Confession - compulsion or necessary? Please, somebody help me

[EtainSkirata]

Some people on here have seen my post in the past about the day I grabbed my boyfriend's hurt thumb when we were wrestling, or the day I gave in to a mean impulse and poked him lightly in the eye with my glasses. I was so torn up and felt so wretched about these incidents. I had tried to make things right as best I could with my boyfriend, without actually telling him about the mean thoughts I'd had. In both cases, he was not bothered at all by what happened.

However, I've been replaying the eye poke over again, and just psychoanalyzing any instance where I did something "accidentally on purpose." This isn't the case for everything, but sometimes I have this weird mesh of "is this an accident or is this on purpose." The eye poke was on purpose, but as I said in the other post, had I paused just 2 seconds I could have saved myself from days of grief that instantly followed the event.

But I'm just torn up right now, because while my boyfriend was not bothered and probably forgot all about it, I just feel this need to confess my horrible thoughts and motives. I feel on the edge of analyzing everything I've done and possibly making a list to confess to him. I have this need for him to know how awful I was.

At the same time, I don't know if it's tactful to confess every bad thought I have all the time. Especially if he wasn't bothered for more than 2 seconds and forgot about it. But I've been lying here anxious and miserable on Christmas, trying to sort this out.

Can someone please help me? I feel wretched.

 

[Mari17]

Some people on here have seen my post in the past about the day I grabbed my boyfriend's hurt thumb when we were wrestling, or the day I gave in to a mean impulse and poked him lightly in the eye with my glasses. I was so torn up and felt so wretched about these incidents. I had tried to make things right as best I could with my boyfriend, without actually telling him about the mean thoughts I'd had. In both cases, he was not bothered at all by what happened.

However, I've been replaying the eye poke over again, and just psychoanalyzing any instance where I did something "accidentally on purpose." This isn't the case for everything, but sometimes I have this weird mesh of "is this an accident or is this on purpose." The eye poke was on purpose, but as I said in the other post, had I paused just 2 seconds I could have saved myself from days of grief that instantly followed the event.

But I'm just torn up right now, because while my boyfriend was not bothered and probably forgot all about it, I just feel this need to confess my horrible thoughts and motives. I feel on the edge of analyzing everything I've done and possibly making a list to confess to him. I have this need for him to know how awful I was.

At the same time, I don't know if it's tactful to confess every bad thought I have all the time. Especially if he wasn't bothered for more than 2 seconds and forgot about it. But I've been lying here anxious and miserable on Christmas, trying to sort this out.

Can someone please help me? I feel wretched.

I know how you feel, because I've had confession compulsions before, too! I think a good general rule of thumb is that if something feels obsessive, then it probably is, and it's probably better not to act on it. Telltale signs of obsessing include ruminating and hyper-analyzing, compulsively researching, and asking for reassurance over and over.

Here's a question to consider: What is your motivation for confessing to your boyfriend? Why do you feel like he needs to know how awful you are?

 

[Tolworth John]

I just feel this need to confess my horrible thoughts and motives.

Basicly you need to talk with your therapist/doctor about your ocd and intrusive thoughts.
If you are not prepared to do that, then at least read and try to follow the advice in the free web site, " 25 tips for sucesfully treating your OCD."

By all means confess to God what you believe to be sins, but having confessed them accept the fact that God has heard, forgiven you and forgotten about them.
There is no point in repeatedly saying, " I'm sorry God for doing ' what ever ', because God has no record of the sins he has forgiven you of.

So you more likely need to deal with intrusive thoughts by as point 4 says, saying yes that is right and moving on.

 

[Mari17]

Some people on here have seen my post in the past about the day I grabbed my boyfriend's hurt thumb when we were wrestling, or the day I gave in to a mean impulse and poked him lightly in the eye with my glasses. I was so torn up and felt so wretched about these incidents. I had tried to make things right as best I could with my boyfriend, without actually telling him about the mean thoughts I'd had. In both cases, he was not bothered at all by what happened.

However, I've been replaying the eye poke over again, and just psychoanalyzing any instance where I did something "accidentally on purpose." This isn't the case for everything, but sometimes I have this weird mesh of "is this an accident or is this on purpose." The eye poke was on purpose, but as I said in the other post, had I paused just 2 seconds I could have saved myself from days of grief that instantly followed the event.

But I'm just torn up right now, because while my boyfriend was not bothered and probably forgot all about it, I just feel this need to confess my horrible thoughts and motives. I feel on the edge of analyzing everything I've done and possibly making a list to confess to him. I have this need for him to know how awful I was.

At the same time, I don't know if it's tactful to confess every bad thought I have all the time. Especially if he wasn't bothered for more than 2 seconds and forgot about it. But I've been lying here anxious and miserable on Christmas, trying to sort this out.

