Anyone have advice on obsession with death? I feel like I go through phases and my compulsion is to look things up to “inspire me” or give me hope. Obviously, not doing the compulsion is better in the end. Has anyone gone through this particular ocd cycle?

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.

+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.

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.

When you say death, do you also mean afterlife? Like what will happen when we do pass?

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

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

Thank you for sharing! It’s really tough because there’s no logic to it. No answer to be found.