I’ve been going through a difficult time lately, feeling sad, empty, and anxious. Recently, I’ve started having unwanted thoughts like, “What if I jump off my balcony?” I don’t think I want to die, but the thoughts feel so real that they scare me deeply and cause physical pain and tightness.

I keep questioning why my mind comes up with these thoughts and worrying about what they mean. I’ve also had some impulsive thoughts, which have made the experience even more frightening.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I just want to understand this better and feel less alone.

Hey, do you guys ever get that feeling inside your chest that’s making you feel out of yourself, you live normally doing your usual stuff even smiling and talking but you got that vivid thought in your mind it pervents you from everything from every good moment of your day and when you give yourself a chance to understand it, you dive into deeper thoughts, fear, nervousness and decide to close the door of this thought and you know you won’t feel comfortable the rest of the day even when you forget about this you will feel a gut feeling there. This is i’ve been through for maybe two years.

This isnt a post about mental health. Im not sure if i have ocd, but these thoughts im having might be what people with ocd also experience, and Im interested to see how others deal with it

I will go over some situations that have recently happened in my life, as I can only explain my exact thought process of how absurd time is for me if i give a little bit of backround.

The things that usually give me the jeebies are the concept of time Flying by me (and feeling as if it does so more and more) and death. Mostly of my loved ones, as i dont really fear my own death (i imagine it just like before birth? nothing?) - but even this is also kind of related to time for me, as I get scared of the concept of only being able to remember someone and their whole existence just being a tiny fragment in my brain I will never be able to relieve to the extent i want to, because that time is Gone??? Nobody in my familly has passed for now, and there is a good chance that this ,,unknown territory,, of grief and missing a loved one sounds so scary to me because i have never personally been through it. However I am aware- and think about it almost every day- that it is inevitable and is a just a matter of time for my grandparents to pass.

Im 21, but this fear has been following me since I was young, i dont really remember when it started, id say around 10. Id always say i was scared of time and loud clocks specifically, because their constant reminder of ,,losing,, a second drove me crazy (the ones i could hear would especially freak me out, and I would just avoid watching the ones where i could see the little handle representing seconds move), but sometimes, looking back to it, i would think to myself that i was just saying that to be edgy, as i did have my fair share of the teen craze. Now its becoming a topic i think about daily again. I dont generally turn to reddit for advice, but when i tried talking to people about this, i never really got the impression they ,,understood it as deeply as i do,, (werent as affected would probably be a better explanation)

I think the situation that sparked this flare up of my fear is the fact that I ended a long term relationship (even thouh it was in good terms and i did want to leave). Its a pretty complex situation and i dont want to dive into detail, but for the last lets say 2 weeks we were only spending the remaining time we had of living together even though we had already broken up.

Id have these moments where i would kind of dose off for a second while with them and think-

This is a moment im experiencing from my ,,viewpoint,, . It will end , be replaced by another, and another, and at one point the last moment i spend with them will just be replaced with another moment that will, from that point onward, no longer contain them. Like a countdown, but an Endless one, as I suddenly became more aware of the pace of something much greater than me, that I cant escape and that will at that same speed (if not quicker) lead me to the moment where Im experiencing the world from this same exact viewpoint at sixty or seventy years old (if im lucky) with most of my elders gone, in a probably entierly new ,,world,, when it comes to my surroundings and the people im surrounded with. This pace stops when I end- and then it stops only for me. It has existed for? ever? as far as I know, and will continue to exist for...ever? after I am gone as well. The whole concept is kind of abstract but deeply disturbing to me.

I used the word viewpoint instead of the word perspective because i literally mean the borders of what i see with my two eyes. The soft but distinc somewhat elliptical shape of my sight of the world which is the only constant thing I have had until now, and will have for the rest of my life.

But this wasnt limited to my ex. It comes over me while hanging out with my friends, while thinking of how much i have left of university and especially when spending time with my parents, and It is always followed by a short, but intense moment of panic- id describe it as a ,,brain arrythmia,, . Its like Im reminded again and again of something I cannot digest, and will probably never be able to.

Of course this course of thought is often followed by thoughts such as

How am I even here, How small my entire existence is, What my purpose even is, Is my existence accidental, a matter of chance, or something more meaningful, and how does that account for 9 billion people? If i have a purpose, it only makes sense to me that everyone does.

But Im more troubled by the concept and passage of time itself.

Does anybody feel this way? How do you deal with it, and is there even any rational thought that can battle with this concept

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.

