Hi everybody,

I've had OCD for a long time, although only recently, professionally diagnosed. I have always done checking compulsions i.e., checking the stove is off multiple times before I leave my apartment ,making sure certain things are unplugged like my toaster, curling iron, electronics chargers, etc, checking that my car lights are off, door is locked, and on and on. I'd always just chalk it up as being a quirk, even though I knew it was OCD. Also, sometimes thoughts get stuck in my head aka intrusive thinking. In college, it was about driving off of a bridge that I had to drive over on my way to and from school. I wasn't suicidal, I just conjured up this vivid image of that happening, and it felt like I would somehow lose control of my body one day and impulsively careen myself into the lake below. I started having bad health anxiety after college. I'd go to the doctor all the time, seeking reassurance about everything from blood clots in my legs to worms in my poo... Recently I've had a bad phobia of bats and health anxiety about rabies.

I'm about to have surgery for the second time this year. I really think a lot of the current anxiety I'm having is a result of the first surgery not having gone quite right. This upcoming surgery is a revision of that one. Anyway, in this heightened state of anxiety and OCD I've been in since that first surgery, I had the thought, "What is I confess something incriminating/evil while going under anesthesia?" I learned about something called the Tarasoff exception that says if you give doctors a reason to believe you might harm yourself or others, they can tell authorities. I work with children who I absolutely adore. I have never and would never harm them, and I don't have any intrusive thoughts suggesting that has happened. I don't have false memories or intrusive thoughts about them, the intrusive thought is that I will say that I do in those moments right before I'm completely knocked out by the anesthesia, and not only will the doctors then have to report me to the police, but they will either not do the surgery properly (it's not cosmetic surgery, but there is a cosmetic aspect to it) and leave me deformed OR they'll let me die on the table because of the awful things I say and claim some complication happened. I really like my surgeon, and I think the thought of saying something abhorrent to him is what scares me the most. I know none of it is true. Again, the intrusive thought is that I will say that I've done something, not that I've done something.

Is there anybody else who suffers from OCD and intrusive thinking that has undergone surgery and had similar concerns? I'm going to talk to my therapist about it this week. I'm really wishing I was still obsessed with rabies at the moment. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!