Stress Center Peer Support

Hi

I am bombarded with scary thoughts. It seems that I will think something strange and immediately panic, then I will self talk myself and try then to distract and then some different scary thought will enter some time later and I will start the whole process again. No sooner do I get over one scary obsession as another comes in. One night this week I actually had some reprieve because I must have had a list of 60 different scary thoughts in my pocket and I got so mad that internally I screamed "I just don't care". Of course, the whole thing started up the following day. This self talk is exhausting me as they never seem to end...like a constant stream. One day I'm badly obsessing, another day maybe more in nervous stomach/tension, other days I am very depressed/in a dark cloud. I know I am dealing with anxiety as I have at different times in my life but it just seems to swing back in and I have to relearn what I already thought I learned?? I don't know.
My crazy thoughts that make me panic are some of the following:

What if I am going crazy?
What if I am bipolar?
Feeling that things look weird to me
Hyperfocus on sounds and them not sounding right(obsessive thought)
What if I died?
What if my parents died?
What if I committed suicide (after a neighbor actually did)
What if there is no after life and everything else with that
What is the point of our being here?
Alot is what if I couldnt' stop thinking about xyz. Such as I read someone else obsessed that they were possibly gay and immediately I thought what if I did that too and panic ensued.
(There are others unfortunately)

Trust me when I say there are many more.I'm so frustrated as to why my brain gets scrambled like this.

First off I am so sorry that you are having to go through this. I have been suffering with this for a while and it does get better. The thing I try to do is distract myself but at times I understand that it can be hard. All your thoughts are the same thing many of us obsess over. My counselor told me one day that the people who actually are "crazy" have no idea that they are and see none of there behavior as out of the norm. Keep doing your self talk and try to distract yourself. Working out helps me out a lot. I will keep ya in my prayers. I hope it gets better for you.

Hi,
I know exactly what you mean. I have go through the same thing and have for several years. My brain gets all scrambled as you put it and I go through all these scenarios. I what if think until I am exhausted. I have been having terrible panic attacks along with the what if thinking. I have found that the more I wrestle with the thoughts the worse they become. Thats why you got some relief when you screamed internally that you don't care. We have to just let the thoughts come and go and not try to resist them or argue with them. I know it is hard but it is the only thing that works. Or even if you think about the thoughts for a little while and then say ok, I'm gonna put these thoughts on the back burner and come back to them later. I don't know if that will work but my therapist has told me to try doing that, only alotting a certain amount of time to the thoughts. I hope this helps some. Just know you are not alone in this.

Keep working with the program! Session 10 is a great tape to listen to, when you are at that lesson, because you get to hear the other people on the tapes voicing the same feelings that we have! I am learning that the negative to positive dialogue is HUGE. We don't realize it, but that is really what is at the root of our obsessive thoughts. We don't trust ourselves, and, if you're spiritual, God. We need to speak positive words to ourselves to build our confidence up. The best thing to do is NOT CHASE THE THOUGHTS. That's where we get stuck. We want that time of relief, like you were saying, where we feel like we have solved one thought, but then boom, another one comes in. We have to realize that we ae NOT doing ANYTHING to prevent these thoughts by attempting to "solve" them. Our brain WANTS to stay in these patterns, and the ONLY WAY to get out of them is NOT to react in the old, obsessive way. We need to retrain our brains. Speak positive things, EVEN if you don't believe it. Your brain will put up a huge fit, but don't give in. And if you do give in and get back into the obsessive pattern again, try to imagine yourself jumping out of the circle of obsessive thinking, and replace it with something positive. I also have observed with myself that the quality of sleep I get is really important with how obsessive I am, and also, what I eat. Avoid sugar, get 30 minutes of exercise, and get to sleep at a decent hour. Keep working on the program - it's huge!