When OCD crosses the line into reality

[@OhDamnOhMy]

Nate, you don’t know the impact and importance you have in the OCD community. In the beginning of this year, I went through the worst rumination cycle of my life. The absolute worst. I was desperate, I gave up my entire life, quit my job, couldn’t eat… all because of OCD. I didn’t knew how to get better. I searched in so many places, I was desperate. But then, I came across this channel. And this beautiful community. Day by day, I would do some mental exercises, I watched your videos and lives, I went back to therapy and tried new medication. Thank you. You gave me the tools to go through my worst days, and I’m forever grateful.

[@onlykure]

ocd is terrible, it can go away on it’s own and come back and hit you 10x harder out of no where leaving you in a constant loop of rumination

[@riley830]

Because of real event ocd my brain has literally created so many fears of what I think could possibly happen. At first obviously I knew I was overthinking everything but now the fears have become so real that I feel like that's what's really going to happen. I've come to a complete stop in my life rn. It's so distressing. Thank you for making these videos, they really do help

[@juansho6969]

OCD stopped my life too since it flared up, hope we will figure it out soon, I can recommend a couple books if you like

[@sokeye.f5331]

You will overcome it . You will be fine,

[@cee-d6w]

What are the books plz :)​@@juansho6969

[@smiley9987]

He is so likable! OCD folks can cure only by watching and listening him!!! 🥳💪🌞

[@ocdandanxiety]

Thank you for the kind words, it means a lot!

[@games_bond7221]

I feel like for me, the fear is very hard to deal with because I can't just "see nothing happens" because it's related to existence itself and death. So I can't "risk" seeing what's after death. It's the hardest theme I've ever dealt with because no one has a response, no matter how much I wait, I can't have ANY reassurance. It's like the ultimate uncertainty

[@Cloud777Strife]

Maybe we exist, maybe we don't. Maybe we go somewhere when we die, maybe we don't. Nothing is certain either way. If we can't be certain either way, why worry? We can just hope for the best

[@uk_picker7307]

I can tell for with absolute certainty that you exist as do I and everyone else and everything else you experience via your direct sensory perception. Death is another story though, the evidence would suggest that there is no awareness when we die as we know that we require a functioning physical brain, nervous system and sensory organs to have awareness of any kind.. have you ever had a surgery and had anesthetic? Your conscious awareness can we completely switched off with a simple drug and the rest of the universe continues to exist independently of you or your awareness. Some claim of NDEs and say we are all one source consciousness experiencing itself subjectively (we are the universe experiening/ understanding itself). But wither way, there's nothing to worry about bro, we are either going to know or we're not.. I look at it like this. Death is more than likely what it was like for you before you were born

[@ImAWomanHearMeRoar]

Have you tried medicine?

[@games_bond7221]

@@ImAWomanHearMeRoar yeah. It's the only reason I'm not having debilitating panic attacks anymore

[@ImAWomanHearMeRoar]

@@games_bond7221 haha same

[@Zdravko3]

It's so hard when I think about death, cancer, and other things like that. If someone steals from my house, I could say "maybe" and handle it, but when it comes to deadly diseases, how do you say "maybe not"? My brain tries to reassure me, but even if there’s a 1-2% chance, it's not like a steal from my house-it’s something you cant repair. It's the final end. I don't know what to do with this

[@StandFast1611]

Living like this doesn't make life livable sometimes. Help me Lord day by day!

[@matjazzajec1025]

I have a fear that if my speakers and pc monitor arent simmetrical to the position of my head, i may develop hearing and seeing disability (lazy eye), since i spend alot of time on my pc. Then everytime i clean the dust from monitor, desk, speakers, i have to spend HOURS micromanaging the postition of everything, and its never perfect enough. Also have the classic checking the locked door 10 times, checking if i closed the toilet seat 10 times, because i have a cat and it may fall in and get trapper ?.. crazy stuff, but nothing seems to help. This channel is a godsend, alot of new info i can try out. Thank you mate.

[@posthuman8474]

Nate, can you please do a video on an ocd theme that’s not talked about enough, which is the fear of psychosis OCD and how it can warp your thoughts, and the constant mental checking for delusional thoughts and whether you truly believe them or not etc.. Please 🙏

[@j.c.denton2060]

Been going through this off and on. I understand.

