jock lifestyle: 1

the inner self-loathing masochistic monk that lives in my brain and tells me what to do: …also 1?

If you come from a culture that believes in the Evil Eye and struggle with your mental health, here are a few gentle reminders:

-It's okay to talk about your anxieties, especially with a mental health professional. I know you may be scared of tempting the Evil Eye, but your anxieties will consume you if you don't talk about them.

-It's okay to think envious thoughts about other people. Your thoughts won't hurt them, and it hurts you more to be anxious that your thoughts have that power. Thoughts are not actions.

-It's okay to express joy and excitement about something. You deserve this good fortune. Don't let the Evil Eye take away your happiness.

-If you need to say the word "Cancer" or "Death" or "Miscarriage" or other scary words, say them. You don't need to live in the pain of bottling all these words up.

-If something bad happens to someone in your life, it's not your fault. Even if you thought bad thoughts about them. Even if you were jealous of them.

There is nothing wrong with believing in the Evil Eye, but we live in a world that is increasingly more stressful and anxiety-inducing, and we cannot let our superstitions hurt ourselves and others. Sometimes beliefs can turn into obsessions.

And if you feel like your belief in the Evil Eye has come to the point of an obsession, I hope you're able to find the help and comfort you need, ideally with a culturally-informed professional. You don't need to live in shame and fear.

*Antitheists or anyone trying to comment about how evil or stupid religion is, keep your comments to yourself.*

i think something we should talk about more is how OCD can sort of traumatize yourself? like my religious trauma is from my religious OCD, no doubt. no one was telling me demons were following me, watching me sleep, in the shower, chasing me or waiting behind closed doors, my OCD did, but that was traumatizing. i mean i couldn’t even say demon for years because i was convinced it would summon one, i couldn’t even think it. to be constantly on edge for years because of demons was traumatic for me, but that was no one’s fault but my own in a way.

i don’t know of this is even a thing? has anyone else experienced this?

@ religious people who think that reading their religious text has all the answers on how to live - what are you meant to do when you have crippling ocd and cannot even read a sentence without 10000 intrusive thoughts about somehow committing unforgivable sins and going to hell to the point reading the text becomes impossible?? same goes for praying, meditation etc (and medication does not help enough. finding a religious therapist involves knowing which religion you believe in in the first place)

and atheists how do you function without ever knowing for sure if what you're doing is right or good enough without any objective rules and believing so much suffering in the world is completely purposeless

every obstacle is a test from God and He Is Always Watching.

hey uh does anyone else experience this

God's not punishing you, you just made shitty decisions.

need a support group for people with religious or moral OCD who have had to distance themselves from their religious or spiritual journey due to their mental health

it’s really hard to grapple with something already as complex as religion, but having a brain that really can’t cope with it… it’s hard! it’s a battle! and I really hope any religious people with religious OCD are able to find ways to safely reconnect with their faith

It's been a month since I've touch Choosing a Jewish Life. A book that i first picked up because I was tired of hopping onto different religions and spiritual understanding of the world, trying to convince myself that this is it, only for me to slowly shift away. I've tried being a Christian for so long. Then looked into Islam. Then tried to be a part of different sects of Paganism for 4ish years. Then atheism for about a year. Nothing stuck.

When I found out that conversion to Judaism was a thing, I was so relieved and excited. I found my spiritual home. I could say that I finally found what my soul was searching for.

In the past, my family went a synagogue couple of times when I was a kid, but we lost contact after moving. But now that I found a different synagogue, I couldn't wait to speak to a rabbi and learn as much as I can. I wasn't in any rush to start my conversion, I wanted to fully learn and understand everything about Judaism and Jewish people so that I could then start my conversion and embrace every aspect of the journey.

Then I started to doubt. I doubted my intentions. I was, and still am, scared that I'm fetishizing the religion, culture, and the people. I was so afraid that I stopped researching. Then stopped reading. Then never setting foot again to the synagogue. Finally, I started to procrastinate on reaching out to a rabbi.

Yeah I know how it reads. It looks like I didn't do much. That I barley tried. That all I did was just read a few pages of a book and gave up. But the thing is, I'm trying my absolute best in overcoming this. It's not something that I want to give up on.

As soon as I started researching, my OCD lashed on to it. It kept saying that I wasn't sincere, that I didn't even believe in a deity. Since I was an atheist in the past, it's only a rebound because Christianity didn't work out . I tried ignoring it, but it only grew bigger. Then it started to say very antisemitic things. I was so ashamed of myself that I just stopped. I gave up reading, research, started avoiding.

The fear and anxiety of doing something which is contradictory of yourself is so horrifying that it both disgust and frightens you. So much so that you end up doing everything in your power to avoid that triggering thought.

