Help for people with OCD ~ moving beyond the fear!

I would say that in today’s culture that almost everyone has heard of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If you haven’t seen it portrayed in all it’s infinite, seemingly ‘crazy’ glory via the hit TV shows Monk, Friends or The Big Bang Theory, you’re sure to have seen it played out on reality TV in recent years. TV, Vh1, TLC and Discovery Channel have each found an audience over the years by spying into the private lives of men and women plagued by OCD.

In case you’re not sure or in case you have a TV Sunday Night movie idea of just what OCD is, let me just state that OCD is far more than a need for cleanliness and symmetry in one’s daily life. It has, over the years, morphed from being considered some sort of insanity, to a neurosis, to a chemical imbalance, to an anxiety disorder. No matter what science prefers to label it today, it is a very real source of emotional and mental torture for more than 2% of the population. While parallel fights ensue in the world of psychology and biology over just what causes OCD (genetics, viruses, environment) there is no question that the millions of people who suffer from it seek relief over and over again. For some, that relief is found via medications, changes in diet and counseling. For others, there seems to be no relief at all. For me, it was my faith in God and the plan He gave me that set healing in motion for this once OCD entrapped person.

Over 14 years ago I found relief for my OCD, without drugs. In fact, taking a medication never occurred to me. I’m not against pharmaceutical help if needed. But for me, faith was the solution. At first, I was afraid not to seek God. But it wasn’t a healthy kind of ‘fear of the Lord’; it was a deep alarming fear of God, of people, places, death, circumstances…almost everything. Some people are so plagued by religious fear due to their OCD that they never get past the religiousness to discover God and freedom through Him. I was once in that place too.

OCD manifested in many other ways in my life besides what I now know was merely 'religious obsession and fear'. (What I have now is faith and belief, not religion.) My memories of suffering with OCD stretch back to the age of 8. With each passing year my compulsive behaviors became worse. By the time I was 30 I was nearly fully home-bound, unable to keep a regular job and afraid of everything.

Fear – that’s the driving force behind OCD. A real, succinct, deep-seeded fear of…well, anything and everything imaginable. Sometimes the fears are rational and sometimes they aren’t. But the need to control something, anything, compels the OCDer to take action…any action, in order to feel better. Hence the counting, repeating, checking, touching, cleaning, hoarding….counting, repeating, checking…

Over time I have realized that if you have a lack of faith then fear will quickly invade your mind; your waking and sleeping thoughts. I also discovered that faith is not the opposite of fear but faith IS the ability to see beyond the fear into the eyes of truth. If fear is darkness then faith is turning the lights on! And faith - that's having the courage to do something about it, even though you're afraid to. Once a person can see the lies for what they are, then the brain of that person with OCD can begin to dispel the many lies that make them feel compelled to obsessive, repetitive, nonsensical actions.

I am a seasoned, experienced, non-suffering OCDer ready to share with you the path God took me down in order to manage and heal from the inside out! The brain of someone with OCD is compelling, intelligent and sharp. I learned to use my OCD to control my Ocd! And that means you can too. God showed me how to use His Word, faith, prayer and some simple steps to help train my OCD brain to manage my Ocd without it stopping me from living. Before long, my compulsive actions and out of control thoughts that once took up 90% of my day reduced to taking up less than 10% of my day…and it still holds true today. Fear has been replaced with peace and faith has continued to grow…faith in God, faith in myself and faith in the plan He has for my life.

My quest is to help others see that OCD IS something you can live with, control, eradicate, deal with, move beyond and you CAN keep it from stealing your joy. Through faith in action, even if your faith is currently enveloped in OCD, you can find healing.

For more info on my journey, please follow this blog and check out my book, "Breaking Free from OCD" (Free in the Kindle Lending library and for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.)

You can order a softcover copy of "Breaking Free from OCD" by clicking into my Blurb page. Or email me. lifecoachinspired@yahoo.com

Interested in Life Coaching to help make a plan of action to move forward out of fear, anxiety and OCD? Email me. Check out my Life Coach Inspired info by clicking on the LifeCoachInspired webpage.

For other books by Karen, check out her author page on Amazon.com

Don't be anxious about ANYTHING? How do I do that?

"Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

In Philippians it tells us that being in Christ will help guard our hearts and minds. When we allow ourselves to be immersed in Jesus Christ’s grace and love, then we are supplied with all the armor we need to keep falsehoods from taking us down to a place we don’t emotionally or mentally need to be…namely, to a place of anxiety and worry.