[@savageraccoon163]

I believe it's the same thing, he says the same thing in all of his videos, just accept the uncertainty, sit with the discomfort and keep going

[@AlexandraTaylor-px5nd]

Hii! So, now almost a year ago there was a specific horrible thought that made me really scared of myself and do compulsions, keep reassuring myself, felt really anxious that I felt no disgust towards that thought. It left me for some months than it came back even harder and felt more real, it seemed to be worse that time, it lasted for like a month than it just stopped. I had other annoying intrusive thoughts, compulsions, reassuring but they weren't as horrible. Very recently I got an intrusive thought which questioned some of my specific values, who I am, and I once again feel no disagreement with my mind like it is trying to change my opinions and change me. Deep down I know I am not going to do anything what my mind is telling me. But my mind is making me unsure of that now:/ I keep repeating and reassuring myself that this is not me but it's like nothing changes. Today my mind added another worry to me. I have extreme fear of the future/time, and my mind keeps repeating that I will not like who I will be in the future and that I will fail and regret myself. Things like that. I try to stop doing the compulsions and ignore it but how do I ignore something like that? I sometimes succeed in ignoring the OCD trick (at least I really suspect that this is OCD). But when I try not to do a compulsion it makes me even more scared where I can't move on until I complete this compulsion. I really hope it will just leave me soon. But overall if I try to ignore this thought completely, will the feeling I have randomly disappear? I will try to pay it any mind more!

[@MacriKristin]

I literally won't go on a vacation because I think that I'll accidentally do something illegal in another country and be arrested. So sometimes I think that some of the examples are a little low stakes. While I have had the doors unlocked issue many times. I think the outcome of someone breaking in scares me but does feel fixable because I have home insurance. But when it comes to issues like being arrested for something that hasn't even happened, considering the outcome isn't something I can just accept, because the outcome could be me being in prison and spending all the money I have to try to get myself out of it.

[@instant_mint]

It's so interesting how our different themes and ideas mean such different things for us. To me the fear of being arrested feels trivial compared to my fear of eating and the thoughts around it. But to you that might seem completely irrelevant. If only we could see our own fears through someone else's eyes... 🙏

[@Anyoneoutthere89]

You are an amazing person. You are pretty much the only one keeping me sane right now. The way you explain everything is so on point it’s truly amazing.

[@dydrm_am]

I like your style of videos, the editing and humor. very comforting.

[@AmanyAhmed210]

I have that weird fear of making someone die of sadness or make someone being poorer than he is, like I'm demanding unrealistic standard of someone so he is going to be in debt instead of saying to me, or someone is in illness but he doesn't tell me so he gonna die!! I have also a really fear that make me panic that what I would do if all the people I knew died? Or what if I'm being bullied without any place to go, what if somebody killed me and no one knows, so many fears that make me crying, panicking and apologizing all the time. Worst of all, what if I see somebody older and weaker than he was! This! Make me hate to visit my whole family. What if I'm bad? What if What I thaught of people wasn't true and I hurt them, and they died of sadness and despair!!! The thoughts, the fears never end!!!

[@anfyro8059]

I wish your channel goes viral 🙏

[@thewinner9422]

My fear is whether I'll be having these same thoughts even after a year of treatment. Please make a video on this

[@miriam-aurora]

Thank you! I just found your channel, and your videos are actually helping me right now :)

[@beototbungong1560]

i live with TOCD (fear of being transgender) and it’s also a very vague topic and i fear myself being one and prolly related to other fear as well and the thought keeps making me check if i ever have the symptoms of being one (compulsion) and i just can’t risk myself transitioning to face the fear and expose myself, no i can’t do that, it’s like the ultimate uncertainty, but i think what i should do is to embrace the uncertainty itself, man…

[@broylez4lyfe821]

My fear is that if I look at my partner and don’t feel anything that means that I don’t love them! 😢

[@ddv19062]

Hi there. Getting feelings on demand is luckely not possible. I often don’t feel a reaction to and think everybody else in the world has the same. Your a bit stuck in an unreal selfmade checkbox. Its just a silly thought giveb to much weight. Feeling just come when they come, there not in a matchbox waiting to be lit on demand. Stand clear from it not beeing normal, your quite fine and perfectly normal. 🥳🙌🏻

[@music-by-storm]

One of my biggest themes is not being able to sleep and having health problems as a result. I have had severe insomnia for most of my life. The issue is, I often make myself not be able to sleep because I am ruminating, but almost every time I have a sleepless night I feel as if all of my fears are confirmed the next day. Lack of sleep is ruining my life and even when I try to agree with my OCD thoughts, they come true every morning. Example: I am awake at 4am and tell myself "this is great, I love being awake, I'm probably going to be exhausted tomorrow and that is awesome" etc. but then when I actually feel exhausted the next day, I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated and depressed/anxious because the lack of sleep literally makes me feel terrible. How do I break out of this when the fears I'm having are constantly being proven true to me?

