Trouble accepting bizarre thoughts are a symptom

[Carol27]

Hi everyone, since my sbrupt drug withdrawal brought on this sever anxiety i have always been somehow able to accept and understand that the awful physical symptoms can be caused by anxiety but have majpr problems understanding that it can cause the bizarre irrational 'i am ' thought that i have had with it, It was relentless at first but over the last 3 weeks i have been having some short periods in the day when it eases and goes but then it comes back. Today has been awful all day dues to it and panic and crying all the time. When the bizarre thought comes even though part of me knows its irrational it feels so real and i have this utter terror that it is 1 - too bizarre to be a anxiety thought and 2 - that it will keep coming even when the anxiety is gone. I can't relate to anyone with such a crazy thought and not quite sure whether i can get through this completely even though i have had some great support and PMs from some here, thankyou very much, love Carol.

[Yvonne]

Hi Carol

Sounds like you are going through withdrawal syndrome to me. When did you abruptly stop your medication - and out of interest, what med was it???

The thoughts can be very scary - common with bad anxiety though. They will go I assure you of that.

You're having a rough time, the thoughts are causing you to panic and it's up[setting you very very much and understandably so. You have my sympathy because I've been there.

Go and see your gp as soon as you can. Take care.

[Carol27]

Dear Yvonne, thanks love, i had emergency surgery and had lots of meds in intensive care and then morphine for 6 weeks after, that was stopped dead then all this started, i had diazepam for 2 weeks then that was stopped due to side effects. I see my gp who said the morphine withdrawal started the anxiety off. He says the thought is not bizarre for anxiety and it doesn't matter that it starts with i am and not what if but it was the one i've mentioned here before that came into my head when i looked into the shop window during halloween week and saw the pictures of spiders then ' i am a spider' just popped into my head from nowhere and freaked me out as i wondered where it came from and why i was thinking it. I thought the gpmwould lock me away when i told him but he just said it was anxiety and will go when the anxiety does but i do find it hard to believe that, love Carol x

[bumbles]

It will go honestly just dont worry about them. I feel for u i do

[Bill]

Hello Carol

As Yvonne has said, I'm sure withdrawal symptoms can easily spark anxious thoughts.

Do you have a fear of spiders?

I can remember you mentioning your other "I am" fears and I think what happens is that when we are feeling very anxious, our fears will create our worst possible irrational thoughts. For instance, if you have a fear of spiders, your acute anxiety may jump immediately past worrying about "what if" to creating a thought of "I am" which although you know isn't true and is totally irrational, still frightens you greatly because your anxiety has created your worst possible fear making you think you could be a spider when of course it's just an irrational thought created by your fear.

Think about it in this way - You watch a film before you go to bed. The film is a romantic comedy but somewhere within it you happen to see a spider. Seeing this spider triggers your anxiety because of your fear of them but you don't really think about it too much as you're enjoying the film. However, you then go to bed but you're feeling anxious because of the thought of getting up next day but you've forgotten about seeing the spider in the film. While you're asleep though, you begin to dream but because of your anxiety about the following day, the dream becomes a nightmare. Your subconscious then finds a memory of something "actual" that you're afraid of so then brings to the surface the memory of the spider in the film. In the nightmare you then dream of this spider chasing you. (What's actually happening is that you feel trapped by the stress of the thought of the next day and so feel a need to run and escape). The nightmare then makes you think the spider has caught up and that you have merged with the spider Because it's your worst fear. When you then suddenly wake, the nightmare leaves a frightening impression on your mind but you realise it was just a nightmare created by your fear of getting up next day.

In the same way, an irrational thought (fear) is just like having a nightmare when we're awake. It's just that - an irrational thought that is created by our subconscious that "could" surface while we're asleep.

Our fears will always create thoughts of "I am" or "I have" or "What if". They're all really the same triggered by a word we hear or picture we see etc. that frightens us.

Try not to analyse the irrational thought and instead let it go like a bad dream created by your subconscious and it then won't keep coming back.

[Carol27]

Thankyou all for your help, yes Bill i have never liked spiders but once they were removed etc i forgot all about them. I think it was the total shock of thinking something so bizarre that scared me so and worrying that its too weird to be an anxiety thought and wondering how if i lose fear iof it then where will it go and how will my brain know not to keep sending it up to my mind again and again. My gp says when i break the link of fear it will just go to being a memory with no emotion to it and i wil be able to talk about it even smile about it and it won't keep coming back but i find that so hard to believe as it terrifies me at the moment, thanks to you all, love Carol x

[Carol27]

Hi everyone i forgot to ask , there are some periods in the day now where the thought goes for a while but then i get this sort of feeling of being on tenderhooks, like it is hovering, that too is very un-nerving and uncomfortable and makes me worry this is as good as it gets, my GP says this is the beginning of recovery and that one day it will just be a faded memory which i can talk about and even laugh about but i can't believe that. Does this feeling to go when better, i even have this worry that the anxiety may go but the thought will still keep coming and scaring me, i'm not sure if i explained all that very well but if someone can help i would be grateful, i have made some progress thanks to some really great people here but some worries are still holding me back like the fear my thought is so bizarre. Love Carol.