- Username
- mummers
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Yep I know exactly how you feel. I remember one night in July last year, I sat on my bed and just thought so much about life and how weird it is and I got so much anxiety. Even just going downstairs later that night felt off. And the thing about repeating a word until it loses its meaning is so true in relation to existential OCD! I guess you just have to accept uncertainty (which is so frequently said but so important). If life really is just a crazy paradox of weird shit, so be it. It doesn’t affect you unless you let it. Just live in the moment and try to shrink your widening mind to the simple stuff. It’s a little naive but it worked for me!
I get you. Like you know what you NEED to think but it’s hard to actually believe it. But I promise you, you’ll get there. When I had it, I had no idea what OCD was so it was a strange part of my life. And I didn’t think I’d get out of it but I did, and so will you :)
You might be experiencing derelazaion and depersonalization along with exsistenital ocd
I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THIS. I’ve been dealing with these thoughts for a lil bit and it’s terrifying but your not alone ?it’s okay to have these thoughts and that’s what they are... just thoughts, not real. Reality is reality( and even though we both probably don’t understand that lol) we just gotta live it. IK how hard it is tho. Makes you wanna curl up in a ball and just cry, and IK it’s easier said than done but if you do something active like go for a walk or watch a comedy show it might help get your mind off it. Much love <3
Thank you, Eden!! I guess suffering from derealization doesn’t help hahaha I need to remind myself that OCD is lying to me, as it does with everything. I don’t need to understand reality, I just have to live (it’s so hard to believe this)
Thank you so much!!!! You guys are so nice. And yes, I suffer from derealization since I was a child, @moeg!
Not looking for reassurance, just venting about how stupid OCD gets. Having a wild time with existential OCD at the moment. It started with me obsessing about what is going on in other people's minds. Not that I want to know what they are thinking, just how they are thinking - what it's like inside a head without OCD, is it quieter? Is that why other people like daydreaming and getting lost in thought? Then all of that philosophising lead me down a bad path and now my OCD is trying really hard to convince me that nothing exists outside my line of sight, the horizon is just an elaborate drawing and behind it is a black void. Obviously I know that's just ridiculous but it's hard not to feel like I'm losing my mind when I know that there is a world beyond my current line of sight but my OCD brain is trying it's hardest to convince me that there's not. Usually when existential obsessions come up it's because I'm going through a major life event but that's not the case right now so it beats me why this particular brand of obsessions has made an appearance again. Oh well.
I can’t tell if this is existential OCD or if something else is going on, but I’ve been having a serious existential crisis-type episode for the past week. Starting with the realization of my own mortality and an impending sense of doom, hopelessness, pointlessness, and despair, which led me down a path of spirituality (mix of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs). That’s in the realm of “normal” for me, and I was feeling amazing afterwards, I felt like everything finally made sense, like I was at peace with the world, nature, and my soul. But then the intrusive thoughts started(about when I realized technically anything is possible in this seemingly endless universe). At first they were about this whole world being fake, that everyone was in on it except for me, that I was being tested to see if I had learned enough/been a good enough person in this life. Soon realized that this wasn’t logical, since I was going off the idea that nothing was real, but if no one was real they wouldn’t be able to lie to me. Then it transitioned into pure solipsism, which terrified me to the very depths of my soul, at which point I felt suicidal (basically “if nothing is real what’s the point?” Kind of thinking) but after a couple of days of ruminating, I realized the flaws in this logic, as well, and was comfortable in the idea that this was false. Which brings me to now. It’s sort of a mixture of the two, I now have an intrusive thought that there’s some force that created this world to test me, but that no one is “real”, that they have the appearance of being conscious like me, but are being controlled by an outside force, that they’re like robots with the appearance of having a soul, but are just programmed to seem that way, that I’ll not be able to see them again when I die and return to the pool of consciousness since they never existed in the first place. I know in my rational mind this isn’t true, but it just keeps pounding in my head that it’s possible, so I can never assume it isn’t the truth, and it’s making me feel so hopeless. What’s the point if everything is a lie? I feel like my world is crumbling beneath my feet, like I’m drowning. The worst part was that I was fine this morning, but was triggered by an existential question I saw posed online, and wound up back here. I’m terrified that I’m going insane.
I know I’m not supposed to label my thoughts as awful or try to neutralize them / but being so aware of your consciousness that you question it daily is so disturbing to my day to day. Like reality questioning is not something I want to spend my day thinking about, but the thoughts are always there. I look at my hands and feel like I’m in a simulation or that everyone around me isn’t real. It’s strange and so frustrating, I know it’s just thoughts but they’ve become “reality” in a way because it’s all I think about. I’m trying to get back into my body again. I’m at the gym, I’m working, I’m socializing with friends. But that layer of thinking never goes away. I forget what it feels like to not be so aware, I’m afraid a door has opened that I can never close.
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