1. Believing that you’ll suddenly develop a life threatening allergy out of nowhere. I used to fear suddenly becoming allergic to foods I had eaten many times and I was always afraid to try ANYTHING new. My anxiety and fear was so intense that I’d actually experience symptoms after taking a new supplement or trying a new food, and then I’d think this was a reaction, but it was all due to anxiety. Do keep this in mind when trying anything new.
2. You may have intrusive death thoughts and find yourself obsessing over death. Imagining yourself no longer existing and starting to panic. This fear often extends to family and people you care about the most and you may find yourself obsessing over their death. If they go away somewhere an intrusive thought may pop in like “You’re never going to see them again!”
3. Death anxiety OCD is no joke. I used to take a greyhound bus to visit my family who live a few hours away and one time a random intrusive thought popped in that went “if your bus is at terminal 7 then it’s going to crash!” My stomach dropped and I felt sick and guess what? My bus was at terminal 7! I still took it because the logical part told me its okay and I was too embarrassed to admit my thoughts but I was on edge the entire ride. I also had experienced intrusive thoughts similar to this before and all had been okay so I knew it was anxiety. Didn’t mean I wasn’t still terrified though.
4. Feeling okay, only to see a video talking about how “this symptom actually turned out to be this serious thing” and immediately thinking you were meant to see it and it’s a sign or omen. Every single normal body sensation or mild symptom becomes something incredibly ominous when ocd takes over. It’s so hard living this way, because you feel embarrassed to talk about it yet the fear is such a prominent part of your life and you genuinely can’t help it.
5. You may fear that your happy moments are your last or your brain may even do what mine has done before.. throw a random day/date at you, telling you that it will be your last and you think you’re psychic because it seems too specific. This is exactly what death anxiety ocd does though. Also, gad can cause a feeling of constant anticipation in your gut. This feeling along with the intrusive thoughts may torture you and you aren’t sure if you should trust it or not.
6. I’d get constant intrusive thoughts that I was dying and that it was yet to be detected by a doctor. Even if I was told I was fine I’d think the doctor must be missing something and would still obsess. I’d wonder how much time had left and whether or not I was still going to be around the following year.
7. You may push on your lymph nodes or on parts of your body that you think feel bigger or swollen and you may do it over and over. I would obsessively check my lymph nodes by pushing on them and I’d do this over and over and over. I’d check moles and analyze each side of my body and spend all day stuck in these obsessive thinking patterns that I’d feel in my stomach as a knot of intense dread.
8. Something else I also dealt with was harm ocd, something I would not wish on anyone. I can’t even put into words the horror and disgust I felt due to harm ocd thoughts. At my lowest point depression kinda took over and all wanted to do was sleep. I’d get thoughts like “Maybe I should just accept that I am dying” and I wouldn’t want to do anything.

I talk more about my experience with harm ocd, as well as everything I shared here in this blog post including even more ways intrusive thoughts/ocd showed up for me.

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