2 Questions for you to post your thoughts.

[phil6]

I have couple of questions:
1. When I have a bad day, I seem to lose all memory of the recent good days. I complained to my wife that I really struggled with anxiety all day today and I seem to be like it all the time and she said "Its just one day ,,, you have been fine for a week!" Is this memory loss normal? How do I keep things in proportion?
2. How do you change a negative thought into a positive one when the negative thoughts seem so real and are backed up by feelings. The positive thoughts do not seem to carry any weight when you are anxious.

Phil

[Bekzie]

Good questions Phil, I wish I knew the answers!

I feel the same way about good/bad days. When you are feeling ill and anxious on the bad days its really easy to forget the good. We need to appreciate the good days more when we get them!

Changing a negative thought is a tricky one for me, I really struggle with the bad thoughts too. All I can say is we have to accept the bad thoughts as anxiety and move on but sometimes its easier said than done. We just have to keep going and trying.

[phil6]

Yeh, I probably already know you are right... Doing it when you feel like crap -that is the only answer isn't it... I forgot how many times I have thought this !

[Snoodlester]

I'm exactly the same Phil - would really like to know the answers!
Sue x

[Rennie1989]

1. I think you stop noticing the good days and focus on the bad ones instead. I get that problem sometimes and I have to remind myself that I can and do have good days and I need to focus on them rather than the bad ones.

2. It's about training your mind to accept them. It won't work the first, second or third time so you have to keep at it. When ever I get thoughts of anxiety or paranoia I imagine a boot in my mind stomping on the thoughts. If the thoughts are making me feel REALLY anxious I shout in my head, shouting at the anxiety that it will NOT stop me and I WILL carry on. I can't say it works over night, because it doesn't, you have to work at it. But the rewards are fantastic.

[inCOGnito]

Isn't memory wierd. You study and study for exams and can't remember a thing yet you can remember some benign advert on television you watched once 10 years ago. We also have a tendency to remember things that have a strong emotional attachment to it. So you're more likely to rememeber emotional events. That other facet to memory is association. One memory leads to another and then to another in an associative path. So when you're having a bad day your memory will remember things with an anxious/sad/fearful connection.

So it's not memory loss as it is memory focus. Just realise that it is normal and don't fuel it by beating yourself up.

[meche]

1. I started writing down the way I felt both emotionally & physically on a daily basis. When I was having a good day I would read back on how 'crappy' I felt on that particular day and the whole thing seemed really silly. Then on a bad day when I was at 'deaths door' I would read about how alive and positive I felt on good days and that would give me hope to get me through until a good day again.

2. Difficult one. For me personally when I get a negative thought it sticks with me until I've analyzed it, turned it upside down and thrown it about a bit. It's only then I get bored, forget about it and move onto something else - a positive hopefully.

[phil6]

Thanks all,
I have bought myself a diary as I think having a daily record looks like a good idea.... I am having a good day today and all those negative worrysome thoughts are obviously bluff and lies. I need to make a note as I am sure I will take them seriously again as it seems to be a habit, a compulsion when you feel anxious.
Phil

[cheshirecatqee]

it is part of the illness you think this way. Try being kinder to yourself and say that was a bad day but it doesn't mean tomorrow will be.