Blog Posts

  • Problems Subscribing

    Some website housekeeping: If you have tried to subscribe to this website, but you never received a confirmation email and you have not been getting emails when I post, it is possible that your email provider is blocking the sender address for the confirmation email. If you still want to subscribe, please add donotreply@wordpress.com as

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  • Welcome!

    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

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  • On Trust

    It was the first Sunday of Advent. My daughter and I were sitting on the church steps. Her anxiety was raging so fiercely that she was unable to enter the church. I had promised we could sit outside if that would help her feel safer. Actually, I had told her that she did not have

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  • I have wrestled with the theoretical and practical dimensions of obedience ever since I had children. Although this topic is most often discussed in the context of parenting, the truth is that long after we outgrow the obligation to obey our earthly parents, we continue to owe obedience to our Creator. My struggles with teaching

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  • Neurodivergence and OCD

    I had always heard that OCD is highly “comorbid” with autism, which means that they are often found together. I had also heard of combinations involving ADHD. My therapist himself, long ago, told me that most of his clients with OCD were unusually intelligent, as well as highly imaginative and often sensitive, or unusually creative

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  • Vocations, Emotions, & OCD

    When I was dating, I used to feel like I was condemned to blunder in impenetrable darkness. I suffered from relationship OCD, a manifestation which caused me to obsessively question and compulsively analyze and test relationships and partners, until they would crumble under the weight of my anxiety. Every relationship before I married my husband

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  • Vocation: Two Perspectives

    The impact of OCD on a Catholic’s experience of vocation has been a soapbox of mine for quite some time. Vocation is a central theme in my book, which seems to be the primary reason people contact me for support. Oddly, I have found almost no research or even speculation on this topic. This is

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  • Book & Website Update

    This website has remained skeletal and quiet for a long time. Even so, it has served as a point of contact for a surprising number of Catholics seeking support in dealing with OCD. However, to more effectively bridge the void of my long silence, I have decided it is time for an update on the

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  • New Resources

    This is just a heads up that I recently added a couple of new resources to the resource page. For convenience, I will link them here as well: Stick with the Ick – A virtual community and app for people navigating the intersection of faith & OCD. It is inclusive of all faiths, but has more

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  • Have Courage

    I’ve mentioned in the past that OCD involves a disordering of the passion of fear/anxiety. As the years have slipped by since my counselor first mentioned this, a further epiphany has slowly dawned on me. The Catholic tradition identifies a specific virtue to regulate the passion of fear: courage. This puts a positive spin on

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  • If you don’t have OCD yourself, chances are that you found this website because you are trying to help a loved one. Watching someone suffer from mental illness can be heartrending in any case; and OCD, in particular, has a significant impact on friends and family, for several reasons. The first is that people with OCD

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