This is what I've been dealing with for years. I'm terrified of death, aging and anything existential. I think that's what caused this form. I've overcome every other form of ocd, but this one has left me derealized, stuck in panic and nihilistic. I don't know what to do...
Carl Jung said the human mind is naturally religious, Kierkegaard said we must apply meaning to life ourselves as individuals. Point being, we need a God to follow. That doesn't necessarily need to be a Christian god, or a Pagan god, or a Jewish one, but it can be a personal god, or a personal moral code or interest in way of living. Maybe path to pursuit. A direction. In this way we make order out of the meaninglessness in Chaos of Being. If it's any consolation: "Summoned or not, a god will come"-Carl Gustav Jung.
For me when I get these existential questions I become stricken with fear, I get a cold feeling in my chest and begin to feel panicked but it just sort of shows as an outward frustration to those around me, but they’ll last for minutes to hours and I get them every day and I’m always unsatisfied with how I feel about my answers to the question cause there always has to be something more than what I can see I just can’t understand it because I’m only human and I’m hurting like hell
I was diagnosed with OCD recently and I got over this obsession 2 years before I even knew I had the disorder. I'm a pre-med and I love science but it got to a point where I obsessed so much about how there is no meaning to life (in the sense that everything is a chemical reaction and phenomena that can be explained by physics ) that I would just have the conversation as to why there is no god to anyone I knew until it became toxic to my interpersonal relationships. I concluded that I needed some bliss in my life no matter how illogical religion might be so I decided to try to just believe in god for the sake of my mental health and to give myself the chance to move on and focus on things that matter like actually enjoying life. I believe in god in the sense that I need something to help me get up in the morning and feel like many things that give me unnecessary anxiety are out of my power. I was raised catholic and still consider myself one too but I do not go to church and I just believe in a god that gives me strength, wisdom, and resilience.
Alex Brambila Hi Alex, I too have recently been diagnosed with ocd, all be it that looking back I have had it my whole life. This has been an obsession of mine the past 3 months now. Do you genuinely feel as though religion has helped you with this matter? Religion is something I’ve always struggled with but am willing to give it a proper go if you feel this has helped you.
It is definitely one of the most terrible forms of OCD - I have this as well: What if everything I believe in is a lie? What if everything that's good is actually evil and vice versa? What if my past, my life is actually not real but simulated?
OCD has a horrible way of making you believe there is no hope for yourself. I have been dealing with existential/harm OCD for over 10 years now. A lot of the people in the comments are struggling. No matter how real the threats feel, please don’t give up on finding and going through treatment. It is worth the fight!
I can easily see how someone can become distressed pondering about these topics. Thank you for the education and clarification on existential obsessions observed within OCD.
Can people with existential OCD also show an interest in literature because they feel as if they’ll find the meaning of life through reading ? I’m not sure if I have existential OCD, but I do notice that I question the meaning of life a LOT, to the point of feeling mentally exhausted. I always wondered why no one else ever questioned that.
I always knew I had OCD (I was diagnosed at a young age) but it was never explained to me that my constant need to research these kinda things WAS an OCD thing.
This was the worst for me. Almost killed me. It's like just when I thought my OCD couldn't get worse, it did and ten fold. I tended to stay away from religious tracts or anything vaguely philosophical, because anything was likely to trigger the horrors. I basically have it all but beat these days, but it took away so much of my life and what it could have been.
I’m so glad I found you! I keep having weird questions about the nature of love or the nature of attraction, love, sex.. it’s not like I’m interested it’s like I HAVE to answer these questions otherwise I will turn into a disgusting person with no morals. I’ve had Health OCD and POCD, but this is so different from all the other themes.
It might help to see that everybody comes across these thoughts at least once in their lives. So why doesn't everyone have existential OCD? It is the way they deal with the thought. One can come across this thought in a philosophy class or something as such but they simply acknowledge and brush it off and continue on with their lives. Others just want to solve it and get to an absolute certainty of their answers. Personally, I think that matters with regards to philosophy dont have an absolute answer. If you always have an answer to everything, life would just be so boring. So to deal with this thought, it isnt easy, but definitely possible. You have to realise that no one has an answer to these questions, they are just there as a thought experiment. So it would be silly to spend countless hours trying to find an answer that simply doesnt exist. You have to see if the thought is benefiting you in anyway, and if not, then why continue to give yourself anxiety by feeding into these problems? Come up with an answer that fits to you and makes the most sense according to what you have learned so far. It wont be of absolute certainty and thats ok, like i said above. Once you have an answer that makes sense to you,stick with it and everytime the thought comes up and says otherwise, imagine a stop sign or something related to that which will help you realisr that this thought is not beneficial and should not be given more fuel. Hope this helped.
