Thoughts on Battling OCD & Scrupulosity
You can't reason or bargain with a demon; you have to shut it down with the word of God
Recently, Braden Hock published an article called “Traditional Catholics and the Problem of Scrupulosity.” There are many good insights in this article, although I am less convinced of his proposals for positive solutions that come down to simply “trusting the Church’s hierarchy.” Nevertheless, Hock’s article reminded me of some things I have written privately on this topic that might prove useful to a wider audience.
I would like to speak today about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and scrupulosity, which is generally understood as an OCD subcategory concerning religious and moral matters. I am not a psychiatrist, counselor, or therapist, so what I am about to share is not the result of formal training but of experience with people close to me who have suffered from this condition. My advice to them is always based on the advice of saints and professionals.
In what follows, I will speak in the second person, for I wish to speak directly to the minds and hearts of those who may be suffering from this truly heavy cross, which has a capacity for blocking the joy of life and cramping the freedom that comes with faith in Jesus Christ. I also encourage readers to leave comments here, either engaging with my post or adding insights of their own.
Dear Burdened Soul,
You recognize the dangers of OCD and the pessimism it leads to: it is indeed “the spirit of denial,” to borrow a phrase of Goethe’s. One must fight against it as vigorously as one would fight a demon, for it behaves like a demon. The saints have railed against scrupulosity as one of the greatest dangers, so the moment you see it surging up, step on it, or ask Our Lady to step on it for you. OCD is a serpent that one cannot outsmart. In C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet, Ransom learns that he has to kill his enemy Weston, because Weston cannot be reasoned with or defeated any other way; he must be destroyed.
I believe you know this at the core of your being, at the apex of your mind: your OCD is not your self and cannot speak for you. It’s an infernal machine that needs its power switch turned off. You cannot defeat it through argument. You cannot refute your doubts because they are inherently irrational yet masquerading as real doubts; they are fake dubia in the costume of dubia.
Do not, then, give in to this infernal machinery. The very fact that you can recognize it as a kind of torture device that will not let you rest in the peace of Christ shows that you recognize it for what it is. Eve gave in to the voice of the serpent lying to her; in contrast, the Virgin Mary turned her ear only to the angel and, later, to her Son. Imitate the New Eve in whom or what you listen to.
Put these scruples firmly aside and throw your cares on the Lord. Put your trust in God absolutely, that is, without condition, without qualification. Proceed humbly and confidently, believing in God’s will to save you and to sanctify you. In His Providence, He will lead each of us to where we need to be and to what we need to know, when and as we need to know it. He will meet you in your woundedness but He will not leave you there to languish in despair. Despair can never be from God. Any sufferings you have, of any kind, can be redemptive and reparative — and God knows the world is in need of suffering embraced through love.
You will have good spells and bad spells. In the good periods, habituate yourself to the right way of thinking and acting so that in the bad spells you will not go astray. Habit is our ally in the fight against temptation: a good habit can bear a lot of strain in times of tempest.
I encourage you again to find rest and refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The world is full of uncertainties, evils, mistakes, disasters, crises, and all the rest. That is why our only peace will be in the Heart of Jesus — burning furnace of charity, immovable rock, enclosed garden, protecting haven.
I can only counsel you to not go down the trap, the bottomless pit, of fruitless speculations about moral minutiae or theological controversies. Your way to sanctity is carrying the cross of OCD but not letting it crush you, as you walk to Calvary and beyond, to the resurrection. And if you stumble and fall, as Our Lord did with His cross, you will stand up again by His power, and by the assistance of whatever Simon of Cyrene He sends you.1 As Jesus reminded the Sadducees, God is a God of the living, not of the dead. Don’t be trapped in the vagaries of the past, which is dead and gone; stand firm in the certainties of the present, where the living God is present to you.
It’s dangerous to get lost in intricate moral ponderings. We have to step back and ask the big question: Would God want us to be lost in a labyrinth like this? Or would He expect us to do our daily duty simply and faithfully, read our Bible or missal or breviary, pray our rosary, and just “get on with life” as we try to live the Decalogue and the Beatitudes?
