What if I Believe My Existential OCD?
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- This was a response to a great question about difficulties experienced when existential OCD or depressive thoughts seem to be true and we start to believe them and it makes recovery more challenging.
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Thanks for this video. I've started to believe that people aren't real and the world I'm living in is all made up in my head. Sometimes I think I'm living in the matrix. These thoughts are very distressing and I've lost interest in the things I once used to enjoy. I know that these thoughts are very absurd but my brain keeps telling me to find a definite answer and ofc I can't do that. I'll sometimes ask my friends if they are real and they'll laugh at me and give me a sarcastic answer like "No, I'm a robot". That alone gives me a sense of how detached I've become from reality.
Check out the Nov qa session where I give some thoughts on this question
Thank you. Scarily, the more I read and watch about it, the more I realize that my OCD extends to many more thoughts, behaviours, considerations that I have than I ever imagined- I generally played down OCD symptoms for the last 12 or so years of my life, until I was recently formally diagnosed with it, but now wherever I look I find more new things, such as this "existential OCD" that I just thought is me being reflexive and curious (and anxious about it)
It can be common to have this experience and I guess we need to remember that anything can become compulsive depending on the function. If the function is to get certainty, avoid or control difficult emotions and feared consequences then we can become ruminative about anything. Whereas thinking creatively, problem solving with acceptance in the service of our valued life direction is a very different function. It’s why it’s important to practice defusion and tools like dipping in and out of the stream so we can catch when thinking is becoming compulsive and get out of the thought loop and back into our lives…
Thank you for putting this video out for everyone to access. Such a great resource for this dealing with existential OCD.
Thanks for the feedback, wishing you all the best
These videos are really important Jonny. Thank you for the work you do. It just takes a lot of the weight away to know that it’s not just me that regularly battles in this area. It’s rare to hear people talking about it so openly and normally!
Thanks for the feedback and glad they are resonating
Thanks Jonny, you cannot know how this video helps me now, I'm so grateful for your time and explanations
I’m glad it was helpful, thanks for the feedback
Thanks for this. Ive struggled with ocd for decades. Now in my 50s. Ruminating wears you out definitely.
Ive recently had a knee surgery and a bereavement. Felt very vulnerable and ruminating more. Yep my hubby just distract himself and doesnt loop on these topics.
Whats really helped me is getting into the Indian philosophy of Advaita vedanta and theb concept of non doership.
I think talking to others who as you say dontvreally think abput all these things, can make me me feel worse because they can minimise how i feel so i dont talk about it to them.
I like the analogy to auto immunity.
Ive discovered not believing my thougts has helped. And as you say practically looking at the usefulness of things helps.
Defo i relate to feeling envious that some others dont think of these things!
Thanks for the feedback. Sometimes people find spiritual practices and philosophies like Adaita Vedanta helpful, other times this becomes part of the existential rumination and coming back to values in action in life is more helpful. Whatever works well over the longer term is key and glad you found something supportive
Thank you so much for this video ❤️
I’m glad you’ve found it helpful and thanks for the feedback
I have magical thinking OCD and i pretty much lost insight for a long time...
And now tragedy happend, both of my parents died in a short time.
I've just realised that this thing always tries to lach onto my fear of losing loved ones.
I was so damn scared of losing my mom and honestly i was thinking that if she ever dies because of my thoughts, i can't live with the guilt...
I don't know how i was able to survive these past 9 months. At first my OCD got worse but now i feel pretty guilty sometimes for not having as much OCD thoughts as i had before.
It's like the death of my Mom made OCD realise with time that it has to find someone new to latch onto... The old thoughts come back often but then new ones also come about my parent's memmory, mostly about my mother's..
I swear to God this thing is cruel and i feel guilty for not being able to engage in therapy earlier and stressed the heck out of my family, especially my parents with it so much that it might caused their illnesses. Not my thoughts but the intense, chronic stress itself.
I’m so sorry to hear this tough experience. I’ll try to make a video to share some ideas on magical thinking generally and with these kinds of complexities. OCD sees correlation and claims causation where there is only correlation, we have to try to accept the uncertainty and respond with our values and skills. More to follow…
Thanku very much sir, you helped me a lot , I just have 1 question I am slowly recovering from my Existential OCD I can see that but from past few days i have been too much obsessed about OCD videos what should i do about it
I would practice gradually reducing the time spent engaging in ocd and psychology content and increase the time listening to other material you value related to hobbies, interests, comedy, music etc. aim to get ocd material down to 5-10% of what you listened to and values based content up to 90%
I have the thoughts, how do we talk ? From where came our thoughts, Can we control them ? Can we control our speech or our mind is controling it ? Very distressing thoughts helppp please
Had this myself….that’s your brain looking for the ‘cause’. It’ll pass - why? Because it’s natural.
Check out my recent video on hyper awareness of thoughts ocd
I found out that struggling with more concrete threats like a possible new world war, climate change or ressource extinction is difficult to handle, at least for now, I wonder if there is a special kind of OCD about existential threats
These can be natural anxieties but if they feel like they are consuming many hours of the day they can become OCD themes. We can try to use the same skills to be able to have moments of feeling the pain of these realities, without ruminating for hours on them. Then we can access are there any values based actions we can take like engaging in supporting our local community, helping charities, raising awareness, joining interest groups etc.