Fear of death.

Of course we can’t stop the inevitable but with my ocd it’s all I can think about. I’m afraid I’ll be alone for ever and I’ll fear forever. Fear does not stop death it stops life. But how do I stop fear??? I can’t think of anything scarier than the fact that our conscious will vanish for eternity. I am only 20 years old but I mean the last 5 years flew by like nothing.

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.

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.