I’m Monica, a Catholic OCD survivor with a story to tell. I don’t know what brings you here, but my guess is that you, or someone you know and love, is a Catholic who suffers from OCD.
Perhaps you suffer from scrupulosity, a common OCD subtype that doesn’t mix well with Catholicism (or any religion, for that matter). Perhaps you didn’t even know it was OCD for a long time, because you assumed that everyone’s experience of religion was similarly fraught with anxiety and misery.
Perhaps you have struggled in your vocational discernment, experiencing a string of failed romances or dramatically and painfully discerning out of a religious order. Or perhaps you have succeeded in accepting your vocation, but now it is beset with intrusive doubts, fears, and regrets which fill you with shame.
Perhaps your OCD latches onto any possible combination of common themes, from contamination to perfectionism. Perhaps you experience intrusive thoughts of a violent or sexual nature, which reduce you to a state of abject terror and guilt.
Does any of this sound familiar? If so, you are not alone. OCD currently affects about 1.2% of the adult population in the U.S., and will affect or has affected 2.3% at some point in their lifetime. That is more than 7.5 million Americans.
Considering that almost a fifth of the U.S. population is Catholic, I believe this means there are about 1.5 million American Catholics suffering from OCD right now, with similar statistics proportionate to the size of Catholic populations across the world.
The Catholic Church has a long tradition of providing pastoral care for Catholics who suffer from “scrupulosity.” Many notable Catholics and saints have written about it, including some saints who suffered from scrupulosity themselves, such as St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Alphonsus de Liguori.
It has only been in recent years that this well-documented phenomenon of scrupulosity has been identified with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Advances in modern psychology have led to great success in the treatment of OCD. When taken together with the Church’s robust tradition of pastoral care for the scrupulous, this is a recipe for hope and healing.
This website, along with my upcoming book, is intended as a lifeline to Catholics who are suffering from OCD. As dark and terrifying as the future may seem from the depths of OCD, I offer my testimony as proof of its goodness. My story is one of hope. Ours is a God of mercy.
Catholic and OCD 