Freaking out again!!
-
highanxiety
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:06 pm
Hi, I have been going through anxiety now for a few months my main fear is hurting my boyfriend or others around me. I started zoloft about a month ago and i can feel it kicking in as i atleast have an appetite. I can sort of work past the scary thoughts now and realise how ridiculous they are, i know i could never ever kill anyone. I am still however afraid to be around people. My anxious thoughts now seem to alternate between different things like one day ill worry about lashing out at someone other times i will be having a conversation with someone and suddenly have the fear that i will say something really weird and random. Almost as if i have to bite my tongue not to say something can anyone relate? This is difficult because i have to use the phone at work and speak to customers also. I just dont understand it. When i am having lunch with colleagues i am on edge and want to run away. I feel like they will notice my hands trembling. I used to be such a sociable person and enjoy seeing people. Also when i picture my future all i see is blackness and i see me being a drug addict or an alcoholic or worse locked in a mental ward and this thought is always with me i cant shake it off at the moment, i hope this never happens to me. I want to have a happy life and maybe have kids someday... but how can i if im like this for the rest of my life? Sorry to go on I just have all these questions that need answering do i have ocd or just anxiety? Also i am on 50mg of zoloft and it works a little bit but i am thinking of asking the doctor to up my dosage to 100mg which also scares me because it sounds like such a high dosage.
Hello highanxiety, you said you used to be such a sociable person. Did you experience a traumatic experience? It sounds like something happened to you and changed your life for the worse. It is so stressful to see your future as being catastrophic or "blackness". Do you have the program? Why do you think you see your future to be so bleak?
-
highanxiety
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:06 pm
no i havent had a traumatic experience. I have been down and worried about stuff lately mainly my relationship and the fact that i do not have any friends etc. i'm trying to remedy that but its hard and then i started to get these weird feelings all of a sudden when i was around my sisters kids. and it spriralled from there.
The one thing that was discussed on one of the latest sessions I've been on is that simply by listening to the media and/or watching movies about people hurting their friends and relatives those kind of thoughts start imbedding themselves into our heads...such as "why would somebody do THAT to a loved one..." which slowly turns into "WHAT IF...I did xx to my friend/relative".
I truly believe that the news, general media and entertainment industries play a huge role in this and gets the wheels rolling in our heads.
I have had thoughts now and again like this, they never became obsessive, but I can see how if I allowed them to they could.
The solution is not to get upset over those thoughts, not to dwell on them or over-entertain them but to let them ride out on their own...also one of the suggestions I remember from a link someone posted here was to start exposing yourself more to things that might frighten you such as if you are afraid of knives, be around knives more, hold them more etc. until you are more comfortable with them.
You can also make the thoughts funny by changing them around, like commiting suicide by over-dosing on jelly beans or stabbing someone with a rubber knife, or making someone laugh to death or jumping off a building with a gorilla suit. This changes the scariness to comdedy.
Also it is important to remember that you aren't going to flip out and commit any of these terrible thoughts, because you are freaked out and afraid by them. The teeny tiny percentage of people who actualy go through with this and commit these horrific crimes are not afraid to do them, they aren't freaked out or alarmed at themselves by those thoughts or disgusted at themselves whereas we are.
I truly believe that the news, general media and entertainment industries play a huge role in this and gets the wheels rolling in our heads.
I have had thoughts now and again like this, they never became obsessive, but I can see how if I allowed them to they could.
The solution is not to get upset over those thoughts, not to dwell on them or over-entertain them but to let them ride out on their own...also one of the suggestions I remember from a link someone posted here was to start exposing yourself more to things that might frighten you such as if you are afraid of knives, be around knives more, hold them more etc. until you are more comfortable with them.
You can also make the thoughts funny by changing them around, like commiting suicide by over-dosing on jelly beans or stabbing someone with a rubber knife, or making someone laugh to death or jumping off a building with a gorilla suit. This changes the scariness to comdedy.
Also it is important to remember that you aren't going to flip out and commit any of these terrible thoughts, because you are freaked out and afraid by them. The teeny tiny percentage of people who actualy go through with this and commit these horrific crimes are not afraid to do them, they aren't freaked out or alarmed at themselves by those thoughts or disgusted at themselves whereas we are.
Shif.
If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
Great advice, Shifrah.
