u/awildsardino

At the moment my existential ocd has come back full power out of the blue. I am doing my very best with ERP but the PAIN is so bad. I'm not even sure if it's OCD or if I'm just having some kind of existential dread at this point.

I keep feeling so so lonely, getting awful intrusive thoughts about dying, everything I do is through this dark filter of pain. Like today I met with a Dr and was like 'we're just animals on a rock that made up the concept of the title 'Dr'', or it'll be like 'oh everything is just a social construct and pointless and meaningless'.

The worst part isn't even these facts, it's the fact they come with a constant feeling of emptiness and numbness and pure dread. I keep thinking about the idea of there being 'nothing'. When I look at big crowds I see everyone who has their own lives and perspectives and it drives me into derealization. I can't stop crying when I speak to my parents who are older. When I look at any childhood item/think of any memory, I'm inconsolable. I feel like I don't know who I am.

For some reason thinking about the fact animals see different/fewer colours to us also makes me spiral????

I have gone through this before when I was about 14 and I did massive avoidance and rumination, which I'm trying to not do this time, but it really feels impossible when you're in the middle of it. And it feels crazy once you're out of it.

Writing it out helps massively, I also kind of just need some virtual hugs, so if you can provide that I'd be so grateful.

I think I've always felt like this, being constantly ostracised from groups and unable to maintain friendships, but it's got so much worse as I've got older, to the point it's almost unbearable.

I relied on my parents as a safety net a lot as a teen and basically only socialised with them or with others at school, but as an adult there's not the same consistency with seeing people a similar age to me everyday, my colleagues are all online/not interested anyway. The pressure at work makes interactions really hard too, compared to school when you're kind of just there to learn.

Moving to a new city to work, living alone, no friends, it's so lonely. Recently all of the things going on in the world make me feel so much more lonely and afraid too, and there's no buffer/support for me to bounce off except my parents who have quite different views to me or my sister in a different city who is much older than me and has her own stuff going on.

The thing is, I am extremely solitary and like it that way, so it sounds like a contradiction. I wish there was more of a community feel where I could engage but not get overwhelmed. Even when I'm socialising with people who seem to like me I feel like I'm not me, like my identity is sort of...faded.

I'm generally such an anxious person and I'm resorting to the fact I might have to move back to my parents in order to even survive this world, but I can't do that forever. I just hide in my comfort shows/special interests but it's not really sustainable, I try and live my life to the fullest but even when I try I just feel lonely and kind of, numb? Like I don't really want to be doing whatever I'm doing and want to go home.

I also see a lot of people on here talking about how they have their partners, which would be great, but I'm demisexual/on the asexual spectrum, which on top of being autistic and introverted (so I'd want to have my own space/be alone a LOT, ideally separate rooms or even houses), this also seems unlikely.

This is obviously a generalisation, but I'm talking about the more 'networking' social conversations, like at an informal social/club meetup where you don't already know most of the people there.

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People seem to keep to one topic for a very limited period of time, whereas when I'm with other autistic people we generally stick to one topic and tangent on it.

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This results in looots of awkward silence where there's no obvious topic/question for me to initiate, meaning I almost never initiate part of the conversation. It also means I come off as very blunt and shallow, as when asked a broad topic (e.g. 'what have you been up to in the past few months?' I simply cannot gather info, or accidently bring up something that's a little unrelated but that's flagged in my brain as a connection. I might even seem pessimistic as I give my broad opinion (which is often cynical).

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For example someone mentioned they were expecting a baby and the conversation turned to names for like 30 seconds - 1 minute. And that was it. And then clothes for another minute or so, then something unrelated, so on and so forth. I couldn't keep up. I've had similar conversations with ND people and I know for a fact we would have started making lists (not seriously, just for fun), googling, reading about etymology, pulling out old books our parents used, talking about possible acronyms of first-middle-last names.

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As a whole, conversations seem shallow and broad. Is this what the trait of 'liking intense conversation' means? I always thought that meant liking philosophical topics...

I've been doing some online assessments/interview things for jobs and some of the questions baffle me.

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E.g. 'Move the slider to show how excited change makes you feel'; 'how confident are you throwing yourself into a new task without all the necessary information?'; 'how much joy do you get from chatting with customers'

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As an autistic person it almost feel wrong to lie, but the statements are obviously so contradictory to what I feel (and what they want).

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The situation based questions also KILL me, like how do you expect me to pick one option, when it highly depends on 50 things you haven't clarified?! what if I'd do 2 options in succession?!

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It drives me mad and I can only hope and pray that I get lucky and somehow answer 'correctly'.

so for context I've been so stressed recently at work with deadline after deadline, and for personal reasons too. When I get stressed I lose my ability to mask.

Fast forward to today I had SO many meetings with people I've never met, and I mostly just have to sit in the corner of Teams while my colleagues/managers speak. But today I've had to contribute a lot, on the spot. I can't script it all because there's so many one after the other.

Example: suddenly hey (my name) can you give a brief introduction of yourself? I COMPLETELY freeze up, I don't know what they want to know or where to even start. I give some spiel about my job and hobbies and everyone stares at me weirdly. Likewise with general project related questions, i dont have time to collate info in my brain quick enough and end up sounding inexperienced and panicked.

I was also stimming a lot off camera and my voice was being regulated weirdly, I couldn't tone it properly. I wait for gaps to express opinion, but my processing is slow, so I end up being silent. Everyone else gets involved. At the end of the meeting I get it wrong and say 'thank you, bye!!' and leave after they indictated ending the meeting... realising moments later I'd fully interrupted someone by accident and left too early...