[@_felicia_99]

When it comes to HOCD/TOCD fear... It's even worse and complicated

[@dragorphis1]

I know exactly what Nate would say to this, that’s your OCD telling you that 😅 (also I’m sure he has a vid on homosexual OCD 🤔)

[@JohnBrown-ig5nc]

What's HOCD and TOCD?

[@appleitree]

Tw: I may have magical thinking oc. I cant stop making conpulsions in my head, and when i stop foing comlulsions, it literally appears in phones , instantly too, sometimes in reality too, like tv, etc. I just wish the"law of attraction" is jhst boghus. I embarrased myself in my class by performing a compulsion in front of everyone. Its been 3 years. And i only did erp twice. And bever after that. Also a traumatic experience happened, which suggested its my fault

[@MeowMeowTheCato]

Got back in touch with my ex, and now I have constantly fear that some very bad luck going to happen, without any logical reason. And it's stuck in my head for weeks now...

[@suzanneacres2027]

My OCD is constantly checking things over and over again. It can be very hard sometimes and annoying.

[@ocdandanxiety]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It's important to raise awareness about OCD.

[@yobiffar]

Hi Nathan, thanks for your videos. Can you do a video about the theme shifting to obsessively/compulsively researching about OCD/mental health after quitting compulsions for the original theme? That's where I am at right now. I spend 1-2 hours a day researching about and chatting about OCD and I also talk a lot about it which all fuels the rumination about OCD itself. Thanks again for all your videos. They helped me a lot understanding the OCD cycle and what to do. I managed to quit my original compulsions which I had for 14 years pretty much cold turkey (I DO NOT recommond doing so, I just didn't know a gradual approach) three months ago by stopping to avoid looking at churches (triggered the harmful thoughts) and by stopping to neutralize the thoughts by saying the opposite in my mind and out loud. On most days I don't even actively notice the churches anymore and the original thoughts almost don't pop up anymore. But now I noticed myself only having the topic OCD and compulsively spending time thinking, chatting and researching about the topic and the recovery since I started to want recovery. I'm german so please anyone ask if my english was not understandable.

[@tba1879]

I'm not a therapist so I can only offer up what I've learned from hours of research (so use it at your risk--lol!)! OCD fears are real (or at least truly seem real) because the OCD experiencer's malfunctioning amygdala is stuck in overdrive and is continually sending real fear alarms to the prefrontal cortex. The person will naturally assume it's an actual danger because it feels exactly like an actual danger. This is why I always say, until you treat the defective amygdala--that is, the real causative agent of OCD--you're just treating symptoms (as ERP does).

[@juansho6969]

Not many ways to treat a part of your brain that doesn’t understand commands, the question is why intrusive thoughts produce on fear

[@tba1879]

@@juansho6969 I would disagree with you there and I would invite you to do some research on your own.

[@bramstein]

And how do you treat a deffective amygdalia?

[@tba1879]

@@bramstein Since I'm not a therapist I'm hesitant to present my research, but I'll steer you in the right direction. While you can't change the physical structure of the amygdala you can influence how it operates. Study the structure's left and right hemispheres and that's where the answer lies.

[@jaliscoooo]

Can you just tell us how? I’ve found meditation to be the answer to literally everything but do you have something better?

[@juansho6969]

Hi Nate, I like these new videos on risking, hope you can do one where we consider ourselves to be the danger, harm ocd, pocd, hocd and how We respond to doubting thoughts in the moment. thank you again, last video “I didn’t think ocd could do this” is actually hardly spoken, thoughts come in after we do ERP and can shift exposure to trauma instead of progress, so dealing with doubt and intrusive thoughts after it also needs guidance.

[@daria_ria0]

My brain kinda tricks me sometimes. Like, for example, i have fear of hurting somebody and my brain says like if i can touch that person or slightly push them as a joke, then i might really hurt them. And if i touched that person, im scared that i already made the first move to hurt them and it scares me so bad, its like i have started a mission to hurt someone and i have to end it. It seems like OCD is trying to feel how far i can go with my obsessions. And it really scares me. Please tell me that im not the only one who had experienced this🥺And is it OCD at all if sometimes i feel like i WANT to do bad things (its like im so tired of those intrusive thoughts that i just want to do it to stop them telling me to do it all the time, but of cource i wont do it because im scared to even think about this)? Like its so complicated and embarrassing😓

[@777Amato]

I read in "Out Of the Rabbit Hole" that with a lot of intrusive thoughts of harm it's actually the thing we most dont't want to happen that our brain makes us fear we'll do. So in other words where we feel vulnerable we imagine "oh no what if..." This helped me because I realized I may not be some horrible monster, in fact it's actually that I care SO much my brain is twisting it.

