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Irrational fears!

Evi

My neighbour, who lives just across the street, was robbed 5 minutes ago. The burglars got in by a small kitchen-window she'd left open. She was in the house, her car was parked outside, but they didn't care! They got in, took some things quickly and ran away.

My neighbourhood is a very peaceful place where we can leave windows open like she did. What happened today isn't expected to happen again soon. But I'm now getting obsessed over this, and I'm going to start checking around my yard and waking up at night to check again because of a stupid noise, etc. 

Does anyone else get obsessed like this over irrational fears?

What do you do to get over it?

Parents

  • I’m sorry that happened to your neighbour. I would be afraid of something like that happening to me too. 

    Humans are strange mammals, because we often think something unlikely is going to happen to us, despite evidence to the contrary. At least, that is what I tell myself when my fears become out of hand.

    To counteract it, I tend to look online for evidence of occurrences of the thing I am frightened of. I would look at things like crime statistics, pedestrian accident rate, risk of dying from illness by a specific age. It helps me put a sense of proportion on things. I could be dead of something else by the time I would have finished worrying about what might happen.

  • in reply to ArchaeC
    ArchaeC said:
    I could be dead of something else by the time I would have finished worrying about what might happen.

    That's true! My father used to have  nosophobia (phobia of illnesses). Would do all the tests, visit doctors, etc. Always researching about illnesses, and talking about that. He died "healthy" of cardiac arrest while asleep at the age of 60. But that's why I call those fears "irrational". They really are!

    ArchaeC said:
    I’m sorry that happened to your neighbour.

    Thank you! Slight smile

Reply
  • in reply to ArchaeC
    ArchaeC said:
    I could be dead of something else by the time I would have finished worrying about what might happen.

    That's true! My father used to have  nosophobia (phobia of illnesses). Would do all the tests, visit doctors, etc. Always researching about illnesses, and talking about that. He died "healthy" of cardiac arrest while asleep at the age of 60. But that's why I call those fears "irrational". They really are!

    ArchaeC said:
    I’m sorry that happened to your neighbour.

    Thank you! Slight smile

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