Hello everyone! (Existential Obsessions) I have struggled with anxiety since I was a young boy. I remember worrying when I was younger that I was inadvertently trying to harm my mother, even though I love my mother more than anyone in the world. It’s shifted more times than I can count, from worrying about poisoning or contamination to thinking that I had heart disease. It’s all the same animal just shape shifting into whatever I fear most at the given time. Currently, (trigger warning) I am constantly obsessed with the fear of developing some sort of delusion or schizophrenia. I am 25 years old (I know that it would’ve probably developed by now) and have no schizophrenia in my gene pool. But I am constantly checking my thoughts to see if they sound delusional or if I am hallucinating my reality. This of course if extremely frustrating for someone with OCD because there is never going to be any definitive proof that I am not going mad. It has caused me extreme discomfort over the past few months and has brought me to extreme states of panic. I was wondering if any of you deal with existential OCD or fears of losing touch with reality. Of course, some days this seems laughable and others I can almost taste the insanity. On paper, everything in my life is going amazingly but in truth I can’t seem to enjoy any of it because I have these nightmarish intrusions of everything falling apart around me. Is this a common symptom? P.S I already run a few miles a day, meditate, do yoga and am working on strengthening my CBT. Any other suggestions?

This is my first post, so I apologize if the formatting is weird. I experience existential ocd I always struggled as a kid but learned more and more how to manage with school and such forcing me to learn how, now I experience a lot of overwhelming intrusions from when I wake up to when I go to bed (simply because I live and work in the same place it gets cabin feverish) but now more often going out maybe it’s just paranoia, I walk into a place and each person comes with a story immediately, every piece of trash on the floor, every piece of produce, each isle is a brand new way I could get into a life altering situation. I’ve managed well enough but sometimes I just completely lose my original objective and just leave or I’ll wanna leave my house but everything that goes with it and that could happen pops up and I just won’t go. It’s started to become avoidant behavior. Any help or similar stories? I just feel like I’m going crazy but my thoughts are so scattered and immediate it’s hard to break the habit and not spin a story. Thank yall!

Hey guys so I’m new here and just recently started struggling with some health ocd and thinking I had a brain tumor but it’s taken a turn for the worse and become this existential ocd where I’m questioning quite literally everything in my life, the purpose of being here and stuff. I just started meds yesterday, which is scary for me cause I’ve never been on them before. I keep having thoughts like, why does everything feel like a blur, what’s the meaning of this and I wake up every day with just existential dread. I’ve been having very vivid dreams that make dreaming and reality confusing I also am scared cause I’m dealing with some DP/DR as well. I just wish my life could go back to a few months ago before I knew all of this was possible. I guess I’m just writing this too get it off my chest and see if any of you all have gone through something similar and made it out okay?

Hi guys! I had really bad harm ocd about 2 years ago and I went through therapy and eventually got really good at handling it when it would pop up. The other day, I was scrolling on TikTok and came across a girl talking about a guy who was presenting a lot of schizophrenic symptoms but no one paid attention and got him help, he was having a lot of delusions, hallucinating, thinking everyone was out to get him, thought he was Jesus and his dad was the president and ended up doing horrific things. The day after that, I was dealing with some work drama and had the thought of “what if all my coworkers are against me and trying to get me fired”. That really stressed me out, cause I don’t normally think about them like that and I went down a rabbit hole of thinking that was the beginning of me developing schizophrenia, ended up googling stuff all night, taking tests, crying and seeking reassurance. I had a thought the other day “your dad is the president”, this one didn’t stress me out as bad as I knew it was just the video I had seen and it was an intrusive thought about it, and I also didn’t believe it. Today I was with some friends and I got a prize at a place we went and it said “lonely” on it. I do have my moments of feeling lonely and this week has been specifically trying so I had a thought like “oh someone’s out to get me cause I got this”. I know this isn’t logical and it wouldn’t make sense to just randomly get it if someone was truly after me and it was just a stupid prize at a random place, anyone could’ve gotten it. Im just struggling a lot with schizophrenic OCD and thinking I’m in the pre stages of it. In my good moments, I don’t think I am at all and it was all just sparked from the video I watched but in my bad moments, these thoughts feel real!! They really stress me out and make me feel like I’m going to lose my mind causing me to lose my job/ end up in a psych hospital/ never live a normal life/ end up alone, never see me my loved ones/ hurt my loved ones. I just want to feel normal and not like I’m about to lose my mind and everything I care about. Please help!!! Anyone else going through something similar and can help me get through this!