New guy help

[tiredofit]

Hi All,

I've been dealing with various forms of depression and anxiety off and on for close to a decade now. I'm male, late 30's, separated, and living in a foreign country.

I don't go out with people, and I have a lot of trouble making friends outside of work colleagues.

I'm not on any medication, nor have I been to see a therapist about this. I have spoken to my doctor, and his best advice is to keep myself busy - though he did refer me to a counsellor....I'm just waiting on the NHS to approve.

I feel anxious most of the time, with fears ranging from health, money, to silly things like the old 'everyone is out to get me' thing. I'm afraid to open the mail some days, or to check texts, or even to step through my front door.

My question is this - while I'm waiting for state sponsored medicine to give me a hand - can anyone offer some thoughts on how to control negative thoughts? I'm a father to a primary school aged boy, and I don't want to pass on my anxiety to him.

Thanks

[Mindful]

I get many negative or intrusive thoughts and from what i have learnt on the CBT course and through listening to the Queen of panic-anxiety recovery Clare Weeks is that these thoughts are only thoughts, they arent everything you are. The minute you stop caring whether you get these thoughts or not is the minute they start to fade away.

While we fear them, ( who wouldnt right?) they keep coming, we need to accept them as thoughts of a tired mind and then let them pass, many many thoughts go through out minds every day and the majority of them are mundane every day stuff that we really dont pay that much attention to, hence they come, they go without causing us any anxiety.

Thoughts that we hang on to, ( same with feelings, mental or physical) that we fear and put far to much emphasis on will stay and repeat.

The key to moving on really is to accept them,face them for what they are, thoughts! Also to not expect to decide today that you are bothered by them and then expect them to be gone tomorrow, it takes time, it takes real acceptance. Hope i have made some sense and not just rambled on :p

[tiredofit]

Don't worry about rambling, I do it too.

I used to be able to control the thoughts in a way, more by distraction. I'd think of the most ridiculous thing I could (eg, A monkey doing jello shots), and I'd work on that thought for a bit until my mind was entertained enough to forget what it was I was worrying about.

I don't suppose I've ever only looked at thoughts as simply 'thoughts'. So you're saying that basically, I'm caring too much about the fact that I have these thoughts - and if I stop caring about them, they begin to fade? (I'm oversimplifying I'm sure)

[Mindful]

Thats exactly what i am saying, It is that simple ( in theory) the less you care about these thoughts the less important they become, the less important they are, the less they come and even if they do, you no longer care or worry about them , therefore does it really matter?

On the other hand, the more you care, worry, fear these thoughts, the more important they become, the more frequent they become.

[tiredofit]

I'll try that over the next few days and see if I manage some improvement. Thanks for the advice :)

[Mindful]

Just to add, distraction is good as long as you are not shying away from the thoughts. If you are doing everything and anything to stop yourself thinking the thoughts, you are not accepting them, you are hiding from them, which means deep down you still fear them, which in turn means they will still haunt you.

Distraction while accepting is a different thing. If you have thoughts-feelings and acknowledge them for what they are, let them be, they are only thoughts after all and then distract, the thoughts will pop in and out of your head, sometimes the more you try not to think about them, the more they come so its pointless to fight it. Let them come, let them go again and let them come back again while carrying on with whatever you want to do.

In my head this makes perfect sense, i hope it makes sense written down?

---------- Post added at 20:47 ---------- Previous post was at 20:43 ----------


I'll try that over the next few days and see if I manage some improvement. Thanks for the advice :) You're welcome, only dont put a time limit on it. If you try for a few days and find its still there dont give up. Putting a time limit on it says you havent accepted them as just thoughts. It says you just want them to stop, you still fear them. Accepting means losing the fear connected to them. It takes time to change from fighting to accepting and practice too. :hugs:

[tiredofit]

What you're saying does make sense. The distraction technique I had been using wasn't working well anymore anyway. I'm going to try your method, along with some breathing/meditation for morning and evenings (to help me get some sleep!)

[Mindful]

What you resist, persists!

I read that here and it is so so true and really can be used for every anxiety related problem there is.

[taketwo]

If I get negative thoughts I picture a big wooden chest and a football referee's red card! I "send off" the thoughts and shut them in the wooden chest.

Sounds ridiculous written down but it works for me a lot of the time!

[tiredofit]

Just to update, I've managed nearly 2 good weeks at a stressful time (xmas). My anxiety seems to peak towards early evening - I'm not sure why that is, but overall I've been able to keep busy and clear my mind. When negative thoughts have started in on me, I've been stopping and taking a breath to slow down. It seems to be working somewhat.

On another note, my boss took me aside because he'd noticed I'd had some struggles lately. It was a bit weird, but it was good to let someone at work know about this. He actually said it was his responsibility to make sure I didn't over-stress!!!!

Happy Holidays

[slipstream]

Keep on being perserving with this, the effort you put in will show you the rewards. I think letting people that arn't close to you know about what you have to to deal with can be rather embrassing and daunting, maybe they will be condsidarate or maybe they will be naive, but it certainly gets it off your chest and make you feel better. Mindful has summed it up in a nut shell

Have a good xmas