The Blessing of Scrupulosity

An Intro

Scrupulosity in the form I am discussing here is the form of OCD that relates to intrusive thoughts about religion, commonly taking the form of having blasphemous thoughts towards the Holy Spirit, Jesus or the Father and fear of committing the unforgivable sin. Other possibilities are a hyper sensitivity towards whether something is or isn't a sin and a need to confess endlessly. My purpose here is not to discuss in great deal these but to discuss something quite differently, that is my experience with OCD and despite it being perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever had to deal with (and still do have to deal with) how God has used it in the most beautiful of ways.

My Experience

Scrupulosity is the most difficult form of OCD I have ever had to deal with. My thoughts began with me beginning to obsess over whether particular things were sinful, now this was not ordinary healthy concern over not wanting to offend God. This was not is it sinful to have sex outside marriage or more sensible concerns like those, this was concerns over whether ANYTHING that wasn't directly Christian was sinful. That is, was watching TV sinful, how about doing my degree? Seeing my girlfriend (at the time)? Listening to music that wasn't directly christian, talking about things that weren't directly Christian and playing sports and many other things I did enjoy were also up for extreme scrutiny. Obviously the questioning made those enjoyable things of life considerably less enjoyable and also gave me a view of God that He simply wanted me to be miserable all the time. Doing actual Christian activities would be a forced ritual done out of terror rather than love. Done in my own strength rather than thanks to God and the Holy Spirit, it was about what I did and do and not about what Jesus had done for me. Suicide at times seemed like a nice way out, but then again that would be a sin and force me into eternal damnation. I was trapped.

Thanks to some brilliant support people and medication I have managed to learn to understand these thoughts and the problems with them. I have had other forms of Scrupulosity such as the need to confess things to people when it is unneccessary but the purpose of this post isn't for that and the information here should suffice.

The Blessing?!

If you've read up to this point you may be wondering how I can call the most painful experience of my life, one in which suicide seemed like a nice option a blessing. The famous phrase 'The Lord works in mysterious ways' comes to mind. So why do I call it a blessing? I would firstly say this, I thank God for my Scrupulosity, not because I feel like some sort of special person for being a Christian and having it or because I have a difficulty that I manage to deal with reasonably well. No, I thank God because my Scrupulosity corrected my views and opinions of God, it corrected many misconceptions I had, through the pain came Jesus. Through the pain came the cross.

So what exactly did I learn, well thanks to God primarily through the teaching of Pastor Bob Waters and others over at The Scrupe Group I was first directed to Colossians 2, this passage immediately showed me that I could still have fun, that I could go out and do things, that God didn't want me to be miserable. This was a vital first step but was only the beginning, this gave me a foothold against the OCD and some valuable insight but only put me in the position I was before these concerns had crossed my mind.

The most valuable lessons I have ever learnt would be the very core of Christian belief, predominantly to have a view outside of myself a view that looks towards Jesus and not to myself. A view that puts all the emphasis on Jesus and what he does and does not put the emphasis on me and what I do. That when Jesus said 'It is finished' - See John 19:30 - He meant it, that is to say I was saved about 2000 years ago by my God being crucified for me. Did I deserve it? No. Did I do anything to deserve it? No. Did I do anything to receive it? Again no. Stop and think about that for a minute, think about the beauty of this message, that is I did nothing, I do nothing, I deserved nothing (or actually I deserved eternal punishment) but still God came to save me.

Now, the above is not something I hadn't heard before, however it is something I'd never been taught in this way before. Many times people in churches and elsewhere hear that one is saved by Jesus or put another way by Grace alone, through Faith Alone, in Christ alone but are in the next breath told what they must do to receive this grace. We are given analogies such as God holding out his hand just waiting for us to take hold of him, we are asked to pray a 'sinner's prayer' or to 'accept Jesus into our hearts'. One must conclude from this teaching that we are infact saved not by Jesus but by Jesus and our decision. That is to say that somebody who is dead can still make a decision - Ephesians 2:1 and further to say that when Jesus said it is finished he really meant, it is finished...sort of.

So why is this important? What difference does it really make in the mind of a Christian. To me the distinction is vital and the most beautiful thing God taught me through my scrupulosity. My focus now isn't what I do (even in as small a thing as making a decision, as a scrupulous person however this small 'requirement' can easily escalate, if it wasn't ACTUALLY finished when Jesus said it is, why believe now that it is finished when I make a decision aswell?) but is what God has done for me. One of my favourite sayings that Pastor Bob Waters said to me once when I was very confused was this 'It's not about you, It's about Jesus!'

