Obsessive thoughts.... anyone relate? :(

[KelseyK92]

Hey guys..... I'm having a really bad day, I feel lost in my mind and thoughts and I feel like I am letting it overtake my life. It's like an obsession.... I have been diagnosed with obsessive thoughts. It's like I am always talking to myself in my mind and all my thoughts are based on fears. I have these little rituals, sometimes my mind goes so fast that my thoughts and mind chatter mix up and then I get scared that because I mixed up a thought that something bad is going to happen to me. It's like a form of self hatred. I can never just be in the moment, it's always what if in my mind. I even self harm without realizing by self checking my body as a hypochondriac, it's like I think that something is wrong with me because I feel like a bad thought could have hurt me. And I do little rituals like if this happens then I'm going to die and if I hear about something bad happening I will think to myself "God forbid that happens" but then at the same time I will be thinking that I don't want that to happen and then I will think my mind said that I don't want to forbid that.... then I panic and get scared. It's like I'm a prisoner of my mind. Does anybody relate to this? I think it runs in my family because my mum and aunt also suffer from the same thoughts. Another thing is intrusive thoughts where I'm thinking of something I really don't want to happen and then my mind will play tricks on me and I will think that I am asking for it and I obsess over one fear at a time that I will focus on and it changes.

Any self help tips to silence the mind? thanks :bighug1:

xoxo

[gatsby12]

Sorry to hear, yeah I have very obsessive thoughts. If I have X thought Y will happen and Z will be very bad and if i dont fight the thought it will happen and so and so.

[TomT]

Hey Kelsey,

You can try my recent post, its an app for deep breathing and mindful meditation. Anxiety is not genetic, but probably as you saw your mother and grandmother deal with stress the same way you adopted the same reactions.

First of all, calm yourself, you are not your thoughts. Take a deep breath and think how this thoughts are making you feel and why do you fear them and are a source of stress. Find the source of stress that is causing you to feel anxious and practice some deep breathing.

The best way to deal with intrusive and racing thoughts its to ignore them and they will slowly fade away. Ignoring them is not easy when you start, but you will get there. Try writing your thoughts in paper that will take them out of your head, read them to yourself and see how many logical jumps are you doing (Extreme thoughts).

You can also use logical thinking to disprove the thoughts, but I only recommend that in certain cases as disproving them is engaging the thought and in some way fueling them. Those thoughts you have are totally normal and are cause by anxiety, they are not you. I will leave you the quote that really helped me out

"Let your thoughts come and go, but never server them tea"

All the best,


Tom.

[Sam Winter]

i actually do alot of things that you do, i honestly thought i was the only one,
i have a certain way of doing things like theres certain tv shows i watch when i eat and i have to watch them or i fear something bad will happen and i frequently check myself for anything bad, i always have to check my eyes before i sleep just to make sure theres no eyelashes in there, its honestly horrible. x

[MyNameIsTerry]

i actually do alot of things that you do, i honestly thought i was the only one,
i have a certain way of doing things like theres certain tv shows i watch when i eat and i have to watch them or i fear something bad will happen and i frequently check myself for anything bad, i always have to check my eyes before i sleep just to make sure theres no eyelashes in there, its honestly horrible. x

That sounds like Magical Thinking to me. I've had it and gotten rid of it. I can see it going back into my childhood though a good 20+ years before my anxiety developed.

The more you do those compulsions, the more you will remain trapped by it since compulsions are the end part of the cycle to reinforce the fear & need for the cycle. Try to cut down on them, even change what you do (but beware of it becoming a new compulsion) as sometimes changing can break the strength of the compulsion.

Ultimately learning to endure the anxiety that is created without acting is one step towards breaking the cycle. I had hundreds of compulsions a day and I've stopped them all or completely removed them now. At most they appear in my mind and I choose not to act on them and they go again but even this is low frequency compared to the volume of my worst stages with this.

---------- Post added at 06:44 ---------- Previous post was at 06:33 ----------

Kelsey,

Yes, I've been through everything you mention other than checking my body as I've not really had HA elements to my anxiety, I've always been able to deal with them.

You are talking about Magical Thinking. There are many examples of it, it can literally be anything really but one common example if feeling you have to step on all the cracks in the pavement to avoid a disaster, an illness, something bad happening to a loved one, and even sometimes you don't even know why - just that it could be bad. This can then escalate further into having to step on them multiple times, in various multiples, with a certain pair of shoes on, with a part of the foot e.g. one side, or escalation into both. OCD is a bit limitless when it comes to how it can intermingle it's forms. In the example I have just given you have intrusive thoughts, checking, touching, Magical Thinking, multiplication, symmetrical, etc. So, you can see how OCD is far more complicated than "I have Magical Thinking about X so I have to do Y or Z could happen".

My compulsions spiralled like this so there were many overlaps. I was doing hundreds per day. So, many in fact that in CBT I couldn't use a diary as it took too long every day so the therapist asked for a summary of it all and then she saw how time consuming it all was and why I couldn't use a dairy. I would switch from one compulsion to the next within seconds in many cases, it was never-ending.

I've beaten all of that now. So, there is always hope and a way. Learning about OCD was the first step, knowing there were reasons for it and that it was recognised so I was not alone in it. This reduces the fear a bit as you know you are not losing your mind. From here it's about learning to reduce them, proving they are pointless (e.g. using Behavioural Experiments), learning to change what you do to break the cycles & their strengths, learning to calm your mind (Mindfulness is excellent for this), mixing things up to cut down on the opportunity to do them, etc. There are many things you can do. Certainly learning to change your reaction to them to a neutral/positive is needed, especially with intrusive thoughts since the area of the brain looking for the reaction from the conscious mind only looks for negatives and negative emotional reaction especially, the stronger the better.