Not looking for reassurance, just venting about how stupid OCD gets. Having a wild time with existential OCD at the moment. It started with me obsessing about what is going on in other people's minds. Not that I want to know what they are thinking, just how they are thinking - what it's like inside a head without OCD, is it quieter? Is that why other people like daydreaming and getting lost in thought? Then all of that philosophising lead me down a bad path and now my OCD is trying really hard to convince me that nothing exists outside my line of sight, the horizon is just an elaborate drawing and behind it is a black void. Obviously I know that's just ridiculous but it's hard not to feel like I'm losing my mind when I know that there is a world beyond my current line of sight but my OCD brain is trying it's hardest to convince me that there's not. Usually when existential obsessions come up it's because I'm going through a major life event but that's not the case right now so it beats me why this particular brand of obsessions has made an appearance again. Oh well.

This is my first post and I wanted to post because my ocd feels like something that will always control my life and nobody truly understands because no one in my life experiences this. I’m hoping to maybe find a community who can relate. I’ve always had an intense fear of death. The fear is of my own death and my loved ones. I’ve had 2 debilitating episodes of this and the most recent episode being a month ago. The first one lasted about 3 months of constant intrusive thoughts about death and the meaning of life. I also feel as if I’m not real and the world around me isn’t real. It’s almost like I’m completely gone and I can think of nothing else. I would sleep to escape it. Nothing has purpose or meaning. I even question happiness of others. I question why anyone would be happy if they’re gonna die eventually and why aren’t they thinking about it?? I know it’s ridiculous when I come out of it. But to be honest the thoughts never fully go away. They pop up every once in awhile when I’m in a good state with my ocd, and almost everyday when I’m in a bad state. The severe episodes I’ve noticed have happened when I’m in a period of high stress in life. For example I’m moving in with my boyfriend next week. All that my therapist has told me is to work on my grounding techniques but it’s hard to explain to anyone who’s not experienced it that grounding doesn’t help when I’m in that headspace. It seems like when I get there I just have to wait it out and eventually it’ll pass but not fully. Does anyone have anything that’s helped them?

Hello, I am a young girl struggling with OCD, specifically existential related OCD. I feel constantly like my life is pointless, like my goals aren’t significant, because, I’m just going to be forgotten and die. What is the point? I don’t want to get old and not be able to do what I love. Sometimes I wonder if not existing would be easier, but I don’t want to die yet. It’s really confusing, and I’d love some tips I could get for motivation. I really want to be spiritual, but I struggle in believing in stuff so…?

I haven't been officially diagnosed with OCD but when I learned more about it, I never related to anything more. A little back story: when I was younger, there were a couple of youth suicides in my area and the schools felt the need to have someone come in and talk about suicide. Well the person they had come in did a horrible job teaching it and basically made it seem like the smallest negative emotion or feeling or change in behavior made you suicidal. This ended up scaring me so much that I got horrid anxiety. Fast forward to now, Everytime I feel anxiety and panic, I fear I'm going to kill myself. Everytime I feel down and depressed, I fear I'll end it all. I'm scared to be around anything sharp because the "What if" I hurt myself comes into my mind. There are always intrusive thoughts at almost every point of the day. And it's not only for me. Everytime I hear someone being negative, I fear they will be suicidal. I know in my heart that none of this is true but it's terrifying me that it's stuck around so much that it makes me scared that maybe it is true. I've had a lot of death in my family in the past year and a half and a lot of other family drama that I'd never had before that is now also bringing up existential intrusive thoughts. And I'd never questioned anything about life before but now I get the "why is life like this?" and "does anything we do matter?" and I hate it. I don't want to think like that. I just want to go through life being able to handle things normally again. It terrifies me even right now going "what if you give up?"