Existential OCD can show itself in many ways – solipsism probably being the most common. Thoughts such as the following used to plague my every day ‘What if my family aren’t real?’ ‘Am I the only conscious being?’ ‘Is everyone else just robots or a figure of my imagination?’
Existential OCD can also revolve around questions like ‘What is the meaning of life?’ ‘What am I?’ ‘Why are we here?’ ‘What is reality?’ ‘Are we just in a simulation?’ etc.
Many people without OCD have these thoughts too, some even make a living out of trying to answer them! The difference is that these thoughts and theories don’t give these people chronic anxiety like they give us. Scientists wouldn’t choose to do their job if they couldn’t handle the uncertainty of their questions. The reason it scares us is because OCD craves definitions.
The key with this theme is remembering that we never needed to know what ‘reality’ was in the past and we still don’t need to know now. Our family and friends are what they always were, real or not and the world is what it always was, real or not. What even is reality anyway? I know how this theme can quickly consume you and make you feel like there is impending doom that nobody else is noticing, almost like you have a third eye, but it’s really important that we learn to sit with these feelings. Derealisation and depersonalisation is super common with existential OCD but it’s only through accepting the discomfort and refraining from chasing ‘normality’ that these symptoms began to subside for me.
Some good exposures that I have done around existential OCD are:
– Film: The Matrix (fear of being in a simulation)
– Film: Her (fear of artificial intelligence)
– Film: The Truman Show (fear of life being a lie/ being in a TV show)
– Programme: Hospital and A&E programmes/also looking at X-Rays (fear that we are nothing more than just our brain and flesh/fear that we are just neurons with no greater meaning or soul)
Exposures I am yet to do but are on my list
– Film: Inception (fear that you’re in a dream and can’t figure out what reality is)
– Film: The Mandela Effect (fear that there are multiple/parallel realities)
– Series: Grey’s Anatomy (again fear of what am I/human composition etc.)
As with all themes, bringing all thoughts, feelings and emotions for the ride is important as well as disputing your irrational beliefs around your fear.
Irrational beliefs I have strongly held around this theme are:
– I must know that my family and friends are real otherwise my life is awful.
– I must know exactly what I am and why I am here otherwise I can’t enjoy anything.
– I must not be in a simulation and the Big Bang theory must be real otherwise my life is overwhelmingly scary to the point that I physically cannot stand it.
I am still working at disputing these beliefs daily but I have come leaps and bounds from how rigid I was with them. I hope this post provides you with some direction if you’re stuck with existential OCD and some hope that it is just as doable as the others to overcome.
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This is a great article! I would like to know how you go about disputing irrational beliefs. Is this something that is done by writing them out in a journal and also writing out the more rational beliefs? Do you rewrite them many times? Or is it just as effective to perform this exercise in your mind when you have some down time throughout the day?
Hi Jose! It’s outlined in one of the books on the reading list (how to stubbornly refuse to make yourself miserable) but basically involves breaking down our fears and seeing that our worst case scenario isn’t actually a reason to be chronically anxious – I find, for me anyway, it can become really compulsive if we do it in our heads as a way to fight off the intrusive thoughts almost – remember, we aren’t doing this with the goal of getting rid of these ‘awful’ thoughts we ‘cant stand’ but actually to realise we can accept them and rationalise them. Maybe 20 minutes in writing a few times a week would be a good place to start – being mindful that this isn’t a written rumination exercise to disapprove the thoughts, but a way of logically showing ourselves we can indeed stand things ☺️