Does anyone else get irrationally paranoid about things going wrong?

[Sabine]

Whenever I''m in a situation where I know something important (it doesn''t have to be really important, just something slightly different from the usual everyday stuff really) is happening, I get soooo paranoid about things going wrong.

Example 1: We just moved, and we have to go to the post office to get the mailbox key. They only do it one day a week. Dh messed up and forgot to ask them to MAKE our key (he got here before I did), so when I went, they said it would take another week. Now it''s been 2 weeks of no mail. I really want to get my mail. When I went to try to pick it up last week, they told me to come back Tuesday after 2. Now that it''s almost 2, I''m all paranoid that something went wrong and we still won''t have a key. Like I start thinking, she was barely listening when I told her the apartment number, what if they made a key for the wrong apartment? Or, the rental office told us the post office only does keys on MONDAY, but when I had gone last Monday, they definitely told me to come back next Tuesday after 2. But what if they won''t hand out the key today and tell me to wait till next Monday?

Example 2: I''m at the doctor''s office. I check in. I wait. It''s going on a half an hour, and I''ve not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It''s been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven''t really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I''m next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

I realize these reactions are totally irrationally paranoid. Have no idea how to stop them though. Am I alone in this? Any suggestions?

Anyway, wish me luck, I''m off to try to pick up our mailbox key!

 

[Mara]

in both of the scenarios you painted, i wouldn''t feel paranoid or panicky. i would just think, well maybe something went wrong. maybe i should ask.

i am an ''asker''. if i check in for a restaurant ressie and they tell me 10 min, i will ask at min 9 where we are at. if i want a sub in a food on a menu, i ask for it. if i went to the dr and it was the scenario you pictured, i''d ask when i was going to be next. my husband is not an asker. if he is told something, he expects it and he kind of just waits until it doesn''t materialize and then starts thinking about plan B...he doesn''t sub on menus and he doesn''t ask for ressie updates if told 10 until it is about 30!

i always prefer to have actual information instead of letting my imagination run wild with me, because surely it can. i also am a big fan of ''escalation''...meaning if someone can''t help me i ask for someone who can and keep climbing the ladder until i get what i want or what i am expecting.

it is probably hard to change from one thing to another, but maybe next time instead of worrying immediately about what could have gone horribly wrong, pick up the phone or walk up to the desk and simply ask for a status. good luck!

 

[Linda W]

"sigh" I am a worry wart by nature. I have tried to change, to no avail whatsoever. It is part of my personality.

 

[Maisie]

I tend to get worried about big things going wrong. I am very afraid that something will happen to one of my children. I think thats my biggest fear.

 

[Porridge]

Nope. Sometimes I imagine things going wrong and come up with a plan B. Usually my imagination gets out of control and plan B becomes something funny and ridiculous. But no I usually assume things will go the way they are supposed to be going and if I get an indication that's not the case, I ask like Mara.

Sabine, why not focus your energy on coming up with a plan B instead of worrying? You'll probably rarely have to resort to it!

 

[D&T]

everytime I go out or do anything, I always think of what the worst case scenario might be and what my game plan is if it happens. Like when I drive, i''m always thinking of my next move, if this car hits me or that, or when I''m crossing a street or just every thing, DH doesn''t really know this about me. He thinks I have OCD and I"m already paranoid by nature from my childhood... I don''t get panick attacks though, not there yet, although my heart races just a bit, and I start to get a little clamy

 

[Lilac]

I get very paranoid and nervous - I always worry about bad things happening to people I love or things going wrong. I try not to get my hopes up about things because I''m always convinced I''ll end up disappointed. I know this is something that developed based on things that happened when I was a child, so I''m trying to work on it because it''s not healthy! Definitely better to enjoy things and relax more! (Although I know how hard it is when your initial reaction is always to worry first....)

 

[fieryred33143]

Date: 6/16/2009 1:52:44 PM
Author:Sabine


Example 2: I''m at the doctor''s office. I check in. I wait. It''s going on a half an hour, and I''ve not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It''s been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven''t really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I''m next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

This exact same thing happens to me too! But I don''t think that panicky feeling is really from being paranoid...I think its from knowing you have to confront someone. I hate confrontations so when I have to confront someone, I get really panicky.

 

[April20]

I do tend to worry that things will go wrong, especially if it''s critical that they don''t. Then when they do go wrong, I get launched into FOM (freak out mode), which is never a good thing. I become completely irrational and it has to ride its course.

I''ve been trying to learn to let go and just realize that sometimes things don''t work out.... almost any situation is fixable. It just may not be fixed on the timetable that I wanted it to be. If telling myself this doesn''t work, I go get a cocktail.

