When obsession shakes certainties and challenges beliefs

What happens when questions of belief are subject to obsessive behaviours? The impact of OCD on key life moments.

Paula Duncan

Paula Duncan is a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen, researching OCD and faith.

A close-up of a complex clock mechanism featuring small statues within it.

The Millennium clock tower.

National Museum of Scotland.

I’m eleven years old and I’ve been given a New Testament in our school assembly. This is the first time I’ve owned a copy of the Bible. So far, I’ve only heard it read to me in school or the few times I’ve gone to church with my family. I flick through it that evening, taken by the table at the front that directs you to different verses that speak to how you might be feeling. I find myself reading Revelation. The imagery frightens me. The tone, the threat, the fear, and the condemnation… would this be me if I didn’t believe in the right way? If I didn’t believe enough? I’m terrified of this book, these words, terrified of God, even. Mostly, I’m terrified by my own doubt and uncertainty about all things religious, despite wanting to believe. What if God isn’t real? What if God is and I just don’t believe enough? God will know I’m not sure. I tell myself not to think about it. If I’m to avoid thinking about it, I can never read the Bible again. I accept this as a rule.

I’m twelve years old and I’m standing in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, listening to one of Bach’s minor key concertos playing from the Millennium Clock. To me, it looks like it depicts some sort of hellscape straight from the book of Revelation. Death, suffering, and evil are everywhere in this model with its eerie red glow at the bottom. It brings up all the thoughts I’ve been trying to avoid – “you don’t believe enough” and “this is what hell looks like.” I tell myself to forget about it. If I’m to forget about it, I need to make sure that I never talk about it and don’t tell anyone how afraid of it I am. Talking about it makes it real, I think. I accept this, too, as a rule.

I’m thirteen years old and I’m sitting in a church trying to concentrate on the service. I can’t because I keep having the thought that I don’t believe enough. I’m worrying about what the reading might be – I’m still too scared to read the Bible and I can’t prevent myself from hearing it in this space. I’m afraid of thinking that I don’t believe enough, and that God will know because this is God’s church after all. I tell myself that I do not belong in this place if I cannot control my thoughts. If I can’t do that, I can never go to church again. This too, becomes a rule.

I’m fourteen years old and I’ve started praying every evening. I’m not sure what prompted this, but I also know that I must do it correctly. If I pray and forget to conclude with “amen”, then it seems obvious that God will continue to listen to my thoughts as if I’ve forgotten to hang up the phone. I try to keep my thoughts corralled and pure when I pray. If I don’t end my prayer, God will hear all my worst thoughts – the ones I am ashamed of, the ones that scare me, the ones that fill me with doubt. I tell myself that I can no longer run that risk. If I’m to prevent this, I shouldn’t pray. Another rule.

I was scared to say these things aloud – to voice my fears or doubts in case they somehow became worse if I acknowledged them.

I’m now in my late twenties, and I have been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and I’m slowly unlearning the rules I’ve created for myself over the years. Each of them, in their own way, was designed to keep me safe from harm, safe from thinking about something that frightened me, or acknowledging difficult emotions like doubt and uncertainty.

It has been a long road to reach that diagnosis. OCD is regularly misunderstood and presented as punchline of jokes – “I’m so OCD!” is one that I’ve heard far too many times when someone simply means that they’re organised. The problem with these jokes is that it disguises the reality and makes it that bit harder for people to recognise what it is they’re really dealing with. OCD-UK, a charity to whom I owe a great deal, describe OCD as follows: “Obsessions are very distressing and result in a person carrying out repetitive behaviours or rituals in order to prevent a perceived harm and/or worry that preceding obsessions have focused their attention on.”

Obsessions could cover virtually any topic, and everyone will experience compulsions in slightly different ways. I didn’t recognise that I was living with OCD because almost all of my compulsions were mental rituals or avoidance behaviour. I would try and avoid thinking about things, check whether thoughts upset me, avoid reading the Bible… Layers and layers of compulsive behaviour in response to frightening intrusive thoughts that became associated with faith. I was scared to say these things aloud – to voice my fears or doubts in case they somehow became worse if I acknowledged them. I now know to call this “magical thinking” but I still find it difficult at times to accept that I cannot cause something to happen simply by saying it.

It can be particularly difficult for people with OCD to cope with uncertainty. I can see why anxiety and doubt about the existence of God has been hard for me to tolerate. I also know that I can never achieve absolute certainty and part of learning to live with OCD is learning to accept that and make choices despite it. Last year I attended the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) Faith and OCD conference and was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people there. So many people with the same worries and doubts as me, and many more who had found that OCD impacted them in different ways.

But it was hard for a doctor to diagnose me until I could find the words to articulate what I was experiencing. It wasn’t until I started reading books about other people’s experiences with OCD that I started to recognise my own thought patterns, my own fears and doubts in other people’s words. Author and video creator John Green shares a very powerful video titled “What OCD is like (for me)” where he shares what his experience of having OCD and says:

“I can say what it is like more than what it is.”

