I’m having disruptive thoughts about my car alarm going off when I’m away. For background, I’m a college student that commutes to class. Lots are huge and I spend hours at a time away from my car. My biggest fear is that I’ll press the panic button on my car, and that it will go off until the battery dies, or be a nuisance to others. I’m sometimes late to class because I compulsively check every aspect of my car to make sure it is okay, as well as continuously going back to my car to check if I accidentally pressed the panic button.

I meant to say there's a such a miniscule chance of that happening that it's not rational to worry about. On the other hand, you'll never have 100% certainty. So you should practice accepting that "maybe" the car alarm will go off. And you can deal with that. Accept the uncertainty! We all live with different kinds of uncertainty; it's only people with OCD who blow them out of proportion. I struggle with it too, so don't think I'm up on a pedestal. I know it's hard

It's like me leaving the house and irrationally thinking I didn't lock the door, when in fact I know with 99.999% confidence I did. Instead of obsessing over 100% certainty, I just think "eh. oh well. if I get robbed then I can deal with it." It's an uncertainty that's inevitable. In some sense getting robbed (or having your car alarm go off) is better than being crushed under OCD ?

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback, you are right, there is a very narrow chance that the situation were to happen. I’ll have to work on accepting the uncertainty.

*oops didn't finish

I was obsessively checking my automatic car windows so bad to make sure that they were closed that I broke the switch. Now I've had to use another switch to close it. I don't check anymore because I fear that I will break another switch. I stopped pulling hard on the door knob (I have had intricate rituals involving the door knob)because I don't want to break it. If I feel the need to check, I just tell myself, "Once is enough. It's another OCD trick. Moving on..." Still having problems with checking the stove, though.