Does anyone else ever have obsessions about death and the afterlife? This is something I’ve struggled with on and off for years but I can’t seem to make these thoughts go away because my ocd is telling me this is a real fear and there’s no counter thought to act as the compulsion for it because it’s the unknown and that really freaks me out

so i have ocd but this is the main theme ive been dealing with for the last few months, im obsessed with my mortality and i feel trapped by the reality of death. i dont really believe in an afterlife which makes it scarier, not that i dont wanna my brain literally just wont let me. but i have daily panic attacks thinking about death all day, its honestly the toughest thing ive ever dealt with. does anybody have any tips on how they manage this if they have ever dealt with it? not looking for reassurance, just some non compulsive ways to kind of lessen the grip of the fear.

the concept of death & existence is ruining my life rn 😭 im losing so much sleep. i try to close my eyes & all my brain wants to do is try to wrap itself around the idea of what not existing feels like & i get this sinking feeling that grows & grows until my eyes snap open & i have to go back on my phone to distract myself until im literally too exhausted to keep my head up & my body forces me to sleep. it makes having the motivation to do anything hard because all i can think is "it wont matter when i die". it sucks because i know that having MORE in my life might actually improve this, im 21 unemployed still living at home with ASD & i know once i have a job that will definitely give me more to focus on & other stresses to have lol, but i feel like im stuck in the endless cycle of "not having a life makes me worried im wasting my life & itll all be over so fast" & then "being so stressed about my life & time passing is exhausting & makes it too hard to find the motivation to do anything other than sit here" & repeat. spirituality is hard because i like thinking that way, like afterlife & shit, but i worry that im just "in denial" & using it as an unhealthy coping mechanism that leads to magical thinking thoughts. then its like i have some sort of meta ocd spiral obsessing over if what im doing is bad & unhealthy for my ocd or not. i LIKE being spiritual but im worrying im hurting myself & doing a compulsion thinking that way. it also doesnt help that religious spaces have hurt & traumatized so many people & im terrified of being apart of a "delusional" community that spreads a false narrative & attacks anyone that doesnt agree with them. i know i am not like that but i worry im still apart of the problem even thinking this way. at the end of the day no one knows the truth, no one knows what happens after death. im just struggling to sit with the uncertainty. it is so late rn idk of any of my words make sense lol

At first, it just started as harmless questions, curiously exploring the universe and what life and death mean as a human. Then it became an obsession about death and the afterlife. I’m a Catholic-turned-agnostic who recently took an interest in religion again, trying to redevelop a relationship with God without letting the fear of not being good enough and possibly going to Hell taking over me. Instead, my brain latched onto the possibility that there is no God, that there’s eternal nothingness after the short time we have here on earth and that everything means nothing. My love for my friends and family. My desire to achieve my goals, and to be happy for the people I love achieving theirs. I’m haunted by the feeling that it will all be for nothing, that I will never be reunited with those that I love, that the people I love who have passed on have ceased to exist and one day, so will I and everyone else. I can’t function now. I’ve made myself physically ill over this. I’ve lost my appetite. As someone who once took pride in how much love I have for my job as a daycare teacher, I come into work and feel numb. I go home and feel numb. I’ve obsessively started telling the people in my life how much I love and appreciate them because for the past three days, I’ve been sick thinking about how one day, either I’ll leave them or they’ll leave me. It feels like nothing matters. It feels like everything is in vain. I’ve tried so hard to reframe my mindset, to rewire my brain to not think that way. I’ve tried ERP techniques of allowing myself to sit with the discomfort that the fear brings. To try and desensitize myself to this fear. Nothing seems to work. I’m so lost. I’ve been this way for three days, with yesterday and today being worse than the day it started. It’s like the obsession is morphing into depression in a way. I’m scared I’ll never feel enjoyment in any form again. I don’t know what to do anymore.