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When What You Think Comes True

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whiteraven

MyPTSD Pro
I have a huge issue (and have had it ever since I can remember) that seriously interferes with functioning at times. I'm always afraid that what I think about will come true. For example, I can't think about what it would be like if a family member died, because then they will. And it's not that, in the normal course of things, they will. It's...they will because I put the idea out there.

Anybody else think this way?
 
I’m observant... and always have been. Maybe about 2/3s of that are things most people don’t see. As I got older? That married to experience that taught me WHAT I was seeing.

So I’m swooping off the freeway on the exit and “see” half a dozen different car wrecks. Over the course of the next few years? Each of those wrecks happen. Because I can see into the future? Nope. Because I made it happen by thinking it? Nope. Because I noticed the angles -and a hundred other things- as I was swooping off the exit, and my mind overlaid different road conditions & drivers & vehicles in myriad states. How a shallow puddle would form just where traction would be very necessary, how the optical illusion of a foreshortened ramp at one point of the curve would make people brake harder than they needed to on ice, how the new building across the way would blind drivers with reflection of the setting sun. And on. And on. And on.

I walk through life like that. My mind takes in a thousand tiny details and chases them to various conclusions. Most of which happen. I walk around trying NOT to see things, as much as possible, to not remember what I can’t block out, and to try and shrug off and ignore the rest that makes it in.

The unfortunate piece is that same process works exactly the same way about imaginary events, as real events. Flows in either direction (what variables will cause XYZ, as well as if ABC what happens with these variables?). It’s just cause and effect, like watching someone step out into traffic, and knowing they’re going to get hit by a car. But on a much larger scale, with far smaller pieces in play. So if I’m afraid of someone I love dying? The dominos will tick over in reverse. Spinning out all the possibilities from most to least likely.

Everyone does this, to some degree. I just do it more than most, if less than some. When it’s being put to good use? I can durn near wall through the rain drops without getting wet. But when my anxiety is up? Or it’s fear based? It’s gutting. “A coward dies a thousand deaths” type thing.

Things don’t happen because I think them. But if I’m thinking about them? Something has possibled out that way, in my mind. Either because of what I’ve seen, or because of what I fear.
 
I have the same issue, but I also have OCD and become overwhelmed with compulsions that would fix the feeling of “something bad will happen.”

The trick I’ve been using to combat this is to picture the event but with something stupid or silly in it. That way, it will help remind you that you’re being illogical (not that we don’t know that already, just that we’ve created some proof), or it’s a great reminder that what we see in our heads isn’t real.

Practice it before you’re stress with those thoughts for it to work better and faster (and for you to remember to do it). The thing I use is early-style Godzilla with her twitchy mechanical movements. Brings me right back to the present fast, when thoughts like that start to bother me more :)
 
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