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

hateocd123

Date posted: 5y

I used to be like this. It wasnt that I would do rituals or prayers, I would just obsess over it for weeks afterwards. The intrusive thoughts were horrible.

FindingAnswe...

Date posted: 5y

you’re confusing yourself with what’s actually disturbing you. it’s not your guardian’s talking to you about that stuff. how is it that others hear about death and don’t do the rituals? how do others hear about death and don’t have high anxiety from it? so it doesn’t seem like it’s the actual talk of death that causes anxiety, because we can see in others that it’s not the case. i’d say it’s not that but rather your belief system around it. your belief system around death is causing you anxiety, not the talk of death itself. that line of thinking leads you to do these rituals to appease it. for one, try to identify the irrational beliefs you have around death and challenge them, then work to replace them with rational ones. and also, try to minimize the rituals. don’t do them, sit with the anxiety until it goes away (ERP). if you have any questions, ask away.

Alyosha

Date posted: 5y

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

hateocd123

Date posted: 5y

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.

Alyosha

Date posted: 5y

@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.

FindingAnswe...

Date posted: 5y

@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.

FindingAnswe...

Date posted: 5y

@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.

Kontheili

Date posted: 21w

Need some advice

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well! I lost my dad yesterday and me having ocd since I was 7, it just skyrocketed. Yesterday it was difficult for sure, but I didn’t have any intrusive thoughts about self harm. It all happened suddenly when I was half asleep (trying to sleep even though it was really hard), were I feel as if a switch turned on in my brain and out of nowhere I started feeling angry. I recognised at that moment that I was not angry but that’s what my brain was telling me. And that’s when I had an intrusive thought of harming my mom came to my mind and immediately after that came the thought of harming myself. And it stuck. I know grief can make these themes pop up, but what if this is all real and not ocd? I’m scared. I acknowledge I don’t have thoughts in my head of planning to harm myself, it’s just a feeling that this is going to happen. Now letting my thoughts out brings me relief, even sometimes this intrusive thoughts bring me relief (that is very scary), but ocd makes me so pessimistic, and that I’m doomed in life and the sad life my dad had will also be mine as well. There are moments where I feel hope and relief, but it doesn’t last for long. As if I’m so so sure that this is going to happen. And me having magical thinking ocd doesn’t help either. Grief is hard, sometimes I cry, other times I laugh with my friends and family, but those moments I laugh is when I get terrified ( I read people who have made up the decision to (you know) are happy and laugh. Anyways, I’ve talked to my mom about it, she’s super supportive of me restarting therapy and even though she’s struggling with grief, she’s always there to listen to me and give me all the comfort I need. But I informed her about the thoughts the moment the popped up. Just so that she knows and can save me because I don’t trust myself at all. Sorry for this huge rumble, but I’d really appreciate your advice. I’m scared and so not ready to start therapy (at one hand I don’t want to, it feels such a chore, but I know I need to get help). I’m very pessimistic at the moment and I feel no one can convince me that I’ll get better. I think my future life, and it brings me this warm nice feeling and then it is followed by the thought that this will never happen. And because I have magical thinking ocd, and my uni exams have just started, I had this feeling that this exam season will be endless and it’s never going to end. Guess what, I’m probably going to just take one exam out of three (my mind is like you see, this thought and feeling came true) and that’s where I get super pessimistic. Okay, I’ll shut up for now, please give me some advice on how you try to manage your thoughts and what to do for now. Take care ❤️

Suicidal OCD

nunu

Date posted: 20w

Religious ocd

Few years back I went to a funeral when I come home I have developed irrational fear of death my legs were shivering I am unable to sleep at night my life become hell. I could not take food properly and irrational fear make my life worse after some time I developed blasphemous thoughts about God and religious figures and it becomes worse everyday was hell for me the fear was so terrific that God will kill me some numbers comes in my mind like next Friday I will died etc then my sister helps me in it that is just thoughts you are not doing then gradually I started living with them in between these thoughts used to come but I was normal but now again one of my loved one death trigger these thoughts again and I am suffering all the above mentioned stuff in a horrible way. I cannot sleep fear of hell blasphemous thoughts what will happen with be afterward the first night in grave everything is horrified me I don't know what to do death fear making it more worse.

MJOCD2

Date posted: 17w

Death OCD

It’s been several days of feeling paralysed with fear and engaging in compulsions by reading so many NDEs. I don’t even know how people live their lives knowing they’re going to die one day. I’m gonna miss my family so much!!! I mean I’m not gonna know because I’ll be dead! I can’t even look at them without feeling sick. What’s the point of life if we all die? GOD!!! I literally can’t do anything! I’m so overwhelmed!

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