To keep imagining horrible things happening to my children

[glazingsun]

I've name changed, so if you recognise me as I'm a regular, please don't out me.
I've been having imaginary scenes coming into my head about my children being hurt. It horrifies me and I immediately start thinking about something else to blot out the thought.

Why am I having such thoughts?

Has anyone else got any experience of this?

I think a certain amount of this is a normal part of being a parent. But if these thoughts become intrusive and disruptive, it may be indicative of something else going on - you might want to run this past your dr.

Google 'intrusive thoughts' - they're automatic thoughts, everyone has them to some extent (often 'what if' kind of thing) but some have them that are more disturbing/real than others and they can be related to anxiety/OCD

I get this sometimes. It pops up out of the blue. It doesn't mean you are going mad. It comes to me when I am generally feeling overwhelmed. Sorry I don't have anything more useful but just wanted to say something. All the best

Oh and on that brilliant documentary Bedlam, I remember the doctor saying that sometimes when he is driving along he gets a thought that if he wanted to he could mow down pedestrians and it is normal. I loved him for that.

This began to happen to me when I had DC1 - I def think it's part of the morbid imagination you need in order to keep children safe, but looking back I can see that sometimes it spilled over into anxiety.

Is there something on your mind?

This sometimes happens to me if I am overtired and wound up. Usually before I am going to sleep or if I wake up in the middle of the night. Mine is DD3 and deep water.Horrendous.

I try to deliberately move my mind away. I focus on pretending I am driving or doing sums in my head or sometimes I just read something light for a bit.

I get this sometimes. I got in a right state a few weeks ago when DH and the kids were doing a motorway journey without me and I convinced myself that they were all going to die in a car crash. I know someone who had CBT for intrusive thoughts and they reported back to me that it is normal to think these through as reassurance that you could handle the worst case scenario. I feel better once I've played it out in my head IYSWIM. It helps get rid of the anxiety for me. If it is making your everyday life difficult, causing insomnia etc, then maybe see someone.

Yes I get this. Most recent bout of it has been particularly debilitating. I found counselling, NHS wellbeing course and learning a little about mindfulness has helped. In our case it has also got better as DD has found help for her MH difficulties recently.

I find I imagine worst case scenarios - and end up in tears- but I think it's just my brain preparing my self. Just. In. Case.

I work through them and think what I would actually do if such a thing happened. Personally I find working through it is better than pushing it to the back of my mind, but I wouldn't want to suggest that to someone else.

I do this and I think its mostly normal. My most common two scenerios are driving into a river (which do I save first) or zombie attacks (not helped by watching the walking dead). Both have me walking up sweating. Horrible but not abnormal I hope!

waking up not walking up.

I also get this but I'm sure it's a lot to do with seeing things on tv and in movies and just natural human empathy makes you think about it happening to you and yours.

i get this when i see something disturbing i sometimes see me and my children in that situation i turn the tv/facebook off happens when im tired nothing a disney movie cant fix

Glazing as like the other posters I get this whenever I am really stressed or anxious about something. I'm getting it a bit at the moment as I'm about to move house.

I try to rationalise it, to talk sense to myself or talk it over with DH as whenever I say these worries out loud I realise that I am being silly ans that it just comes from the stress I'm under.

Do you have anyone in RL to talk it through with?

This kind of thinking is fairly normal and it's best not to take too much notice of thoughts, they are temporary events, and are fairly meaningless. It can be a symptom of anxiety. Best to let the thoughts float on by as quickly as they came, and try not to fight them, control them or over-interpret them.

I get these to various degrees. I kind of monitor my level of anxiety by seeing what my reaction to the thoughts is, ie whether I can acknowledge and dismiss them as intrusive or whether I fixate on them (for me this is an indicator to seek counselling or chat to my gp). It can be quite debilitating at its worst.

I think it's normal once you're a parent. I get it now & again. As someone upthread said, seeing tragic news stories can bring it on, it's hard for me not to imagine just how I would cope if it happened to one of my DC's.

Being a LP I also often have the morbid thoughts of what would happen with my DC's if something was to happen to me. I try to put these thoughts out of my head as what can you do?

I have anxiety and OCD and these sorts of thoughts are quite typical, I would have a chat with your GP as they can (as you know) be very distressing