ocd or worse?

[T*]

Final destination is one I avoid because of its idea of a pattern in death, that everyone has their time, and that life is a domino effect. At one point I freaked myself out so much about this and the possibility that my actions, or things I touch may cause someone else death that I just sat in a room for 2 days solid not touching anything. Took me two days just to get over that panic. Still effects me mow if I think about it too much.

I think its so interesting that these thigs happen to so many people, and often around the same age, its so scary, but interesting.

[PanchoGoz]

You may or may not have seen this thread http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthr...ight=solopsism some useful stuff there too.

It's important first of all to remember that fears about existance are like any other fear. You get trapped in a spiral because you have one of these thoughts and for whatever reason that causes a lot of fear.
Then you become scared that you will think of the thought again and you try desperately to forget about it or block it out, which makes it worse. What you resist persists. You can often uncover while having a panic over these fears, that there is a part of you that is saying something like "I'll never be able to think normally again" or "I'm stuck with this thought until I die" or "These thoughts will make me go insane". So as well as the primary fear, you have the secondary fear about what might happen to you and usually involves the fear of being "stuck".

People often think that existential fears are worse than any other fears and you put yourself in the "loopy incurable" catagory. It's no worse than any oher fear as fear is unique to you. The thing you fear the most is the worst fear you have, and for some people they couldn't think of a worse fear than, say cancer, and think that thoughts about existance are completely meaningless and non-threatening. You have this particular fear...because you do! Just a lottery really.

When you panic about the thought you try to run from it or fight off, fight or flight. You need to teach yourself that these thoughts are actually totally harmless and you will eventually lose the fear. When you start to feel anxiety coming on, stop hunching your shoulders and clenching your belly, step out of the spinning thoughts in your head and just be aware of your surroundings until your anxiety comes down a bit. Helpful too to put a number on it and rate where your anxiety is as it changes between one and ten. You will find it doesn't stay high for long at all.

You will need to start making yourself think about these things instead of avoiding them. Some ways to make it easier at first is to watch the thoughts come by on a cloud then watch them float away. Write them down, say them in a dull voice, laugh at them, belittle them, lots of ways of making them seem trivial. Once you lose the fear of fear, you start to forget about them. Don't block them at all, just let them come and go in the day as you can and keep occupied. At nighttime, it helps you fall asleep if you have a mind game to play such as the alphabet game. Think of a subject like animals or place names and think of one of everything under each letter like aardvark, beaver, cat, dog etc.

It often happens to teenagers as they're minds broaden out when they reach college and people start to debate philosophically. It happened to me that way. Can't think of anything else right now, fire any questions you want at me. I've sent hundreds of messages helping people with existential terror on NMP.

I also reccomened looking at the links in my signiture. CBT4Panic has an excellent book on obsessional thoughts.

---------- Post added at 20:44 ---------- Previous post was at 20:41 ----------

Oh that's the other things - derealisation. For me these two tied in a lot as I would get anxious about existance then I would feel unreal because of the anxiety and that would make me more anxious - it was a spiral. It's important to recognise and greet derealisation as nothing more than your body trying to look after you by making you a bit less aware of outside things. It happens when you are getting too introverted and it's totally harmless, you won't go barmy. You get used to it after a while and goes, as long as you don't obsess about it. A los of people on this forum make posts after posts about derealization saying it won't go, how do they get rid of it and they don't realise that the stress that's causing it is the stress they make with their desperation to get rid of it. Just accept it is there as an anxiety symptom and let it be as it is.

[princesspanic]

Thankyou so much.. That was very helpful and I will definitley try these things. I've been trying in my own way to think that its just a thought. I feel some relief when I can rationalise slightly and think of being grounded and that we are all seperate different people with different consiousness and then all the questioning comes back again. I feel trapped because I keep thinking is this all part of my imagination, is it all just a dream and if so what is beyond this dream! My worst fear that is making me so scared and low is the solipsism theory I canot get out of my head that we could all just be one consious and its got to the point I think I believe it and when I'm talking to someone I'm thinking,' you are just me but not aware of it' I know this sounds crazy but its really scary and its like I can't see people for being different or seperate to me anymore :( do you think I may be going mad?

[Koalabear1992]

O.o I thought I was the only one who had these thoughts... I'M NOT ALONE! I'M NOT CRAZY!

[PanchoGoz]

You are most certainly not going mad because you have a perfectly rational and questioning mind. You wouldn't be sane if we didn't think these things, the reason you keep thinking it though is because you are scared of the idea and feel the need to try to question it. Insane people don't question their thoughts, it's other people who notice they are insane first. Most people with anxiety and intrusive thoughts think they are going insane at some point.

Imagine you are talking to someone like you just said and you ponder how you are all the same consciousness (I happen to know this is a Buddhist philosphy btw). When you start freaking out about this, look around at everything and notice something important. Nothing is any different now to how it was before you had these thoughts. Even though you feel your world has turned upside down by worry, if you think about it, you still live in exactly the same world regardless how you might see it. Solopsism makes no difference to how you live your life in any way. If you weren't blighted by fear of it, you would question the idea with curiosity and perhaps amusement and then drop it as you please. These are only things that are happening in between your ears - what's real is what's out there! That is my view. If that were so, we are all one or we are all really brains in jars or everyone is watching me on tv, that's cool. In fact that's hilarious as I'm writing it now.

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I feel some relief when I can rationalise slightly and think of being grounded and that we are all seperate different people with different consiousness and then all the questioning comes back again.

Got to be cruel I'm afraid - it doesn't get rid of the fear to rationalise it. You're giving it power doing that. It's better to say "so what if we are all the same consciousness, it makes no difference to me or my world".

Most people who no longer have this fear aren't around to help because part of getting over it is getting swept away by life - family, relationships, work, play. All that will seem important again one day, fear not.