So my brain does a thing - more when I'm stressed - where it insists my friends, my boyfriend, my roommates and my dog are all dead or dying. It's especially problematic when I'm falling asleep, but my dog has to have surgery soon so my brain has been ever more insistent in on him being dead or dying. Any tips on how to interrupt this?
SAME. HAAT. Just. Very same hat oh gosh someone else has that anxiety I feel like such a nuisance to my friends I can never apologize enough for having to bother them when it becomes A Thing. The best way I've had to actually interrupt it is to get comfortable with texting or calling the people it happens with and being like "Hey, brain is doing the thing where you are dead, please let me know you are not dead, one word is fine" and as soon as I have a reply it generally is enough to quiet my brain for a spell. I am not sure what to suggest for what do if persons cannot be contacted/don't respond, or what do in the case of, for example, a pet which obviously won't be carrying a cell phone.
Right now it's screaming loud enough I'm just keeping a foot on him to make sure he's still breathing - not super helpful when I'm out of the house but enough for now. Nice to know that I'm not alone in that worry, though.
Fwiw, I also get this. Especially at night. There's been more than once where I've fallen asleep with my face on a cat to make sure he's still breathing, or texted Moony/my mom/poked Discord just in case to make sure that people were still around. I don't have anything hugely helpful to offer in terms of Ways To Deal, but consider this a +1 to the experience.
Another 1+. I don't get it a lot, and when I do it's rarely intense enough to make me upset if I don't get confirmation that the person isn't dead. I wish I had a way to make it stop when it happens, though, because holy fuck.
Another +1. It manifests most often actually when i'm the sole adult around taking care of pets or very small children/infants: if they're napping I have the 'have to check they're still breathing' response proooobably? a bit more than is healthy. I have definitely been guilty of texting friends or romantic partners to see if they respond because that proves they didn't die in some accident and nobody told me yet, but that has faded a bit as I've gotten older.
i sometimes worry that the people i know online are dead, if i go long enough without seeing them posting. when i was younger, that caused me to send them an embarrassing amount of messages to make sure they weren't.
This happens to me too. It's the worst. :/ One thing that helps me a little when I'm worrying about people is to remind myself it is statistically highly unlikely that a loved one has suddenly dropped dead, whereas I know for a fact that I have anxiety. Sort of a tiny reality check, at least until actual confirmation of their aliveness is available.
yeah kind of focusing on the facts can work for me when i get this. it's some bullshit and i'm sorry you have to deal with it.
More a fear of something happening to people -- especially car crashes -- rather than "they are at this moment actually dead," but yeah... This has been happening to me a lot more often recently. It's part of my OCD -- I have "Pure O" -- and my psychiatrist gave me some suggestions about dealing with it when I spoke to her today. I haven't yet had time to actually look up/try any of her suggestions yet, but I'll post here once I do if any of them help.
