry and guilt and compulsive stuff that wants to come up even over the day-to-day stuff when I mess up and I have to just trust Jesus work for me. Of course, we’re to grow in holiness and all these things, but it’s that trust that saved us at first that we keep having to just go back to as a believer as.

Carrie: That’s good. There are faith components to this. It’s like at some level, like I do need to be able to rest and trust. Tell us a little bit about, what did you think about that contrast between like the feared possible self and the real self and like how did you process that as you were going through ICBT?

Ashley: ICBT taught me? About the feared self or surreal self, which I never considered when I was first learning about OCD and OCD lied to me for years trying to get me to believe the feared self was the real version of me. And so that just paused me to act out the compulsions. To make sure I wouldn’t become that person.

And then just being able to see that as a false label that OCD was putting on me and realize that who I am in Christ is the true version. And as Christians we’re given a new identity in Christ. But then to separate that and realize that what OCD was saying about me or anyone else who struggles with it isn’t true was just real light bulb moment for me.

I can now celebrate the gifts that God’s given me with much more confidence knowing who God’s created me to be. Disregard any of the lies that OCD is trying to put on me. So once we learned in Icbt about the different types of the peered self, that was super helpful so that I could identify kind of where I fell into and then just say, no, this is not who God created me to be.

He does have purposes for me and I don’t have to get all caught up and tied up in believing those lies. So that was super helpful for me to learn about.

Carrie: That’s awesome. What does recovery look like for you now?

Ashley: For me, going back sometimes and like looking over my notes took a lot of, just reminding myself.

I feel like, like I said, I feel like after going through ICBT and learning all of this, it’s a lot quicker for me to recover. So if OCD comes and attacks me versus a year ago knowing what I know now, I can like bounce back quicker. It doesn’t mean I don’t still fall at times or get sucked into something.

I have the tools to get me out quicker. That’s kind of what I guess I’d describe right now is looking like for me. And again, it hasn’t been like super long. It hasn’t even been a full year yet. And then just talking about it with people around me that know. And it’s helpful to share what you’ve learned, at least for me in ICBT with someone so they can kind of understand it and then bounce it off of them.

When maybe you’re struggling or when you just need to talk about it with someone. It’s just an ongoing process of just reminding myself of what’s true.

Carrie: Yeah, I think that’s really good. When you’re able to teach something to someone else, it helps you solidify it for yourself as well. So as encourage people, it’s like find somebody else that you can talk to about this to spouse or best friend or whoever, to just say, this is what I’m learning about OCD and how it affects me and how I can say no to it basically.

For sure. Well, thank you for sharing with us today. And I also hope that this gives some hope to the moms out there that are struggling or people wanting to have children. I think a lot of times OCD people can get really wrapped up in, oh, maybe I’m not gonna be able to be a good mom if I have OCD and. I just really want us to debunk that, miss together.

So if there’s anything you wanna say to the moms out there,

Ashley: I would love to. I have three children and there’s a bit of a gap between my second and my third, and that was because I was struggling a lot with OCD and I really wanted to make sure what hindered me for a while was. The OCD. That was really the only, I wanted a third child, but the only thing that was keeping me back from that was my struggle.

And there was a lot of prayer involved, like, should we do this? Should we go ahead and try for another child? But the Lord brought me to a place of healing and hope. To know that yes, I can. God’s put this desire in my heart and I trust him. And the birth of our third child is such a hopeful story of that alone because there were times when I cried and I just didn’t know if I would ever be able to handle it or to have another child.

And God answered, I cried out to God and he answered my prayer and he did bring healing into my life. And hope our third baby is definitely an answer to prayer for that. Another side note of hope. I just wanna give to people struggling with panic attacks. ’cause that was also part of my story and a very difficult time for me.

It was months of being very afraid of driving in a car, which I had never experienced in my life before. And it can be so intense, but God fully healed me, brought me through that. Just a month ago, we took a vacation and we were on a seven hour car trip. Which at the time when I was struggling with panic attacks, I wasn’t sure I could ever do anything like that again.

So on this seven hour car ride a month ago, I was totally at peace, no hint of anything. And I realized like I got a bit emotional because my brain had fully healed from that, that trigger of being in the car. And it was, I think, less than a year that my brain fully a hundred percent healed. And the timeframe is different for everybody, but I just want people to know that is possible to heal from.

Carrie: Yeah. Panic attacks are very treatable and they can get attached to driving if people are afraid of having panic attack in the car, if they did have one in the car, things like that.

Ashley: Lots of hope. And getting to the root of OCDI think is possible. I know sometimes. People aren’t sure I experienced, at least you can get to the root.

You can help where it starts from and live in freedom and the lord’s goodness he has for you. I know I experienced it and I definitely want anyone else out there that’s struggling and suffering to know that there is hope. You can get to the root of it and find healing.

Carrie: If you are finding yourself needing extra help on your OCD journey and it seems like everywhere you turn, you just can’t seem to get it, please come join me in the Empowered Mind live training.

I would love to have you there. I would love to walk alongside you in supporting you with crafting your obsessional story, examining the OCD reasoning process. Looking at your feared self versus your real self, like Ashley discovered. I want 2026 to be the year that you declare that you are going to walk in freedom and the abundant life that God has called you to.

It’s not gonna be easy. There’s probably some times where it’s not gonna be fun, but allow me to walk with you on this journey. I know that it will change your life and we have a risk-free 30 day money back guarantee because I believe so strongly in this. Go to carriebock/training to sign up today, and you can find that link in our show notes as well.

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 guest are their own and do not necessarilyreflect 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.

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

Written by Carrie Bock on January 14, 2026. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

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

Episode Highlights:

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

Episode Summary:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcript

199. Recovery From Sexual Compulsive Behavior with Greg and Stacey Oliver of Awaken Recovery

Written by Carrie Bock on November 11, 2025. Posted in Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie welcomes Greg and Stacey Oliver from Awaken Recovery to share their journey of faith, healing, and recovery from compulsive sexual behavior.

Episode Highlights:

How faith and community play a vital role in recovery from compulsive sexual behavior.
Why isolation fuels addiction and how authentic connection brings healing.
The difference between forgiveness and true healing through confession and community.
How addiction often masks deeper emotional wounds and unmet needs.
Practical ways to handle intrusive or triggering thoughts through spiritual and mental tools.
How God’s grace empowers lasting freedom and transformation beyond shame.

Episode Summary:

One of my greatest joys through this podcast is helping Christians who struggle with OCD and other painful patterns find deeper healing through the hope of the Gospel.

In this episode, I sat down with Greg and Stacey Oliver from Awaken Recovery to talk about what it really means to experience faith, intimacy, and freedom from compulsive sexual behavior. Their story is one of deep honesty and redemption. Greg shared how years of hidden addiction while serving in ministry left him feeling trapped and hopeless until he stopped trying to “fix it” alone and began inviting God and trusted people into his recovery.

Stacey opened up about her own process of walking through anger, grief, and betrayal—how she wrestled with questions of faith and forgiveness, and how God met her right in the middle of the mess to bring healing and hope.

We explore what true healing looks like through confession, community, and connection rather than white-knuckling our way toward perfection. We talk about how addiction often hides deeper emotional wounds and unmet needs, and how God’s grace can gently uncover those places to bring lasting transformation. You’ll also hear practical ways to handle intrusive or triggering thoughts through both spiritual and therapeutic tools, and why honesty and connection are essential for long-term growth.

If this conversation speaks to your heart or mirrors your own journey, I invite you to tune in to the full episode.

Connect with Greg and Stacey:

www.awakenrecovery.com

www.facebook.com/awakenrecovery

Transcript

Carrie: Hello, OCD Warriors. My hope and prayer is that you have gotten so much value out of our healthy Perspectives on sex series.

And today I have some special guests with me, Greg and Stacey Oliver. They are sharing their personal experience and professional wisdom to talk about compulsive sexual behavior.

Hello [00:01:00] and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower. Wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

One of the reasons for doing this episode is to let you know that if you are struggling with both OCD and pornography addiction, or other sexual compulsive behaviors, that you are not alone and that recovery is possible. [00:02:00] Welcome to the show. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? We actually have two guests on the podcast today.

Greg: Yeah. Hi, I’m Greg Oliver, and I’m here with Stacy. I’ll let her talk in a second. But we live in Birmingham, Alabama, and we have a nonprofit recovery ministry called Awaken that we started in 2015. We have built a community and we provide help and resources for people who struggle with unwanted or compulsive sexual behavior, and also sexual betrayal trauma.

We’ve been building a place where people who struggle in that area can come and find some help and get back to living the life that they were created to live.

Stacey: That’s about it. It’s a good summary. Yeah,

Greg: Good summary.

Stacey: The kind of big summary, but I mean, it’s all true. I, like you said, was devastated and what a journey.

I mean, just processing all of that. I was raised on the mission field. My parents are missionaries and so gonna Bible college, and this is not the story that you’re supposed to get when you pretty much obey the rules. I wasn’t perfect, but I think that was really [00:03:00] hard. And then just the trauma and betrayal and all of that and getting angry.

I have always been able to find anger. I don’t go quiet whenever I’m mad. It would serve if you had a temper to go quiet sometimes. But I do have a temper, but I didn’t cuss, and that’s where I found all the words. So I was so mad.

Greg: You didn’t cuss prior to. Did not. But after, yes, of course. I,

Stacey: I might have said one cuss word or something, but yeah, I found them all.

I just had to process it and get it out. I felt so guilty, and my therapist is like, Stacy, God knows your heart. Just pour out to him and if you don’t get it out and you try to step it and try to be prettier, it’s just gonna come out sideways. It was a process. Yeah.

Carrie: Greg, I think this is a really great lead in to the next question, which is, you were in ministry, you had this secret addiction.

I’m sure there were plenty of times where you just wanted God to take that away from you, or just let me get out of this. Help me find that way of escape. And it was this [00:04:00] silent struggle. I think there’s a lot of men in the church who feel like, no, this is a issue. It’s just me and God. I don’t need, and my wife.

I don’t need to go tell anybody about it. I don’t need to seek help. And what would you say to someone that feels like they’re stuck in that? Secret place of shame, but also kind of telling themselves, oh, well God will fix me.

Greg: I would say, I get it. I’ve been there. That’s what I wanted too. And the other thing I’d say is it doesn’t work.

And the reason why it doesn’t work is because sexual addiction, no matter how it manifests when I say sexual addiction, that can take the form of pornography, compulsive masturbation. Hookups, hiring prostituted people, whatever. I mean, there’s a number of ways in which sexual compulsion and addiction manifest, but if that’s what you’re dealing with, it is clinically understood to be an intimacy disorder.

And so what we’re trying to do is get our connection needs met in isolation, and that doesn’t work because for true intimacy to take [00:05:00] place, that requires at least two people. If I’m either involving nobody, ’cause I’m just using technology, or if I’m using people that I don’t even know or don’t have relationship with, there’s no true intimacy there.

And so even if I’m trying to find help for my problem, I can’t find lasting help if I don’t find a way to connect and be known and be able to show up authentically. That’s the scary part, right? Because especially people who maybe not especially, I was about to say, especially people with Christian faith, I think there’s a different flavor to it when you have spirituality that has a moral component where you know and believe that what you’re doing is wrong, which can enhance the shame that a person feels and can tempt us to drive further into isolation.

And just let me, just, me and God. Well. If just me and God was the way that he wanted to do it, then he would just answer the prayer, snap his fingers and just change. But one of the things that I found really compelling about confession in the Bible is that there are two key passages that I think tell [00:06:00] us different things about confession.

One is in one John one, when it says, when we confess our sin to God. That he’s faithful and righteous to forgive our sin. But then in James chapter five, it says that we are to confess our sins to one another so that we might be healed. We get forgiven if I confess to God, but I’m gonna limit the degree to which I can heal if I don’t bring other people into it.

And it’s not that God couldn’t heal me between just me and him. But the word suggests that he has chosen to make other people a part of that process. The just me and God doesn’t work. There was a time that I wished that it did, like I have relationships and friendships that are so rich and so deep, and people who really know me.

And that concept used to terrify me, and now it’s just something that I hunger for.

Carrie: I think that we see throughout scripture just how God has created us for community and so many scriptures about being in the body of Christ and loving one another. And if we don’t truly know each other are [00:07:00] we aren’t close, then it’s really hard to do that at its fullest, deepest level.

God wants us to do, and I think you kind of exposed another lie about pornography specifically that some people believe it’s like, well, oh, I’m not hiring prostitutes, or it’s just me. Maybe it’s someone that’s not married. And they would say, well, no one’s getting hurt in this process. It’s not that big of a deal.

I’m not married yet. I don’t know. They’re convincing themselves, like maybe their way of remaining some type of sexual ethic or purity. What would you say to somebody that’s like single and struggling with this of, well, it’s not a big deal.

Greg: I’d say that somebody is getting hurt. You are getting hurt.

Carrie: Yeah,

Greg: because repeated sexual activity.

Conditions, your brain and your body to expect and respond to a certain set of stimuli. If I am conditioning myself as a young man to look at pornography and masturbate whenever I feel any sense of arousal, but not only then anytime I feel any tense [00:08:00] emotion or anxiety, because a lot of times sexual release is not even happening because I already feel aroused.

We learn how to use it for emotional regulation. If I’m feeling. Antsy, it’ll calm me down. Or if I’m feeling sluggish, it’ll kinda get my heart rate going. And so I am basically hijacking my brain and my nervous system and my body and training them that anytime I feel a certain way, or just to get into a cyclical pattern, every so often my body is expecting that sexual release.

So rather than sex being what it was created and designed to be, which is a relational outflow of intimacy that’s being built in a healthy relationship between two people now, it’s very object based. It’s like it’s orgasm on demand. It’s whenever I feel like it, I can have it. And the other person, I would say to a single person that it’s hurting is your future spouse.

If that’s something that in your future. If you take this object-based sex on demand rationale or conditioning into your [00:09:00] marriage, then there’s this latent belief, or maybe on the surface belief that sex is gonna be the solution of all my problems. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard men after they got married say, well, I thought that once I got married I would never masturbate again.

Because they think it’s the only reason they’re masturbating is they don’t have a healthy outlet for sex. Compulsion isn’t about like the behavior is serving something deeper, there’s a deeper desire than just to have an orgasm. And so when you can have one with your partner that doesn’t cure the underlying thing that’s broken, needs attention, I would say you’re hurting yourself.

You’re hurting your partner. Not to mention the people who are in pornography, many of whom don’t wanna be doing it, and the whole issue of. Sex trafficking and all that. People don’t even think about what seems like a victimless crime really isn’t because it does hurt a lot of people and sometimes that hurt is time release.

Carrie: I know you’ve talked about this a little bit. Addiction is, it’s like an answer. It’s like a solution to a greater problem, and then it [00:10:00] becomes the problem. And so many people focus just on sobriety and white knuckling and you know, that doesn’t work. What are some of those deeper issues that really drive people to these types of behaviors?

Greg: Yeah, I mean, deeper issue, that’s the phrase, because when there’s a narrative that, well, it’s just about arousal. I mean, I started when I was young and somebody showed me something and I liked it, and so I started. There’s curiosity for sure that plays into it, but the deeper issue is something that becomes evident when I’m using my preferred method of acting out to escape from or to numb difficult emotions.

If every time I feel stressed out or every time a young person. Gets yelled at by their parents or is studying for a hard test, they end up acting out. Then there is a deeper issue going on that’s namely, I don’t know what to do with my difficult or my big or my strong emotions. Some people call ’em their negative emotions.

I don’t think there are any negative emotions, but there are emotions that are [00:11:00] unpleasant. What do we do with those ones that are hard to live with? Well. We learn what to do with them, and for a little while it distracts us and it numbs and it escapes, and it helps us to get away from them. But then they come flooding back and we get to a point where we kind of know before we act out that this isn’t gonna really help anything.

But by that point. We’re already kind of functioning in that addictive cycle. We’re in our ritual, like the trains left the station, and so I’ve talked to other recovering people who are like, they’ve been sitting at home or at their office, and they haven’t even acted out yet, but it’s as if it’s already happened, and so it just gets to be a really helpless feeling.

One of the things that sobriety and pursuing recovery gives us the opportunity to do is discover what those deeper issues are, what those wounds that haven’t sometimes been identified, definitely not processed or healed are ’cause they go way back. I know I’m talking for a long time, but another thought that comes to my mind is.

Pornography, masturbation are [00:12:00] strategies, and by that I mean it’s something that I’ve learned and I’ve adapted my life to pick that up as a way of self-soothing or of trying to provide for my own needs. And it’s not dissimilar to what an anxious toddler will do when they’re sucking their thumb. And we wouldn’t say that a toddler’s doing anything wrong, but what they’re doing is in their body, they feel like something’s off.

I don’t know that anybody’s gonna come and help me feel better, and there’s something I can do with my body to soothe myself. And what we hope is that that child is being attuned to, is being able to securely attach to their caregivers who will teach them as they grow. When you feel these things, you can ask for help.

But gosh, so many of us didn’t have that. And so that adaptive strategy just grew along with us and thumb sucking turned into masturbation, and that turned into pornography, and that turned into hooking up. We may be older now, but it’s the same childish strategy that we adopted when we were kids. That can be one of the many deep issues.

In therapy, we can explore [00:13:00] how the things that happened in our lives affected us and contributed to where we’ve ended up.

Carrie: I wanna touch too, on sexual trauma because so many people have experienced abuse and I think it’s a lot, it’s still hard, but it’s easier for women to open up about sexual abuse.

Than it is for men, and especially if that was childhood sexual abuse and there are all kinds of lies and things that get attached to those experiences that people have had. Sometimes people will act out based on what was done to them and then feel immense amounts of guilt about that. And I’ve talked about that kind of throughout the series, but getting that help for any type of abuse that’s in the background is for great as well.

Greg: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that if we. Try to get healthy. And by that I mean if we try to stop using the thing that we’ve been using to cope without seeking to heal the root issue, then we’re gonna feel worse, not better, because we’ve taken our helper, we’ve taken our caregiver off the [00:14:00] table. And like you mentioned earlier, this is something that helped us until it hurt us.

And so if all we do is get sober. From the thing that we’ve been using to try to make ourselves feel better without getting the true healing, then yeah, that’s not gonna last very long. We’re gonna go back to it or we’re gonna jump to something else.

Carrie: I’m curious about your approach to this, like gospel centered recovery.

I had some interactions with someone that was in some type of like. Sex addict anonymous group, and there was very much a lot of energy surrounding making sure that you didn’t fall back into old patterns. Once you’re a sex addict, you’re always a sex addict to that type of language. I’m just curious about that.

Not to say that we just need to kind of like completely not have our tendencies on the radar, but how do you balance that sense of I’ve been forgiven, I’ve been through some recovery, I’ve received grace. I have new patterns with trying to not constantly look over your [00:15:00] shoulder. Does that make sense?

Greg: Yeah. I mean, we have different elements within our community because we have our recovery portions of our community for men and for women who they themselves struggle with a compulsive or addictive behavior. But we also have a women’s community for betrayal trauma that Stacey oversees. There are still unhealthy patterns that these women, after they’ve established some safety and stability, have the opportunity to look at themselves.

Like what I hear you asking is how does the gospel inform the approach? And once you’re an addict, always an addict, or, hey, you have your unhealthy things too. So what does the gospel do to make a difference?

Stacey: Yeah, I mean, from my personal journey, I think the things that I struggle with, people pleasing doing this kind of work.

I’ve learned to not worry as much. Whenever I meet with a lady and I share whatever she needs help with or share my story, I don’t worry very often if I’ve ruined her or offended her. ’cause I’ll be telling my story and I might say some cuss [00:16:00] words, ’cause that was part of the process, and then I don’t hear from her again.

It would be like, oh, did I say one too many cuss words or any cuss words? I don’t really think about that much anymore, but the people pleasing and like it’s still there or my way of controlling isn’t as obvious ’cause I’m not like take charge kind of person and tell people what to do. But if I don’t know what to do, typically with Greg, I’ll have my anxious ways of trying to get him to come through and make me feel safe.

I will be ask him questions really in the context of recovery because I don’t understand addiction, I can only understand it so much.

Greg: But even those tendencies stick around even as you get healthy. Yes. And so from the recovering addict standpoint, you will go to some of these communities and you hear, well, once you’ve struggled with this, you’re always gonna struggle with it.

And I agree, and I disagree with that. Mm-hmm. Because I do think that something that has had such a grip on your life in an addictive manner, whether it’s control or unhealthy relationship dynamics, or whether it’s a [00:17:00] process or a substance addiction, like. If I don’t continue to nurture the healthy new way of living that I discover in recovery, I could find myself right back there.

I always have the potential. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and he died again. So it’s like just because God does something wondrous or even miraculous. It doesn’t mean that I can’t choose to return, but what I do think the gospel introduces in our community that’s different is we have a higher power with whom we relate, and we see Jesus as the one who is pursuing us and cares more about my health and wellbeing even than I do.

People who don’t have a relationship with Jesus who go to a faith neutral recovery community, that’s still helpful in having a higher power. Many of them would say, this community is my higher power. Right? Because it still is something that’s getting them out of their own head. It’s something that’s getting them out of trying to be their own problem solver because they’re [00:18:00] bringing someone else into it.

But for a Christian to feel like they can invite Jesus into the struggle. That’s really comforting. It’s actually a hurdle that a lot of people have to get over because so many people in addiction recovery have spiritual wounds that have made them feel like they can’t go to God, or that God is either unable, disinterested, or too scary to seek his help.

But once we discover that that’s not his heart, that he loves us, that he’s pursuing us, it’s not that we don’t still have the potential to go back, but something that we have now that we didn’t have before is the knowledge. When I’m triggered, I don’t have to do this anymore. And when you weren’t in recovery and when you weren’t connecting to God for his help, that wasn’t a reality.

Like if I’m all by myself in my active addiction, I don’t have a choice. Like this is going to happen eventually one way or another. And just to know that there’s another way that this could go is so freeing. And I talk to guys and I sponsor guys who are like, man, I [00:19:00] slipped up. But in talking about it, they’re like, I actually know I had another choice.

I decided, screw it. I’m just gonna do this right now. And then they deal with that. But just having an option because you have a God who has given you his strength, that’s greater than your strength, is really helpful in a program that emphasizes our own powerlessness over this addiction.

Stacey: The other day, it was an example of this on my end of, we’ve been in recovery almost 17 years.

