The past year I’ve been dealing with OCD about free will, consciousness, and instincts. The latter two stem from the free will problem, but basically I’ve been having anxiety and OCD about having no control over my life on a biological basis. It all started because I watched a YouTube video called “Why we Don’t have Free Will and why that’s OK” from a health channel called “What I’ve Learned” about a year ago. After the video, I started panicking and thinking what if I have no control over my life? What I really am just a product of my environment and I have no freedom? I went and scoured the Internet for counters to these questions and actually found some really good stuff, but my search for answers kept leading me to other topics that threatened the idea of free will. This is where consciousness and instincts OCD come into play. From this research, I found out some scientists say that a lot of our actions are unconscious, but luckily however I did more research and found out that a growing number of psychologists don’t think the unconscious mind actually does not even exist. As for instincts, it all started because I saw a Quora questions that asked “Why is human instinct generally considered to be overriden?” I thought I would get more answers about how human have free will, but instead the top answer was the complete opposite. That answer to this question talked about how humans always act on instinct and that the reasons we give ourselves for acting a certain way are always an illusion. He claims to have done 20+ years of research on human instincts to further his business. The guy doesn’t have a bio degree or anything. I want to be suspicious about these thoughts, but I STILL think about the possibility of him being right about how humans might not be as free as we think. All my research and counterpoints to my own existential crises are nice to know, but I still haven’t been able to shake the thoughts “What if all these people are right? What if we really have less control than we think?” One thing I try to still tell myself is that pretty much everything we know is not a certainty. There is so much uncertainty in the world, and we shouldn’t try to find certainty all the time. I want to just live my life without thinking about all these existential things and just enjoy it. Please let me know if any of you have had similar thoughts or experiences. I’d love to hear your tips, tricks, and anything that can help. Thank you, and have a great day, wherever you are.

Existential/philosophical obsessions? Anyone dealt with this before? I literally feel like I’m getting better with it and boom I get triggered by something I read unintentionally on the internet or talks with others, movies or tv and I feel like I’m back to square one with a new existential obsession that I feel like I need to solve. I just am so frustrated I’m trying to go about this in the right way I’m trying but I just don’t know how to go about it right. My ocd has taken many forms and everytime it’s one I wish for the other it’s so wierd. Like right now I rather be dealing with my health obsessions then this. But if it’s not one it’s the others it’s like I’m addicted to ocd and juggle obsessions. I just want peace but idk what to do. Does anyone else feel like they conquer one obsession and a new one pops up? I feel like I constantly am in a loop I look at old notebooks and realize I’ve been jumping around the same obsessions for over 3 years. Insanity. I would love to hear what has helped you guys and what I you think I should do?

Not looking for reassurance, just venting about how stupid OCD gets. Having a wild time with existential OCD at the moment. It started with me obsessing about what is going on in other people's minds. Not that I want to know what they are thinking, just how they are thinking - what it's like inside a head without OCD, is it quieter? Is that why other people like daydreaming and getting lost in thought? Then all of that philosophising lead me down a bad path and now my OCD is trying really hard to convince me that nothing exists outside my line of sight, the horizon is just an elaborate drawing and behind it is a black void. Obviously I know that's just ridiculous but it's hard not to feel like I'm losing my mind when I know that there is a world beyond my current line of sight but my OCD brain is trying it's hardest to convince me that there's not. Usually when existential obsessions come up it's because I'm going through a major life event but that's not the case right now so it beats me why this particular brand of obsessions has made an appearance again. Oh well.

Hey everyone, this is my first post here and I just have to get stuff off my chest. It started so randomly and so recently. I (21 m) came to accept my morality and my death at a fairly young age following watching 'UP' and my grandfather passed away. But a youtube video talking about a character struggle with their death as part of a character arc, that one line made my mind fall into a rabbit hole on death, what is death, what's after death, what's life, it's meaning, is there a God, what am I doing with my life, what do I want to do? And is it worthwhile? I felt like I like was slowly disconnecting from reality and that nothing was worth it. My interest like guitar, combat sports, pro wrestling and video games didn't bring me comfort. I've even have trouble eating, just two bites of a chicken sandwich felt like 30 bites. I've just keep thinking about my life and my inevitable death and I couldn't focus on anything else. I think it's because I feel like I'm at a war with my mind, people say life is to short and at the same time to not rush it. I am a Christian and I do believe in an after life of peace but I question what's real and what's not and I don't ever feel happy. Is anyone else going through what I'm feel I really need help.