Even in the very process of formulating intricate questions about morals or doctrine, you are already handing your mind over to doubts and difficulties that have no objective standing; you are tormenting yourself needlessly. You do not have to be your own tormentor, and God who loves mankind — and who loves you — is the polar opposite of a stern judge who is looking to trip you up on technicalities. The loving Father seeks to win your soul, not to lose it. This is the sound and secure word of God in Scripture; it is the common inheritance of all the great masters of the spiritual life, East and West. The Lord is a judge, yes; but He is one who judges based on truth and love, not on velleities, half-intentions, immature errors, forgotten memories, or imaginary rules.
You keep thinking that God is trying to trip you up on a tiny intricate technicality. No, this is not the eternal Father of Jesus Christ whom we meet in the Gospels. He says to you: “My son, my image, I know you through and through, I have counted every hair of your head, and I have arranged your life in a way that is truly, deeply good. I love you and want you to be with me forever.”
Our Lord is not “out to get” anyone; He is in the business of saving souls. We must focus on what is really important: the virtues, charity, service, prayer. It serves no good to second-guess things, especially when the Lord does not expect us to become canon lawyers, archival researchers, and psychotherapists in order to determine the exact correct status of whatever acts we have done or failed to do. “God does not demand the impossible,” says St. Thomas, and indeed, for us mortals, achieving perfect human certainty about our actions is impossible in many cases. This is why the spiritual masters tell us over and over again to throw our cares on the Lord that He may sustain us. By giving our lives again and again to Him, we can rely on His guidance.
We should bear in mind that while the Church is necessary as a means of salvation given to us and as a means of enlightening our minds, God alone is our salvation, and He can work outside of the visible structures He instituted. It would be presumptuous to think we could live righteously without the Church’s teaching or sacraments, but more fundamental still is our faith and trust in God Himself who teaches and sanctifies. Without that (dare I say) “personal relationship,” the helps provided by the Church run the risk of fading into formalities or foreign impositions. Trust in God is the only way to make it through this life, this valley of the shadow of death, en route to the paradise of eternal life.
We know that one of the characteristics of OCD is the need for a complete rationally-worked-out answer or explanation for everything, or at least for any challenging situation. But this is impossible. This is not available to us mortals. We have to learn to be at peace with letting things go, letting things be complicated and messy, letting them be uncertain as long as there are other certainties we can navigate by. That is the path of sanity. It is admittedly easier for those who are phlegmatic or sanguine and have no psychological baggage; indeed, the problem with most people is that they don’t care quite enough about getting their reasoning correct. But that is not your problem; you have the opposite one. You want a tidy rational explanation of this or that — but is that really necessary for you? For you, right here and now? Resist the temptation to think that the entire universe and the entirety of Church history, canon law, theology, etc., has to make complete sense to your intellect before you can accept it or act virtuously and responsibly. That’s false. It’s impossible, and God does not demand the impossible.
OCD doesn’t want to accept that we mortals cannot obtain perfect and flawless knowledge of all contingent matters. What we must do instead is acquire the best apprehension of a situation we can, using the principles available to us. In regard to the matter you raised with me, I believe you have done this with good will and integrity, and have reached a sound conclusion. Then you must be satisfied with that and go forward.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux says we must throw ourselves on God and let Him take care of us. That is what you need, not the umpteenth “proof” that this or that did or did not occur, was or was not a sin. Again, let me be clear: I am not saying one should stop confessing what are truly sins by any sane judgment. I’m saying that when a person has done his “due diligence,” and when all the signs are pointing in one direction, one has a duty to follow that with confidence and not keep second-guessing it. That is the very definition of scrupulosity. When you have confessed your sins, let the Blood of Jesus wash over them, wipe them out, and bury them. If you ever recall those sins, recall them as over and done with, give thanks to the Lord, and turn your mind elsewhere.
