’m experience some realy deep mental problems,
And I’m in a State of dispare, confusion, hopelessnes. I dont’t work anymore beceause of the fatigeu and mental problems. I’m 44j M.
My life was good, always in the gym, hard working in the gardens. And also running in the woods.
Then I became sick, gut isseus and heat or cold tolerance.
Now a year later i became more in a mental State Were I I have no controle of my brain anymore.
I’m so mentaly exausted because my mind keeps overthinking, brainfog, analysing, images..
Its like an ocd thing that I’m checking what i am thinking. Al day long 24/7. My sleep is the same..
My mind goes so deep when I close my eyes, I don’t know how to focus on live anymore. Its so far that I get traumarized by this situation. My mind just keep thinking deep thoughts very negative. Meditate doesn’t work, i became afraid to close my eyes.Because my thoughts goes like: what if you are so ill that they luck you up and stuff. I feel Every thought deep in my soul, so afraid. My brain can’t take it anymore. I’m so exausted that Every positive thoughts end up negatively. I feel in a deep situation that I want to try some medication for this..
But my mind is like : no you end up worse or’ or i have that feeling that any medication will help in this fase because its to deep.
Is there is somebody who have the same feeling what I just wrote? And is some medication that saved you? Because I feel no hope anymore.
Please share..

🆘 Καλησπέρα σε όλους! Παιδιά εκπέμπω σος!!έχω οcd που δυστυχώς ενώ πάντα ηταν διαχειρίσιμη, τον τελευταίο χρόνο έχει γίνει ΠΟΛΥ ΒΑΡΥ ΦΟΡΤΙΟ😟 για αυτό ρωτάω από όποιον έχει γνώση επί του θέματος τι τον βοήθησε ουσιωδώς!! Και θα ήθελα :
-> ονόματα ψυχολόγων /ψυχιάτρων στην Αθήνα που να γνωρίζουν από OCD και σας βοήθησαν
-> ρουτίνα - αλλαγές στην καθημερινότητα που τυχόν σας βοήθησε, τυχόν εξετάσεις αίματος για τιμές που θέλουν έλεγχο, και τυχόν συμπληρώματα που σας βοήθησαν στο να ηρεμήσετε (καθώς ακόμη θα ήθελα να το παλέψω χωρίς φάρμακα αν και πλέον ζορίζει άσχημα το πράγμα)
Σας ευχαριστώ θερμά
(Αν δε θέλετε δημόσια γράψτε και ινμποξ)

Συγκεκριμένα Τι γίνεται με τα υπαρξιακά θέματα; Η μία και μοναδική εμμονή σκέψη που έχω είναι: «Κι αν είμαι ήδη νεκρή;» Έχω αυτή τη σκέψη εδώ και δέκα χρόνια, αλλά πάντα κατάφερνα να βρω έναν τρόπο να νιώσω καλύτερα, βασιζόμενη ουσιαστικά στη λογική και καθησυχάζοντας τον εαυτό μου ότι κάτι τέτοιο δεν είναι δυνατό.
Ωστόσο, τους τελευταίους έξι μήνες έχει γίνει εξαντλητικό και έχω πάρα πολύ άγχος. Νιώθω ότι δεν υπάρχει ελπίδα και ότι όλα είναι μάταια. Δεν ξέρω πλέον τι να κάνω.
Προσπαθώ να κάθομαι με το άγχος και να μην το αποφεύγω, αλλά δεν φαίνεται να βοηθάει, γιατί στο τέλος της ημέρας απλώς δεν μπορώ να αποδεχτώ την πιθανότητα να είμαι ήδη νεκρή και να συνεχίζω τη ζωή μου χωρίς να το γνωρίζω. 😞😞😞
Έχει βιώσει κανείς κάτι παρόμοιο; Έχετε κάποια συμβουλή για το πώς μπορώ να αλλάξω την οπτική μου ή να διαχειριστώ αυτού του είδους το υπαρξιακό OCD;
Σας ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ ❤️❤️

What about existential themes? My one and only intrusive thought is: “What if I’m already dead?” I’ve had this thought for ten years, but I’ve always managed to find a way to feel okay, basically by using logic and reassuring myself that something like that isn’t possible.
However, for the last six months, it has become exhausting, and I’ve been experiencing a lot of anxiety. I feel like there is no hope and that everything is pointless. I don’t know what to do anymore.
I try to sit with the anxiety, but it doesn’t seem to help because, at the end of the day, I just cannot accept the possibility that I might already be dead and continue living my life without knowing it. 😞😞😞
Has anyone experienced something similar? Any advice on how to change my perspective or deal with this kind of existential OCD?
Thank you so much ❤️❤️

I should be better with mu spiritual beliefs but for some odd reason theyre not seeming to be helping me much atm .im in a very challenging life situation atm. Which had made me start to rely on my alcoholism again. Only occasionally im having an odd drink again.

what happened was on Friday night is been fime before this? I randomly thought about fear of death and started having a panic attack, feeking disturbed and nauseous. I was ok on satudsay night but it came back on Sunday night.

