Magical Thinking and inability to distance myself

Magical thinking has been a huge part of my OCD since several years ago, when it first got bad enough for me to seek treatment. A lot of it revolves around the feeling that if I think about something, it will happen. This is especially scary when I have intrusive thoughts or when worries/scenarios occur to me for whatever reason. I'm also a writer and sometimes worry that the scenes I write will come true for someone I know. My biggest worries revolve around causing other people to lose loved ones or get sick. When something bad happens to someone I know, I often blame myself even if there's no rational reason to do so. I also feel guilty that it happened to them and not me, and I feel incredibly guilty whenever I'm around them because I can't make it better.

It's annoying because I feel like I can't properly react to anything. For example, one of my classmates is having a carcinoma removed from her skin. She's of course worried that the doctors won't get it all. Now every time I'm reading or doing whatever, if she pops into my mind or I read a word that can possibly be associated with healthcare, I have to do all kinds of rituals to "protect" her and make sure the procedure goes OK. Also if I begin to worry about it, I worry that I'm somehow making HER worry about it or contributing "bad vibes" to the atmosphere, making the possibility of failure greater. HOWEVER, if I try to push it from my mind, I'm just being selfish and hurting her somehow that way. So basically, no matter what, I'm causing it to get worse. This is just one example but it happens like that any time anyone I know is concerned about something or goes through a crisis.

I have a lot of trouble empathizing with people and knowing how they want me to react when they're suffering. I think this is the main reason why so many of my obsessions revolve around protecting others (yes, it's selfish, but... well... I'm self-centered). So I'm constantly worried that my thoughts will cause someone I'm around a lot - such as a classmate, roommate, etc. - to go through something horrible, while I make it all worse with my ineptitude. My mind will reach for the most ridiculous associations - e.g. "I just read the word 'map,' and my friend's name starts with the letter 'm', and her mom is in remission from cancer, so if i don't read another word quick and blink a lucky number of times while looking at it, and erase the other word from my memory, the cancer will come back" or "This person's face just floated through my mind while I was typing that perfectly innocuous word; if I don't delete it and re-type it while thinking 'nothing's going to happen' until it feels right, something bad will happen to them." There are also "good" and "bad" numbers to me so I have to make sure I do my rituals the correct number of times & with the right rhythm. This is esp. true when writing or typing since I associate certain letters with a rhythm of "3" so I have to make sure I take that into account while backspacing and re-typing them, or adding notches to them when writing by hand. Then I am stuck in a cycle of covering, tapping, flipping pages, etc. repeatedly, blinking, closing one eye to block out the word, repeating "good" words over and over in my head, and trying to move forward. How often this happens depends on how stressed I am or how recently I was reminded of or randomly thought of the bad situation. For example I sometimes can get through pages or assignments reasonably quickly, and other times manage to have a bad association for so many words it's absolutely exhausting.

Sorry for how long this was. There's a lot more to it actually, but that's the gist. If anyone reading this has had a similar problem, can you let me know what has helped you with it? (as a sidenote: I am in therapy right now, but we're slow-going, and I'd like more suggestions than just what I get from each session, since we can't even really focus on this aspect to being with)

I think I also need to learn to emotionally distance myself more. I just get so guilty when I try to do that. And I'm going into healthcare, so I need to learn to do that now more than ever.

Hi ruru, I have a bit of magical thinking with my OCD and will be covering it in exposure therapy. All I can suggest is to look up 'thought-action-fusion', 'thought-object-fusion' and 'thought-even-fusion'. This explains the faulty beliefs in magical thinking in OCD.

I went through a particularly bad time when I thought that if I thought the word 'pedophile' when I was around a kid I had somehow molested them at an energetic level. Obviously this is utter nonsense, but it was very upsetting none the less. I also assumed that it was a criminal act to think this word in the presence of a child.

I'm very concerned with being a narcissist or sociopath right now and I find that if I cook dinner, clean the house or do something for someone I must do so with 'pure' thoughts otherwise the 'vibes' may hurt someone. I get magical thinking symptoms, but different ones than you do. A thought pops into my head about my family dying and so I polish the picture frames with their pictures in, or an ornament they might have given me and feel incredibly guilty if these items get dusty! It's as though it would be my fault if they died because I had neglected to care for these items. It's usually stuff like this.

We both know that all of this is irrational and our minds are not this powerful. I'm about to start exposure therapy in earnest tomorrow. I am trying to keep a handle on it by thanking my mind for being so creative and imaginative and then moving on. I thought of that a couple of days ago after days of having a massive spike.

Oddly, my OCD was almost entirely of the magical thinking kind and very similar to yours about 10 years ago (long before diagnosis) and then slowly morphed into what it is now. Yours doesn't have to morph now you are in therapy.

The emotional reaction to these thoughts is tough for me, they really do feel real and important. I guess it's a matter of retraining our brains to realise that there is no threat.

I think all we can do is be diligent with our therapy and any assignments and to commit to it.

i have the same problem since is started to become religious(buddhism, new age)
as i wrote here: obsessive-compulsive/topic179166.html

the only thing which helps me to overcome this inability to distance myself from negative thoughts which are rooted in my magical thinking(believing in law of attraction, karma, mind over matter)
is when i switch to pure left brained rational thinking where i distance myself from right brained imagination and say to myself "this is not real and only a product of your imagination"
i try to take things rationally and only to believe what my eyes can see and distance myself from beliefs not rooted in reality. even if my anxiety and OCD come back from time to time and i have no 100% control over it, still being rational and refusing to believe in the thoughts which pop up in my imagination helps me to calm down and reduce the anxiety and OCD.

to think linear and rational helps me to overcome the anxiety rooted in magical thinking, this seems to be the only cure for me by now..

my anxiety only gets worse/comes back when i experience "meaningful coincidences" which then give more power to my superstitous magical thoughts (mind over matter/my thoughts influence my reality)

but i try to say to myself "the meaning you give to the coincidences is only created by your false beliefs"

i also think magical thinking and fear of future events is rooted in humans becoming neotenous species after agriculturalism spread over the globe. hunter gatherers seem to be more rooted in reality than us. they are living in here and now. we modern humans with big neotenous neocortex plan for the future and so the distinguishing between past present furure makes up our anxiety disorders because we feel uncertain of what will happen next. hunter gatherers are flexible and cool with having no control over nature. we modern humans suffering from neoteny on the other hand cannot stand the idea of having no control over unpredictable events in the future = results in all kinds of phobia and anxiety disorders

I have tried exposure therapy in the past; it didn't work, but at the time, I was still brand new to my diagnosis so it's possible I just wasn't "ready" yet. I hope someday I can have access to more high quality therapy - I do like my current therapist but she's not versed in a lot of different kinds of OCD therapies since she's a school counselor and doesn't deal with it as often as a psychologist or etc. would.

Anyway, thanks for all your replies! At least it's good to know I'm not alone. I definitely need to make this stop though, it is controlling my life...