Scary hairy thoughts!

[dotty]

Hi,
I have suffered from anxiety for the past 8 months following a miscarriage. Have had at some point or another felt all or some of the symptoms typical of anxiety.. fear of death/paranoia about schizophrenia, scared of hurting someone etc. At the moment I'm obsessed by two thoughts that are particuarly doing my head in. Firstly, I'm really scared that all of the anxiety and stress will make my hair fall out and i'll develop alopecia.. and of course the more I worry about it the more I think it will happen and... it just goes round in circles! I can almost make my head feel tingly and think it's the beginning of it falling out! Anyone else scared of this?! Secondly, I get really worried that I'm in some way pyschic (and I don't want to be!). Am convinced I'll die young because years ago I suddenly thought I'll die at 34... and never been able to get that out of my head since I've had anxiety and I wonder if I've had some sort of premonition. Have had loads of cases where I've known what someone is going to say, or predicted things. I would have always before just put this down to intution or coincidence but of course the anxiety monster makes you think othewise and suddenly I'm the new mystic meg who has predicted her own death! Aarrrrggghh... anyone else have these wierd/worrying/scary thoughts?!
Thanks so much,
Dotty.

[Insomniac]

hi dotty,
I dont have those particular worries, but I do have regular cases of the "what ifs".

What if we get stuck in traffic, what if I need the loo, what if I have a PA at work, what if everyone looks at me. ... etc

During summer 2006 I had bad PAs and was worried about going back to work (at school). I thought I might have a PA will in a class with the children and not feel able to leave. Of course felling unable to leave makes you worse. So there I was in that old vicious circle.

Lucky I have a great boss (headteacher) who I chatted to at the beginning of term. He was undestanding and supportive and said give it a go and if it gets too much he will help me. Well of course I have been fine. I've been on meds since that summer which helped me have enough self control to control the panic. And now my confidence has grown a lot.

With counselling as well I feel I am now much more in control. Now I am pregnant and worried about that lol. What if it makes PAs worse? etc etc. A whole new bunch of what ifs. Wow you need a sense of humour with this stuff!

Lisa.

[bluebell68]

Hi Dotty... yeah kinda...when i was younger i always thought that i would die young, i got it in my head that it would happen by 40, which was ok cos i was young but now im, wait for it... 39!, so that thought does cross my mind sometimes.. my mum is always saying that she is psychic and that all the women in our family are too... but shes not and neither am i....yeah i did kinda predict a car accident that i had when my children were young... but then again i have had two crashes since then that i didnt predict and so i guess what im saying is... the thoughts and feelings that you have had are not wholey uncommon so try not to let them worry you... anxiety can take many forms but but it nearly always has an element premonition in there somewhere.... my health anxiety comes from an obsessive urge to try and guess the future and its always accompanyed by an absolute conviction that i know whats gonna happen next...... so far i have never been right and yet still i can't stop doing it.
Interestingly studies have shown that the ability to guess what someone is gonna say next is quite common in women. We are excellent communicators and we have a much better ability to read faces and emotions than men, we also listen better (am i right girls!?) so its something that comes quite easily to us.
In short, cos i can waffle on a bit....although the thoughts are scary :w00t2: you are never alone, we all have them... hang in there
Best Wishes

[andrewc]

Hi girls

First of all I don't think that anybody knows whats gonna happen next because it hasn't. If you get caught in the "what if" loop then of course you gonna get at least 1 right which is sheer coincidence. It is the dam anxiety that causes all these thoughts and nothing else.
There's a lot of people who think they are psychic just because they spend so much time caught in these loops thinking that they know what other people are thinking or going to do. Well I dont think anybody can do that. Hey now I'm doing it Im caught in the "think" loop lol.

Best regards

Andy

[chalky]

Hi Dotty,

Welcome to the Forum.

:hugs: :hugs: :hugs: :hugs:

You will get loads of support and advice here.
Best wishes,
Chalky

[dotty]

Thanks for your replies all. It' s interesting to know I'm not the only one that has these ridiculous bloody thoughts all the bloody time! I just want to be normal again! Mind you, I've always had a very active imagination and creativity is one of my strengths at work! They say it's the creative ones that tend to get anxiety/depression etc because they have wild imaginations and take thoughts to places no-one else would! I think too that I've always had scary thoughts etc but was always able to deal with them like a 'normal' person but the miscarriage was a trigger for extreme anxiety and made it all a million times worse!

On the bright side, I'm a million times better than I was 6 months ago and can deal with the stupid thoughts in that they don't get in the way of my day to day life now. Educating myself and knowing it's just 'anxiety' that makes me think it all helps a lot and CBT therapy has been great too.

Thanks to everyone for your replies and good luck to you all! :yesyes:

Dotty xx