Greg has been sober and has not relapsed, and yet it’s been real rainy and cloudy. And I was about to leave and he was gonna be home for a few hours before an elder meeting at our church and. Old Greg would have those dreary days and just feeling blah, and he was feeling, feeling

Greg: funky and tired and lonely

Stacey: could be the pathway to acting out.

But I just said, I think I did a good

Greg: Yeah, you did. I was

Stacey: very aware and I was like, Hey, I don’t want this to come out wrong. I just gotta say that I’m feeling anxiety about leaving with it being so Jerry and you being in a blah [00:20:00] place and it just amazing. ’cause I don’t live in fear.

Greg: It’s that surrender in that moment.

Yes.

Stacey: Kind of answer the question. Like, even on this side, those fears don’t necessarily go away, but I know how to address it. And I said what I said and then I was like, Lord. This is his job now? Not now, but like if anything happens with his thoughts or whatever, like I’ve said what I needed to say and then he’s gotta do his work.

So that was a huge reminder for me of why it’s important for me to keep connected to community and continue to do my work. Mm-hmm. To just speak honestly and clearly, not passive aggressive or, Hey, do you think you should maybe see if anybody wants to get dinner with you? Because I don’t care if he gets dinner with somebody.

I don’t want him to be home. That’s not speaking. Yeah. Clearly. So that’s what I have been working on for years. Yes.

Carrie: I think this idea of surrender is obviously really, really hard. Surrendering over to God and recognizing that we can’t choose things for our loved [00:21:00] ones. I mean, that is so hard and really huge.

Recognizing that we’re not going to get it perfect out of the gate. So a lot of people with OCD deal with perfectionism and feeling like they’ve gotta micromanage their own sanctification process instead of letting go and really trusting the Holy Spirit’s work in their life. I’m just curious. What you could speak to regarding that?

Just that process of surrender and like learning trust, because I do really believe that our trust is developed over time and

Greg: yeah, I just keep thinking about what you said about people who are trying to do this on their own. Nothing has helped me get out of my own head, like having another person that I just say my thoughts to out loud because there have been plenty of times that I’m having a thought that in my own head makes perfect sense.

As I’m saying it out loud to another person and I see them kind of smile and I’m like, oh, wow, I’m really obsessing about that, or it’s been swirling around in [00:22:00] there and I need to just say it out loud in order to be able to see that’s not what’s really happening right now. Something that I would have a lot more trouble surrendering to the Lord because I’m complicating it in my own head to have someone that I trust, and a lot of times for me, it starts with a person.

If I wanna ultimately process that with God, I will be able to do that more easily. If I first practice with a trusted friend, sometimes it’s Stacy, sometimes it’s a friend in recovery. Sometimes it’s my buddies who are therapists. I just say, I need to share some things. ’cause I feel like I’m getting in my head about this.

That’s so valuable. I mean, sex addicts anonymous. In the Green book, they describe. Sex addiction as an obsession and a compulsion. If your listeners are people who largely struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder and maybe they’ve gotten that diagnosis, think about if you uniquely have extra trouble obsessing about things or being compulsive in how you approach things.

And then the thing is [00:23:00] something that even if you don’t have that diagnosis. Is obsessive and compulsive. It’s like, oh my gosh. Like you’re just throwing a thousand pound weight on somebody’s back and it’s too much weight to bear on our own. And that’s why I think if we’re going to experience surrender, then we have to find somebody who can help us bear that burden and somebody who can say, I hear what you’re saying.

But I don’t think that’s what’s happening right now. Or what about this? Or sometimes people will say, I never do anything right, or I never make the right decision, and somebody else can say, but do you remember yesterday when you were triggered and you called me and you ended up not acting out like that?

Was you making the right decision? We’ve gotta have people reflecting that to us because we can’t trust the way that we’re often interpreting things or processing things in the moment.

Carrie: I think that’s so huge, and I see that in terms of people who are struggling, obviously with any kind of recovery, whether that’s like mental health or addiction, is they don’t see their own progress.

A lot of times they see [00:24:00] all the areas where they’re not doing well, and as a therapist we’re able to say like, point out well, but yeah, how you handled this situation was differently. Or do you remember six months ago like what you were struggling with? And then they’re like, oh yeah, I remember this one thing would’ve been really, really hard for me.

Greg: Or even sobriety, I mean, because there are people who really have struggled with getting obsessive about their day count. And one of the things that we do in our community is we don’t do this every meeting, but we do it once a month so that it doesn’t get too much emphasis. But we do acknowledge recovery milestones by handing out sobriety chips.

There’s 30, 60, 90 days, six months, nine months, and then the year marks. And we emphasize that getting a chip doesn’t make you better at recovery than someone else. And having a slip doesn’t mean that you’re not taking it seriously, but it’s an opportunity to rejoice with those who rejoice. It’s an opportunity for us to be grateful for the work and the change God is bringing.

It also brings us hope if we come into it thinking there’s no way that [00:25:00] anybody could ever get sober. ’cause we see that they can. But I’ve had people who have obsessed and the obsession over the day count actually is working against them. And I had a guy who was two days away from hitting 90 days. He was really looking forward to that chip and he got stressed out at work and he ended up acting out at 88 days.

He called me and he was just destroying himself verbally. I mean, he was despairing. He was calling himself every name in the book. And when he stopped long enough, I said, I can understand your disappointment. I get it. Can I ask you about something? He goes, yeah. I said, when was the last time you went? 88 days without acting out.

And he just started crying. And he’s like, I’ve never gone 88 days without acting out. And I said, well then why aren’t we talking about that? People who get caught up in these obsessive spirals, they’re not obsessing about all the things that are going right. They’re obsessing about all the things that are going wrong or that could go wrong.

Oftentimes, we need people who can bring hope back into the [00:26:00] conversation.

Carrie: Yeah. That’s really, really good. I wanted to ask you one more question in terms of pictures that may come back into your mind. I think that this is something that some of my listeners really struggle with. So I’d say, okay, I’m not acting out anymore.

I am not engaging in these compulsive sexual behaviors, but sometimes the pictures may still pop into my mind and I feel immense guilt about that. Or then they’re trying to control it by some type of mental compulsion, which of course doesn’t help the process. So can you talk a little bit about that with just how people handle that, because obviously we can’t erase those pictures from your mind or anything of that nature.

Greg: Well, trying to erase them I don’t think is helpful. Trying to ignore ’em and act like it’s not happening is not helpful because again, we’re staying internal and that’s gonna get us all stirred up. I think. I mean something that I’ve done in the early days and weeks and months and years of my own recovery, when those invasive thoughts would come in.

Is, I would speak about them out [00:27:00] loud. One thing that I believe and still believe is that invasive thoughts are a tool that our enemy, our spiritual enemy, tries to use to discourage us. When I would have these memories of things that I had done pop into my head, if I was by myself or if I was in a place where I could do this, I would say, yep, that’s what I did.

But that’s not who I am and that’s not what I’m doing now. I would kind of speak to it, and it helped me, even if I wasn’t with anybody, to say it out loud so that my ears could hear my voice saying it for me, that is an exercise in doing what the Bible says in, is it first or second Corinthians 10 that says, but take every thought captive to Christ.

It’s like the thought is there. I can’t make it go away, but what I can do is say, I want that to be submissive to Jesus because that thing that I’m remembering is something that I’ve confessed and something that Jesus has forgiven, like in taking a captive to Christ. Part of that for me is reminding myself.

Of the [00:28:00] fact that Christ doesn’t remember it because the Bible says that God has separated me from my sin as far as the east is from the West. And so if I believe what Jesus says he does with my sin, then I can say, okay, I remember that because I’m still in a fallen body in a fallen world. And that makes sense.

I have an enemy who hates me and doesn’t want me to progress. So yeah, I’m just gonna name it what it is. That is something that I did, but it’s not where I am now and I’m choosing not to give it power. And if we have a trusted friend that we can call or a sponsor even better, just to say, this thought came into my mind and I don’t wanna just dwell on it.

I wanna name it because sometimes naming it, there’s a theologian named Steve Brown and he talks about like when the demons are like flying in our face, like his imagery for these memories. He’s like, grab that demon, kiss it on the lips and just throw it into the light. It’ll disappear. ’cause he is like, demons thrive in the dark, but they die in the light.

Just exposing those thoughts to light is something that has been really powerful in my life [00:29:00] and in a lot of people that we work with.

Stacey: And I think the spouses as well.

Greg: Yeah. Married. Yeah, because

Stacey: I dug too hard and I wanted details of the acting out. Mm-hmm. Situation that he had when all this came out and I ended up having to do EMDR over it ’cause it would not leave my brain.

Yeah. But I tell people that and I do it too. Like, yeah, he did that same thing. That’s not where he’s living now. He’s not doing that now and he does not want that. So I can stop thinking about it, talk to a friend, and don’t let myself just keep replaying those

Greg: excessive memories. It’s like it’s when those happen, there’s a part of us that can get really triggered to revert to kind of a child consciousness.

’cause we’re taking that memory and we’re overlaying it onto our life now. And it feels very much like that’s something that’s happening now. But by staying connected and learning through therapy and through safe connections with people who can lead us spiritually in our lives, we learn how to stay an adult in that moment.

Right? And say, I always think about, and I [00:30:00] refer to the scene in the first Jurassic Park where the kid was freaking out because. The guy who was in the car with them had left them. He had abandoned them. And he was like, he left us. He left us. He left us. But then the guy who was with him now said he grabbed him by the shoulders.

He looked him in the eyes and he says, but that’s not what I’m gonna do. And so it’s like reminding that young part of us that’s afraid, that thing that we’re remembering is gonna come up again. It’s like, yeah, but that’s not where I am now. And there’s a lot that’s happened and there’s a lot of healing that’s taken place.

It’s learning how to stay in that adult consciousness. We have been so used to letting the kid take over and drive the car. And that just happens over time. It happens over time. Work and surrender,

Stacey: rewiring those neuro pathways.

Greg: That’s it. Yeah, The insidious thing about that too, just to add one more thing, is it can start with guilt and shame as we remember it, but that can easily morph into euphoric recall.

We get in that vulnerable, emotional place where we feel guilty and shame. Then as we remember the things we did and now our emotions, our capacity is diminished. Now we can actually experience arousal remembering some of those things, and we’re not fortified to stay in the present. We feel that first hint of shame coming on.

Name it. Find somebody that you trust that you can talk about it with, who can help you. Remember, [00:32:00] that’s the past. It doesn’t have to be the present.

Carrie: And I think that that’s encouraging for anybody to say these things take time and they take practice and they take intentionality and they take community.

And professional help. A lot of times you’ve gotta have a full wraparound of support there. But I loved what [00:31:00] you said about the thoughts and this being a way to take them captive and reminding yourself, I’m not there anymore. Like I’m here in the present. God has made me a new creation in Christ and it’s an amazing work in my life, and I know that I’ve done a lot of trauma work with people who have come out of various addiction backgrounds.

Come a long way, but they were still holding onto so much guilt and so much shame for things that happen during their active addiction.

Carrie: This has been a really great conversation. I think that our audience will really be blessed by it, and I appreciate both perspectives of you sharing.

Greg: Well, Carrie, thanks for having us on.

Yeah, thank you. It was nice to meet you at A A CC and just to have a chance to talk about what we do and yeah, it’s, it’s a joy and a privilege.

Carrie: I love having people like Greg and Stacy on the show who can talk from a place of lived experience, but also how the power of the gospel and sanctification therapy community have all worked together to bring them to a different place than where they started.

As always, you can find more information about our guests in the show notes or by going to our website, kerry bach.com. Thank you so much for tuning in today. 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 guest are their own, and do not [00:33:00] 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.

196. Healthy Perspective on Sex Series: How Do I Recover from Purity Culture?

Written by Carrie Bock on October 20, 2025. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie launches the Healthy Perspectives on Sex Series, opening up about her personal journey of recovering from purity culture and how its messages shaped her faith, identity, and view of sexuality. She also explores how purity culture has impacted many Christians struggling with OCD and intrusive sexual thoughts, offering insight, grace, and hope for those seeking healing and freedom.

Episode Highlights:

How purity culture shaped a generation’s beliefs about sex, faith, and shame, and why many are now seeking healing.
Why fear-based messages from both secular and Christian cultures created confusion around sexuality and intimacy.
How purity culture can intensify struggles with OCD, scrupulosity, and intrusive thoughts related to sexuality.
How to begin identifying and challenging false beliefs about sex that do not align with God’s truth.
Practical steps for healing from sexual pain, trauma, or shame, both emotionally and physically.

Episode Summary:

This is one of the more vulnerable episodes I’ve recorded in a while. I really wrestled with whether or not to share this story, but as I prayed and felt the Holy Spirit nudging me, I knew it was time.

If you grew up in the church during the height of purity culture, with the “True Love Waits” pledges, purity rings, and all the “just don’t do it” conversations, you probably know how complicated that message could be. For me, those teachings shaped my faith and my view of sexuality in ways I didn’t even recognize until years later.

As I’ve looked back over the podcast, I’ve noticed that episodes about OCD and sexuality are some of the ones you listen to the most. That tells me many of you are wrestling with intrusive thoughts and shame connected to faith and sexual themes. I think purity culture has played a big part in that, and it’s time we start talking about it openly with both truth and grace.

In this episode, I’m opening up about what recovery from purity culture has looked like for me, how God has been bringing healing and freedom, and why I believe it’s so important for Christians to start having honest conversations about sex, shame, and grace.

This isn’t an easy topic, but it’s such an important one. My hope is that by sharing a bit of my own journey, you’ll feel less alone and maybe even take a step toward healing yourself.

So if you’ve ever felt caught between the messages of purity culture and what you sense God’s heart truly is for intimacy and wholeness, this episode is for you.

Explore Related Episode:

132. Sexual Obsession or Lust? Scrupulosity Wants to Know with Steve and Carrie

Transcript

Welcome back to the Christian Faith and OCD podcast. One of the things that I really strive to do as your podcast host is to look at what episodes are you guys most interested in, and giving more of those episodes to you. Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace. We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in today’s episode.

I’ve always noticed that personal stories do really well. It helps reduce shame, stigma, and so we try to throw a lot of personal story examples of people who have struggled with OCD and have worked through treatment and come out to a better place in their recovery. That gives you guys hope and encouragement, and so as I was going through and looking at our download numbers and episodes that you guys were most interested in, what I found was we had a pattern: whenever we do an episode regarding OCD, sexuality, that gets a pretty high download number. Back on episode 1 32, I talked with my husband, Steve, about “is this a sexual obsession or lust,” and I really just wanted him there for the male struggle regarding lust. And what is that experience is like? Because obviously I know it’s very different for males than females, and this tends to be an obsession that I’ve seen a lot more men struggle with than women. So that episode was pretty popular. We had an episode back on 1 63, “Overcoming Shameful Sexual Themes.” And so those two episodes, in particular, have seemed to be way more popular than some of our other episodes.

So I know that a lot of you as Christians out there are dealing with sexual themes, sexual obsessions, and you’re really struggling. It’s something that you can be very ashamed about. You don’t wanna talk to anybody about it. How in the world could I tell someone that I’m dealing with all of these sexual intrusive thoughts? So I thought let’s go ahead and just do a whole series, and I’m calling it the Healthy Perspectives on Sex Series. So this is gonna run for the next several weeks. If you don’t deal with any sexual themes, I guess you can kind of skip over if you want to, but I think that there will be some really good information in here for you regardless.

To be completely transparent, I have been procrastinating on getting today’s episode done. My assistant will tell you that things are usually prepared much farther in advance than this particular recording of this episode. And as I sat down to record it and looked through the struggle, I realized what it was. I realized, just through prayer and connection with the Holy Spirit, and what I felt like he was speaking to me, was that I needed to get kind of personal on this episode. And that’s really hard because, quite frankly, I have family members that listen to this. But in the end of the Holy Spirit and I wrestling with this and me saying, “Hey, we really have to put all that in there, God. I think people could still benefit from this episode. I don’t really need to know all Carrie’s stuff regardless.” But the Bible tells us in Revelation that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. I am here to tell you today that I’ve been through some stuff surrounding sexual things that I’m gonna get into—and nothing super graphic; we’re not going there today—but I will tell you that I have a testimony, and I want to be able to share that with you. The reason for that is if the pain that I have experienced, and sharing some of that with you, if that helps one other person who hears this out there, then it is completely worth it.

I want to talk about my story today. I’ve had some time and some distance removed from some of these things that helps me be able to talk about it, and I have had a lot of therapy and healing and prayer and different things that have really helped me be able to move forward by the grace of God. That’s the only reason that I am here speaking to you about this today.

Today’s topic is recovery from purity culture. Now, you may or may not be able to relate to this. I grew up in a very conservative background. My dad was a pastor. I am in my early forties right now. Around the time I was a teenager, it was very much promoted: the IAH State and goodbye. The True Love Waits campaign was absolutely huge. People were getting purity rings. There was a lot of conversation surrounding saving yourself for marriage. Now, the reason for this was because we were dealing with things on rapidly on TV and on the internet. It was getting more and more perverse. I think our parents’ generation saw this, that we were being exposed to things that they were not ever exposed to. I think the movie Titanic came out somewhere around—I could be totally wrong on this—but I was maybe in middle school, maybe 11, 12-ish, and everybody was going out to see Titanic, like it was a really big deal. It was a huge movie. My parents went to see it, and they were like, “Nope, you’re not watching that.” And I was like, “Why? I don’t understand. Like, all my friends are seeing this.” And I think over time they finally relented. Like after all of my other friends had seen it, then my best friend was like, “I’ll go with you, and so I’ll see it again.” So her and I went and saw it. I think it had something to do with the sex scene in the car and probably something else, and you didn’t even see anything, but my parents were just like, no, that’s too much. Respect their decisions, ’cause they were just trying to raise me right. I’m not judging that—just to give you a glimpse that that was the culture.

The culture was very much the only conversations surrounding sex were “No, no, no. You don’t do that until you’re married.” And this has been very damaging for a generation of individuals, for a generation of men and women. I believe a lot of times we focus on it being damaging to women, but I think it was equally damaging to males as well. I am a part of a group of therapists that are in the Nashville, Tennessee area, and I will see people running groups all the time about recovering from purity culture. So I know that this is a thing that people experienced, and let’s talk about the reasons that it was damaging—were because we did not have a balanced perspective of “God has created us as sexual beings,” and one of the things I want to point out here is when we look at the Bible, we’re seeing people who are getting married much younger than we are getting married today in a more modern society, except for if you are in other countries. Some places, they’re getting married younger, but in the broad generalization, Western cultures, we are getting married much older. And so we have to kind of take that into consideration: that we have urges and things that were fulfilled at a younger age back in the day, and I’ll probably bring that up again in future episodes.

However, from what I remember of the education in the nineties and going through the True Love Waits—I read that book; I read some other books that were maybe a little bit more balanced—and it was very much a big focus about saving yourself for marriage. There were a couple things that, for me, happened within me that may have not happened within other people. One, it caused me to fear sex, and I didn’t get that balanced perspective of “God has created you as a sexual being; that is a good thing.” That goes all the way back to creation—when you look at God creating Adam and Eve in his image—that they were naked and that they were unashamed, that there was this sense of heightened intimacy, and it was beautiful, like God said it was good. So there wasn’t a perspective of “Hey, sex is good if you use it within certain boundaries.” It was just like, no, we don’t do that. We don’t talk about sexual things. And so then, as a child, I’m like, okay, so if I don’t talk about it, that must mean it’s bad, ’cause I think there’s probably other things that are bad that—oh no, don’t say anything about that. And I think some of that was just that generation—they didn’t talk about those types of things. Hopefully we’re finding some more balance in our generation.

You may have not grown up in the purity culture generation, but you may have grown up with parents who were influenced by it. And I have to realize some people my age have children that are getting to be almost grown, right? Understand that there’s a wide variety of ages that may have been influenced by some of this teaching in the church culture. And the problem is when you believe maybe sex is bad, or it’s dirty, or it’s not a good thing because I’m just being told “no, you just don’t do that until you’re married,” and it can have all these horrible consequences. I remember, like, in youth group, we watched these interviews with Dr. Dobson and Ted Bundy. I don’t know if anybody saw those. I think they’re on YouTube. Wild stuff—just very extreme. Ted Bundy was a serial killer, but it all started with pornography, and so you gotta stay away from pornography. I mean, that was just—for my nervous system as a middle school, high schooler growing up in a conservative culture—that was too much. It really was. And if it scared some people outta using pornography, great. I don’t think it probably had the intended effect that they were hoping that it would have. But I remember watching those videos and being quite horrified by those.

Then you also add this other layer that I was in public school, and we go to public school and they’re like, “Hey, don’t have sex because you’re gonna get all these horrible sexually transmitted diseases. And now let me show you an entire slideshow of genital warts and other infections and different graphic pictures of all of these different things,” and quite frankly, that was traumatizing. I mean, I don’t know any other way to say that for a highly sensitive person who’s growing up in a conservative culture, and I can’t go home and say, “Oh, hey mom, they’re showing me pictures of penises at school.” My parents would’ve been horrified. They had no idea that all of that was going on and that that was part of the sex education from the school system.

There was fear on both sides. There was fear from the non-Christian, secular side about sex: “You’re gonna get all these diseases.” And then there was this fear from the Christian side of “You are going to really harm your relationship with God, yourself, your body.” All of that—and the intentions were to protect me, and, like, as a full-grown adult, I can understand that now, and I can respect those people and what they were trying to do on both sides. However, I am going to say it again: it was really damaging for me.

I got into a relationship in college and ended up marrying somebody that I had met, that we were serving together in the church, you know, continued to be in a conservative culture. And then you get married, and all of a sudden you’re just supposed to be, like, able to have sex now? I mean, like, there’s just supposed to be some kind of switch that gets flipped in your brain—at least this was how I thought it. And then you’re supposed to, like, I don’t know, know how to do these things and be good at it. That’s so unrealistic. That is an unrealistic picture that comes from our culture of TV and movies where people just meet somebody, and they magically fall in love, and then they have this great, amazing sexual encounter. That is such a lie out there, if you don’t already know that. It’s a huge lie that many of us believe, and then it causes us to shame ourselves of like, “Wait a minute. I don’t know how to be a good sexual partner. I’ve had no experience with this.” And then some other people, that led them to believe, “Well, maybe I should have some experience with this before I get married.” And I don’t believe that is what God wants us to do.

