Is uncontrollable worry/thoughts a normal anxiety symptom?

[LiveAboveIt]

Ive mentioned this briefly in the past, but I wanted to ask for reassurance.. Ive been struggling with this issue in times of high anxiety where my anxious thoughts and worries feel automatic to the point that I feel almost disconnected from my thoughts, as though I have no control over them. The worries and constant rumination about my anxiety just spring up and I cant seem to find peace with them. At some point this became a fear and I am constantly worrying/thinking about it now, because I worry that something is wrong with me aside from just normal severe anxiety. It feels like my worry and fear over this symptom is fueling my anxiety and keeping it around.

Any advice?

Sometimes I worry that I will never be able to beat this anxiety now that I am so aware of my thoughts and constantly having to monitor them.

[kiiing]

Ive mentioned this briefly in the past, but I wanted to ask for reassurance.. Ive been struggling with this issue in times of high anxiety where my anxious thoughts and worries feel automatic to the point that I feel almost disconnected from my thoughts, as though I have no control over them. The worries and constant rumination about my anxiety just spring up and I cant seem to find peace with them. At some point this became a fear and I am constantly worrying/thinking about it now, because I worry that something is wrong with me aside from just normal severe anxiety. It feels like my worry and fear over this symptom is fueling my anxiety and keeping it around.

Any advice?

Sometimes I worry that I will never be able to beat this anxiety now that I am so aware of my thoughts and constantly having to monitor them.

that is actually the foundation of anxiety; irrational thoughts
irrational thoughts->fear->fight of flight response->panic/anxiety attack sadly for many of us its rinse and repeat

if you dont have any underlying medical conditions(which can cause anxiety symptoms) you need to control your thoughts...i know.. its not as easy as it sounds iv'e been there and still struggle a bit to this day

high suggest talking to a therapist or someone qualified to help you dig deep to see whats really going on

[Josh1234]

Lol, thats the literal definition of an anxiety disorder.

[LiveAboveIt]

I guess Ive never been overly aware of them or have been able to dismiss them during mild anxiety. I have always suffered from physical anxiety symptoms and have had negative thoughts, but the worry about the worry and the thinking about thinking is kinda new to me.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Worry about worry, fear about fear. That's pretty much my GAD, and many other people's I bet. My OCD is a different animal though, but they do love to "tag-team" against me! http://www.bestemoticon.com/smiley/sport/sprt149.gif

Controlling thoughts can be hard, it can also be counterproductive if you do it the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. CBT teaches us to change how we view our thoughts and how we react. Acceptance works a different way by not reacting to them. Mindfulness works by observing as a curious observer" to ensure neutrality. There are various approaches.

But be beware pushing thoughts away as studies have show it can be counterproductive as it feeds back to the subconscious that the thought was important. We won't the thoughts to not be important so we don't reinforce the need for them.

Understanding thought processes is useful to so that we don't fall into traps about unreasonable expectations. For instance, they are finding the mind is a lot busier than they originally thought. We can't suppress that because it is part of who we are.

But we can reduce how busy it is and how intense it feels. I know from my experience that I believe I can now still see these thoughts more "in HD" than before my anxiety but it doesn't bother me like when it was driving me nuts. I don't know whether that's how it remains, I haven't recovered fully.

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A more suitable emoticon may be...http://yoursmiles.org/tsmile/agressive/t0132.gif (http://yoursmiles.org/t-agressive.php)

:biggrin:

[LiveAboveIt]

Its not really any specific thought in particular, it just feels like my brain is rapid firing thoughts off on its own and wants to fixate on the way I feel and the anxiety. Youre right though, the more I fight and worry about it, the worse it gets. But I have a hard time not focusing on it or worrying. Its like this all day when my mind is idle, unless I manage to get distracted by something. It freaks me out and I have a hard time convincing myself that it is just a normal anxiety symptom. I just want to be able to relax and feel in control of my thoughts again and not have this damn awareness of my thoughts all the time.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, I know that very well about focussing on symptoms. That's been a big part of my GAD since very early on for me.

I think this is a hard one in GAD where you have a slog back to lower anxiety levels. Distraction, health hobbies, exercise, meditation, boosting confidence & self esteem, etc. Basically, overall work to drive down overall levels of anxiety.

They are finding the mind is busier than they thought with the subconscious and the Mind Pops, so on top of everything else with our minds overactive it just seems to become overwhelming busy. But not all of it is perhaps anxiety, it can be normal busy stuff that is in the background for us that we tend not to notice when it comes to the Mind Pops since we never realised our intrusive thoughts before we were anxious about them.