Religion: The Root Of OCD

Well, many would dissagre, and think I am just a crazy person, but I think religion is sometimes to blame for OCD. The condition, as I believe, is not inherited, medical, but just a state of mind, a state of fear to be more exact.

Why religion? It teaches people to be affraid of something.

Practical OCD in religion:

We need to pray (compulsion) so God will not punish us. (obsession)

We need to kill people (compulsion), so Zeus will not be angry with us. (obsession).

We need to hurt our body (The Davinci Code), so God will forgive us for the things we have done.

... and I guess you can find more.

As these simple rules, which make a person perform OCD related tasks, and in addition to supersticions, one will create his own rituals, and his own "religion". Not many make this link because a lot of people would be angry with it, but IMO, I believe what I stated above.

Disclaimer: Just my opinion, I do not care if you share it or not, I just stated it because I felt I had to. Also, I would like to notice that I have OCD too sometimes when I am stressed, and that I do believe in God, but I do not follow religion, I do not believe God is a white beard old man, who is very angry with us if we do not give money to the church.

Maybe you should add a poll to this... see how many people were brought up with religion... or not.. and have ocd?

While my own so called "religion" is completely the opposite in terms of anxiety and the problems thereof (Jehovah's Witness / Christian), I can see clearly how many religions will/can cause OCD issues. As you said some are rough on rules and tough on the conscientious types.

But OCD can spring from virtually anything. I do not consider religion to be different in this regard.

Hi, I made an account just to respond to this thread.

I am no expert on OCD, but I do not believe religion is the ultimate source of it. However, I know religion caused many problems for me with mine.

I was Christian and mostly not too worried about anything. I thought I was a good person and didn't worry about hell most of the time. But occasionally it would be all I could think about. I just knew I was going to hell, and felt so bad about it because everyone else seemed so good. I would start obsessing over things like watching tv (thinking it was bad), trying to stop but then doing it anyway.

For a couple of years I got deeper and deeper into Christian extremism, towards the end believing that probably 99.9999% of people were going to hell (and once again obsessing about it). I believed a wacko extremist who had a website about the evils of the modern world. I would share the link but I don't want anyone else to fall in that trap. I know it was ultimately my fault for believing all that BS but I still hate the author of the website for planting those seeds.

Anyway, I overanalyzed what the Bible said (because you can make it say anything you want to) so I believed anything someone said if it had a Biblical basis. I would obsess over it all the time.

I never thought I felt bad enough about what I did to be forgiven, and I obsessed trying to feel bad constantly.

To me it was interesting (yet extremely irritating) that the time I worried most about saving myself from hell was when I was on vacation or trying to spend time with family. That was when I would obsess the most, and it was so irritating because I couldn't just relax and have fun on a vacation. It also happened much of the time when I knew I had a lot of work to do.

One time while my mom and brother were on vacation and I was staying at home with my dad trying to get caught up on schoolwork, I had an attack--I thought I was hearing the voice of God. It really didn't sound different from my own thoughts, but if I didn't do what the voice told me to, my mom or my brother would die. The voice told me to do incredibly weird things all day long. It told me to hold my arm a certain uncomfortable way. It told me not to use a towel. It told me I couldn't face the TV. I didn't always do the things the voice asked me to, and no punishment seemed to happen, however I still thought something might happen if I didn't do what it said.

I couldn't explain this to my dad because I thought he wouldn't understand. At the time I didn't realize it was OCD. Some of the time I just thought it was my brain (I have always struggled with uncontrollable thoughts like those), and sometimes I thought it really was a divine voice. It was one of the worst weekends of my entire life.

I could go on and on about the crazy stuff I obsessed over. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has done this, but looking back on it it's hard to believe I did. But I know it was the results of my OCD.

Finally I found Christian Universalism and believed it was supported by the Bible. Mostly my OC problems with Christianity went away at that point. The fear of hell was gone. But I still felt I couldn't win God's favor. Now I have completely given up Christianity and lately I have not been OC about faith at all. I think religion wasn't really right for me anyway, since I'm gay.

I would like to say I don't think religion is the source of all OCD. I know some of my habits were not related to religion at all... such as obsessive hand-washing (my hands are still always scaly looking ), feeling the need to always be right, keeping the house perfect, etc

BTW for anyone who has OC problems with the idea of hell I would strongly recommend checking out http://www.tentmaker.org/ . It is a website about Christian Universalism. I believe CU has a strong basis in the Bible (despite what many think) and it is further explained on that site. I am not a Christian anymore but I would recommend it to anyone who is and is struggling with hell. IIRC there is even a testimony from someone who has OCD and went through a similar experience to mine.

Now I've been on these forums for a fair while now, and I've had ocd for 12 years but never have I come upon such an interesting post!

Personally I'm not religious, so religion hasn't affected my ocd but I can see how it could do. I thought similar thoughts to these when I was younger, but they were about aliens, I thought if I did not do certain things the aliens would punish me, even though I didn't believe they existed. It was a different thought, but it still had the same background of fear, the same fear of being punished if I didn't do something.

Saying that though, I don't think not being religious always has anything to do with it. A close friend of mine is an athiest and he has obsessions about satan. He believes satan will take his soul if he does not carry out compulsions, even though he doesn't believe in satan.

I think being brought up in a religious culture may not 'give us' ocd, which I believe is a medical condition, but it might trigger it by giving it something to latch onto.

Thanks again for the inspiring post!

the book called "tormenting thoughts and secret rituals" talks about this. in history, many christians actually used cbt to treat people. frued messed everything up. but i know for me, religion totoally messed me up and is in my opinion what contributed or even caused my ocd.

Doomed2Die said:

While my own so called "religion" is completely the opposite in terms of anxiety and the problems thereof (Jehovah's Witness / Christian), I can see clearly how many religions will/can cause OCD issues. As you said some are rough on rules and tough on the conscientious types.

But OCD can spring from virtually anything. I do not consider religion to be different in this regard.

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Hi, I just wanted to say that I totally agree with you. I am also a Jehovah's Witness.

If you don't want OCD, then you have to find another worldview, that makes sense.

Doomed2Die said:

But OCD can spring from virtually anything. I do not consider religion to be different in this regard.

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That is the basic truth of the matter. It's a malfunction of the brain, apparently hereditary, and will latch onto any sort of concepts hanging around in your brain. Sex, religion, germs; whatever.

NathanielWingatePeaslee said:

That is the basic truth of the matter. It's a malfunction of the brain, apparently hereditary, and will latch onto any sort of concepts hanging around in your brain. Sex, religion, germs; whatever.

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what about cephalopods?

Cephalopods never malfunction.

I though you meant centipedes .

I believe OCD is something you are born with - religion does not factor in...

I can certainly see how one might latch onto religious observance as part of their OCD, or how religion might lead to the kind of damage which gives rise to OCD.

However, in my experience, OCD will latch onto anything. One of my ticks is the way I eat toast, FFS.

Religious rituals are as good as any other tick, but I'm not sure that I would agree that they are better for some reason, simply because, in my experience, OCD doesn't work that way. It does not respond to reason. That a particular tick makes sense doesn't mean it will be preferred. I can ignore my need to wash my hands if I'm working with rubbish, for instance, but if someone asks for a bite of my toast I will request that they make their own.