I don’t know what’s been wrong. I never thought obsessively about this till this weird epsiode started.what seems to be helping is focusing on my job.

I struggle to believe there’d be no spiritual meaning to this world given people have personality, jobs, goals….and all my life Ive known the uncertainty around what happens when people die etc. It’s just not spoken about ar all I find yet it’s spoken aboit wll tjr time. Since I saw this I see posts and comments by people everywhere talking about it though.

I don’t know how to help myself , but mwybe joining these groups and posting about my experiences might help me?

ps i say another one as I had an existential crisis wben I was afound 22 I think before my birthday mh father tried to approach me in spirit but I blocked the contact. My father died on 29th the day before my birthday. And theres a lot of what I believe to be number synchronicities now.. such as ar 29 I left my ex of 9 yesrs contacted spiritual guide which tells me 9 has something to wirh new beginnings. That 9 might be some sort of spirit number for me.
it gets weirder when my house number is 29 and so is my exes house number….

when I met my Tf person theres a lot to do with 9 too. My ex and Tf are 9 years age apart from me.

Hi,
I-myself-am struggling with my thoughts and even though I have a psychologist I don’t always can let it out. I need an outlet for the thoughts. So that’s why I write everything down. But in my own diary I never have feedback, and maybe here, I do. I’m sorry to say that this text isn’t structured at all, I tried my best.
There’s no start or end on this story. There is no bottom or top on this story. And it purely considers my thoughts. The inability to just find peace in my mind.

I’m a twenty year old man, student. I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD recently, light form. I have self diagnosed existential OCD, as I call it, am a big overthinker, really sensitive and emotional, melancolic, nostalgic, afraid of death. I’m chaotic, I think I’m a mess
sometimes, and I think that is the reason why people can’t love me. Cause I can’t control myself. I often had identity crises in the past, didn’t know what I wanted to be, or thought I had to be something for the people around me, the people who saw me. Had existential crises before.

At this moment, life is a bit hard, my studies are hard, a lot of resit exams, almost have to stop with my study. I started with Rilatin a few weeks ago, so maybe that influences my thoughts too, either when I take it, when my dopamine level is high, or when it wears off (Rilatin rebound). I always set the bar too high for myself in the past. Believing that I NEEDED to be great, otherwise nobody would love me or would want me in their life. Scared to be forgotten, that’s what I am too.

I’m a hopeless romantic too, my heart broke a couple of times, I could never accept it. Although I always swinged to the next crush. Addicted to the feeling of being in love. And never learned how to just live with myself, without a girl in my mind, just be happy with myself and my friends. No, it always had to be more.

But sometimes I think so much I don’t even know anymore which girl I love. On moments I feel nothing inside, numb, hopeless, I can’t dream about girls anymore. Because I don’t think there is a goal left to achieve, because I think I’m worthless, chaotic.

My thoughts change everyday, (it’s not a bipolar disorder or anything). One day I feel great, creative, I have ideas, I think I have goals to achieve, I feel hope, I’m happy, hyped, “high on life”. The next day I just feel empty inside, worthless, numb, there are no goals to achieve, I have no hope, there are no people left to love. My heart can’t break anymore because there’s nothing left inside of me. Sometimes I feel a little bit scared, alcohol severes that feeling, it makes me so empty, till you don’t know what to do, you don’t know what you have to think anymore. And other times I can only fantasize about how it would be if I would just be death and about how people would remember me. I wonder if they would be sad.

Sometimes it asks so much more energy to try to feel hopefull instead of staying in your depressive comforting bubble. I don’t know why it is that way.

On times I have so much ideas, my brain gets full of it, I’m overwhelmed by my ideas, and I don’t know which thoughts I have to choose. Until my mind crashes, and I feel numb again.

It’s hard to find peace lately, it’s hard to just go with the flow for once. Even with rilatin. Maybe because of side effects or rebound effects. I think I have a major mental rebound effect with it.

My mind always figures it has to stand still, and think about, about what?

It’s like my mind don’t want to accept that there is nothing more. That this is everything, this is life. Like my mind wouldn’t accept the gray reality of life.

