It's all my fault

[Snowflake]

A reacuring intrusive thought of mine was my mum getting sick. I always thought what if she gets throat cancer, because she smoked at the time.

I haven't had this intrusive thought for a few years now. Today my mum told me shes had heartburn and acid reflux for a long time. It could be casused by a condition called GERD. If left untreated it can cause the tissue in your throat to turn cancerous. She hasn't been to the doctors yet. Since my mum said it's been like this for a long time, did I cause this with my intrusive thoughts. 

[dksea]

2 hours ago, Snowflake said:

did I cause this with my intrusive thoughts.

You can not cause illness with your thoughts.

[Snowflake]

7 hours ago, dksea said:

You can not cause illness with your thoughts.

I know that, but I find it hard to believe  it's a crazy coincidence. I just hope my mums okay, I won't forgive myself. 

[snowbear]

1 hour ago, Snowflake said:

I know that, but I find it hard to believe  it's a crazy coincidence. I just hope my mums okay, I won't forgive myself. 

You're free to believe whatever nonsense you want to believe. 

You're free to feel nonsense guilt if you want to.

You're free to believe your OCD and conclude these thoughts aren't nonsense.

But hopefully there's enough normal thinking going on to convince you to take a chance on it being nonsense so you dismiss both the thought and the guilt without further ado. 

Only you can choose what you want to believe and what you want to feel. 

If you do choose to believe your nonsense thoughts and beat yourself up with guilt, only you will suffer. Your mum won't be affected either way, same as her current illness hasn't been influenced by your crazy magical thinking (obsessive thoughts.)

Do you really want to do this to yourself?

[cookiemonster]

This is your ocd working overtime. This idea is scientifically impossible 

[dksea]

14 hours ago, Snowflake said:

I know that, but I find it hard to believe  it's a crazy coincidence. I just hope my mums okay, I won't forgive myself. 

Why do you find it hard to believe?  There is endless evidence to support that illness is caused by things like environment, germs, bad luck with genetics etc.  There is none to support the idea that illness is caused by other people thinking bad things.

Coincidences happen all the time in life, but they don't mean anything.  Humans are just really really good at making patterns, even where none really exists.

Here's one that people talk about all the time but is really meaningless:  "I was just thinking about my friend and then they called me!".  Well yeah, you think about your friends often, and they call you sometimes.  When two fairly frequent, independent events occur, sometimes they happen near each other.

We also tend to notice things more when they are significant in our lives.  Like when you buy a new car and you suddenly start noticing that car all around you.  Or maybe its job related.  One summer I worked for the Post Office delivering mail.  For awhile after that I would notice mailboxes more often.  They were always there before, its just my brain didn't really care. Your mom was a smoker, therefore you thought more about her having complications related to smoking.  The cause is that she smoked, the effect is you thought about it more, not the other way around.

Yes it would be sad if something happens to your mum, and its fair to be nervous about that and want her to be healthy.  But its not fair to you or her to blame yourself for something that is not in anyway your fault.

[Snowflake]

Thanks to everyone for replying. My mum is healthy. I'm jumping to conclusions and I'm googling symptoms. I'm just having an overall horrible time with my anxiety. I've recently started a new job and this time of year always makes me worse. 

[dksea]

1 minute ago, Snowflake said:

Thanks to everyone for replying. My mum is healthy. I'm jumping to conclusions and I'm googling symptoms.

Glad to hear that she's healthy! 

Now stop Googling symptoms, thats a bad idea!  

[Snowflake]

5 minutes ago, dksea said:

Glad to hear that she's healthy! 

Now stop Googling symptoms, thats a bad idea!  

l'm terrible for googling, I seem to think Google has all the answers. I will stop, I promise

[dksea]

2 hours ago, Snowflake said:

l'm terrible for googling, I seem to think Google has all the answers. I will stop, I promise

Don't feel bad, I fall in to the same trap sometimes.  Its so tempting, i understand completely.