Thursday, July 30, 2009

Murphy's Law- OCD?

Besides my standard contamination OCD, I also have what I consider a general "Murphy's Law" OCD- where I assume the worst case scenario will happen. I think this probably falls somewhere between OCD and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). I tend to have one big picture worry floating through my head at all times. Usually it's something with about a 0.1 - 1 % (or sometimes less) chance of happening, but when I'm really worried, it seems like about a 50% chance. For instance, the neighbor's cat and rabies, or worrying about my sister's house while she's out of town.

Today, it's that a friend has asked me to mail him an expensive item that I borrowed several years ago and then promptly forgot about. I'm convinced that it will be stolen from his front porch. However, despite the fact that if I chose to, I could actually take a road trip and return it to him in person, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to mail it, and sit with the worry. Ugh, but good, I guess.

2 comments:

  1. Good for you! The nice thing about these kind of worries is there's an end date in sight: he will find the package and the obsession will be obsolete. Remembering that might make the sitting part easier.

    www.itsmewithocd.blogspot.com

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  2. Definitely. Although I find that usually my brain is over it even before then (I wish I could remember that too when in the throes of worry)

    So I figure by the time UPS acually delivers the package, I'll be thinking, what the heck, why was I ever worried about that?! Of course, I'll probably have a new worry by then!

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