Is It the Spirit or OCD?

I’m going to give you two scenarios, and I want you to decide which experience details something happening with Scrupulosity Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and which one details a genuine spiritual experience:

1. You feel as if you’ve been drifting away from God lately, so you say a prayer to try to feel the Spirit and strengthen your faith. You feel closer to God afterwards. 

2. You feel as if you’ve been drifting away from God lately, so you say a prayer to try to feel the Spirit and strengthen your faith. You feel closer to God afterwards.

If you didn’t notice any difference, it’s because at first glance, there might not be one. 

There’s so much that goes into deciphering what is the Spirit and what is OCD. However, in a nutshell, it’s important to take note of both what the motivating factor for participating in the religious behavior is and what feelings are coming up after the religious behavior is completed.

The OCD cycle can be confused with the Spirit

Let’s try again with the two scenarios. 

1. You feel as if you are drifting away from God because you are having doubting thoughts about your religion. This makes you feel quite anxious – faithful people don’t have those kinds of thoughts! You say a prayer to try to feel the Spirit and strengthen your faith. In the prayer, you repent for not being faithful enough and promise that you will try harder. After the prayer, the anxiety dissipates and you feel closer to God.

2. You feel as if you’ve been drifting away from God lately because you haven’t been spending as much time with the Lord as you’d like. You say a prayer to let God know that you love Him and want Him to be involved in your life. You feel closer to Him afterwards. 

By taking a look at the broader context, it becomes more clear that the scenario which involves Scrupulosity OCD does not involve feeling the Spirit at all – in fact, the feeling of relief the individual experiences is actually just because they completed the OCD cycle. They got an intrusive thought, they felt anxious, they completed a compulsion (in this case, repentance/prayer) and then the anxiety temporarily went down.

Mistaking this reduction in anxiety for an experience with the Spirit is incredibly common in the Scrupulosity OCD space. However, paying attention to where the OCD cycle is occurring in regards to your religious behavior is not the only way to discern God’s voice from OCD.

Qualities of the Spirit vs. OCD

This article has been an incredibly helpful resource for me in my journey with learning to decipher the Spirit from OCD. It provides a list of adjectives that can be used to separate the two:

What is the Spirit and what is OCD? Credit: Annabella Hagen and Kelli Smith https://iocdf.org/faith-ocd/living-with-ocd-religious-traditions/church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints/

If you are unsure if the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing are coming from God or not, evaluating whether you feel comforted, hopeful and peaceful or whether you are floundering in confusion, fear and hopelessness can be useful.

For example, when I was preparing to go on a service mission for my church, I spent a lot of time making lists of my past mistakes to ensure I had done everything I needed to do to be forgiven by God. I was messaging people I thought I I had offended in the fifth grade, confessing to my bishop that I had played the Sims – I didn’t feel peace. Even though I thought I was being righteous by trying to utilize the atonement of Jesus Christ, I was simply perpetuating the OCD cycle. 

On the other hand, I remember several times shortly after my father passed away where I got on my knees and prayed for comfort from God. Afterwards, I felt that my burden truly had been lightened. My difficulties did not feel so overwhelming – I felt peace in a situation that was anything but peaceful. That was God’s Spirit.

Leaning into uncertainty

Lastly, it’s vital to not get sucked into trying to find certainty about whether any particular experience was from God or part of the OCD cycle. If you’re not careful, this can just become another compulsion. 

The way to do this is to constantly remind yourself that there is no way to know for sure what is God and what is not. Decide what you will use to determine what is the Spirit and what is OCD and then set a boundary with yourself that you will make a choice and then stick with it, avoiding rumination and other compulsions along the way.

Discerning God’s voice when you have OCD

Like most things in life, there isn’t a straight answer to the question, is this the Spirit or is it OCD? Ultimately, it’s up to each individual person to learn to decipher what figuring this out on a daily basis looks like for them. 

However, utilizing the list of the characteristics of what is the Spirit and what is OCD can be exceptionally helpful in addition to remembering your past experiences and how they left you feeling. From there, it’s all about not getting stuck in the OCD cycle of seeking certainty.

For more information on this topic, check out this resource.