Crazy fear

[Eleast]

Ok there’s a good risk I’m going to sound loopy here. But I need to get this out and ask for advice. I have anxiety, as my mother would say if I had nothing to worry about I’d worry about not worrying. But I have this one fear that keeps me awake at night and sends me cold.
I’m terrified someone will break into our house and murder me and my husband, will leave the kids unharmed but alone and frightened. They’d wake up and we wouldn’t be there to help them my eldest (about to turn 3) would be at his stair gate where he can see straight in our room asking for us and we wouldn’t come. He’d be hungry scared and needing the toilet, he still wears a nappy at night but hates doing anything in it when awake. My youngest (1) in his cot hungry and upset crying for us, he holds his breath when he gets upset.
And no one would know, possibly for hours possibly for days. I don’t know how long they would cope. My mom comes twice a week so those are the two times I don’t worry as much as she’s here for 10am.
I asked my sister to text me every morning and if I don’t reply by 8.30am to call and check but some mornings she forgets. I’ve started leaving snacks downstairs within my toddlers reach even though there’s only a small chance he’d manage to get out of his room and he can’t open many packets. I dress my son in certain pjs because he has really cute ones and whenever I used to watch crime shows the young kids always wore cute matching pjs so I just think he can’t wear them. Yes insane and yes I have ocd.
I just don’t know what to do about it all. I was burgled as little kid so I imagine that’s where it comes from plus criminal minds but it’s overwhelming. When it pops in my head I feel physically sick and panicky and cold all over.

Please someone help me

That sounds horrible for you. Could you talk to you GP about it? Or a therapist? Medication, counselling and/or CBT could all be worth a try.
This website www.getselfhelp.co.uk/
has some guided visualisation recordings that you might like to try. I used one about reconnecting with feelings of safety as part of my treatment for PTSD and was surprised to find that it did help to calm the fear.
I hope you get some relief from this, it must be exhausting.

Irrational thinking and false thoughts. Everybody has them, but some more extreme than others. Have a read of this.

www.healthguidance.org/entry/15547/1/How-to-Overcome-Irrational-Thinking.html

That sounds terribly difficult to live with Eleast, I don't think you're crazy at all. I think you are coping with something that sounds utterly terrifying on a daily basis so you are a kind of super woman in my mind.
I would wholeheartedly agree with going to your GP to discuss this or perhaps looking into therapy.

I wish you and your lovely children all the best, but please try and address this in yourself, it sounds like you are ready.

Thank you the tips and links everyone. I’m scared to see a doctor I don’t know why. I don’t want to go on medication and I’m also worried it will go against me in terms of life insurance if I’m listed as having anxiety. I’ve tried to deal with it on my own but I honestly don’t think it’s possible. I’ve had signs of anxiety and ocd since I was young, and then it just spiralled after 9/11. I was only 13 so could see what was going on but didn’t really understand the world and politics. I just remember constantly reciting a little speech in my head about how we wouldn’t die for the majority of my high school life. No one really gets it in my family and I dread my kids growing up seeing it as normal and turning out the same.

I can really empathise with what you are saying. I have also been very resistant to medication too until this year when I reached a crisis point and I took it, for a little while, to get me over the hump and also to allow therapy 'in', so to speak.

If you already have a life insurance policy I don't think it should be a problem. I was refused an intial policy this year as I was asked if I have had suicidal thoughts which I have had, but I don't know if it would have been the same if I had 'just' had anxiety. (I was so cross about that, but that is a whole other thread).
I have also tried to manage my 'stuff' on my own for most of my life, but it is only now in therapy that I realise that a lot of my ways of coping are not actually helpful at all. I also used to recite every day to ensure no one in my family would die, I was mostly terrified as a child.

I would really, really encourage you to challenge your own fear about seeing a doctor. I know it is hard to believe, but they are genuinely here to help us, all of us, that includes you. You really, really don't need to live like this. I completely understand your dread about your kids turning out the same, I have the same worry, but the only way we can change that is by turning round to face the very thing that we fear the most, which is, I hope you don't mind me saying it like this, the stuff we make up in our heads. You can do this, it doesn't matter if no one in your family gets it, just do it for you and your kids.