Can someone please help me? I feel wretched.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've replied! How have you been doing lately?

 

[EtainSkirata]

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've replied! How have you been doing lately?

It's all good. Im not great, tbh. I'm just wondering what on earth is wrong with me. Does everyone have these weird impulses and bad motives and situations where they do something bad and then immediately feel horrible after? I just feel like there's something really wrong with me. I had a therapist before, but I wasn't a fan (and the visits got to be expensive). I went through biblical counseling, and that did help for a bit. But I'm just thinking, like, I should never be a mother, I should break up with my boyfriend, and I belong in an institution. And to add to that, I've been reading my Bible nearly every day, but I'm not really sure how to grow a closer, deeper connection to God. So I'm just feeling alienated from Him, too.

This all sounds dramatic but I am gonna just go to work and go home and continue to try, but ugh, I'm so sick of this.

 

[Mari17]

It's all good. Im not great, tbh. I'm just wondering what on earth is wrong with me. Does everyone have these weird impulses and bad motives and situations where they do something bad and then immediately feel horrible after? I just feel like there's something really wrong with me. I had a therapist before, but I wasn't a fan (and the visits got to be expensive). I went through biblical counseling, and that did help for a bit. But I'm just thinking, like, I should never be a mother, I should break up with my boyfriend, and I belong in an institution. And to add to that, I've been reading my Bible nearly every day, but I'm not really sure how to grow a closer, deeper connection to God. So I'm just feeling alienated from Him, too.

This all sounds dramatic but I am gonna just go to work and go home and continue to try, but ugh, I'm so sick of this.

Yes, I've had these kinds of thoughts and feelings before. It's kind of what OCD is all about, unfortunately! And I have had some of your specific fears about "doing things on purpose." I think part of the problem is that when we get that fear, we start hyper-focusing on our thoughts and feelings and training our brains to look for "on purpose" thoughts and feelings. Whereas, a "normal" person wouldn't think nearly that much about these thoughts and feelings, would not even really notice them, and would use their common sense and just kind of 'know' that they aren't really doing things on purpose (or if they do end up doing something on purpose, which we all do at times, it wouldn't bother them nearly so much). Of course if you KNOW you did something on purpose, you can ask God for forgiveness and ask Him to help you not to do that kind of thing again, and apologize to the other person if you really need to (but not just because OCD is telling you to!). But a large part of working on the OCD also includes re-training your brain to not notice these thoughts and feelings in a hyper-aware way, and that comes from practicing ignoring them. This is really hard to do, especially because our OCD sends a bunch of anxiety to our brains about it and tries to make us think that these things are a REALLY BIG PROBLEM! But it is possible to retrain our brains. Two of the effective therapies for OCD include ERP (exposure and response prevention) and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). Are you familiar with either of these? Also, are you on the Facebook group "Christianity and Anxiety Disorders"? If not, I recommend joining that, because there are a lot of people on there with OCD and I've found it very helpful.

 

[EtainSkirata]

Yes, I've had these kinds of thoughts and feelings before. It's kind of what OCD is all about, unfortunately! And I have had some of your specific fears about "doing things on purpose." I think part of the problem is that when we get that fear, we start hyper-focusing on our thoughts and feelings and training our brains to look for "on purpose" thoughts and feelings. Whereas, a "normal" person wouldn't think nearly that much about these thoughts and feelings, would not even really notice them, and would use their common sense and just kind of 'know' that they aren't really doing things on purpose (or if they do end up doing something on purpose, which we all do at times, it wouldn't bother them nearly so much). Of course if you KNOW you did something on purpose, you can ask God for forgiveness and ask Him to help you not to do that kind of thing again, and apologize to the other person if you really need to (but not just because OCD is telling you to!). But a large part of working on the OCD also includes re-training your brain to not notice these thoughts and feelings in a hyper-aware way, and that comes from practicing ignoring them. This is really hard to do, especially because our OCD sends a bunch of anxiety to our brains about it and tries to make us think that these things are a REALLY BIG PROBLEM! But it is possible to retrain our brains. Two of the effective therapies for OCD include ERP (exposure and response prevention) and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). Are you familiar with either of these? Also, are you on the Facebook group "Christianity and Anxiety Disorders"? If not, I recommend joining that, because there are a lot of people on there with OCD and I've found it very helpful.

I am on that Facebook group, and also, thank you for pretty accurately putting into words an issue that I've been struggling with for awhile. I think you hit it almost completely spot on, that hyper awareness of doing things on purpose or not. It's the re training that'll be hard, but it feels good to see the jumbled mess in my brain kind of making sense in someone else's forum reply