- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
Yeah totally. Thanks so much for sharing, I really appreciate your response. Have a great day!
- Date posted
- 6y
Yea I know that what I said has flaws in logic (it was for a school assignment lol), just trying to offer another way of viewing things
- Date posted
- 6y
For me whenever I thought about death and the uncertainty of what happens in the afterlife I would panic and start thinking what if this is all a dream.. thinking of scenarios from the matrix .. it’s ridiculous what the OCD mind will do. I totally understand the need to feel in control and I think OCD has a lot to do with feeling out of control. For example I was OCD free for 3 years (my first scare was obsessions with being sick with any and every disease I would google all day and compare my symptoms- I also had MRIS and saw specialists) I just had a son who’s 2 months- I had high blood pressure and they had to induce me which ultimately made me feel Totally out of control and terrified and my son came 3 weeks early! I ended up having harm thoughts that sent me into full panic mode. I’m on Prozac again and getting better each day but I’m constantly convincing myself that it is ocd and checking my thoughts- I feel you! What works for me is exercise, nature, being around loved ones, Netflix, meditation, Prozac and therapy. Unfortunately I feel ocd you have to face your triggers and keep yourself busy.
- Date posted
- 6y
I made a poem about free will once, it was called the paradox of choice. It talked about how people are told they can do whatever they want with their life, you choose your job, you pick your poisons, but you don’t pick your desires. Essentially, while it’s true that you don’t have the ability to chose what you like and dislike, you do have the choice in how you will act on your passions. So while you don’t have complete “free will,” you do have it in the sense that you choose how you act, similar to how we get intrusives thoughts that we don’t choose, but we have the ability to decide on how we respond to these thoughts (I wrote the poem before I was diagnosed with ocd, then later found some good parallels)
- Date posted
- 6y
@MichaelK Although I may disagree with the idea that we don’t get to choose what we like and dislike (we definitely have the power to change those things as well), I appreciate you trying to help. Have a great day.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
- Date posted
- 22w
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 17w
I used to get caught in a loop with existential thoughts very frequently. Every question made my stomach drop: (TW: existential questions) … … ... "Why does anything exist at all? What will death be like? Is anything even real? Is there any meaning to this? Is the universe infinitely big, and if not, what's beyond it? Are there multiverses? Has the universe been around forever? Will the universe end for good, or will it keep going forever? What is forever like? What even IS reality?" It would get so overwhelming that I remember lying on the floor in a fetal position for hours because I felt like there was no escape. I spent most of my days reading articles and watching videos about theoretical astrophysics and philosophy in a desperate attempt to "figure it all out." Of course that only made me more anxious, raised more questions, and kept me trapped in the cycle. Things started to improve once I learned to turn TOWARD reality, rather than away from it, and ERP really helped me do that. I learned that these questions weren't the problem. I learned that I can actually handle the anxiety that arises when exposed to these ideas and concepts. I don't have to figure anything out to make the anxiety go away; it arises and passes away on its own. Ironically, bringing myself into the present moment and becoming more aware of reality helped me escape the cycle of existential dread. Because of that, this topic no longer takes over my life. If I'm triggered by something I see, hear, or think, I may still feel a little twang of anxiety, but then it just goes away. "Maybe, maybe not" has been the single most useful phrase of my life. Do you ever get trapped in a cycle of existential questions? Are you worried that the ERP approach would be too scary to handle? If so, I'm happy to give my advice.
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