Keep worrying that something bad will happen to my family or myself

[lostittoday]

Hi

I keep having horrible thoughts that something terrible will happen to me, my partner, or my ds.

I say goodbye to my partner when he goes out to work and think that it may be the last time I see him as he may have a accident.
I worry about my ds at school in case somebody gets into the school and attacks the children.

I also worry when we go out in case we have a accident in the car, and I also worry if my ds and my dp go out in the car together in case they may be involved in a bad accident and be badly injured or worse.

I also have fears that one of us especially my dp or my ds will be struck down with a illness or something.

My parents are elderly and I know that one day I will lose them and I worry about that as well.

What on earth is wrong with me why do I keep thinking about things like this.
Is anybody else like me

I have been like that in the past, not so much now - and it was in my case very much a symptom of my OCD - am not about to suggest that you may have OCD, but anxiety about harm coming to others can be one of the symptoms. Do you ever feel the need to counteract the possible danger you feel might happen to your LOs by doing something,like a ritual for example ?

Yes, I have had this on and off. I can make myself very very paranoid about it all.

It's depression in my case. Comes and goes. I don't have any easy answers for you. I try to distract myself by listening to the radio, keeping busy, not allowing myself to think about dh and the kids.

I've re-enacted various scenario's in my head, about how dh will come into work to tell me something horrible has happened to the children, or how a policeman will turn up to tell me that dh has been killed. I've even led myself to believe at work that it WILL happen and I wait for someone to come and tell me the bad news.

Hope it's of some comfort to know that you're not alone.

It sound like you are suffering from anxiety. I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember but I have found ways of dealing with it without drugs (though they can be helpful in the short-term).

I have done yes I have suggested going on side roads on a journey instead of the motorway thinking if we are in a accident we will have more of a chance.

I also worry about my son on our drive as it naturally slopes I worry about my dp forgetting to put his handbrake on and it rolling back on my ds especially.

I will shout at my dp to make sure his handbrake is on or I will jump out the car before my ds to ensure he doesn't walk around the back of it.

My ds is 7 and I won't let him out of my site in the street on his scooter or bike I imagine him going out into the road and being run over so I am out there watching him like a hawk.

His friends think its quite funny me standing there watching.

I feel like a nervous wreck at times

I've had some hypnotherapy for anxiety, it helps to get rid of these negative feelings.

You might also consider asking your gp about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy which would help you to realise that the liklihood of any of the things you imagine could happen is very remote - it puts things into proportion in other words -this worked for me.

I have suffer with overactivity in the sympathetic nervous system which triggers my adrenaline very quickly so I also react similiarly to yourself in certain situations. Obviously some of it is my mind which causes my irrational fears which can be helped but takes training.

I think most of us feel like this at times its scarey being a parent and its very hard to know we cant control things outside of home at the moment im a real stress head a boy in my sons school was killed on the motorway and just the thought of him(i didnt know him)makes me sob its awful im so paranoid about safety with my kids and that, i did actually tell my doctor and he said its being a parent hes the same every time his son goes out he thinks will he be home? so i do think its natural just sometimes a little out of perspective,because you know you hve anxiety about otherstuff its built up more for you.((hugs))

yes, agree with dippy ! it's being a parent and it never goes away (I still,in my late forties,have to ring my mum to let her know I'm safely at my destination after any long journey !)

I can really identify with your anxiety. If I hear an ambulance going past my home I always think it is my eldest son (26 yrs old)and wait for the police knocking at my door. Even if I know he is already in work! How mad is that. I've found that writing my worries down and then reading them later does help. I think its the sign of a loving caring mum - well thats my story and I'm sticking to it! I know I will be worse in June this year because I am going to be a first time gran.

ohhh shabster me too in fact i ring home to check its not burning or someones dying if i hear emergency services-the doctor said its to do with being a loving caring mum so im with u on that theory.....

dippydeedoo us nutters have to stick together! My friend says that I am 'not wrapped right but she likes the way I'm wrapped!' on trying for an explanation I found out its a Lancashire way of saying that I am barking mad but she quite likes me!! Well that's how she explained it. I still write loads of my worries and when I check on it I realise can't do much about most of them. Only became like this when I had children

i think im gonna try the writing things down idea because i really am a stress head about this kind of thing its a control thing i think-i only realised that people are aware of it when son got kept behind for a detention by mistake he missed the school bus and school is 2 busrides or a £12 taxi fare away i was fuming rang school ranting and apparently after questioning son as to how annoyed was i likely to be they drew straws about bringing him home lol!!! im glad im not the only nutter lol or the only one admitting to it

I'm such a worrier. I was bad before but I'm TERRIBLE since I've had kids.

