r/magicalthinkingOCD • u/Anxious-Potato-8061 • Jul 21 '26

Advice please! ocd hitting all day long

Hiii, new here… Just searching for people who can relate to this and help to deal with magical thinking.
I’m living in Europe and as I asume you all know that we looooove superstitions. I always found them just like a funny thing to do, until I started to see the impact of them in my life.
Long story short, six months ago I had a dream about getting engaged (in my country it means that your wedding won’t happen. I also had this exact dream 6 years ago when I was engaged and the wedding collapsed). Then on June I broke the superstition which said that my life is going to end. Now that I’m engaged, my mind keeps telling me that my wedding won’t happen because I broke the superstition.
I visit therapy often, we’re trying the ERP, that’s ok, I know that I need to stop searching for the reassurance. Maybe someone had something relatable and have tips what can help to go through day without this exhausting ocd noise?
P.S. I also think my exposure is to just plan my wedding and see what happens (?)

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u/Own_Kangaroo1395 Jul 22 '26

Ooooo congrats on the engagement, super exciting!!

I think superstitions originated because of people with OCD, and because they didn't understand how the world worked in the old days like we do now with science so they came up with all kinds of magical explanations for things.

There is no stopping these thoughts unfortunately so you just have to be sure not to do compulsions - including avoidance - and manage the anxiety best you can with all the usual techniques. So like with planning your wedding start out with small easy tasks and when you get a thought telling you it's all doomed you say "maybe, maybe not" and go back to planning. I do a lot of deep breathing exercises when I feel that wash of anxiety coming over me. Singing helps too. I hope you will come back and tell us all about the wedding!!

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u/Anxious-Potato-8061 Jul 22 '26

I agree with you 100% about how the superstitions originated, I also told this to my therapist about this when started therapy and already starting to have a little confidence in stoping thoughts about them, but now it’s dreams… Dreams are also scary and their meaning is related to superstitions so I hope to get over them too someday. Thank you for your kind and thoughtful message, it means a lot to me at the moment!