This gives me a little more courage to tell people what living with OCD can be like and represent some of the diverse experiences of the condition. For someone who was too frightened to open a Bible, I think it’s a little ironic that I am now a theologian. My doctoral research project is focusing on faith and OCD, and in particular, how it might affect someone’s relationship with God. I hope to make use of some of my own experience along the way – examining my fear of not being sure enough, my worries that my intrusive thoughts would somehow offend God… I hope that by sharing this, I can raise a little more awareness of an experience that so many of us try to keep secret or just aren’t ready to speak about.

Through advocacy and research, I’d like to share a little of, as John Green says, what OCD looks like (for me). I’d like to add my voice – now that I’ve found it – to the discussion in the hopes that someone might read this and recognise what they’re going through. And if that’s you? You’re not alone. There is help and there is hope.

Article

Culture

Suffering

23 October 2025

5 min read

Protection from evil shouldn’t rely on a blue glass bead

Faith goes beyond culture in my beloved Türkiye

Becky Ruth

Becky is a a writer living in Istanbul.

Blue evil eye charms hang among a jewellery display

Vik Walker, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

‘Mashallah, your baby is so ugly!’.

The elderly ‘auntie’ stopped me in the street, exclaiming over my 3-month-old baby, who was strapped to my front, and before I could translate in my mind what she’d said, quick as lightning, she had safety-pinned a teeny tiny glass blue eyeball to the sling.

I had just moved to Türkiye from the UK and was waist-deep in culture shock. My new friend explained to me that she had pinned the ‘nazar’, a little blue bead in the shape of an eye, on my baby to protect him from evil spirits or anyone's jealousy that would cause them to wish him harm. Mashallah means ‘God wills it’, and calling the baby ‘ugly’ was also for double protection, to distract the evil eye from the fact that he was cute (he was!).

This belief in an evil eye dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times. The little blue nazar represents both the evil eye itself - a widely-feared, dangerous power that could harm others, including their crops or livelihood – and at the time offers protection against it. From Azerbaijan to Pakistan, multiple countries in central Asia and the Middle East believe in the nazar or a variation of it.

Today, the nazar is such a deeply ingrained cultural thread of life here in Türkiye that, nine years later, I hardly notice it anymore. Nazars are the country’s unofficial brand logo, and the bright azure blue with a white iris and black pupil is the colour palette for Türkiye.

Wherever I go, little blue eyeballs stare at me. From crinkly-faced kind teyzes (aunties) to the young influencer girls on Instagram, nazar necklaces are everywhere. Glass blue nazars decorate walls, tables, and trees.

Just yesterday, I was at a friend's clothes studio; for her grand opening, all the gifts from well-wishing friends for her new business were nazar-themed: a tray, a paperweight, and earrings.

So how does ‘nazar’ work? If someone compliments you or anything about you, it's believed that it can attract the evil eye with a harmful curse against you or your possessions. To cancel out the curse, there's a selection of phrases you can say, including ‘mashallah,’ or ‘Allah korusun’ (may God protect you).

Other ways you can ward off the unwanted attention of the evil eye include avoiding staring at children in the eyes for too long, spitting on the ground, and, of course, the most popular, hanging a blue glass evil eye bead wherever you can (there is even a huge one embedded on the front door threshold of our apartment.)

A close friend always tells me to pray a special nazar prayer over my youngest son because he has bright blue eyes, which she believes makes him more susceptible to the evil eye's powers. I respectfully tell her that I have a different belief, and I pray for my family for protection from Jesus. (Whom Muslims revere as a prophet, so this is acceptable to her).

As a woman of faith who has lived in Türkiye for nine years, there is so much of the beautiful Turkish culture that has become mine, and for that, I am so grateful. Living cross-culturally is a little like having a heart transplant - there's no going back. My views on health, parenting, family, and community are now all so broadened and different. But the nazar trend is something I haven't adopted. When I go shopping with my girlfriends, and they browse stunning gold necklaces with a tiny ‘nazar’ embedded in the pendant, I won’t buy one for myself.

Because faith goes one step beyond culture.

The evil eye is based on a superstition about jealousy that has malice at its core. It wants to wreak harm on others. Now, we don’t need to look far to see that we humans are pretty good at being selfish and greedy and hurting others to get what we want. Scroll through the news for five minutes, and we’re convinced of the presence of evil in our world.

But superstitious belief in the powers of nazar is not the way to ward it off.

The dictionary definition of superstition is: ‘a belief or way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck: a belief that certain events or things will bring good or bad luck. 'Both superstition and faith are about believing in things that can’t be seen. Superstition puts it all on you to follow some rules to avoid bad luck or evil. But that’s a bit like shooting in the dark. Believing in the nazar means you can obey all the rules of the system and hang blue beads everywhere… and you can still experience evil and suffering. A loved one gets sick. Problems at work. Whatever it might be. So, either the nazar didn’t work, or you didn’t do it right.

Faith, by contrast, still means you can experience evil and suffering – but the difference this time is, the outcome isn’t attached to a physical action you took. It's about a relationship with someone who cares about our fears rather than trusting in a blind action that may or may not work. And if we want protection from evil, we can we simply ask for it. No blue beads necessary.

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