Does anyone have existential ocd here? I would love to exchange a few words with someone that has it.

Hi! If you don’t mind can you share what you experience? I’ve been going through something recently and I honestly think my ocd bounced to another topic

@Wolf Yeah of course! So I noticed it slowly happening and taking hold back in around February I think. I started having intrusive thoughts about purpose and meaning of life, so some examples would be “what if nothing in my life has any meaning”, “what if me working in my classes/finding work/participating in my relationship didn’t have any meaning or purpose” and so on. They were really distressing to me and seemed to show up on their own without me purposely thinking of it. At first it primarily focused on meaning/purpose, but when my grandpa passed away in late March it also developed an obsession on reality, since his passing literally didn’t feel real to me it was a crazy and emotional day. So I started getting intrusive thoughts of “what if I’m not real”, “what if nothing around me is real”, “what if what I’m looking at and this world and so on isn’t real” “what if I’m in some sort of simulation”, etc. As for compulsions, for the purpose/meaning stuff it was constantly reassuring myself. This is personally specific to me but along with existential OCD I also suffer from suicidal OCD, so the two themes seem to mix quite well, so I was constantly trying to reassure myself that my life does have purpose and meaning, etc. but of course being existential questions how do we really know? this also bugged me because I’m a Christian and we are taught are meaning, but OCD don’t care about that. Compulsions for the reality portion was focused a lot on sensation and checking, so I would be outside and get thoughts that my environment wasn’t real so I’d look at the trees moving in the wind to make sure it was real, touch some things to feel them to check they were real. You feel so separated from everything like it’s all artificial around you it’s weird and scary!

@Evelyn4416 Thank you for sharing 🥺 the reality part describes me so much, I felt so alone haha

@NOCD Advocate - Evelyn How did you get over this. Currently suffering with this

@artsygirl Hello - doing exposures and avoiding compulsions have helped me the most, as well as practicing mindfulness. For example I would look up youtube videos that would trigger the existential fear and not do any self-reassurance, ruminating, etc. I still deal with this subtype occasionally but with the help of ERP the fear is not as intense or frequent as before!

@NOCD Advocate - Evelyn I’ve done erp for suicidal ocd but I’ve realized my core fear is death and I’m just so scared about what comes afterwards even though I’m Christian and the idea of “not being real”. I guess I don’t even know how to trigger this. I have a health issue that puts me at a high risk and it’s become an obsessive fear. It’s very reasonable for me to be fearful but it’s becoming obsessive to where I’m constantly scared my heart will stop.

@artsygirl To begin to move forward from these fears, we have to make ourselves be okay with the uncertainty of the questions and what if’s. With the existential and suicidal, what if i’m not actually real? well maybe i am, maybe i’m not, i’m gonna keep going in with my day. What if i end up committing suicide for some reason? maybe i will, maybe i won’t, again i will continue on with my life. It’s hard to get there but it will eventually reach that place. Even with the Christianity thing i relate, we are taught and know that heaven awaits us after death, but OCD doesn’t care about what we believe and will still throw that fear at us. So we let the fear talk but eventually learn that no matter what it says, it won’t shake us. If you’re not sure how to trigger yourself for ERP I would just try out different methods or even take note during your day of what causes that spike of fear. For me, having an article about a celebrity killings themselves pop up on my feed would trigger me, so i’d use similar articles for example. My core fear is losing my family and loved ones so my themes relate to those frequently. Through exposures and resisting compulsions, we dig through the surface level fears and eventually learn to be okay with the uncertainty of out core fear - and i believe then is when we will really be out of OCD’s grasp

@NOCD Advocate - Evelyn Thank you so much. This was very helpful. I have been able to say maybe maybe not to the suicidal ocd. This feeling a bit disconnected from reality is new for me and I believe that’s the existential. I feel very guilty for questioning what happens after death because I’m a Christian. It makes me think that I don’t have enough faith and maybe without enough, I’m not saved. I know this sounds so silly.

@artsygirl The existential fear can really throw us through a loop so i understand how hard it is. We can never find that 100% certainty with it so in a way it pushes us to be okay with the unknown. I also understand your concerns with after death. However I believe God knows of our struggle with this disorder and the thoughts and fears it fuels us with so even if we feel guilty, He understands and continues to love us no matter what 💛

@NOCD Advocate - Evelyn Just wanted to tell you thank you from the bottom of my heart. This has been so helpful.

@artsygirl I’m so glad to help! I hope things get better for you soon 💛 you totally got this!