Grateful for your post. It sounds like you are in significant amount of distress, and the fact that you reached out to discuss it is commendable.
You mentioned that your concerns are preventing you from sleeping and functioning normally. I am concerned about you and ask that you reach out to a counselor or psychiatrist if that is available to you. If not, I think reaching out to someone you trust and sharing your feelings is important.
When someone is not sleeping normally, emotions, fear, and reactivity can compete with one’s ability to think things through and function normally. The nervous system can becomes stuck in a short-circuited sympathetic overdrive, or “fight-or-flight” mode. This is the mode you would likely be in if you were being chased by a bear and running as fast as you could to get away. The chemicals released by your brain are likely preventing you from being able to sleep and contributing to more anxiety and fear.
I would also encourage you to reach out to others in your community. Are you involved in an EA group? If so, please reach out to group members for support. Share with them that you are not sleeping or functioning normally because of these thoughts. If you are not involved with an EA group, are there other community members that you can engage with?
Some other considerations might be meditation, guided imagery, exercise or yoga. I have found these very helpful in my own life, and there are plenty of free online resources available.
I think making a conscious effort to put aside concerns that are not directly related to your self-care might be the best thing you can do right now. There is only so much that any one of us can control. Not sleeping or functioning normally is an indicator that you need to focus your energy on your own well-being.
If you are worried that you will lose track of your concerns if you don’t address them all, you could keep your concerns written down somewhere. However, I would encourage you to try and avoid re-reading your concerns or spending a lot of time trying to think of concerns right now. Your own well-being is the most important thing that you have control over right now; focusing on this is the most important thing that you can do right now.
Again, I am very grateful that you reached out to share your feelings and concerns. That was brave. If you can see a psychologist or psychiatrist, I think they will be able to give you better, more tailored advice.
Thank you for your answer. In fact, I am already followed by a psychologist and a psychiatrist :-( The diagnosis is between obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I’m doing a CBT with the psychologist and the psychiatrist is managing an antidepressant treatment that should help me decrease my obsessive thoughts.
The psychologist has advised me to think about these topics for one or two hours a week at a scheduled time. Apparently, this can help deal with the obsession. The psychiatrist thought it was also a good idea for me to find a philosopher to talk about these topics, but I haven’t really found anyone whose work relates to my concerns. I live in Belgium and speak French. My English is not good enough to talk orally about these topics with an English speaker.
I have talked to my relatives about this issue but they don’t really have satisfactory answers to my questions. I feel that these questions are too difficult to answer like this.
I regularly write down my questions, I already have about 40 in 3 weeks :’( I also compulsively stored articles about Pascal’s wager, fanaticism, etc. But I confess that I am confused and I don’t know where to start. Thinking about my well-being seems to be the right solution for the moment but it’s difficult. I feel like a selfish person. The questions keep coming up with every decision. I hesitate every morning to take my medication because I sometimes think that if I get better, I will stop thinking about these important issues. I don’t trust any of my reasoning anymore. I have a little voice in my head that keeps taunting me and telling me that I am being irrational.
I’m not even sure why I posted this yesterday. Maybe it was an act of desperation.
Thanks for your answer. I will try to follow your advice as best I can :-)
I’m relieved to hear that you have the self-insight and wisdom required to seek help and I am still concerned about you.
What I think I have heard you say is that you’re in treatment for OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, have been prescribed an antidepressant to decrease obsessive thoughts, and have been feeling tormented and experiencing psychological distress for 3-4 weeks due to preoccupation with certain worries related to major concepts like right vs. wrong, your own potential role in influencing whether people to Hell, and fanaticism. I think you’ve discussed these issues with family members but not felt that responses were satisfactory. I also heard you express a sentiment that when you think about a need to focus on your well-being you feel selfish, that you are struggling with trusting your own reasoning, that on a daily basis, you consider not taking your medication due to fear that you will stop thinking about these important issues, and that you have a voice in your head taunting you or telling you that you are being irrational. Is that right?