According to what Scripture says about sex, I still hold to a conservative standard of sexual ethic, but I want you to know kind of, like, what my process has been on recovering from purity culture. One of the things I’ve had to realize is that: A) God created sex; B) sex is a beautiful thing if it’s in the right boundaries; and C) God wants us to enjoy this intimate connection with our spouse that we are married to and that we are in a fully committed relationship.

A little bit back to my story: flipping that switch was very, very challenging for me. I did kind of, like, get to a place where I could be sexual and all of that type of stuff, but I think I still had, in the back of my mind, maybe some ideas about sex that probably weren’t true or weren’t accurate, or I just had a lot of confusion. I think probably, like, how do I reconcile all the things that I grew up with—who I am now? Like, I know I’m married, and I know, like, sex is okay inside of marriage and all of those types of things, but I think that there was just a lot of confusion there.

So, God creating you as a sexual being goes back to Genesis, but also read the book of Song of Solomon, which made it into the Bible. Okay, so some spicy stuff made it into the Bible for a reason—because sex is beautiful, and I believe that the enemy wants nothing more than to distort this because of how good and how beautiful it is. Genesis also talks about two becoming one, and that is not just a physical connection. That’s the thing that you need to have an understanding about sex that I was not taught growing up. Sex is more than a physical connection. The reason that there are boundaries surrounding it is because God loves us and because sex is an emotional connection. It’s a spiritual connection. And so you do not want to be spiritually and emotionally or physically connected to somebody that you are not married to, that you are not in that committed relationship with, because it leads to all kinds of problems. And you know somebody that could come to your mind right now that should not be in a relationship and probably would not be in that relationship had they not jumped into bed with that individual—because now their soul is tied to that person, and their emotions are very much tied to that person, and they’re having a hard time pulling back from that.

The second point that I wanna make here is it’s really important for you, if you’re gonna recover from purity culture, to look at: what were the things that I was directly told about sex, and what were the things that—maybe it was an undercurrent—maybe it was something I picked up, or I came to reason to believe, and it was reasonable that I should come to that reasoning process? To really just identify what some of those things are. Some women are led to believe that all men care about is sex, and this causes major problems for them when they get into marriage because they think, “Oh, well, you only want me for my body,” and that could be not their husband’s intention at all. Men are trying to get a sexual need met, and then women are like, “Whoa, there’s sexual needs and there’s emotional needs,” and a lot of time it’s really important for women to feel that emotional connection before they have sex. And it’s really important for guys to feel, like, physically attracted and to feel good about themselves, like, engaging in that encounter. So it’s a complex thing that happens.

How did you come to believe certain things about sex—whether it was “sex is bad,” “sex is dirty,” “men are just out to have sex, that’s all they want” (kind of like that dirty old man syndrome), “sex should be painful,” and that is not true. If you are a woman, please do not believe that—run so, so far from that belief. Maybe your beliefs about sex are, “Well, sex is a natural thing, and so therefore I should just be good at it, and I don’t feel like I’m very good at it, and so I just don’t wanna engage there.” Maybe your beliefs are that sex isn’t safe because you’ve had abuse in your past, or you’ve had trauma, and so it’s really hard—even though you know you’re with a safe person right now—it may be that it’s really hard for you to be vulnerable with that person and open up to them. And that is totally normal. We’re gonna get into some of those things in later episodes.

But if you’re able to sit down and identify, “Okay, what are these lies, basically, that I have believed about sex, and do those lies align with Scripture?” And I wanted to focus on some sense that it’s normal to feel pain during sex that some women may believe—it is not. I have experienced sexual pain at a variety of different points in my life, and the things that have helped me with that have been seeking gynecological help, going to a pelvic floor physical therapist—I didn’t even know what that was, I mean, for a long, long time. So if you don’t know what pelvic floor physical therapy is—sounds really out there—it’s more common, probably, or understood by women who have had babies because everything just gets screwed up, okay? When you have a baby, like, it’s crazy. But they don’t just help with women who have had children. If you are having sexual pain issues, I really encourage you to be evaluated, and if the first person doesn’t listen to you or they don’t help you, go find the next person who can help you. The first time, I had to go through many different providers before I was really heard and understood, and they were competent enough to be able to help me, because the initial people that I found were not confident enough to be able to help me and, fortunately, finally referred me to someone who could help me. Pain is not okay. It’s not normal, and it’s something that you really have to work with and communicate with whoever you are with in dealing with that.

I felt a lot of shame for a long time because I felt like somehow the pain had to do with my purity culture upbringing and my rigidity about sex and la, la, la, la, la. It was not true. I had a physical condition that I was dealing with, and once I got treatment for said physical condition, the pain went away and life was good. I share that to say it is possible for you as well if you are dealing with any type of sexual pain, to just reduce the shame surrounding that and say, “It’s not okay. I’m not going to deal with this, but I have to have the courage, and I have to be able to face that and get the help.” And that is super, super hard, especially if you’re dealing with a lot of shame or a lot of embarrassment: “I just don’t really want anybody touching me or dealing with that.” But that is something that you have to work through, and certainly find a therapist that can help you work through the emotional side of going through that, because that is challenging.

The third thing that I want to say is that you want to replace those lies that you are believing—figure out where they came from, and then seek truth. What is true? Go back and read Genesis. Go back and read “they were naked and unashamed.” Go back and read that “the two became one flesh.” Like, God didn’t mean for us to be alone—he wanted us to be able to connect in this way, and that level of intimacy, in a lot of ways, is a mirror of our intimacy with God. We want to be close to God and unashamed. We want to be super connected with God and have an intimacy in our relationship with Christ. It’s not the same—it doesn’t exactly all fit together—but hopefully you understand what I’m saying is that there was a sense where people could be fully open in the Garden of Eden with God without the sense of needing to hide their bodies. Go read Song of Solomon, even if it makes you blush. Go ahead and read that. Read what Paul talks about in terms of the marital union, and he talks about how we are the bride of Christ and our husband is representing Christ in the relationship. And yes, this is a marriage, but it’s also this picture of the connection between Christ and his church. That is a beautiful thing. Hey, sex is part of that union. It is part of that connection. It is part of that intimacy. Your physical body, including your sexual organs, were created by God—they are not bad. So that is another belief that some people hold: that not only “sex is bad,” but “oh gosh, my private parts are.” No, they are not.

Teach your children the correct name for private parts. I’m a really big proponent of that. My husband thinks I’m a little nuts, so I’m like, it’s important. I don’t want her to have any kind of shame surrounding that area of her body. I know that these things are super hard to talk about, but if you have dealt with any kind of sexual trauma, any kind of abuse, any kind of someone exposing themselves to you—even if it wasn’t something where you’re like, “Oh, well, that wasn’t a big deal. It was just kids playing around”—if it bothers you, go to trauma therapy. Get in some counseling, please. It will change your life if you find the right provider that you feel like you can trust, that you feel like you can connect with. Getting that trauma therapy—I had to go through therapy over those sexual images that I saw in health class, okay? And most people would be like, “That’s ridiculous. Like, no one was killing you at the time.” I agree. But it was traumatizing to me. So nobody else gets to say that wasn’t traumatizing to you and your nervous system, because they’re not in your body. And I think part of the reason it was so horrifying was because I thought, “Oh, I know my parents wouldn’t want me to be looking at this,” growing up in that very conservative environment. And my dad’s, like, even calling the health teacher trying to find out, like, what exactly they’re gonna be teaching and what’s going on, and I’m sure she minimized everything.

I know a lot of people make light of trauma, and they say, “Oh, it’s not as bad as somebody else’s,” but just to say that if it bothers you, and it still bothers you, or still comes back, or you still think about it, or you feel like it’s shaping your thought process, then go ahead and get some EMDR for it. Brainspotting. I have—I don’t care what you do, but get some healing for that. It’s just so important, and it’s gonna affect your relationships, whether you’re single and wanna be married, or whether you are married, whether you’re divorced—whatever you’ve been through—please get the help that you need. And if you need help for your physical body, if you are really struggling sexually for any reason, definitely look into pelvic floor physical therapy. Look into going to a gynecologist, talking to somebody about this. As embarrassing and uncomfortable as it is, it’s time that we free ourselves from the shame of getting what we need.

I definitely believe that for—if you are super struggling with OCD, sexual intrusive thoughts, and you think, “There is no way that I can go talk to another person about this,” that may be exactly what you need to do. And you don’t necessarily have to go into massive amounts of detail about all the things that are coming up in your head in order to get the help. Your counselor is gonna be able to teach you skills and help you know, like, what to do when those intrusions come up. It’s super important, in terms of OCD, that there’s maybe a lot of mental compulsions—whether it’s confessing those thoughts that are coming up or repeating a certain Scripture verse or other things that you’re doing in your mind, like trying to replace it with a positive image. All of those things are actually strengthening the OCD because it’s the obsessive-compulsive loop—that you’re just stuck in, and you’re going around and around. So, as hard as it is, it’s important to be able to learn those skills not to react, and then maybe the same way that you are reacting.

I have a self-help course which integrates Christianity with inference-based cognitive behavioral therapy. I would love for you to check it out on my website—it’s just kerry bach.com/training. If you’re not at a place where you feel like you can go to therapy and talk with somebody, or maybe you say, “I just can’t seem to find the right provider. I keep running into walls. I can’t afford it,” this self-help option is available for you, and I hope that it’s really your entrance in being able to get the help that you need. God wants you to thrive as a healthy being—physically, emotionally, mentally, and yes, sexually. God is for you. He loves you. I hope you hang around and check out the next few episodes that we’re gonna have on the Healthy Perspectives on Sex Series. See you then.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

192. What I Wish Pastors Knew About OCD with Rachel Kuchem Woodward, LCSW

Written by Carrie Bock on September 25, 2025. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

Carrie is joined by Rachel Kuchem Woodward, LCSW, a therapist with lived experience of OCD, to discuss how pastors can better support those who struggle through insights on discipleship, treatment, shame, and spiritual warfare.

Episode Highlights:

Rachel’s personal journey with OCD and how her faith community played a role in her healing.
How pastors can discern between normal spiritual wrestling and scrupulosity.
The role of safe spaces, gospel-centered preaching, and grace-based discipleship in supporting those with OCD.
The overlap of OCD and spiritual warfare, and how to navigate it without fear or confusion.
Resources for pastors and helpers to grow in their understanding of OCD.
Rachel’s upcoming book Gap Filler: Captive to Captivated and the hope it offers to both sufferers and shepherds.

Episode Summary:

Struggling with OCD in the church can feel overwhelming and deeply misunderstood. What if pastors had the tools and insight to offer real, gospel-centered support instead of leaving people stuck in shame and confusion?

In this episode, I sit down with Rachel Kuchem Woodward, LCSW, a therapist who not only treats OCD professionally but has also lived through it personally since childhood. Rachel shares her story of intrusive thoughts, scrupulosity, and the long road to finding help through both pastoral care and effective treatment.

We dive into the powerful connection between OCD treatment and discipleship, the ways shame and intrusive thoughts take hold in the church, and how to discern the difference between ordinary spiritual wrestling and scrupulosity.

We also talk about the overlap of OCD and spiritual warfare—not as something to be feared, but as a reminder that the enemy wants to distract us from Jesus and shrink our world down to our doubts.

Rachel’s story reveals how pastors, counselors, and the gospel can work together to point people back to hope.

If you are a pastor, a mental health professional, or someone walking through OCD yourself, this conversation will encourage you to see God’s grace more clearly and help you understand how to move toward freedom.

🎧 Tune into the full episode.

Connect with Rachel Kuchem Woodward, LCSW:

re-vivinglivescounseling.com

www.instagram.com/revivinglivescounseling

Transcript

Carrie: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Today on the podcast I am joined by Rachel Kuchem Woodward for a conversation about what I wish my pastor knew about OCD. Rachel is a therapist with lived experience of dealing with OOCD, and she just has some great insights. We’re gonna get into topics like the connection between. C. D treatment and discipleship, OCD and spiritual warfare.

So this is a conversation that you’re not gonna wanna miss.

Hi. Welcome, Rachel to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became an OCD therapist.

Rachel: Yes. First of all, I’m just so thankful to be here. Thanks for having me, Carrie. I’ve enjoyed following you and what you do. I am a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Texas. I have a private practice.

It’s a Christian counseling practice called Reviving Lives Counseling here in Fort Worth that I started in [00:01:00] 2019. Short version of the long story is that I have struggled with OCD myself since about the age of 11. I’m now 35, and so I had a long journey involving pastors walking with me and OCD and helping me learn about it.

And then later on got clinical treatment with ERP, with my counselor, who I still see to this day. And I started seeing her around the time that I opened my private practice. And I really enjoyed getting to incorporate everything I’ve learned about my own OCD journey. Both from my pastors and my time in counseling into my practice with treating clients.

Carrie: That’s awesome. You told me that it was actually a pastor that had identified some scrupulosity for you and got you on that journey. Yeah.

Rachel: That’s such a wild story and the longer I am in this work with clients, the more I recognize how like rare that is. I guess to back it up just a little bit, when I was a preteen around the age of 11, it was when I really started questioning.

Am I a believer? Am I not? I didn’t have like a definable day ’cause I was blessed to grow up in a household [00:02:00] that never knew a day without Christ, thanks to my wonderful parents discipling me, but not having a day. Started off a couple years of just a dumpster fire in my little mind of not being able to define, you know, was I Christian or not.

And so at the time my parents were walking with me in that, a youth pastor at the time, but I don’t think any of us really saw it as OCD. Some of it just seemed as like a honest. Wrestling with faith with the pastor at that time. And then as I got older, I was like 19, 20, and at that point was talking with my pastor Darwin.

Pastor Darwin is his name. Shout out to him. He was the one who identified OCD in me. We were talking about some of my concerns about whether or not I was a pedophile and just some intrusive thoughts I was having about some sexual curiosities I’d had in the past. When that was coming up with him, that was when he kind of gently brought up like, Hey, dear, one, like, I think there’s some OCD tendencies going on here.

So the first time I really heard of like OCD and knew what it was, was actually from my pastor about the age of 19, who also knew I had some screw [00:03:00] velocity as a young teenager, but became more defined with some of the sexually intrusive thoughts I was having.

Carrie: Yeah, this is interesting and I would agree with you that that’s rare that I don’t know that I’ve had somebody come to me and say, Hey, I think my pastor actually like identified this or said, Hey, I think this is what you’re struggling with.

But I think about that and when you think about that middle school age, like that’s a common time for people to start questioning their faith. Like, do I really believe everything my parents believe? Am I actually saved or not? And then even like what you were saying with young adulthood, kind of in the 19 to twenties range, there may be a lot of different questions about sex relationships.

And so it just kind of shows how OCD can take those types of things that people experience and hijack them and blow them up into something even like way worse than that normal like wrestling process. And so. For all the pastors out there who are not Pastor Darwin and not as maybe mental health informed, or even if they are [00:04:00] mental health informed, they may know about anxiety and depression, but not necessarily OCD.

So we kind of kicked around this idea. How could we have a conversation about what do we want pastors to know about OCD? For you, like what was the most helpful support that you feel like you got spiritually during that time when you were having those wrestlings? What did that look like? Having people pray for you, having people like guide you about

Rachel: suffering.

Yeah, I love that question. I think both Pastor Joan, our age of 19, 20, 21 and later on, pastor Brian, shout out to him in my mid twenties. Both of my pastors did a wonderful job of pointing me to. The gospel in a way that I’d grown up with the gospel, but it became more specific to my actual struggle with OCD.

Like a lot of time spent around shame. I was feeling, I was feeling a lot of shame around intrusive thoughts, wondering if I’m a pedophile, wondering if I’m a Christian. Like it’s a very shameful topics. And so I think my pastor’s embodying to me like just a safe space to just be and to just get emotional support and pointing me to.

Just the [00:05:00] gospel and that Jesus wasn’t grossed out by me and they weren’t grossed out by me. And then just practically they would tell me like, yeah, I want you to go love on the kids in our church nursery. Like it was kind of without maybe them knowing it very like ACT and ERP informed of like, let’s take a step towards your values and let’s, let’s do some exposures.

Although I didn’t know what that was at the time, but Right. And so I think my fear, when I first shared this with my pastor years and years ago, I was like, oh my gosh, what if this, if I shared this, would he report me like all my OCD thoughts? And of course he didn’t. Just having people that embodied the Lord to me and letting me just take a breath, especially around the shame space, I think was one big piece that was really crucial for me.

Carrie: Was that something that got attacked? Like were you working with children at that time, like either professionally or in the church? Like was that why It was totally, you was stuck on that?

Rachel: Great question. I’d grown up working with kids like in children’s church and babysitting and all this. So it was already kind of, yeah.

Then at the age of 18, 19-year-old, I’m minor anymore, I do all these like ministry safe trainings. Oh right, yes. Which, you know, and I’m like, I can’t come get background checked and yeah. And [00:06:00] I’m like, what is this? So I think it just created this headspace of, oh no, a lot of it, the trainings were really what, if I remember correctly, the, the first time I did a ministry safe training was when like just became like a dumpster fire in my brain.

And that’s when I went and talked to my pastor at the age of 19.

Carrie: That’s a really great training. My first exposure to that was like probably a couple years ago, and I’ll say it’s a really great training, but it’s also equally terrifying because it simply tells you that like anybody could be a pedophile and you just, you don’t know.

Rachel: Yes. Well, and I think about it too. I was a social work student and as you undergraduate, I mean child abuse and CPS and all these things were, which we needed to learn about as social workers. But that was also a backdrop of like giving my brain some water. So,

Carrie: okay. It all makes sense now. Like you kind of unravel the layers, right?

Yeah. And the different things that OCD attached to like, so you would say like, okay, understanding that this what the gospel in terms of this, about what Jesus did, not about like a [00:07:00] workspace salvation. ’cause I think sometimes with people with OCD, you really get stuck on the workspace piece of it.

Rachel: Totally. Yeah, I would agree. I think just having pastors who were pointing me to grace, and even when I think about it, not just in one-on-one time with me over coffee, but even like how they would preach, I always appreciated that Pastor Darwin and Pastor Brian, like if a topic of of sin came up, it was always in the way of like, Hey, and for those of you in the audience have a really sensitive conscience, please hear it this way.

Like they would intentionally preach that way, which again, as I’ve learned, is so rare as I word people who unfortunately their pastors maybe aren’t phrasing it that way. So. Both in one-on-one discipleship and then also just like how they work, how they are as shepherds over like the church and how they’re articulating concepts like sin.

Yes, it’s very like grace based and keeping your eyes more on Jesus than on like micromanaging your sanctification, so to speak. So

Carrie: that’s definitely a good way to say it. ’cause I, I’ve seen that a lot. Yeah. Micromanaging your scientification, like, yes, I’ve gotta do this, I’ve gotta make it all happen.

Let’s talk about how some of these [00:08:00] general doubts, like spiritual doubts that you see, we call that scrupulosity too. If people are new to OCD, those are your more religious based doubts and can be doubts about whether or not you’ve committed blasphemy. The unpardonable sin. Am I really saved? Like it can cover a variety of things.

A lot of questionings about have I sinned or not, like you said, and kind of trying to deal with that. Was this a sin, was this not? And then that can definitely come up in sexual themes. Have I lusted, have I not? We did a show on that quite a while ago, but how can pastors identify. The difference between somebody that’s having a genuine, just spiritual wrestling and everyday kind of, I don’t know, maybe I’m not saved, versus somebody that’s dealing with OCD.

Like in your experience, how have you seen that look different?

Rachel: You know, I think Carrie initially, ’cause I’ve been thinking about that question a little bit initially, it can look similar just to encourage pastors, like initially the wrestling. Versus OCD might look similar. So I think the [00:09:00] initial conversation, there’s such a space to like, yeah, people have honest, spiritual wrestling.

I think some things that to look for are if it starts to loop or repeat itself or like they’re gonna re-ask the question the same way or they’re gonna come back a week later with the same. Question. I remember one time Pastor Darwin, I don’t remember what my question was, but I remember he actually like paused me.

I remember actually being a little frustrated with him in my head ’cause he was like, Hey, basically like, I love you. I’m not gonna answer that again. Yeah. Which was so helpful ’cause he wasn’t like to use the word co compulsing with me to just reassure me about something we’d already discussed. And so I think if you find yourself as a pastor reassuring someone more than once or twice, it’s like it continues and it seems like there never is an answer.

I think we’ve moved outside of wrestling into an OCD space, especially if the person isn’t able to accept like any uncertainty, any mystery whatsoever. I think those are some initial flags I could think of.

Carrie: Yeah. You reminded me of another interview that I did with a guy who talked about he had been divorced and that [00:10:00] really the.

Scripture about remarriage had like really, really troubled him. And so every visiting pastor that he would see in the church that would kind of come through as they were traveling, he would ask the same question of them. Like, Hey, tell me about this remarriage. Like, is it okay to get remarried? And all of those things.

Rachel: And I think the topics I see that come up with, I mean, to your point, it could be some morality question like marriage. It could be, I’ve seen it come up with am I a Christian? Am I going to hell? I know my journey. The other big one was the have I sinned one? ’cause I interpreted the verse first John one, nine that says if you confess your sins, he’s faithful.

And just, I took that to mean if I don’t confess my sins, I’m not forgiven. Ah. Just I think even how scripture is framed is important and how pastors like walk with people.

Carrie: Yeah, tell me about that discipleship piece, because I don’t know, I’m assuming this just from what I’ve heard from other people, but like what I see a lot of times is people have just, I don’t wanna say bad theology about who God is.

Who God [00:11:00] really is like, yes, there’s justice. There’s also love like, and the wrestling of combining and understanding that, and you brought up mystery, you know, there is some mystery in the Christian faith. There are some verses that we’re gonna wrestle with probably till we get to heaven and not fully understand.

And so what is your connection between discipleship and also getting good treatment and clearing up? I think some of those lies about who God is, what he wants for our lives, those types of things.

Rachel: Absolutely. Yeah. So I think pastor er one of my time with him, how he discipled me. I can vividly remember some conversations around the gospel, especially those passages, and I believe in First John, I think it’s four of how God is love and really fleshing out to your point, like God’s character is love.

It makes me think of someone I look up to currently. I might have heard of him, Ted Whittick. He talks about how God’s character. People of OCD tend to view as if God is gonna drop them, versus God is holding them like a kind parent. So I think in my time with Darwin to tie that illustration and learning that God was holding [00:12:00] me, not gonna like let go of me and pointing me to scriptures that were more about that and less about sin.

