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Obse
Casual Contributor

An event from my past, irrational worries

Hi,
I'm a volunteer at an animal shelter and a big animal lover. About 3 weeks ago, a staff member at the shelter found a frog in there, and she invited me to come with her as she went outside to release the frog. She put the frog near a puddle and went back inside the shelter, but since I have OCD, I felt like I had to stay there a few more moments to make sure the frog was okay. After staring at the frog for a few moments, I started walking back to the shelter, but I kept looking back at the puddle, just to be absolutely sure.

At some point when I looked back the frog wasn't there anymore. I went back to puddle to take a closer look, but the frog was nowhere to be seen, so I just went back to the shelter.

Even though I can tell with almost 100% certainty that the frog simply jumped into the puddle when I didn't look, I still can't get over the idea that I accidentally stepped on the frog when I went back to puddle to take a closer look. This idea makes no sense because the closest I got to where we put the frog was a few meters away from that spot, and also, if a frog had been crashed under my foot, I would have surely noticed.

Unfortunately, I cannot reason with my OCD, and even though I keep telling myself how irrational my worries are, they just don't go away.

Any advice on how to deal with this trouble?

4 REPLIES 4

Re: An event from my past, irrational worries

Hi @Obse,

Welcome to the forum 😊

I don't have OCD but do get caught up with obsessive thoughts at times. I can relate to that kind of situation a little. I know that there have been times that something similar has happened whilst driving my car in the country and being scared I've run over a small animal on the road or hit a bird but then not finding evidence of it. Sometimes it's stayed with me for up to a week but I find time lets go of these things. I think it comes out of fear of hurting an animal. I'm often petrified of hitting a cat or animal whilst driving at night. 

I'm sorry I don't have any particular strategies to help with this situation. I hope you find a way to let it go soon. Best wishes. 😊

Re: An event from my past, irrational worries

Thank you! 🙂

Re: An event from my past, irrational worries

Hi @Obse,

Welcome to the sane forums 🙂

Firstly what a wonderful thing you are doing volunteering at the animal shelter!

but I can hear how distressed you feel about these thoughts given you care so much. I am assuming that since you mentioned OCD that you have this diagnosis and perhaps have distressing thoughts about other things, is that right? how do you usually challenge them? are you working with a counsellor? we have a fact sheet that talks about how common this is in society and that in many cases it can be treated quite sucessfully.

I know that a few members have spoken about having OCD like @Magoo @Jayne1 @Eden1919 and @Dothemo speaks about how therapy as helped them here

what do others think?

Re: An event from my past, irrational worries

I do have distressing thoughts about other things as well, and I simply keep telling myself to forget about them because my worries are irrational. It's very hard for me to do the same thing in this case, however, because the well being of animals is a topic that's very close to my heart and I simply cannot bear the idea that an animal was killed because of my recklessness, even if I know that this idea makes no sense whatsoever.
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