That sounds incredibly painful and I am so incredible sorry you are experiencing this. From my past experiences working with individuals struggling with OCD, anxiety, and other ailments and from hearing you describe your current situation, I imagine contending with the concepts you feel preoccupied by may be exacerbating your struggles.
I wish I could be more helpful than just giving you informal advice over the internet, but unfortunately, this is the situation. And the best informal advice I can give is as follows:
Next, please reach out to your psychiatrist today. If you have not shared the information you posted here in both your original and your subsequent post with your psychiatrist recently or in such plain terms, please do. If you are uncomfortable with directly sharing the posts or verbalizing the information, feel free to share my attempt at surmising what you’ve shared at the top of this message, assuming it accurately reflects your experience. I am concerned about you and am reasonably confident that a psychiatrist would:
a) Re-evaluate their recommendations and potentially revise your treatment plan
and/or
b) Review the medication you are on, specifically: i) whether it is necessary to take it consistently every day (as is the case with many antidepressants, e.g. many SSRI , SNRIs can lead to adverse symptoms if taken inconsistently or if abruptly stopped); ii) the amount of time typically required before the medication begins to work iii) evaluate whether you might be experiencing an adverse response, as occasionally happens and in which case there is likely a better alternative more suitable to you ( in which case it still may be dangerous to abruptly stop the medication you are currently taking, but your psychiatrist should advise you on anything related to taking or stopping medication).
To reiterate, if you decide to take this informal advice, I would ask you to first reaching out to a call center if you are having thoughts about hurting yourself or others https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ and next call your psychiatrist’s office to set up an appointment, conveying the level of urgency you express in your posts. If the offices are closed today, I would encourage you to leave a voicemail if you can and send a secure message, expressing that you are struggling and need to be seen. In either case, I think printing out your posts and bringing them to a visit (if in-person), or attaching them via secure messaging will likely result in a higher level of care and lead to the best outcome.
At this moment, the best outcome, both for you and for everyone you might be able to help eventually, is for you to get back to a place where you are sleeping and functioning normally. Without that, your brain can’t really contend with these important issues you mention without short circuiting, which sounds to me like what you are describing. Taking care of you is not selfish, and it sounds like it is pretty necessary right now.
You have perfectly summarized my state of mind. For now, my problem with medication is not so strong. I have returned to live with my parents and my partner is with me. They make sure I take my medication every morning.
I have noted the link you sent me in case of suicidal thoughts.
Unfortunately, I don’t have my psychiatrist’s email address because I got the appointments with him through the emergency room. But I can easily access the psychiatric emergency room of a hospital near my home in case of problems.
I did send the link of this discussion to my psychologist that I saw yesterday. He is also very concerned about the situation and I am considering hospitalization with him. On the other hand, since one of my compulsions is to search on the internet for resources related to my questions. He strongly advised me not to do it anymore. I have asked my family to take away my phone and computer except under their supervision. So I may not be able to go on the internet anymore or hardly at all in the next few days.
He also took seriously the risk of suicidal thoughts. But I think the risk is low for the time being. Until yesterday, I was still going to my job. I am a high school math teacher. I called in sick today because my classes were getting messy and I can’t grade tests at home. But I have not had any risky behavior in class. Just a lot of fatigue and a lot of math mistakes. Fortunately, my students are good and they were correcting me :p
I am so glad to hear that you took some very important steps and are treating your own well-being as the priority that it is. I think you are making wise decisions in taking steps to actively avoid feeding the obsessive-compulsive cycle.
Informal non-medical advice that I’d ask you to consider:
If you cannot see a psychiatrist, reach out to a primary care doctor and share what you’ve shared, with added information about what medication(s) you are on, their dosages, and how long you have been on them. Different medications affect people differently, and it’s import to ensure you are on one that is likely to help you. Rare adverse reactions being rare, they still do occur, and unless you’ve been stable on the same medication for several months, a physician should oversee your care and rule out the possibility that you are experiencing an adverse reaction.