As for a doubtful matter like a movie, we know we shouldn’t watch explicit scenes (I would say extremely violent or sexual scenes), so if we can skip those scenes or avoid movies altogether that have them, we will be doing the right thing. The use of a tool like Vidangel.com is highly recommended.
I think you are right that your OCD is in its death-throes. It doesn’t want to leave you alone, but you must be quite severe with it, as you would be with any actual demon. For it behaves in a similar way, trying to get you to doubt reality, doubt your senses, your experience, your faith, doubt Scripture, Tradition, everything — just so that you can feed its insatiable maw. Do not go there. It is bad for you and for your family.
Tell this demon to “go to hell” where he belongs. Evagrius of Pontus wrote an amazing work called Talking Back in which he counsels the hermit, when tempted by the devil, to “talk back” to him using the word of God, as Our Lord did in the desert, because this word has power to evict evil spirits and to strengthen the inner man. Similarly, Fr. Jacques Philippe in his book Thirsting for Prayer says there are some battles for which the only weapon is the sword of the word of God. This is what you need to do: stock your quiver with arrows from the word of God, and launch them whenever you need to do so, even if it feels like your better self is wrestling with your sabotaging side. This kind of “demon” has to be told to go to hell where he or it belongs, not given a seat at the table of discourse.
Mercy, not sacrifice: in this situation, the Lord is asking you to throw yourself radically on His mercy, and not to sacrifice your sanity, your family, the blessings in your life, for whatever will-o’-the-wisp your OCD tendencies may be holding out to you or teasing you with. I know you know this. I only want to confirm your sanest and best intuitions. You have a good rational grasp of the problem; you can see why it is a lose/lose situation to bargain with OCD by thinking: “If only we cross this next bridge, we will get to the goal!” But it turns out there is no goal; there is only perpetual doubt and agitation.
That is why the morally upright thing to do is to cut it off and say: “Shut up, you have done more than enough harm already, take your seat and bite your lip. I am in control, and I do not need your input any more.” One cannot bargain or argue with OCD anymore than one can with an actual demon. One has to go forward and let it whimper and complain about being unjustly ignored (“you’ll pay for this! just you wait!” etc. etc.). All experts seems to agree that ignored OCD gets weaker. In that way it might be like a very sore insect bite that will get worse if the itch is scratched, but better if one can suffer the pain of the itch without scratching. And one should be ready to apply the lotion of the Word of God and short prayers.
Such trials as you face are a sign of divine predilection. I know that sounds impossible to believe, and yet it is clear from Scripture: God chasteneth whom he loveth, and never tries us beyond our capacity (though His trials are exactly what stretch our capacity). Those who are steeped in sin, with hard hearts: these people will not normally respond to trials by fighting and growing through them. The very fact that you hate this disorder in you and wish to overcome it is already a sign of God’s grace at work in you, for you see it as irrational and ugly. Prayers for virtue are answered not in a simplistic way, like a light switch being thrown on; it is more like the way a desire for friendship, when met with another’s desire for friendship, grows slowly into an inseparable communion.
Do not despair and never give up. If the Lord has permitted these trials for you, it is because He is calling you to a destiny more glorious than you can imagine. The one who fights hard wins the greatest victory. Yes, this requires an absolute faith, and, in a way, a foolish faith.
Allow me to conclude with a prayer and a reflection from Sergei Bulgakov.
Lord, save me, a sinner, from despair, grant repentance, grant weeping. I am unworthy to lift up my eyes to You, to address You, I am unworthy of the sun, of this earth, of this Your creation, which the sinner darkens with his being; I — a deceiver and a thief — am unworthy of my neighbors, of my loved ones, of all people. But You are love, You came to save sinners. Save, then, this sinner from despair, save, for You can and You Yourself wish to save: do not let Your creation perish.