So now my focus is different and this change of focus changed my life, now its not about how strong my belief is but that God's promises are true, I can now have my doubts but simply cling to the promises. I can have my troubles and my problems but remember that what Jesus did was sufficient. Fully sufficient.

That isn't to say that I have free license to go about doing as I please and sinning without care, that would simply constitute unbelief. No the work of the Holy Spirit in me to cause faith in me so that I can be saved by grace thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus causes not a fearful need to do certain 'christian' behaviour but a desire to please God, to serve not out of fear but out of love.

My focus is no longer lealistic, my faith is not predominantly about having good morals (although doing what God wants is consequential) the primary aspect of my faith is now Jesus and his sacrifice. My question is no longer What Would Jesus Do? The emphasis is not predominantly his moral teaching and trying to do the right thing. This is honourable and correct but the world and other religions teach good morals. I'm not saying we don't attempt to be Christ-Like, I'm not suggesting we shun the moral teaching for it is clearly important. What I am saying is it is NOT the primary focus of Christianity, no the primary focus is What Did Jesus Do? The primary focus is Christ and the cross and that is what the world and other religions cannot offer.

Why do I call my Scrupulosity a blessing? Through my scrupulosity I found the perfect sacrifice, I can now be thankful to the God who saves. I can now act out of love thanks to His work. I can now rely not on myself but on Him. Through my scrupulosity I found Christ.

OCD: The Pop-Up Book

While seeing my psychologist about my OCD, she made a statement that stuck with me and I thought I'd post on it, her statement was something along the lines of:

"OCD is just so sneaky and has the habit of when one aspect of it goes down another one pops up...."

That got me thinking to what OCD was like for me and that was exactly right and so I think a good analogy for OCD is that of a pop-up book! Unfortunately its not a nice pop-up book like the ones available in the shops full of nice pictures and stories or perhaps even the pop-up cards that are becoming popular in shops also. This is a pop-up book of negatives.

Perhaps the analogy could be taken a little further, perhaps its similar to giving a pop-up horror book to a child, or a pop-up book filled with a particular phobia that a person has. Probably the last of these is the closest match.

Unfortunately with a book one can simply close it, throw it out, give it away, shred it or even burn it if one was in an extreme mood! With OCD, the book is in your head and you don't choose when to open or close the book or even when the page will be turned. Further you spend an awfully long time on each page and infact the page will only turn when one has overcome that particular page. In other words, one can only stop obsessing about a certain thing when that obsession is no longer a threat.

It is clear that there are two possible ways in which one MAY be able to go about this.

1) Show that the worry or fear is irrational and hence not a problem, this is an excellent way of overcoming a phobia but has little to no effect on OCD thoughts. People with OCD are often fully aware that the fear is irrational.

2) Learn to live with the fear. How is the question that one must then ask, the only known way is to let the anxiety caused by the obsessive thought to build and build and build and to then to learn that in time the anxiety will begin to decrease. This is exactly the aim and process of Exposure and Response Prevention.

A word of encouragment:

For those struggling with OCD thoughts and beginning ERP, please take heart in the fact that the Pop-Up effect you may be experiencing is totally normal and to be expected. Yes your thoughts will change topic but the techniques you learnt in dealing with that very first thought are effective for each and every form of OCD you encounter, if you've beaten one, you can beat them all.

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Flock Tour

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OCD: An Explanation of Exposure & Response Prevention Part 2

Ok, so unfortunately, I never got around to writing the second example for this that I promised in the previous post but now I have some free time so I'm going to write it now.

Example 2:

In the first example I went for a very common type of OCD, I thought for this example I would look at one which is less common and show that the treatment is essentially the same with just a few refinements.

So the example I have decided to cover is perhaps one of the most disturbing and certainly a difficult one for non-OCD sufferers to understand. The example is a person who fears he has or will do something really terrible, in this case murder someone.

This may seem an extreme example but I have chosen it because it shows the opposite side to the illness, one where the compulsions and obsessions are harder to spot and many of the compulsions are done internally and how we may combat this.

Step 1:

As before we begin by making a hierarchy, I'm going to try and do this one in a little more detail as I believe its harder to put together than in the original example.

So we have highlighted that our Obsession is that we might be a murderer, it is now important to notice our compulsions that go along with this, both external (things we actually do) and internal (things we think).

