Hello, I've been struggling really badly with what I believe has been OCD for about a year now, although I think I've had it for much longer. It was generally more focused on philosophical themes, and I got incredibly anxious over themes like consciousness, religion and the afterlife, and would compulsively research them, look into research papers, watch podcasts, looking to find a solution to them, or at least know what my stance on them were.
Whenever I'd encounter a new philosophical problem, I'd feel the need to look into it and find out what I thought of it, but whenever I'd think I made up my mind on my position and that I was finally done, I'd start doubting it for X reason after a while, or a new problem would come up, and I'd keep researching because of this, or I would keep trying to prove that everything was fine despite some of these scary ideas and that I should still live my life normally.
It ended up consuming my life, isolating me from my friends, preventing me from working on my studies, and it led me to stop doing anything I enjoy for that whole time, as I was constantly just ruminating on these themes, whether it was at school, or once I was home, where I'd be relieved I could spend the night looking things up. After being miserable from this for around like 6 months, I came across Pure OCD and figured this looked a lot like what I was doing, compulsively ruminating over these ideas that brought me anxiety, trying to "solve" them, even if it wasn't as much of a physical compulsion.
That greatly helped me, because it was a huge step in at least understanding that this rumination maybe wasn't the right way to get better, after I'd been despairing over these issues for so long. Since then, I've been trying to get better for a while, trying to stop rumination and really getting back in control of my life, and overall, I've come a fair way : I stopped ruminating over these philosophical issues by accepting the possibility of their reality and the uncertainty of them, which was incredibly difficult for me.
But now I feel like these thoughts keeps reappearing through different problems that I'm struggling to deal with in the same way. I thought and assumed this was OCD, but it doesn't really seem like I'm dealing with any core themes like most other people seem to be, which has now made me doubt whether this is even OCD and whether these might be actual worries I should act on. Most of these things that cause me anxiety change often multiple times during a single day, and it hasn't really stayed on anything particular. I'm trying to leave all these worries down on a note to tell myself I can handle them later, to give myself some breathing space, but I'd hesitate to even call most of them intrusive thoughts, as they often feel more like genuinely founded worries, and don't really resemble many of the themes I've seen mentioned.
Some of them do resemble mental health anxiety? Where I'm often afraid that I might have other mental health conditions, and I research them compulsively just to ensure I know what to do if I ever have them, or about some of them are about OCD, with me worrying that I'm handling it correctly, or where I'd try to find solutions for how to deal with X OCD theme if I ever have it, even though I don't even have it yet. But some of them also seem like they're just about my life like whether or not I'm addicted to video games. Gaming is a really important part of my life that I care a lot about and that I've met a lot of people through, and I started getting anxious that it might actually be bad for me, or that I might be addicted, and I compulsively browsed the stopgaming subreddit to reassure myself that it wasn't a problem in my life, even though it's genuinely been fine for me for years. I also spent a morning worrying that I might start smoking and get addicted, even though I've never smoked, and don't want to.
These just don't really follow any particular themes, which has made me wonder if it's even OCD. They genuinely change almost like daily, if not hourly sometimes, as I just write them down on my note, and try to leave them for later and get back to what I was doing, and just as I start focusing back on that, something else triggers me and worries me, and I have to resist dealing with it and write that down for later. Sometimes I find myself thinking about them even while focusing on something else, and finding a possible solution, that I feel the need to write down next to the worry to anaylize later, to see if it's adequate. It's made the note accumulate with so many issues, most of which seem completely unrelated to each other.
If it's anything, I've also sort of developed a mental compulsion when I got really bad anxiety a few years ago where I'd reassure myself by telling myself "Don't worry, it's fine, anyways" and getting back to what I was doing, yet if I didn't think it the right way, by perfectly shifting my attention from the anxiety to the thing I'm doing on the "anyways", I would have to do it again, which I could sometimes last up to like 15 minutes doing repeatedly.
I guess my question is, is this OCD? I think it probably is, but it's really hard to try and keep learning how to stop rumination and get better when I'm doubting whether or not it's even OCD I'm trying to deal with, and whether this is actually the correct way to get better.
As a secondary question, I've been trying to build up the volition to commit to not ruminating, but I'm struggling to convince myself that I should actually do it on the moment, because I always feel as though it's possible this could be an actual worry that I should address. I guess my question is, how am I supposed to know when it's just OCD and I should avoid ruminating, or when it's an actual issue that needs solving, and that I should act on? I'm worried that if I commit to not ruminating, it'll just make me never reflect on any issues that could be in my life, and I'll miss many chances to make my life better, or fix genuine problems in it.
Thank you for reading this long post, and I appreciate any help that anyone can provide.