I don't think any of us truly realize how insanely easy it is to get over our condition. The answer has literally been right under our noses the entire time. Do nothing. Don't negotiate with these senseless fucking fears. Don't try to reason with them by any means. Give into a compulsion for clarity if absolutely dire but don't make this a habit. Think back at how many times this bully has made you repeat the same patterns over and over your whole life. Put an end to it. Breathe.

How?

Just noticed something that helped me today. I was having the realization a lot of my issues stem from me not taking responsibility for my own life, and also not recognizing my own self-limiting beliefs (SLBs) and automatic negative thoughts (ANTs.) In doing this, I learned that the only way forward is confronting my deepest darkest fears head on and associated irrational/self limiting beliefs- and that for years and years, I have simply retreated and run away. One of my deepest darkest fears (one of my obsessions) is rooted in the understandable fear of the worst of humanity, and the 'what if' I was that (like many of us.) I actually can have compassion for myself because it is perfectly okay to be scared of the worst of people, and if something like that is perpetuated throughout pop culture-media- it would make sense to have associated thoughts about it. The fear is that I am a serial killer or have motives of one. And the OCD has caused me to constantly question my motives and actions to no end (how OCD latches on- makes you look for evidence where there is none.) For the longest time, I have been convinced I am one, and need to hide myself from the world, avoid people more than just because of social anxiety, what my main anxiety was back then. I look for signs everywhere- and the OCD latches on to any perceived (not real) evidence that I am one, that people think I am one. When I decided to confront this fear rather than run away like I have for years, it made me realize it is just a fear- it has nothing to do about who I am as a person, despite how strong the OCD tries to convince you otherwise. It is so sad how strong OCD can be, to make so many of us good intending people be convinced that they are something horrible. Anyway, I hope this can help people realize the best way forward is to confront it head on. It's akin to shining a light on the monster and seeing it for what it is - a goofy thing with fake prosthetics for a movie that isn't a monster after all- a sheep in wolfs clothing. It's just you have been running from it so long, your imagination has gotten so detailed about how horrible it is, hearing its fake growls, instead of turning around and blasting it with a spotlight. This is I guess what ERP is about. For me, one of the struggles with ERP and a specific exposure is that the OCD will jump to a different obsession , which then tells me ERP is a waste because Im not confronting the 'most recent' fear. This is faulty thinking though- because the solution is to confront the fear, not the specific thought. By doing that, you learn to not run away and do all the compulsions in your mind. Tl;dr- long winded post about me realizing how I have actually been avoiding the solutions (ERP) and making up reasons to not confront my fears this whole time. I have been running instead of shining a light on the sheep in wolfs clothing.

Last week I fell into a bit of an existential spiral, which hasn't happened for a long while. Now that I'm mostly on the other side, I think it's important to reflect on the lessons I learned from it. I hope this is helpful for others who find themselves in their own spiral, existential or not. 1. The thought, "I'm never getting out of this one," will always be there, and it will always be a lie. Whenever I fall into a deep existential spiral (which is pretty rare these days), it *always* feels as though I've uncovered some horrible thought that I'm never going to be able to get past. As if I've finally found that one existential thought this is going to ruin me for the rest of my life. When that happens, allow the thought to come and go just like the rest of the thoughts, and take some time to reflect on how you've been there before. For me, it helps to sarcastically agree with it: "Yep you're right! THIS is the one that'll do me in." 2. Keep doing what you do A major difference between this spiral and past ones is that I forced myself to not cancel any plans because of it. I played at an open mic, accompanied my friend on mandolin for his performance, and I attended a run group, all while experiencing an existential crisis. I definitely think this shortened the length of the episode. I proved to myself that I could do some pretty demanding things despite the thoughts. I was also able to reflect on how when I was forced to be present (such as while performing), the existential crisis totally subsided. Which brings me to... 3. Trust in mindfulness I absolutely get it; when you're in the middle of a spiral, the idea of just "bringing yourself into the present moment" seems laughably unhelpful. This time in particular, it really felt irresponsible to *not* attend to the thoughts. It genuinely felt like I had to *solve* these existential questions before I could move on to anything else, including the present moment. But when I reflect on the times that I felt the most at-ease, it was always when I was present. It was during the 10 seconds I took to breath and notice my surroundings. It was when I disengaged from the thoughts and allowed them to come and go. It was when I smelled the fresh air after a thunderstorm, or during a conversation with a friend about her breakup. It was when I named the feelings and emotions I was experiencing, and welcomed it all. Existential thoughts are supposed to be about reality, but when you're lost in them, you aren't actually *in* reality. They're only scary in the virtual reality of the mind. And finally... 4. Yes, the compulsions are the problem I did a LOT of research last week. I watched videos, Googled, and even dove into ChatGPT. The compulsions were obvious, and they were never enough. Every answer that made me feel a little better was followed by doubt less than 15 minutes later. In the moment it genuinely feels like you HAVE to keep doing the compulsions, but you need to trust that that's exactly what is making you feel worse. In order to stop researching, I just had to...stop researching. It was hard at first, but eventually the spiral stopped spinning, and the longer I waited between compulsions, the easier it was to move on.