Hello there. I think Iāve had pretty much every ocd subtype thoughts since birth, including this. What youāre describing is form of dissociation or solipsism. I had these kinds of thoughts and feelings since I was a kid. Why am I in this human flesh and not that cartoon character on the tv screen? Why am I not that person or this person, or that dog or that cat! What is living, what is life! I didnāt know how to process this. As I aged, those internal questions transformed into ānothing else is real, except me. Iām the only one that exists.ā And then it went like you wrote, āNot even I am real!?ā I got to a bad point when I was in college where I felt completely disconnected from my senses because I was literally possessed by an anxious feeling I had in my body, and my unshakable resistance to not feeling that feeling. I was looking but not seeing. I was hearing but not listening. I was tasting but not savoring. I was touching but not feeling. I was smelling but notā¦ donāt know about that one. Anyways, at the core I believe this feeling of āwatchingā but not being in your body it stems from the fragile human ego thinking itās the only one in existence and is in control of everything. I didnāt understand how soothing the phrase āget out of your headā really is until I contemplated it. Look up at the sky, see how small you are. Or at natureā¦ all the trees and different species is just wonderful. It really is freeing when you realize how little control you have over things, at least this helped me in my case. Your experiences may be unique, but believe me, there are others who have the same fears as you and cannot help to question everything. Maybe it was also how we learned how to survive once, by dissociating from a painful experience we did not want to believe or feel, so we go numb and desperately try to seek a meaning to justify why that moment happened, and what ought to be real next. The human brain is very powerful at self preservation, even to our detriment, but we must have some powerful anchor back into reality. And yeah.. smoking can do that, I wouldnāt recommend it as an anchor because the nicotine can make you more hyper aware and more dissociated. Well, now I might be rambling, but thatās how most of my replies are because I have a lot to say but it all comes out disorganized:) Anyways, you are not useless, straight up, and you can be an excellent nurse. I know this melancholic saying first hand (I say it too to my self all the time), but everyone belongs somewhere. Iād like to think ocd shows us the things we care deeply about, through our fears. We can learn to transform the negative things about this into something positive, at the same time learning we do not have control over our thoughts and pretty much most of reality. On one end it can seem petrifying that we donāt have control, but on the other end, we can feel peace knowing we donāt. Iām thinking of that Kung Fu Panda 1 scene where Master Shifu kicked a peach tree and a peach fell to the ground, and told Master Oogway that he did that. Did he really though? Sorry for the long read, I hoped I helped you in any way in this chaotic reply.
