- Date posted
- 6y ago
- Date posted
- 6y ago
Write about it
- Date posted
- 6y ago
I’ve had obsessive existential thoughts, too...it can get really hard. In my experience, embracing the uncertainty is the way to get thru it. Like: “Maybe life is meaningless, I don’t know! And I’m gonna live my whole life not knowing. Thinking about it more won’t give me a definitive answer, so I’m just gonna accept this and move on to the next part of my day” and then I take a walk or eat a taco or whatever. Just keep living your life and see what happens...eventually the anxiety will spike, then lessen, and you’ll get through it. Hang in there!
- Date posted
- 6y ago
Thanks ljb, just curious how are you now? does it still bother you, how long did you recover?
- Date posted
- 6y ago
I’m doing much better now! For me, it started at the end of May and lasted through the summer, off and on...last intense episode was in early September. It was really hard, but I kept up w therapy and trusted that in time my anxiety would lessen. There are definitely some things that still trigger those thought patterns, but I can dismiss the thoughts much more easily now (the anxiety lasts minutes, not days). The way you feel right now is not how things will always be! Be patient and try not to engage w the obsessive thoughts - easier said than done, I know, but worth the effort. Routine, distraction, exercise - whatever gets your mind off things is good. That’s been my experience anyway - hope it helps!
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w ago
I haven't been officially diagnosed with OCD but when I learned more about it, I never related to anything more. A little back story: when I was younger, there were a couple of youth suicides in my area and the schools felt the need to have someone come in and talk about suicide. Well the person they had come in did a horrible job teaching it and basically made it seem like the smallest negative emotion or feeling or change in behavior made you suicidal. This ended up scaring me so much that I got horrid anxiety. Fast forward to now, Everytime I feel anxiety and panic, I fear I'm going to kill myself. Everytime I feel down and depressed, I fear I'll end it all. I'm scared to be around anything sharp because the "What if" I hurt myself comes into my mind. There are always intrusive thoughts at almost every point of the day. And it's not only for me. Everytime I hear someone being negative, I fear they will be suicidal. I know in my heart that none of this is true but it's terrifying me that it's stuck around so much that it makes me scared that maybe it is true. I've had a lot of death in my family in the past year and a half and a lot of other family drama that I'd never had before that is now also bringing up existential intrusive thoughts. And I'd never questioned anything about life before but now I get the "why is life like this?" and "does anything we do matter?" and I hate it. I don't want to think like that. I just want to go through life being able to handle things normally again. It terrifies me even right now going "what if you give up?"
- Date posted
- 18w ago
Really bad theme right now is death, I keep thinking about how one day or at any moment my heart will stop my brain will stop & my memories & everything I know will all fade away. It is giving me so much anxiety I’m only 18, but I realize it all happens to us it is bound, we are born to die. I know it’s a silly thing to be scared because it’s not helping the quality of my life worrying about it and even when I do die, I won’t care , if you don’t have a working brain then how can you care 🤷♀️. It is tainting my everyday life currently & honestly making me terribly depressed & it is giving me derealization & making me feel nihilistic, I’ll remind myself it’s okay but then with my ocd i don’t stop thinking and thinking about it and it’s seriously so hard to stay present in the moment because this thought just feels like I can’t scrub it away it’s miserable I struggle with religion, but I do pray to anything that’s out there possibly listening, because it is comforting, it just feels like this whole experience Is pointless & I am afraid of the unknown and what is to possibly happen but I’m subjected to it anyways so why should it matter
- Date posted
- 10w ago
Anyone else feel that when they aren’t experiencing a theme that their ocd is almost non existent. It almost makes me feel like I’ve been faking it, and also makes me feel ridiculous for obsessing over things. I feel sorry for myself :/ I know that my themes are valid and felt very real in the moment, but after I “get over” them I just can’t believe that I was obsessing over something that either wasn’t true or didn’t apply to me. I would also like to know how to prevent themes from reoccurring. Health, religion and existential OCD themes tend to take turns throughout my life, I just didn’t know that was it ocd. Trying to break the cycle.
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