Still think there is something else wrong with me

[Savy]

Last night I was watching a video about Canadian history and it brought up the statue built in honor of those who died in a war of something like that but my mind instantly went to saying stuff like "who cares if they died" and I felt good about it like some sort of psycho so I pondered about why we honor veterans to try and correct myself. This is the thing I hate about myself, I always question things humans should naturally understand and ruminate on it. Like why we love and care about others or what's wrong with murder/death. Was I just not hugged enough as a child? I swear I used to be so empathetic before, now I'm evil. What's worse is that I don't even have anxeity over this stuff anymore and my emotions are very dull now. This no anxiety thing has been going on for like 4 years now so it can't be a backdoor spike. I don't know what's wrong with me anymore. All I can think of is that I'm either a psychopath or I have some sort of exsitential harm OCD or a lack of morals. I used to obsess over yin and yang because it's about how you can't have good with bad and vise versa and I would have thoughts like "will maybe I should do bad so we can have good, obviously it's needed" and I would fight these thoughts, I don't think about it anymore but I definitely don't like the symbol anymore, not after OCD ruined it for me. I hate myself, it's like I don't know right from wrong anymore and the thoughts feel genuine. I don't even know how I got this way. One day I had major anxiety and was Afraid of going insnane and killing people and now it's like I don't care if someone dies. What is wrong with me? What do I do? Will I ever be able to love again? Please understand that I don't want to think like this, otherwise I wouldn't constantly try to fix myself mentally. I just want to be normal again.

[Phil]

Just my thoughts, but anyone who doesn't have those types of thoughts  at some time is, in my view, not human. Most, just pass them off, but it depends on a persons mood or stress, whether they are angry or other emotions we feel. Another hour, day etc you would probably think more empathically, but just because you think things like that doesn't mean you have no morals or goodness, its just fleeting thoughts we all have. Sometimes it makes us feel a bit better, that's life. it appears you are testing your morals, this is not helpful. Its not as if you wish someone harm and then go out of your way to action it. Its just human thinking. When you say you don't know right from wrong, if that was the case you would not be writing the post. Thinking something is NOT doing it. When we are in a low mood, we sometimes get apathetic (flat-affect), and a bit emotionally numb. its the brain just wanting to hunker down for a bit. And a way of reducing/ blocking out stressful/anxiety provoking stimuli. Another hour, day, week, etc, different mood and we are ok again.  What's the betting if you see a toddler accidently walking into a busy road you would react like your true self and try to save him/her. that the difference between thinking and doing. obviously therapy/medication is likely to help, but my humble suggestion is give yourself a break. What seems to be happening is that you are focusing on good and bad, and constantly testing yourself, instead of focusing on being human.  Our mood changes the emotion behind the thoughts. if i was in a positive mood and I had a fleeting thought that i don't care if someone would die or not, it wouldn't tag onto my negative emotional system and I probably wouldn't even recall it,  I'd say that we all have the thoughts similar to the thoughts you describe, sometimes, but we don't recall them because they are so transient. They are significant/meaningful to you because you are thinking overly about them and testing them mentally. but many would just pass them off as harmless.  Hope this helps a bit

Regards Phil

[PolarBear]

This could be about perception. You believe you should feel a certain way given a trigger or situation and when you don't, you believe there is something wrong with you.

Well, what if your initial belief is wrong? What if it's perfectly acceptable to not feel anything?

I for one would not get emotional hearing a story about war dead. What makes you think you should be any different?

That pondering you do, to show why you should care, is a compulsion.

[Cas24]

Hi Savvy,

I am also struggling with something similar I can really empathise with you. I also use to be incredibly sensitive and empathetic and I feel like I have lost it all. I don’t have much advice but I like to believe that we check our emotions so much it muddies the water and we can’t see our genuine emotions anymore.

my thoughts are with you x

[Savy]

It's nice to find people you can relate to, though my situation may be a little different. This all started with a fear of going insane and it felt real because I didn't know what anxiety was at the time so I felt like I was about to snap pretty much 24/7 and then something in my psyche snapped (or at least that what it felt like) and I was depressed. Yhis is when the exsitential questions started to pop up, "what's wrong with killing?" And "Why should I feel empathy?" I would ruminate on the question but I was also numb and apathetic. This is something I hate to admit the most because I know how it looks. It still confuses me how I went from being so anxious and never wanting to hurt a soul to think like that. Not only was I having these questions, but the urges got way worse at the time. They aren't as present now, thankfully but I had no idea that urges were an OCD thing at the time so I wasn't happy at all. I could go into a lot of detail about my early harm OCD experiences. Now the thing that bothers me is that I feel like I genuinely don't know the answers to these questions anymore. When we die, we feel the same way as before we were born and not feel anything so death isn't really a bad thing. So why does it matter? I understand it's sad if someone you have an emotional connection to dies but even then sometimes I get confused about why we love others too. My harm OCD past plays on these thoughts with "well if death doesn't matter than killing doesn't either, it's not like the person will miss their life cause they won't feel anything" and yeah, I've felt that way a lot BUT I DON'T WANT TO FEEL THIS WAY! I know it's messed up because I didn't grow up like this. That's why I constantly try to solve these exsitential questions. I ruminate over and over on these and I get so depressed and it's wven hard to function sometimes because I feel the need to just sit and think. I miss the way I was before all this stuff, I was actually doing great before covid came around but now it's like I was shot back to 2016 only with more rumination. When my anxeity forst vanished with my OCD, I actually felt like a part of me left and I missed it, I would much rather go through what I had back in the early stages of OCD no matter how distressing it was because at least I wasn't cold hearted.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Savy