TW rant: suicidal OCD So this has been my major theme for the past year since my onset started. For clarification: I just have suicidal OCD, I’m not actually suicidal Incase there’s confusion about that. Anyways, I am so SICK of hearing about the topic of suicide which seems to be everywhere. You hear a story on the news that some celebrity did it, or other stories that people they knew did it or they themselves attempted it. You hear that people with mental illnesses or those who went through trauma or just being a middle aged white man have higher risks of suicide. On my explore page on Instagram, thanks to the OCD support pages I follow, I get suggested posts about other mental health related things and there’s usually posts about “signs of suicidal people” or whatnot. I’m soooo sick of it. Having suicidal OCD has been extremely hard and scary to have. It seems like anything is a trigger and the unwanted thoughts of it keep popping up (as OCD normally does). A lot of the time it’s aimed toward myself, but a big chunk of it is aimed toward my loved ones, like what if they decided to commit suicide? If I haven’t seen a family member in a little while (they’re chilling in their room or whatever) I get scared they might have killed themselves so I feel the compulsion to check on them, ask if they’re okay and happy etc. But it’s mostly at myself and I hate it so much. I think overall, whether this attack is aimed toward myself or others, it just absolutely terrifies me that anyone could just decided to do it and then just do it? It’s not like fearing a murderer coming to your house or an outside threat, but you’re the threat! And you can’t seem to protect your loved ones from it! I get these fears that I’ll become depressed (I’m not depressed) and eventually desire it or that I’ll spiral from fear and pain and eventually desire it, or that it’ll be like the movie Bird Box where the people in it (after seeing the monster) seemed to go on autopilot and killed themselves. I can’t even see words like “committed” or “attempted” without having my stomach jump. I struggle to get things out of my closet since having an open closet is even a trigger for fear. I just wish suicide never existed, I wish it wasn’t a thing, I wish I’d never think about it, I wish i could move on from this intense fear. (Disclaimer: I’m doing ERP for this and compared to before have been progress, but on my spike days it’s just so frustrating) Thanks for listening 😩

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.

My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.

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.