Posted by Chris O on January 31, 2005, at 19:52:36
I have been trying to connect/reconnect with God for the past year. I feel like connecting with God is key to healing my OCD/GAD and depression. I have been using the Bible/Christianity as a means to doing this, making the connection. It is hard for me to approach God thru Christianity, as I have so much fear/anxiety /feelings of unworthiness inside of me already, and I find some of the passages and teachings in the Bible to be very harsh and frightening. In addition, I struggle greatly with the way Christianity was framed for me through my family, in a very fear-based, shame-based way.
Nevertheless, I have faith, I think, somewhere inside of me, that approaching God thru Christ is the way to salvation, and I am just... trying to connect to the living, the real God. Anyway, I have a couple of issues plaguing me: First, I...no matter what I, how I cognitively approach God through the Bible, I feel inadequate. A lot of times, when I read the Bible, it moves me toward a place of panic. This is especially true when I read something prescriptive, say, from the New Testament, that I am not supposed to feel/think, I find myself trying to scare myself by feeling/thinking it. For example, when I read in Mathew last summer that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was an unforgivable sin, I found myself thinking blasphamous thoughts and I drove myself into psychotic like panic and into the ER--I didn't want to do this, or at least I don't think I wanted to do this, but it just seems like my brain, well, if it encounters something scary, it will dwell there, in an effort to scare me to a panic. It's like, "Oh, you can't do/say/feel that, eh? So, I'm going to do/say/feel it to make you have a panic attack." It's mostly thoughts I struggle with in this area, not actions or words.
Another issue I struggle with is: Lately, over the past year, or before I had my ER psychosis/ panic attack last summer, I think I was becoming addicted to pornography. I don't know if I met some clinical definition of being addicted to pornography, but, at any rate, I felt really guilty about it, and I felt like, what I was doing was "wrong" and "unhealthy" even from a humanistic or secular standpoint. However, when I approach pornography through the veil of Christianity, I feel very very guilty. I'm writing this because I just had an "event", where I looked at pornography, I "gave in" to my urgers. I guess I just worry: Can God forgive me for looking at pornography? I know this probably sounds silly to some people here...but.... And then...I get confused...because I know I have so much guilt inside from my mother in relationship to my sexual feelings...I was just so repressed as a teenager (I'm 37 now), and, I don't want to use this as an excuse, but I sometimes feel that my looking at pornography is very much related to that. I can't say that porn makes me feel good; it often makes me feel horrible, but it's like a distraction. It's like a drug.
Anyway, I have been praying a lot over the past year, trying to talk to God. Sometimes I feel a sense of peace, but most of the time I just feel guilty, or like God is angry at me. I am seeing a Christian therapist, and she tells me that my feelings seem more related to GAD/OCD than anything else, so that is of much comfort to me. I just hope God realizes that I am trying, that I love Him, that I want to be with Him, and that I wish my mental illness, or the ease with which I sin, could be taken away, and that I could do His will on this Earth, whatever He wants me to do.
Anyway, thanks for listening.Chris
poster:Chris O
thread:450763
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20050111/msgs/450763.html