I used to be a worry-wart of the worst kind. I would worry if I didn’t worry enough about something! (Yea, seriously.) I was afraid if I didn’t worry then I didn’t care enough. Talk about a vicious cycle that kept me from peace and from a good night’s sleep! The older I get the more keenly aware I am of how I need to guard my heart and mind against worldly stimulus and materialistic ideas. As I seek to keep my identity in Christ the more Satan tends to creep up on me, trying to steal my quiet time and my peace. When I let my guard down or attempt to keep the world at bay all by myself then I can see myself go into a gradual decline of worry, low self-esteem and even anger because I feel out of control of my emotions.

Is that you? Do you get anxious often? Panic-stricken? Worried? During hormonal times via PMS and menopause, those bouts of worry can easily become worse. (And yes, for women AND men, hormones can really effect your emotions.)For women, as you’re hitting those low points I encourage you to be prepared. It’s not like you don’t know the signs that your period is coming, correct? It’s not like you don’t know you’re in menopause, right? Then be prepared…in and out of cycle, to seek His Word and spend additional time in prayer so you can guard your heart and mind for the times when your body effects your mindset, causing your anxiety to increase.

Not sure where to start? First of all, devotionals are helpful but also taking time to mark passages ahead of time that you can easily turn to when you’re feeling anxious is a great idea. (You wouldn't go out in the desert without water would you? Then why go into a cycle of raging hormones without midol and the Word to encourage you?) Look in your Bible for scriptures that personally feel comforting to you on a regular basis and that remind you of God’s truth - that you need not fear because God’s got everything in His hands. (Suggestions: 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:18, Psalms 27: 1-3, Isaiah 41:10)

For more encouragement check out "28 Days of PMS – Praising My Savior" – a humorous, uplifting devotional for women.

Interested in finding a Christian Life Coach? Contact LifeCoach-Inspired via email at: Lifecoachinspired@yahoo.com

Move beyond the walls of fear

Have you ever lived with a wall of fear around you? A thick fog of fear that you cannot seem to see beyond? It’s as if you’re stuck there. You know you should be knocking that wall down but you don’t have the strength to do it, so you stay within those walls. The walls can even be strangely comforting. You feel secure because they are familiar, habitual; consistent. Knowing that you have these walls of fear is one thing but the idea of not knowing how to exist without them is a whole different kind of frightening thought altogether and so you do not dare break them down to see if you can indeed live without them around you. You do not dare rid your life of them or of the very thing, person, feeling, events, relationships that helped to build them in the first place.

The resistance to break the walls down inherently comes from the sense of comfort in the middle of pain; a kind of comfort that only someone in the same position would understand. To others, that comfort looks disastrous, ridiculous, and even insane…for they see the dangers lurking. They see the future you might likely face if you stay where you are. But you cannot see beyond today or tomorrow. You have become comfortable in your pain – in your fears – because at least you know what to expect then. You know, at least at a reasonable rate, how to successfully deal with the wall of fear on a daily basis. It’s your wall. You know every crack, every graffiti mark…every place where the wall has threatened to topple. So you let it stay.

But what happens when the walls close in on you – moving ever closer – smothering who you are? Stunting your growth and keeping you from becoming who you know you can become? Then what do you do? Lay in wait until the walls come so close that all God’s light is blocked out completely? Becoming a dark, dreary, sorrowful shell of who you should be? Perhaps you are already a mere shadow of the person God meant for you to be by now. Perhaps the very dangers others see lurking are the ones you live with on a daily basis and these dangers seem too daunting to tackle on your own and so you stay where you are – comfortable, though not comforted; secure in the habit, though not safe from the dangers...feeling unable to break free.

For many of us, that is our exact scenario. Perhaps the reasons for the walls vary amongst a thousand different stories, but the walls are the same. The story is familiar. The ending all too familiar for many. Will it be your ending as well? Or will you reach up through the last bit of existing light and grasp hold of God’s hand – allowing Him to pull you through? Will you see beyond the walls to grab a life-saving hand of a friend and allow Him to help you break the walls down?

You have to make the first move. The walls are impenetrable from the outside except by God. You must be the one who reaches up to accept the help. You must be the one that looks forward to the future - who sees beyond the walls to the outstretched hands of friends and loved ones…and you are the only one who can say Yes to life and No to fear!

You are the only who can lean on the Lord’s promises that He will never leave you nor forsake you. You must be the one who decides that growing into the person God is calling you to be is more important than hanging on to your fear and to what you wish 'could have been' inside those walls. Letting go of what might have been to see what truly is – that is part of the challenge. You can do that – with prayer and God’s help – you can see the truth of the fearful walls you are living within. You can move into the TODAY He calls you to live and thrive in! Saying Yes is the very first step. You can do it…God will reach for you but you must take hold of Him and never, ever let go.

For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41 1:13

~ Karen

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www.womaninspired.com