Can anyone share their experiences with ERP for existential OCD? I'm in a weird spot where I'm kind of in between therapists right now, but I'm feeling desperate for treatment. If you have experience with this, was it helpful? Was talking to other therapists that may not specialize in OCD helpful at all, or were there more negative effects?

Sure, my thoughts right now are due to Andy Weir's The Egg story. My mind just keeps wondering "what if this story is true?" and "what if I believe it?". I've experienced other kinds of existential thoughts before and derealization, which I think triggered my existential thoughts in the past. I didn't do ERP then because I didn't think I had OCD, I thought everything I was experiencing was due to the derealization. Once I learned about derealization from a counselor and found out it wasn't dangerous, stopped constantly googling what was wrong with me and experiencing, and stopped checking to see if I felt like things around me felt real, I stopped having those types of thoughts. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I did compulsions then, but again had no idea that that may have been OCD.

I thought I'd see if I could offer you some advice since I went to therapy the other day. My therapist helped me make an ERP plan that deals with specifics of what I'm worried about, so maybe that's something you can work on as well? I'm supposed to watch kids videos on reincarnation, listen to Logic's album that references the story, rewrite the story, and I think eventually read the story again. Just make sure when doing exposures, you stay with the anxiety. It's hard, and I still wonder how much it'll help, but at this point it's worth a shot. Also, if you're aware of any coping strategies that you can practice after you're finished doing your exposures, after your anxiety has gone down that is, you can try that too. Something like meditation, grounding, a worry time, or progressive muscle relaxation.

@PeachyPopsicle Okay, this is very helpful! Is this something you’re going to do daily? Thank you!

@leif Exposures should be done daily as a way to habituate to what you fear, and needs to be done until your anxiety level goes down. I'm probably also going to do a worry time each day along with this to help manage my thoughts a little better, it helped me months ago but I ended up stopping it. As for coping strategies, I'll probably find some way to use coping strategies everyday as well, especially meditation because it sounds like that can be very beneficial. It's work, but if it makes us feel better then it's worth it in the end. If you need any more help or just want to chat, let me know! Stay strong and I hope this helps you!