Not that sin is not important topic of course, but looking more at God’s character than about, again, micromanaging. Have I and have I not? And then I think what that looks like with Pastor Brian was, I vividly remember him pointing me to just stories in the gospels of where Jesus was interacting with people who felt shame, like women at the well, or the woman who was bleeding, or the adulterous woman.

I think John a, it’s one of my favorites. And so just pointing me to these stories of Rachel Luca, how compassionate Jesus is towards these women who feel shame. And that was very transformational for me. ’cause I, I read those story growing up, but had never connected it to myself and the shame I was feeling.

There’s just some specific initial passages I can think of of how my pastors like discipled me, and then specifically with being clinically treated. So I was 29 before I got formally only six years ago, which is crazy. Got formally diagnosed with OCD from my Christian, but clinical counselor, and I wasn’t even there initially for OCD, which is funny, thinking about it.

[00:13:00] And so she did a lot of the exposures with me around the fear of being a pedophile. Which I thought were dealt with by that point, but clearly we’re still dumpster fire in my mind. Yeah. And at the same time, I was still meeting with Pastor Brian who is still encouraging me around like Jesus and shame such that when I was going through exposures with Michelle, shout out to Michelle, my wonderful counselor, she would have me walk up to the shame, the fear if, if I was a pedophile and then I was hearing from my pastor.

And even if you were not that you are, but even if you were like, where would Jesus and the cross? And so really I feel like I have this Venn diagram story that’s unique of like, I had care at the same time from both my pastor and my counselor, which I think was really a beautiful marriage between clinical and the biblical.

Carrie: Was there a point where your pastor said, Hey, I think I’ll continue meeting with you, but I think you need to talk to a professional. Was that how you got into therapy or?

Rachel: That’s a great question. Yeah. Brian was always, and still is, very supportive. I’m so thankful. I’ve had pastors who are so supportive of mental health.

I’m like, yes, counseling go, which [00:14:00] is, I also have learned is rare. But again, at the time, what’s funny is I had kind of signed myself up for counseling to process, like life transitions, starting to own private practice. I wasn’t even there for, but then I think it was like five sessions in and she was like, hello, there’s something you really need to deal with.

So we started processing it that summer and then I would tell Brian. Thankfully having people at my church who, if I ever sounded like I was starting to loop on something, they would tell me like, Hey, why don’t you run this by Michelle? This sounds like a little OCD sneaking in. I’d be like, oh, thank you.

Appreciate that. So they were aware of it. That’s good. It was kind of how that, I guess, organically came up.

Carrie: That’s interesting. So for your exposures, were you spending more time around children or were you doing some imaginal script writing? Like what did that look like?

Rachel: Yeah, it was a lot of imaginal in vivo script writing or I guess, yeah, I guess not in vivo, but imaginary script writing and like writing out the word pedophile.

What if I’m a child molester? Just like, and kind of walking it up to it in my mind at that point. I would say still [00:15:00] some contact with children, like children nursery occasionally. I remember a fall. I intentionally was like, okay, let me just like sign myself up to serving in children’s nurse free again, because literally my mind hasn’t processed this yet.

They probably don’t dunno, that’s why I was there, but I was like, I there to serve, but I also need to expose myself. They were just happy to have the help. I mean, yeah, I was like, I, I need to take diapers and be okay, you know? But anyway, but yeah, I, um, very much, a lot of it was imaginary, writing out certain words that were triggering and letting it just flow where it did.

So for me, a lot of it was riding the wave of shame. I think a lot of exposure rate can be riding in the wave of anxiety. I wasn’t like physically anxious about it or panicky. I was just very, had a lot of shame. It led to very dark thoughts of self-harm. I mean, that kind of a thing was riding the wave of, and that’s where Jesus met me and showed me like, there’s nothing I can’t fill.

I can fill the gap for you on anything including this horrific thing.

Carrie: That’s incredible. I mean, I think that that’s a really great testimony just to say that Jesus has released you from that shame of having those [00:16:00] intrusive thoughts. And was the diagnosis part of that too? Just recognizing like, oh, it’s not really me just creating this randomness in my mind, this is actually like OCD.

Rachel: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that knowing that I had OCD, so I forget, first heard the term from Pastor Darwin and then went to different conferences and was learning more about it. But then when I got to Michelle going like, oh, I have OCD with Viro subtype, you know, spiritual screw velocity, and then realizing even.

Gosh, it was only a couple years ago. I realized through the I-O-C-D-F, which I’m very passionate about, what they do, kind of shout out to them. There was a group session they had for pedophilia, OCD, and I was like, what is this? I was like, wait, this is an actual subtype of OCD because Michelle was treating me for it.

She didn’t label it as like, this is pedophilia, OCD. So it was more recent. You realize like, oh, like there’s all these different subtypes. I have like five of them. Along with like harm OCD relationship, OCD, all those like hidden kinds are ones that I’ve wrestled with. But definitely knowing that it was OCD is very liberating.

’cause then to your point, not in my head about why I’m in my [00:17:00] head.

Carrie: Yeah, that’s great. It is helpful to know. It’s like, oh, I’m not the only one. That’s going through this. I think that’s really huge in breaking down the stigma and the shame of the whole thing. I wanna talk about a little bit about mental compulsions.

’cause you said it’s really all going on in your head. You’re not checking doorknobs, you’re not wiping things down with disinfectant or, and this is a lot of people that I see as well deal with a lot of mental compulsions. So what did that look like for you in the spiritual realm? Was there a lot of like repetitive praying or things of

Rachel: that nature?

For sure. So kind of walking through my seasons group velocity, I would say initially it looked like a lot of mental ruminating. Am I Christian? How do I know if my sweet dad or pastor said something? Encouraging, which it was, but then analyzing, well, how do I know if that’s true? Just ruminating on things.

In my mind, confessing sin. Sometimes I was a little external, but often like reviewing, have I sin? Do I need to confess this? And then

Carrie: like internal checking.

Rachel: Internal checking, right? And then [00:18:00] certain verses, which I have a lot of precious clients who also have this, but certain sermons or verses, I’m like, I take it black and white, very literally.

A big part of my testimony with that was, I think I was 20. I don’t know why it is a vivid memory. I was driving on the highway one day and it occurred to me, I think this was the Holy Spirit, but at the end of Psalm 1 39 says, search me and know me. Save there, be any hurtful way in me. Leave me in the way ever lasting.

And so just putting that responsibility on God. God, you’re the Holy Spirit. You show me if I’ve sinned. I don’t need to keep micromanaging and triple checking, have I sinned and letting him be the spirit rather than me trying to do that. But the age of 20, thankfully, a lot of the spiritual scru, really after a decade of it.

Majorly died down. I’m still aware that I have tendencies like that to this day. I have to be very careful if I confess this and it’s like two seconds, move on. Like we don’t ruminate. So I still have some inclinations towards that, but that’s kind of what that looked like for me.

Carrie: But I mean, that’s very hopeful for people to hear that.

There was a time period where it was really, really rough and consumed a lot of thought energy, and now you’re just able [00:19:00] to say like, uh, okay, don’t slip back into that. Like the warning signs, like, that’s a slippery slope. Don’t keep going. This thing that I’ve seen with clients, and maybe you’ve had people say this to you too, is they’re like, I don’t wanna just blame my OCD.

What if I’m really sinning, but then I’m saying it’s OCD, getting attached to this. How do you address that? I’m laughing ’cause I had a sweet client tell me that last week and I was like, oh,

Rachel: how I process. I literally told her, I said, what a great question. Let’s process that together. I think somehow, Carrie, when we’re working with clients that are believers, which this climb speak was, if we can point ’em back to the cross in the gospel of like, thankfully Jesus has you.

So let’s walk up to, okay, sure. Let’s pretend you were sydnee. I’m confident that the spirit in you will show you through conviction, not condemnation. Yeah. And so CD is always gonna have a voice of condemnation and a blooping and never ans it never resolves. And the spirit is going to be through conviction.

That leads me to love God and love people not implode. I think something in my own story I’ve learned over the years is just not get on the [00:20:00] despair train. Like if it’s leading towards despair and doubt, that’s probably not a fruitful thing for me to get on and trying to explain it that way to clients.

Carrie: No, I think that’s great. I think we, kind of going back to what you said about micromanaging your sanctification, it’s like if we can help people see, you really can trust the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. It’s just so mind willing. The Holy Spirit is in us. So I can’t wrap my mind around that. That is a really big concept.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like we can trust that conviction is a good thing and it’s healthy for us, and it maintains our relationship with God, and we don’t have to run around and micromanage our spirituality. We can show up every day and say, here I am, God, I’m a mess. I’m broken. I’m dealing with this sin issue like I’m fighting and I need you.

We really wanna create that healthy level of dependence and trust on God versus. Feeling like we’ve gotta do it all ourselves.

Rachel: And I think that even ties to identity as believers. Something Pastor Brian really kind of drove [00:21:00] home with me is that like we are the beloved, like we are his beloved children.

And if my posture towards God, or towards my head space with OCD is I’m just a beloved child, that gives so much more breathing space than trying to drill down. And again, micromanage. And trying to make sure to cross every T dot, every I, it’s like, well, if Jesus already died, he crossed every T and dotted every I for me.

So I don’t have to keep doing that anymore.

Carrie: I am really interested in this next topic, OCD and spiritual warfare, because this is something I think I’ve been asking God about. It’s like, what role does spiritual warfare play in OCD? And we want to be really careful because then people get. Super freaked out like, am I possessed by demons?

No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We are talking about that we do see in scripture that our battle is not against flesh and blood, and that there’s spiritual things happening, even like our flesh and the spirit. There’s a war between Satan and what he’s trying to accomplish in Jesus and what he’s trying to accomplish on this earth.

So how do you see those playing [00:22:00] out like the spiritual warfare in OCD?

Rachel: I love this and I loved knowing that you’re gonna ask about it. One of my most passionate topics. Yes. So I think initially, if I’m processing this with a client or friend or whoever, making sure they first know, to your point, you know, OC D is a mental health issues so that people don’t oversize because we both probably heard horrific stories of people who had demons prayed out of them, and it wasn’t a demon, it was just OCD.

So usually always start with making sure someone understands it’s a mental health issue. Then once they have grasped that, then I will gingerly tie in spiritual warfare. If I sense, honestly, I pray like the spirit leads me to bring that into a session. I think with spiritual warfare, I often see that come up.

I’m gonna quote Ted would say again, but he’s phrased it as OCD is kind of the surfboard that’s already there and the enemy kind of rides on the back of that surfboard. And so thinking of, you know, in John 10, it talks about the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy. These are the brethren. What revelation is it?

[00:23:00] 12 or wherever that is. And so if I see a client really being accused, often it’s the accuser coming on on the back of OCD, which is the doubting disease anyway. And I think helping people know spiritual warfare, to your point, doesn’t have to be this woowoo thing I think we think of as demon possession.

Not that I don’t think demons are real, that’s a thing. But I think it can even be through the enemy trying to distract us. Because enemy’s goal is to get our eyes off of Jesus. However that looks with someone who has a sensitive conscience like me. It might look like, let me get her to stew so much on her sin that she’s not looking at the cross anymore.

I believe that spiritual warfare, I think the enemy wants us to micromanage our faith and shrink our world down to the size of that, and that is spiritual warfare. So I think you’ve been helping people define like if your world is shrunk down to the size of a sin, that’s maybe the accuser accusing you of something to get your eyes off of the Lord.

Carrie: And just this idea that in terms of OCD and values and acceptance and commitment therapy is about moving towards your values. And so we’re, we’re helping people with that in the process of [00:24:00] therapy. And oftentimes people want to do something and it could be a variety of different things. It could be, I want to get married, I want to date in order to get married.

I want to go on a mission trip. I want to serve in the children’s ministry. Feel like they can’t because they feel like OCD is so bad. I’m just, life is a little bit arrested because of all these thought loops that I’m constantly in. And so that’s where I see it as like people having difficulty moving towards the things that they really believe wholeheartedly, that God wants them to pursue.

And so I think anything that we can do as believing clinicians to help support people in that process is, is so huge to know. Like. No. Like we want you to walk in the abundant life that Christ has for you and move forward.

Rachel: Absolutely. And I really love the verse in Psalm 34 that talks about magnifying him because I sometimes I tell clients like, Hey, whether it’s the enemy attacking you, or it’s OCD, we don’t even have to like analyze.

I’m all about saying one prayer, like, Lord, if there’s attack going [00:25:00] on, protect us one and done. So it doesn’t become a compulsion. But after that it’s like we don’t even have to scrape the bull, so to speak. And pinpoint is this enemy, is this OCD? Is this leading me to magnify God? No. That’s all I need to know.

I think sometimes that’s really helpful for someone with SCR loss or OCD to know that they don’t even have to completely like, well, is this the enemy or is this OCD? This isn’t of Jesus. It’s not leading me to love God and love people. So I’m gonna, to your point, walk towards my values of love, God and love people, and be embraced by God and his character, and move towards that.

Carrie: I think another way to say that is like love or fear, am I in complete terror? We know that that’s not of God. Yeah, that’s a helpful distinction. Yeah. Perfect. Love cast out fear. Yeah. That’s awesome. So you’re in the process of writing a book, which is really exciting. So tell us a little bit about the book and where that’s going.

Rachel: Yeah, I love that you asked. So my book, Lord Willing, will be coming out next summer. I’m in the process of figuring out self-publishing and that whole process, but it’s called Gap Filler Captive to Captivated, and it’s a [00:26:00] unique book, I think, ’cause I’m trying to speak to two audiences and build a bridge between people who have OCD, the suffer.

People who are trying to help OCD, the helper, whether they be a clinician or a pastor, have a big heart for shepherds in the church and for pastors particularly. And so it’s a resource to help bridge helpers and sufferers to have less triggering, more fruitful conversations around specifically pure o those more hidden types of OCD.

I’m gonna try to address it holistically and biblically and show how Jesus fills the gap, which the whole book unpacks the gap. Illustration is something Michelle drew me back when I was in counseling with her for OCD, and then Jesus kind of gave me part two of the illustration of the cross filling it.

And I’ve used the illustration with clients. They have found it really transformative, and so I’ve decided to build a book around that whole. Illustration from my own counseling journey.

Carrie: Oh, that’s really exciting. I’m so excited for you. And I think that that’s gonna bless a lot of people and hopefully God will open doors for you to be able to share more about that.

If pastors are looking for other [00:27:00] resources, like you mentioned Ted Wick. Sorry, so I said his name wrong. But, um, are there other like books that you’ve read or things that you’ve found helpful?

Rachel: Ted has some great resources. One of my friends and colleagues, um, Justin Hughes. He’s in Dallas. He is a Christian counselor and very passionate about this topic like I am.

I would definitely point to his resources. He’s writing a book as well on OCD, which is very exciting. And then I think there’s even just some great resources on OCD, like on Piro in general. Like there’s different workbooks and I think are helpful just for pastors to understand like what it is. Um, I like Mike Emile’s article on OCD.

He’s from CCEF, if you’re familiar with them. He kind of talks about kind of spiritual as heart themes that we have with OCD, like perfectionism and certainty and those sorts of things. And there’s a good book called Christianity Cure, OCD by Ian. I forget his last name. Osborn. It’s Osborne. Yeah, that’s a good one.

Yeah, so I would say there’s some on group velocity, spiritual OCD, and there’s some, even just basic OCD [00:28:00] ones. I think if pastors even just understand what OCD is, it can be helpful.

Carrie: And for anybody who’s wondering why I haven’t had Dr. Osborne on the uh, podcast, he has declined saying he is too retired and old to be on the podcast, but we still love him anyway.

We love him. Hurts out to him. Yes, absolutely. Hard part. Yeah. That’s a very interesting book and talks about Martin Luther’s story. Mm-hmm. And just like what grace and that understanding and how that changed everything for him was really insightful. Yeah. From what I remember of that and really just getting to that place of can you trust God with a, whatever that Harry scary thing is.

That’s what I kind of remember the takeaway from that book. If you can boil it down, like is this something you can really trust God with?

Rachel: Absolutely. I think he has another book out about just Martin Luther. I saw something a couple weeks ago and I was like, oh, I don’t know. Anyway, but, and there’s even some great devotional resources like Pastor Brian years ago recommended I read Gentle and Low Leaf.

You’ve heard of that. That one is great to just point people to God’s character. It’s not OCD per se, but I feel like it [00:29:00] was written for someone like me. So worth mentioning. That’s a great resource as well.

Carrie: Getting back to that father, heart of God is so huge, and that can be hard for us to understand and really conceptualize.

Well, this has been a really great conversation. I’ve enjoyed chatting it up with you. I know we could probably go on and on and on, but we’re gonna Yeah. Wrap things up. I like to ask some of our guests who have struggled with OCD, like, what do you feel like recovery looks like for you now?

Rachel: I love that. I think an ongoing embracing of uncertainty and taking leaps of faith every day in my life.

Whether that’s with how I read a verse that used to trigger me or how I interact with a client, if that triggers my harm, OCD or how I’m with a kid in the nursery, if it triggers pedophilia, OCD, like I’ve still triggered. I just have a relationship with uncertainty now that I’m more resting and um, Jesus is my certainty.

Carrie: That’s great. Thank you for sharing. That’s very helpful.

Rachel: I just appreciate you having me in everything you do.

Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning [00:30:00] in today. If you know a pastor that needs to hear this or a friend that needs some encouragement, will you please send this episode to them so that more people can experience hope and know that God is with them on their OCD journey.

184. From Questioning God’s Will to Embracing Grace: A Personal Story with Michael Kheir

Written by Carrie Bock on July 29, 2025. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

Episode Highlights:

What it’s like to live with scrupulosity (religious OCD) from childhood into adulthood
How to tell the difference between conviction from God and intrusive OCD thoughts
Why legalism, fear, and shame often get tangled with our view of God
How becoming a parent deepened Michael’s understanding of grace
What it really means to walk by faith—not fear-driven compulsions

Episode Summary:

This week marks the final episode in our Personal Story Summer Series, and I can’t think of a better conversation to close it out than this one with Michael Kier, author of Waging War Against OCD: A Christian Approach. If you’ve ever felt like your relationship with God was more about fear than faith—or if you’ve ever wondered, “Is this conviction from the Holy Spirit or just OCD?”—then Michael’s story will resonate deeply with you.

In this episode, Michael shares what it was like to grow up with scrupulosity, a form of OCD that turns faith into something fear-based and obsessive. He opens up about the intrusive thoughts that shaped his childhood, the spiral of guilt and compulsions he faced as a young adult, and the pressure he felt to constantly “get it right” with God. For years, his view of God was clouded by fear, shame, and a rigid idea of what it meant to be holy. But through Scripture, therapy, and ultimately becoming a parent, Michael began to experience something radically different: the steady, unshakable grace of God.

Our conversation dives into the real-life tension between legalism and grace, and how OCD can mimic spirituality in ways that are hard to untangle. His honesty is refreshing, and his story is a beautiful reminder that God’s love isn’t performance-based. It’s consistent. It’s gentle. And it meets us in our mess.

I hope it reminds you that healing is possible, even if the symptoms don’t disappear overnight. You can live a life of peace, presence, and deep trust in God—even with OCD in the mix.

So go ahead and hit play on this one. I think it might be exactly what your heart needs today.

Transcript

Today, here I have Michael, author of Waging War Against OCD: A Christian Approach, and Mike was kind enough to send me a copy of his book so I could read it. People don’t always do that—sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. That’s the secret to being a podcast interviewer. I feel like it goes much better when I understand the book and have read it.

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Carrie: Welcome to the show, Mike.

Michael: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Carrie: This is your personal story, really, of OCD and the things that you found that helped you. And I saw, as you were writing it, that you had referenced a lot of other books that you read on OCD—books that were Christian, books that were secular. But it sounds like you’ve done your research over the years.

Michael: Yes. I think I started reading about the subject a lot when I was about 24 or 25 years old. The first one that I read was Grace of Bounty by John Bunyan. I think my mom actually found it somewhere and gave it to me, and I remember I started crying when I was reading it because it was immediately relatable to me, and I thought it was so cool that somebody that was used that mightily by God had a very similar struggle. I kind of felt like God probably used that struggle to use him in big ways. That was really encouraging to me, and then from there, it was 2007, so we had iPhones, and the internet was very accessible, so I just started googling and researching a lot and found some stuff, but not enough that made me feel like everything that needed to be said on the subject had been said. That’s sort of what motivated me to move forward and start writing.

Carrie: In the book, you tell many relatable stories of how OCD affected you, starting in childhood and then going through adolescence, and adulthood. Would you mind sharing one or two of those?

Michael: Sure. I’m going to bring one up because we might come back to it.

There was one that happened in college, a bunch of kids from our church. I went on a spring break trip, and we were all sort of sharing living spaces. The guys had like an apartment, the girls had an apartment, and I remember I was in our apartment and there’s like a living area and I was talking to some of my roommates and then a guy and his girlfriend walked in and at some point, I remember thinking, my shirt untucked I need to tuck it in and I think I like unzipped my pants just a little bit, tucked it in and then zipped it back up. No one would think anything about it because we were in a living area. It was a very laid-back environment. I don’t even think I was close to any of the girls, but that one girl was there. I just remember obsessing on that and thinking, if she saw me do that, that would be horrifyingly inappropriate as a Christian man to do something like that, and I just obsessed on that idea not immediately, but probably a week after we got back from the trip. I just started obsessing on that, thinking I was in the wrong.

Every time I would try to read the Bible or pray, I would think, I believe it’s Matthew 5:23 that says, if anyone has an offense against you, leave your gift at the altar or your sacrifice at the altar, go make it right, and then come back. Every time I would sit down to pray or read my Bible, I would think, it’s like all OCD.

There’s a 1 percent chance or a one in a million chance that this girl’s offended because she might’ve seen it and she might’ve interpreted it wrong. This went on for, I think, a couple of weeks and I eventually was like, the only way I can get rid of this fear, the one in a million chance I offended her is to apologize, which, in part of my mind, I knew was completely insane, inappropriate, and like, she would be like, what on earth are you talking about? So, I knew that in part of my brain, but I just couldn’t get rid of the fear that I was in sin. I think I emailed her boyfriend and said, if she saw this, I’m really sorry.

My heart is pounding as I’m doing it because I know how crazy it’s going to come across, but I did it and the moment I did it, it was a very powerful moment in my life. I realized what I had just done was not at all, like, relieving in the sense of, okay, I’ve done the will of God. It was more like that was not right.

