obsessive thoughts about how something could have happened to me

[Peterthegreatworrier]

Hi. Every now and then, my OCD manifests in thoughts about how I or someone I know could have been seriously injured or even killed in certain incidents - no matter how long ago the incident occured. To give a few examples, I have sporadically worried about how I could have been kidnapped in a theme park after my primary school class failed to notice I was missing, how I could have accidentally spilled corosive liquid over my body when I got out the wrong container in a science experiment, how I could have been hit by a car when I momenterilly didn't look when crossing the road, and right now how I or my sister could have three years ago died of hypoxia when doing the popular hyperventilation 'fainting game.'
As far as I know, none of these situations posed an immediate threat and I was completely unscathed. When these thoughts occur, I try to tell myself that none of these scenarios would have occured and try to provide rational reasons for why, but this provides little comfort. Trying to dismiss things as being 'in the past' offers no relief. I have recently been doing CBT for my hypochondria, which has helped those fears greatly. However, it's harder to apply the rationale of "it's just an obsessive thought to be ignored" (note, oversimplification) to these obsessions as they are about things that actually did occur, not worries over what might occur in the future.
I would just like to know if anyone else has had similar obsessions and if there are any specific strategies to better cope with them.
Regards, Peterthegreatworrier.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Peter,

When I saw the title I was thinking False Memory OCD where you believed something had happened to you. After reading your post though it's more that you are using your current anxious state to re-assess dangers from the past, so it's a rumination issue.

If these pop into your head, they are intrusive thoughts and the compulsion will be the rumination.

Intrusive thoughts are not to be ignored though, they are to be observed and accepted as just thoughts. Pushing thoughts away forces the brain to make the effort to do so and the subconscious sees the effort and notes what it did in producing the image/thought as "valid". Note the use of the term "valid", not "correct".

If you react to these thoughts with analysis in rumination style (as opposed to the healthy challenging style of CBT) you interact with them. This reinforces them.

If you react with negative emotion, the stronger the better, the area of the brain that looks for that feedback (survival response) will see it and reinforce it as it's "valid" again.

I haven't had it the way you describe but I have spent time "reliving" situations. Is that perhaps what you do in ruminating? Running through what you could have done, what you should have done, what may have happened, etc? This is normal, everybody does it, but in OCD (or anxiety in general) this is a negative because we do too much of it. For example, I've had some run ins or emergency situations which I have handled well and it only hit me as I was walking home afterwards. What was I doing? I spent the whole journey home re-running it and then hours at home. This meant I was more anxious.

[TomT]

Good morning Peterthegreatworrier (well at least is morning here lol) I guess almost everyone here may have gone through this at least once and in some way. Just remember all this scenarios never happened, and stick with what did happen. The best advice here is DO NOT try to give reasons to why they didn't happen that just fuels the anxiety as you are giving attention to it, try to change the focus of your attention to something else, maybe what you are seeing at the moment. Another good techinque might be trying deep breathing, it helped me out a lot.

Take a look at this link http://www.anxietycoach.com/breathingexercise.html

[Peterthegreatworrier]

Thanks a lot, guys! It's almost 1 week on and I feel almost completely better!

[TomT]

Hey there Peter! Im glad we could help you out.

Many Blessings !