Anxiety over things bringing bad luck

[Anonymousemouses]

This is pretty embarrassing, but very real, please be gentle(ish).

I suffer from anxiety, sometimes manageable, sometimes out of control.

I was diagnosed with bipolar 14 years ago and with different personality disorders about 5 years ago - including obsessive personality disorder, which is what the psychiatrist said this falls under. I've had therapy, including EMDR and strangely the counsellors thought the PDs were unlikely...anyway.

I needed to download some songs to play on a plane (which is already causing extreme fear), and I found a playlist with my favourites that I'd made to put on a memory card four years ago (memory card since lost).

I was happy, until it struck me that I listened to this playlist days before my brother died. It's now in my head that I need to delete the songs and download them separately (which would take hours and hours), as the list is now tainted.

I'm the same with clothes (if something happens I cannot wear the same clothes or shoes again).

I really, really want to beat this and leave the playlist, as it took it long enough to transfer to my headphones as a complete list, so deleting and individually selecting them will take far too long.

Has anyone any tips?

I did imagine this would fade with time as I was told that PD get better as you get older, but I've just turned 54 and they are now getting out of control and affecting my life and enjoyment thereof. I'm even more scared of passing anxiety onto my young teen.

To add to just how this affects me, I stopped taking a medication after my Dbro died after I started it, so I stopped, started again the next year and my dad died. I had to say it no longer worked for the doctor to agree with me to stop it, but I was too scared to take it. I know it's illogical, I can rationalise, but when push comes to shove, the scaredy cat in me wins over and shouts much louder than the rational part can.

I understand this and it does sound like a superstitious ocd type thing rather than a personality disorder. Look up magical thinking ocd. Did the medication work before you started making these superstitious connections? It’s really difficult but medication and cbt could be really successful.

Thank you, I looked up magical thinking OCD and omg it fits perfectly. My psychiatrist said it wasn't OCD because I don't have daily rituals, but looking at that it seems it's more nuanced than having to perform rituals.

The medication was for migraines but was also used as a mood stabiliser, but it didn't really work (it made my mood worse in fact, but it has a reputation of weight loss, so I was keen to take it). I'm on others now, they work fine, but when something stressful happens, the feelings come back stronger. I'm scared of flying, so I guess that's the stressor now.