Something about that was off and that helped me, that was kind of a pivotal moment in my journey of realizing that giving in to every compulsion to remove the one-in-a-million chance of something happening was not the right approach. That’s the big one that sticks with me a lot.

Carrie: Were there any stories that your parents or others close to you didn’t know about until you started writing these things down?

I guess I was thinking that there was a story about you being concerned about suffocating your stuffed animals and they had to be tucked in just a certain way and you’d lay there in bed at night and like losing sleep. Like, did your parents know any of that was going on in your mind?

Michael: I would say that one they may have known, but there were so many that they did not know.

I can’t think of the ones offhand, but I would say most of them, they did not know until I was an adult. I remember sitting in a parking lot, talking to my brother in my 20s, and I was explaining some of the thoughts I was having, and they were all OCD thoughts, and they were overwhelming me, and I remember he goes, you have thoughts like that?

He knew I had OCD, but I don’t think he had any idea of what the toll it took, and how it looked in the brain, and that’s sort of what I really tried to convey when I told my story, is like, when I’m sitting in that moment, these are the thoughts going through my head, and even my mom, as she’s read it after it’s been published in the last couple weeks, has said, man, I’m learning a lot, and I think she knew most of it, but she probably didn’t know how to deal with it and ended up either suppressing it or just kind of putting it in its own little compartment in her head because it was Something she didn’t know how to deal with to help her child.

Carrie: That’s so great one of the reasons I love this show is because we’re able to break the stigma and talk about some of these things when you’re in your own mind having those obsessions There’s this element of feeling so alone and disconnected and nobody else understands what it’s like to live in this mental gymnasium.

Michael: Absolutely. I think part of the stigma is that mental health issues make you less than or less intelligent and I almost look at it like LeBron James, the best basketball player in the world right now, if he had an injury, we wouldn’t say, that guy is such a terrible basketball player. We’d be like, he has an injury and he has to recover from it or he has to compensate for it.

I see mental health the same way. It’s like, I have OCD. That doesn’t mean I’m not intelligent or I can’t function in society. I went to college. I got a master’s degree. I have a decent career. It’s just viewed. Incorrectly by a lot of people in society and in the church, of course, to which we will probably get to, I hope.

Carrie: I’ve met many people with OCD that I would consider incredibly smart, thoughtful, intelligent, and that ability to solve problems in their head that works well in other scenarios, like whether it’s people that work in software or computers or engineering that they can’t use that same type of logic and problem-solving and solving these obsessions and compulsions, which is frustrating because they’re good problem solvers, typically in other areas of their life.

Michael: Absolutely.

Carrie: One of the things that stood out to me in your book was the weighing the 99.99 percent versus the 0.01 percent.

Michael: Right. I want to touch on another story. I believe it’s chapter two where I go through my life story and it’s about another basketball player. Keep coming back to basketball. I was taking pictures of Michael Jordan, not as a professional photographer, but from the stands.

Me and my friend had gone to watch him. This was after he had Unretired the second time. I think it was 2002. He was playing for the Washington Wizards. So, we got these high-up nosebleed seats as the game wore on, and a lot of people left. I think it was a weeknight. So, the crowd just thinned out, and we kind of snuck down to some really good seats.

I think we were 10 rows back, right behind the side where Michael Jordan was scoring. So, he goes up for a dunk. I get a really good picture of it. I’m super excited. I go home. I develop the negatives. They’re really good and then I realize, what have I done? And I go through this long list of condemning thoughts.

Number one, I’m cheering for a team with a mascot, the Wizards, and again, these are all in my mind. I know these are all one in a trillion chance of being wrong, but it doesn’t matter that it’s one in a trillion, it’s still a chance, and I’m obsessing on the chance. So by cheering for a team with a mascot called the Wizards, there is a one-in-a-trillion chance I’m supporting witchcraft.

I snuck down to the cheaper seats during the game, so now I’ve cheated Ticketmaster. Whoever deserves that money, I’ve now cheated them. It goes back to a very similar situation with that spring break trip that I had had several years earlier. I’m trying to read the Bible, I’m trying to pray, and I’m immediately thinking, I’m a thief, I stole from Ticketmaster or the Washington Wizards organization. I am just a terrible Christian, essentially, for promoting such an evil mascot. Again, I just want to reiterate that these ideas sound crazy, and I knew they were crazy in the intellectual part of my brain or mind, but I could not separate the fear from it. The one in a million chance that it was wrong is kind of what drives OCD and drives the compulsions and the obsessions.

Similar to what I did with the spring break trip, I decided I needed to repent of this before I could continue in my relationship with God for a couple of reasons. One, if I am promoting this witchcraft, then I’m possibly deceived. I’m sitting here reading the Bible, but I may or may not be interpreting it correctly in my mind.

I may be thinking, that God is promising something in this verse, but it doesn’t apply to me because I’m deceived. I’m under this cloud of deception because I’m promoting witchcraft. So I decided to make a list of things to do to repent. I’m going to call Ticketmaster, find out the prices of the cheaper seats we went down to, and pay the difference between what we paid and what we did down there and where we had sat.

I was going to stop cheering for the Wizards. Could I promote a team that’s involved in witchcraft? I was going to, the hardest part was to destroy the negatives. This was back when we had film and negatives, and destroy the photos, and then I’d have fully repented. And then when I go and read my Bible and pray now, I know that I’m not under some influence of deception or in sin against God.

After I had gone through that whole process for probably four weeks, I read something in Galatians that caught my eye. That said, “Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you,” which means who has deceived you, that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified.

This is the only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? And I was completely caught off guard by that because I immediately realized all the things I had just listed out that I was going to do to be made right with God again were works.

I was going to pay more money, I was going to destroy negatives, I was going to stop cheering for a team. Those were the actual threats to being deceived, and I realized in that moment, it probably wasn’t a moment. It probably took a few days, but I realized that doing all of that work was not a risk-free situation. Meaning I was not going to do all of those things to become undeceived, which would then take the chance of being deceived down from one in a billion or one in a trillion down to zero. I was actually doing these things and the chances of being deceived were going up. They weren’t going all the way down to zero from one in a trillion.

Over time, I’ve realized there are so many things where we think we’re doing a compulsion to remove the one in a billion chance of something bad happening and we’re increasing the risk of the bad thing happening. I know this initially sounds like complete hell to somebody with OCD because you’re thinking, great, now you’ve just given me more scenarios to worry about, and more scenarios that I’m just going to become compulsive about. What I realized is that as Christians, our walk with God is all by grace and when I can acknowledge I’m not exactly sure what to do, I should maybe go destroy all these negatives and stop cheering for the Wizards, or maybe I should just walk by faith and not worry about that because that’s what the Bible says. Once I can sit in a place of having to trust God because I don’t know exactly what to do, then I’m in a place where I’m walking correctly with God, and that is so freeing. Because it’s saying, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, and now I can be at rest and not think that I have all these hoops to jump through to be made right with God again.

Carrie: I would normalize that as a human experience of not always knowing what to do.

Michael: Absolutely.

Carrie: Some things are very clear, defined in scripture, don’t do this, yes, do this, but there are many other things that may be personal decisions about, “Do I move this year? Do I move next year? Do I not move? Does God want me to stay here?” Those types of things that we really have to wrestle through that maybe don’t have just one right answer right now, or we’re unsure of, and that’s okay. It’s hard to sit with that discomfort or the unknown piece, though.

Michael: And I think this goes back to a general issue that a lot of people with OCD have is an obsession with what is God’s will. This hit me a lot, sometimes even now. I remember in college, there were just limitless choices about everything. Should I go eat at this dining hall or that dining hall? Well, what if I go to dining hall A, and I was supposed to go to dining hall B, and I was going to bump into someone that I led to Christ, who became the next Billy Graham? By not doing God’s will, 500 million people are going to go to hell in the next generation because I didn’t go to Dining Hall B, which sounds very arrogant and presumptuous, but again, it’s all based on a fear of I might be causing all this harm, not necessarily I’m so capable I can impact things in that way.

I think another part of the freedom that I’ve come to that I talk about in chapter eight and in chapter nine, God’s grace is what frees us from that. We’re only at the bottom of all of those fears. “God is harsh, God is judgmental, and God is not for me. If I mess up just a little bit, he’s going to whack me over the head as hard as he can.” But once we realize that he’s kind and loving and gentle with us, then the fear of should I go to dining hall A or dining hall B becomes almost irrelevant. It’s like God loves me if I have a child now. If my child made a tiny error like that, she went to my bedroom instead of her bedroom to look for something.

I’m not going to be angry if she went to the wrong bedroom she’s my kid I love her and there’s just so much grace and understanding in that relationship and I think that’s what ultimately leads to long-term freedom.

Carrie: Tell us about how having a child helped you have a greater understanding of God’s grace and I resonate with that as well with my daughter. There’s just something that you feel as a parent of just that sense of, I love you and I’m for you on your best days when you’re so well-behaved and on your worst days, when all you can do is scream at me, I’m still here for you and I still love you.

Michael: I feel like it’s almost supernatural and it’s part of being created in God’s image. He loves us so much, and God the Father loves his son so much, and you just see it all through society. Even the worst of the worst people love their kids, it’s just totally ingrained in us, and I think that’s totally because we were created in his image and the same was true for me when she was born. It was just this overwhelming sense of, I love this person unconditionally. It was more than emotion. It’s more than just the will. It’s just, almost supernatural, I would say. She’s now six and a half years old. As that relationship has grown, I’m starting to see so many areas where I’m like, that’s totally how God sees me.

She’s just had a rotten day. I love her just as I did yesterday when she had a great day. She’s just so pleasing to me, and she brings joy whenever I get to see her, and whenever she walks in the room, whenever I pick her up from school, and I think we get that intellectually in church. We know God is gracious, God is good, God loves us and it’s in our head. Very successfully, it gets to our head. Getting to our heart is much harder and I think having a child made it get to the heart a lot, a lot faster than it would have.

Carrie: My daughter teaches me stuff all the time. I was telling one of my clients and we were talking about sin and grace and God’s love for us and I was saying my daughter started walking roughly around 12 months and I think she was 18 months at the time. I was like, she’s been walking for a little while, but she falls down a lot and I’m not talking about a slight stumble. I’m talking about how your face is about to hit the floor and your hands just barely caught you from face-planting.

It made me realize that in our walk with Christ, we see that when we fall God is saying, “Can’t you get it together?” Whereas it’s more like, “Okay, get up, you fell, get up, let’s move forward. Let’s keep going.” It doesn’t mean that you have to get out of the race or stop running. Just kind of dust it off and move on.

Michael: Absolutely. That is such a good picture and so much closer to reality. I feel I think as we become adults, we think there’s so much in our control and our capabilities are so high, and we’re probably a lot closer, at least our spiritual capability, like that. We just fall and fall and fall, and God’s trying to show us that it’s His grace that keeps picking us up and moving us forward.

Carrie: When you were able to examine your own OCD, did you kind of define it as legalism, or this is kind of like the legalist part of my brain? Did that have anything to do with strict church upbringing or not?

Michael: I would say yes, and I don’t want to knock on my parents or my grandfather who was a spiritual giant in a way. He grew up in Egypt and came to Christ at 17 and started a church at 22 and just had an amazing, amazing ministry in Egypt and then also when he came to the U.S. My mom obviously was heavily influenced by him and he was a huge impact on my life. I would say that there was definitely the culture difference. Number one, because they were from Egypt and formalities are a big thing there and also just our parents trying to protect us because they were so culturally different when they got to the U.S., they basically had the mindset of anything we don’t fully understand we’re going to protect them from. Even watching certain kids’ shows, like on TGI Friday, I don’t know if you remember TGIF Full House, and like there were some of those shows that were a little bit too much, we couldn’t watch those, and rock and roll was bad, tattoos were bad, long hair on men was bad, just a lot of things that they decided, let’s just cut these things off, so definitely, I would say my upbringing led to or fueled some of that legalism and OCD getting mixed.

Carrie: A lot of times I find there’s a rigidity sometimes that people are raised in, and it doesn’t always have to do spiritually sometimes it has to do with kind of things that you’re saying, just like the household rules.

You have to load the dishwasher this way, or if you did something different, it’s wrong. Don’t hang out with anybody that’s doing that thing over there. I’m curious though, a lot of your stuff was scrupulosity-related. How did you come to decipher, okay, this is God speaking to me, or I know this is something God wants and, or this is OCD because this is a question I probably get asked all the time. How do I know if I’m coming under the conviction of the Holy Spirit or if it’s OCD telling me, you need to repent, you need to confess, you need to do this, that?

Michael: One thing that really led me to not give up trying to figure out that issue was how many times in the Bible God tells us basically to test ideas. I wanted to just mention a few of them 2 Corinthians 10:5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. He’s basically saying you’re having thoughts and you can acknowledge them as being of God or not of God.

One of the biggest ones I liked was, for the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and I thought, well, sounds like the word of God is the answer to this question. Where can we get a level of discernment like this? and Division of Soul and Spirit? I read some theology, and it seems like that issue in and of itself is very complicated, but it’s almost like a promise from God, like, He’s saying you can actually understand this, and parse these thoughts from each other, using my word.

Another one is 1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things, hold fast to what is good. 1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world and that’s talking more about, obviously, actual people saying things that they maybe shouldn’t, and testing what they’re saying versus the word of God, but it also applies to our minds. That led me to think, where is it in the Bible? He says that in the Word of God, or you’ll be able to use the Word of God to decipher all this and I really came down to three passages that I thought did it for me. Galatians 5:22 and 23 say that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control against such things there is no law.

I thought to myself, If I’m listening to thoughts, and they’re eventually leading to actions, go evangelize to that person over there, they’re gonna go straight to hell. Well, is that thought from a God that’s producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control in me?

I kind of start breaking it down and I say, well, is that a gentle thought? Not really. It’s more of like a demanding, do this right now, do this right now. Which is then catalyzing really in a compulsion to go evangelize right this minute. So now I’m throwing self-control out the window. Was it brought to me in kindness? Not really. I think back to a time when I felt God called me to move. I did five years at Virginia Tech, and in my fourth year, I was in this nice, like, air-conditioned, upper-class dorm room and I just remember thinking one day, I should probably move to this all-freshman. It was this gross, non air-conditioned, freshman dorm. It kind of hit me for a couple of days, and I was feeling the same things, like, kind of guilt, is this really God? Confusion and I remember just looking up one day, I was praying, and I was facing it, it was probably a couple hundred yards away, and I could see it out of a window, and God’s peace just really came over me.

I was like, “I actually want to move there, that actually sounds like a good idea.” I was motivated, and it really sounded like the Spirit of God. I would describe experiencing the Spirit of God. There was joy. I was wanting to do it. I had peace about it. It was a very kind thought in the sense of like if you don’t do this, everyone in that building is going to go to hell.

That was not at all part of that thought. So it was gentle therefore, I was making the decision with self-control and it’s funny, right after that happened, I went back to my dorm room and a couple of hours later, my roommate came back. He’s like, “Hey, do you remember Steve? It was actually my roommate in freshman year. He wants to move into that freshman dorm across the way, and he’s looking for a roommate.” That’s funny because I just decided to move there about two hours ago, so we became roommates again, and it was pretty cool. Just starting to see how the fruits of our actions are pretty obviously indicative of us listening to God or not listening to God. So that was the first passage, and I go into way more detail in the book. Shameless plug for my book there.

Carrie: Why did you choose to write this book and share your story?

Michael: I alluded to it a little bit in the beginning. I think there were so many issues that if I had had this exact book back when I was growing up, it would have been so helpful. There’s a lot out there more now than there was when I was really in the worst parts of this, but a lot of it was just, I felt God was teaching me things, and I was reading and reading about this, and a lot of it was from the medical standpoint and the psychiatric standpoint. And there was a big gap between that and the church.

I felt like the church was, at least the churches I was involved in, leaned towards, “You are having anxiety and OCD. Well, it could be multiple things. You need to pray more. If you prayed more, you’d have the peace of God more. There’s a hidden sin in your life, and that’s why you’re struggling.”

You need to dig, which is the worst thing in the world to say to someone with OCD because now they’re fishing for something that doesn’t even exist, and they’re obsessing even more than they were, trying to find a sin that likely does not exist. They likely just have a chemical imbalance in their brain. There was that aspect of it, completely ignoring the medical aspect of it, and then there were all these brilliant medical doctors who were psychiatrists and then also the PhDs that were psychologists coming up with the truth of the medical side of it with no connection to the fact that there is a God and a Satan and there is spiritual warfare sometimes. I just felt like both sides were completely ignoring the other side and nothing was bringing more truth together.

Carrie: There’s nothing to bridge that gap between that theology and really good therapy and medical help.

Michael: Exactly.

Carrie: Usually towards the end, I ask people a couple of different questions, like, tell us a story of hope or something to your younger self, but I’m curious for you, If you will talk with us about what OCD is like now, does it still show up? It’s just you notice it and you’re more able to recognize it as OCD? I think a lot of people that I talk to, they’re just so focused on, “I want this to go away and I don’t want to deal with this long term.” I want to kind of give them some hope that just because they’re in the midst of the struggle right now, it doesn’t mean it’s always going to look that bad.”

Michael: I don’t want to embellish. I definitely still have OCD, but I would say I’ve gone from having crippling OCD back from ages 14 to 18 was really bad, and then in my early 20s right after college was really bad.

I’ve gone from that to much, much better. It’s much more manageable, and like you said, I can acknowledge what it is when I see it, as opposed to, it really took me so many years to even realize that the thoughts were completely irrational. I don’t know how many years I struggled with all of these thoughts until I realized, there’s a way to look at this and realize that some of my thoughts are totally normal and some of my thoughts make absolutely no sense at all.

I feel like once we get to that point, we’re definitely on the right track. I feel like that was a huge breakthrough. The second breakthrough for me was when, for some reason, the grace of God and the concept of grace just hit home. I listened to Dr. Tony Evans quite a bit, and he had I think it was a 10 or 11-part series on the magnificent grace of God. A few years ago, I was driving like crazy for many hours a week, and I just listened to those sermons over and over again and the crux of what he says is that the grace of God is unmerited favor, so it’s something we don’t deserve, which is great to an OCD person, because we think, “It’s my responsibility to fix the situation. That’s why we end up in these compulsive cycles, but grace eliminates that.

It’s for grace to exist, there has to be no payment for it. That’s a very freeing thing and he talks about it as an environment that is so foreign to us that it takes a long time to get used to and that was true for me. Like, I listened to them and I’m like, “The grace of God is real. It’s profound.”

This is the key to victory, but that doesn’t stop the engine still going in your brain right away. It took a long time. I listened to those sermons. I probably listened to each one at least five times, right? So that’s, what, 45 minutes each, 40 hours of just listening to “God is full of grace.” It’s hard to believe that in your heart and experience it.

He even talks about how if you move from America straight into a foreign country, everything is unnatural to you. Even going out to a meal is different. Making a phone call is probably not as easy as it is now just on your phone, you probably have to dial in some country code. Just everything. The clothing is different.

The culture’s different and he said, “That’s what grace is like.” When we realize, that it’s true, and we want to step into it, it takes a lot of getting used to. One, because it’s almost too good to be true, because the world never treats us with grace, right? Even just normal jobs, you perform and you get a raise.

If you’re off a little bit, well, we’re gonna ding you and we’re gonna notice that and relationships are the same way. Just to experience it with God takes a lot of telling yourself over and over again, essentially. You can definitely find victory and I think realizing how much God loves you, how much favor he has towards you, completely independent of your actions, is the number one thing.

It’s therapeutic to remind yourself, even just saying it right this minute. It’s just one more layer of reminding myself and experiencing that is a truth that I can speak to myself and to other people. I think that has been the most powerful thing. Essentially having a correct view of God just makes it so much easier to deal with.

Carrie: Oftentimes we project onto God, whether it’s been family members or past church leaders that may have had a little bit more of a strict view of God or harsher upbringing of God, or how we even see ourselves. I think sometimes if we don’t like ourselves and we struggle with shame and we can project that onto God, well God must not feel this way about me or that way about me. Really coming back to the true character of God and I appreciate you sharing that for so many people who are struggling today that victory doesn’t necessarily mean the elimination of all symptoms. It means that I know how to deal with these things now when they come up. I have somebody that I work with who will tell me, “This obsession came and I was like, here you are.I know who you are you’re back again,” and now is able to joke about it versus it being completely debilitating because she’s able to recognize that this is OCD. This is one of my themes that comes back around. I don’t have to totally freak out about this obsession like it wants me to. I’m just gonna like, I’m gonna move on with my life and keep doing the things that I love and want to do and are important to me.

Michael: That was very true in my life. I had a pretty harsh father, and he had a lot of great qualities, but he was definitely harsh with me specifically and I was never popular in school. I was bullied a lot. There were a lot of ways that seeing God incorrectly could show up in my developmental years for sure through those two major things. Also, having OCD probably exacerbated all of those problems, I would say, that’s why I think getting to see God correctly. We just have to constantly remind ourselves that that’s true. He is gentle and kind and loving and for us and not against us and full of favor towards us because we don’t feel that with OCD.

Carrie: I appreciate you sharing your story with us and also through your book, we’re going to put a link to that in the show notes and I’ve recommended it to some of my clients because I just feel like it’s very relatable and there’s some helpful information in there on just really examining your thought process. So thank you for coming on the show today.

Michael: Thanks so much.

183. Deciding to Take OCD Medication During Pregnancy: A Personal Story with Amber Williams Van Zuyen

Written by Carrie Bock on July 23, 2025. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

As part of the Personal Story Summer Series, we’re bringing back Carrie’s powerful conversation with Amber Williams Van Zuyen, who shares her journey through harm OCD, intrusive thoughts, and the difficult decision to take medication during pregnancy. Amber’s story is relatable, faith-filled, and a reminder that you’re not alone in the struggle.

Plus, don’t miss Carrie’s upcoming live webinar Calming the Inner Chaos: Tips for Christians Seeking OCD Treatment on August 11 at 4PM CT—replay available!