I have a 5-week-old DS and I'm going insane worrying about SIDS. (Now I think I'll have made it happen because I've typed the word.) Last night I tortured myself by going on to the FSIDS website and reading the "In Memory" tributes and deliberately looking for kids my son's age. Hmm, rational. I've spent £££ getting a breathing monitor, new mattress, all cotton bedding, etc etc and I don't think I'll ever let him sleep in his own room.

I worry that my eldest son (4) will run in front of a car. I seem to have an imaginary elastic band connecting us, and if he gets more than 20 feet from me, I panic. I won't let him run ahead of me on the pavement for fear he'll get killed.

I worry daily that a nutter will shoot everyone at his school.

And I have an almost constant series of snuff movies in my head, where I'll literally watch a horrific scenario play out, like one of them crawling out of a window and falling, one of them falling over the bannisters, a lorry smashing into our car, etc.

The worst bit is, they never feel like worries, they feel like predictions.

I have no advice for you because I'm equally bonkers! But hopefully it helps to know you're not alone.

Oh, no wait, I do have advice. I once read a sweet interview with an anxious woman (a mother), who said that her worrying was getting out of control, so she made herself a deal: she went swimming every day, so she set aside one lap of the pool to worry about one member of her family. She saved up all her worrying for her laps.

If she found herself worrying at any other time of the day, she told herself that she had to stop until she next went swimming. She said it really helped.

I wouldn't know; I'd never go swimming in case one of the dippy lifeguards accidentally dropped a radio into the water and killed all of us.

oh good, I am not the only one to have had these thoughts - I found them overwhelming.
I imagine funerals and how I would deal with being told of the death of a family member. I only dealt with this when I had therapy after being diagnosed with PND - and prescribed prozac, I still have to say to my husband 'drive carefully' every morning and kiss him as otherwise I worry something will happen but it is a lot more under control and CBT helped with getting my thoughts of impending doom under control - I would definately recommend both treatments - I had to wait 3 months for counselling and the tablets helped me cope - good luck
x

I often wonder if I got run over while DD's were at home.

I'm pretty healthy, smoker and drinker etc but excercise.

Can't be arsed with a will right now, can barely afford life / home insurance.

But it does worry me...as the persons I appointed in my will as legal guardians (not ex h or kids dad) I have now fallen out with. I still trust her to look after dd's, but we haven't spoken in 4 months?

I find these thoughts really scary sometimes. Even th#ough my will is sorted and got fuck all to leave for dd's..life insurance sorted. Enough for dd's to give me a good send off.

Other than that, they got fuck all. But so have I.

I dream about this often. That the house burns down while I'm out of the house for the one afternoon I actually work!

This is what I have been struggling with ever since I was a teenager. I don't have kids of my own yet, but I know for sure I would be going crazy with worry if I did.

The sad truth about life is this: accidents happen. Another sad truth is that we will not be able to avoid them always. One therapist once told me that people with anxiety tend to think that our thoughts have power, like if we thìnk bad things they are more likely to happen. But then she said that this is false. Thoughts have no power. If you think about an accident it does not make it any more likely to happen. I am saying this because I used to blame myself for having these thoughts in case I was jinxing people. But it is impossible. We have no such power.

I think this issue is linked to anxiety, maybe even OCD in which you have compulsory thoughts about bad things and then tend to ease this anxiety with some kind of rituals. For example I need to knock my head gently with my hand three times every time i am having a thought about my loved one gettibg into an accident. This is partly me believing my thoughts can manifest in real life and partly me trying to control my anxiety: if I knock three times, then nothing bad is going to happen. The problem with this is that it makes me perform useless ritual over and over agaib whenever I have a negative thought and it makes me feel like I am responsible for the accident happening. So in case the accident would happen and I didn't knock before I could tell myself that it was my fault. This is the way anxiety makes us feel. It tries to find our weak spot and hit that spot until we feel like we are some kind of saviours who need to look out for everyone or else something bad will happen.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle... as a parent it is good to be aware of dangers and teach children necessary skills to avoid dangers, but it is literally impossible to be aware of all the dangers all the time. We can't predict the future. But we can look at statistics and think how likely it is that right now the thing we are worried about would happen? I don't exactly. It depends on the danger. But if one thing is certain it is this... I have been worried about my loved ones millions of times before. And everything is still good. Me worrying did not help or save them. The nature of life is just this that we cannot control everything and for some of us that is terrifying. It is normal to be afraid, but sometimes the anxiety grows out of proportion and is no longer healthy. When it disturbs our lives it has become something more serious like OCD and it should be treated for your sake. It is a horrible feeling thinking you are responsible for horrible things that could happen. It will take the joy out of life. Instead of worrying we should be there in the moment enjoying every second and not let them pass.