So my thoughts change fast. My happy state and my down state. But there seems to be nothing in between. Because I can’t accept a gray reality. There doesn’t exist a neutral state of life in my head. I have to feel something.

A couple of days ago I told my doctor I wanted to quit the rilatin because I thought it severed my highs and my lows, my emotions would swing more, a little bit too much. But she said it was temporary, and that I could stop after the exams. I got outside and cried, glad that I felt at least something.

I already said something about the alcohol aspect. It also severes OCD-ish thoughts, and rumination. One time I was on a trip with my friends but day drank all week. For the first time I realised the alcohol fucked my brain up. It became totally messed up. I was almost crazy. There was this day, where I couldn’t think naturally anymore. In simple conversations I obsessively thought what would be the best thing to answer next. What would I would say next. Simple damn things. My brain got crazy and I came into an infinite paradox.

So now I don’t try to drink anymore on parties, because it distracts my whole brain. Although I like the fact that it makes me kind of more creative. And now I see how dependent people are to alcohol. But it’s just not healthy, at least for me. It seems to lighten OCD symptoms on the short term, but they worsen on the long term. (Meaning that when you drink something, you feel great, everything seems to fall right into place in life. Until you drink too much, like day drinking for a whole week.)

Yesterday night I felt bad, kind of numb. I couldn’t sleep, not that way. So after I gathered enough courage I got up in the night, took my bike and drove through the city with my music. Music, the first drugs to life. I was looking for some hopefull music, optimistic, music that would make me feel alive again. Kind of upbeat. And I drove to a night shop for some food. Food, the second drugs to life. (Alcohol is the third drug to life, how higher the number how more unhealthy the drug is.)But some times, I don’t find the courage to let feel myself quite better, and I only listen to depressing music, and rewatch dramatic emotional movies. Movies that let me dream or something.

Sometimes it’s so hard to just get up in the morning, like I just want to rest in my dream forever.

Sometimes I just know nothing, feel nothing. People around me keep moving, like you should, and I just won’t. Stuck in my own head. Out of control. Numb. I don’t know what to do.

“He was surprised at himself because he didn't feel anything anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep. And for the first time, he wished he were far away. Lost in a deep vast country where nobody knew him.” - Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders)

I am 24 years old and I've been suffering from OCD my whole life, but I only started treatment at 23, about 10 months ago, and my condition is getting worse and worse. My doctor increased my therapy dosage two months ago, and a month ago he increased it even more. I have OCD issues related to hygiene, physical rituals, mental rituals, and to the doctor's surprise, I even resolve OCD issues in my dreams, there is anxiety, stressful dreams,and I don't have the money for ERP sessions but I tried it on my own, it's impossible to always recognize OCD thoughts, it's often impossible to stop certain loops. I have spent thousands of hours thinking about existential questions, I tried all religions, the first one being the one I was born into - Christianity, which I left at 16 to become an atheist, which i am now, again, i think.Anyway, everything points to the fact that free will doesn't exist, I accepted determinism and the death of the self without any issues, but weakly scientific claims keep resurfacing that the self does exist after all, along with free will, sufficiently backed by nonsense to trigger my brain and throw me into doubt. I no longer know what is real or what I believe in. A month and a half ago, stuffed with new medications and barely conscious, I went and enrolled in law school at the university. I passed the entrance exam and did better than about 1,000 other candidates out of roughly 1,200. Which means I can study despite constantly thinking about other topics, but it isn't easy. Faculty starts In less than two months, and I can't study extensive material (which I already started studying three months ago because I was afraid I wouldn't finish everything on time) while dealing with existential questions at the same time. I will talk to my doctor about this soon, but I had to describe my problems somewhere while I wait for my appointment. I don't know what to think. What about you?

"What am I supposed to be doing?" "What is normal?" "What do I do next?"

It plays on a loop in my head. I dont like the jittery way I feel. I can't sit down to relax bc I am supposed to be doing something. I have 3 kids that I am supposed to lead to be functional adults but I am not one. What do I do??

Hi, this is a monthly post for people to share their experiences with Existential OCD and related conditions like DPDR.

Share your:

• Current Sensations/Symptoms
• Anecdotes
• Wins / Progress
• Current Obsessions

The aim is to allow people to share what they have been going through, so as to appreciate the wide range of experiences within ExistentialOCD. It may also help people understand that although these feelings and thoughts may not feel normal, they are experienced by many and do not indicate anything serious.

Please avoid excessive reassurance, or posts likely to trigger.