And this is why OCD sucks.

rationalizing with OCD and why it doesn't work for me

Had another talk with my therapist today about my OCD and thought I'd share something with y'all. I struggle specifically with compulsions that involve praying that the <horrible never want to risk this bad thing> or <equally horrible thought that disgusts/disturbs me> either does not happen or is not true about me. Not only this, but then there's compulsions within the praying too; they need to be done a certain way or my brain won't accept it as good enough, and I have to start all over again. My OCD takes my faith and uses it against me. My therapist previously recommended that I write down my triggered thoughts and follow up by rationalizing with them, looking at them "realistically". Unfortunately, that just doesn't work for me; and after doing some research I learned that it doesn't for a lot of people. I never knew that praying could even be a compulsion until I read other's experiences on it before getting diagnosed. Below is a screenshot of what I wrote down for my issues and how I think might help me while recovering. My therapist read through this and said that it makes sense, though obviously this is directed towards my specific needs. Hopefully others who are religious might get some help out of this as well; I know some even within our own faiths judge us hatefully when we try to open up about it and it's relieving to know that this isn't an issue of who I am or a fault of mine. (Gentle reminder that this blog is safe for everyone, with that in mind). Take care y'all.

scrupulosity ocd is not just another name for religious ocd and you can have scrupulosity ocd without being religious, or being a religion other than christian, another term thats like scrupulosity ocd but without the religious aspect is "morality ocd"

my friends have gotten really good at recognizing when I lapse into BartBrain9000

As an autistic individual myself, I am interested in the intersection of neurodiversity and various identities.

You've mentioned that you identify as a Norse Pagan. I'm curious about how your spiritual beliefs intersect with your neurodivergent experience. Do you find that your autistic identity informs or impacts your spiritual practice in any way?

(Tw for discussions of trauma, religion, etc.)

Sorry for the late-ish response! I've been working on this post a little everyday to make sure I write it how I want it.

I dont think that my autism has impacted my religion or spirtual experiences/beliefs, but my brain as a whole does. (Update: It actually did influence it quite a bit. I'm realizing this after writing this post. So, uh, thank you for helping me realize something that I find quite interesting!)

When I was a kid, I was raised in christianity. I was very religious. I prayed everyday, I had a cross in my room, etc.

But heres the thing: I have OCD. A few different types, but out of those, one of them is religious OCD.

Most of my praying ages late 8-12 was done purely out of fear. At that point I wasnt even really a Christian, I was just really afraid, which really impacted how I viewed religion. I HATED conversation about it because it felt scary and icky to me.

I didn't understand why people would ever want to talk about it. It felt like a very private topic for me, so I figured people who go out of their way to talk about it must be trying to get extra "good points" with god (maybe that bit was caused by autism, actually.).

During that time, I would go through little phases of a month or so at a time in which I would try to "swing the opposite direction". This was around age 10-11. I was developing an intense anger toward the church, and I just wanted to be the opposite of they were, whatever that meant. Because I didn't want to think about religion (due to anxiety around it), I really didn't know what many religious labels actually meant because researching them made me very uncomfortable, so I briefly identified as a satanist (this would be on and off during ages 10-11.) despite really not knowing what that meant. I think I just wanted a way to separate myself from the church as much as possible.

A few months after I turned 12, I felt a really strong urge to research paganism out of nowhere (I didnt even know what "pagan" meant, I just suddenly felt the need to know things about it. It was very random.). It started sort of as a special interest (Maybe autism did influence me more than I thought! Interesting.), and so I would look into a lot of different branches of paganism, focusing most of my research around hellenistic paganism.

A few weeks after this, I had a very interesting experience which I now believe to have been a sign from Freyja (I dont want to go into specifics. It was personal and I want to keep that special to me. I might later, but for now it's just mine. Just know it was a very beautiful thing from her.). DIRECTLY following this event (Maybe an hour or two later), I felt another urge to research things, but this time to be looking into the Norse Gods/Goddesses (which I'd never even heard of at that point.).

At that point I ended up converting to paganism. It was an extremely sudden decision, but it made sense to me.

No matter what religion I had been apart of before, I always felt anxiety and guilt, causing me to try and fix things by becoming excessively religious again in a Christian way. But from the moment I became pagan, I just never had that ever again. It's been the only religion I've ever felt fully safe in.

It's obviously been quite a while since then, and I'm obviously still a Norse Pagan.

Whilst I now love all the gods and goddesses, Freyja will always be especially special to me.

At this point I have worked with: Freyja, Loki, Odin, Beyla, and Njord.

Now, I also think its important to mention another part of my brain that impacts my religious experience: I am in a system.

Nearly all of us identify as Norse Pagans, but we have a few Agnostics as well, a few Eclectic Pagans, an Atheistic Satanist, and a Theistic Satanist.

The primary religious identity within our system is Norse Paganism, with the majority of individuals identifying as followers of this belief system. Due to this, we say we are a Norse Pagan! We are also okay with just being called "Pagan" on it's own, though.

‘She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”’

As God continues to loosen the bonds anxiety has over me, I have to ask myself: how many of my positions on minor political issues are truly my own? I may be sure about being pro-life, but so often with the little things there's been this subconscious pressure: best to just not be controversial. best to not get TOO conservative. you wouldn't want to turn people away from the faith, would you? The pro-life issue is different because it's SO important and SO clear that it's one of the issues I .... allowed (?) ... myself to be controversial about. But I'm reflecting on some of my own thought processes and like ... I feel like sometimes I avoid clicking on right-leaning new sources not because I'm afraid they're biased (I feel perfectly able of taking bias into account when reading articles), but because my neurotic brain thinks that my friends will somehow Find Out (and then hate me, which will somehow result in them rejecting Christ).

I have NO idea if I actually have religious OCD, but the Fear of Other People Going to Hell is a powerful force. I swear, reading or following blogs rightwards of myself on Tumblr.com is like exposure therapy lol. I find their opinions interesting, but I'll be scrolling and the Thoughts are like "but what if [loved one] is watching through cameras in your eyes" like this is me:

Quotes That Will Hit Formerly Religious People Where It Hurts, Pt. 6

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

-Mary Oliver, Excerpt from Wild Geese