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Self-help strategies
In addition to professional help, there are a number of techniques used to ease the power of scrupulosity. If these don’t work — or your symptoms increase — stop using them and contact a professional.
Trust God. This is quite difficult when you have a disorder that involves distrust in the spiritual or in your relationship with God. As Stu, who has suffered from scrupulosity for more than 28 years, says, “You need to stop resting your comfort and security in your little rituals and rest them with God.”
Delay. One technique recommended by Jeffrey M. Schwartz in his book, Brain Lock, is to halt the compulsive behavior for 5 minutes. Over time, you can increase the interruption to 10 or even 15 minutes. During this time, remind yourself that your problem is biochemically created, not a character flaw.
Refocus. Another method from Brain Lock is to force yourself to redirect your thoughts and actions onto something that brings you joy. Be still. “I need to silence the part of me that wants to immediately get rid of the discomfort, the anxiety, the guilt,” Stu says.
Change the scene. “As strange as it may seem,” says Kay, a scrupulosity sufferer, “it helps [when I] move myself, physically, to a different area — another room, another chair, even outside. It gives my thinking a different perspective.”
Stay busy. Another scrupulosity sufferer, Martin Luther, once said, “Faith is busy, living, and active.” |
“Everyone thinks I’m such a good Catholic,” says Kay. “I attend Mass every morning. I receive Communion after I beg God’s forgiveness for any offenses I’ve committed since Mass yesterday. If I offend God before I get home from church — or even back from the pew — I immediately pray the Rosary. But what people don’t know is why I do these things.” Kay just knows something awful will happen if she doesn’t follow this regimen. She doesn’t know what will happen, but she’s convinced something will — absolutely, without a doubt. It’s maddening. It’s scrupulosity.
Having scruples can be a good thing: Scruples are the Global Positioning Systems of the soul — they keep us on the straight and narrow. They’re not so great, however, when they are so plentiful, punitive, or rigid that they prevent us from being able to carry out God’s will in our everyday lives. They are not good at all when they prevent us from practicing the religious activities needed to fuel our faith.
Inherent in the concept of scruples is a warning against something. It’s an inaction word, a “don’t.” Don’t think blasphemous thoughts; don’t touch there; don’t think about how seductive that person seems. The problem is, if you think about what you shouldn’t think about, you’re thinking about it.
Ultimately, scruples don’t teach the appropriate action; they suggest the inappropriate action. A true case of scrupulosity can keep Christians quite stuck. In fact, its Latin root,
scrupulus, means “a small, sharp, or pointed stone.” It’s like walking with a pebble in your shoe — the pebble may be tiny, but its impact is huge.
Scrupulosity is characterized by unwanted, unacceptable thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive actions (compulsions). The purpose of the repetitious actions is to allay the anxiety produced by the unacceptable thoughts. It’s a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) — which is caused by a neurobiological condition in the brain — in which the obsessions and compulsions center on moral and religious themes.
This is much different than “having scruples,” according to Constantina Boudouvas, L.C.S.W., director of social work at Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. “A scrupulous person may strive to be principled in all her actions for the purpose of developing and enriching her spiritual and personal life, but for the scrupulosity sufferer, anxiety belief supersedes spirituality,” she says. Even though morality is paramount and religious practices may be rigorous, this condition does not reflect upon one being deeply pious or reverent. It involves dwelling on issues of uncertainty regarding the “rightness” or “wrongness” of a thought or deed:
Did I say that prayer right? Am I being too judgmental in thinking I shouldn’t hang around drug users? Did I forget to mention someone in my prayers?
