Anyone have existential OCD here? If so please help me out!

Hey Tom. Yes I’ve suffered from this close to 12 months now. Thoughts include “my friends/family aren’t real”, “I can’t believe I’m a human being” and “believing my whole life has been a complete illusion”. I found these particularly difficult over other obsessions because me the triggers are quite literally “life”. Talking with family, or being with my girlfriend triggers these quote strongly. I’m doing a lot better and can only recommend to start ERP immediately. Sit for 15 mins and just believe that nothing is real over and over again until it becomes a boring thought. Repeat and repeat and repeat... and when you start to feel better keep repeating!! It’s a terrible thing and I know exactly the torment it can bring. Let me know if you have more questions! Cheers

Hey Tom... I honestly know the feeling. It is truly awful and difficult to know how to get out of it. I have been going through many ups and downs over the last year... sometimes I plateau out for a few days, sometimes for weeks. But in the past I had always been relying on avoiding the thoughts and trying to rid them from my mind. I realise now that this may work for brief periods of time but it WILL return. Always. That’s what makes exi-OCD difficult is that everything in life is a trigger. You can be feeling great and then suddenly you just look at a person on the street and it hits you back on your ass. I am doing a lot better currently and the reason is very simple: go through the thoughts. Allow all of them in. Obsess over the thoughts and believe them to be true. I sometimes use imagination to trigger the thoughts. But I also use photo albums of my childhood or family members and just stare at them. I also go to public places like cafes and try to expose myself to thoughts by observing people on the street or just watching people have concerts and so on. Do not give up hope. There is a way through it, always. Hit me back if you need to ask more :)

*have conversations

I will reply properly tomorrow - I’m about to meet someone now. For now, please check Dr Phillipsons videos on the “intrusivethoughts” YouTube channel. He explains the method behind the apparent madness of ERP very well.

If you are feeling depersonalised from ERP then you are doing it right! The benefit will come later when you return to your everyday life and your brain is leas susceptible to obsessing on these thoughts because it has been trained to not react to them.

Mental health is no different to physical health. You can’t expect to run a 10km race without severe difficulty if you’ve been watching Netflix for the last two years!

How that helps!

*hope

Hi, how are you doing now? Are you back thinking straight because it feels like I’m going to be like this forever and it just makes me feel sick.

I feel like I’m losing brain cells by the minute and as if before all of this it was a different life. How does thinking they are real help because when I literally believed it was real I just depersonalised?

Thank you!

So replying to your previous message: it doesn’t matter what specifically the thought(s) you’re having are. What’s important is how you respond to them. Practicing ERP is an excellent way to train your brain to not respond to these thoughts with fear. Expose yourself to the thoughts repetitively for how ever long it takes until you are almost bored of the thought. Could be 5 mins could be 45 mins. But you have to want to feel anxiety. You have to accept the thoughts and allow yourself to feel uncertain about the questions your brain wants to answer (but obviously cannot).

My exiOCD began after a period of extreme anxiety and sleep deprivation which led to depersonalisation. I feel the two are very closely intertwined. So for me it was: general anxiety >> sleep deprivation >> depersonalisation >> intrusive thoughts that nothing is real

At the time it was such a horrific thought that I obsessed over it and tried to answer it and tried to avoid it too. All this is will only make the thoughts stronger. You must allow the thoughts and you must experience all the feelings that come with them... do this in a safe environment and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it.