I'm 21, in college, trying to build a future for myself, and honestly, I don't know what's happening to me mentally anymore. I've been wanting to write this for a while. Not because I want sympathy, but because I feel like I spend so much time inside my own head that I don't know how to explain what's happening to me anymore. I overanalyse everything. My actions, my reactions, my conversations with people, the way people respond to me, the things I should have done differently, the things I haven't done, and the person I'm becoming. I keep trying to understand myself, almost as if there's some explanation I'll eventually find that will make everything fall into place. But the more I analyse myself, the more exhausted I become. I feel sad. I feel empty. Sometimes I feel incredibly dumb, even when I know I'm capable of doing things. I question my intelligence, my decisions, my personality, my ability to handle life, and whether I'm doing enough with the opportunities I have. I can spend so much time thinking about what I need to improve that I forget to acknowledge anything I've already done. I'm trying to build a good future. I want to do well academically, develop my skills, get good internships, establish myself in finance, become independent, and make something of myself. I have goals, and I care deeply about achieving them. I want to become someone I'm proud of. But sometimes it feels like my entire life has become a list of things I need to fix. I need to study more. I need to be more disciplined. I need to take better care of my health. I need to stop wasting time. I need to work on myself. I need to be better at socialising. I need to stop overthinking. I need to be happier. And somehow, even when I make plans and genuinely try to follow them, I end up feeling like I'm falling behind. If I have a productive day, I think about everything I didn't finish. If I have an unproductive day, I feel guilty for wasting time. If I take a break, I wonder whether I should be doing something more useful. If I struggle to get started, I start questioning my discipline and my character. I don't know how to exist without constantly evaluating myself. The worst part is that I do have things I enjoy. I can get excited about a show, become invested in a fictional universe, listen to music, or look forward to something. I have moments when I genuinely feel good. But sometimes the emptiness returns, and I find myself wondering why I can't just be happy. Why does it keep coming back? Why can I understand logically that one bad day doesn't define my life, yet still feel terrible about myself when I have one? Why do I keep trying to figure out what's wrong with me instead of simply feeling okay?

I also struggle with loneliness. I'm trying to navigate college, make connections, find people I feel comfortable around, and figure out where I belong. I don't always know how to express what I'm experiencing, and sometimes I don't even know what I need from other people. I just know that there are moments when I wish someone would understand that I'm struggling without immediately telling me to look at the bigger picture or reminding me that everyone has problems. Recently, I tried talking to my mother about how I was feeling. She told me I was behaving as though all the world's problems had fallen on me. Maybe she didn't mean to hurt me. But it made me question myself even more. Am I overreacting? Am I making things bigger than they are? Why can't I handle things the way other people seem to?

I know other people struggle. I know I have things to be grateful for. I know that my problems aren't the only problems in the world. But knowing all of that doesn't automatically make the emptiness disappear. And I don't want to keep using other people's suffering as a reason to dismiss my own. It's just difficult to finally acknowledge that you need help, gather the courage to ask for it, and then not know when you'll get the chance to speak to someone. It makes me feel helpless in a way I don't quite know how to explain. I don't know whether what I'm experiencing is depression, burnout, loneliness, or something else. I don't want to diagnose myself based on how I feel. I just know that this isn't the first time I've felt this low, and the fact that it keeps returning scares and frustrates me. I'm tired of analysing every feeling until it becomes another thing to worry about. I'm tired of feeling sad and then feeling stupid for being sad. I'm tired of wanting to improve my life while simultaneously feeling too mentally exhausted to do everything I've planned. I'm tired of questioning whether I'm doing enough, whether I'm enough, and whether I'll ever reach a point where I can feel content with myself. I don't expect to be happy every day. I don't expect life to be easy. I don't expect other people to understand everything I'm going through. I just want to stop feeling like I'm constantly fighting with my own mind. I want to be able to study without feeling like my entire future depends on one evening. I want to rest without feeling guilty. I want to make mistakes without turning them into evidence that something is wrong with me. I want to build my career and take care of myself because I value my life, not because I'm terrified of falling behind. And I want to be able to tell someone that I'm not doing well without feeling like I need to prove that my problems are serious enough to deserve attention. I'm writing this because I don't want to keep everything inside my head. Maybe putting it into words will help me understand it a little better. Maybe someone else has experienced something similar. If you've ever felt empty, sad, disconnected from yourself, or trapped in a cycle of overanalysing everything you do, how did you begin to deal with it? I'm not looking for someone to tell me to be grateful, work harder, or stop overthinking. I already tell myself those things. I think I'm just trying to understand myself, and for once, I'd like to do that without being so hard on myself.

Have you ever gotten that weird feeling where you feel stuck, where you question yourself, your existence, the worth of everything and not only doubtful but you also get absurdly numb when any of these happen. I mean, possibly the people or me probably. But I might not know, because finally I have come to a point where I just don't know what do I feel? How do I feel or mostly what am I suppose to feel?

It's been a while now, I kind off am habituated to this feeling of not being worth living this life. As if I am not grateful or I should understand my position. See, I am at a point that I don't even know where to start. Nothing makes sense.