too many stresses to deal with!! :-s help!! - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Message Board

brainchild · 11-29-2004, 04:57 PM

Hiya!
Right ok, I have posted on hee numerous times b4 about different concerns n everyones feedback is really helpful n kinda helps to put things into perspective!! so im hoping that there must b some people out there right now who can give me any any advice because i am driving myself absolutely CRAZY!! I have soo many things at the moment that i am worrying about n i feel like i am on one big downhill spiral! it had been like this ever since i finished uni this year and it is just getting worse and worse!!
i am really really sorry if this seems long but there is much going on upstairs im not even gonna b able to put it all down!! :s
The thoughts that plague me the most r responsibility ocd thoughts. But the thing is i am so convinced that these things may very well b true!
I'll try to explain!! I am currently living with horrible sense of gulit and anxiety that I might of in my lifetime caused someone to b injured badly or worse, to die. for instance, when i was 16, (6 years ago now) i went to use the public phones in the hospital which have little booths surrounding them and i had a can of coke with me, and when i got off the phone, i knocked that can of coke onto the floor spilling it in the corner of the booth. I panicked and i didnt know what to do n whether i should of told somebody or not and i didnt know who to tell so i kind of sat there for a bit n then left and started to walk home. If i cud change one thing in my life that wud b it!! because i have worried and worried for years that someone, particularly an elderly person or an injured person might have walked into that corner or walked through it and spread it about on the floor, causing someone to slip on it and injure themselves badly and die. So i have felt soo guilty about this! after it happened i spent every week searching thru the local newspapers for stories of ppl being badly hurt from slipping over in the hospital and i have even searched the news websites for the local papaers n other local news sites for stories of this nature, but i havent found any so i have convinced myself that maybe they just wouldnt mention it and i will never ever know. i cant stand that thought!! i just want to know that nothing happened!! and another thing is, i work in the hospital serving food on the wards and i we have to re-heat the food from frozen in a trolley and then take it out and serve it out and i am paranoid that i will of caused a patient or maybe more to get food poisoning and die

, like this one time the chicken didnt reach 75 degrees as it is supposed to but after 2 more boosts it managed to reach around 70, 71, 72 ish, and that used to b the accepted temperature and the last time it had only reached that high i had rung up my supervisor and checked and she said that 70 was ok so i just assumed it wud ok that time too!! so i served out most of the chicken and it was only when one of the nurses who was being rude said to one of the patients is that hot? it doesnt look hot at all!! and he said umm no not really, and she came over and was like is this food hot enough?? the patients r saying its cold and it looks freezing!! and i said well it reached over 70 degrees n she was like oh hmm well it doesnt look hot, and as soon as she said that i panicked and was thinking oh no, what if i got it wrong and i shudnt of seved it, even tho on signs on the wall it says hot food shud be over 70, i still panicked and i have worried and worried ever since that i might have caused patients who r old and ill to get food poisoning and die!! there has also been events when the probe has appeared to b broken and playing up so i have used my judgement and listened to other ppl saying its fine n then im like what if it wasnt fine? i shudnt of listened to them etc etc and now the worrying is getting worse and worse and i am now afraid to breathe over food incase i contaminate it and make someone ill!! and a couple of weeks ago i laughed n breathed quite hard b4 putting some food in the microwave and have been panicking about that!! it is sooo horrible to have all these feelings of guilt and panic every single time i have finished work, of all these potential things i cud of done to cause ppl harm!!
i am always feeling so angry with myslef for letting these things happen! i feel like i cant actually live without causing people harm!! it is soo bad!! and the thing is, even tho i am writing it down it still isnt looking any crazier to me!! it still seems completely serious like everything i am worried about is likely to of happened!! and then there is my other worries, particularly of catching hiv, esp from abandoned needles, which according to my head i have lots of "potential stabbings" now :s now this does sound ridiculous when i write it down, but then i am like, maybe i am supposed to get hiv because i deserve it for being such a bad person and maybe i have caused somebody else to die and so i am not being allowed a happy life, i also think that maybe my bad skin is becuase of this too, and me being treated badly in relationships is all becauase basically i dont deservee any better!!
it is unbearable!! and on top of other general stresses like work (3 jobs at mo, plus an evening course, plus general living stuff to sort out) it is all way too much and i cant cope!! my skin on my face has gone sooo bad with spots n rash since finishing uni n having all these stresses multiply!!
its the fact that i dont KNOW and cant find out if these things wud happen!! i mean i dont KNOW if the local paper wud write about someone dying or being injured in the hospital by slipping, and i dont KNOW if my bosses wud tell us or approach us of ppl who had been served on out shift had got ill with food poisoning!! i dont know how easy or hard it is to get food poisoning, i think what if someone got ill and then went home and only got ill when they got home and therefore the hospital never found out about it!! so therefore i will never ever know!!
i used to b soo carefree and happy and chatty and now i am just a big wreck! i worry all the time, feel guilty all the time, my skin has gone bad, my nerves r a wreck and i am soooo moody and bossy sometimes!! and i hate it!! cos i am not like that!! i hate offending anyone, i used to b really friendly and helpful in work and now i just hate it so much, its like torture to me!! cos in my head its seems like if im not hurting someone then im getting stabbed with needles left in bags or coming into contact with contaminated blood or whatever!! i dont even allow myself to enjoy good things that happen to me or get excited about the things that i love the most because i am worried i have done something bad and am i bad person and that i dont deserve to b that happy!! ooh boy, i bet i sound like a total crazy person!!
well anyway, if u r still here and not nodded off to sleep or just got fed up then thanks for reading n any advice/help/reassurance/or anyone familiarise with what i say wud b extremely extremely appreciated!!
phew, my hands r gonna drop off! lol
xxxx laura xxxx