My manager was obviously not pleased with me, as this was an important client.

I just feel like in social situations that are more than 1-1 I am NOT me, i lose my sense of identity. And I've had people say I am so different over chat vs calls or in person. I completely lose myself and get so overwhelmed, freezing up, acting awkward.

That's not the impression I want people to have of me. I constantly feel hopeless at work, I can never handle all the work without getting burnt out, I can't handle the socialising, I can NOT do public speaking which instantly takes all management roles away from me, i always feel like im running to catch up despite being good at certain parts of my job, and having a lot of knowledge.

I don't mean to be defeatist, because I continue to expose myself to these situations and try, but it always ends in catastrophe. If I don't script and mask well, it results in a bad situation. People keep saying it's 'just' anxiety, so I expose myself without scripting/planning, and I feel calm, and then BAM I simply cannot answer questions, understand what's expected from me or form a thought. Hence the anxiety.

I have to train people in groups next week, and I really do not want to go back and do that... I'd much rather do a detailed, written, step by step, and then do hands on training with them. But having them watch me while I explain is just....no.

If everything could be done by a chat function my existence would be so much happier.

I've realised how my ocd over the years has combined into this one kind of pure-o. No matter the specific obsession or topic it's like I need to understand all possible avenues or reasons for things in order to be thorough enough or 'right'. Like not being able to accept I won't be able to be skilled at all skills, or knowleagble about all things makes me panic for some reason.

A recent example is I've been studying psychology for fun. This has turned into me psycho-analysing everything everyone does, including myself, from all theories I have learnt about. It's like I'm constantly trying to figure out the most 'perfect' way to live or something, or just understand the reason behind things and all the ways in could be perceived by all sorts of people. Or trying to ensure my behaviours are aligned with all scientific theories of what's an empathetic, consistent and correct way to behave. It makes me analyse linguistics, philosophy, social constructs, all of the wishy washy, existential things.

It's like the most evolved pokemon of control, perfectionism and certainty and results in repeating events, being unable to enjoy learning anything, losing my identity, becoming meta about ocd itself, the list goes on... Traditional therapy can be a nightmare because they say 'identify the cognitive distortion, do this exercise, do this worksheet' and my ocd takes that to HEART lol.

The worst part is it tells me sometimes that other people don't experience these ruminations and therefore they must be wrong. As if I'm privvy to some kind of specialist information, but all it does it torture me 😆 I am also autistic, which contributes!

my way of communicating is either 1. silence, doing something side by side 2. making funny comments about our environment/random anecdotes triggered by something in the environment or 3. extremely deep and highly focused conversations, often academic.

I recently broke off a friendship and they were confused, because '"friendships don't need things in common". But sitting in a bar while I drink a coke (I don't drink alcohol much) and just 'hanging out' is genuinely the most boring, mind numbing, torturous thing in the world for me. And it seems pointless. We didn't want to go see the same movies, or do the same things, or talk about any similar topics other than just 'life'.

I feel like an awful person because honestly, I just don't care about hearing about people's jobs, their work, what they've been up to. And i dont expect you to care about my life either, and hoenstly I dont think they do because they dont ask about it.

Unless we're very very close and then we can both infodump (i have one friend like this, we see each other about 4 times a year, thats it). When it's expected every week and I'm expected to perform and ask the right questions it doesn't work.

I like doing chores with people, helping them with stuff, or doing specific activities like baking or going to an aquarium or crafting. It's like parallel play lol.

I end up isolating myself because I hurt people, but I'm also lonely. The only people I can do the above things with are naturally my best friend who is exactly like me, my parents or my older sister. Where I can just be silent and observe and vibe and conversation isn't expected.

I'm tired and bored and frustrated :( I just would rather do everything alone than with people because I'm so exhausted. My Dr/ therapists in the past have always said to join walking groups or craft groups, but I don't WANT to do those things with other people most of the time because they expect constant talking. My solo walks are for me to be mindful, my crafts are for music and snacks and me, unless someone wants to also be silent and do these with me, which id love. It's an impossible situation.

I always need my entire evenings after working to recover (even if just working from home), and maybe do some chores if I can. Even with 5 eves a week alone, I still need weekend time to properly regulate and prevent getting overwhelmed, and to catch up with chores etc so my flat/me isn't a complete mess. I always feel like I'm running to catch up despite doing the bare minimum.

I like doing classes like dance classes, but it simply floors me for days if I go to them in the eves, and none run on the weekend. Likewise with any group of friends (which I admit I'm not particularly interested in having) they would meet on evenings, and because I never went along regularly enough I wasn't classed as a close enough friend for eg birthday parties or other stuff.

I hate talking over stuff with people because I realise how much I struggle compared to them. A recent example: I was talking about career pathways with someone. She was saying to just 'put up with' a job that had an awful commute into the city, long hours etc for a few years for the CV experience. If I did that it would destroy me in 2 weeks. And then people say I'm being lazy and overdramatic 🫠 ....

It makes working harder too, and me more prone to depression, beacuse my entire life is just earning money to recover from earning said money. If I could go out and enjoy it in the evenings by doing ANYTHING it would feel less like wasting my life.

I'm trying to get a job I somewhat like so I can create meaning through that, but it isn't exactly easy considering my tolerance for, well, everything.

As the title says, my controls are so frustrating when getting my animals out of the barn, but getting them back in they are fine! Is this a common occurrence? Any ideas of how to fix it? It takes me WAY too long each morning