Hey /Christian/, I’ve been having some problems recently and would like your varied input.
Hell is very important to my spirituality and relationship with God. I’ve had something of a spiritual reawakening in the last few months, followed by a questioning of my Protestant denomination. Second to the Bible, the most important documents in either of these changes were Jonathon Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (which woke me up to how sinful my life was) and Saint Leonard of Port Maurice’s “On the Fewness of the Saved” (which got me to consider Catholicism seriously for the first time). This period of my life has been marked with a greatly increased strength of conscience, and as a result, I’ve abandoned parts of my life (most games, books, and tabletops) after finding them sinful and made many vows to do or not do certain things. Oftentimes my conscience forces me to take these vows; once it even caused me something akin to a despair-induced mental breakdown after I finally complied to it after being pressured for two days, but it didn’t grant me the relief I expected. As I’ve been considering Apostolic Christianity, which practices sacramental confession, I’ve also started writing down all my sins of both the past and present. I originally had a numerical labelling scheme for the severity of my sins as I wrote them down, with 1 being “minor” and 3 being mortal. A large number of these sins were level 3—mortal. Because of this, eventually 3 crept up to 5, then to 7, then 10, and so on. Now the highest level of sin at 21. I write these down constantly and have made a vow to God regarding the diligence I am to keep in this writing. These “sin-logs” are short, since I keep them on my phone, but I think I have somewhere around 100 or more pages, as well as text files on my computers and physical sheets for elsewhere. I’m beginning to suspect that maybe something is wrong with me, since someone who didn’t understand my situation would probably label me a graphomanic madman.
I bring this up because as I understand it, I am supposed to choose my denomination based on where my conscience guides me. Of course, if my conscience is malformed or scrupulous or obsessive-compulsive or whatever, this becomes a problem. I feel that Catholicism is drawing my conscience quite a bit, but it’s also the most “legalistic” denomination with a very narrow and difficult method of works-based salvation which apparently will weed out all but a few. This appeals to my fear of and focus on Hell, as well as “obsession” with my own sin. However, I’m afraid that these factors alone are drawing me in, rather than a good conscience given by God to lead me towards truth, especially because I’m beginning to feel like I just shouldn’t care about or bother with the other doctrines of Catholicism that I actually disagree with.
In light of this, I’ve considered seeing a psychiatrist to find a way to get rid of these mental urges so I can have a clear and unmuddled conscience, but I have my doubts. I understand they may prescribe me certain medications to get rid of obsessive thoughts, such as Prozac, but what if these drugs just kill my conscience or otherwise disable my moral reasoning? I’ve been praying, but I’m still very lost, brothers. Would you mind giving me some advice? Does it sound like I have a functioning conscience or am I just crazy? Is it spiritually dangerous to visit a psychiatrist and get medicated?
Pic unrelated.