Learning to meditate is what helped me. OCD is a condition and not just an effect of having a bad attitude or poor character. If you can't stop thinking a certain way and it's driving you bats, then you can isolate the problem. Knowing it's a symptom of a disorder and not a description of who you are is the first step in learning how to care for yourself with love and kindness instead of hating and blaming yourself for not controlling it better.
I've reached the point where I can't even talk about my thoughts, there's no meaning on them, no way to tell you what is the doubt. Thoughts come so fast that I forgot the obsession in just a few seconds. It's horrible. I often hear that one fear or obsession (call it what you want) that comes to mind very often is "am I going crazy?". So, what if you dig you so deep with your questions that you start to deconstruct all that you've ever known... That you go crazy for real. I fear that one day reality loses its inteligibilty for me.
One thing about my obsession around this doubts... Is that I just can't leave the doubt aside, is like if I ignore it I'm ignoring something very important: to know the truth.
I know that parameters to understand and help mental Diseases are necessary... But what do you do when you realise that all this parameters are artificial? Hell, even pain an suffering is necessary once in a while. I'm not saying that the way of life should be pain, but there was people who spended years trying to answer this questions, people who helped to extend our knowledge and that will be categorized as obsessive or crazy today. There's Nietzsche, Sartre, Kant, Heidegger...
It seems that it all comes down to how the person feels about the thoughts and whether they are bothered by them and if their dealing with the thoughts are harmful to their functioning or sense of well-being.
A long period of obsessive, restless rumination on existential topics compounded by my father's suicide led me into a long phase of depersonalization symptoms, a hell I would wish on no one. Well, that became a real feedback loop because if you're worried that you're in a simulation or the world is not "real" (whatever that means) and then you also have these subjective sensations of being in a waking dream etc the whole thing gets very frightening. It was only years after this experience that I ever read anything about depersonalization disorder or "pure" OCD, so I just assumed I was going crazy. The only resolution I found is that it doesn't really matter what's going on ontologically. I can make fairly accurate predictions about how things will operate in the mundane, and it's not worth being worried that what I see and understand might be fundamentally untrustworthy. Of course saying "don't worry about it" doesn't work for OCD, but for me just proceeding as much as normal and distracting myself with other avenues of inquiry seemed to help. I still occasionally visit that mental space for old times sake, though.
I learned a lot of information from the videos on this playlist concerning OCD. There are so many aspect to it that I had not previously considered. I enjoyed this information, because it was presented in a professional yet understandable way.
I was wondering, is it possible for these existential obsessions to cause symptoms of depersonalisation/ derealisation. Reason being, last year I begun to have a lot of questions about life and where I was and whether or not anything was actually real, it resulted in me researching and thinking about those questions 24/7 for almost a year whilst also experiencing derealisation, but it all begun with questioning everything. Really sorry if this didn’t make any sense, hope someone can answer this.
Sorry to hear that, honestly suffering with it is so scary but know it won’t last. What really helped me was when I gave myself a certain amount of time in the day to ask questions about the world, it was difficult as I was always asking questions but try and plan loads of things in the day so you don’t have time to think. Another thing that helped was when there was a day when I was able to not think about those unanswered questions and somehow I understand the world more( don’t know if that makes sense), but basically it made me understand that if I stop chasing the questions I’m more likely to find the answer, I guess this helped more with wanting to understand my feelings not the world. But I guess overtime your mind will get bored of asking questions and then move onto something else. I think if you can you should go doctors as last year I went but at that time I didn’t know what was going on so the therapist thought I was dissociating because of my symptoms, but I wasn’t able to tell him about me obsessing over questions about the world. Good luck, I hope you get the help you deserve.
YES but it GETS BETTER. Please trust that and push through. Honestly I know medication isn’t for everyone but Lexapro SAVED MY LIFE. I thought I was going to feel this way forever but I said “fuck it, I honestly can’t feel any worse than this” so I gave the meds a try and it turned my whole fucking life around. I also have C PTSD from a narcissistic parent abusing me in many ways for two decades. The panicking dissolved and I could live a quality life.
I am going through same thing, it started 8 months back suddenly i started to question my existence, soon anxiety kicks in and everything around me seems so scary and strange, most scariest thing was my own consciousness That was terrible living in a hell
Ugh, I think I have existential obsession, but I am not sure it rises to the level of OCD. 😰Either way, I have been ruminating about this my whole life, my primary area of study is biochemistry, and my favorite topic in philosophy is morality/ethics. Thank you so much for this video! ❤️
Oh my god! I had this (still a bit) when i was in my 10th grades in a dormitory away from home..can u imagine how hard it must have been for me to explain this to anyone,sonI just kept within me and cried and cried.....this video describes some of what I had and thats just the tip of an iceberg...pls i request anyone reading this to b kind and considerate to someone with ocd or with any mental problems...thanq!!
