Sup reddit, I'm anxious.

Like I said in the title, big trigger warning - I'm going to discuss some things related to violence in this post. If you aren't comfortable, this might not be the post for you. &lt;3

So for a little background, I'm an ER nurse who works at a large trauma center. We see a lot of car accidents, intentional violence (shootings/stabbings), assaults, burns, etc. In general, **I am good at my job and really love what I do.** Please don't tell me to get out of my line of work, because I enjoy it.

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Recently, I've been struggling with intrusive thoughts. I wanted to share to see if anyone on here has been experiencing similar thoughts.

\- I live in a constant state of anxiety - **always** anticipating what can go wrong. I don't flip people off in traffic because I assume someone has a gun and is going to shoot me. When I drive through neighborhoods that are historically less safe, I'm constantly imagining being caught in gunfire. I constantly am plagued by the anxiety that I'm going to wreck my car, and that it will catch on fire. As such, I prefer not to take long car rides unnecessarily and especially not at night when I feel I'm at higher risk of encountering drunk drivers.

\- I am constantly in fear of my boyfriends safety.  I love him so much. He is SO understanding that I see a lot of trauma every day and is all too happy to provide the extra "home safe" text message, but I can't stop imagining losing him and having bad things happen to him. It's my worst nightmare.

\- Sometimes I have moments where I'm triggered? I guess? by random things. These aren't hallucinations - I am completely grounded in reality. For example: Today I was driving in traffic, and a guy had his arm dangling out the window. I thought to myself, wow - that guy is pale. His arm looks like a corpse - and then I found myself thinking of all of the bad things that could have happened to him to leave him in that situation. One time I was standing in line at a starbucks and someone called out "Cold Brew" and my heart started racing because I thought someone said "Code Blue" (ie: the medical emergency code in most hospitals.)

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It's not that I can't deal with these things - I've seen a lot of trauma, it's bound to happen. It's that I wish my mind had never gotten to a place where it automatically jumps to the worst case scenario. I don't experience emotions like a normal person anymore. I rarely find myself sad enough to cry, I am more irritable than I used to be. I don't think anyone in my life realizes how much this affects me because I bottle it up, but I'm suffering pretty badly.

I really click with my therapist when it comes to speaking about issues in my personal life, but as far as my professional life/trauma related to work she seems to get visibly uncomfortable when I bring it up.

I was raised in a household with a very anxious (and very loving) mom, and one of the most important things to me is that when I have kids I raise them to be careful, intelligent people, but I do not want to project my anxieties or fears of the world onto them.

Thanks Reddit :)