My Scrupulosity OCD Story

We’ve been talking about Scrupulosity Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for over a year now, but I still haven’t sat down and shared all the details about my journey with Religious OCD from start to finish. 

Before I jump straight into things, I want to give an important disclaimer: it can be difficult to nail down an individual’s exact experiences with OCD because oftentimes, there is more than one OCD theme at play. For instance, while most of my experiences with OCD are traced back to Scrupulosity, as a child, I also:

• Stood outside that bathroom door when my family members went to the bathroom so I could count how long they washed their hands for

• Spent long nights researching breast cancer (and asking my mom for breast exams) because I was so worried that I had it

In short: although OCD is rarely cut and dry, for the purposes of this blog, I will focus mainly on how Moral OCD showed up in my life.

Planning and productivity with Scrupulosity OCD

My earliest memories with Scrupulosity OCD all have to do with planning. For example, when I was seven or eight years old, the first thing I would do every morning was get a piece of notebook paper and detail, hour-by-hour, how I would spend my time that day. Then, I would tape that list to my bathroom mirror. 

On top of that, I also kept very detailed lists of how I spent my time in my journals. These recounts included everything from what I wore and how I styled my hair to how much time I spent reading my scriptures and even what I ate and whether I exercised.

At first glance, it may appear that planning has nothing to do with Scrupulosity OCD. However, when you take a closer look, the connection becomes more clear. 

Within the church I grew up in, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), members are taught that spending your time wisely is part of how you become more like Jesus Christ. While these teachings are much more subtle compared to some others, my OCD brain really latched onto this discourse. 

In fact, I can directly link these types of planning and productivity behaviors to when I heard things at church like, “You need less rest than you think you do.”

Prayer rituals with Scrupulosity OCD

Jumping forward to when I was about 11 or 12 years old, I entered a program in my church called Young Women’s – think Boy Scouts for girls. It’s where young women aged 12-18 attend Sunday School, summertime campouts and weekly activities. 

Around this age is when the lessons I received at church had a particular focus on the importance of gaining my own testimony. I was taught how important it was to receive my own witness from God that He lives and that the LDS church is His church upon the earth. 

I took this admonition very seriously. I remember sitting at my desk in my room and telling myself, “If this isn’t the true church, I need to find the right one, because I can’t go through this life on my own.”

After I felt I had received my very own testimony from God, my Scrupulosity OCD ramped up significantly – because in my mind, the stakes were now even higher. Because I knew the truth, I had even more responsibility to be obedient. 

Perhaps most notably, I began to participate in prayer rituals during this time. Not only did I have a very specific manner in which I had to pray (Express gratitude and repent before you ask for help), but I also felt that I had to pray for everyone in my life that I knew by name or else they would not be safe.

Confession and repentance with Scrupulosity OCD

As I approached adulthood, I decided I wanted to prepare to serve a mission for my church. This is when you volunteer 18 months of your life to go to another state, or even another country, to serve others and teach them about Jesus Christ. 

Part of my preparations to go on my mission included going inside the temple for the first time to make covenants with God. This required a church leader to interview me and deem me worthy to do so. During the interview, I was to be asked questions about my thoughts, beliefs and past sins.

My Religious OCD really latched onto this idea of worthiness. I became obsessed with and distressed about whether I had repented correctly for minute things – I was messaging people I had felt I had wronged when I was in the fifth grade, confessing sins like playing video games to my bishop and making extensive lists about my past mistakes in my journals. 

These OCD cycles were particularly troublesome because rather than being fearful about other’s safety or my worthiness to have God’s help in my life, I truly felt that my eternal salvation was at stake.

Relationships and Scrupulosity OCD

After I returned home from my mission, I began dating. This introduced a whole new world of difficulty because I had been taught that sins of a sexual nature were next to murder in their seriousness. This meant that I was extremely afraid of doing anything wrong in my dating relationships.

As a result, I found myself setting very serious rules for myself and then becoming increasingly panicked about trying to be certain that I had kept those rules. I confessed, detail-by-detail, my dating interactions to my mother and constantly worried about whether I needed to go through the formal repentance process in my church.

In addition, I was worried about making sure I was dating the right person. When my now-husband first brought up marriage, it was like a flip switched on in my mind. I was desperate to be certain that I had received a sign from God that it was right for me to marry him.

I cried about “having” to break up with him several times per week, nit-picked everything about him and our relationship and frequently scheduled meetings with my bishop to ask him how I could be certain I was doing the right thing. It made a time that should have been happy very turbulent.

Getting diagnosed with Scrupulosity OCD

About two years after I got married, my husband came home from work one afternoon and discovered me on the couch having a panic attack. I was (unknowingly) stuck in an OCD cycle about our finances and whether we were self-reliant enough. 

He gently told me that he felt that sometimes, the way I thought about things seemed off, and suggested that I talk to someone. 

A few weeks later, I made an appointment with a therapist, and told her that I wasn’t sure why I was there except that I was a very intense perfectionist. A few months later, I was diagnosed with Scrupulosity OCD – and suddenly, so many things about my life and my past made sense. 

Although it took an additional two years after that to finally enter OCD recovery, I am beyond grateful to be in a place now where I not only understand how my own mind works, but also have been able to experience what life is like when OCD isn’t calling the shots.

It’s so important that individuals have access to the resources they need to receive an accurate OCD diagnosis and receive the proper treatment – and the first step towards that is helping more people be aware of what Religious OCD is and what the early warning signs may be. For a more comprehensive version of my Scrupulosity OCD story, check out this podcast episode.