Also, the physician can tell you more about what to expect and whether the drug should be working at this point if you tell them how long you have been consistently taking the drug as prescribed. If you’ve been on it for a while and things are getting worse, the doctor might consider a different medication and/or treatment plan.
I’m so sorry to hear that your going through this. I am really glad that you have family and a partner to support you, and that you have wisdom to know that you need their support right now. Way to go.
Thanks for your answers :-) I’ve gone a week without doing compulsive research on the issues that bother me. It was a hard effort but I am already much better. I am able to read again, spend a pleasant evening with friends, talk about unimportant subjects such as video games and most importantly, I am sleeping well again.
Thank you for paying attention to my concerns. My condition has improved greatly. I was able to return to work and a normal life. The work with the psychologist was very beneficial.
I will keep these moral questions in a corner of my mind if I ever feel like thinking about them calmly one day.
Thank you again for your advice and for taking my well-being seriously!
I imagine your choice to prioritize your own self care here directly benefited not only you and your loved ones, but also your students. Being a positive role model & good teacher for high school students while one’s sympathetic nervous system is short-circuiting for a duration sounds pretty impossible to me.
I think taking care of yourself had a counterfactual positive impact, that prioritizing your own well-being was the best thing you could have done here, and that continuing to prioritize your own health will serve everyone.
I envision behavior rippling outward, permeating social circles and beyond like waves. Being self-aware and intentional can amplify our waves of impact, helping us shape them so that they are cogent, cohesive, cumulative....constructive. Constructive interference is the metaphor I’m looking for, I think. If you continue being mindful and caring for your well-being, you can be a positive, high impact force just by being a caring person and a good teacher to your students.
Thank you for having the wisdom and courage to reach out, for being so receptive to advice and following up with your psychologist, and for letting us know that you are okay.
Hi,
Grateful for your post. It sounds like you are in significant amount of distress, and the fact that you reached out to discuss it is commendable.
You mentioned that your concerns are preventing you from sleeping and functioning normally. I am concerned about you and ask that you reach out to a counselor or psychiatrist if that is available to you. If not, I think reaching out to someone you trust and sharing your feelings is important.
When someone is not sleeping normally, emotions, fear, and reactivity can compete with one’s ability to think things through and function normally. The nervous system can becomes stuck in a short-circuited sympathetic overdrive, or “fight-or-flight” mode. This is the mode you would likely be in if you were being chased by a bear and running as fast as you could to get away. The chemicals released by your brain are likely preventing you from being able to sleep and contributing to more anxiety and fear.
I would also encourage you to reach out to others in your community. Are you involved in an EA group? If so, please reach out to group members for support. Share with them that you are not sleeping or functioning normally because of these thoughts. If you are not involved with an EA group, are there other community members that you can engage with?
Some other considerations might be meditation, guided imagery, exercise or yoga. I have found these very helpful in my own life, and there are plenty of free online resources available.
I think making a conscious effort to put aside concerns that are not directly related to your self-care might be the best thing you can do right now. There is only so much that any one of us can control. Not sleeping or functioning normally is an indicator that you need to focus your energy on your own well-being.
If you are worried that you will lose track of your concerns if you don’t address them all, you could keep your concerns written down somewhere. However, I would encourage you to try and avoid re-reading your concerns or spending a lot of time trying to think of concerns right now. Your own well-being is the most important thing that you have control over right now; focusing on this is the most important thing that you can do right now.
Again, I am very grateful that you reached out to share your feelings and concerns. That was brave. If you can see a psychologist or psychiatrist, I think they will be able to give you better, more tailored advice.
Wishing you the best.
Thank you for your answer.
In fact, I am already followed by a psychologist and a psychiatrist :-(
The diagnosis is between obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
I’m doing a CBT with the psychologist and the psychiatrist is managing an antidepressant treatment that should help me decrease my obsessive thoughts.
The psychologist has advised me to think about these topics for one or two hours a week at a scheduled time. Apparently, this can help deal with the obsession. The psychiatrist thought it was also a good idea for me to find a philosopher to talk about these topics, but I haven’t really found anyone whose work relates to my concerns. I live in Belgium and speak French. My English is not good enough to talk orally about these topics with an English speaker.
