Ocd And How It Mimicks Blasphemy Of The Holy Spirit

I've been on CFS for a year or so. I've noticed the site is filled with loving people who really want to help, and I appreciate the helpful people I've encountered so far. Some of you have helped me already, and know about my mental condition. I really want to reintroduce myself and my main struggles.

I struggle in mental illness (schizoaffective) which offshoots into OCD, anxiety, bipolar and depression. It usually takes a long time for things to surface and make sense. I started this spiritual journey, running away from my sins and running to God, as I understood Him, when I was 21. In the same year I started exhibiting signs of mental illness. And I'm 43 now. So for 22 years I've suffered under the cruel one in ways unimaginable. I also have struggled as a sex addict to relieve my pains of being tormented in my mind.

I tried giving my life to Christ time and time again. Being a strong OCD plus having strong delusions and fixed beliefs that you'll never make it, means a person like me asks over and over for the basics. I'm starting now to see that isn't so necessary at all.

One of my most dreaded feelings from the bottom of my stomach was the possibility that I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit. My observation on that sin is that you must be so hard hearted against God, and against the gospel, that you refuse to go to Jesus for forgiveness of sin. And in the case of the Pharisees, they were so against Jesus' holy teachings that they either purposely or unconsciously called the good work of the Holy Spirit an evil thing, attributing the work of the Spirit to the works of the devil.

Now all I know is schizoaffective is a hard illness to understand. Because what does happen is that I will have OCD thoughts that say, "That is evil! This is evil!" etc... (Have you ever been told NOT to think of pink elephants?? What do you do? Think of pink elephants! Almost every time all you can do is the opposite of what you've been told not to do!) Usually it happens as I am staring God's Word in the face. When I face holiness it happens more than other times. It's almost like Romans 7:13 where sin thru the commandment not to sin becomes utterly sinful - and Romans 7:23.

But the difference is I cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ for help with this. I seek Him out to redeem me from my afflictions. As I get very close to Him, and my mind is stressed out, and it's OCD'ing its delusions, then I must remember God looks at my heart before He looks at my mind and its illness.

But I guess medicine is supposed to help with this OCD, and I don't know, I guess it's helped a bit. What I keep in mind is that God is here right now in the present and I am drawing my breath from Him right now. That means I am accepted by Him. And I speak the gospel to myself out loud - slowly and confidently.

I want to thank you guys for putting up with me so far. I feel like I've met a whole new set of real friends here on CFS, and a safe place to express my victories and my downfalls.
 
(Have you ever been told NOT to think of pink elephants?? What do you do? Think of pink elephants!

I can relate in a way : )
I'm not sure but I think you quoted Chapter 7 quite a few times in your previous posts....

Suggest to Contemplate more on the next Chapter, Chapter 8

Romans 8
New International Version (NIV)
Life Through the Spirit
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of[e] his Spirit who lives in you.
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[f] And by him we cry, “Abba,[g] Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Present Suffering and Future Glory
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
I struggle in mental illness (schizoaffective) which offshoots into OCD, anxiety, bipolar and depression. It usually takes a long time for things to surface and make sense. I started this spiritual journey, running away from my sins and running to God, as I understood Him, when I was 21. In the same year I started exhibiting signs of mental illness. And I'm 43 now. So for 22 years I've suffered under the cruel one in ways unimaginable. I also have struggled as a sex addict to relieve my pains of being tormented in my mind.

I can relate to much of that. I've sort of skimmed through a little of this before but I'll try to post in a bit more detail and this time I'm doing so in a period when I'm not being troubled by alcohol.

I was 27 when it started with me praying to God for help with a girlfriend (OK, I can a few things wrong there now but that's how it was at the time). My previous sort of state was one of being a confused atheist. Sort of I didn't really believe God existed but would sometimes feel a desire to pray to God for something but what ever I wanted never happened until I conceded in my mine that it was a waste of time praying to God (who was against me anyway) and (although I didn't do this) that I might as well pray to the devil as to God who hated me.

Other than this sort of irrational state of a non-existent god hating me, life was reasonably OK. I'd had wilder times in the past but I seemed to be settling down, had a decent job and generally speaking (I could drink a few pints occasionally...) , I think I could be considered respectable.

The real change seems to have been triggered by me deciding that I hadn't really tried hard with God and this time, "I would never give in". Within months, I found myself in a mental hospital diagnosed as schizophrenic (a diagnosis that I rejected btw and one that the last psychiatrist [when I was in hospital for about my 4th or 5th alcohol detox] I spoke to agreed was wrong although she believed it was a psychotic episode) and life basically fell apart. Perhaps in some ways, the pre Christian me:

jf1.jpg


And the after 26 years of struggling with Christ me:
jf2.jpg


could be used to indicate how life has "transformed", at least they might if I add I feel more scarred and damaged inside than I do outside.

My own thoughts would lead me towards something like demonic oppression but I'd advise great caution in this. I've seen (this was witnessed by my mother) a monk stop mid prayer because he felt he was being strangled by a serpent. I've attended an exorcism which fell apart when someone who IIRC had been speaking in tongues gave some reference to something like all the women I'd had sex with (in my 53 years, there's only been one - turned out she had a boyfriend in prison but that's another part of my 26 years of horrors...). Without going into detail, I've heard and read things which in the past resulted in my foolishly starting horrible "it's your fault I can't get free" rounds of accusation.

On the more benign side, there have been a couple of people who have felt God has reassured them about me but nothing changes but as far as I can see, my own searches have done little other than to stir up trouble and have done zero in terms of anything I might be able to recognise as either revealing truth or opening any path that actually leads towards understanding or making progress with Christ.

I'd very much doubt that we are alone in finding that these types of struggle roughly coincide with efforts towards Christ but I'm afraid I don't know how to help from there.
 
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