ConfusedBoy18

Why would I want to suggest people with OCD are different when I suffer with OCD myself? My aim is to show people that OCD is a widely misunderstood mental health condition and to try and change people's perspectives.

Hello, Hope all is well with everyone. I am a photographer from Hertfordshire and I'm looking for people with OCD to take part in a photographic project. I'm looking to take a few portraits and interview people. I'd like to get a varied mix of people of different ages, ethnicities, sexes, etc. If you would be interested please send me a private message and we shall go from there. My intention is to present a valid portrait of what OCD is, as a sufferer myself - not to exploit anyone.

I found out my uncle has liver cancer yesterday. Now I cannot stop thinking about it. My mind wont stop thinking about death and the futility of life - it's as if he has died already. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this?

I'm starting to think I might have ADHD or ADD. I have terrible difficulty concentrating and am always giving up on things easily like dropping out of college courses. I always thought I was just lazy or it was just a side effect of my depression but I seem to have a lot of the symptoms that relate to ADHD/ADD. Do any of you also suffer from these conditions?

I have but it's so much hassle getting it sorted. I think about it pretty much all the time at the moment.

Hey guys, Been a while since I posted on here. Last few months haven't been great. I've been obsessing over death. I just wanted to know if anyone else has had similar thoughts/obsessions or whether this isn't related to my OCD. I literally can't stop thinking about death. Not just my death but death in itself. Every time I hear of somebody dying or for instance read a book by a dead author or watch a film by a dead director I start imagining them (or their skull and bones) lying in their coffin. I've even started to worry about my parents dying and all I can think about is their flesh rotting. As I've said on a post on here before death isn't something that ever really bothered me but I just can't get over this. I start to think about my death and the same old questions "what's the point in doing anything if I'm just going to die" come up. I want to move past this but I just don't know how.

I'm not even sure if this is OCD though or whether I have just discovered a truth. There is no answer to why I should continue living. I'm not obliged to. Everything just seems so futile around me.

I was just typing in philosophy on Google and I have come across many articles on "philosophical pessimism" and how we should rationally be pessimists as the fate of the universe is dim and entropy is the answer. As optimists we are just deluding ourselves and not seeing the bigger picture. Then I came across a group of people called antinatalist who believe it is immoral to have children and we should rationally exterminate our species. Thing is I can't think of any valid arguments against these people and I kind of think my horror reaction against these theories just proves they are right and that I can't deal with them. Sorry for the rant.

For the past couple of weeks I have been obsessed with the apparent meaninglessness of existence. I've had these thoughts many times in the past but they are so strong at the moment - they have taken over my life. I don't believe life hold's any inherent value or meaning or purpose. I am an atheist so I do not believe in a "higher power". I can't seem to escape the idea that everything I do is valueless and I'm just living because I'm programmed to do so by evolution. This stuff doesn't usually bother me but it does at the moment. I came across a book by Ernest Becker called The Denial of Death in which he theorised that human beings cannot deal with the fact that the universe is meaningless so we ignore the fact in various different ways. We create the illusion of immortality through art, literature, science, etc. What is the point in doing anything if my life will one day end and even worse - the universe will one day end.

Thought so. well, Susan is a neuroscientist so she aims at understanding human phenomena on the biological/psychological level. We have no proof of any afterlife (of any kind) so we have to go with that and work from that.

Care to expand? Also, as far as I am aware she practices Buddhism, or a form of Buddhism.

No, I've read a couple of her books.

Your post reminded me of Susan Blackmore's "The Self Illusion". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb_0dCgVnFI

Thank you all for your replies. I am still feeling depressed but I'm a little more certain these thoughts are a product of my OCD and depression now rather than a consequence of my atheistic worldview. I just have to wait and see when the subside.

I've been through this a few times before. I'm not sure whether it's an inevitable consequence of my atheism or depression. I would disagree, I do not think a scientific mindset is compatible with a belief in a god. They are antithetic of each other. Science relies on evidence and that alone. I won't go on now though.