becoming extremly paranoid about things

[gregcool]

Hi guys..
Is it normal when suffering anxiety,to become paranoid about everything in your life.i keep thinking of things and blowing them up in my head,getting paranoid about them all.thinking the worse of every little negative thought

[Sam123]

I'd say it's a key feature of anxiety to blow things out of proportion and dwell on negatives. My mind was always racing with thoughts, worrying about every little thing that didn't need to be thought about.

I was the Queen of thinking the worse possible case scenario, i am still quite paranoid in certain situations. It all comes hand in hand with anxiety i think, i don't know your situation but have you had or thought about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
It's really helping me understand and make changes.

[Juliette14]

Those are the symptoms of anxiety, you can read the welcoming thread it has loads of information there.
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=942

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Greg,

Its pretty much one of the big themes of all anxiety disorders.

Have you ever heard of Cognitive Distortions? These are unproductive negative thinking styles that are biased or flawed in nature:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion

Can you identify some of your thinking in there? I know I can with mine.

We used to discuss these at the charity walk-in groups and everyone could relate to them in some way.

Common ones can be seen in many of the threads on NMP and some boards are more prone to certain ones than others. Common ones that appear are Magnification including Catastrophizing, Emotional reasoning, Jumping to conclusions, All-or-nothing thinking, Overgeneralisation, Filtering, etc.

Think of the HA board. Someone can find a lump and then they Google and spot cancer in a long list of things than can include banging their arm on a cupboard. They then wind themselves up over & over about how it "could" be cancer.

This is a good example of:

Filtering - they are focussing on the worst case scenario in cancer (negative) when they could focus on the bang on the cupboard (positive).
Jumping to conclusions - from finding a lump they zoom in straight on cancer (little or no evidence)
Magnification - giving greater weight to the less likely outcome (cancer)
Minimization - giving little or no weight to the more likely outcomes (banging the arm on the cupboard)
Catastrophizing - giving greater weight to the worst possible outcome (cancer)
Emotional reasoning - they focus on the fact they don't feel well (anxiety symptoms) thereforce they must be ill.

Can you see how that breaks down into various forms of unhealthy thinking style? The fact that they had banger their arm on a cupboard the day before is lost due to the Minimization thinking leading them to skew towards more serious possibilities.

There is much better examples than banging you arm but I thought that would stand out more easily. Its not meant to trivialise.

The idea now is to do the same with your own thoughts and see what you find.

[gregcool]

Well after reading your post terry,i think thats me you describe..i dont worry about everything in this way,but i have something hanging over me at the moment and have had it on my mind for months now.every now and then something gets added to this worry and makes me think the worse poss outcome to it.i just had some information about it and i keep reading it over and over again and because the way it was worded it has sent me into a paranoid spin,thinking the worse about it.its driving me made.i cant talk about what it is,but its a big deal this worry that is on my mind every day.wish i could just relax and ignore it and stop reading deep into things

[MyNameIsTerry]

Its hard to do Greg, but the way they approach this in CBT is by using something called a Thought Record. Thereare templates for them online.

You right down your thought and the evidence which you believe contributes to it becoming true. Then you have a column next to it that provides all the evidence against it. When you create this against column it can include things like "you are making assumptions which are not based on evidence", "just because it happened last time doesn't mean it will again", "you cannot know how Mr X feels about you, you are reading into something that may not be there", etc.

It can be hard to do on your own at first but once you get into how it works, it becomes easier.

The really hard part is getting your mind to believe it. It can be helpful to spend time reading it through and then thinking about it in a way so that you challenge the ruminations.

I can't say it always works for me, but its one of the techniques so there is something in it.

Anxiety & paranoia have a close relationship. The way they treat both is the same, with CBT.

Try to challenge it with logic, rip it apart.

[gregcool]

I think i do that in my head Terry..i look at what the problem is then look at the evedance to see how true it is,then look at the pos worse outcome and look at the positives that can come if its not true.but like you say,the hardest thing is beliving it,or convincing myself in over thinking and making everything worse than what it could realy be.its hard to see through the fog and tell myself im worrying for no reason.never realy used to be paranoid .seems something iv gained over the last few months or so

[MyNameIsTerry]

It might be a stage, Greg. We tend to go through stages where new symptoms come along and then disappear again later.

I think sometimes getting it out of your head and onto paper or on here helps to stop it ruminating hence why some people find journalling useful.

I know you have said it helps talking on here so maybe if you write it down to get it out of your head it would seem more real to you? I know I sometimes benefit from that.

[gregcool]

Yep ill try that latter terry.hopefully ill be out of the woods with this isue that is causing me to think about it in the way i am.ill write it down latter and see what happens..chers mate...