Hi all
First off this is my first post on this site, I occasionally browse this forum and others, never really interact. A bit of background history, I'm a 24yo male who has been suffering from PTSD for 8 years, and have had my fair share of panic attacks and episodes. Only recently has OCD become a problem.
Basically the thoughts started off as intrusive violent thoughts, mainly about my parents, these were obviously horrid at the time and through some hard work with my CBT therapist they are not as frequent as they used to be, infact they are rare.
Only recently I broke a watch which was of great sentimental value, and whilst I was getting ready to send it off for repair (glass had broken), panic and excessive thoughts started to creep in, I really didn't wanna part with the watch!! Ever since that happened, of course my anxiety levels have been somewhat high, and all of a sudden I start getting these really ridiculous and to an extent "pointless" thoughts and worries. I'll list some examples, some are crazy!:
-) I'm an amateur woodworker, I make things to sell on, recently made something for my uncle, really don't want to sell it, I want to keep it (1st time this has happened)
-) I'm a Liverpool fan, whilst that can make anyone anxious , I missed the 1st half of a game midweek. My thoughts were "I need them to start the game again, how can I do this? Would they do it"
-) My brother needed to borrow an external hard drive, was very reluctant to LEND him a SPARE one, "I need it" (clearly don't, it is spare, heck I don't even know where it is exactly!)
-) My other brother is going on holiday with his family next JUNE, didn't want them to go, "how can I stop them going"
-) (This one still causes me some trouble), I have lent lots of things to friends in the past, all of a sudden, I feel I need this stuff back, some of these friends I rarely, if ever, speak to anymore!
Whilst a lot of those thoughts seem bizarre, most of them I can look back and say "that's ridiculous, this is my friend OCD again", and sometimes in that moment I even think that....
The thing that really gets me is "am I the only one who gets these?" "is this normal for an anxiety/OCD sufferer" "am I going to keep having these thoughts?", a lot of predictive thinking, and whilst I am sure other people have these kind of weird and random thoughts, they to me don't feel as common as violent or sexual intrusive thoughts, so even though they aren't anywhere near malicious, the fear of lack of control and the fact they are so out there and wild and random can be very scary at times....
I hope all of that makes sense, I appreciate any replies or questions, we are all in this together!
Sauly