[@AmanyAhmed210]

I have the same fears, it's not fears it's panick attacks!

[@AmanyAhmed210]

​​@@777Amatothat's true, I found it also related to strict parenting, because they make child punished for the so lettle things severe punishments! So he became aware that (I may cause severe harm without knowing, I may do a lettle harm and ruin everything) When I became adult I found that many of my childhood faults was classic faults but for me a single wrong move and I became the vilain ! It also related to anger issues, because if you have severe punichments you should advocate for yourself to prevent it! That became by time an anger issue And with the anger issue, the fears thrive!

[@JohnBrown-ig5nc]

Thirty seconds to lock? That seems too long of a time period for a door to lock.

[@riya-vk3gb]

Now I feel like ocd is daily routine. I keep having it, I wanna change it but I can't. Its like I was keep on doing it so now I feel numb. I do not feel happy but not anxious all the time either. what's wrong with me

[@kp92-c9o]

How do you deal with an ocd thought that something you did wrong when you were a child might come out one day by someone else that knows about it?

[@SadgeZoomer]

I understand but... How do I even accept the risk that my house will burn down? Going back home and checking the stove and the oven seems like the safer option...

[@justinmiller2430]

I record my stove 3 different times every morning before I leave the house

[@justinmiller2430]

Also a lot of the times I have to drive and make u turns to make sure I didn’t hit anything on the street sometimes double u turns these are the worse thoughts

[@master_illitrix]

Sometimes I'll take a picture of it before I leave, so I can remind myself like "oh hey, I didn't forget."

[@Anxiety-un4wk]

Sir, 😊 Can you do more videos about compulsive staring ocd and peripheral vision.

[@athinameleti1738]

Mine is different! I keep making a noise in my head! I keep repeating the same auditory image about me screaming!I repeat this yelling voice in your head most of the day! I’m and if I don’t just ruminate over it! That I’m different,it’s different,how I’m gonna live with it in my head? How can I relax with that voice in my head!? Pls guys help

[@sal5811]

This is def ocd, so do keep that in mind! Ocd will always choose something that bothers you the most or is the most important to you to scare you with. I would recommend maybe medication and then therapy with erp

[@athinameleti1738]

@@sal5811the thing is that the intrusive thought rarely finds me out I f the blue! What has me in a trap is that I keep repeating the voice as a compulsion to check how it makes me feel, if it still bothers me or if it makes me anxious! Do I have no to the compulsion? But isn’t it that thought suppression!? Ima confused on that point

[@GemWhit]

I ate gluten and im gluten free

[@billyb6734]

Someone help me 😢

[@polarpanda454]

I hate that I can somewhat relate to this😢

[@fairygurl9269]

*Respect

[@Cloud777Strife]

I don't understand how to respond if the catastrophe actually happens? Are we meant to keep facing it until we can manage it?

[@fairygurl9269]

"Even If"

[@Cloud777Strife]

@@fairygurl9269 How does "even if" Or "maybe maybe not" help when catastrophe has happened or is happening right now etc? Do you just have to learn to manage coping with that?

[@fairygurl9269]

Know You Can Have & Will Manage Catastrophies On an As Needed Basis So As Not to Waste Life Worrying About Everything All the Dag On Time & Totally Miss Out On Doing The Living Part of Our Short LiL Life. RESOURCE: "Standing Outside the Fire" Garth Brooks

[@Cloud777Strife]

Hi! What should we do when the catastrophe is EXACTLY as we feared it would be? Does ERP still work?

[@dragorphis1]

Is it exactly 1:1 what you expected or did the “event” happen and yet the issues around it were not as critical as you thought they would be? I had this with the COVID pandemic, everyone told me it wouldn’t be a pandemic and my anxiety said it would AND that it would be life altering and horrible and my family would suffer… and yet yeah the pandemic happened but I actually had a nice summer at home with my family, so my anxiety was both “right” and yet so so wrong

[@Cloud777Strife]

@@dragorphis1 My exact fear happens each day - how do you cope when the catastrophe happens? How do you manage that?

[@dragorphis1]

@@Cloud777Strife I think the best thing for you to do is try and speak to either a specialist OCD therapist or at least someone you can trust so they can give you an outside perspective on your event, if the event cannot be stopped and it is as bad as you think it is, maybe your response to the event can be changed 🤔

[@heidighomi6489]

❤

[@LowV-o7x]

Information could be valuable, but it has so many interruptions and jokes, that it’a so hard to follow, especially while doing something else and leaves me frustrated…. But maybe it’s my ADD talking

[@fairygurl9269]

*Valley Gurl Voice 😋