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

xoxo

[Munki]

I get this all the time too and yes, it's crippling. You double guess yourself and think you're jinxing things.

I'm going through it at the moment in terms of panic over my husband. This is a new one to me so it starts to make you question if it's real or not. However, I can pretty much reassure you that what you're feeling is nothing more than anxiety and you're absolutely fine.

I'm afraid I can't offer advice in terms of silencing the mind as I'm attempting it myself at the moment. However, I'm watching this thread so I'll be interested to read the responses.

At least we're together in this :)

[Chocolateface]

Hi

Yes I get this, my thoughts are always work based though. I have this obsession that work is trying to get rid of me and see everything that happens as something to re-enforce this. For example today my manager said she would have a catch up with her manager, so I started to think it would be about me and couldn't stop it. Then after I managed to rationalise it, they were in their meeting and took in my work colleague so again I got intrusive thoughts and started to panic. I asked another colleague where they were (even though I knew) and he said what the catch up was all about and guess what it had nothing to do with me.

I can relate as it is part of anxiety to over think and spiral things out of control, I have no idea how to stop it but I am starting to recognise that it is anxiety making me think this and my thoughts are not necessarily reality, going to try deep breathing tonight to help me sleep.

Clare

[MyNameIsTerry]

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.