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Re: Lingering religious sensibilities?

Started by TheWalkingContradiction, October 28, 2012, 03:09:21 AM

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faith

Uhm, wow - Thank you everyone for the replies. I know it's been a while, I just don't have a lot of online time right now. But I'll try to reply to some of the posts.
On a general note, yeah these lingering things bother me to some extent, because they feel like disabilities I'm not even aware of untill they get into the way of one thing or another. But I do know that it's not really my fault.
I just wanted to know if it was a common thing as I'm not really the typical ex-theist in western cultures. Thanks again for sharing.

faith

Hey TWC =)
It's great to have the perspective of someone with OCD and a religious background.
I am used to and was encouraged to view my OCD not as a part of my personality but just as a set of quirks and meaningless rituals, alien and no truely part of me. While I couldn't deny that it's not really sane that I weigh myself up to 40 times a day if I can't stop myself, I thought that this and other similar compulsions are the extent of my OCD'S grip on me.
Probably a very unrealistic view of what's ging on. A lot of my coping strategies make more sense when I assume that OCD does not only influence some of my behaviours that I'm obviously not in control of but that it subtly influences other parts of my behaviour, too.

Quote from: TheWalkingContradiction on October 18, 2012, 01:28:45 AM
Just two weeks ago I had pork in a Vietnamese restaurant.  While I did not feel religious guilt, I did feel that I was eating something horribly unhealthy and harming my heart in some way.  (The minister used to argue that these foods were prohibited because they were not healthy, and this is how my OCD issues with these foods, inspired by the church, has reinvented itself.) 
I think I know what you are talking about. Our whole community is made up by the most homophobic people I ever knew. I was raised to think of homosexuals as not really human. Even after going through the process of loosing faith in my religion in which a gay men played a key role I couldn't help but be disgusted by homosexuality. So I started to think of it as a mental illness, a biological anomalie. I'm just happy that I got over that one after struggeling for some time. Would have been my loss.

TheWalkingContradiction

Quote from: faith on October 27, 2012, 09:44:39 PM
Hey TWC =)
It's great to have the perspective of someone with OCD and a religious background.
I am used to and was encouraged to view my OCD not as a part of my personality but just as a set of quirks and meaningless rituals, alien and no truely part of me. While I couldn't deny that it's not really sane that I weigh myself up to 40 times a day if I can't stop myself, I thought that this and other similar compulsions are the extent of my OCD'S grip on me.
Probably a very unrealistic view of what's ging on. A lot of my coping strategies make more sense when I assume that OCD does not only influence some of my behaviours that I'm obviously not in control of but that it subtly influences other parts of my behaviour, too.

Quote from: TheWalkingContradiction on October 18, 2012, 01:28:45 AM
Just two weeks ago I had pork in a Vietnamese restaurant.  While I did not feel religious guilt, I did feel that I was eating something horribly unhealthy and harming my heart in some way.  (The minister used to argue that these foods were prohibited because they were not healthy, and this is how my OCD issues with these foods, inspired by the church, has reinvented itself.) 
I think I know what you are talking about. Our whole community is made up by the most homophobic people I ever knew. I was raised to think of homosexuals as not really human. Even after going through the process of loosing faith in my religion in which a gay men played a key role I couldn't help but be disgusted by homosexuality. So I started to think of it as a mental illness, a biological anomalie. I'm just happy that I got over that one after struggeling for some time. Would have been my loss.

My pleasure.  OCD is something I know well since I have lived with it all my life and do volunteer work with others who have it.  If I can help in some way or if you have any questions, just let me know.  I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist or biologist, but I can talk as a layman who absolutely gets what OCD does to people like us.