GAD / anxiety due to subconscious thoughts?

[Hipha]

Hello

I suspect that I have an anxiety or GAD illness but whilst I do worry about the future and plan ahead everything in detail so that there are no surprises, I do not worry about everything and do not think that everything will go wrong. I would say my worrying is normal. Is it possible for anxiety or GAD to occur due to sub conscious thoughts? My psychiatrist mentioned that the brain can over think causing anxiety whilst the individual is not aware of this thinking. I have read many stories on this forum for people with anxiety or GAD and I don't seem to fit into the 'normal' profile for anxiety or GAD. I have had persistent nausea for over 18 months and all medical tests are clear so very likely that this is due to nervous system disorder. On Mirtazapine for 4 months and about to start pregabalin. Can anxiety be hidden away in the sub conscious?

[Davit]

Yes. It is possible ti block the thought from surfacing but still have it go to the fear centre in hippocampus and be acted on. This is more common at night when short term memory gets sorted and moved to long term. I would think it is more common attached to a trauma you don't want to admit happened. Do you possibly have something trigger an embarrassing thought just before the anxiety episode?

Lemon Balm is good for anxiety induced nausea.

[Mart0310]

Absolutely possible! I lived with Anxiety for 10 years before getting help from a counsellor. Many of my anxious thoughts had become 'automatic' in much the same way that we might think 'oh its raining' .... Its a thought you dont really notice, for me it was the same with anxiety, my thoughts were so prelonged and so heavily believed - 'Im going to panic in that queue' its a thought, to me it was a fact, I didnt even realise it!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yes, because anxiety comes as a set of signals froms the subconscious to the conscious for a decision on action. You can then make it worse by focussing on it and intensifying it. They teach this in CBT.

Its all a matter of associations between neurons in the limbic system. The right Amgydala being a chief culprit, as the fear centre. The hippocampus also having a role.

I never used to worry about everything. I worried about how I felt with the symptoms and I would worry about meetings, social stuff, etc. As it got worse, my worries expanding far beyond into my personal life. This is typical of GAD and worsening of an anxiety disorder.

The subconscious can also send intrusive thoughts, which are commonly seen in OCD, especially the Pure O versions.

All those sensations, your feeling and your emotions don't come from the conscious mind, they come as set of data from the subconscious. Its just that it can see a pattern of thoughts and store them along with emotional reactions so as to trigger them again later.

In CBT you are trying to influence this by letting it see that this is no longer valid, whether you challenge or try to ignore it (ignoring can be an issue in OCD though, its more being non judgemental that works so there is no additional emotional response for the subconscious to see and believe it has done the right thing). Its this which, in time, allows changes to take place (physical ones) in the limbic system and then new neural pathways are used which changes with the new data to be sent to the conscious mind.

I'm not sure what your psychiatrist was talking about. He seems to be suggesting that the subsconscious is thinking, but it doesn't do that, it can't and only sends the data to the conscious at which point you are deciding what to do. I guess he could me that the complex processes within the conscious that make the decision are not always within your control as you are too influenced by the incoming data to panic? Overthinking tends to be an issue in anxiety disorders but its a mixture of incoming data telling us we are anxious along with the conscious itself ruminating which you are aware of because you have started it.

---------- Post added at 07:35 ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 ----------


Yes. It is possible ti block the thought from surfacing but still have it go to the fear centre in hippocampus and be acted on. This is more common at night when short term memory gets sorted and moved to long term. I would think it is more common attached to a trauma you don't want to admit happened.

You mean like is seen in a disassociation disorder where the mind tries to protect itself by shutting down or even having a form of seizure (don't worry anyone reading this, its a non epileptic one).

[Hipha]

Thanks for your replies. So If the sub conscious sends 'data' to the conscious mind which results in unwanted thoughts and anxiety surely that then means that I would have anxious conscious thoughts. I do not feel that this applies to me through the day. I do not get anxious about the vast majority of social situations and only worry about situations that the average person would also worry about like having my income protection insurance claim rejected. I do notice that I will suddenly have a really negative thought enter my mind like my illness is holding back my family and a feeling of guilt but I quickly let it go and do not think about it again. Has this thought now been stored in my sub conscious perhaps. I have not had CBT as yet still on the waiting list. My psychiatrist also recommend that I am referred to a psychologist for 'advanced CBT' if the drugs do not work

