Asking God “Why?” in the Midst of OCD

31 May

Written by Jemimah Rankcom, Australia

I’ve always been a bit of an anxious person, and I often get described as ‘sensitive’ and ‘emotional’. When I was in school, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be likeable, get good grades, receive teachers' approval, and act the way I thought I should.

All of these worries and anxieties were generally manageable and pretty typical for a teenage girl, and for the most part, I was a happy kid; I enjoyed being at school and had close friends that I could lean on. It wasn’t until I was 18 that the anxiety grew into something very different.

At 18, my anxiety became suffocating. My thoughts grew powerful and out of control, and my triggers seemingly unreasonable. This was extremely uncharacteristic of me, and was only getting progressively worse. I decided to seek help through seeing a psychologist.

Learning About OCD

In my first few sessions with the psychologist, I focused on explaining all of my anxious thoughts and the actions they caused. My psychologist talked me through the ways these thoughts progressed, and where they might be coming from. It was then that she suggested the possibility that I was actually dealing with a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I quickly shut this idea down; I didn’t want to waste time exploring a diagnosis I didn’t think I had. I thought OCD was for the people who were obsessively clean or got stressed when things weren’t aligned right. But that wasn’t me; in fact, I was actually the messiest, most disorganised person I’ve ever met.

A few sessions later my psychologist suggested again,

“A lot of what you are describing to me sounds like OCD. I really think it's worth exploring.”

This time, I listened as she described the symptoms. I filled out a large questionnaire, and the results were very strong; my anxiety aligned with OCD.

I know now that OCD is the presence of both obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions refer to recurring and persistent thoughts that are intrusive and unwanted. These intrusive thoughts are hard to control and become obsessive. The second part of OCD is the compulsions, which are actions that come from obsessive thoughts. The person's anxiety intensifies the longer they resist the compulsion. For example, if I think I may have left the oven on, my anxious thoughts will only get louder and stronger until I go and check that it’s off.

When I was first diagnosed with OCD, my obsessions and compulsions predominantly revolved around food. To me, food was disgusting, contaminating, and everywhere. If I left a place dirty and contaminated, I believed it would become infested by rats and cockroaches. I felt sick at the thought of touching food and in fear that there were crumbs everywhere. I would wake in the middle of the night convinced that my sheets were filled with crumbs and my walls filled with rats, which caused me to go into a state of panic, compulsively changing my bedding or vacuuming my room.

I had frequent meltdowns and struggled to stop my thoughts from spiralling. I put university on hold, quit my internship, and retreated from my social life. I felt like a slave to my own anxiety, with no room left for me in my own head.

Why Would God Allow Me to Suffer?

In the midst of the peak of my OCD, there was a very deep fear that I couldn’t bring myself to face:

Where was God? And why was He letting me go through this?

I was angry with Him. I felt that He was abandoning me in the scariest experience of my life. My disorder had thrown my life into chaos, and I couldn’t understand why this was happening. I remember telling someone that I didn’t want to pray for healing, because if God didn’t heal me, I was scared I wouldn’t forgive Him.

One of the hardest parts of dealing with my OCD is holding onto my faith throughout the very dark period. And in that, questioning how an all-powerful God could allow me to suffer.? This was the hardest part for me to swallow; God is all-powerful, and therefore He could take my OCD away. But so far, He hasn’t. I don’t know if He will. But I do know that He did do something; He sent His Holy Spirit to guide me, to comfort me, and to be with me always, until the end of time (Matthew 28:20).

God gives me strength, He gives me peace, and He hears my every cry. His heart breaks when mine does. As David sang in Psalm 34:15: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry…”. Even when I felt completely alone, God never once abandoned me. This realisation changed my mental health journey forever.

God Hasn’t Left Me

One day, I started waking up on my bad mornings and praying,

“Can we do this day together please, God?”

When my OCD started becoming more intense in an important week, instead of becoming frustrated with myself and with God, I went easy on myself and learned to communicate better about what I was going through.

A big challenge for me since having OCD has been making the conscious effort to regularly talk to God, especially on the days I feel the weakest. But I’ve learnt how powerful prayer is through instances where praying has completely calmed my unwanted thoughts. I notice a huge difference in my mental health when I keep praying, even when it’s a struggle. Sometimes all I can manage is to call out His name, and the loud and unwelcome thoughts in my head have been silenced.

I find verses like 1 Peter 5:7 really encouraging, because they remind me to bring my anxious thoughts and worries to God: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” And, when I worry that my mental illness is too much or too big, I’m reminded that God is so much bigger, and He sees and cares for me in the midst of it all.

I still have OCD, and I probably always will. But I also know that I’m not walking this alone, and that even in the darkest of valleys, He is with me (Psalm 23:4).

Jemimah completed her Diploma of Theology in 2022 and is now studying a Bachelor of Social Work, hoping to work with people struggling with their mental health. Jemimah also shared her story with us in Season 2 Episode 10, called ‘Why Hasn’t God Healed My OCD?’. You can listen to that episode or watch the full video interview.