Can someone from the internet find by...

[filledwithfear]

Can someone from the internet find by...

Your 1st and middle name, state, age, and picture, and about how much snow your gonna get in the next couple days?

[DoomSong]

Maybe, anything is possible. But there is no reason they'd want to. I doubt you were claiming to have loads of money held up in your house, you aren't a child, yet young enough for it to be reasoned you aren't living alone, you aren't a girl and you fit no other criteria that would cause a crazed criminal you don't know to search for you specifically and travel to your house. Don't worry about it.

[ali]

This is an OCD thought. Don't give it any power by giving it serious consideration. Just accept it as meaningless and move on.

[filledwithfear]

Can someone from the internet find by...

Your 1st and middle name, state, age, and picture...

Okay, so she was one of my few friends on the internet and now she's not talking to me anymore. Is there any chance that's gonna try to find me and hurt/kill me? So could she find me with that info?

I don't know am I worrying too much, she was trying to help me with my anxiety...

[Janet]

so could it be that 'fear someone is going to find me/hurt me/kill me' is another ocd theme? What is the best way to treat it?

[eclipse83]

Maybe she stopped talking to you because you don't take anyone's advice when it comes to managing your anxiety...

[runningincircles]

The best advice for calming you down is to search that information in " " bracettes. If you find that your information is out there, there will be a way for you to delete it.

However, even though I don't know this girl, I have no doubt in my mind that she won't hurt you!

[filledwithfear]

Originally Posted by Janet

so could it be that 'fear someone is going to find me/hurt me/kill me' is another ocd theme? What is the best way to treat it?

Now that I think about it, you're probably right... Not really sure how to do with it though...

btw, that girl is talking to me again. ^_^

[Janet]

right so now you recognise it as an ocd theme you need to treat it as such. Read this which is from another thread:

OCD is a disorder that can take you to some dark places but with knowledge comes power and learning about the disorder can really help you in overcoming it.
To get some basic knowledge my personal recommendations are:
http://westsuffolkpsych.homestead.com/Articles.html and www.ocdonline.com
though we do have a resources section on the forum and there are plenty of good books on the subject.

OCD is an anxiety based disorder and whilst there are many themes, many of which you will see on SIAD, basically it is the disorder that needs to be treated rather than the theme. Compulsions and rituals, whether they be mental, which is referred to on here as pure-o, or physical, are attempts to escape from anxiety, to make you feel better or to make you feel things are ‘just right’.

The anxiety is thought to come from a misfiring primitive part of the brain – the amygdala – the fight/flight system. It FEELS REAL because it is a REAL danger message ..it just so happens it is being fired off at the wrong time and is a false warning. The good news is that therapy and/or meds can help you fix that. You have probably spent hours/days/months arguing with yourself because there is also a rational part of your brain that knows you aren’t quite right. Unfortunately the primitive doesn’t respond to the rational so basically instead of thinking your way out of an obsession you think your way deeper into it. This is rumination and feeds ocd.

In fact over time when you learn about ocd you’ll learn that less is more! The things you are doing now in order to escape your ocd are actually probably feeding it:
Rumination
Analysis
Internal discourse/arguing
Researching the theme
Repeated reassurance seeking
And/or
Physical rituals and compulsions

There are also what I refer to as secondary emotions, which result from that faulty alarm system and all the ocd noise that goes with it. They should not be allowed to interfere with therapy.
Common secondary emotions are guilt, low self esteem, self hatred. Put those to one side, and concentrate on recovery.

With good therapy you’ll see where you are developing faulty and unhealthy mental processes and you’ll learn how to retrain your mind.

[Janet]

and this ......

In the loops of OCD.

Rationalising, Ruminating, Reasoning ....
What you do: When you get an OCD spike you often can spend hours arguing with it or analysing your reaction to it because you think you can reason your way out of it.
Why you think you should do it: The rational part of your mind that can see you are developing a faulty process thinks you can ‘think’ your way out of it
Why it is the wrong thing to do: The reasoning part of the mind understands there is something not quite right and so tries to convince of you this. However, the REASONING part is arguing with a PRIMITIVE part – the fight/flight system that saved the cavemen form the sabre tooth tigers – now if the primitive part thinks there is a tiger outside no amount of reasoning is going to help, it is just demanding action from you of some sort – mental or physical.. It may appear to work at times but then you part of your mind sending you the false danger messages will in a short time simply come up with another scenario for you to argue with and on and on it goes. Better to acknowledge the thoughts, don’t try to push them away, but do not engage with them either. Sit them down like an unwanted guest at your party – do not run away from them, act bored with them. Or if you feel you can do the stronger exposure and response prevention (ERP) approach simply bring them on and say hey mind do your worst! It isn’t the thoughts that counts, but our reaction to them.

Seeking reassurance:.....
What you do: As you know there is something ‘amiss’ you try to get reassurance from people that you have nothing to worry about, and you do so over and over again.
Why you do it: You have probably spent a lot of time with the thoughts going round and round in your head and getting nowhere, and you need to escape from this and from the anxiety. When someone offers you reassurance it can feel like a huge relief from the anxiety – TEMPORARILY.
Why it is the wrong thing to do: When you are constantly asking for and being given reassurance you are doing nothing to help you recovery from your OCD. You are attempting to escape from anxiety when the therapeutic response is to learn how to correctly deal with that anxiety, not run away from it. You are also inadvertently confirming to your mind that it should still send these danger signals as you’re agreeing that you need to perform the action of reassurance. You need to retrain your mind that this is not so. Reassurance seeking also externalises the relief from anxiety when you need to be looking at achieving that yourself.