- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
I'm struggling with this at the moment too!
- Date posted
- 3y
I had this EXTREMELY bad. The way I overcame my fear of death was to develop a fear of eternal life aka apeirophobia. For the longest time I was terrified of death and eternal oblivion, but then I considered that eternal life isn’t something that gives life meaning either. Struggling to grasp the concept of infinity and the idea that eventually octillions upon octillions of years will someday become as irrelevant as a millisecond and that anything we do on earth fades into irrelevance as we approach infinity. Upon thinking of it that way for the first time, I cried extremely hard overwhelmed with pure, true terror being afraid of the implications of both death and eternal life. But in the days and months after I began to recover and finally heal for the first time
- Date posted
- 2y
Hi Daniela! I know that you send this message a long time ago and I m sorry to bother you with these questions. But I have the same kind of obsession/fear that you mention (and I found pretty rare to find people having these kind of obession). My kind of apeirophobia is the fear of being lonely for eternity and it gaves me a lot of anxiety/terrifies me. I'm currently doing ERP and trying to accept the uncertainty but I think its getting worst.... :( I don't understand how can you overcame this fear and accept this could be true (cause for me its really the worst - but maybe everyone thinks the same with their obsessions- rationally I know that is OCD who wants us to feel like that). Do you overcame this fear/obsession? Do you have some advice/tips? Thank you so much and I really hope you are doing better :)
- Date posted
- 2y
@ALVVI Awww I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through that 🥺 it’s a really traumatic thing to go through and I wouldn’t want you to deal with it alone like I did. The initial breakdown shattered me but at the time I was in my first year of university taking an intro philosophy class. It definitely triggered me and forced me to confront my deepest existential fears head on, but talking with the professor and also some of the lectures about Buddhist philosophy actually helped me gradually adjust the way I saw life and death. It was painful but it allowed me to rebuild my understanding of my place in the universe and accept that it’s just fine to exist. That was 4 and a half years ago. In 2021 when I was contemplating if I wanted to die bc I had horrible OCD with other symptoms, expressing love to my Mama and family and seeing the joy I brought to other people’s lives just genuinely gave me a sense of meaning and value in life. I’m in graduate school now and I’m a teaching assistant for introductory econometrics, which was my favorite class of undergrad, and really getting to help my students understand the concepts and supporting them is also something I’m really passionate about and gives me a sense of purpose/meaning. Infinity is scary, be it infinite life or infinite death. It’s okay to cry it out because it really is traumatic and your pain is 1000% relatable. I wish I could give you a hug and I hope this helps 🩵
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
Okay so for context to assist anyone who wants to give advice to me, I am religious (catholic) but I also believe in science, the reason I believe in both in simple terms is the math don’t math for me. Yes we know the big bang theory happened, but the theory is it started from a singularity kind of like what you would find in the center of a black hole, no one knows what happens if you go through it. So out of this point and singularity, there sprung an explosion that created the universe and in that universe out of all odds a planet was created (the only one we know of right now, though I think it’s highly likely there are other life forms out there) that just so happened to have to develop the exact right conditions for life to develop. And how did that life even develop, primordial soup, the earth’s bodies of waters just so happened to get the exact chemical compounds in the exact amount needed to create organic compounds such as amino acids. So my point in this science brief is that everything we experience and exist in is a statistical anomaly, to many anomalies to make sense for me. Maybe the way I understand religion ends up being correct or not, I hopefully won’t know for a really really really long while, I go with what makes sense to me, but I do know that there has to be some sort of higher power that I don’t understand that in my opinion must be at work within the universe. Despite all I know about science and all I know about religion (my own and others) I cannot shake my existential dread, I can’t shake the awful fear of death. I can’t even enjoy basic milestones in life like birthdays or weddings for people because it always creeps in. It even doesn’t help if I try to think about the concept of heaven and just radically accept that as my answer for what happens after, because then I feel so much fear and dread of seeing the people who traumatized me when I get there. My adopted mom once asked me when I would stop being scared of my abuser ever finding me or interacting me and I told her when the woman is dead, now that’s not even true. I can’t even feel of safety in religion because then I become terrified I’ll be in eternity with that woman, and I’m not even going to start on my religious OCD themes right now. It’s affecting my OCD horribly and I’ve had multiple panic attacks at this point and so so many compulsions, it’s like they never end. For those with death anxiety, what are things you’ve tried that I could try to help? Are there any specific therapies for death anxiety that I could try? I want to be able to take control of my life and be able to enjoy things without always having this creep up in the back of my mind, so I’ll gladly hear any suggestions or things others have tried that could help. Thank you!
- Date posted
- 18w
Hi guys so this existential theme is like a final boss in all ocd themes for me. I just dont know what to do tbh. My main problem is that whatever iam doing my mind goes: whats the point? Iam watching tiktok about workout my mind goes: there is no point. Iam planning vacation: there is no point. Iam tired of this. I don’t know if its still ocd or what but what i know is that it complitelly ruining my life and i have zero peace. If someone can help me with these meaning of life and point of life thoughts i will be so gratefull because iam starting to feel hopeless.
- Young adults with OCD
- OCD newbies
- Suicidal OCD
- Students with OCD
- Existential OCD
- "Pure" OCD
- NOCD Therapy Alumni
- Harm OCD
- Date posted
- 18w
My OCD has bounced around to a lot of different topics but my current spiral has been focused on existential dread - I have a lot of intrusive thoughts about my loved ones dying and not existing and about my own death and not existing anymore. OCD is trying to get me to find certainty in what happens after we die… and unfortunately I will NEVER be able to find certainty around this. This spiral started after the death of my beloved cat and then the almost death of my dog a week later. I think OCD attached to this idea that everyone and everything I love is going to die and I need to prepare myself for it and somehow KNOW what happens when someone dies. It’s panic inducing and really hard for me to sit with vs other OCD themes Ive had related to health, moral/hyper responsibility, etc. Anyone have this type of obsession around death of loved ones and how did you combat the intrusive thoughts and deal with the mental compulsions (rumination, avoidance, etc)?
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond