Acceptance

Do you ever feel like people without OCD have an easy time just saying “you need to accept uncertainty” only because they’re not subject to the same level of fear and anxiety as an OCD sufferer would? I feel like they don’t really accept uncertainty, they’re just naturally more certain about things. For example, if you ask anyone whether they think their loved ones are real or not, they will never answer with “maybe, but I’ll never know for sure”. They’ll just say “of course they are”. Isn’t that what certainty is? For me, as I’ve been suffering from existential OCD most of my adult life, such a question absolutely terrifies me. The mere thought of my loved ones and the world not being real sends me into a spiral of anxiety and depression and never ending certainty-seeking behavior. I just can’t stand the thought of that horrible scenario being true. How can one accept uncertainty about such a thought, when it completely undermines all my values and beliefs and world view? Can non-OCD sufferers really accept those nighmarish scenarios? Am I misunderstanding what ERP and therapy is about?

Does anyone just have absurd thoughts, and have such a hard time accepting them? OCD is tricky and how can I just accept this is how it is . I’m so tired of fighting myself. I have such a hard time accepting these awful thoughts about killing my daughter.

I've been told a lot that in order to get better, we need to tolerate uncertainty, which yea I get that and I'm trying every day more and more to reach that point!! But I've also been told that we need to tolerate uncertainty AND "our worst fears becoming true". Like how does that work, especially with POCD, OCD about a///ault, SA and all of that? Like that is really difficult for me and I don't really understand how I'm supposed to just shrug stuff like that off