brainchild · 11-29-2004, 05:15 PM

Oh yeah! sorry, forgot to add this as well!
a few weeks ago i was due to work on the friday but i was really ill with a bad cough on the thursday and i got sent home from my other job cos i couldnt stop coughing! i had had a cold n it had gone n i was left with just an irritating cough that wouldnt go away!
so when i got home i thought i'll ring in work now and tell them i dont think i shud come in 2moro cos im not feeling too good cos normally if u ring up on the morning they say no u have to come in!
so i thought id give them advance notice to cover it! but the supervisor who was a stand in one answered n she was like well 2 ppl r already off sick so i cant really cover it now but c how u feel in the morning n give us a ring back then.
so i wasnt very happy cos i knew that was pointless! but when i woke up the next day i felt quite a bit better so i went in but as the day progressed i started to feel a lot worse again. at lunchtime i went up to serve on some of the wards and the first two i was ok on, just paranoid about my breathing as usual, but then on the 3rd ward i was serving the food n i knew i was gonna have a coughing fit, so i moved as quick as poss away from the food n coughed and was practically choking, when i managed to i went of the ward as quick as poss n started coughing and choking just outside the wards by the food tray trolley, n went to get some water! so then after this i was worrying and worrying and worrying because i was on the dialysis ward when i started coughing and they r the day patients that come in to have kidney dialysis and i know that they r susceptible to colds and flu just as ppl with diabetes r and stuff, i know i didnt have the flu but i was worried that might of given one of them or some of them a cold n they might have got really ill from it!! and also when i went outside because i was coughing by the food trolley i was worrying that some cough particles might have travelled and landed on some clean plates which might make people ill!!
so this stuff happens all the time and builds up in my head of like a list of events when i might of caused something bad to happen.

and another thing i do cos i feel so bad is, this sounds ridiculous, i read the obituary pages in the newspaper to see if i could of possibly caused a person to die. if i see someone dies in the hospital or of an illness i wonder if it was me that caused it!
this is awful!! repetitive hand washing is a breeze in comparison to this!!

i know i probably sound crazy but i am actualy quite normal aside from this!!
i hope!! the old me must b under there somewhere!! lol

sanrun · 11-30-2004, 07:51 PM

Oh, my goodness! Take a deep breath girl! Relax! Relax! You didn't hurt anyone. Chop down the worry tree!

Take Care,

sanrun

alexis222 · 12-01-2004, 05:46 AM

sanrun is right take a deep breath,relax I promise you its ok. I have had some of the same issues. I am in a hurry now but maybe we could talk some more.
take care
alexis

brainchild · 12-01-2004, 09:31 AM

hehe thanx for ur replies guys! or girls should i say! i know, its really hard and i really wish i could just not think about these things but they r always there in the back of my mind even if i am not thinking about them directly, and they cause me a ot of distress and anxiety its awful!! just as well as on overly large workload its all just too much to deal with because it distratcs me from my work too!!
i'd b interested in hearing your story alexis and how you managed to get over it!! i have been like this on and off for over 6 years now so its hard to imagine being completely free of this!! for me just imagining not worrying about either hurting someone or casuing some serious disaster or injuries or harm or worrying about getting some horrible disease particularly hiv, is just unimaginable!! but life wud b soo much better!! other ppl try to reassure you when you have ocd issues but that doubt always comes creeping back in and it hard to believe! its like even if what is bothering you is very unlikely, you will doubt it then and then think that is most likely to have happened to you! i dont know if that makes sense! its hard to explain!!
:-s ohh dear!! think my heads gonna explode sometimes!!