I ate a plum seed and now I’m scared

[Choking on flowersParticipant]

Ok based on the title you wouldn’t think this is an ocd obsession, but let me explain.

Last night I was eating a plum and I noticed that the plum pit was opened. I had never seen the inside of a plum pit and I saw there was a seed that looked like an almond. And so I thought to myself “Oh it looks like an almond, let me eat it” so I bit off about half of the little seed. Then my sibling asked if the seed was even edible, so I looked it up and then I found out that plum seeds contain cyanide within them which is a poison that could kill you. I began to panic, thinking that since I ate some of the seed, I was about to die. Immediately I began looking up articles and anecdotes of people who ate pit seeds and I even told my father (who is a doctor) about what happened. Everything I heard and read told me that although the seeds produce cyanide if ingested, it still isn’t enough to kill you and that you wouldn’t feel anything. I’ve even read stories of people who actively eat plum and peach seeds and are 100% okay. Despite that, I spent the whole night crying because I was afraid that I was going to die of cyanide poisoning even though it was very unlikely. Then I woke up this morning, relieved that I didn’t die in my sleep. However, then the thought came into my head that perhaps for SOME ODD REASON, I was STILL going to die of poison and that it was just taking the poison an extremely long time for it to take effect. Today I felt 0 symptoms of cyanide poisoning (I felt a mild upset stomach but I’m not sure if it was because of the seed or because of anxiety), and I was relatively okay for the whole day. I know that cyanide kills people in mere minutes or seconds, and it is very unlikely that it takes this long to kill a person, especially with a pit seed, but I still get intrusive thoughts in my mind that I am somehow going to die at any moment from the poison. And since this is all giving me anxiety, the symptoms of anxiety are similar to the symptoms of cyanide poisoning and I get even more scared that perhaps I am experiencing those symptoms, so I can never tell if what I’m experiencing is an anxiety attack or cyanide poisoning.

[Choking on flowersParticipantParticipant]

and I keep reading the same exact articles and asking my dad to know for sure that I wont die from cyanide poisoning and then for a little while I’ll be ok again, but then the idea of me dying comes back and then once again I am filled with fear and I go back asking for reassurance.

[wannabefreeParticipant]

Hiya, It is important not to try and look too deeply into things like this.  Over the years, we will have eaten literally millions of apple cores, and apparently, apple pips contain certain nasty stuff, but it isn’t enough to harm  us, and anyway, a plum stone would have to be totally crushed to gain access to anything inside. These things just pass through us in their own time. In parallel to this, our air contains a heck of a lot of nitrogen, but our bodies only process the oxygen and Carbon dioxide.  The air is absolutely buzzing with bluetooth signals, mobile phone signals, radio signals, absolutely loaded, and yet it does us no major harm.

As a child, did you ever have to eat prunes? I doubt if we’ve ever met anyone who ‘hasn’t’ swallowed a stone or pip or two or many…  Statistically, we survive these instances, with no lasting effect or discomfort…

Wannabe

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