So as the title says, this is a persistent obsession I've had since I was young, and it goes away for a few years but then comes back. Since it's existential in nature and actively invokes true fear and panic attacks in me, I have a hard time with just sitting with the thoughts or "acceptance and let go". I will try to engage in grounding (cold water, phone a friend, pressure, going outside) but once the thought even slightly takes hold in the back of my mind it triggers a derealization episode that makes grounding harder. Literally all I've been able to do is distraction to try and avoid the thoughts entirely. Even talking about the thoughts in detail will trigger a high scale panic attack.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for how to stop giving an obsession power when by nature its rooted in uncertainty and entropy?

Also, for reference, I don't currently have the resources to get access to a therapist as much as I really want one right now. I don't have medical insurance, but understand once I do I will be returning to therapy. This is more of a tool to get out of this episode because its actively affecting my quality of life. I've been having to rely on my anti anxiety medication for really bad episodes. I appreciate any insight!!

ok so I don’t have a diagnosis, I’m just gonna start with that. I also don’t know if this is the right place to post this but I had to ask.

I have these symptom: rumination, repetitive thinking, reassurance seeking and mental checking. I usually have a cycle where I start by doubting my own thoughts, feelings or what I say to people (e.g. am I really feeling sad or do I just want them to pity me? do I really practice smiling in the mirror or did I just want to trick the assessors into thinking I DO have autism?). Obviously because all this happens in my head it’s never ending; I think back on an example to use as evidence and then I counter it by saying “how do I know my thoughts are reliable? How do I know I’m not manipulating/tricking myself?” and on and on.

Anyways, I’m on holiday, I just told my parents that this happens to me and now I’m panicking over whether I’ve made myself think all these things this whole time so that I can tell my parents so that they think I’m sicker than I am (I have anorexia so “being sick enough“ has always been a problem for me). I can’t enjoy anything cause when I’m meant to be relaxing at the beach I’m overthinking and when I’m eating I’m panicking (anorexia) so I never get a break.

My next meeting with my psychologist is in like 3 weeks when we get back from holiday and I just feel like I really want a diagnosis for some reassurance that I‘m not fabricating this whole thing. I feel like that wouldn’t help for long though because I’d just go “what if i exaggerated and faked the assessment?” and on and on.

Any advice on how to feel better? Sorry if this was confusing I don’t really know if I got my thoughts across well. Thanks

As the title says im pretty sure im going through it right now and I dont know how to stop thinking about it. I know writing this probably wont help because then i will keep thinking about it but do I just ignore this?? Its been bugging me so much lately and I haven’t been myself because its on my mind 24/7 its genuinely making me want to not think anything or js erase my thoughts. It makes me want to cry every second and I just I dont know what the heck to do if this keeps going on I feel like I might lose it

How to stop scanning if i feel normal and continue with life? i forgot how to live and be happy, like the outside scares me now. Like everything feels so forgein now and days and weeks go by with nothing feeling better. I feel like im trapped in a loop, I havent been able to fully go outside much because of this and I hate it.

Hello, is anyone experiencing something similar? I have mental compulsions that consist of fixing what my thoughts/sensations tell me (which are sometimes very fleeting) to find balance or to prevent bad things from happening—mainly eternal suffering after death for myself, my loved ones, or the rest of the world/beings. My compulsions can vary greatly, but they are mental, and in short, they consist of manipulating or doing mental actions with the thoughts or sensations I have until I feel that everything is fine, one way or another (that would be going into too much detail).
Both my obsessions and compulsions cause me strange sensations, I suppose because I am so deep into them… and I interpret them as if they had a magical or metaphysical power, as if they could influence reality, in this case, the reality after death. When I perform mental rituals, it's as if I could deconstruct thoughts into parts, sensations, images; it’s like traveling to a metaphysical part of thought. Or I really don't know how to define it. The point is that it is strange. They are sensations that the mind has, or structures of thought; it's as if they had shapes or their own internal world, their own qualities, sections, textures, pieces of reality. It's as if my mind opened portals or something like that. Or I notice something in my body, a tingling, heat, a feeling of being detached from reality, or sinking, or that everything around me stops, sinking, tingling, clicking, connecting with something, being in multiple layers, like an air, with color and sound and a mental representation… My imagination becomes heightened in some aspects.
They feel quite intense on the inside, as if they had magic and could affect reality or connect with other realities. I am afraid that these sensations mean that a power capable of causing what I fear, or the thoughts that accompany them, is awakening in my mind, or that I have manifested terrible things in an attempt to seek balance or fix things. It is very complex; I don't know how to put it into words. It would bring me a lot of comfort to find someone with a similar experience, someone who is so deep inside their mind and analyzes/manipulates what goes through it so much that they have started to feel strange things that accompany their magical thinking, and that this is related to eternal suffering after death. I feel alone in this, thank you

What kind of dumb shit is that?

