- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Our culture has a very unhealthy relationship with death. (Western culture) You must learn to befriend the idea and allow it to help give your life meaning. Accept that it is an inevitsble part of life. Does worrying about it change it? No it does not. Obviously easier said than done with OCD, but you should listen to MEDITSTIONS by Marcus aurelius. Excellent exposure on this theme.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thank you ❤️
- Date posted
- 4y ago
+1 on adopting a stoic philosophy, it actually keeps my OCD at bay in general as it's all about letting go of what you can't control. As for the death gives life meaning thing though, I actually think that's a rationalisation, where you try to twist things to make something as awful as being forced to no longer exist into something we can cope with. I'm more on the transhumanist boat, I think death and disease are awful, and are also obviously not strictly necessary, seeing as there are plenty of animals which don't experience ageing to death. I don't think there's a balance between life and death woven into the universe, all the evidence points to it being a quirk of our biology, and therefore not something to give up on doing something about. And if we all got whacked over the head with truncheons every Thursday, people would come up with all sorts of reasons why it's a good thing, including that it makes you more appreciative, or happier on the non-truncheon days, or other benefits. But if you asked someone who doesn't get hit in the head on a weekly basis whether they'd like to start, they'd thing you're crazy for asking. If we didn't have ageing or death and somebody came along and suggested it would be a really good thing to suffer more and more and have your body fall apart and then stop existing forever, we'd think they're mentally ill. But I think for you in this particular case, it's more that you find death triggering because it causes those worries about things not being made better and whole before you die, and happiness potentially being taken away from you. I think there's a combination of perfectionism and catastrophisation going on there- like your life has somehow gone wrong if you don't get to experience it being perfect before your death, and the taken away thing is fear of the unknown and of risk. So I have two things to say. The first is that you don't need to be healed to have happiness, and that people are always broken. The trick with life is finding ways to get moments and periods of happiness, contentment and excitement out of a life which isn't, and is never going to be, perfect. Most people, yes, do die with plenty of trauma still unresolved, but that doesn't make their lives worthless or a blight, or mean that they went wrong. Closure is a myth. The second thing is that, whilst I don't buy into rationalisations of death as something good, it can still help to take it as a given, at least for now, and try to make something positive OUT of it as an inevitability. Not calling it a good thing, just calling it an unavoidable part of your life for now. Even though that causes anxiety, it SHOULD provide perspective for you- like how they say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. It's the stoic catchphrase: Memento Mori, remember that you're going to die. You can interpret it nihilistically as "what's the point then?", or you can choose for it to serve as a motivator to pack as much living into your life as you possibly can, rather than living in fear. I'm pretty sure there's a quote that says not to take life so seriously, after all you're not going to get out alive. It can be a freedom.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Yup we’re basically agreed
- Date posted
- 4y ago
God you wrote a lot. Are you always this serious 😂 let me get (or buy) some reading glasses
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@TheBigCahuna I'm autistic so idk maybe. But I've spent a lot of time thinking about this topic and these are the conclusions I came to so I may as well give them in detail. And I read a lot of cognitive science/transhumanism/decision theory stuff, so I find dilemmas like these and figuring out how you should behave in the presence of uncertainty pretty interesting.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@Scoggy Agreed. Everyone ideally should find a way to come to terms with it; whether by accepting it or by trying to advance science in the manner in which you describe
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thank you so so much. Helps a lot❤️
- Date posted
- 4y ago
No I haven’t but you should look into The stoics and what they have to say about death. It can either be a scary thing or a very affirming and equalizing thing. Death gives life MEANING. It gives significance to every day you are alive. So you can be greatful to who or whatever created you to have this experience! I hope that helps. I’m unsure if it does.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thank you, I’ll check that out.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
When you say death, do you also mean afterlife? Like what will happen when we do pass?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Like I’ve never really thought about death. And like to one day not be here anymore, my brain can’t wrap around that concept. Then I get worried I won’t be able to heal and be happy before I die. Like if I get happy, it will be taken away (extreme, by dying).
