How I Overcame What If Thoughts

I used to suffer from severe obsessive compulsive disorder from 2016 to June 2021. When I was 18 to 23. I worried about everything endlessly. I was afraid of everything. I doubted everything. I wasted my time and energy overthinking, replaying every event and memory I could remember in my mind. I was paranoid.

What if thoughts are terrible.

The first what if thought, worry and fear that showed up in 2016 was what if someone steals my ideas? What if someone steals my ideas, my writing, my music, the work I created? This was the start of my OCD appearing. This what if thought, worry, and fear caused me to worry endlessly about everything and afraid of everything.

This led to endless what if thoughts.

What if I cut off or damage my tongue, eyes, ears, genitals, or other body parts? What if I unintentionally and accidentally hurt or kill myself? What if I unintentionally and accidentally hurt or kill someone I love? Someone who is important to me and I care about them? What if I make a mistake or failure? What if I do something wrong? What if I unintentionally and accidentally commit a crime? What if I die? What if my mother dies? What if I never succeed? What if I lose control of my mind and my body? What if I become completely insane? What if mental illness takes over and controls my mind and my life? What if I'm an evil, terrible person? What if reality and the universe are not real? What if reality and the universe are an illusion or a dream? What if I'm actually dead?

Stop. Stop all the what if thoughts.

How I overcame what if thoughts, worries, and fears

#1 I am not my thoughts.

My worries, fears, what if thoughts, unwanted, disturbing thoughts are not reality. When they appear in my mind, don't listen to them. Don't fight them. Don't give them my time and energy. They are like horror movies. Just like horror movies cannot actually kill the watcher in reality, my worries, fears, and what if thoughts cannot actually kill me.

#2 Accept uncertainty.

What if something terrible happened in the past? What if something terrible happens in the future?

Maybe it happened already, maybe it didn't. Maybe it will happen in the future, or it may not.

Life is filled with uncertainty. The universe is filled with mysteries and the unknown. Physicists and other scientists still do not know everything about the universe. They still do not know most of the information about the universe. They do not have definitive answers and solutions to everything or most things.

It is impossible to remember every single thing that happened yesterday. It is impossible to remember every person, food, car, building, street sign, animal, plant you saw yesterday. And that was yesterday. It is impossible to predict everything that will happen tomorrow.

Life is filled with uncertainty. Accept uncertainty.

#3 Stop living in my mind. Live in reality. My happiness and peace of mind are most important.

I'm always worried and afraid what if something terrible happens in the future? But the future does not exist right now. It is impossible to predict the future. No one knows the future. There are a billion possibilities for the future, and only one of them will be reality. All my worries and fears are my imagination. Stop living in my mind. Live in reality.

I don't want to be a mental slave. I don't want to be a prisoner in my mind.

I don't want my worries, fears, what if thoughts, unwanted, disturbing thoughts, thoughts that make me miserable, stress, and philosophical ideas to control my mind and my life.

I don't know everything about the universe. I don't have answers to everything. No one in the world knows everything about the universe and has answers to everything. Everyone lacks knowledge in many things.

Many intelligent people overthink everything, try to control everything, try to find answers and solve everything, and they tend to be miserable. Or they have a lot of stress.

Be simple. Making your mind simple makes life much easier.

A simple life is a happy life. A simple life removes unnecessary things, overly complex and complicated things, and distractions. A simple life makes you focus on what is truly important.

I want to be happy. Everyone wants to be happy.

My happiness and peace of mind are most important. My happiness is real and important. The people I love and care about are real, and they are most important. God is most important.