This does sound OCD in that all the psychic energy is going into rationalizing doom slightly differently in the hopes that this time you’ll get some missing piece of insight that will change your feelings. Like I think we can accrue a sort of moral OCD that if too many people behavior as if p(doom)=low we must become the ascetic who doesn’t just believe it’s high but who has many mental rituals meant to enforce believing it’s high as many hours a day as possible.
ERP (exposure/response prevention) is gold standard for OCD, not ACT or DBT. I mean, there’s overlap, because ACT emphasizes cognitive defusion which is basically what ERP produces, and dialectics can be exposures to that thing you’re avoiding. And there’s a more OCD-treating way to do “radical acceptance,” it’s less like focusing on the truth of the unpleasant thing and “watch” the thoughts go by like “leaves on a stream.”
I think an exposure for you might be more “p(doom) is close to 0, I was mistaken”, and in rationalist-speak privately steelman this for 1-5 minutes, but also you know like a “butterfly thought,” where you don’t want to crush the butterfly. And just to emphasize this is a private exercise, if you “actually” believe p(doom) is 0 for 2 minutes, it’s really not going to hurt you. The more I make it a rationalist exercise the less it’s an ERP and the more it’s just more rationalization, but I feel I need to “steelman” just exiting the space of constant high focus on high p(doom) at all. An ERP might look like this example but a therapist might also try to keep it more “low key,” like pick an easy exposure to skill-build on, like if you’re afraid of everyone dying and also spiders, therapy might target spiders as just easier to practice with.
For me the ACT perspective is things I care about include: 1. job 2. family 3. doom. What I don’t include in this list is 4. figuring out the most important thing and only doing that. Yes it’s compartmentalizing and I haven’t endowed “doom” with any ability to leave its box and it’s actually still #3 not 1 or 2. I mean this is a work-in-progress for me too but this sort of enumerated-values approach has been materially helpful every day.
This does sound OCD in that all the psychic energy is going into rationalizing doom slightly differently in the hopes that this time you’ll get some missing piece of insight that will change your feelings. Like I think we can accrue a sort of moral OCD that if too many people behavior as if p(doom)=low we must become the ascetic who doesn’t just believe it’s high but who has many mental rituals meant to enforce believing it’s high as many hours a day as possible.
ERP (exposure/response prevention) is gold standard for OCD, not ACT or DBT. I mean, there’s overlap, because ACT emphasizes cognitive defusion which is basically what ERP produces, and dialectics can be exposures to that thing you’re avoiding. And there’s a more OCD-treating way to do “radical acceptance,” it’s less like focusing on the truth of the unpleasant thing and “watch” the thoughts go by like “leaves on a stream.”
I think an exposure for you might be more “p(doom) is close to 0, I was mistaken”, and in rationalist-speak privately steelman this for 1-5 minutes, but also you know like a “butterfly thought,” where you don’t want to crush the butterfly. And just to emphasize this is a private exercise, if you “actually” believe p(doom) is 0 for 2 minutes, it’s really not going to hurt you. The more I make it a rationalist exercise the less it’s an ERP and the more it’s just more rationalization, but I feel I need to “steelman” just exiting the space of constant high focus on high p(doom) at all. An ERP might look like this example but a therapist might also try to keep it more “low key,” like pick an easy exposure to skill-build on, like if you’re afraid of everyone dying and also spiders, therapy might target spiders as just easier to practice with.
For me the ACT perspective is things I care about include: 1. job 2. family 3. doom. What I don’t include in this list is 4. figuring out the most important thing and only doing that. Yes it’s compartmentalizing and I haven’t endowed “doom” with any ability to leave its box and it’s actually still #3 not 1 or 2. I mean this is a work-in-progress for me too but this sort of enumerated-values approach has been materially helpful every day.