Thea Joshi shares personal journey of faith and living with OCD

Thea Joshi, a contributor to the Centre for Mental Health, has released a new book titled 'When Thoughts Get Stuck,' co-authored with Anglican priest Will Van Der Hart. In the work, Joshi shares her personal experience living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as a Christian, aiming to provide support for others while helping church communities better understand the condition.

Joshi explains that OCD often manifests as a cycle of intrusive, anxiety-inducing obsessions and repetitive compulsions. From her perspective, the condition can deeply impact a believer's spiritual life, often targeting core concerns such as salvation, obedience, and sin. She describes the experience as a relentless pursuit of certainty that can make prayer and Scripture reading feel exhausting. Ultimately, Joshi suggests that for those with OCD, living faithfully involves learning to trust in God even when absolute certainty remains elusive, emphasizing that recovery is a slow, non-linear process.