I have talked to my relatives about this issue but they don’t really have satisfactory answers to my questions. I feel that these questions are too difficult to answer like this.
I regularly write down my questions, I already have about 40 in 3 weeks :’(
I also compulsively stored articles about Pascal’s wager, fanaticism, etc. But I confess that I am confused and I don’t know where to start. Thinking about my well-being seems to be the right solution for the moment but it’s difficult. I feel like a selfish person. The questions keep coming up with every decision. I hesitate every morning to take my medication because I sometimes think that if I get better, I will stop thinking about these important issues. I don’t trust any of my reasoning anymore. I have a little voice in my head that keeps taunting me and telling me that I am being irrational.
I’m not even sure why I posted this yesterday. Maybe it was an act of desperation.
Thanks for your answer. I will try to follow your advice as best I can :-)
I’m relieved to hear that you have the self-insight and wisdom required to seek help and I am still concerned about you.
What I think I have heard you say is that you’re in treatment for OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, have been prescribed an antidepressant to decrease obsessive thoughts, and have been feeling tormented and experiencing psychological distress for 3-4 weeks due to preoccupation with certain worries related to major concepts like right vs. wrong, your own potential role in influencing whether people to Hell, and fanaticism. I think you’ve discussed these issues with family members but not felt that responses were satisfactory. I also heard you express a sentiment that when you think about a need to focus on your well-being you feel selfish, that you are struggling with trusting your own reasoning, that on a daily basis, you consider not taking your medication due to fear that you will stop thinking about these important issues, and that you have a voice in your head taunting you or telling you that you are being irrational. Is that right?
That sounds incredibly painful and I am so incredible sorry you are experiencing this. From my past experiences working with individuals struggling with OCD, anxiety, and other ailments and from hearing you describe your current situation, I imagine contending with the concepts you feel preoccupied by may be exacerbating your struggles.
I wish I could be more helpful than just giving you informal advice over the internet, but unfortunately, this is the situation. And the best informal advice I can give is as follows:
First and foremost, if you are having thoughts of harming yourself or others, please look at this resource and contact a helpline here: https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Next, please reach out to your psychiatrist today. If you have not shared the information you posted here in both your original and your subsequent post with your psychiatrist recently or in such plain terms, please do. If you are uncomfortable with directly sharing the posts or verbalizing the information, feel free to share my attempt at surmising what you’ve shared at the top of this message, assuming it accurately reflects your experience. I am concerned about you and am reasonably confident that a psychiatrist would:
a) Re-evaluate their recommendations and potentially revise your treatment plan
and/or
b) Review the medication you are on, specifically: i) whether it is necessary to take it consistently every day (as is the case with many antidepressants, e.g. many SSRI , SNRIs can lead to adverse symptoms if taken inconsistently or if abruptly stopped); ii) the amount of time typically required before the medication begins to work iii) evaluate whether you might be experiencing an adverse response, as occasionally happens and in which case there is likely a better alternative more suitable to you ( in which case it still may be dangerous to abruptly stop the medication you are currently taking, but your psychiatrist should advise you on anything related to taking or stopping medication).
To reiterate, if you decide to take this informal advice, I would ask you to first reaching out to a call center if you are having thoughts about hurting yourself or others https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/ and next call your psychiatrist’s office to set up an appointment, conveying the level of urgency you express in your posts. If the offices are closed today, I would encourage you to leave a voicemail if you can and send a secure message, expressing that you are struggling and need to be seen. In either case, I think printing out your posts and bringing them to a visit (if in-person), or attaching them via secure messaging will likely result in a higher level of care and lead to the best outcome.
At this moment, the best outcome, both for you and for everyone you might be able to help eventually, is for you to get back to a place where you are sleeping and functioning normally. Without that, your brain can’t really contend with these important issues you mention without short circuiting, which sounds to me like what you are describing. Taking care of you is not selfish, and it sounds like it is pretty necessary right now.
