Now that my internet provider has come and fixed my service I can now reply fully
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Well, this is what I learned from coincidences:
* First of all it works the same way as any compulsion, so the way of being free from it is the same process, just dont engage it.
* Understand that what you are calling coincidences are not really that much of a coincidence but a matching pattern found in your brain, where am I going with this? well through the day many things go unnoticed, from the 100th post on 9gag you just watched or the 100th thought you had regarding plants or whatever, al of this thoughts go to one of the many levels your subconscious mind works with as they have not much importance, but they are still there. Eventually time goes by and maybe you remember on of those "ideas" (The concept behind the post of 9gag for example) and after that you get again in 9gag, suddenly you see a post regarding the same topic and your brain (as it is afraid of them ) labels it as a coincidence causing you a lot of stress... but... what happened here? well your conscious mind due to the anxiety didn't get all the data just the general message, what is the whole data? That is likely to find another post related to the same stuff on the same site or that is really ****ing possible that another person thinks the same thing as us. The same goes with an obsession with a number your case the number 19, I experienced the same thing with the number 23 and as you noticed you start seeing it everywhere, so I did a little experiment I focus on the number 36 and for some days I start making my brain aware that I needed to see the number 36 suddenly I started noticing it everywhere, magically the number 36 came to my reality giving me some awesome power regarding numbers? well... no despite what your magical thoughts my make you believe your logical mind says no to that. So why you get all messed up by random coincidences? Just because the fear of magical thinking, you relate that to going to jail, you know there is no reason to go to jail and you wont do nothing to go to jail, but an anxious mind likes to play with the odds of it, with the "what ifs" of life, as it is for me thinking about the whole reality topic.
* To conclude, coincidences OCD is a combo of many things, anxiety fueling attention as coincidences are a target of fear, selective memory as it forgets data that will disprove it as a coincidence and recalls only the times you had a "coincidence" and not the times you didn't, and last but not least magical thinking as the trigger for the anxiety.
* I have had them for quite some time now and as with everything with anxiety, nothing happened. Remember don't engage them just enjoy how your attention seeks for patterns, and what should be fun and interpreted as an "Aha" moment shouldn't be a reason of worrying.
Eventually they will fade but as I said previously do not focus on the manifestation of anxiety but the source of it, the obsession might come and go but it will stick around the longest if you do not learn to deal with stressful situations in a better way, ask yourself what is causing me the anxiety.
Tom