- Username
- Kuan462
- Date posted
- 3y ago
I’ve been there . It’s a question many of us ask especially those of us that battle with OCD, and it grips our minds at times. One thing that I learned to do is let it go and trust God. I’m a Christian , so in regard to my belief system I had to learn to be okay with placing my faith in Jesus and leaving it there. In regard to specific ERP around this topic , maybe one of the NOCD advocates can give a better answer. Hope this helped a little.
Thank you, it helps to know I’m not alone. I have been researching religion a little bit more, I’m pretty spiritual, but with a busy life with kids and the pandemic it’s been hard to feel connected to those things. I have one parent who’s Jewish and one who is Christian, neither especially religious. Maybe a good time to look into those religions and see if anything clicks for me.
@Kuan462 Thats a good idea guided meditation helps me sometimes
I have the same problem I understand your pain its awful thinking about the future and that someday we are going to die I hope we both can live in the moment someday and I know that day will come
I hope that for us too, I think the pandemic triggered this distorted thinking for me. It’s hard to feel connected to the world when you are so isolated! (Right now in my area it’s rough)
Sure. I mean, entire religious doctrines and schools of philosophy have been dedicated to that very question. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about having them, but it’s just what your OCD attaches to. I’d caution trying to research the subject to arrive at some “answer”, because there can’t really ever be a 100% guaranteed conclusion one way or the other. Me, personally, I’m fairly confident there is no afterlife nor deity of any sort. However, that’s a conclusion I’ve made based on the evidence and not something I can “know” for sure. Researching a religion or ideology to try and figure it out with certainty is a compulsion.
Thanks for clarifying that for me. I do think I sometimes get lost in my OCD and don’t realize that maybe these thoughts are intrusive and the drive to find answers are compulsions. My intrusive thoughts prior to this were never of this nature, so this is new for me - and super unpleasant! I’m hoping to be able to label the thoughts as intrusive and try not to give in to the compulsion of delving deeper into them
@Kuan462 If it feels urgent, if you can’t let it go, if you feel the need to seek answers or research, if you feel distress that you can’t know...it’s probably OCD driving it.
@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett That’s exactly how it feels, the thoughts cause me to cry and feel emotional, then I’m googling spirituality and trying to find answers, it ruins my mood and hinders my happiness .. makes it hard to be present with my kids which is the worse part. Labeling this as a function of my OCD helps already
@Kuan462 This is why mindfulness is such a great tool. It helps you examine something accurately. Not the content of a particular thought or going down the rabbit hole, but seeing it for what it truly is. “Ah, I’m distracted. I’m feeling urgency. I’m fearful right now.” And practicing letting that feeling be felt rather than analyzed.
@NOCD Advocate - Carl Cornett Wow that makes a lot of sense, thank you for the insight. This is definitely a challenging time for me; pandemic, lots of adjustments (college student), kids are home from school. Probably why it’s flaring up. I appreciate this, thanks so much
@Kuan462 Any time!
Anyone else struggle with existential OCD? I’m constantly questioning my reality or what’s the purpose of us being here…most days I don’t even want to get out of bed or eat…it’s getting too much for me to handle honestly 😣😢
For the past week-ish I have been having a really scary existential crisis that feels like it is stemming from ocd. It started with me being freaking out that i’m going to die one day, then it merge into me being freaked out about what was going to happen after I die (mostly the thought of nothingness). I found some very brief relief in some spiritual beliefs and watching psychic medium readings but then I started think about even bigger and harder to answer questions such as, “if there is a God, who created God?”, “Is the afterlife scary?”, “Could the afterlife end one day?” “What is the point of anything at all?”, “Will the sun exploding destroy whatever afterlife exist?” Really ridiculous questions. I truly believe that there is something after death and something that exists as a life force science cannot explain, but the fact that my mind can’t comprehend or figure it out is really really scary. I feel as if I am going crazy. I have been thinking about nothing but the universe and the meaning behind it all and where it all came from. I can’t enjoy anything anymore. I just want to lay in bed all day and even that is hard. I have been non-stop watching videos about people’s beliefs about this topic trying desperately to find some sort of answer and I am starting to think that may be a compulsion. I am trying my best to remind myself that I when I die I will have all the answers to these questions and I don’t need to worry about this right now because it truly doesn’t affect anything or change anything in my life but it is really hard. I feel as if I have “uncovered” something and my life will never return to normal again. I am terrified that I am going to go crazy or start having hallucinations and that I’ve ruined my life by researching into something so complex and not understandable at all. Any kind of suggestions or anything would be helpful, I hate dealing with this and feeling so crazy and hopeless.
I haven’t been diagnosed with existential ocd but I have every single one of the symptoms. Death/afterlife and the meaning of life is 90% of what I think about day after day. I really hate it. I wish I could go back to the days when I never thought about death. I really just want it to stop. The worst part is know that no matter what it’s inevitable and nobody can stop it😞 any suggestions on how to feel better??
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