Episode Highlights:

What harm OCD really looks like behind closed doors
The guilt and confusion that often swirl around faith and medication
The impact of dismissive or misinformed “Christian” counseling
Why finding the right diagnosis and treatment made all the difference
How Amber leaned into Scripture, community, and honesty to reclaim her peace

Episode Summary:

Welcome back to the Christian Faith and OCD: Personal Story Summer Series! Today, I’m re-airing one of the most unforgettable conversations I’ve had—Episode 91 with Amber Williams Van Zuyen, author of Pregnant and Drowning. Amber’s story is vulnerable, faith-filled, and painfully relatable, especially for anyone who has faced the intense tug-of-war between mental health struggles and pregnancy.

Amber was diagnosed with OCD early in her pregnancy after being hit with terrifying intrusive thoughts—what we now know as harm OCD. She faced the difficult decision so many moms wrestle with: Should I take medication while pregnant? Will this hurt my baby? Will this make me a “bad” mom… or a “bad” Christian?

We talked through her childhood symptoms, her family’s history of mental health, and the spiritual confusion that can come when intrusive thoughts get tangled up with guilt and faith. Amber shares how shame nearly silenced her, how misinformed “Christian” counsel did more harm than good, and how God, good resources, and the right support brought her to a place of healing. Her honesty gives voice to a struggle many are too scared to name—and her story reminds us that you are not your thoughts.

If you’re pregnant, hoping to be, or just navigating OCD and anxiety with a side of spiritual questioning—please tune in to this one. It’s real, it’s raw, and it just might be what your heart needs today.

Tune in to the full episode now and hear Amber’s full journey.

Transcript

Welcome back to the Personal Story summer series. Today I’m re airing an episode that came out back on episode 91 with Amber Williams Van Zuyen. Amber got diagnosed early on in her pregnancy and had to make the difficult decision about whether or not to take medication. I know that this is probably something that others of you have struggled with if you are planning to become pregnant or you are pregnant and experiencing an intensity of OCD symptoms, so I thought that this would provide some great insight.

She also talks about symptoms that she had earlier on as a child and how that factored into her family tree. So even if you’re not a mom, you still may really find this story of harm. OCD. Very relatable to you. If you haven’t heard already, I am hosting a live webinar on Monday, August 11th, 4:00 PM Central Time.

We’re also gonna have a replay if you aren’t able to make it live. It’s gonna be calming the inner chaos tips for Christians seeking OCD treatment. I hope that you will join us. We are getting ready to kick off. Another round of Christians learning OCD on August the 18th, and this would be a great introduction if you’re really thinking about joining us for that course this fall.

Love to see you on the 11th. You can get all your questions answered. We’ll put the link in the show notes for you to sign up. Here is my interview with the author of Pregnant and Drowning Van Zuyen

Amber, welcome to the show. It’s good to have you today.

Amber: Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Carrie: You have a really unique personal story about anxiety and OCD and how that’s impacted you and your life, especially in terms of being pregnant and having your son. Take us back a little bit earlier to when you first started experiencing anxiety or OCD symptoms.

Amber: Well, looking back, I can pinpoint when I was 24 when it heightened and got to its worst point, but in early childhood, I would do things like, I’d be in the grocery store with my mom and I didn’t want to step on the lines on the squares because I believe something bad was going to happen or I just had to make sure that I did that so nothing would happen to me, or there was a little girl who had lice in class next to me and I obsessed about constantly having lice and I would go home and have my mom check constantly and it never stopped. It was always just, check again, check again maybe that’s kind of where I noticed my OCD in my earlier days. And then when I was in high school, I got obsessed with makeup and I always felt ugly, I had to cover that up during that time in my life, I would go to the bathroom during lunch periods and take it all off and then re-put it all back on just because I didn’t want anyone to see me. Looking back, those were things where my obsessive compulsive was kind of taking over. But when I was about 24, I had this really scary thing happen with my vision.

I ended up having something called ocular migraines which affected only one eye. I thought I was having a stroke, and my grandmother also suffered from MS terribly early on in my life, I saw her in a bad state, and that was also another concern of mine. So I was kind of always having obsessive thoughts about getting diagnosed with something, constantly reading things, self-diagnosing that triggered health anxiety for me.

I went to the doctor and he told me it was ocular migraines, that there’s nothing to worry about, but I also was concerned about MS too because my grandmother had it, and I was just so terrified and it just played over and over in my head that I was basically already living with a disease that I didn’t even have to the point where I didn’t wanna go out of the house.

I was obsessing with medical books, reading symptoms over and over again, and actually convincing my body that I was having those symptom. This went on for about a month, and I went to the doctor and they prescribed me medication, and I refused to take it for about a month, but I eventually did, and I slowly got better I never completely got over it, but I learned how to deal with it differently.

Carrie: Did they recognize the OCD at that time?

Amber: No, they told me I had anxiety, but looking back, I definitely in the mind it’s repeat, repeat, repeat. It was really destroying my life because I obsessed about it so much as I was living at 24 7 but I eventually got on medication and it got better. And then it was one of those things where I’ve always felt guilty about it because it’s like a lack of faith I feel in a sense, but I do feel like it’s an imbalance that I’ve struggled with and that I truly need medication for it. There have been points in my life where I’ve been off of it and then on it again, and then, Recently I’ve had a trigger because I got off a medication and I was triggered again with medical stuff because of stories Christina Applegate just came out with MS and it triggered that time in my life again but with that said about MS, I see a lot of people doing wonderful with it.

My grandma just got diagnosed at such a weird time she didn’t get diagnosed for with it for 10 years people said she was crazy. She went to doctors and they told my grandpa, you know, your wife’s crazy you need to lock her up in a mental institution but really she was really sick with MS they just didn’t recognize it at that time. She got so debilitated and basically, there was nothing that they could do for her she was too deteriorated at that point to help her. A part of me feel so guilty because I see all these people doing so wonderful with it or just having a good attitude with it and that has been a struggle for me, I feel guilt.

Carrie: Going back to the piece about faith, because I think a lot of people have that wrestling that struggles with anxiety or OCD, well, maybe this is a faith issue, “I don’t have enough faith in God kind of flesh that out a little bit more for you was, I don’t have enough faith, if I do get MS, that God’s going to take care of me and I’m going to be okay.”

Amber: Yes to me, I felt so bad because here I am creating these things in my own head when there are people out there suffering with it and doing good with it because the most courageous people that I know, my brother-in-law’s a paraplegic and he’s just a testimony.

Just such an attitude and I just think God, what is wrong with me? Why am I like this? Is it a lack of faith, but really it’s anxiety and OCD, and it’s truly a disorder? And I had to come to terms with accepting that because I know now going through several years, I’m almost 40 and dealing with it, that it is an actual disorder.

When I’m on medication, I can control it and I can think clearly, it’s almost a bunch of trash jumbled up in your head and then it gets cleared away and you could see clearly without the medication I couldn’t see clearly.

Carrie: I think it’s really hard for anybody to accept that they have an issue, whether it’s physical or emotional. There is a sense of grief and loss of saying, okay yes, I am struggling with OCD because it wasn’t something that you wanted, it wasn’t something that you brought upon yourself it just, it happens, and there’s probably genetic and environmental factors that contribute to all of that most mental health conditions. So that piece of just learning the acceptance is hard.

Amber: It is, and a lot of people are just, oh, get over it they don’t understand so there’s just this stigma that anxiety isn’t real, your OCD is just something that you are making up. You get a lot of that from people that don’t understand it, and I think that’s where a lot of the guilt comes in is people just throw it to the wayside.

This isn’t a real problem, this is just a you problem, but anxiety has a face just like diabetes or anything else does, and it’s an actual disorder some people need medication for it, some don’t, I tend to relapse when I’m not on medication.

Carrie: Tell us about that in terms of maybe responses from people in your faith community when they found out that you were struggling.

Amber: Well, I had a really interesting experience while I was pregnant, I was really struggling with really dark, violent thoughts, and I was thinking these thoughts were my thoughts and I was struggling so much my mom didn’t know what to do. She made an appointment with a Christian counselor at her church, and I went, I sat down with her. She was an older woman, and I began to tell her, I’m struggling with these thoughts I’m getting really depressed, I don’t know what to do. And she looked at me in the face and said, you don’t have real problems, my daughter has real problems, my daughter almost died giving birth, you don’t have real problems. And I just couldn’t even believe that she had gone there and said that, because I’m already so fragile she could have pushed me to, I don’t wanna say suicide, but there were moments during my pregnancy that I questioned those things. Without my family I could have done that, which is her saying that, and it was just so shocking coming from a Christian counselor.

Carrie: That’s really unfortunate that happened it sounds sometimes counselors can have an internal reaction to things that people tell them, and if we’re not in check with those experiences that happen within ourselves, we can do damage. And so it sounds she had some kind of, we call it counter transference reaction towards you as a pregnant woman and dealing with things. And clearly it sounds like she was not up to speed on OCD or what those symptoms are.

Amber: Yes. She definitely was not qualified for at least someone with my condition going on.

Carrie: When did you get that diagnosis of OCD? Was it when you were pregnant? Did someone tell you like, “Hey, this is harm OCD, these are some classic things and these are intrusions it’s not really you?”

Amber: Probably I was 12 weeks pregnant, these obsessive thoughts started five days after I found out I was pregnant. I’ve always had that health anxiety and I’ve always worried, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to have children at the time, and I was still married. My mom’s like, oh, when are you gonna have kids?

Everyone’s like, “When are you going to have kids?” I don’t know. I was 33 and I’m like, okay, I guess we’ll try and I got pregnant really fast. It scared me and I was laying on the couch one day, a few days after I found out I was pregnant and I was petting my dog and I had this thought in my head where she trusts me so much, I could just snap her neck and she wouldn’t even know it and it scared me.

I had no want or desire to do that, but I started to think, am I starting to go crazy? Am I going to get postpartum? And then I let this repeat, repeat and it turned into a big monster, and it got to the point where I called my OBGYN, and I said, these are the things that are going on in my head and I don’t know what to do, I’m scared that they could happen, not that I want them to happen, but they could and she told me, well, thoughts turn into plans, and then things happen.

Carrie: Oh my goodness. Thanks.

Amber: That triggered me so bad that now the thoughts went from my animals to my mother, to my husband to everyone around me is not safe anymore. Any object around the house, I took all the knives out of the house, put them away, I was scared of the knife drawer, I was scared of the cord that goes through your iPod I thought anything could be a weapon. I was talking to my good friend, she’s a nurse, and she was just walking me through all this, and then one night I was lying in bed and I thought I heard a voice say, just do it already but it was really my thoughts but my friend got freaked out and she said, it’s time for you to go get evaluated. I went to the hospital the next day I was so incredibly terrified I thought everyone’s gonna find out, but at least they will shackle me down and I can’t hurt myself, I can’t hurt anyone else, and this baby can have a chance, so I’m gonna go, but I really thought they were going to 50150 me, they didn’t.

Carrie: In terms of involuntarily hospitalize you, that kinda thing?

Amber: Yes they told me that I was suffering from horrible OCD and anxiety, extreme levels of it. I was like O C D interesting, I didn’t really think about that ever being a thing, because you know, when I think of OCD, it’s like locking the door five times or checking. I didn’t do that, but my mom did that I don’t know if it was hereditary. I ended up going to a therapist through my insurance company and I ended up getting on medication while pregnant, and that was a whole other ordeal as well, because I had one doctor tell me he was, I just switched carriers, so I’d gone to a new carrier while I got pregnant.

This is a whole new doctor, and he told me that because I told him I was suffering from anxiety and this was prior to me going to go get evaluated. And I was just kind of seeing what I could do, I tried acupuncture and I was going to try to get a referral cause it was really expensive to go out of pocket every day because I was suffering so bad, because I said antidepressants while pregnant, what do you think about it? And he said it’s equivalent to a mother drinking every day pregnant. And I’m like, what?

I was just shocked well, okay, this isn’t an avenue I can go down this isn’t going to work. I guess I ended up getting put on medication and I had another doctor, a different one after going through the evaluation process, she put me on something, a roll of doses and it turns out that it’s not the stigma that’s attached with taking antidepressants while pregnant. There’s some that are more harmful and then there are others that don’t travel through the placenta quite the others do. And I’ve asked several doctors and they say that it’s a very low-grade risk as far as the baby’s health goes certain ones and the one that I was on in particular, Prozac, was a friendly one for pregnancy.

Carrie: That’s interesting that your first doctor said that because there are all kinds of studies that have also been done on depressed mothers who are pregnant and that can actually cause harm, low birth weights and those types of things.

Depression in itself is not good for pregnancy, but taking an antidepressant sometimes can help, mitigate some of those risks from the depression.

Amber: Yes.

Carrie: Did your baby come out just fine?

Amber: He came out wonderful. I missed one little part of that story when I told my OBGYN my thoughts, she put me on a medication instantly and not a lot of high risk to it. I was terrified I was on that for six weeks, and then they switched me to Prozac, which is a lot better but he came out beautiful, perfect, good birth weight, he was seven pounds, eight ounces.

Carrie: That’s great. Do you feel like that changed the course of the rest of your pregnancy? How far along were you when you got on the medication?

Amber: 11 weeks.

Carrie: You had these symptoms really early and I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know a ton about this, I just know from anecdotal experience that individuals I’ve talked to have struggled with OCD. Some of them, I guess with all the hormones and different things that are going on in your body and pregnancy is somewhat stressful to your body in general, that can increase people’s OCD symptoms.

I don’t know if you’ve talked to other people who’ve had similar experiences or heard or read articles or things like that.

Amber: Actually, I had two girls reach out to me that kind of heard about my story. Their OCD was a little different. One girl was just terrified of throwing up she has this horrible fear of throwing up, and she was obsessively thinking about it during her pregnancy, and it was derailing her from her everyday life.

She couldn’t focus, she couldn’t go to work. I kind of tried to talk to her as much as I could through it, just knowing that she’s not alone, that we’re all in this together, and that we all have different little things, but they’re all kind of in common when it comes down to the core of it. And then there was another girl who suffered horribly with depression and my boss at my job kind of hooked us up and I kind of just texted with her and she ended up getting on medication while pregnant, and that was a big game changer for her too. She didn’t completely get through her OCD depression during pregnancy, but it helped tremendously.

Carrie: That’s great. I think it’s mental health it’s so important to talk about these things while pregnant too and this is kind of close to my heart because I had some mild depression when I was pregnant with my daughter, and I think I struggled so much with like the shoulds. Well, I should be happy because I got pregnant and I was older and had lots of friends and family that had dealt with infertility, and so I put all these kinds of like shoulds on myself. You should be happy and I had this expectation that I was going to still be able to be fit during pregnancy and dealt with some back pain and different things. It was hard I really had to read just things. I guess I say all that to say I want people to know pregnancy is a happy time, but people can still struggle with some pretty significant mental health issues through that experience.

Amber: Yes, I mean when I had my baby, I held him and I didn’t feel anything right after I had him and I’m just thinking, aren’t I supposed to feel all these things? I just felt numb. Before they make you go home they have you watch this video, don’t shake your baby, don’t do this, don’t do that and I just felt, or if you’re feeling these things, come back in it’s one of those postpartum videos. And they’re playing this because they know who I am you know, just like all of these fears and for the longest time after he was born, I would get these bouts of fear changing him. I’d feel I’d lose control over my hands and they would do something to hurt him not that I wanted to, just the fear of it. And I would have to take him to my mom’s and go, just take a breather for a minute, go for a walk, and kind of work through that.

Carrie: I think the things that you’re talking about, one of the reasons OCD goes undiagnosed is because people don’t know what a lot of the symptoms are and that the obsessions can take a variety of different forms.

It sounds like you’ve struggled with your share of harm, OCD obsessions, but also somatic obsessions in terms of your body, and maybe there’s something wrong with me and maybe I’m really ill. Tell us a little bit more about how you got through that dark part in your life spiritually, this is the lowest point I feel like I’m going crazy, I feel there’s something really wrong with me, I don’t know what it is God help me.

Amber: I meditated on the Bible so much, just verse after verse, great glory from harvest I would put him on every night about fear and worry and anxiety, and I just would fall asleep to his messages and it would give me peace and calmness.

That was the only place I found a place where I could take a deep breath and just be like, I’m going to be okay. Another book, which really helped me was Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. That just really helped me put into perspective. I can have a thought come into my head, but I don’t have to let it make a home there.

Just that God got me through it I never felt so close to him, but yet so close to the enemy as well I just felt it was a battle for my life. I definitely feel, Yes, I have anxiety and OCD, but there was some massive spiritual warfare I’ve never felt anything like that ever and it’s only by the grace of God that I got through it.

Just prayer, prayer, prayer, talking, I talk to a lot of Christian friends and that’s one thing that I think is a strong suit in me. I don’t have money, but I’m an open book and I tell people I just spill my guts. I think a part of that was a big part of my healing process, just letting it out, letting people know I’m not ok.

Letting them pray for me and I got baptized when I was pregnant was a huge thing for me it was like a rededication. My faith is stronger now than it has ever been, and I’ve never felt closer to God during that time it was wild.

Carrie: Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense. The harder circumstances and his sufferings lead us closer to God and we discover more about who he is through those really hard times in our life. Then you felt led to write this book titled Pregnant and Drowning. Can you tell us about that?

Amber: While I was pregnant and going through all these things, I so desperately wanted something to relate to. I could find little tidbits here and there about women that had suffered from postpartum. Some are a little bit similar to mine, but not a whole lot.

I didn’t find a whole lot on harm OCD when I was going through this, and I don’t know if I wasn’t navigating correctly or how I was searching, but it just seemed so taboo to talk about and I just wanted people to know that you are not your thoughts. One thing that I really struggle with, and this is just strictly my opinion.

When I see a horrible headline where a mother bills her children, I think that is not postpartum in my opinion, that is evil and from the enemy. The devil does all these things to make you think that you’re going crazy and that you’ve got to do these things I’ve never had that desire. When I see that and I see postpartum, I go, I don’t know if can postpartum go that far to where you could harm a child like that.

I don’t know I just wanted to tell my story because I would never do something like that, and I felt like a monster and I was ashamed of it, but I know now that wasn’t me those were just thoughts that I invited in and I just could not get them off of the OCD wheel in my head.

Carrie: I appreciate you being so vulnerable about some of those specific thoughts that you had, because I think a lot of people, even people who come to therapy that I see, it takes a little while before they can even open up and talk about some of the things that are going on in their head because they feel they’re so horrific.

And then if I start talking about it, I’m going to possibly start obsessing about it, it can be really tough for them and I think that other people will be listening to this and find it very relatable of some of the things that they’ve had. I appreciate what you said earlier too, about how you can have a thought come in and it doesn’t have to make its home there, like you don’t have to continue to dwell on it you can notice there’s a separation that we can create. I’m having this thought, but one that’s not a reflection of my character which is so important and then two, it’s a thought. I can separate myself from that and say it’s not the same thing as a desire that doesn’t mean that I want to engage in that.

That’s why we call them intrusive thoughts because they intrude when you think about something that kind of pushes its way in, that doesn’t need to be there. That’s something that a lot of people, especially when they’re first kind of getting to know themselves in OCD that they really struggle with.

They think, Oh because I had this thought about hurting myself, my animal, my kids, whatever that means, somehow there’s some deep-seated secret desire that I want to do that, and that’s not the case so it’s important for people listening to this to know that.

Amber: There’s such a difference and it took me forever to realize that because I thought I don’t want to do these things, but why are they in my head because I won’t let them go I’m giving them value. I’m creating this monster that’s under my bed, and I can’t get rid of it until I can figure out that there’s a difference between a thought and who I am as a person, and that doesn’t reflect me.

Carrie: Your book is about your personal story and some things that were helpful and beneficial to you during that process.

Amber: It starts off in my earlier anxiety and then it moves on to my pregnancy, and there was so much darkness in that time and just the struggle I went through to try to get me in this baby through that journey also, I ended up having another baby and I was on medication the whole time. It was a great pregnancy as far as mental health goes totally opposite.

Carrie: That’s so hopeful too for people to know that they can have a different experience than they did the first time, even if they had difficulty with their mental health.

So you just kind of knew going into the second pregnancy, okay, I know what I’m dealing with I know what thoughts could come up, I have some more tools, skills, or resources to be able to separate myself from those and distract myself and move on. Did you ever get any good therapy in this process to specifically deal with the OCD?

Amber: I went to a couple of meetings. It was kind of far away from where I lived and I should have done the group thing I think it’s helpful. I am interested in joining one now cause I think it’s so important to support each other and to realize you’re not alone and that we can all get through this together, just hearing each other’s testimony, each other’s stories, helping each other through struggles.

I know that for me, I don’t have a lot of friends that struggle with the same things I do. I have one friend that has pretty bad anxiety, so to be able to relate to her is medication and therapy. Just to be like, “Hey, oh gosh, you do that too oh, okay I understand how that feels.” Just knowing that you’re not alone is such a game-changer I think.

Carrie: Amber, you have such a powerful testimony and I appreciate you coming on and sharing this with us, I hope that people will get your book if this is something that they’ve struggled with and so that they can kind of relate and relieve a sense of shame that they may be having over dealing with some of these thoughts.

Amber: Well, thank you so much for having me.

182. Breaking Family Silence And Stigma by Seeking Therapy: Personal Story with Peyton Garland

Written by Carrie Bock on July 14, 2025. Posted in Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie revisits a powerful conversation with author Peyton Garland, who shares her journey through OCD, scrupulosity, and anxiety while holding onto her Christian faith.

Episode Highlights:

The emotional weight of growing up in a culture where therapy was viewed as weakness.
The spiritual confusion and fear that can accompany OCD in rigid religious environments
How finding a diagnosis provided clarity and freedom
The role of her supportive husband in her healing journey
The generational impact of seeking therapy and breaking silence in her family
How therapy, grace, and community helped her overcome shame and find peace

Episode Summary:

Today, we’re revisiting one of our powerful earlier episodes—Episode 26 with Peyton Garland. This conversation has stuck with me ever since we recorded it because it touches on so many important themes: mental health, OCD (specifically intrusive thought and scrupulosity), faith, shame, and the courage to seek help.

Peyton shares her journey growing up in a small, tight-knit town with a rigid church culture where therapy was often misunderstood and even discouraged. She opens up about the internal battle she faced with intrusive thoughts and how the weight of OCD affected her spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Her honesty about struggling with fear of God, perfectionism, and the overwhelming anxiety that comes with OCD is incredibly moving and relatable for many Christians who feel isolated by their mental health challenges.

One of the most inspiring parts of Peyton’s story is how seeking therapy broke a multi-generational cycle of silence in her family — how her courage to ask for help encouraged others to do the same.

We also talk about the ways her husband supports her through the ups and downs of OCD, and how they’ve learned to face compulsions and anxiety together.

