Author: adur65890

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Existential crisis or OCD?

Tw: death, dying

For some time now I’ve been preoccupied with our human understanding of life or death. My thoughts consist of why am I here? Why are we all here? Where did we come from? Where do we go when we die? Is this all a simulation? I don’t want to die. I don’t know what happens when I die. I don’t know when I will die. I don’t want to die! These types of thoughts would fill my mind all day. I thought it was just some sort of existential crisis that would go away. But I was wrong. These thoughts have plagued my mind for almost a whole year now. I now know that what I’m suffering from is existential OCD. I have already been diagnosed with OCD and generalized anxiety disorder. So I have a lot of uncomfortable and disturbing intrusive thoughts. But they were never this focused on my existence in this world.

I started to realize this isn’t healthy and is honestly kind of scary. I would think about life and death until I would feel sick to my stomach. Sometimes I feel like the world around me isn’t real or like I am not real. I start to derealize. Sometimes I would go over the possible dying process until I was sobbing in tears trying to figure it out. And in the midst of this I would obsessively look for the answers to questions that could never be truly answered by anyone. This is what people with existential OCD do. To try and fix these obsessions we have, we compulsively look for solutions to make us feel better about life and death. I would search the internet, reading near death experiences thinking it would help. But its impossible to feel better. Because there are no answers.

But recently I learned that these are just thoughts. A misfiring in my head. And maybe I don’t have to fight them anymore. Maybe they can exist in my head while I continue to exist in the world I know. And maybe, just maybe, I won’t be so scared anymore because I’m allowing the thoughts to stay without giving them so much power. Letting them flow in and then flow right out without reacting. What I do know is, I would like to become more comfortable with the unknowns of this world.

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What is mindfulness to me?

As someone’s who’s dealt with severe OCD anxiety for most of my life, I’ve always been against the whole mindfulness gimmick. I think it was honestly…bullshit. But I think I might have figured it out on my own. So what is mindfulness to me? I think its literally stepping outside of my mind. When you have anxiety it can be easy to forget that the only organ in your body isn’t just the brain you’re using to overthink and obsess about everything with.

Lately I try to focus on what my body can do and how it feels. I focus on how my legs feel when I walk or how my body feels when I lay in bed under my covers. I look at the objects around me and listen to the sounds in my environment. I go outside just to feel the cold on my skin. I find myself enjoying little things like the sounds people make when speaking or feeling the water drip down my body in the shower. I love feeling my boyfriend’s warm skin against mine and feeling him breathe against me when he falls asleep on my chest. I’m starting to realize there’s so much more going on around me than the thoughts in my head. I won’t say this was easy. But its something I’ve learned to do through determination and the help of my antidepressants.

My favorite thing right now is the way I feel when I move my body. I feel so free when I work out. Knowing that I can run or walk, I can move my body this or that way is so freeing. I’m starting to feel like I can do anything. There’s something so inspirational about my recent coming into mindfulness. I am unsure of how to describe it. But I feel like there is many parts of me that I have been ignoring due to my anxiety being so bad. I want to explore this some more.

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Bad relationship with food

Trigger warning: overeating

Lately I feel so bad after I eat. Eating as a chubby woman is stressful. I don’t get why I feel so bad about the way I eat just because I’m chubby, when there is skinny women who eat the same things I do freely. Whether it’s me obsessing over how much I ate or how what I ate effected me, its too much. I have a problem I guess. I overeat until my stomach hurts. I do it every time and I know I should stop eating. There’s a voice in my head that says stop eating and I ignore it all the time. I’m just so hungry and I enjoy eating so much. Sometimes I feel its the only thing during the day that makes me happy.

This has caused me to gain some weight of course. I also have developed Gastrointestinal Reflux Disease. I have constant acid reflux. Not only that but, my esophagus and stomach hurt often from how much I eat or because of what I ate. But for some reason I’m just so hungry. I know some of it is emotional eating. But I also have a hormonal disorder that causes me to gain weight easily while having trouble to lose that weight. This condition is called PCOS.

I genuinely want a better relationship with food but I don’t know how. The healthy choice is there but I chose the one that will fill my stomach the most. Lately I’ve tried to add more fiber and protein into my diet so I don’t feel the need to eat so much. And this has helped tremendously. I am also trying to listen to the voice that tells me to stop eating because I’m full. My body isn’t telling me that to hurt me or deprive me. I need to listen to my body more. I think one day I will figure it out one day but in the process I am going to try not to be mean to myself and to accept myself.

(If anyone has any tips to help with an undying appetite please comment haha.)

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Going back on the meds

When I think about my body right now, my first thought would be about my mental health. I have been on and off different antidepressants and ADHD medicines for the last few years. I use them to treat my Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (Inattentive type). My meds make feel all types of things and sometimes those things cause me to make the rash decision to go off them.

Almost a year ago I decided abruptly to go off my SSRI’s which had been treating my OCD and GAD. SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. These medications work to treat anxiety and depression by increasing the amount of serotonin available in the brain. I have a love/hate (mostly love) relationship with a specific SSRI I have been taking on and off for 3 years. Last year when I went off it, I did it because I felt so good, I thought I did not need medication anymore. It was the most awful time dealing with the withdrawal and then dealing with anxiety all on my own for almost a year. However, I did find that I am able to survive without the meds which is why I stopped taking them. But living is soooo much easier with the meds. While I was off them, I ended up losing 20 pounds but, in the meantime, I had to work harder to deal with anxiety my disorders and had lots of trouble sleeping. I even began to fear sleeping and would stay awake as much as possible.

A year later and I decided to stop fighting treatment which is a fight that has been ongoing since I was 10. Now that I am back on my meds my mind is the most at peace it has been in months. But so is my body. I feel relaxed. I can sleep. I missed sleep so much. But I am eating quite a bit and I have already gained some weight back. I have decided though that the weight gain is worth getting that extra bit of help with my anxiety. I hope I can find a way to coexist peacefully with my meds so that I will not quit them so often.