Premonition, fear I'm losing my mind!

[oetegenn1976]

I have been totally fine, despite the current circumstances! However I have always had a niggly feeling.....And today, whilst I was painting and trying to occupy my mind from wondering,  it wondered, but like I said I have always thought this deep down, but now its making me anxious and I feel like I'm going mad and that I'm going to have a panic attack! 

In January of last year, I actually had a feeling that something horrible was going to happen that year, and I was really on edge..... In the February my brother inlaw died suddenly on my sons 12th birthday! Aged 46....  Then around October, November time of last year I was thinking about a virus that would cause disruption! And what would happen etc..... And now i am in total panic thinking i can read the bloody future, i know totally irrational..... But I'm proper stressing out and frightened that I'm going mad! 

Please help

 

 

[PolarBear]

You really don't need us to tell you that you can't foretell the future, do you? Rather pointless anyway, since your mind will just conjure up some junk 'proof' of it being so.

Ever notice how generalized premonitions are? You had a thought that something bad would happen in a given year. How more unspecific could you get? Can you name a year when nothing bad happened? Like, nothing? And why can't premonitions be about winning lottery numbers or unclaimed life insurance policies?

[dksea]

On 16/05/2020 at 03:14, oetegenn1976 said:

In January of last year, I actually had a feeling that something horrible was going to happen that year, and I was really on edge...

Bad things happen.  Having a feeling that a bad thing might happen doesn't prove you can see the future, it proves you are aware of reality.
 

On 16/05/2020 at 03:14, oetegenn1976 said:

Then around October, November time of last year I was thinking about a virus that would cause disruption!

Viruses are a bad thing that happen too, its not unusual to have this kind of thought.  You've probably had other thoughts of bad things that MIGHT happen, but either didn't or haven't happened yet.  You don't focus on them because they didn't happen.

What you are experiencing isn't a premonition, its selection bias.  You are remembering/focusing on the times when you feared something and later something related happened, but ignoring the times where it wasn't true.

Its like going in to a casino and feeling "lucky".  You decide to play some roulette.  You lose a bunch of times, then you win once.  Oh look, you were lucky!  Not really, but you FEEL lucky because you link the ONE success to the feeling you had and ignore all the failures.  its a common human behavior, and frustrating for OCD sufferers.

Until you can start picking the winning lotto numbers each week, you are better off ignoring these thoughts as best you can and treating them like the OCD exaggerated fears they are.

[oetegenn1976]

Thank you