This episode is full of hope and practical insights for anyone feeling stuck or ashamed to ask for help, especially if you’re trying to reconcile your faith with your mental health. I believe stories like Peyton’s remind us all that healing is possible, and that faith and mental health can coexist beautifully.

If you or someone you love is struggling with OCD, anxiety, or mental health challenges within a Christian framework, this episode is for you.

Transcript

. Our most popular episodes thus far have been personal experience stories. Peyton Garland shares her experience of struggling with OCD. How that’s impacted her faith, her journey of going to therapy. It’s really good stuff in here, guys. I hope that you enjoy the show today.

Carrie: Thank you for coming on the show, Peyton.

Peyton: Happy to be here.

Carrie: I’d love you to just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Peyton: Sure. I am Peyton Garland. My husband’s name is Josh. He and I live north of Atlanta in Alpharetta, Georgia. We have two of the most obnoxious but sweet puppies in the world, Alfie and Daisy. So we are dog parents and proud of it. My husband is a pilot and I’m an author. So we’re both finding the careers that we love and thriving in them.

Carrie: That’s awesome. Why did you want to be on the podcast and tell a little bit about your story today?

Peyton: I think mental health in this day and age is almost a buzzword. I think it’s something where people are finally willing to talk about it. They’re finally willing to listen, but I also think that the voices that need to be at the forefront of these conversations are people who do struggle with anxiety, who do struggle with OCD, who know what it’s like to be in a therapist’s office.

So this podcast just seemed to embody that ability to have real conversations with people who truly go through this stuff.

Carrie: At what point in your life did you start to notice like I’m starting to struggle here with my thought life?

Peyton: I had always been a worrier and I knew that, but the older I got the worst that got the more irrational the worrying became.

So like I said, my husband, is a pilot. When he first finished flight school, which was about two years ago, the only airport where he could get a job was in Indiana. So states away, hours away. He and I had just moved to a new town in Georgia for a new job for me. So new town, new job. I’m not near my family.

I’m not near my friends. Two weeks after we moved there, he moves to Indiana. I’m being by myself and being by yourself leaves lots of room for your headspace to just go crazy. And at that point, maybe two or three months into him being gone that’s when I said this worrying is not only irrational. It’s starting to impact me physically, too like I’m losing weight. I can’t put back on. I’m not sleeping. I eventually went to a therapist which in my small country town was not a welcomed thing. Therapy is almost seen as defeat like you couldn’t take it, you couldn’t handle it. Your faith in God wasn’t strong enough. I went to a therapist’s office, found out I have intrusive thought OCD.

And what I’ve learned with OCD is that often anxiety and depression are kind of buddies. They sit right beside OCD and they take turns. So I’m just on a big journey. Now I share a lot about that in my new book, Not So By Myself. Just how you’re not really by yourself in the quiet space, even when your brain is super loud.

Carrie: That’s so good. So it was a, you had a big stigma hurdle to even get in the therapy office coming from a small town, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Be the tough girl.

Peyton: Oh yeah. Well, I’m so glad you said that. In my book one of the chapters, I talk about how all three of my great uncles and my grandfather were drafted into the Vietnam war. All four gone at the same time and when they came home, they quickly learned that in order to not talk about everything they’d seen, they were just to keep quiet. That silence was strength. Those two just seem to parallel and they passed that idea down from generation to generation to generation.

So my generation about the third or fourth generation, we’re sitting in a culture now that saying, “Hey, it’s okay to say I’m not okay. It’s okay to go get help.” And I think I actually was the first person in my family to go to a therapist. And the beautiful thing is I had a parent to follow after that. [00:04:37] I had a grandmother follow after that, and that was a very beautiful thing to kind of see loved ones, say, “Hey, you know what? There’s some things I haven’t been okay with. I have a dad who has PTSD and traumatic brain injury from serving in the military. So lots of people now getting help for hard things they’ve been dealing with for decades.

Carrie: I love that ripple effect in your story. It’s like one person starts in the family starts to experience some relief and change and hope, and then other people say, “oh, hey, that sounds really good. I want to get on board with that and maybe I’ll try therapy out as well.”

Peyton: Absolutely.

Carrie: Do you remember that experience of just being so nerve-racked and were you super scared to start talking?

How was your therapist able to help you feel comfortable even sharing some of these things that you had? You’d really just rattled around in your head and maybe talked to your husband about.

Peyton: Sure. This is crazy. You’re literally outlining my book chapter by chapter.

Carrie: I haven’t read it either.

Peyton: One of the chapters is called green tea and therapy and it’s about my first time in a therapist’s office. Like I said I come from a good old country town. I walk in this therapist’s office and there’s like this spa music in the background. There’s bright but soft colors everywhere. I’m way out of my element.

I was not a yoga kind of girl. But my therapist just asks me a simple question. She’s like, “Hey, is there anything I can offer you to drink?” And I’m a green tea kind of girl. So I said, green tea, just give me some green tea. And I remember death gripping that green tea coffee the whole time.

I don’t even think I drank it. I just death gripped it because one thing I knew and this whole room of nothing I knew. My therapist started with the big question. She had to tell me about yourself like I got to know what goes on in your head. What’s going on in your heart and your spirit and your family.

When I left I had no mascara left on my face. I mean, I did, but it was like down to my chin on my neck. I still hadn’t touched the green tea. It was just an hour of me unearthing everything that had been there for over a decade, honestly. So it was a wild, uncomfortable, but relieving experience all at once. It was a whirlwind for sure.

Carrie: Was that when you got the diagnosis of OCD?

Peyton: Yes. So I have a dear friend, her name’s Wendy Nunnery. She’s an author too. She has it. And I had met her for coffee one day and we hadn’t been friends for long and she was just vulnerable enough to say, “Yeah, you know I struggle with intrusive thought OCD.

And she was telling me all the things she worries about. And I went, “oh my goodness.” Number one, I’m not by myself because I have been thinking some off-the-wall things and I can’t talk myself down from them. I’m always afraid of running people off the road. I overthink being near knives. I overthink changing a child’s diaper.

All of these things that I just thought I was literally psychotic, like there was some serious problem. This wonderful woman of faith is sitting in front of me, a mother, a thriving wife and she just lists everything that’s been rattling in my head for years. And so I sat back still wasn’t sure about therapy, but kind of a pin that had to be what I had. And once Josh left it was very, very unhealthy.

Like I was just in a place where I wasn’t functioning. I said we gotta get help and that’s exactly the diagnosis I received.

Carrie: So in some ways that was probably a little bit relieving to know what you were dealing with because when people don’t know what they’re dealing with, then they throw all kinds of vernacular labels on themselves.

Peyton: Right. My dad, you know, has PTSD and he had that when I was growing up. So I was around it. But PTSD almost stems from something very traumatic, which is what happened with him in the military in his line of work. But for me, nothing traumatic had actually happened to me and I couldn’t figure out why I was having a hard time.

As a good kid with good grades and a good family. I mean we had struggles with what my dad went through, but I must have been a bad person if I couldn’t control what was going on in my head. The level of relief and the pressure that just fell off me, that was a God thing. There was no way around that.

Carrie: Did you struggle spiritually during that time? Like why has God allowed me to struggle with this? And those kinds of questions, maybe that people with OCD face.

Peyton: Yeah, I’m just going to send you my book when this is over. My fourth chapter is called church games. And so again, I grew up and not hating by any means on denomination, on religion, but I went to a very small brick and mortar countryside church. Women were told not to speak. I was told it was King James, or it was literally not the Bible and how dare you touch it. Women cannot lead worship. I grew up in such a rigid church culture that when you combine that with OCD, you’re quite terrified of God.

I got a credit card in the mail or a debit card a few months ago and my security code, well, I guess I can’t say it, but it had lots of the apocalyptic kind of numbers going on and I literally almost sent that back in the mail. I was like, “no, we can’t use that like, I can’t touch that.” Wild, irrational thoughts OCD we’re paired with this very rigid church culture.

And I was afraid of God for years like he was just somebody that I was told to love, but I was scared of loving him because I was just scared of who he was or at least who he seemed to be. So yeah, I struggled spiritually for a long time.

Carrie: Like maybe tying into some of the obsessions, like is God mad at me or am I going to go to hell.

Peyton: Exactly. Very perfection-oriented. But like I said not just a perfectionist or perfectionist with OCD which can take on a completely different level of fear, anxiety, and all the like.

Carrie: So what you’re saying is that you have intrusive thoughts, but you don’t actually have any compulsions. Is that so?

Peyton: It’s funny. So there’s several different branches of OCD like intrusive thought OCD there’s harm OCD, contamination OCD. With me, I do have a form of contamination OCD. I always had. I washed my hands a lot as a child If I spilled anything on me like a chemical. Cleaning panics me. I was afraid to be near chemicals.

So when COVID hit, my contamination OCD, the compulsion went through the roof like I had always been a hand washer. I’d always been a clean person. I started keeping a chart of how often I washed my hands. When the world shut down and we went home, I washed my hands an average of 57 times a day and I spent two-plus hours a day following through on compulsions with cleaning, with mopping, with wiping everything down with wiping my hands down my phone down. Just putting Josh in a Clorox fog as soon as he came through the door.

So there are definitely compulsions, but I see them most with the contamination OCD.

Carrie: How has that affected your, your marriage, and your relationship there? Have you had to kind of train him on how to help you at times?

Peyton: He is very gracious and I’ve been very blessed with someone who’s willing to listen.

He has been mentally a very strong man which is fantastic. Obviously, he worries about things. There’s hard things for him, but he is very mentally stable, which is what I need. I’ll be honest when we first got married is when it really started kicking up. I’ve learned change kind of messes with my OCD like getting married, buying a house.

I had just gotten a new job. Just all the things. And bless his heart he just thought it was birth control. He thought maybe it was him. I thought it might’ve been him. We didn’t know. Maybe only a few months later is when the piloting thing happened and he was gone and I got help. So for us it’s funny, but for him it was a breath of relief when I found out I had OCD. He went, “oh, okay. It’s not me. It’s something else.” Not that we can fix OCD but we now have something we can work with. We have a name and a face to it and he has been so good. What I love about him is he respects when I’m having anxiety.

He respects when there’s a compulsion where I’m just like, I have to follow through with it. There’s no way around it. But he also calls me to work through compulsions. He calls me to say, “Hey, let’s take a step back and rationally talk yourself down from this like we don’t have to wash your hands five times in a row. We can do four and walk away.

It’s okay. So there’s been a little bit of training on his part, but he’s really been gracious and I’ve been very thankful for that.

Carrie: That’s awesome. We talked about kind of how to support your anxious spouse on a previous episode. So I’m curious about your experience on that.

What was that process like of finding tools and strategies and things to help you in therapy?

Was that really hard and what kind of therapy did you utilize?

Peyton: Yeah, so my therapist and I, we do brain spotting. I don’t know who all knows, but literally, I find a spot in the room where my brain just kind of seems to be at peace and attune. I like natural light, my brain and my eyes always go to a window where there’s natural light and my therapist just says, “Hey, let’s just start walking through what you’re feeling. Why you’re feeling this way.”

And every time brainspotting walks me back to what started a trigger, what started a compulsion, what started the anxiety that’s just built up and is now bottling over. So I love brainspotting because often my compulsion or my thought has nothing to do with what’s really bothering me. OCD is just really good at twisting stuff.

So I love brainspotting. It earths my head. It just brings it back to earth. But also we just learned really healthy techniques. Even things like social media can spike my OCD. Just because OCD can thrive off of just about anything it wants. I do 45 minutes of social media a day. I have a timer on my phone. That’s something she and I worked through. 45 minutes was a healthy number for me. When the timer goes off, I’m done with social media. Josh and I have what we call a contamination zone in my house. If there’s something that I just feel is completely contaminated and I don’t want to touch it. He puts it in a corner, in a room and we let it air out because in my brain letting it air out is safe. Just little things like that have made a huge difference for us.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I’m going to get somebody on the show to talk about brainspotting now. I think that that would be an interesting episode, too.

Peyton: That would be fantastic. I love it. I love brainspotting.

Carrie: Yeah. We have talked a little bit about EMDR on the show and it’s similar.

There’s some similarities in terms of just kind of like really tapping into that brain level response and the nervous system. And like you said, when you trace OCD back, it doesn’t make sense. You’re like, “wait a minute, this goes back to that time when I was this age and this experience happened.”

I love that it really gets down deep underneath the presenting issue. Because it’s not actually about the stuff or the cleanliness. It’s about that piece underneath it, whether it’s a lot of times like dealing with uncertainty or loss of control or those types of triggers can be really prominent

Peyton: Well, that’s what wild is. Every time we brain spot and we work it back, it is either a very harsh church experience I had, or it’s just growing up in a household with a dad with PTSD that was undiagnosed for years. Every time, my brain has trillions of off-the-wall thoughts, but every one of them works its way back to one of those two things.

Carrie: Wow. Do you feel like you were a particularly sensitive kid growing up, more sensitive to people’s emotions or kind of absorbing everything?

Peyton: I’ve taken a bunch of Christian spiritual gift tests and discernment comes back every time no matter which one I take. But my mom did say as a child, I tended to know without actually knowing, like if there was a relative who was going through a hard divorce or someone just lost someone.

My mom said as a child, I gravitated to them. She said I’d walk up and sit in their lap. I would sit and talk to them. I mean, maybe that had to have been just God. Just knowing who needed some extra love. My mom swears as a child I could just walk in a room and I just knew who needed even just a “hey” or a hug.

Carrie: That’s good. We had Mitzi Van Cleave on the show before, and she talked really about how OCD was a part of her sanctification process. That there was this process of growth through affliction is what she talked about it. Can you talk about a little bit about that in terms of your spiritual journey?

Do you feel like you have some similarities there?

Peyton: Sure. I’m so glad you asked that question. It’s one of those things where I think Paul mentions in the new testament that he had a thorn in his side. I think that’s a favorite thing to debate is what was the thorn in the side. But I think regardless, the reality is we each have a thorn in the side. I think on this side of heaven, we will eternally fight or struggle over, wrestle with and I think OCD is mine. There’s no magic pill for OCD. I’m not going to wake up one day and my brain is just going to be super chill.

The bittersweet thing that I love about this thorn in the side is it constantly calls me back to a place of grace. As a perfectionist with OCD, I’ve had to come to grips with the fact I cannot be perfect. The church is saying is you’re a human. You’re not perfect.

I always knew that, but that always wasn’t good enough. I was like, “no, I’m going to prove the church wrong. I’ve got this. I can do this.” OCD literally said “ha, no” like here’s something very irrational and very imperfect for you to imperfectly worry about. You know, go have fun, good luck. And so OCD quite forced me to accept that I’m not perfect. And because of that, growing up in a really harsh church culture and stepping away from it and wrestling with OCD, I can now look at God and say, “Hey, you know what not only am I not perfect, but you are.” And as churchy as that sounds, there’s so much grace in that because God has not put the standard of perfection on me.

And I know I can’t meet it, especially with the OCD. And so now it’s just grace and I had not lived under grace. I had not lived by grace. It was just a catchy phrase that at one point I thought would be a good tattoo on my wrist. But OCD has been the gateway to God and grace for me. And so for that I am always grateful.

Carrie: How did you make that perspective shift in terms of your view of God? Did that come through getting around like a healthier church environment?

Peyton: Sure. When I was about 16 or 17, I just told my family, I said look I’m out. Not out, like I’m not piecing Jesus out, but I’m not here. I finally started studying the Bible and the Bible and the guy behind the pulpit were not lining up.

[00:20:43] So I said, look, I can either believe a man who’s like everybody else or worse, or I can believe God. And so I’m just going to go with God. That sounds like a smart decision. That’s the Sunday school answer, but it’s one that I’m going to adopt for myself. And so I stepped away from that church. I found a much, much healthier church which made so much of a difference. Within that church, I found women my age who were also not afraid to mention that they struggled with mental health and that right there was probably the ultimate game-changer. I was being around women my age who had been perfectionists. I don’t know if you know the Enneagram, but I am in an Enneagram one on the personality chart.

We are reformers. We are the spearheads for all that is just and good and right. But I was blessed to find women just like that, who turned around and said that I’m not always good. And just and right. I do struggle with mental health. And even through all of that God still sees me as good because he loves me and because he’s good.

And so that was the revolution in my spiritual journey.

Carrie: I think finding the character of God. And I’m really connecting with the character of God who he says he is in the Bible and experiencing that in your life as absolutely a game-changer. I’m curious. This is a question for you from the trends of the podcast. Our podcast is for people with anxiety and OCD. But the most popular episodes that have been downloaded have been personal stories about people with OCD who have experienced that. Even more popular than our very first episode just like, Hey, this is the podcast. This is who Carrie is and all of that. What do you think? That’s because people just aren’t talking about OCD and the church.

Peyton: Oh, absolutely. When I wrote my book, not said by myself, my editor called me and she said, Hey, sweetheart, you got to lighten up on the church, just a smidge. You gotta pull back just a littlest. So I’ve talked about that with much more grace. Thanks to my editor. And my book, I think we talk about the soul in the church, but I also think if God created the soul, he created the body and he created the mind.

And we are called to honor all three of those. We are called to keep all three of those healthy to keep them in check. Iron sharpens iron, I think mind, body, and spirit. And I don’t know where the disconnect happened with the church and that aspect. I don’t have a clue, but nobody talks about your mind and your physical health either.

And if those two aren’t in check often the spirit’s not in check. And so we’re walking around almost wobbly like one-third of us is functioning like it’s supposed to in the church and we wonder why things still feel like they’re falling apart.

Carrie: And they’re not working. And this concept, which I’m still just wrapping my mind around is like the holy spirit lives in me like in my body that just really blows my mind.

So I’m like, does how I treat my body that has to interact with my spirit? I know it doesn’t change the holy spirit. I’m not saying that, but I mean how I interact with my body changes my spiritual health. It affects my spiritual health as well as my emotional health and physical health.

It’s just all interconnected. And I think you’re right, I think we do try to look at those things separately and don’t interact with each other. And if we want to be more healthy spiritually, we also have to be more healthy emotionally and physically. It just makes sense. I love that.

Talk with us about this concept in your book of not being alone that seems to be a big thing for you. Why did you title the book the way that you did and how does that incorporate with what you wrote about?

Peyton: I think OCD was probably one of the most isolating things in my life. Like I said, even growing up, I was a worrier. My friends called me the worrier.

I was the mom friend like I was always 45. I was always isolated because I was the mom. I was the worrying one. I was the one who can not just ever let loose and have fun now, not in the name of sinful pleasure, but I was just never relaxed. I can never breathe and that was one of the most isolating things for me.

And so as I got older, life got harder, stuff got more serious intrusive thoughts just have a field day with that. I mean, because there’s just so much more stake. Once I got married like sexual OCD stuff went through the roof because never had I ever had sex. And now I have, and my brain is like, “Oh, here’s 5 million things we can take and run with.”

So I continue to get lonelier and lonelier because all of these thoughts made me take a step back, take a step back. I was not like everyone else. Something was wrong with me. Should I call the sheriff on myself like what is going on? And so when Josh physically left and I was physically by myself, that was probably one of the darkest places in my life because I had always been mentally and even spiritually isolated just from the church I grew up in and struggling with OCD. And here I am not physically alone and it took therapy. It took God’s grace. It took two or three very dear friends that made you realize you literally cannot be alone. And it sounds so churchy. It sounds so cliche.

But like you said, if the holy spirit is truly embodying you then I am called to believe that he is embodying every lonely space I’m walking through. So he is quite literally paving the way and telling loneliness to just step aside like it doesn’t have a place here, not in my heart, not in my spirit, not in my physical body, not in my mind. And so that’s how I chose the title, Not So By Myself.

Carrie: So huge. I hope that as people hear this podcast and these stories that they recognize that within themselves too like I’m not alone. I’m not alone in my struggles and that God’s here with me and God can break into those lonely spaces. And I love that he just meets us where we’re at, you know, all of our mess.

Peyton: That’s what I say. He works best in the mess. That is where he thrives.

Carrie: So cool. Towards the end of the podcast, I like to ask our guests to share a story of hope, which is the time where you received hope from God or another person.

Peyton: Oh, that is such a good one. OCD is just so wild. So harm OCD for me, I’m always afraid of running people off the road. I’m always turning my car around to make sure I haven’t run anybody off the road. There was one day I was in my little black Chevy car that I had gotten in high school and I was driving home and I just had one of those intrusive thoughts of I tried to pick up my phone because someone was calling me and I thought, “oh my gosh.”

[00:28:00] like for those five split seconds, you have no idea if you were looking at the road, what could have happened? So I just hit the brakes. It’s a quiet country town, but I still hit the brakes in the middle of the road. And I went to go whip my car around and somebody sideswipes me because I’m irrationally flipping my car in the middle of the street.

And I thought, “oh, my word. I have just caused a wreck. I have no clue if this person is okay. I don’t know how I’m gonna tell a cop I have intrusive thought OCD and that’s why I’ve had a wreck. So I pull off on the side of the road and this woman pulls off and I see her and she’s older and I think she’s 85.

I have partially killed her. She’s going to need a hip replacement. This woman gets out of her car. I’ve damaged her car like this was on me. She comes over and she grabs my hand and she looks at me and, and even in a small town, this was one of those random chances where I didn’t know who this was.

She said, “I just want you to know that this is God’s providential hand, that you’re safe and I’m safe.” And she prayed over me and just left. And I’m sitting here going, ”my insurance is going to go through the roof.” I definitely just clipped the back end of her car. So no insurance going up. I didn’t pay anything for this woman’s car.

I swear she was an angel. So that was just hope because that was a hard thing. Mentally, I was in a bad place. I made a bad decision as a driver and this woman just prays over me, gives me grace, and just drives off. And I will never forget that day. I will never forget her face, the street name, any of it as long as I live. That was some serious hope that I will not forget.

Carrie: Wow. What a testimony of God’s grace. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. I think this has been great to talk about all the different things that you talked about and I’m sure it’ll be an encouragement to somebody.

180. A Pastor’s Daughter Struggles with Scrupulosity: A Personal Story with Stephanie Smith, LPC

Written by Carrie Bock on June 30, 2025. Posted in OCD, Personal Testimony, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie speaks with Virginia-based therapist Stephanie Smith about her personal and professional journey with OCD, including how it intersected with her Christian faith. They explore the development of scrupulosity, the healing impact of ICBT, and the importance of separating OCD’s voice from the truth of God’s grace.

