I can remember having my first intrusive thoughts the summer before freshman year. But for whatever reason, I didn’t get diagnosed until later in life.įast forward to high school. Looking back, the phobias I had and compulsions they caused were very clearly OCD. In addition to this, I displayed many OCD tendencies at this age that were linked to my phobias. While I didn’t get any diagnoses at this point, I did work through some exposure therapy, which helped with the phobias. Situations like this happened quite often, and I had to go to counseling at the young age of 10. That night, I threw up multiple times and had to stay in the hotel room for the rest of the trip. Without going into too much detail, when I was 9 years old I saw something at Disneyland that triggered one of my phobias. They even resulted in physical illness a couple of times. These phobias controlled my everyday life. While I would say my faith upbringing was healthy, I still had my fair share of struggles.įrom as young as 8 years old, I started to develop irrational phobias. Therefore, I was lucky enough to never feel pressured or like I was in a toxic, legalistic church environment, something I know many young Christians experience. My parents raised me in a way that made me aware of the fact that faith was a relationship between Christ and I. There actually isn’t a time I can remember when I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. I grew up in a Christian home, and I can remember talking to Jesus from a very young age. With my story, I hope to contribute to this culture. While not intentionally harmful, these statements create a stigma within Christian circles and make it feel unsafe to open up for fear of being dismissed as overreacting or “not faithful enough.” My favorite thing about the CWCS community is how honest and real everyone is, yet how at the same time Jesus is at the center of it all. You’re often hit with the “just pray about it” or “the Bible says not to be anxious” response. I am well aware that anxiety is a very common disorder in the world today, yet it is often not talked about enough, especially in Christian circles. I have battled OCD and General Anxiety Disorder for the majority of my life.
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