[neutrino]

For a while now I've been very aware of my breathing. I'm not constantly aware of it and it usually happens when haven't got that much to do (when I'm just watching a movie or something) or when I'm trying to sleep. Throughout the day I often find myself taking quite shallow breaths and feel like I have to compensate by inhaling deeply, repeatedly, until I can really feel it in my chest.

It's pretty scary being aware of your own breathing. During the times that I'm really aware of it, I for some reason worry that I'm going to stop breathing if I don't consciously breathe. Last night for example. I was trying to sleep but I kept thinking about how I was breathing and not being able to stop the conscious breathing freaked me out. I kept tossing and turning in bed and eventually I had to listen to one song on repeat in order to think more about the song and less about the breathing. Fell asleep after a while. I think I lost about 3 hours of sleep last night due to the anxiety.

For some reason I become very aware of certain things in my body from time to time; my heartbeat, blinking, swallowing, breathing etc. However, it has never bothered me like this before. It's been going on for at least three weeks now and I find myself thinking about it at least a few times every day.

I'm diagnosed with OCD, two other anxiety disorders and depression. I think OCD is complicated and it's the only diagnosis I have that I don't understand. It's very difficult to know what is OCD and what isn't. Anyway, yesterday I read that some people have so-called "sensimotor obsessions" where they experience pretty much the things I've written about here (and/or other things) so perhaps this whole thing is caused by my OCD. I don't know.

Does anyone else experience this? Have you heard of this before? Any advice on how to get rid of it? Is it worth mentioning to my psychologist even if I don't think about these things constantly? When I think about mentioning this to my psychologist I start to worry about a few things. I, for some reason, worry that I'm lying (I've had thoughts about being a liar or making things up about various things for years now) and that the problem will disappear as soon as I mention it to her so that she'll think I'm making it up. It's stupid, I know, but I can't help it.

[ChildlikeEmpress]

I would mention it to your psychologist -- I too sometimes worry that a problem will disappear as soon as I tell someone about it and then I'll look like a liar, but the truth is you *are* very bothered by it, so you are not a liar. Even if it did disappear.
I have only experienced that about breathing if I can hear someone else's breathing, such as my husband at night. Then it makes me anxious because I feel like I have to breathe to match his and of course that doesn't happen and then I'm trying to force myself to breathe a certain way. It sounds like your anxiety is quite bad over this though, to lose so much sleep.
I think distraction might be one of the best ways to get your mind off of it. Can you listen to talk radio at night? Then you'd be paying attention to the words instead of listening to your breathing. I have often used talk radio at night to calm me when I'm anxious -- as long as the topics aren't too scary, heh.