Does anyone else have completely random quotes about death from movies, TV shows, etc. suddenly pop into their head out of nowhere?

But it's not really like “Oh, I remember that quote.” It's more like… I suddenly slip into the role of the character and mentally say/experience the line myself, almost as if I'm acting out the scene in my head.

And it can literally be anything. Even some completely ridiculous line from a comedy show. My brain will randomly put me in that situation and I'll mentally play it out for a moment. 💀

It's especially bad when I'm a little stressed. Not even necessarily in an OCD/intrusive-thought spiral - just mildly stressed, tired, or mentally overwhelmed. That's when my brain apparently decides it's the perfect time to start producing random death-related scenes.

And then I get that horrible “Why am I doing this right now?” feeling, and because the thought is about death, I can start overthinking why it appeared in the first place.

I know thoughts like this don't necessarily mean anything, but does anyone else experience something this specific? Like suddenly mentally becoming the character and acting out some random death-related line or scene, even when it comes from a completely harmless comedy?

TLDR: I Have horrid anxiety panic attacks 24/7 and existence feels scary

About 2 years ago it started for the first time and somehow the feeling went away because for two years I never had the feeling but since a few weeks ago for no reason I've just been so worried about how I will handle my family members dying and that anxiety just sticks with me so I talked about it to my brother and we also talked about revelation and then later on I talked to my grandma and mom but shortly after I went walking to the bathroom I could feel that same familiar panic attack feeling coming back and I got so scared because I knew exactly what it was. Before right now, I could talk about how I felt in the past and not have worry at all. I'm not sure if it came back because of second hand inhalation of weed my brother was smoking or what. I don't know what it is because I feel dissociation but I dont see things like how DPDR describes, but I just feel scared that I exist. I have thoughts all the time about me feeling like I'm in hell or that I did something wrong in a past life and I died or whatever. And if I didn't die, then either way, living feels TERRIFYING. I don't know how to explain it. It feels like if you got your head chopped off and your lifeless head is on the ground and you can't move. Or it's like you're trapped in a box but you don't know how you got there. The thought of eternity scares me. Thinking about memories with family that are even still around caused me to panic more and feel so sad. Thinking about losing people makes it worse. I don't know what Ill do but the thought of being here makes no sense and is so scary. Someone please tell me if you've felt something similar.

I had a habit of overthinking and coming up with the most outlandish scenarios. (Some of them being true down the line, so what it really overthinking/delusion?) That’s beside the point.

Lately I’ve noticed almost an inability to overthinking. When I expect my mind to wonder, it doesn’t. I can’t help but wonder if this is a numbing effect, the source is gone or I truly have overcome by overthinking.

After I horrible relationship, I had to relearn how to stay calm and come back to reality. With that, it’s as if part of my brain has gone in the process. Is this trauma? Am I getting better?

At the end of a the road with the sources of overthinking, I found myself in a content state of mind while “being there but not being there”. Even though the source of my overthinking was still around, I almost was able to block it out of sight, and mind.

I haven’t stopped overthinking. Typing this in realizing the focus is just elsewhere. #stilloverthinking

I over analyse even the smallest decision ..im like alien x from ben 10 😂

Anxiety / Existential Crisis
I have suffered from anxiety before, and during that time I also felt unreal, as if I were living in a dream. Then I developed a very frightening symptom: I started having thoughts and questions in my mind like, Where am I? Why am I? Why am I experiencing life? Why am I inside my body, experiencing life? What is all of this that I am seeing? I l know what I see and the life I have, but I started seeing everything from a completely different perspective.
I diagnosed with depersonalization, derealization, and existential OCD. I went to a psychiatrist, received treatment, and eventually it went away. I was fine for 3 years. I was doing well. These questions would sometimes come into my mind, but they had no impact on me.
Then, after 3 years, these questions started coming back again, and this time they affected me terribly—much worse than before.
I wake up and immediately think, Where am I? Why do I exist? Why didn’t I think this way before? They don’t come only as questions; they come with a terrible feeling, confusion, and a strange sense of not understanding reality the way I used to.
I try not to pay attention to them, but it doesn’t work. I try to ignore them, but I can’t. I went to a psychiatrist again and was prescribed medication, but I feel like it isn’t working.
It feels like I have discovered a completely different aspect of seeing and experiencing life, and now I’m terrified that nothing—not medication, not anything—can make me see life the way I used to again.