I am afraid of everything

Started by rebelsue, September 03, 2019, 06:29:33 PM

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rebelsue

I feel like, this crippling sense of fear of nearly everything, which seems to ultimately connect back to death somehow. Not necessarily of my own death, which I am not that afraid of. I am TERRIFIED of losing loved ones in tragic, freak situations. I've heard of a few of those happening and it sends my mind on overdrive. I was reading about Harm OCD and even though the things i imagine are not typical to what the articles say, the process is very similar. I become overwhelmed by images of horrible things happening to people I love. I am paranoid it will be due to some small error on my  part that sets the tragedy into motion. Like, leaving the door open and our cat gets hit by a car or leaving the gas range on and our house catching on fire, or making a mistake doing electrical wiring and causing our van to catch on fire, killing my husband while I am away at school. Last night there was a storm -- lightening every 30 seconds. My heart was racing the entire time even though my husband did his best to remind me of the distance of the storm and what the forecasts say.

Other fears I have are things happening to people I care about JUST when I finally allow myself to relax and trust that they won't happen. It's very superstitious and I know it's dysfunctional but it overtakes me and I can't make it stop.

I lay awake at night fighting off the thoughts. I get obsessive about it and send my husband 17 texts if he doesn't respond to my first one within a minute or less. I see threats looming around every corner. Night time? If he walks back to the car after dropping me off then I panic the entire time he's walking back to the car. If he drives to the store and doesn't come back in the time calculated in my mind I freak out and start crying. It's endless. It really stresses him out and our friends whenever I rope them into it. I hate being this way but I feel so helpless.

All those exercises you do when you try to reframe your thoughts - the "gold standard" of treatment for intrusive thoughts and anxiety -- don't even work for me because of the other fear -- that once I finally relax and accept that things are mostly safe, that's exactly when the bad thing will happen that I've been fearing the entire time. So I am literally trapped in these dysfunctional, unhelpful thoughts.

I did this to my mom when I was baby - because she left me to cry myself to sleep because of my colic and how she didn't want to be bothered by me, then when she tried to leave me in daycare or preschool, I'd scream and scream until she picked me up and took me home. No wonder she wanted me to kill myself when I got older. She's felt burdened by my needs since i was born, and in effect she created a monster.

Has anyone found a solution to this problem that is something other than CBT-like exercises and talk therapy? I feel like logically trying to convince myself that bad things won't happen is useless - statistically, bad things are rare, but they CAN happen. That's literally true. And if you ALSO believe that you're unlucky/cursed (which I do) then it's very easy to deduce that the very rare bad things will happen to you. What's a way around this?

Blueberry

Quote from: rebelsue on September 03, 2019, 06:29:33 PM
I become overwhelmed by images of horrible things happening to people I love. I am paranoid it will be due to some small error on my  part that sets the tragedy into motion. Like, leaving the door open and our cat gets hit by a car or leaving the gas range on and our house catching on fire, or making a mistake doing electrical wiring and causing our van to catch on fire, killing my husband while I am away at school. Last night there was a storm -- lightening every 30 seconds. My heart was racing the entire time even though my husband did his best to remind me of the distance of the storm and what the forecasts say.

I know those kinds of fears too. They no longer overwhelm me, but they used to. In my case too it's to do with fear of some small fault on my part and then something catastrophic going wrong as a result. If I were to think of one example, there might be 5-6 trauma issues behind it that I know of. If I went on to work on it, that might increase to 10 issues. So I say: no wonder you (and I) are not very receptive to somebody saying "look how far away the storm is". Well-meant, possibly some way calming - from 98% crisis to 95%, but not really helpful, especially not long-term.

For me there has been no quick-fix. Bit by bit through various forms of trauma therapy and non-trauma therapy too this huge amount of fear about anything and everything has gone down. I don't feel 'cursed' but there is a fairly large part of me that used to believe that I am bad through and through, right into the marrow of my bones. People used to ask: Why? Why do you think you're bad? I'd answer: I just am.

Whether it's that kind of belief or your 'cursed' one, it'll go back to very early childhood trauma. Some people with cptsd heal quicker than others. There may be multiple reasons for that. I think in my case healing of one instance of traumatisation doesn't take place all in one go, but it just lessens gradually, due to therapy etc. - unfortunately it doesn't happen on its own. The feeling or even the thought that I'm 'bad through and through just because' no longer comes flying up to the surface 10 times a day, but the feeling is still there lurking in the depths. The thought as an Inner Critic voice is much less present. So it's gradual improvement with a lot of work. Wish I could give you more hope for quicker resolution...

On therapy types: I've had quite a few Ts who don't do use one method. They mix. I do have talk therapy with my current T sometimes e.g. he explains and re-explains the effect of traumatisation when my Inner Critic's very much upfront. He taught me EFT and practised it with me for weeks. It works really well for me but I have no idea what kind of therapy that would count as. Talk therapy can't be enough on its own imho but a T offering it, may be able to add other useful healing methods to it. 'May'. Idk. I'm almost certainly not in the same country as you and method availability differs by country.

Sorry this got so long but I kind of worked out an answer while writing.

Jazzy

Yeah, it is certainly not as simple as telling yourself to stop worrying and you do... although its not a bad idea to tell yourself that.

Like Blueberry said, my paranoia has improved quite a bit compared to what it used to be. I think it is a combination of things. Generally working through recovery from past trauma does a lot. Removing things/people from my life that cause a lot of stress helped me too. Keeping yourself busy might help somewhat. You might also consider teas and other things to help you relax; scents are supposed to be really helpful.

Another thing is that you can talk to your doctor about taking sedatives. In my experience they don't work wonders, but they help hold off the worst of it while you work on recovery and maybe start to make some different life choices. I don't know of any quick fix though.

I hope you can start to find a bit of peace, and all the best working through this. Take care! :)