- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
Here's how I thought about it (even though very scary)... I would force myself to think "What if I AM living in a dream right now?, what would be so bad about that?" That's where I started to break down those irrational fears & beliefs that come with OCD... For example, derealization & existential OCD scared me so much because I had a fear of loss of connection, a fear or death, a fear of losing touch with the ones I love. I worked on it a ton and just thought about how yeah, living in a dream would be very confusing and scary, but could I live with it? Yes. Would it be ideal? No, but I could handle it and navigate my life whilst knowing that. Think about worst case scenario, and then think about why that would be so scary and bad.
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey I used to smoke weed but it made me depressed. It helps some but its not for everyone. It can cause serious paranoia and when you have OCD it's really not helpful. Everyone is different but from my experience it made me depressed. Something that helped was I got a cleanse from the store to rid any weed in my system cause it stores in the fat cells and can still be in your system for months. Perhaps doing that cleanse that rids it quicker could help.
- Date posted
- 3y
thank you!
- Date posted
- 3y
Do you remember what cleanse you did?
- Date posted
- 3y
Keep trying! I like to take things one moment at a time instead of focusing on the future state of feeling better, because that makes me feel like I’ll never reach that and like the road to recovery is so long. You’ll be there before you know it, you’ve got this!
- Date posted
- 3y
i just feel like i’m stuck like this forever and it’s very upsetting i don’t understand why it’s lasted this long, isn’t derealization supposed to last for just a few mins or hours?
- Date posted
- 3y
@holley I’m sorry I’m not sure :/ Maybe it’s the fear of derealization that’s making you feel this way (that’s the “obsession” part of OCD). Definitely something to talk to your therapist about, but just know that you’re not alone!
- Date posted
- 3y
take care 🙏
- Date posted
- 3y
My existential OCD latched after a bad panic attack while smoking weed, causing me to experience derealization for the first time ever. I freaked out, thought that I was losing my mind / dying until the high wore off, and then freaked out that the feeling of derealization wouldn't go away. I obsessed over it, with derealization latched on 24/7 for a year and a half. It was scary, uncomfortable, and all I could think about was getting rid of the feeling. My best advice is to allow and accept that the derealization and the fear may stay there for a while. You've been living with it for this long and although extremely scary & uncomfortable, you are surviving. Don't obsess about when it will go away. Focus on living your life and doing everything you would normally do, even with the fear. Push yourself to not let it control you. My derealization and existential obsessions disappeared completely over time once I was able to accept feeling uncomfortable.
- Date posted
- 3y
i just can’t imagine mine lasting for a whole year. hocd lasted that long and now i don’t even think about it but it’s just like is it actually dp/dr or just existential ocd yk? like mine happened just like that but i just don’t want it to last even another day it’s so fucking frustrating. how did you accept that uncomfortable feeling? abd do you still experience it at all like did you just wake up one day and it was gone??
- Date posted
- 3y
At the time I couldn't imagine it lasting for a whole year either. But we can all handle it! Sure, it's not comfortable and it's the scariest feeling I've ever had, but I worked on accepting that I can still live life and enjoy things, even if I feel like my surroundings aren't real or I'm "in a dream". It's all just fear. It didn't go away all at once, it was a pretty gradual process, but once I accepted that perhaps I'd live the rest of my life like this, that time didn't feel so bad. It doesn't matter if it is dp/dr or if it's existential ocd, those are all just technicalities. You just focus on being comfortable with these sensations, one day at a time. Jordan Hardgrave (anxiety ninja) on youtube / instagram helped me tremendously.
- Date posted
- 3y
idk how i could possibly accept that that’s so scary even though we both knew smoking weed once wouldn’t have caused a perceptional change in our surroundings and somehow we’d been living in a dream the whole time. it just feels that way.
- Date posted
- 3y
@holley I know it seems unbearable but take it one day at a time. You don't need to figure it all out right now. Everyday you can start to accept the feelings more and more, facing triggers such as the matrix movies, black mirror etc. and soon you will be able to tolerate the sensation of derealization.
- Date posted
- 3y
I found that I was experiencing existential OCD, not derealization, when my surroundings felt “off”. I would obsess over the idea that everything around me may not be real, even though I was accurately perceiving what my surroundings looked like, felt like, smelled like, etc. The feeling that comes with dp/dr and existential OCD is SO scary, so hang in there! But, know you are safe no matter what❤️
- Date posted
- 3y
Hey Holley, I’m sorry you’ve been feeling bad! I call that the “panic attack hangover” where it can really rattle you for awhile afterwards. What helps me is understanding that my panic attack is my body’s way of trying to protect me from a perceived threat, whether it’s real or imagined. This saying helps me tremendously: “You were made to come back into balance.” This feeling will not last forever and you will get through it.
- Date posted
- 3y
i know i just don’t understand why it’s lasted this long :/ i’m trying !
