Paranoia

My anxiety often leads me down dark paths of paranoia, and this is one thing that brought me to therapy early last year. Now that I have tools to walk myself through these moments, they are just that, a passing moment. Before, they would become all consuming for days or weeks at a time. Did going to therapy stop these dark thoughts completely? No, and that's not the point. What's needed is ways to deal with the thoughts as they come so I can de-escalate myself and remain calm and functional.
For instance, today my mother-in-law watched P while I was at work. About half-way through the day I thought I'd check in on them. Before I could call or text, I noticed an alert on my apple watch saying that the front door had been locked recently. My next thought was wondering if I'd really locked it or not before leaving for work, after she had arrived in the early morning. My very next thought? A serial killer had let himself in, killed them both, as well as the dogs, and if I were able to check a video feed like P's baby monitor, I'd see P's lifeless and bloodied body in his bedroom. Yeah, that escalated quickly. The thoughts are quickly horrific, not likely, and they hit me like a sucker punch to my gut, taking the air out of my lungs. While I know these thoughts stem from losing Korbin and my deep-rooted fear of losing P too soon as well, I can't make them stop. What also fueled my awful thought pathway was seeing via our alarm system app how many times the front and back doors, as well as the garage door, had been opened and closed, locked and unlocked. It just didn't look right and I couldn't reason as to why they would have done that.
Before therapy, this scenario would have left me shaking with anxiety and worry, especially as I didn't hear from my mother-in-law immediately after calling and leaving a voicemail checking in. I'd have been unable to focus easily at work, and would become manic in a random, thoughtless project that "needed" to get done. In other words, I would just try my best to distract myself from my mounting worry, which only made it grow and grow.
Now, as difficult as it seems, and truly is, I actually take myself through the steps of what I'd do if my awful thoughts were reality. If I checked the baby monitor and saw P seemingly dead, what would I do? Leave work immediately with a text/voicemail to my boss. Call 911 as I headed to my car. Pray there was still life somewhere in that little body, in my mother-in-law's as well. Alert my neighbors. Call Ryan. Taking myself through an if-then type process quickly calms me, which helps me to better pass the time more productively as I can then focus on my work until I hear back that everything's great, they were just outside playing in the gorgeous weather we had today and her phone was inside.
My mind makes mountains out of mole hills daily. And though I can't stop it completely, I at least know how to handle it. Before therapy I was quickly going off the deep end of even possibly becoming psychotic from my worries and fears and anxieties. I needed help to control the random impulse thoughts that, really, every person has. Anxiety is part of nature, and it drives many species in their survival. But anxiety can also sometimes take complete control of you. It's why I crave the instant feed-back from a text reply or call back. I need to know and I need to know now. Unrealistic, of course, as life happens and people don't (and shouldn't) always have their phones on them. But, my reality has my phone glued to my hip for constant contact, especially with Ryan and anyone taking care of P in our absence.
I just need to know that everything is okay, all the time, and that P is still here with us.
Because I got a lotta love to give.