Episode Highlights:

Stephanie’s personal journey with OCD, beginning in childhood and evolving into scrupulosity during her teen years.
Why OCD often targets a person’s deepest values—such as faith—and how that complicates spiritual life.
The difference between fear-based religious behavior and grace-centered faith.
The role of perfectionism and guilt in religious OCD and the shift toward grace-based faith.
How Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT) helps individuals stay grounded in reality and resist OCD’s imagined narratives.

Episode Summary:

What happens when your deepest spiritual values become the very thing your brain starts to fear? Therapist Stephanie Smith knows that struggle firsthand—not just as a clinician, but as someone who grew up with undiagnosed OCD that slowly evolved into scrupulosity.

Stephanie opens up about how her struggles with OCD began in early childhood, long before she had the language or support to understand what was happening. As she grew older, her symptoms shifted into scrupulosity—a form of OCD that latches onto one’s faith, twisting deeply held spiritual values into sources of fear, guilt, and confusion.

Stephanie’s story highlights just how overwhelming it can be to live with OCD in a Christian context. She shares how intrusive thoughts, purity culture, and black-and-white thinking made her feel distant from God and unsure of her salvation, even as she earnestly tried to follow all the “rules.” We talk about the critical moment when she finally received an accurate diagnosis in her late teens, the relief that came with understanding her mind, and how therapy—especially Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (ICBT)—helped her reconnect with her true self and rediscover the God of grace, not fear.

Stephanie and I also reflect on the connection between identity development and OCD recovery, how perfectionism and guilt play a role, and what it means to embrace a spiritual life rooted in love—not performance.

We don’t just talk theory—we talk healing. Stephanie’s story is filled with hope, insight, and tangible wisdom for anyone feeling stuck in fear, shame, or spiritual confusion. And if you’re someone who’s navigating OCD as a Christian or supporting someone who is, I want you to know: you’re not alone, and you don’t have to stay in that place of uncertainty forever.

🎧 Tune in to the full episode to hear Stephanie’s powerful journey and learn how you can begin trading fear for peace, and perfectionism for grace.

Explore Related Episode:

162. Hope for Scrupulosity with Dr. Constance Salhany

Transcript

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

Carrie: Another reason I like this interview is because it really shows you how scrupulosity often comes as a secondary OCD to an initial OCD theme that then gets latched into faith. That’s helpful for us to know because oftentimes we have to really look at tackling that initial OCD theme before we can unravel the spiritual pieces of it.

I know you’re gonna enjoy today’s episode, so let’s dive right in. Stephanie, if you can just go ahead and introduce yourself for us.

Stephanie: Yeah. My name is Stephanie Smith. I’m a psychotherapist, licensed professional counselor. Virginia located at a group practice in Richmond with lived experience with OCD.

Carrie: Awesome. And we met through the ICBT group, or was it through Instagram?

Stephanie: I think it was Instagram. I saw I was following some OCD accounts and had followed, stumbled across years. Why did you wanna share your story today? I think my diagnosis of OCD, just the intersection, I think of my faith and OCD and sort of how my own faith sort of.

I took hold of, or my OCD kind of had the theme of the scru moralistic, the religious OCD already as a Christian OCD really attacks your values. Just raising awareness, I think, of the forms that OCD can take and shedding some light on a sufferer of OCD, who’s also has navigated her faith. How that can kind of be complicated when OC D’S a liar and your faith is not.

And so trying to navigate what voice is what,

Carrie: Tell us a little bit about how OCD showed up for you, or when did you start to notice those obsessions coming on?

Stephanie: They really started. I think I was really young and we’re talking maybe like elementary school, and I would have really intrusive thoughts. They would just kind of, they were like violent or they were sexual or they were horrific and they would just be these images and I would just burst into tears.

I didn’t know where they were, what they were, how they came about. I. And I had a lot of separation anxiety, I think from my parents at the time, the separation anxiety. I was asking my parents, am I gonna be okay? Is everything okay? They didn’t have much knowledge about anxiety and OCD or there was not much mental health awareness in general in the early nineties.

I’m a millennial, so there wasn’t a lot, and my parents didn’t really know what to do except to reassure me. And we know with OCD sometimes reassurance. Can make it worse as a compulsions. There was a lot of reassurance seeking a lot of confessing that I had a thought or that I, and a lot of the confessing wasn’t even anything I was doing wrong, but I worried, what if I was doing something wrong?

And so compulsive praying a lot of that. So that’s kind of how it started when I was young. And I guess I can fast forward a little bit into middle school. With OCD, it tends to play whack-a-mole with themes. So at first it was kind of that harm OCD that worries that something bad was gonna happen to my family or me.

And this fixation in the nineties, around the time when I grew up and was a child and also a teenager in a lot of, I guess at that time I grew up in evangelical culture, so in youth group and stuff, where at that time there was a lot of talk about, I truly got hung up on obedience. I was like, oh, what if I go to hell?

What if I’m not pleasing? God? What if, what if? What if?

Carrie: Did you feel like you could share any of those concerns with your parents? Or were there certain ones that you would seek reassurance for and ask them about? And then other ones that you were like, oh no, that’s too scary to admit or tell anybody? I don’t think until later,

Stephanie: no.

A lot of what I was struggling with, I just remember lots of times I would cry to nowhere because I had an intrusive thought.

Carrie: Oh, but they

Stephanie: didn’t know why I was upset, why I was crying, and I couldn’t really articulate it. I did feel like I could come to my parents. My dad is a pastor and it was funny ’cause he was never really a hellfire and brimstone pastor, but I think in that culture there was just fixation on eternal damnation and I was like, oh no.

As a kid, when you have OCD, it just makes some things a lot harder to navigate

Carrie: and it just gives latched on to certain things and especially I think. OCD like structure, like, oh, well you’re telling me do A, B, C, and I’ll be obedient and I’ll be like the good Christian, so I’ve gotta like extra be sure that I’m doing A, B, C, so that I can go to heaven and please God, and he won’t be upset with me.

Stephanie: It was challenging to get to a place where I didn’t fixate on my face as much. I got to a place where I had figured out my beliefs for myself and things didn’t scare me. It was a journey, and there’s a lot of themes that sort of played Whack-a-Mole, but in sixth grade. There were rumors about me and a friend of mine that we were gay, and this is in like mid to late nineties where there wasn’t as much awareness or acceptance of the lgbtq plus community.

And so then it was like you were really ostracized. At the time, I didn’t think I was gay, but then I started to question it. What if I am gay and if I’m gay? What if I’m an abomination to God and I’m really going to hell? Yeah. Again, just this fixation and at the time I didn’t have a healthy understanding of, I don’t think, my faith and the concept of heaven.

Hell, as a child, you are very black and white with your categories of thinking. It’s either good or bad. Right or wrong. Yeah.

Carrie: Yes. Or. I think that whole period of sexual development too, back in that day, very much like purity culture. I don’t know if this was part of your story, but like not talking about sex and our only conversations surrounding it are no bad, don’t do it.

Wait till

Stephanie: you’re married. I had a really great youth group, leaders and things, but there were camps that we’d go to and so sometimes. Even if a youth pastor a leader was well-meaning if you’ve got somebody in the group that’s got OCD, you gonna latch onto something that you said and spin a story. And I tended to do that.

I did that a lot and just really thought that I was like too bad of a person for Jesus to love, which at the time really made me very depressed when I was, I wanna say in 10th grade or 11th grade, my dad had found a poem that I wrote. He thought was a suicide note. It wasn’t. It was just a really depressing sort of self-deprecating poem.

And he had taken me outta school to go to, I guess the hospital to look into counseling or medicine. And this is the first time I’m 17, so I have not gotten any help all these years for OCD or anxiety or any of it. And I got put on Paxil, which is SSRI, antidepressant, which really helped with my mood and I didn’t find out until later into my own career as a licensed therapist that.

Those types of medications also help a lot with OCD. And so when I got put on that, I was also given, uh, recommended or referred to a therapist who really spotted my OCD. I mean, it might have been the first session or something. She was like, this is what this is. So it was a huge relief to know, you mean this is a thing that I’m not wrong and bad.

I literally have a pulse condition, the psychoeducation piece, this is what OCD is. Your intrusive thoughts are actually the opposite of what you want. They’re not indicative of who you are as a person. That’s why you are so scared of them. ’cause you don’t like them. This is OCD and so that was instrumental in my career now as a therapist was having her.

Carrie: Yeah, that’s awesome that it was found so quickly and they didn’t just treat you for anxiety. Right. That sounds like you were having some pretty clear symptomology though, like just explaining the thoughts that were going through your head. And then did you stay with that same counselor for a while? I did.

Stephanie: She told me a little bit about ERP and gave me a book on it on exposure response prevention, which is a kind of golden standard therapy for OCD, but I found that just the knowledge of what OCD was significantly decreased. Not only my fear of my intrusive thoughts, but it dissipated the fear. So I wasn’t afraid of having them, and therefore it decreased the frequency because I wasn’t living in fear of having them ’cause I knew what they were.

So I could just, oh, that’s OCD. It was also interesting because when I told her about my fears of. At the time, oh, what if I’m gay? Or what if she goes, Stephanie, do you wanna ram your tongue down a girl’s throat? And I was like, no. Ew. She’s like, then you’re not gay. And I’m like, okay. So at the time, regardless of your thoughts on, as a Christian, as a believer and sexuality, it wasn’t like okay, like it wasn’t anywhere and was still wasn’t as much of acceptance or awareness really of the LGBT community.

And so I’ve since reconciled some of my thoughts on, and my faith and I. That just kind of was a growing process as I got older. But at the time in the culture in the nineties that I was in an evangelical culture, it was just this big no-no. And so after I kind of realized what OCD was, got the education from her, that sort of propelled me forward into.

Going into my career now.

Carrie: I mean, essentially what she did there in terms of I Ccbt was get you in touch with your true desires.

Stephanie: Yeah, I really like ICBT as a therapeutic modality for OCD because it resolves. It kind of at the root, tells you that your intrusive thoughts, like what you obsess about, is it random.

It’s actually a threat to kind of your true self. It scares you because it’s not how you see yourself. But OCD tends to be very strong in making you feel that the thought or the urge or the fear is true. And even if you know kind of deep down that something is not the case, OCD tries to convince you it is as it is the doubting disorder.

Carrie: I’m just realizing more and more how much of OCD treatment is about identity development, and I’m curious about. Your spiritual development from that point, of course, like OCD was trying to hijack that and distort really your view of God and distort like your beliefs about what it meant to be a Christian or workspace, salvation, however you wanna conceptualize that.

Yeah. But how did that shift? Over time for you, was it just kind of small ways of like reading the scriptures for yourself? Was it being around other forms of teaching? Like

Stephanie: after college? I think I had sort of, I’ve gone to your more conservative evangelical churches. I’ve gone to more progressive churches.

I’ve kind of like explored a lot to get to a point where I’m confident in my faith as I see it, I don’t fear it as much. And my grandmother. She had really bad anxiety and worry. My grandfather, her husband had OCD, which is where I get it from, which unfortunately, but both the OCD and the anxiety, one of my great aunt had told her one day, Jeanette, you read the Bible too much, it’ll drive you crazy.

The idea was if you obsess and you were compulsively, urgently seeking the scriptures, you were reading out of fear and you were not reading in a way that is where you’re at peace and you’re interested, you are afraid. And so I took that to really mean that I. If you are looking at stuff and you were forgetting about the grace component or the fact that salvation is a journey, a process through which Paul says to work out your salvation, it’s a sanctification process, so right, it’s not gonna be, you’re gonna get everything right in this moment.

You’re gonna obey 100%. It’s just not realistic. Nor is it indicative of the great heroes of scripture

Carrie: who also made their share of mistakes and messed up and. I think people forget that Paul was on a track murdering Christians before he encountered Jesus. I think somehow we’ve missed that part of the story.

We’re like, let’s like just exclude that and pretend like that never happened. But OCD will have you getting stuck on like one small offense or some sin that you’ve committed. It could be something that you did a long, long time ago, and OCD keeps bringing that back up. Well see you’re this way or that way.

Okay. That was something I did 10 years ago and it’s not even relevant to my life today and who I am. Thank God I’m not the same person that I was that many years ago. I’ve just been processing, I think a little bit about what you’re talking about related to sin, forgiveness, grace related to scrupulosity, that those can be really challenging concepts for people to grasp understanding of.

It’s not about me doing all the things to be right with God. It’s very hard to shift out of that. I mean, do you wanna speak to that? Maybe a little bit?

Stephanie: Yeah. I think with, you had kind of mentioned earlier, like a workspace kind of, we can get into that mentality with OCD being a kind of black and white all or nothing, that it can really align with this idea that I have to earn, I have to do, I have to this workspace.

When the work has already been done. And that’s the beauty of it that I had to realize was that these are all things that I have been saved from and I don’t have to white knuckle it, grip my teeth and like push through and try to obey all these commands. It’s hard because I think sometimes why I used to look at Christ’s commands.

Christ can say some things that are pretty all or nothing pretty, like absolute obey. And he said, be perfect for your father in heaven is perfect. But if he said, be pretty okay, we’d all be patting ourselves on the back. We wouldn’t be motivated to grow and mature. So I think it was something to strive for because he knew that we weren’t perfect or he wouldn’t have had to die.

We just have to keep that in mind that this is what he came for. And I think OCD can really convince us. And keep us staying in this rut of self-loathing and things like that, that really is the opposite of what I think Christ came to do. We’re made in the image of God, and if we’re constantly self-loathing, we’re really just kind of showing that we don’t believe that, and I think it’s important to believe that we are made in God’s image and that we don’t have to let OCD be the

Carrie: judge.

I don’t have to keep like striving all so much and working so hard at something. I think it’s something that we’re meant to have like a natural abiding in Christ and connection to the Holy Spirit and making sure that our conscience is clear in the sense that we are connected to God, making sure that we are not actively repetitively sinning, that we’re allowing the Holy Spirit into nudge us.

To do that gentle transformation, that’s very kind for us. Like, Hey, you’re in the wrong here. Like do something different. And it’s a very big shift from feeling like we’ve gotta do all the roles or we’ve gotta complete all the tasks. And I think that so many people were raised in one system of thinking.

It can be very hard for them to experience God for themselves and to start to shift some of that thinking and looking at these things a little bit differently. Maybe there is grace for me too. It’s not just some kind of foreign concept out there, but I think accepting that we’re not going to be perfect, accepting our imperfections is just so huge part of this process.

Like striving for it, but then also understanding we’re gonna fail. It’s very strange, right? Right. It’s like a dance.

Stephanie: It’s like it’s, you do what’s in your power or what’s a response to God’s love and grace and he meets us where we are. He’s there first and we sort of take a step. I definitely feel like it would take pages and pages to kind of like really flesh out.

I think Cru velocity, OCD is a very challenging thing to have, especially when you are religious. You are a believer in work. It’s, yeah, it’s hard. Because there’s a book of rules, but I really think it takes the right disposition approach to scripture. When we read, are we reading out of fear or are we reading out of a willingness to be loved and understood and a response to the love that’s already there?

Carrie: I like the dance metaphor ’cause it’s very active, it’s very engaged. You can’t do it by yourself. I mean, I guess you can dance by yourself, but in this sense of having a relationship with God, I can’t do that by myself. God invites me into that process and into that relationship because he loves me and I’m gonna have some missteps in the dance and that’s okay.

Like God continue to lead me back to where I need to be. And so I think that that’s a beautiful, it just shifts your faith from, is this about rules? Just doing the quote right thing all the time, or is it essentially Jesus told the Pharisees like, you’re doing a lot of things, but like your heart’s not in the right place.

So it’s just, are we gonna look at, okay, where is our heart at and allowing God to continue to mold and shape that into who he wants us to be. Why else do you think that just from your clinical and like kind of professional glasses now, why do you think Scrupulosity is so challenging to treat?

Stephanie: I think probably because I think scrupulosity of cd, you are probably already very conscientious.

You probably have a very loud conscious and a sense of right and wrong and guilt and like, and you’ve got this constant condemner of OCD here and I think if anything, maybe there’s. Some hope in knowing that I’m probably doing the right thing more than someone who doesn’t have OCD and has a thing that’s really trying to, not that we should compare ourselves, but I think it’s totally challenging because there are people who maybe who have Cru philosophy OCD, that will fixate on past mistakes as evidence that they’re doing something wrong or that they shouldn’t do.

Because then with ICBT, we talk about what’s the evidence? Do we have any direct evidence for this? Someone might say, oh, well I’ve got this experience with it, or this past thing I did, which I guess partly we call real event ocd. Yeah. But if we have a OCDs, logical fallacies or the reasoning categories it uses to try to convince us of these.

Erroneous messages that does become challenging to navigate. Really say that, okay, this might have happened in the past, but I think is it your intention to be a terrible person? Do you even feel angry when you worry, oh, what if I harm this person? Are you even angry in the moment? Do you have an intention?

Because that matters too, just because you did something in the past. Or struggle with this or that doesn’t mean that you are actively intending to do these things versus an actual person that is doing bad things or is an actual, I guess, bad person isn’t concerned that they’re bad or isn’t concerned.

They don’t care. And so I think it’s important to realize that we’re not perfect. So again, it is a dance with the Holy Spirit. It’s a dance with God. We’re gonna mess up. It’s some perfectionism, I think, falls into that true velocity, OCD two.

Carrie: Absolutely, definitely. I see a lot of perfectionistic tendencies in the clients that I work with.

Is there anything else that you wanna share about like ICBT and how you’ve seen it be helpful? Would you say that’s primarily what you’re using or you use some ICBT, some ERP kind of depending on wanting or. I do more ICBT currently,

Stephanie: but I’ve done some ERP as well. I think that one of the most helpful things about ICBT others have found is that there is this space where we go from reality into our imagination and we kind of, there’s this bridge where we get triggered.

We walk past a doorknob and we think, what if it’s dirty? Or what if my hands are contaminated? And then we have this space where we can stay rooted in reality and say, with my five senses, do I see or smell dirt? My common sense says that I am clean. We have a choice to stay rooted in direct evidence. And the here and now.

Or we can choose to go over that bridge into the imagination and then start spinning a story which never gets resolved. OCD can say, well, you know, it might be dirty. You might not be able to see these germs. Or, what if you just thought you washed your hands earlier? What if you didn’t actually wash them enough?

What if there’s a spot on your hands that didn’t get washed? And then there’s like point of no return. Like you’re over the bridge at this point. And so I like ICBT ’cause it helps us to be mindful of when we’re going into Ooc D land. The bubble. Yeah. And how to stay rooted and grounded in the here and now.

And in reality,

Carrie: it really allows you to slow down. And I also like too that you talked about the shifting of themes and sometimes that can be so jarring work through one theme and then. For example, okay, I’ve kind of worked through this. I feel like I’m okay with it now, but then some new theme just seems to pop outta nowhere, and then they feel like they’re okay.

Now I’ve gotta expose myself to this. Make sure that I’m not avoiding, make sure that I’m not seeking reassurance, and it just can be very jarring. Versus with I ccbt, you’re really learning all of these skills that can help you across whatever theme that you’re gonna face or that’s gonna pop up for you.

You’re like, okay, let me go back to, like you said, kind of what’s in here and now let me look. How did I get carried over into this OCD land? What was the story or the reasoning behind it? I’m, I always like to tell people because they’re like, Carrie, I can only talk to you about this type of stuff. It makes zero sense to anybody else.

In OCD world, I understand your logic, like I understand how you got to this point. And so then we have to teach you to like retrain your brain to learn like all of the OCD, I don’t know, prosecutor arguments, how you can kind of be over here on the other side and go, that’s really not relevant to what you’re saying over here.

You’re bridging right there into something else. Yeah, that’s really good.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Carrie: I

Stephanie: think of OCD as, like you said, prosecutor like this, almost like a Pharisee saying, pointing its fingers, saying you didn’t do this, and just who could stand up under that sort? And Jesus condemned, he rebuked kind of the legalistic tendencies of you are putting people under the weight of burdens they can hardly carry.

I wonder if externalizing OCD kind of like that could also be helpful with scru velocity, OCD and that theme to be like, okay, what is the truth of. The gospel say to me versus this condemnation that OCD is, it’s like, no matter what way I spin it, I’m gonna be damned so to speak by OCD. It’s like it’s a lose lose and so better with ICBT not to get into that OCD bubble to begin with.

And ICBT teaches you how to do that, how to not get caught up in the story of OCD with the narrative.

Carrie: Yeah. It’s a complex therapy and really you have to kind of go through it layer by layer understanding. Okay. These are totally new concepts. Let me get my mind like kind of around the concepts. Let me maybe apply it to somebody else if I don’t feel like I can apply it fully to myself.

And then I feel like I can move forward and apply some of these things to myself and look at the reasoning AR arguments. But a lot of people who are just very logic based really enjoy it. They do. I found it the same. Yes, absolutely. I’ll put a link to your practice in the show notes and where people can find you.

If they’re in Virginia, then that’d be great. Thanks so much for sharing. Is there anything else that you wanted to share? There is hope for OCD is very

Stephanie: treatable with therapy, those two modalities. But also there’s medications that work to help that Part of the brain is in that obsessive loop. Sometimes a combination is helpful.

There definitely is hope

Carrie: if you have OCD. So if you’re in a really negative place right now and you get nothing else from this episode, that’s why we’re here on the podcast talking about these things and letting you know that there are other people that have gone through treatment. That’s what this whole like summer series is about is, hey, there were people that were in really rough places with their OCD and they’ve come to a much healthier level.

Let me ask you this, what does recovery for you.

Stephanie: I think recovery for me looks like I’m not as hung up on things as much anymore. I think that with recovery I have tendencies. I still have OCD. Mm-hmm. But it’s less sticky. The thoughts are less sticky. I am much more willing or able, I guess, to stay rooted in reality, to let go of a thought or a what if, or a maybe I’m, however, it, it can show up in images, urges, thoughts.

Whatever way OCD manifests in anyone. Like for me, it’s easier for me to kind of let go and be mindful of, okay, what’s in the here and now and what’s my common sense and my true self say about this? And it’s a lot easier to stay

Carrie: grounded. Well, thank you so much for sharing today. You’re welcome, Carrie.

Thanks for listening today. If you have any show suggestions, guest suggestions, or would love to share your story on the podcast, you can reach out to us at kiri bach.com/podcast.

Stephanie: 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 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.