Originally Posted by
MyNameIsTerry
Commando bats! Faces smeared in camouflage paint waiting to strike! Evil little critters!
Going back to check is likely a compulsion which will you may feel with reassure you but will only reinforce the need for a fear you don't need to have. The same with checking your surroundings all the time when out.
Try to reduce these checking behaviours until you eliminate them because they are counter productive to your recovery.
Expose to the environments you fear, which reducing checks, will help you to habituate to places you fear where something may happen. Try to be in these places and work on telling yourself you are fine and to experience your surroundings more mindfully e.g. feel the wall you lean (how it feels, how texture changes, is it cold, etc), breathe normally, look at things you wouldn't because you would be normally be scanning for your threats, etc. These can help you feel more at ease in a place.
The subconscious is going to work this way because it's how it is designed. Fight of flight is expecting to see a big nasty bear and it's going to keep you on your toes. That involves the questioning too. Was that rustling a bear?
Imagery is common with intrusive thoughts, much of mine had imagery of harm. Working on intrusive thoughts by learning not to react to them negatively helps greatly. Reduce reactions and work towards a "meh" instead as your subconscious will give up trying eventually and it will mothball this stuff.
False memories are certainly a part of anxiety, they are a theme in OCD, for instance. It's another way of tricking into obsessing over the theme and introducing the doubts that anxiety thrive on. It plays into the hands of our Cognitive Distortions, All-of-nothing thinking in this instance, as it knows we ever get a 100% answer with a memory and they can get blurred. It tries to introduce bias towards the negative to add to confirming the "possibility" it is right.
So, learning to tolerate doubt is important.