Everytime I hear about someone's death there's all these rituals and prayers I have to make before being able to move on with what I'm doing and sometimes it takes FOREVER. So I really hate that my dad feels the need to inform me of every person's death, and my mom's boyfriend has to tell me about every tragedy that occurs. It makes it so much harder to contribute to socialization when my brain is telling me to drop everything and start praying

Asking “why” can be awesome, but it can also be a slippery slope. Maybe start with the ERP.

Uh no. They have OCD that why they're worried about death. When my OCD switched themes, guess what I didn't care about dying or death anymore, at least not any more than the average person. Dont tell someone with OCD to examine their beliefs.

@hateocd123 ^ there’s a lot of wisdom in those words. Someone asked “How did you overcome existential OCD?” My response: “I began worrying about something else.” It was helpful to realize the “why” behind many of my worries is this underlying obsession/fear/worry of “What if I make a mistake??” And so it’s helpful to see that the fears about lying, unlocked doors, accidental vows, etc., isn’t a bunch of different themes but “What if I make a mistake??” But yeah, I don’t recommend writing a master’s thesis on “The Nature of the Fear of Death” right now.

@Alyosha i think you may be misunderstanding what i was trying to say, and that’s probably my fault, i probably didn’t convey what i wanted to well enough. i’m not asking them to try and reason through the doubts they’re having. as you and i both probably know that never works with OCD. instead, i was encouraging them to change their perspective/belief system around the thoughts. it was important for me to differentiate that it wasn’t the talk of death causing their issues, but rather their belief system around it. this is true for the reason being that many people can hear about death and not be filled with rituals and anxiety. why? why does this person get filled with rituals and anxiety but not the every-day person? it’s due to their belief system and perspectives around it. i’m not asking them to reason through their obsession. rather to change their relation with their thoughts around it. like you suggested, ERP is a really good way to start- such as by making peace with those “worst-case scenarios.” if they can make peace with these ideas (change in their perspective), hearing about death won’t trigger the same fear response it is right now. if i can clarify anything else please let me know.

@hateocd123 hello! you can read my comment i wrote to the other user to see if it can clear up what i meant. i agree they shouldn’t be trying to obsessively reason through their obsession. however, the contents of the thought do in fact matter, or else they wouldn’t be having this issue. it’s important to find and dispute irrational beliefs that may be encouraging symptoms of anxiety or depression. this, on a very basic level, is known as REBT (rational emotive behavioral therapy). finding those irrational beliefs, challenging them, and replacing them with rational ones are a part of recovery. of course id recommend this be combined with exposures. i’d suggest the user also practices ULA (unconditional life acceptance) that no matter the condition, they’ll be able to accept their life. or in this case, lack of, as it’s around the fear of death. apart from REBT, something that has helped me when thinking about death is thinking about what it was like before i was born- nonexistent. i didn’t worry about anything the 4 billion years before i was born, i don’t think i’ll worry about things after i’m here no more.