- Date posted
- 3y
its happening with me as well when i smoked weed but after 3 months suddenly that scene of communication came in my mind when i was high and started feeling the same again……it is worse i cant differentiate that i am alive or dead it feels like hell it feels like everything is unreal and it is life after death…
- Date posted
- 2y
hi! super late to this post but in case you’re still looking for help I wanted to chime in. this exact situation happened to me! it’s what actually triggered my panic attacks and led to me getting diagnosed with OCD. something that really helps me is holding my nose and breathing in. in real life you will not be able to take a breath but in dreams you will be. i find that this really grounds me! hope this helps! ps i’m on fluvoxamine 250 mg which has helped me a bunch but I’ve also found my way back to weed without any problems. :)
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w
So I’m 16 years old, currently going through my sophomore year of highschool. I’ve recently quit nicotine and weed after chronic use for about 4 years (has affected my development extremely). I quit because I wanted a better life for myself because I knew that I was using nicotine and weed for short term happiness and long term made me very depressed about this life. I was also experiencing trouble concentrating on simple tasks and what I wanted to do currently in my life. Which was learning about life and having more knowledge about life in general so i could feel more comfortable and happy in the future. So I quit nicotine I thought I was going to be able to overcome it and be more comfortable with myself knowing that I’m not in a constant loop of short term happiness, long term making me less happy overall. Although I have quit nicotine and haven’t touched it in about 3 weeks I expected to have some major withdrawals because I’m still in adolescence and used nicotine about everyday for 4 years. Sorry I’m rambling about this but through those years of always suppressing my anxiety with nicotine when anything came up that triggered it. I started noticing that on vacation in very stressful moments like at the airport and there were people around me when using the bathroom I felt as though it was nearly impossible to go but after sometime I eventually went and shrugged it off. Now that I’ve quit though I’m my 4th week it’s almost like my brain really latched onto that fear of not being able to go around people publicly (paruresis shy bladder syndrome) and that’s also what addiction does to you I’ve acknowledged. But when I started coming home from school I started thinking about not being able to pee more and more to the point i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since which now every time i feel a slight trigger of having to use the bathroom i start obsessing over it like everything I would try and do that i usually do my brain would draw me away from it and go back to the fear of not being able to go which created a lot of anxiety and thoughts like “would if im not able to stop going” which made me think about it more and more I would just wake up with that thought in my head each day to the point where i was really thinking about killing my self because I thought i would have such a better life without nicotine and weed but ultimately made me feel like i was going crazy and I really wanted to go back to vaping and weed but i knew that this was the cycle of addiction and that i may have a more underlying problem here i need to overcome somatic ocd. I haven’t been diagnosed with it yet and I know a lot of people go through a cycle of self diagnosing. But as I’ve slowly started to mentally figure out ways to get through this obsession over peeing and fight it, it’s like my brain is now trying to look for a new bodily sensation to obsess over. My breathing. I noticed this as well while using that sometimes I would think about my breathing a little bit to much for example saying to myself am I breathing right should I breath this certain way would if I can’t stop thinking about it. But as I was thinking about that I just hit my vape talked to my brother about it and just slept it off. Now that I don’t have a vape I’ve had to go through these expierences but with it feeling more real and not really having something to run to, to suppress like my vape. I’m writing this today as I feel better to myself talking about it and opening up about it as I’m trying to not respond to this fear with anxiety and go throughout my days ignoring these obsessive thoughts leading to extreme anxiety that I don’t have anything to suppress it with anymore besides my own mental. Maybe someone here will have some more knowledge about it than I do and can give me some advice to try to keep me more motivated to deal with this ocd I feel as though I’m having so I don’t end up in a dark place. Thank you.
- Date posted
- 19w
i am convinced im a psycho killer. everytime im around my mom or sister i get these intense thoughts of stabbing or hurting them. when they’re not around its not as intense but its still there. its literally on my mind 24/7. im so tense 24/7. were currently looking for a puppy for the family and when me and my sister were playing with them today the thought was still there. nothing distracts me from it. video games and EVERYTHING else doesn’t work. im starting to feel like i WANT to do these things. i was never like this until i had a marijuana induced panic attack in january. i feel like something happened to my brain and its not just ocd anymore. i dont even know if im faking it. i have suffered from relationship ocd, pedophile ocd, and health ocd. i got over those relatively quickly. this new theme came out of nowhere after a panic attack on a plane coming home from a horror convention in february. i dont see a way out of this one. its been months. i try to let them sit and i get a panic attack. all i do everyday is cry. i feel like my life is over. i talk to a therapist and i have tried two medications that didnf work work. i dont know how to live like this. im afraid im gonna lose my relationship and im afraid im gonna lose my whole life ahead of me. im just 22. i just want the old me back.
- Date posted
- 14w
i’ve been going through weird phases in life and it’s really not what i need at all. i’ve been recently having really bad anxiety and i think i have depression (not sure) but everytime i go out my stomach starts to hurt and my mind goes all over the place i just always overthinking bad things are gonna happen like im just having the worst panic attacks when nothing is even happening. i can never go out with friends feeling normal because my mind goes crazy about anything. i can’t hang out with my girlfriend without having really bad anxiety and panic attacks, it’s also so bad that recently i got a job i’ve been trying to get for almost a year now and i finally have the chance to get into the job but my minds all over the place about traveling to another state for training and also even getting the job in general i feel so scared and feel so uncomfortable and uninterested when i been hoping for this opportunity for the longest. idk what’s going on with me and it’s clearly ruining my life and my mental. im starting to think it’s because about 2 years ago i used to smoke weed frequently and i stopped a while ago but now i do it once every blue moon and im thinking about quitting everything in general. what can i do to heal my mental and help my panic attacks where nothing is wrong? i need help..
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond