Most of us have heard of being jinxed before. You’re at work, and someone comments on how slow or quiet it is, and everyone goes, “Oh, no! You just jinxed us, now we’ll get busy.” Now, do we really believe that saying the word slow will have any affect on the people of the world? If a nurse mentions how slow it is, does anyone really think that action will cause someone somewhere to have an accident, or a heart attack, or whatever so it’s no longer slow? Of course not. Not… not really. And yet, we all do.

My mother is convinced that (for example) if she’s driving in the rain, saying the right words will make the rain stop or slow just long enough for her not to get soaked when going inside.

At 40 years old, I’ve finally been diagnosed. I suppose I should say, I’ve finally sought help. I have social anxiety, hypomania, and ocd.

I think most of you will be more than familiar with two of them, but hypomania isn’t as common. It tends to produce a feeling of euphoria (which explains why I’ve always felt like the happy person, and most describe me as bubbly) and hyperactive, at least as far as my thoughts and speech are concerned. I never realized just how fast my thoughts go until my therapist commented on it.

So the three together basically means I’m anxious over the same socially unacceptable things all the time at high speed. Good times. Yeah.

Enter the jinx into this equation, and I have this irrational conviction that in thinking of bad things, I contribute to them happening. If I dwell on, say, a car crash, I don’t think my own car will be affected, but statistically, someone somewhere is having an accident Right Now.  I didn’t cause it. I know this. But I still feel responsible. And I have no idea how to counter this thing – the jinx – that the vast majority of people (those I know anyway) actively believe in and talk about.  How can I convince myself that my thoughts can’t harm someone when everyone else is telling me the opposite?