TW - existential OCD also long post Lately the things that have been triggering my OCD haven't been quite as intense, but now things that normally don't bother me are making me anxious. I've been having intrusive thoughts about my existence and why I'm here. I ruminate about my perception of the world and how other people perceive me and just who I am in general and why. Why am I me specifically? Why wasn't I born as anybody else? I don't hate my life or wish I was somebody else, I just don't understand why I am coincidentally experiencing the world around me along with everybody else. Sometimes I get the thought that I'm the only "real" person and that everybody else is computer generated or in my imagination or a part of a test some higher power is putting me through. It's not because I view people as lesser, I just don't know why I'm here. The universe is full of coincidences and accidents, but what chooses who perceives the world from a specific body? How are we supposed to know that we're experiencing the same feeling when you can only see the world through your own eyes? This is a lengthy post and I apologize for that, these thoughts have just been kinda upsetting and they make me feel even more isolated. Sometimes I wish I could share my mind with somebody so I would have somebody that would fully understand my thought process.

Hello, I am a young girl struggling with OCD, specifically existential related OCD. I feel constantly like my life is pointless, like my goals aren’t significant, because, I’m just going to be forgotten and die. What is the point? I don’t want to get old and not be able to do what I love. Sometimes I wonder if not existing would be easier, but I don’t want to die yet. It’s really confusing, and I’d love some tips I could get for motivation. I really want to be spiritual, but I struggle in believing in stuff so…?

I haven't been officially diagnosed with OCD but when I learned more about it, I never related to anything more. A little back story: when I was younger, there were a couple of youth suicides in my area and the schools felt the need to have someone come in and talk about suicide. Well the person they had come in did a horrible job teaching it and basically made it seem like the smallest negative emotion or feeling or change in behavior made you suicidal. This ended up scaring me so much that I got horrid anxiety. Fast forward to now, Everytime I feel anxiety and panic, I fear I'm going to kill myself. Everytime I feel down and depressed, I fear I'll end it all. I'm scared to be around anything sharp because the "What if" I hurt myself comes into my mind. There are always intrusive thoughts at almost every point of the day. And it's not only for me. Everytime I hear someone being negative, I fear they will be suicidal. I know in my heart that none of this is true but it's terrifying me that it's stuck around so much that it makes me scared that maybe it is true. I've had a lot of death in my family in the past year and a half and a lot of other family drama that I'd never had before that is now also bringing up existential intrusive thoughts. And I'd never questioned anything about life before but now I get the "why is life like this?" and "does anything we do matter?" and I hate it. I don't want to think like that. I just want to go through life being able to handle things normally again. It terrifies me even right now going "what if you give up?"

That’s kinda my question. All my thoughts feel so realistic and so now I doubt if they are ocd and if I just can’t make my mind up about something and I’m using ocd as an excuse or something idc I feel like this post is word vomit.