Checking starts out feeling practical, but for me it quickly becomes a way to calm anxiety. I’ll check the lock, the stove, or a message I sent, then feel relief for a minute. After that, the doubt comes back and I want to check again.
The hard part is that the checking works just enough to keep the cycle going. If I resist, the anxiety gets loud and I start imagining all the things that could go wrong. I’m trying to sit with that feeling without checking, but it’s much harder than it sounds.
@Jeffrey_Hodges, the brief relief after checking can make it feel almost impossible to stop. I’ve noticed that the urge often feels like an emergency, even when nothing has actually changed.
One thing that helps me is delaying the check by a set amount of time instead of trying to promise I won’t check at all. The anxiety usually rises first, then settles a little if I don’t feed it. Do you find the lock, stove, or sent messages hardest to resist?
@Jeffrey_Hodges, the relief only lasting a minute is what makes the cycle so frustrating. It feels like checking should settle the doubt, but it ends up teaching my brain that the doubt needs an immediate response.
Sent messages have been the hardest for me because there’s always another detail I can question. I’ve started waiting five minutes before rereading one, and sometimes the urge drops enough that I can leave it alone.
The emergency feeling is the part that gets me too. My brain acts like waiting even a minute means something terrible is about to happen, even though the situation hasn’t changed.
Delaying it works better for me than saying I’m never going to check again. With sent messages, I’ll put my phone down and do something else for a few minutes. It’s still uncomfortable, but the urge usually loses some of its force.