To wonder if people with anxiety feel this way, too?

[pompomsandglitter]

Hello - firstly I hope you're all well and keeping safe 🙂

So I was diagnosed with Anxiety at age 11, after a life changing event in my life that has completely shattered my world..I'm 23 now.

I am on medication to stabilise my Anxiety.

I don't know if other anxiety sufferers get this way too, but I will get consumed with obsessive thoughts, and really struggle to see them as just 'silly thoughts' like they really are.
My wonderful DP is so lovely and supportive and tells me to just think of them, when they pop into my head - as silly thoughts and ignore them, but I just can't.

For example:

sometimes when I'm driving to work and see just one magpie (one for sorrow) I'm convinced something bad will happen, or I will have a terrible day.

*Another example, which happens to me A LOT and at least once a day:
*
I could be going about my day, no worries, no anxiety about anything.. and suddenly something will pop into my mind and it consumes me.. most often it's something along the lines of 'if you don't press this door handle down XXX amount of times, something terrible will happen to XXX family member'
or if you don't tap your pen XXX times, you will have bad luck all day' or something like that..

Actually writing it down in words, makes me realise how silly this makes me sound. I promise I'm of sound mind and completely aware that this makes me seem crazy, but these obsessive thoughts are consuming me.. and I don't know what to do. 😟

I suppose I was just wondering if anybody has had the same kind of thing before? Or any tips to get on with my life without these horrible consuming thoughts.

@TheoriginalLEM the exact same as me. Magpies make me nervous too, I can't stand them and read way too much into what each one might mean for my day ahead.

You said writing it down here makes you realise how silly it sounds - which is actually a really useful technique for intrusive thoughts. A CBT therapist would likely ask you to write a thought diary - you basically write down your intrusive thoughts and beside them write the evidence that supports the thought (obv difficult), followed by an alternative (realistic) thought. CBT isn't a perfect solution but it can help with this. You can find lots of templates for thought diaries with a quick google search.

Im a vet nurse so occasionally have to deal with injured magpies, i will if i absolutely have to but my colleagues are used to me and tend to deal with them for me.

Im the same with drains as well.

I attended a group therapy thing and the lady made us all sit while she talked us through a thought garden. Waffled on in a soothing, slightly patronising voice about how we got to our gardenand encouraged us to think about whats there, how it smells, feels etc. I thought what a liad of wank but two years later i still try and focus on my "garden" if i am struggling with unwanted thoughts

@pompomsandglitter - that’s classic OCD you are describing. You become anxious and have to perform a “ritual”. The right mess can help as can OCD.

It’s very common and yeah very easy to feel alone - I felt like I was going mad. By the way - my cbt therapist encourage me to kind of flood the anxiety - and each time you experience it’s less - exposure therapy I think it’s called. And it really does work, apparently your body can’t be stressed for 45 mins or something so anxiety always reduces. So example if you don’t like magpies, if you saw one now you’d feel a massive rush of anxiety. If you had to look at one for a long period of time your anxiety would reduce. Then if you saw one again it would not feel as bad and so on. It’s about facing the situation and sitting with it for a period of time / repeatedly until not anxious any more