Note the following list is not exhaustive but should provide a basis to work from.

External:

1) Avoiding certain objects that could be used, i.e. knives.

2) Avoiding being alone with people.

3) Avoiding things containing violence such as music, movies, games, the News.


Internal:

1) Repeatedly telling yourself your a 'good person'

2) Giving yourself reasons endlessly as to why you wouldn't do that

3) Comparing yourself to killers of the past, noticing similarities, desperately trying to find differences.

So we have now highlighted some external and internal compulsions, many sufferers are good at spotting their external compulsions but struggle to spot internal compulsions, successful treatment requires stopping both external and internal compulsions.

With these compulsions we can now as before create a hierarchy:

The Hierarchy:

We will now set our hierarchy as before and work down the list in order of difficulty (the order and contents obviously vary for each person)

1) Listening to music that talks about a killer - Difficulty 15

2) Watching a fairly violent movie - Difficulty 25

3) Watcing the News - Difficulty 30

4) Watching a very violent/senseless violence movie - Difficulty 50

5) Deliberately looking for similarities between yourself and a killer without looking for differences. - Difficulty 60

5) Showing yourself that your not actually that good a person - Difficulty 75

6) Give some reasons why you might actually kill someone one day - Difficulty 90

7) Being alone with someone and watching a violent movie - Difficulty 95

8) Having a knife next to your bed at night while your partner is asleep next to you - Difficulty 100

Now we have our hierarchy we simply proceed as before by doing each of the following until the anxiety/ Difficulty drops to 0 and then moving on to the next and then adding things as necessary in the list until we have combatted the whole list.

Note: As before this is a long process and very difficult, it is often two step forwards one step back, it is not an easy or a quick fix. Seeing a professional is ALWAYS the best idea.

For much more detailed articles see www.ocdonline.com

OCD: An Explanation Of Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP)

Well its been a while since my last post but finally i've gotten round to writing a new post.

I thought i'd continue on OCD with an explanation of the most commonly used treatment, which is a psychological treatment called Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP)

What Is ERP?

ERP consists of two main parts, the first is exposure and the second is response prevention, the first part exposure works on the Obsessions part of OCD and the response prevention works on the Compulsions part of OCD.

In simple terms, ERP involves exposing yourself to your (ocd) fears and not performing your compulsion (i.e. preventing a response)

Examples:

I figured the easiest way to explain how I would go about ERP is by means of some examples. I have decided to discuss two different forms of OCD here (one today, one tomorrow), one of which is common and another which is less common, hopefully with these it'll be possible to see how to put together a strategy for other forms of OCD yourself.

Example 1 (Cleanliness):

Perhaps the most common form of OCD is cleanliness, or the need to repeatedly wash. In my example we are going to consider a made up person who fears making herself an others ill by not being clean enough and either getting a disease or causing a disease to others.

Step 1: Make a hierarchy:

Since this is difficult to do, it is important first to make a heirarchy with things you find difficult, rating how hard each thing to do would be on a scale of 1-100.

So we get something like this:

Not washing hands after touching a table: Difficulty 20
Not washing hands after shaking hands with someone: Diffculty 40
Not washing hands before eating: Difficulty: 80
Not washing hands after going to the toilet: 100

Ideally the list should be longer than the above and the gaps much smaller, this however is just an example so it should do.

Implementing the Hierarchy:

Now the aim is to start at the lowest difficulty and move on to the most difficult, before moving on to the next one the difficulty rating should drop to 0.

So we would begin by touching a table and not washing our hands for as long as we could, i.e. refusing no matter how difficult it became to wash our hands, over time the fear lowers (this is a long process, it doesn't happen overnight!) and the need to wash hands because a table has been touched diminishes, when this is the case we move on to the next step, i.e. the one with the next lowest difficulty and repeat the process on that until we get to the top of the list. If a new fear comes we add that to the list in the appropriate place and work on it when we get to it.

That is it, sounds easy I know and infact the process is simple, sticking to it and not giving in to your desire to wash your hands is the key.

Things you can do to help not give up:

1) Set realistic targets, don't start with something really hard, start with something easier and work up to harder stuff.

2) Use medication, if necessary medication can take the edge off and make keeping to the ERP easier.

3) Have an accountability partner, preferably a psychologist who can help in putting together a hierarchy, working through problems etc but even a friend can be a huge help.

4) Take it slow, remember this is a long process not a quick fix.

5) If you give up, try again!