It''s after 2, did you get your mailbox key???

 

[princessplease]

I am a huge worrier. I catastrophize everything and automatically think the worst will happen in a lot of situations, even when I try and rationalize them. I''ve been like this all my life, and it''s ridiculously hard to change.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 6/16/2009 3:28:36 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 1:52:44 PM
Author:Sabine


Example 2: I'm at the doctor's office. I check in. I wait. It's going on a half an hour, and I've not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It's been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven't really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I'm next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

This exact same thing happens to me too! But I don't think that panicky feeling is really from being paranoid...I think its from knowing you have to confront someone. I hate confrontations so when I have to confront someone, I get really panicky.

Well...I will give you the psychodynamic interpretation of what happens . You are waiting in a doctor's office and you do not want to wait for the darned doctor. Other people seem to be going in. You do not know if they are seeing someone else or if they had earlier appointments, but it makes you angry. You want to complain. Feeling angry as you do, you project your anger onto the receptionist who, in reality, harbors no ill feelings towards you at all. It it you who are angry at her! But you have projected your anger and now you fear she is angry at you and think what you feel is fear of asking her something, of "confronting" her (because you are angry). That is paranoia. Paranoia is projecting one's own anger onto others and then fearing them. There is no confrontation needed with this poor receptionist! She is not anyone's opponent! Someone (like Mara) who is comfortable with her own aggression does not experience paranoia.

Have I been of any help?

AGBF

 

[Haven]

AGBF--That''s a fabulous explanation of it! Thank you for sharing.

I don''t get irrationally paranoid about things going wrong when an answer is easy to obtain, as in the two scenarios you posted, Sabine. Like Mara, I''ll ask if I really want to know what''s going on.

However, I do get irrationally paranoid about something bad happening to our pets after I leave the house. My anxiety about this has gotten better since DH and I married and moved in together last summer, but it''s still there. I have a little ritual that I do every time I leave to make sure that none of our small electronics or appliances are plugged in, so as to minimize fire risk, and that all of the toilet seats are down, windows are shut, doors are locked, etc. Since the ritual has become very routine for me (and thus, easy to forget once I''ve done it,) I will sometimes obsess over whether I actually checked everything after I''ve left the house, and if I get really panicky about it, I''ll go back home to make sure everything is okay.

When DH lived in a high rise in the city I had a terrible time feeling okay about the state of the condo once I left it, if I was the last to leave. I feared that the cats had escaped into the hallway and would be stolen away from him, or that I hadn''t closed a window and they''d push out a screen and plummet all the way to the ground. There were a couple times that I turned my car around and went back up to check on them, and that was a huge ordeal--fight the traffic on Lake Shore Drive, check back in with the garage attendant, say hello to the doorman, bashfully explain why I was coming back. Those cases scared me, because I thought I was becoming mentally ill if I would go through all that trouble to check on the kitties.

I''m better now, but I do often feel uncomfortable about the way I left the house.

 

[Pandora II]

I get very anxious and paranoid when I am depressed, otherwise not at all except in the car where I drive DH mad by handing on to door handles with white knuckles and yet he is an incredibly safe driver who never speeds or takes risks - I''m like this with everyone. It took me 13 years, 5 tests and thousands of lessons to pass my driving test. I had to have beta-blocker for the lessons let alone the test. I passed finally in 2004 and haven''t driven since

(not that you need to in London

)

However, since Daisy was born I am TERRIFIED that I or DH will drop her or trip over carrying her etc. Last week DH and I were in a department store that had escalators which were open so that you could see right down to the bottom of the store if you looked over the side. DH had Daisy in a sling carrier and was standing near to that side and looking over. I honestly thought I was going to throw up I was so anxious - and yet I know she couldn''t fall out of the sling and nor was DH likely to fall over the side of an escalator...

 

[lyra]

I admit I''m neurotic about many issues. I do tend to panic sometimes, and if/when that happens, I think I sometimes behave inappropriately. Last week I had my first mammogram. I have been putting it off for *years* because I was afraid something would show up. But a friend of mine is going through breast cancer, and I promised her I would go get it done. It was horrific. The testing was fine until the technician came and said the radiologist wanted more shots of the right side. Those were very painful. Then she spoke with the radiologist and told me I needed an ultrasound and they could take me that day in about an hour. I totally panicked and actually *refused*. Can you believe it? She looked at me and my daughter who was with me with this stunned look on her face. I told her to book me an appt. for another day. So I went home and panicked some more for 2 days waiting for the scheduled appt. Stupid! It turned out fine. I was expecting a biopsy but none needed. This is my most recent example of panic leading me to be irrational.