The earth was not created for you if you corrupt yourself with your sin. But the yet greater sin is despair. The Lord is merciful. The Lord can forgive sin: He cannot be reconciled to it, but He can make the past nonexistent, He can cleanse it by His Blood. He can piece back together the ruined fabric of your soul and resurrect what is dead. It was for this reason that He came into the world, so that He might raise up the fallen. The Lord knew your weakness and your sinfulness and because of it He left His heavenly throne. The Lord suffered on the cross for you and for your filth, in order to save you from despair and death. The Lord hears every sigh and sees every tear. Before the fall you did not know the power of sin within, you were proud in your righteousness, which was merely the absence of temptation. Now you have been humbled, because you have come to know your nothingness. Now you have understood how immeasurable is the sacrifice of the love of God, when you have seen for whose sake it is offered, when you have seen that your sin too was included in His anguish in Gethsemane, unto the sweating of blood, and you have seen yourself in the number of His tormentors and crucifiers. So do not now dishonor the love of God through ingratitude and lack of faith. Place your hope in God’s mercy, for God has loved you since before creation. For, says the Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner.
All my advice to you is summed up in these two passages.
God wants to do great things in you and for you, together with those you love! As much as it is a heavy cross to bear, when you face down your temptations and overcome them with God’s grace, as you do when you confess and commune, you come out like a lion breathing fire — a lion of Judah with the Holy Ghost!
“O fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).
Yours in the Heart of Jesus,
Dr. Kwasniewski
For the married, this is most likely to be one’s wife; it will usually be a close friend; it can be a pastor or spiritual director.
Professor Kwasniewski, As a priest who has so many times given Catholics spiritual direction about scruples, I find your article EXCELLENT! Please keep writing articles like this! Cordially, Fr William Slattery
Thank you for addressing this extremely topical (and complex) issue and for openly calling scrupulosity what it is—a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder that should, like other psychological impairments or imbalances, be taken very seriously. By condensing (as is your wont) a remarkable wealth of wisdom and insight into one essay, you’ve provided a truly valuable and accessible resource for those who suffer from this condition, or who know someone suffering from this condition.
I have one potentially controversial perspective on this issue; I would be grateful to know your thoughts. I worry that the modern-day traditional Catholic practice of going to confession on a regular and frequent basis even when no serious sins have been committed, and perhaps for the primary purpose of obtaining grace rather than obtaining remission of sin, could be contributing to this problem. Such confessions require penitents to “find something to confess,” and what they find will often be venial sins or imperfections that should mostly be forgotten rather than dug up out of the psyche, pondered (perhaps at some length while waiting in the confession line), and then sacramentally confessed. I have also heard a priest suggest that penitents could simply confess a sin already confessed and absolved, so that they will be able to go to confession and thereby obtain grace to further renounce sin or to overcome temptation (despite the fact that such grace is abundantly available from other practices that do not involve fixation on one’s own sins and imperfections). Also, in many cases the sins being confessed have already been, strictly speaking, forgiven. The Roman Catechism teaches clearly that reception of Holy Communion forgives venial sin: “It cannot be doubted that by the Eucharist are remitted and pardoned lighter sins, commonly called venial. Whatever the soul has lost through the fire of passion, by falling into some slight offence, all this the Eucharist, cancelling those lesser faults, repairs.” Is there not something spiritually dangerous, or at least indecorous, about confessing slight offenses that have truly been washed away by the sacramental blood of Christ? While of course being careful to avoid any form of false Antiquarianism, we should at least be mindful of the fact that “up into the eleventh century sacramental penance was customary only once a year even in monastic institutions” (Jungmann, Mass of the Roman Rite).
Finally, I would like to share some reflections on scrupulosity from the maxims of St. Philip Neri:
“Scruples are an infirmity which will make a truce with a man, but very rarely peace; humility alone comes off conqueror over them.”
“The scrupulous should ... accustom themselves to have a contempt for their own scruples.”
“When a scrupulous person has once made up his mind that he has not consented to a temptation, he must not reason the matter over again to see whether he has really consented or not, for the same temptations often return by making this sort of reflections.”
“Scruples ought to be most carefully avoided, as they disquiet the mind, and make a man melancholy.”