[Davit]

Associated memory (semantic, the area information about things is stored) is used for imagination and creation, but also is used when Episodic memory doesn't have an answer. ( actually a code to put together an answer.) (What you think of as a dedicated neural pathway.) Memory works on Appropriate. If Episodic memory doesn't have an answer it uses associated memory to try to make what it thinks is appropriate based on past experience (core beliefs) So you can see how you can panic or maybe just get a bit anxious in new situations but if panic attack is what episodic memory thinks is the appropriate answer it will be the tendency unless you give it a reason not to that it can make a new code for (neural pathway) Once you do you have a choice. Repetition reduces the choice to the pathway you want. (changing thought patterns) This builds a new core belief and a new appropriate for memory to use. Repetition buries the old one since it is impossible to delete it. But remember the new one will be made of many of the same thoughts just not the negative ones so there isn't that much to bury. But till you do bury it you still have choice, The trigger can go either way and till you bury one you still have a choice which you use. So relapses are possible at the beginning and they feed the negative by letting you think you can never get better. A definite falsehood. It is work, lots of work but worth it.

Hipha, If by advanced CBT he means the cognitive part it is not good to try without coping skills or medication. Cognitive is hard to do without a good understanding of it also.

Terry, I think the mind is capable of blocking thought to protecting itself and that must be scary because we do not function without some thought continuously. It would be like falling into a black hole. It would feel like dead. Not somewhere I want to go. What if you couldn't escape. That can't happen, fight or flight has a built in limit. For some it is five minutes, others five hours but it always eventually shuts down. Does OCD have a limit.
OCD is a subject I am not familiar with. Same with depression, having had neither.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Terry, I think the mind is capable of blocking thought to protecting itself and that must be scary because we do not function without some thought continuously. It would be like falling into a black hole. It would feel like dead. Not somewhere I want to go. What if you couldn't escape. That can't happen, fight or flight has a built in limit. For some it is five minutes, others five hours but it always eventually shuts down. Does OCD have a limit.
OCD is a subject I am not familiar with. Same with depression, having had neither.

I know of one person who was doing their shopping and just had a seizure. The neurologist diagnosed it as a disassociative seizure. I had never heard of this but I Googled it to find it on an epileptics society charity website where it explained all forms of seizure and this one was related to anxiety & depression, especially where there was a traumatic event involved. So, that seems to be a good fit to memory. The guy I knew was under an enourmous amount of stress and I guess the build up caused it...personally I think he's lucky because thats how mine started and I wasn't as luckly as that by far!!! He has no anxiety issues prior to that and lived for stress, as did I before I cracked!

I knew nothing about OCD myself until I came here and starting researching it on other websites. To me, I only knew what I had seen in the media i.e. hoarding, washing, checking switches/locks, etc. In reality its very diverse. There are more intrusive thought based forms which are labelled outside the professional world as Pure O and then there are some quite severe forms of rituals such as in Sensorimotor OCD where the person feels they have to control bodily functions commonly swallowing, breathing, etc (these must be a constant hell). The Pure O ones can be quite scary as the themes are such as violence, sexual abuse, paedophilia, etc. There is even 2 forms of the contamination form that I know of and one of those is mental contamination which differs as its usually connected to some form of abuse (so again, the memory link).

I doubt OCD has much in the way if limits in terms of what it can latch onto, certainly not when it comes to checking. At my worst I was touching so many objects that I couldn't keep a diary for my CBT therapist because I was doing it with different objects so often, even several a minute. I had to just list them all and say how bad they were otherwise I would have spent 24/7 doing them and then writing them down and then probably having to touch the pen & paper constantly until it felt "just right"! :doh:

P.S. I think, if my memory serves me, that advanced CBT might be a combined approach with medication but it might also mean High Intensity CBT which is just a course of 12-15 sessions (some do 6 weeks of CBT which is surely too little?).