High Anxiety - I highly recommend you get The Freedom from Fear by Dr. Howard Liebgold. He really focuses on obsessive thinking and there are great tools that can help you. You could even offer it to a therapist that understands ocd and he or she can work on this exposure with you.
You have ocd, pure and simple. It's not fun, but you can heal from it. You can learn to manage it. It has nothing to do with a dark past. It's just the way the ocd mind works and you need to learn to stop scaring yourself and to start soothing yourself. This program and the book I mentioned above will help you achieve your goal of peace of mind.
High Anxiety - I highly recommend you get The Freedom from Fear by Dr. Howard Liebgold. He really focuses on obsessive thinking and there are great tools that can help you. You could even offer it to a therapist that understands ocd and he or she can work on this exposure with you.
You have ocd, pure and simple. It's not fun, but you can heal from it. You can learn to manage it. It has nothing to do with a dark past. It's just the way the ocd mind works and you need to learn to stop scaring yourself and to start soothing yourself. This program and the book I mentioned above will help you achieve your goal of peace of mind.
"Life is not about comfort. It is about living." Dr. Howard Liebgold
hi hianxiety,
wanted to reply to your post as i am also from the UK! I have been going through these scary thoughts since January, I mean i think scary thoughts is something you always have but never realise it until they grip you in such a way and send you into this panic. Mine started after I had a scary eye problem in which i thought i had a brain tumor and i was anxious for a good few weeks all day everyday then after i found out all was ok with the eye i was just sitting there one lunchtime feeding my son his lunch and had a panic attack about going crazy and all the stuff you hear on the news. i can totally understand what you are going through and its definatly is one of the hardest things ever it totally changes how you live. i have a fantastic book by claire weekes, she basically says with this type of a scary thought/obsession - that if you had been sitting there and had this thought normally (not being anxious or being sensitised) then you would have basically ridden past fear you would have had the thought but it would not have ever have become an issue just gone in and out, but because of our sensitesed states the thought came in and you did not THINK rationally you became ALL feeling and were riding on a wave of fear therefore you were so shocked by the thought and so scared by it you did not think rationally and just became taken over by the feeling then became so scared of the thought that it came back again and again until you had establised thinking that way as an obsession, does this make sense? I wish i had know this at the time when my scary thoughts came in because the after affects are dealing with what has become a habit and also triggered off by memory of places etc. Boons advice is brilliant and the Howard Liebgold book is fab im still reading through it, also please get some books by claire weekes from amazon they are just great and she has a lovely calming way of talking to the reader, really soothing. I hope this helps i am still trying to put all my tools into practice from all the advice on here and everything i have read, but it is a slow process with lots of practice, im still struggeling but can see i am better in lots of ways
wanted to reply to your post as i am also from the UK! I have been going through these scary thoughts since January, I mean i think scary thoughts is something you always have but never realise it until they grip you in such a way and send you into this panic. Mine started after I had a scary eye problem in which i thought i had a brain tumor and i was anxious for a good few weeks all day everyday then after i found out all was ok with the eye i was just sitting there one lunchtime feeding my son his lunch and had a panic attack about going crazy and all the stuff you hear on the news. i can totally understand what you are going through and its definatly is one of the hardest things ever it totally changes how you live. i have a fantastic book by claire weekes, she basically says with this type of a scary thought/obsession - that if you had been sitting there and had this thought normally (not being anxious or being sensitised) then you would have basically ridden past fear you would have had the thought but it would not have ever have become an issue just gone in and out, but because of our sensitesed states the thought came in and you did not THINK rationally you became ALL feeling and were riding on a wave of fear therefore you were so shocked by the thought and so scared by it you did not think rationally and just became taken over by the feeling then became so scared of the thought that it came back again and again until you had establised thinking that way as an obsession, does this make sense? I wish i had know this at the time when my scary thoughts came in because the after affects are dealing with what has become a habit and also triggered off by memory of places etc. Boons advice is brilliant and the Howard Liebgold book is fab im still reading through it, also please get some books by claire weekes from amazon they are just great and she has a lovely calming way of talking to the reader, really soothing. I hope this helps i am still trying to put all my tools into practice from all the advice on here and everything i have read, but it is a slow process with lots of practice, im still struggeling but can see i am better in lots of ways