Thanks so much for this video.This is exactly what I am going through almost 13 years.The main anxiety provoking thing about such thoughts is that I DO NOT HAVE ANSWERS to them.Could you please recommend any literature or web materials concerning this specific type of existential OCD ?
I've had this since I was a kid. Every time there is a death it gets cranked up. I start worrying about souls and where they go. In its mild version its a constant rumination of the meaning of life, and what's mine and if there is any noble purpose for humanity. Which then gets me ruminating on karma and reincarnation, or the idea of souls being trapped, why were we born. I'm constantly hunting for literature and youtube videos trying to find the answer of who made us, when were we made, how many civilizations of mankind before us, which then can take me down the rabbit hole of aliens and parallel universes, monotheism vs. polytheism, AI god and simulation theory, earth as a prison planet, remote viewing beings on other planets, etc. Not having answers leaves me super depressed. That said, don't have it in any other form, just perpetual existential angst instead of inner peace and acceptance.
Tick tick tick.. I was in therapy for over 6 year's dealing with this, and over the last week, I'm jokingly saying I could kick my therapists **** because she really helped me get it under control, so much so I stopped prepping for the end of the world years ago, and now we as a family unit, are not much more prepared than anyone else. Except I have a vast amount of knowledge in my head. Repeated violence towards me was my trigger, and I sought help after escaping the violence, because I felt I could really kill someone, I was willing to. And that went against my core values, I had years of night terrors and became a recluse. I threw myself into science for answers, and discovered a true passion for geology in the process, I'm an atheist, but divinity as a subject matter is fascinating and I like making connections to understand. So studied it in depth, my extended family would be glib about what religion are you today, not understanding it at all. So eventually I withdrew from them and their patronizing demoralizing ways. Psychiatry is my new religion, just saying, my need to understand is very strong, still looking for answers. But seeing things and people for who and what they are, has been empowering, their is autism and narcissism in my family. I don't hate what they did to me, but I need the tools to live in this Neurotypical world.
You mention getting 'cold'. I also get this feeling when my ocd is triggered really bad. Others seem to mention having this feeling too. For me it goes back to childhood emotional abandonment experiences where I would experience an absolutely awful cold feeling in my chest. I wonder if this isn't also the case for others like yourself. Fear of feeling alone at the core due to these abandonment experiences.
An interesting topic, and one that I share a close association with. I don't believe I have OCD(perhaps I do), but I cannot help but notice that the only thing I care about are the existential questions of life. I think about existential philosophy all the hours I am awake, and I have done so for decades. Typically, I play video games-usually video games that require extreme attention to play-during the times I am awake so that I can focus on something else other than existentialism. I take an antidepressant, so I can turn off my brain and go to sleep at night otherwise I cannot sleep. Before I started taking the antidepressant, I would routinely stay awake for days and then crash, sleep, and repeat the cycle. The key difference with what you were describing is that I do not become anxious, in fact, I lean into my inner world more strongly in an effort to solve the most difficult questions. All of this has led me to being unable to function in our modern society. And it is hard to talk with others about this because they will not understand.
I have been trying to understand how exactly i have ocd (been diagnosed), but its always been so subtle, your video explained exactly what I have. Thank you.
My existential obsession started at age 8 and hit its peak at 18/19 where I felt the entire fabric of reality was unraveling and sensation itself was a trigger. I remember thinking “something has to give” it had to stop or I’d die (suicide or otherwise), and in that moment something in the foundation of the obsession broke and I lost all fear. I thought if the fear was gone so would be the thoughts but a year later its still all I think about...
Lissa S hey by this do you mean everything you experience seems weird even the word and concept of weird itself is weird? Cuz this is happening to me and I dont know what to do. It’s like anything my brain can possibly think of is now questioned to an infinite extent and there’s no way to break it. For example I’ll say to myself ill just talk to someone and that will help, but then question what words or speech really is, or I’ll say like I just wanna be happy but questioning what happiness is and why I want it? Or what want is and this cycle goes on infinitely with no way to counter it and it’s killing me! Any advice?
@@broosewain1528 This is one of the things I'm having problem with now too. It really bothers me. I'm not sure how to cope either. It's driving me crazy. Wish I had any advice to give you, but I don't.
I have known a few individuals who were a bit consumed with the existential and/or philosophical topics that are mentioned in the video. I now wonder if they were diagnosed with OCD. Very informative.
Based on the amount of people that are aware of this type of OCD, I have hope, hope because I’m sure there are people out there that are living good lives, dispute having this type of OCD. I’m sure you can have hope too.
