Health anxiety and DC - help?

[Wringingmyhands]

I worry quite a lot about my DC. We struggled with infertility and I reckon it somehow made me worry that once born there’d be something wrong. With my oldest (now 7) I had quite severe postnatal OCD, I was constantly checking if he was awake and breathing in the night, was worried a car would swerve and drive over the kerb and knock over his pram, etc.

That went much better with my second (now 3.5 years) but I still worry a lot about her (both of them really). If she says she’s tired and asks for an extra drink at tea, my mind instantly goes to diabetes. If my oldest is being silly and standing on his head on the sofa, I think of a spinal cord injury.

This isn’t normal, right? I was diagnosed with PTSD related to childhood abuse I experienced but don’t have any other psychological issues. Has anyone else managed this? How did you move forward? I would love to worry a bit less about my DC. I’m actually sat here in tears right now.

I did a CBT course when my oldest was tiny, that was helpful but the tools don’t seem to be helping anymore 😢

Bump?

Following as im the same, could have written this post myself. Sympathies as it’s horrible feeling like this

I’m sorry to hear this. Like you, I struggled a lot with postnatal OCD after my first born. I did the checking for breathing constantly at night or during naps. I would obsess over the symptoms for every illness. I would have intrusive thoughts.

I remember seeing someone online say that the best way to deal with a scenario like this was to deal with each thought as it pops into your head like it’s the most boring thought in the world - actually say to yourself in your head “oh, here’s this really boring thought again!”. If you’re treating the thoughts as super boring, your brain will want to move on quickly and so the thought will change.