Phobia being reinforced (rant)
I’m really struggling in trying to find the point in getting better here.
I don’t know how many people will relate to this, because I have OCD as well as Agoraphobia; and for me they are very closely related.
Every SINGLE time I have gone out this year, someone has reinforced my fear of going outside.
The other day when I was taking the bus, a very overweight man sat next to me and put his arm around the back of my chair. He smelt so disgusting I genuinely couldn’t breathe. Then, when it was my stop and I had to squeeze past him, he moved his hand to brush his fingers along my thigh.
When I got home I scrubbed at my thigh in the shower until I bled.
I know there are weirdos everywhere and it’s not personal, and that being a woman makes me more of a target, but that doesn’t comfort me. Again, things like this happen every time I go outside.
My OCD says; if this happens everytime I go out, and if I was someone who went outside every day. By law of probability, I would eventually find myself in a situation like that but with someone much more dangerous.
I have also been stalked before, I won’t go into too much detail, but everything is fine now and i’m not worried about him stalking me again.
One would think it should comfort me, that the worst case scenario has happened and everything was fine.
But I just can’t help myself from thinking; I don’t go outside at all, but even so I still got stalked, something worse will happen if I increase my odds.
I don’t know if I want to get better if i’m right.
If anyone else has had a similar mindset, how did you deal with it?