question

[sulmare]

does anyone else suffer from arguing with themselves?? it's almost like having someone else's opinion on things running through your mind

I'm sure the isolation we impose on ourselves doesn't help... but I don't feel I can cope with being around lots of others who outwardly seeming to be sailing through life, not the case I know, but we are so hard on ourselves aren't we...:shrug:

[Lilith1980]

Yeah I get this when I am really bad with my anxiety. If I am indoors on my own and I am feeling panicky, I will sit there and tell my head to shut up!

I also think the arguments stem from me doubting myself worth. I have my anxious mind telling me how bad/worthless I am and my rational mind telling me not to take any notice, but it gets so tiring!

Jo xxxx

[Bill]

I'm not 100% sure about this but I'm not sure that we should argue with ourselves.

I think perhaps by arguing with our irrational thoughts, we're reacting to them and so resisting them which makes them keep coming back which is why we feel worn out because we keep fighting them.

I think there's a difference between telling your mind to "shut up" and trying to "ignore" them. When we distract our minds so we stop "thinking" about them, the panics also stop so instead of "fighting" them, perhaps it's better just to "ignore" them like any other thoughts we have every day.

Also if we our mind is telling us we are a "bad" person, instead of telling ourselves to "shut up", we should replace the negative thought with a positive thought telling ourselves we are a "good" person.

So in other words, "ignore" the negative thought and replace it with a positive thought to create a new way of thinking so that the negative thoughts no longer trouble us. :hugs:

[sulmare]

I know you are right Bill, and I do find ignoring negative intruive thoughts is the best way to deal with them, I find somedays they make me more anxious than others and feel uneasy in my own skin.

[Kim888]

I think I know what you mean, I'm very new to this forum but I was hoping I would find someone who gets the same sort of panicky, depressing attacks that I do so that we could talk... are you arguments and negative thoughts sometimes irrational, or about particular things you've done? like, sometimes the worst panic attacks I have are about silly things like maybe I exaggerated a detail to make wat was turning out to be an unfunny story more funny, and I'll panic about what an awful person I am for hours afterwards... is this similar?