Please consider.
Thanks again for reaching out.
Hello,
You have perfectly summarized my state of mind. For now, my problem with medication is not so strong. I have returned to live with my parents and my partner is with me. They make sure I take my medication every morning.
I have noted the link you sent me in case of suicidal thoughts.
Unfortunately, I don’t have my psychiatrist’s email address because I got the appointments with him through the emergency room. But I can easily access the psychiatric emergency room of a hospital near my home in case of problems.
I did send the link of this discussion to my psychologist that I saw yesterday. He is also very concerned about the situation and I am considering hospitalization with him. On the other hand, since one of my compulsions is to search on the internet for resources related to my questions. He strongly advised me not to do it anymore. I have asked my family to take away my phone and computer except under their supervision. So I may not be able to go on the internet anymore or hardly at all in the next few days.
He also took seriously the risk of suicidal thoughts. But I think the risk is low for the time being. Until yesterday, I was still going to my job. I am a high school math teacher. I called in sick today because my classes were getting messy and I can’t grade tests at home. But I have not had any risky behavior in class. Just a lot of fatigue and a lot of math mistakes. Fortunately, my students are good and they were correcting me :p
Thanks for your time :-)
Hello,
I am so glad to hear that you took some very important steps and are treating your own well-being as the priority that it is. I think you are making wise decisions in taking steps to actively avoid feeding the obsessive-compulsive cycle.
I am glad you made note of the link to connect you with someone in the event of suicidal ideation ( https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/).
Informal non-medical advice that I’d ask you to consider:
If you cannot see a psychiatrist, reach out to a primary care doctor and share what you’ve shared, with added information about what medication(s) you are on, their dosages, and how long you have been on them. Different medications affect people differently, and it’s import to ensure you are on one that is likely to help you. Rare adverse reactions being rare, they still do occur, and unless you’ve been stable on the same medication for several months, a physician should oversee your care and rule out the possibility that you are experiencing an adverse reaction.
Also, the physician can tell you more about what to expect and whether the drug should be working at this point if you tell them how long you have been consistently taking the drug as prescribed. If you’ve been on it for a while and things are getting worse, the doctor might consider a different medication and/or treatment plan.
I’m so sorry to hear that your going through this. I am really glad that you have family and a partner to support you, and that you have wisdom to know that you need their support right now. Way to go.
Wishing you the best.
Hello,
Thanks for your answers :-)
I’ve gone a week without doing compulsive research on the issues that bother me. It was a hard effort but I am already much better. I am able to read again, spend a pleasant evening with friends, talk about unimportant subjects such as video games and most importantly, I am sleeping well again.
I continue my efforts :-)
Have a nice day!
Great work and thanks for letting us know that you are doing better. I am very happy to hear this.
Please continue to take care of yourself!
Hello,
Thank you for paying attention to my concerns. My condition has improved greatly. I was able to return to work and a normal life. The work with the psychologist was very beneficial.
I will keep these moral questions in a corner of my mind if I ever feel like thinking about them calmly one day.
Thank you again for your advice and for taking my well-being seriously!
I am extremely relieved to hear this.
I imagine your choice to prioritize your own self care here directly benefited not only you and your loved ones, but also your students. Being a positive role model & good teacher for high school students while one’s sympathetic nervous system is short-circuiting for a duration sounds pretty impossible to me.
I think taking care of yourself had a counterfactual positive impact, that prioritizing your own well-being was the best thing you could have done here, and that continuing to prioritize your own health will serve everyone.
I envision behavior rippling outward, permeating social circles and beyond like waves. Being self-aware and intentional can amplify our waves of impact, helping us shape them so that they are cogent, cohesive, cumulative....constructive. Constructive interference is the metaphor I’m looking for, I think. If you continue being mindful and caring for your well-being, you can be a positive, high impact force just by being a caring person and a good teacher to your students.
Thank you for having the wisdom and courage to reach out, for being so receptive to advice and following up with your psychologist, and for letting us know that you are okay.
💚💚💚