fascinating!

I am glad people are sharing so much, it is so insightfull,

I would like to say to kelbelle65, that I could not agree with you more!!!!!I thank you for sharing your story. As we say in physics you hit the resonace frequency! at least in my book, what you said, resembled so much of what I went through..I guess I will share some of my experience too. But first I would like to say that I also respect all forms of religions and even those who choose not to believe in a God, its all good in my view.
which is why I felt similar to kelbelle65.
I do still practice my faith, because cognitive therapy has taught me how to manage inmensly my ocd but still keep my CORE values.
In a sense my therapist always said to me ..."lets investigate and see what do you want to keep, and also lets see what is NOT you and what is OCD"
Which is why i am so happy because the therappy really mached my deepest views on life.
Basically I PRACTICE a a religion which is presbyterian, but ultemately ...(I believe) religion is what we as normal human beings have created based on our cultural origins backgrounds...geographys etc..etc...
In my view the faith in a God trancends all these issues....in a sense we are all equal. But hey if I choose to be presbyterian..thats fine..or catholic.....that is great too. it is the life style that I choose and my core values about my faith that are central ..not what religion I pracice..whuich was the key for my coexistence of science faith ...and even my OCD.

Similar to kelbelle65, I grew up in a church enviornemnt, in a family of travelling missionaries. The work my parents did was incredible..and it was also quite impacting as a child since we went to some very poor and needy areas arround the world. I admire my parents for this so much!! I think the work that the church was doing to help people who are hungry and need help with basic education and health was great....
but UNFORTUNATELY because of my brain chemestry.....OCD came to my life . I think since early childhood the role of my parents and their total devotion in their job as missionaries really started to create a huge sense of guilt about how easy MY life was compared to those arround the world that I had seen with my own eyes....
of course I had not made this connection back whan I was younger..(late teens). but in retrospect, that Is wat I think now. The worst of it all was that my parents always told me ..you know you are NOT Sinfull, God already forgave you, whenever I asked them about sin.But they just did not know OCD even existed, nevermind how to help their child.
when I got ready to go to college..I started to have a greater sense of responsibilty about many things in my life...and the stress really started to mount.....I decided that I needed to pray......and figured..it is a great idea t do it every night........then.....slowly ..when i prayed it felt that I did not nclude everyone in my prayer...then I hay forgotten to pray for this .or that...
and so I felt guilty..."Oh that prayer was too easy..." .."I must start again ..fix it..make it a real prayer...."..and I would repeat....
before I knew it every day I was anxious about that moment before going to bed when I had to pray....and I prayed..made mistakes..and spend hours repeating my prayers..... and I could not let myself go to sleep untill I had done it right....
then I would wake up and say to myself...."ohh i fell asleep..." "you didn't finish your prayer" "do it AGAIN!"
so i started praying before my showers in the morning...and spend hours in the bathroom..and my parents would knock on the door and ask...hey....are you ok....
you guessed right.....It mesed my prayer up..had to start...
then I went to college.... it somehow dimished..but I had to pray every day no question....but it evolved into other aspects like..."what if I left the toilet seat unclean"....."then I will pass desease" "I will be responsible for soemone's death"...so I cleaned ritualistically......but to top it all, after I cleaned i felt it was not god enough..so I had to pray for forgiveness because I had sinned because I did not clean it right!
.....it was bad but livable....
untill i got into grad school and I had to pass some really hard exams in order to get my degree...(which thanks to God I am almost done). After I passed them, which was a huge relief i took a vacation and I visited my parents.....and My ocd just exploted......i felt so accomplished and relived that the sense was..this is too good to be true....something must be wrong...
so I stared to worsen on my praying axiety and grauallty almost every thing I did was a potential sin!

"Oh a said something not quite true..." "pray for forgiveness for lying"..."oh i left the toilet unclean..pray for forgiveness".....
I walked and kicked a stone..."...every aspect ...I was spending the WHOLE day obsessing an ritualizing the whole day endlessly...
i got back to the lab and it is full of isntruments an electronics...and evry button, knob.......keystroke I pushed was in question... it was a NIGHtMARE!
It got to the point where I had little sleep.
of course I was 26 years old and thought this was just who I am......
One day I was ritualizing in my brain with my head down..praying in the lab..and a college noticed ..."hey ...are you Ok" and I I just cried and attempted to explain what I was going through.....
I did not even know how to explain.....and I don't know how or why..but she told me....."I think this sounds like some thing I have heard called OCD"....
the rest is a cool story of healling and recovery untill now!!!

sorry for the lenght and the spelling mistakes....but I just felt i would share. I hope I can be of company and help to those who suffer this chemical inbalance that causes us to doubt so much.

and guess what: I will not check my spelling mistakes...even though they might be there.
behavioral experiment!

any comments are always welcome!