EXISTENTIAL OCD!! it’s completely ruined my life, any advice or help would be appreciated

Don’t label it existential ocd. It’s all just OCD. No different to harm, relationship or any other subset. Identify the specific thoughts which trigger you. Expose yourself in a safe environment until your brain gets bored and repeat, repeat and keep repeating. I find ERP excellent for helping to not react to specific thoughts, while meditation helps wonders to help identify those thoughts which should be assigned to ERP but also to practice generally not labelling thoughts at all. Together, ERP + meditation, you will get better. No doubts.

* ps. I suffered severely from existential related intrusive thoughts: “I’m not real”, “Am I really a human being”, “Who are these people around me”. It’s terrifying I know, but it’s all the same stuff as someone who has religion OCD. The only difference are the specific thoughts your brain had learned to react negatively to. And that’s why we do ERP. To retrain our brain’s response!

I could tell you I just had the craziest thought about an ice cream... but it’s probably not crazy to you. So what’s the difference between my thought and your thought? Answer: nothing! The thoughts are all identically meaningless until we give meaning to them. ERP and meditation are precisely the tools we must use and practice to de-assign meaning to thoughts that are causing us to suffer. And take note: the thoughts that cause distress will evolve. Today it might be about the universe, but next week it might be about my ice cream... practice the therapies and you’ll have the skills to continuously diffuse thoughts that start to build up momentum.

No and I never will be! And that’s ok... don’t chase some state of perfection ... that’s just looking for reassurance which come back and bite you in the ass later. Focus on right now and what can you do to improve how your brain will respond to thoughts tomorrow.. the answer is simple: expose yourself to your fearsome thoughts, desensitise your brain to then, and then make conscious decisions to pursue actions that align with your values. Do it. Then do it again. And once more... and when you start thinking you might be feeling better, keep going and going... regularly practice and try to fuse the thought processes into your everyday life too (and not only during dedicated ERP sessions)

Thanks! Did you also have weird thoughts about the universe and evolution?

Sure I had similar thoughts but they’re not weird. They’re only weird to you right now! You have to teach your brain to not respond with “oh that’s weird” but rather “oh, ok” before moving on to the next thought. Labelling the thoughts is a big part of the problem. The great thing is you can learn to stop labelling! Go ERP yourself till your brain is so bored of thinking about “weird “ thoughts that you have the capacity to do the hints you value in life

thanks for the help, and are you pretty much perfect now?

Okay thanks for the wise words!!