Worried about ruining my life?

[julia241977]

Tbh I'm not sure if this should be in the OCD or panic attack forum, bear with me. Maybe I'm the only person who experiences this, but on the handful of times I've had panic attacks, it's always because I feel afraid of somehow ruining my life.

It's almost always brought on by the fear that something I did was immoral or illegal, or the worry that I would do something like that in the future (I've irrationally convinced myself I've committed serious crimes a number of times by now). Or it's about, say, making a mistake while driving and getting into a car accident and spending the rest of my life severely injured/paralyzed. Maybe it's bc I'm young and starting to really enter adulthood/have real responsibilities, but I'm just so scared that I'm going to accidentally ruin my life by making some stupid decision, or that I've already made the stupid, life-ruining decision and it's only a matter of time before the consequences catch up to me.

Does anyone else experience this, or something like this? How do you stop worrying?

[Sparkle1984]

Yes, I can relate to this. In fact, my current anxiety episode started about 6 weeks ago when I read some stories online about people who had lost their jobs, and then I started to ruminate over mistakes I'd made several years ago, even though they'd had no long-term consequences at the time. I kept thinking "what if" things had turned out worse and I'd ended up losing my job or destroying my reputation and then being unable to find a new job. I also sometimes ruminate about other near-misses, such as incidents where I crossed the road and didn't see a vehicle coming - I go through it in my mind thinking things like "what if that van had actually hit me?" Also I occasionally ruminate about "what if I had fallen for a scam and lost my savings?"

I'm still recovering from this episode - I went back on my medication a couple of weeks ago and I plan to see a new therapist this time. The intrusive thoughts have changed as the weeks have gone by - lately they have changed to worries about ageing, passing of time, death and dying (both of myself and my loved ones) - I have had these intrusive morbid thoughts during most of my anxiety episodes since my early 20s.