---------- Post added at 06:20 ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 ----------


Associated memory (semantic, the area information about things is stored) is used for imagination and creation, but also is used when Episodic memory doesn't have an answer. ( actually a code to put together an answer.) (What you think of as a dedicated neural pathway.) Memory works on Appropriate. If Episodic memory doesn't have an answer it uses associated memory to try to make what it thinks is appropriate based on past experience (core beliefs) So you can see how you can panic or maybe just get a bit anxious in new situations but if panic attack is what episodic memory thinks is the appropriate answer it will be the tendency unless you give it a reason not to that it can make a new code for (neural pathway) Once you do you have a choice. Repetition reduces the choice to the pathway you want. (changing thought patterns) This builds a new core belief and a new appropriate for memory to use. Repetition buries the old one since it is impossible to delete it. But remember the new one will be made of many of the same thoughts just not the negative ones so there isn't that much to bury. But till you do bury it you still have choice, The trigger can go either way and till you bury one you still have a choice which you use. So relapses are possible at the beginning and they feed the negative by letting you think you can never get better. A definite falsehood. It is work, lots of work but worth it.



That makes a lot of sense to me and matches to what I have read on neuroplasticity too.

This is why I always promote Mindfulness because the non judgemental viewing of this incoming data will allow the decline of the old pathway and the forging of a new healthier one.

Its interesting that you say it is a construct based on elements of memory. This is interesting because a few of us on the OCD board have noticed a pattern with some of our rituals/intrusive thoughts in that we stop being anxious but still do them. That would make sense based on your principle of pathway creation from existing elements as well as new ones. The elements being the neurons.

---------- Post added at 06:28 ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 ----------


Thanks for your replies. So If the sub conscious sends 'data' to the conscious mind which results in unwanted thoughts and anxiety surely that then means that I would have anxious conscious thoughts. I do not feel that this applies to me through the day. I do not get anxious about the vast majority of social situations and only worry about situations that the average person would also worry about like having my income protection insurance claim rejected. I do notice that I will suddenly have a really negative thought enter my mind like my illness is holding back my family and a feeling of guilt but I quickly let it go and do not think about it again. Has this thought now been stored in my sub conscious perhaps. I have not had CBT as yet still on the waiting list. My psychiatrist also recommend that I am referred to a psychologist for 'advanced CBT' if the drugs do not work

Yes, you can have anxious conscious thoughts.

One obvious example is how we react we start to feel symptoms of anxiety. If we worry about them, they intesify but if you dismiss them then they can ease. Over time, not judging them as anxiety can make them go away (see Davit's explanation).

Another example is how you create worry yourself in the conscious mind alone which them feeds back to the subconscious which takes not of emotions, feelings and physical sensations in order to try to group them into a neural pathway.

GAD (and any anxiety disorder) can be classified as mild, moderate or severe. They can also be say, mild-to-moderate.

So, maybe the fact you don't feel you fit is because you have read about how destructive it is and you are milder than those people?

Something that is great is what you have said here:

" I do notice that I will suddenly have a really negative thought enter my mind like my illness is holding back my family and a feeling of guilt but I quickly let it go and do not think about it again. Has this thought now been stored in my sub conscious perhaps."

Thats exactly what we have to learn to do, don't judge it and let go of it. If you analyse it, you reinforce it. Yes, it may be in your subconscious as a 'valid' pathway (not correct, just 'valid') somehow. However, if you don't interact with it, you won't reinforce it. Science states that the right Amygdala will look for greater levels of emotional response so if you panic, you tell your subconscious that its of worth being in there and that it has done right to do what it has. So, you can see how continual panic only makes it worse in the long run.

I think you are a step ahead of many because you have found the ability to let it go. Its all a matter of time and making sure you have healthy practices from there.

If you want to determine whether you could have GAD and its severity, try this form:

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/generalised-anxiety-disorder-assessment-gad-7

Thats one of the forms you are very likely to be using in CBT. There are others to judge different factors such as social & working scales, risk of harm, depression, etc but this might help you gauge the issue a bit. It should be noted that this isn't all they do to diagnose, but they use it to monitor your progress.

[Davit]

Terry, I got interested in memory after seeing the movie meet me on sunday or see you on sunday. It was about having a nonfunctioning hippocampus which led to patient HM who voluntarily had his destroyed to try and stop severe epilepsy. Memory became a very interesting research. The same with Seratonin and Dopamine. The memory stuff can be very technical, and not related to anxiety. The connection directly from hypothalamus to the pituitary and then on to every other gland and organ has created some interesting theories about memory and disease. I can see the possibility.

I had one seizure while getting off Ativan. I just went down, Taking a step one minute and on my face the next. A guy got out of his truck and practically picked me up by my belt. He thought I tripped on the sidewalk. Not a pleasant feeling.