Anyone else with existential OCD, how does this theme manifest for you? I obsess all day over if, how, and why I exist and it paralyzes me with fear. Therapy has been helping but the exposures make the anxiety spike and the thoughts just race and I ruminate all day. If anyone wants to share what they are going through please share.
Hey Josey, so I just commented something similar on another post but I don’t want to repost it looking like I’m some copypasta bot lol. But existential is one of the hardest OCDs to manage because it feels like we’re right, it feels like we should care about these things/ find the answers, and it feels like we’re having somewhat of a revelation. Well unfortunately….. that’s not the case. What you have to remind yourself is if you’ve struggled with OCD where you convinced yourself you’ve had health illnesses or any of the other OCDs. It’s one in the same. I had a brain tumor ocd episode in high school and my brain and myself were convinced that I had one. Well it’s the same thing, your brain is convincing you that you need to obsess over this topic and in the same light of me believing without a shadow of a doubt that I had a brain tumor, we believe without a shadow of a doubt that we need to be obsessed about these existential thoughts or topics. What I try to remind myself Josey, is that philosophers and psychologists are not having one big panic attack/ocd attack while researching their subject. If they were they’d run the hell away from that topic. No they’re able to research it with nuance and understanding where we’re manically obsessing about the topic until it manifest to that brain tumor in our heads. Hope this was able to help
I go through the same thing. Personally I obsess about the Buddhist idea of no-self which is the idea that there is no individual consciousness but rather one universal one. This idea terrifies me and I have all kinds of crazy obsessions related to it.
@Abdullah35 I hear you. The ideas that used to intrigue and comfort me to ponder are suddenly terrifying. The anxiety is so intense and I’m trying to find an answer when I can’t - no one can. I guess acceptance and commitment therapy is important for this
My problem is that I try to prove this idea wrong and try to find relief from the anxiety by trying to find my own consciousness. Obviously the only thing this does is send me deeper down the rabbit. I hope both of us can make peace with our fears
@Abdullah35 Same here. I find peace in reminding myself that I will never have answers to these questions and it’s okay. But it takes practice because my mind is latched onto it
Mine came from the sewersidal ocd. Things like “oh this task is so tedious. What’s the point of life? You might as well ___ yourself.” Then other things that caused me to question my existence which further exacerbate my main theme which is s ocd.
@Peaches1127 It’s so interesting how themes can kind of cause other ones or blend together. I got s ocd from existential but thankfully the content doesn’t matter only our reactions :)
I’m really struggling with this theme because it can make me feel “fake” and it creates doubts that the world around me isn’t real or it’s a simulation? I’m really trying to expose myself but even the possibility makes me incredibly afraid. It even plays into my suicidal ocd as well and makes me afraid that my life would be miserable if this was true. I know how ocd works and I know not to fully believe that. But at the same time, I am trapped in doubt and fear. How could I possibly accept this? Will I ever see the world or life the same again? (Don’t answer that I realize that’s reassurance). Idk this theme is so ass.
This is my first post, so I apologize if the formatting is weird. I experience existential ocd I always struggled as a kid but learned more and more how to manage with school and such forcing me to learn how, now I experience a lot of overwhelming intrusions from when I wake up to when I go to bed (simply because I live and work in the same place it gets cabin feverish) but now more often going out maybe it’s just paranoia, I walk into a place and each person comes with a story immediately, every piece of trash on the floor, every piece of produce, each isle is a brand new way I could get into a life altering situation. I’ve managed well enough but sometimes I just completely lose my original objective and just leave or I’ll wanna leave my house but everything that goes with it and that could happen pops up and I just won’t go. It’s started to become avoidant behavior. Any help or similar stories? I just feel like I’m going crazy but my thoughts are so scattered and immediate it’s hard to break the habit and not spin a story. Thank yall!
Been struggling with existential OCD lately. Very hard to describe the thoughts/feelings, but it is a constant feeling of being stuck in my head. Like what is consciousness and where do I think from? Like I think it’s OCD, maybe it is maybe it isn’t. But if it is, what would be good ERP exercises? Just existing (lol)? And what would be my response prevention? I’m not even sure what mental compulsions I may be doing.
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