At other times, I tend to be confrontational. When my doctor was half an hour late just showing up to the clinic, and there were 2 patients ahead of me when I got there, I outright cancelled the appointment and rebooked. I felt though, that maybe this would free up his late schedule a bit. Again, I got stared at. I''m unpredictable I guess.

 

[fieryred33143]

Date: 6/16/2009 8:09:45 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/16/2009 3:28:36 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 1:52:44 PM
Author:Sabine


Example 2: I'm at the doctor's office. I check in. I wait. It's going on a half an hour, and I've not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It's been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven't really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I'm next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

This exact same thing happens to me too! But I don't think that panicky feeling is really from being paranoid...I think its from knowing you have to confront someone. I hate confrontations so when I have to confront someone, I get really panicky.

Well...I will give you the psychodynamic interpretation of what happens . You are waiting in a doctor's office and you do not want to wait for the darned doctor. Other people seem to be going in. You do not know if they are seeing someone else or if they had earlier appointments, but it makes you angry. You want to complain. Feeling angry as you do, you project your anger onto the receptionist who, in reality, harbors no ill feelings towards you at all. It it you who are angry at her! But you have projected your anger and now you fear she is angry at you and think what you feel is fear of asking her something, of 'confronting' her (because you are angry). That is paranoia. Paranoia is projecting one's own anger onto others and then fearing them. There is no confrontation needed with this poor receptionist! She is not anyone's opponent! Someone (like Mara) who is comfortable with her own aggression does not experience paranoia.

Have I been of any help?

AGBF

I apologize but I don't think anywhere in my response did I say that I would go to the receptionist and lash out on her and get angry with her

And honestly, I'm really offended at the assumption that I would approach the receptionist and project my anger at her as if she were an opponent. I'm not some insensitive jerk who thinks everyone needs to make way for me and my appointment and your post came across this way and I'm not sure why.

 

[OUpearlgirl]

Oh I worry all the time... Anxiety is a beast I fight every moment of every day!

For several years I had the weirdest fear... if I was driving on a highway and a car needed to pass me, I was always afraid that they were going to shoot me. Don''t ask me why. I grew up in a very safe suburb with low crime rates.. Talk about an irrational fear.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 6/17/2009 12:21:54 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 8:09:45 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/16/2009 3:28:36 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 1:52:44 PM
Author:Sabine


Example 2: I'm at the doctor's office. I check in. I wait. It's going on a half an hour, and I've not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It's been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven't really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I'm next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

This exact same thing happens to me too! But I don't think that panicky feeling is really from being paranoid...I think its from knowing you have to confront someone. I hate confrontations so when I have to confront someone, I get really panicky.

Well...I will give you the psychodynamic interpretation of what happens . You are waiting in a doctor's office and you do not want to wait for the darned doctor. Other people seem to be going in. You do not know if they are seeing someone else or if they had earlier appointments, but it makes you angry. You want to complain. Feeling angry as you do, you project your anger onto the receptionist who, in reality, harbors no ill feelings towards you at all. It it you who are angry at her! But you have projected your anger and now you fear she is angry at you and think what you feel is fear of asking her something, of 'confronting' her (because you are angry). That is paranoia. Paranoia is projecting one's own anger onto others and then fearing them. There is no confrontation needed with this poor receptionist! She is not anyone's opponent! Someone (like Mara) who is comfortable with her own aggression does not experience paranoia.

Have I been of any help?

AGBF

I apologize but I don't think anywhere in my response did I say that I would go to the receptionist and lash out on her and get angry with her

And honestly, I'm really offended at the assumption that I would approach the receptionist and project my anger at her as if she were an opponent. I'm not some insensitive jerk who thinks everyone needs to make way for me and my appointment and your post came across this way and I'm not sure why.

I think there has been a major communications failure here, fiery. I read your posting a few hours ago and was obliged to go out with my daughter. I had hoped that in the intervening hours that someone who had understood my posting would have come forward and attempted to explain what I had tried to say. Since no one did, I will try to do so myself. I am sorry that I was unclear the first time.

I was speaking only of the inner life. If one has a psychodynamic approach (which I postulated was how I would approach this from my first posting), one believes in the unconscious. That means that he believes (as per Sigmund Freud) that one has many (by definition unconscious) id impulses upon which he would never act since those impulses are not acceptable to another part of the mind, the ego. In the psychodynamic model the superego and the id are at war, the id acting like a child and the superego like a parent, trying to keep the id in line. The ego has to balance the id impulses and the superego's strictures.

