Intrusive thoughts and anxiety

[Sunflower]

Hello to everyone. I was diagnosed with OCD years ago and am having a really rough time of it at the moment. I live in Ireland and my parents live in England so when I get bad times I have to come back to England to be with them. I run my own company so it is tough going getting sick like this on and off. At the moment my OCD thoughts are thoughts of harming myself and killing myself even though I know deep down all I want to do is get on and enjoy life. The thoughts are causing me extreme anxiety and this week it got so bad at I had to come back to England to spend time with my parents. Does anyone else get these thoughts? In the past my OCD thoughts have been that I was a lesbian and paedophile and it all just completely freaks me out. Also is there anyone on the site who is from Ireland as well?

[honeybee3939]

Hi Sunflower

Dont forget hun these are just thoughts and thoughts cant hurt you.

Here are some links that may help too
Dealing with negative thoughts
Dealing with negative thoughts
How to stop negative thoughts?

A post to help with negative scary thoughts & what if’s
A post to help with negative scary thoughts.

Love

Andrea
xxxx

[ItWillPass]

I can totally relate to your post. At one point, I felt a need to hide my knives because I was scared I was going to kill myself. I get worried when I hold medication bottles because I get scared I'll lose control and take the entire bottle. It freaks me out, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Our deepest fears become obsessions. But you just have to remind yourself that you are in control, and you do not have a history of totally losing control.

[Sunflower]

Hello Honeybee

Thank you for the extra information - I have read through it.

What freaks me out is that the thoughts feel so real and I just want to rid of them. Do you understand what I am saying?

Sunflower

[Sunflower]

Hello Itwillpass

Thank you for your message. As you know the thoughts seem so real and that is what freaks us out

Sunflower

[michellemumof4]

hello,

I had exacty the same as you all the thoughts you mentioned ( and more ) used to be with me 24/7 and you are right they do seems very very real, I promise you that they are NOT real tho... its a matter of confusing the way that we feel... I remember whenever I held a knife I felt as tho I am was going to act upon the horrible thoughts i had... I was wrong the feeling I had were anxiety - FIGHT OR FLIGHT feeling and had nothing to do with the thought at all .

It is very hard I know but try to detach the way you feel from the thoughts and remember that these are nothing more than thoughts ie a habbit that we create, deal with them as a seperate issue remember to relax and try to take good care of yourself as this will help with the physical feelings of anxiety and deal with the thoughts in a POSATIVE way, pls pls remember you will never ever act upon these thoughts ..

Good luck

xxx

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Hi Sunflower, I've had the same thing too. I'd be driving in a car with my brother and baby nephew and I'd have what would feel like an overwhelming compulsion to throw the baby out of the window of the moving vehicle. I'd then feel as if I was struggling to control myself and the panic cycle would begin.

I used to have lots of these kind of thoughts all the time. I'd worry that I was going to drive off a bridge. I'd worry that I was going to pull my eye out...even now I have visions of getting the headteacher in the school where I work in a headlock!! lol

They are worry/intrusive thoughts. My therapist says that we should consciously say "thank you for that thought, but I choose to do something else". He also recommends rewinding the image in your mind, turning it to black and white and shrinking it down until it's really small. Psychologically and scientifically, I can see how this can help, but oddly enough I have trouble with visualisations and, if I have a worry thought, I want to dispel it as quickly as possible rather than spend time rewinding the image...although I know that he's right.

They're all symptoms of anxiety. If you were a lesbian or a paedophile, you would just get on with it (so to speak) rather than it worrying you. The worry is of something taking over you that you can't control and turning you into something that you find scary and threatening. Even though I have the same anxieties, I can GUARANTEE you that you will not lose control. I think it was Claire Weekes who said that when we run out of a room with panic we still take the time to excuse ourselves!

I've been suffering with full on GAD for about 4 and a half years now and it is eventually starting to sink in that I'm not going mad and that nothing bad is going to happen. We all have 'automatic thoughts', thoughts that we have no control over..for example the thought might cross your mind that your best mates husband looks hunky in a particular shirt or that something that a niece or nephew did repulses you....our mental filter might discard some of these thoughts or 'correct' them, so that they're more acceptable to us. Most of the time though, we dispel a lot of these 'odd' thoughts. It's only because our mind is sensitised because of anxiety that they begin to stick and we obsess about them.

The intrusive thoughts don't bother me so much these days and, by proactively relaxing, eventually, they will fade away for you too.

[Sunflower]

Hello to WIFTS

Thank you for your message.

At the moment the thoughts about killing myself are causing me great distress. When I have these thoughts I wonder what is the difference between me and someone who actually wants to go ahead and kill themself.

Do you wonder what is the difference between you and the person that actually wants to carry out the deed.

It is so horrible.

Sunflower.

[Sunflower]

Hello Michellemumof4

Thank you for your message.

Like what I said to WIFTS don't you wonder what is the difference between the thoughts we have and the people who actually go ahead and do kill themself?

Sunflower

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Hi again Sunflower,

Yes, I understand this anxiety very well. I remember reading about a guy who went on a helicopter trip over the grand canyon and got out of the chopper and fell to his death. I wondered: "did he have a worry thought about doing it and actually followed it through?". From what I've read, suicidal people tend to decide to kill themselves fairly calmly and rationally. Yes, their thoughts are warped, but it's not as if something takes over them and they lose control.

I've had exactly the same worry as you. I've had a panic attack because I've worried that I would lose control of myself and run down to the kitchen and slit my wrists.

I would say that the fact that you worry about doing it, tends to show that it's an anxiety symptom...if it was something that you were likely to act out, then I think that you'd plan it and, perversely, it would be something that you would actually want to do, rather than a source of worry.