instrusive eye thoughts

[blah27e]

I was reading about the eye anatomy (pretty much feeding my fear) and I read that if some rotated the globe (eye) then it would tear the optic nerve. they made it seem that all you had to do was rotate it once and you're screwed. But to explain my fear about all this is lossing my eyes. I have intrusive thoughts about myself taking them out. is this even possible?

[Robbed]

I don't know if what you read is true. But, I guarantee if you do ANYTHING that could possibly destroy your eyesight, it is going to hurt REALLY bad LONG before you have permanently destroyed your vision. In other words, try your best not to worry so much about your eyes. When you have thoughts about this, just let them pass on their own. And DON'T 'pick them up' and come to comclusions. By doing this, these thoughts will lose their grip on you, and gradually disappear. Just keep in mind that this will take a while. And the thoughts might come back from time to time as they lessen in frequency and intensity.

[joey9]

Hi,

Robbed is right in that your body would not allow you to pull your own eyeball out. But I don't think that anything any of us say will reassure you sufficently to stop these thoughts, as our thoughts are very real to us so we believe them. I have found that my thoughts spin out of control like this when I am suffering some kind of physical 'trauma' - be it through prolonged stress, lack of sleep, low blood sugar - and recently i found I had a hormonal imbalance which, now its been corrected, has made a huge difference to how I think about my fears. My fears are the same - but I am able to stop the thoughts before they feel like they are sucking me under and I can look at them objectively. The body is such a complicated mass of physiological processes that sometimes it can be thrown out of equilibrium. I don't know if you have already thought about all these issues in relation to your own anxiety but if you haven't then I would recommend it. When your body is weakened then your anxiety will prey on whatever you are sensitive to, in your case your fears about the eye. Just remind your self that your thoughts about this are not real. They are anxiety thinking for you. One day when you are feeling better you will be able to sit back and think about these exact same fears and not be swallowed up by them.

[electric*eyes]

Ah that is one of my biggest fears, I'm always worried about going blind.

[02Batmobile]

Before, I feared of going blind also. It was one thing besides the normal fear of going crazy, that really freaked me out. I had my eyes checked out and they were jus fine. Everything was normal. I was really worried because they take a picture of the inside of your eye and show you a photo. The picture came out and I wanted to know the results right away! I said, "Well?!?! How do I look?!?!?!" They said everything looked normal. I was so relieved after that.

What you have to understand is that we all have irrational fears. Some of them are the same such as: fear of dying, fear of losing control, fear of heart attack and fear of losing your mind. These are all irrational fears that are most common between anxiety sufferers. I first developed anxiety in 2003 and had all those fears. I have been anxiety-free since then but recently, (past month) some anxiety has creeped up on me. I made a list of all my irrational fears and not one of them has happened. You should do the same. I'm sure all of your irrational fears have not come true.

Hang in there,
-James (AOL Instant Message Me!!!)