When I wrote of id impulses I was not implying that a polite person like you would ever have acted on them. On the contrary! I was attempting to explain why people with strict superegos (people whose superegos insist that they behave well) often tend to be the people who feel paranoid!

I never thought that you would be rude to a receptionist. I was merely recounting the series of events as they might occur for anyone in that situation, anyone forced to wait for a doctor. I believe that anyone in that situation would have unconscious anger toward the receptonist unless he took action (as Mara or some other aggressive person might). It would only be because Mara acted on her anger in an appropriate way that she, also, did not have hers build up!

AGBF

 

[CJ2008]

Date: 6/17/2009 5:50:31 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/17/2009 12:21:54 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 8:09:45 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 6/16/2009 3:28:36 PM
Author: fiery

Date: 6/16/2009 1:52:44 PM
Author:Sabine


Example 2: I''m at the doctor''s office. I check in. I wait. It''s going on a half an hour, and I''ve not been called yet. People who got there after me are getting called (but I know they could be scheduled for a different doctor). It''s been 45 minutes. I start thinking, what if they forgot to pull my chart? What if they checked me off when I haven''t really been called yet (this actually happened to me once). How long should I wait...etc. This happens often at the doctor, and I usually end up asking and being told that I''m next or something, but I get this high blood pressure panicky feeling before I ask.

This exact same thing happens to me too! But I don''t think that panicky feeling is really from being paranoid...I think its from knowing you have to confront someone. I hate confrontations so when I have to confront someone, I get really panicky.

Well...I will give you the psychodynamic interpretation of what happens . You are waiting in a doctor''s office and you do not want to wait for the darned doctor. Other people seem to be going in. You do not know if they are seeing someone else or if they had earlier appointments, but it makes you angry. You want to complain. Feeling angry as you do, you project your anger onto the receptionist who, in reality, harbors no ill feelings towards you at all. It it you who are angry at her! But you have projected your anger and now you fear she is angry at you and think what you feel is fear of asking her something, of ''confronting'' her (because you are angry). That is paranoia. Paranoia is projecting one''s own anger onto others and then fearing them. There is no confrontation needed with this poor receptionist! She is not anyone''s opponent! Someone (like Mara) who is comfortable with her own aggression does not experience paranoia.

Have I been of any help?

AGBF

I apologize but I don''t think anywhere in my response did I say that I would go to the receptionist and lash out on her and get angry with her

And honestly, I''m really offended at the assumption that I would approach the receptionist and project my anger at her as if she were an opponent. I''m not some insensitive jerk who thinks everyone needs to make way for me and my appointment and your post came across this way and I''m not sure why.

I think there has been a major communications failure here, fiery. I read your posting a few hours ago and was obliged to go out with my daughter. I had hoped that in the intervening hours that someone who had understood my posting would have come forward and attempted to explain what I had tried to say. Since no one did, I will try to do so myself. I am sorry that I was unclear the first time.

I was speaking only of the inner life. If one has a psychodynamic approach (which I postulated was how I would approach this from my first posting), one believes in the unconscious. That means that he believes (as per Sigmund Freud) that one has many (by definition unconscious) id impulses upon which he would never act since those impulses are not acceptable to another part of the mind, the ego. In the psychodynamic model the superego and the id are at war, the id acting like a child and the superego like a parent, trying to keep the id in line. The ego has to balance the id impulses and the superego''s strictures.

When I wrote of id impulses I was not implying that a polite person like you would ever have acted on them. On the contrary! I was attempting to explain why people with strict superegos (people whose superegos insist that they behave well) often tend to be the people who feel paranoid!

I never thought that you would be rude to a receptionist. I was merely recounting the series of events as they might occur for anyone in that situation, anyone forced to wait for a doctor. I believe that anyone in that situation would have unconscious anger toward the receptonist unless he took action (as Mara or some other aggressive person might). It would only be because Mara acted on her anger in an appropriate way that she, also, did not have hers build up!

AGBF

I understood your post and didn''t at all think that you were implying fiery or anyone else would be rude to the receptionist.

I think what you described is what happens to me although I never recognized that there was anger underneath it all...

What do you make of this, is it the same? Taking the same doctor example, sometimes I think am afraid that the RECEPTIONIST will become annoyed that I ask her the question and be rude to me because SHE''s assuming I''m going to make trouble (because nobody likes to wait, therefore my question is not just an "innocent" question) and then I''ll have to RESPOND to HER rudeness - hence, a confrontation.

 

[whitby_2773]

sabine

did you get your key??