Paranoia, anxiety

[hello307726]

EXTREME PARANOIA THAT PEOPLE ARE RECORDING TIKTOKS OF ME!!!

Hi, I am having a really hard time because of extremely anxiety inducing thoughts. It feels like they just keep on coming and they always end in death and I'm so scared. Last time I thought I had jaw cancer and that my jaw was going to fall off and I would die horrifically. Now I think my neighbours might be recording me changing or just in my room and posting it on tiktok or snapchat (one set of blinds on my window is broken). Their window is a little far away but when i try to check from their perspective, i can see a little bit into my bedroom window but im not sure. It is becoming obsessive because I've been checking the interior of their house on architect websites to see if they have a clear view through my window but the pictures are too blurry. i keep having the thought that the tiktoks they might be filming will go viral and everyone i know will see them and I will end up ending my life. It makes me scared for my family. It's really scary and I can't tell anyone because they will just think I'm crazy. I can't help but believe everything I think ends up coming true because sometimes i will think of a certain really specific thing and then later, I will see an ad of that really specific thing when scrolling on instagram or see it in some other form. I am in a constant state of really bad anxiety and i don't want it to come true, i feel like i am living my life as if i will die the next day, i dont want to feel like this anymore

[AuntGlow]

Hello @hello307726, 

Thank you so much for your post and a big, warm welcome to the forums. 🤗

Gosh, this all sounds so incredibly overwhelming for you - I can see that your brain works really fast and is doing its absolute best to protect you. But maybe we can thank anxiety brain and let it know that it's not needed as much as it may think right now. 💗

Just so you know, my brain works the same and it can be awful. I truly empathise with you, so please know you are not alone. As soon as I have a thought that my mind deems unsafe, scary, or uncertain, I am immediately onto all of the protective, reassurance-seeking, safety behaviours - and let me tell you, they definitely create more anxiety and only temporary relief. But it's perfectly valid and understandable that your mind is doing this. It sounds like the idea of being filmed is really scary for you (I totally get this by the way and have had this thought too, as well as health anxiety in the past). 

I am curious to know if you have been in therapy or if you have sought out any other support for these more sticky thoughts? 

What has been super helpful for me, is learning how to sit with the discomfort and the not knowing. (I know, I know - I am sorry! 🫣) I am sure this is the last thing your nervous system wants right now, but over time it helps to build tolerance and the ability to disengage from those thoughts, so they don't have so much power. It's kind of like building a muscle in the gym, the more you flex your ability to sit with discomfort, the stronger this muscle gets. It's also okay for this to take time and to feel really hard at first. And it's so important to find ways to soothe yourself through this process, or to have another person you can co-regulate with. Would you like me to send you some resources that could be helpful for getting started? This is completely up to you, so just let me know. 😊

Lastly, I want you to know that you are safe. You deserve to feel calm in your body. And just because you can think it and just because it feels real in the moment, doesn't make it true.

Talk soon, 

Aunt Glow. ✨