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@cheyennesanchez I went through this about 2 years ago. I am going to be honest, I kept having to tell myself that death is the only thing absolutely guaranteed in life. It is something we cannot control or change. We cannot re-direct the outcome. The only thing we can do in our waking life is to try to be the best versions of ourselves. I understand where you are coming from as I am also on a healing journey and am afraid I will forever feel this way; however, we will get through this! Death is something that we are not supposed to be able to understand. We are not supposed to know the answers. If we did and could find the answers, this world would operate much differently. You got this. Try to focus on the here and now.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@rosulatoki Thank you!❤️
- Date posted
- 4y ago
death has been a big one for me i think what i hate most about the death obsession is how it makes me scared of time too like how much time do i have left wow im waisting my life because death is certain then ive waisted 28 years of my life not really trying to do things i want to do or i think about how much time my loved ones have and how i need to be around them all the time so that way i have no regrets on conversations we didnt have or hugs i will miss but whats weird is everyone says oh people with ocd are afraid of the unknown of uncertainty but death is certain and not just any certainty but a certain end we will all face so its like being afraid of uncertainty with other themes and certainty with this one at the same time and im very afraid of it mostly how it will feel and that i will be alone and no one can help me escape it and that i cant stop it from happening to my loved ones and i fear aging and the loss of youth ugh i hate it, it's so depressing
- Date posted
- 4y ago
someone told me to try death acceptance meditation or something like that for an exposure but im waiting to do that after ive faced easier erp things
- Date posted
- 4y ago
I feel like it’s what I’ve been obsessing with for months so I should start with that. I don’t know I start therapy next week for erp. I know this sound weird but I feel like in denial about dying. I feel like I won’t die.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@cheyennesanchez yeah most of my whole life i would joke like oh im not gonna die ill get frozen like walt disney or han solo and freeze my whole family i refuse death it was like if i could make a joke of it or act like it wont happen to me or people i love then i could live in the moment and it was like oh yeah i lived like id never die then its like oh great now im just realizing it can and will happen i even feel weird saying will like that freaks me out and i think what the hell is wrong with me? but ive had this theme before when i was younger i just didnt know it at the time and so i think it will go away i just need to do the erp and talk about it with my therapist and hopefully with time it will fade for both of us wishing you the best 🙏✨
- Date posted
- 4y ago
@cheyennesanchez It's really common to feel like you're not going to die, apparently it doesn't start to sink in for most people until their late 40s-50s. Also idk if I'm somehow delusional but it's probably not necessary to actually take it as a given. The exponential way technology is progressing, especially in longevity science and computing power & algorithms, there are quite a few scientists who suspect that we are going to be able to cure the effects of ageing within our lifetime. They've managed to double lifespan in rodents. That said, I prefer to treat it as a known unknown like any of the rest of my obsessions, nothing special.
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Thank you for sharing! It’s really tough because there’s no logic to it. No answer to be found.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 17w ago
I feel like there’s no way out of this. everyday i’m anxious and depressed from these thoughts. i feel like i have to constantly question if it’s OCD or not. the panic attacks are insane and i freak out. and a compulsion i have is looking eveything up on the internet when im stressing to know that it’s just my OCD and im not in danger. but looking things up add on to my thoughts and i start thinking “what if” actual suidcal people think. do others with this theme whenever they do something like if im taking a picture it’ll be like “yeah you look happy people will wonder what happened when your gone” LIKE i DO NOT want to end my life. or even as simple as cleaning my room, “yup keep it clean so when your family goes through your stuff” then i panic and can’t even do anything. those thoughts distress me so bad. i’ll sit there and think how good my life is or when im having a good day my thoughts will be like “NOPEEE what if your just saying that to convince yourself” it never shuts up and genuinely makes me think i have SI or something. i hope this reaches the right people just to know im not alone. Even when i do get better in the back of my mind it’s always “people who want to are the same a day before too” im genuinely scared and im scared one day im going to just snap and do it because its “too much” do i need to go to a mental hospital! i feel insane.
- Date posted
- 14w ago
I’m having a big OCD relapse and would like to hear anyone’s tips on how to be present and healthily deal with these intrusive thoughts and the “need” to preform compulsions. Thank you!!
- Date posted
- 11w ago
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
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