I'm currently experiencing this about the topic of happiness and it really makes me feel disconnected. It's nice to hear I'm not the only one and that with time this will pass
I thought this was normal to question the purpose of life and one's own existence in this world, what is the nature of one's own mind in relation to God, who is I the I that questioning my experience etc., I spend my whole life doing this, reading books on philosophy, religion etc and I have a PhD in cell biology...
I agree it is normal and expected for most people. It is difficult to differentiate this normal behavior from an obsession, especially if other OCD symptoms are not present. Even if the questioning and learning become somewhat disruptive or consume a lot of time, it could still be normal considering the importance and relevance of religion, spirituality, and existential philosophy.
Artificial Pictures International hey what types of questions do you ask exactly? Cuz I’m just experiencing this but am asking questions way beyond human comprehension and it’s really really fucking scary!
It’s hard to explain but I’ll try my best one example is I’ll ask what Is life? And say well who cares? But then I’ll ask what does who cares mean exactly? Why do I desire happiness? What is happiness? What is suffering and why don’t I want it? What even is want lol? This may sound completely ridiculous but I just feel like everything in life I can think about is suddenly being questioned to an infinite extent! Like I’ll question one thing which leads to another question and so on! It makes me feel so detached from everything even the words I’m typing and it’s really freaky to think about!
So a person with OCD that has philosophical obsessions can never be satisfied or get closure. I can't imagine having to live like that. Very interesting video.
It feels like you HAVE to answer a question you just need to and when you can answer it it feels like it’s not enough and you need some kind of biological proof and weird shit. It’s horrible.
How can you tell if you have Existential Obsession (Philosophical Obsession) in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or if you simply are intrigued like Dawkings or Hitchens? Not for hours but I think about death and philosophise every single day and about the big issues. I am diagnosed with chronic OCD and depression in other forms but I never thought the deep philosophical tendencies I have as harmful or OCD. Maybe it could also be deconstruction from religious indoctrination from my childhood and teen years. I am now and have been an atheist for years I find that resolution very satisying as I feel like I have come to terms and to accept reality and the beauty in the world around me. Does it even matter if myself or others are unsure whether I have philosophical OCD or simply have a very enquiring mind. Small talk is boring. Thank you for a great video. I appeciate it.
I'm OCD; but also INTJ and aspergers. I'd assumed my long academic background in cultural issues was connected to the latter two variants. I wonder if OCD is connected to those.
This is very interesting. I am diagnosed with OCD. I take medication now so it has lessened a lot, but the main obsession I used to have had to do with the fact that I thought I could read the future if I performed my compulsions properly. The compulsions would sort of appease my mind about the uncertainty of the future (for a few seconds at least). For years I was really convinced of it. Even now I am having a hard time believing it was not real. I wonder if that would qualify as ruminations.
I have been contemplating reality, and I seem to be able to visualize it as best my human brain allows, since I was a child. I'm not sure if such thoughts are intrusive though or bother me. That said I am fairly nihilistic and I tend to view things on larger scales such as eternal time and infinite dimensions. To put it simply at least. I see no point in rushing to do much since, in time, all things will come to pass. It is an odd form of fate I suppose. This does not preclude free will however, for however much it is worth. Is there anything that can be done for nihilism? Perhaps you could cover nihilistic thinking? Thanks for all the interesting videos!
These are informative descriptions Dr.Grande. I have heard of this term from others, however, did not know if the situation fits this disorder: if a person thinks about what happens to human being after death every night before bed, and these thoughts are bothering them and cause anxiety, and they are hard to stop to sleep, would this consider fitting the criterias?
I could see the average person wonder about these things. This could even help someone to achieve a higher standard. It could also be destructive if one is not in any type of control.
I disagree! Existential questions become a naturally corollary for anyone who is incapacitated to do something meaningful with her/his life. Although I haven't studied anything , I refuse to believe that asking such questions is pathological. It can, in stark contrast, be a healthy sign. One interpretation of asking such questions is that the individual is trying hard to give himself a reason to live n make sense out of his/her existence. If we go by modern psychiatry, all philosophers n people who do not conform to what's considered " NORMAL" would be suffering from some kinda disorder. What is ' sanity ' or 'insanity' ? What is "normal" or "abnormal" ? Who is to say , objectively, that such thoughts are pathological . Ask questions before you believe that you too are "abnormal" ...You might just be different.
I've become agoraphobic and completely isolated from "what does that mean?!" Thinking insignificant things like an empty cup falling on the floor and bouncing three times meany something bad...that comes in threes...was going to happen and the cup dropping was a warning
The human - like a hamster pet scurrying in its sphere - hasn’t got the point quite yet that all its prattle’s null and void becos de wheel iz made o’ Woid ! Thus I am The Slave of Word; (I’d thought I was its master!). Forgetting I invented it ‘s the cause of this disaster! ("Homily to Homomal") .........see E=W/A
