Feelings Are Not Facts – Especially When You Have OCD
- abbietabbilos
- 18 minutes ago
- 3 min read
When I was young, I heard someone at church say, “If you stay close to Jesus, you will always be happy no matter what happens to you.”
My Scrupulosity Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) brain took this to mean, “If you prioritize obedience in your life, you can prevent bad things from happening to you and your family.”
But it didn’t stop there – I eventually came to believe that if I was unhappy, it was because I had been disobedient, and therefore that something bad was going to happen so that God could teach me a lesson.
Although I’ve been working on these beliefs in therapy, a quote I read in a book by Pema Chodron made a huge impact on my life: “Pain is not a punishment, pleasure is not a reward.”
The emotions you feel aren’t dependent upon your religion
Although I didn’t stumble across this quote at church or even in a religious context, it so clearly explains how my OCD caused me to view sadness and happiness. It helped me realize that pain is not evidence that I am being punished for being disobedient, and pleasure is not me being rewarded for being good enough.
In other words, God doesn’t deliberately make bad things happen in your life if He feels you aren’t humble enough, and your happiness is not evidence of your righteousness. Yes, certainly, religion can bring additional peace and joy — but it is not the only place that those things are found.
Those things are just happenstance. Emotions. And we need to separate them from religion.
Emotions aren’t evidence
To take this a step further, for individuals with Scrupulosity OCD, this quote can shed some insight into how you can more healthily react when these emotions and thoughts come up instead of immediately resorting to guilt.
For example, when you are feeling down, rather than mentally reviewing your past to find out what you did to deserve it, you can simply recognize that pain is part of the human experience. It doesn’t have to mean anything, and you certainly shouldn’t try to fix it or make it go away. Doing so will only perpetuate the OCD cycle.
The truth is you can be depressed and the most righteous, faithful person on earth. You can be filled with peace and joy and not even believe in God. Just because you think pain means you’ve done something wrong, doesn’t mean that’s the truth. Feelings aren’t facts.
OCD can find evidence for anything
The person I heard say they can be happy no matter what did not have malicious intent – they had no idea it would start an entire snowball effect in my life! What I now understand is that they were simply speaking to the peace they experience in their life that they believe comes from God. They were not, however, stating that they were earning an easier life through righteousness or always avoiding uncomfortable emotions.
Ultimately, OCD can find evidence for anything – that’s why you have to run towards your values. And I hope that your values include self-compassion, self-kindness and self-respect because it is those values that encourage you to remember that feelings are not facts, emotions are not evidence and that you can embrace everything it means to be you.
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