image projection in my mind

[sophc]

hi all, do any of you have or ever had an image in your mind thats projects when you are stressed? or the horrible image leads to a panic attack?

i have no idea why but when i am stressed or very anxious, i have an image that pops up in my mind of death or someone hanging? i cannot get rid of it and feel really worried about this. ive had it for many years, can anyone recognise these symptoms??

it would be great if you have experienced this to post your thoughts on this?
thanks

sophie

sophie.c.

[doddy]

h sophie,

think it fair to say that all people get odd thoughts, sometimes if when stressed and driving people will have a thought of a horrific car crash, might even imagine the sounds..........mothers often get thoughts of what if i hurt my baby.......all people get odd thoughts but what normally happens they just let them go..but when your a bit anxiuos they tend to stick and we question tem for a deep meaning..........but...there is no meaning...just an odd thought that happens to everyone.

ive had thoughts like yours.....and far odder ones..lol..and they use to really bother me....but now i dont give them any attention...and to be honest bet i still get them but cant remember them anymore as i dont even notice them.

take care

andy

[mjh74]

Hi Sophie,

Yes, something I can very much relate to! I have some horrific images in my mind usually when in an anxious period. I totally ignore them now however horrific they may be. I know they are part of the anxiety but it's taken a few years for me to accept that!

Mark

[Rennie1989]

I still gets those now, I don't suffer panic attacks anymore but I'm still scared with anxiety and horrible images like that really put you off.

Try to de-tour your mind to more pleasent images like when you went on holiday etc. Also try watching the TV or play a game as it puts you off what's in your mind.

Scooties Back

[neonpink_smurf]

Yep i've gotten them too, when i was really bad i used to get loads of them usualy before i went to sleep.. it washorrible.. I find the worst thing that happens are the thoughts that come with all this

[sophc]

thanks everyone. these thoughts really scare me and i guess the only way is to accept rather than fight them and ask myself why they are there

sophie.c.

[nearly_there]

This something that a Hypotherapist/NLP practitioner could REALLY help with. May even be able to get closer to the root of the problem and free up some supressed emotions.

Just a thought.

James

[cathy s]

I spoke to a CBT man who advised me to do just what you just said - pay them no importance, don't fight them, acknowlege the thought, then carry on concentrating on what you were doing. He also told me that a survey was done using staff at a hospital and 72% of these people had unwanted thoughts come into to their heads. The difference between them and the patients was that they paid them no attention! It sounds simple doesn't it! I guess it's just practice we need.

[adele1]

Hi,
Yes when my anxiety was at its worst, images of myself hanging were always in my mind, it'd give me shivers down my spine. These images came with all sorts of awful things, really sick things happening to my family. As I started to take control and my anxiety got less frequent and intense the images became less, now they only come when the anxiety returns but, ignoring them is the best thing, switch to a positive thought, easier said than done I know. xx

[HeatherMc]

wow
what a thread, I get weird images too, thank god everyone else seems to get them and understands what they are, I get them when going asleep and sometimes waking up and when stressed and tired. This symptom has scared me and I have never really mentioned it for fear of being diagnosed with something very very scary they are not pleasant and for months now I have thought it was a sign of something very very weird like psychotic episode

[t.alexander@homecall]

i have recently joined and images are a problem for me at times and sometimes i can ignore them but sometimes it takes over and can be quite scary..so i am trying to learn to ignore the images and try to focus on another image that i enjoy or like eg. looking at family pictures ao reading if im in focus

[tommy1982]

sounds like intrusive thoughts a classic symptom of ocd

[mlondon]

Me too! I get the image of someone laughing at me, its horrible and scares me but I agree with the thread, they are just horrible thoughts. I am trying to ignore them.

[quilliard]

wow
what a thread, I get weird images too, thank god everyone else seems to get them and understands what they are, I get them when going asleep and sometimes waking up and when stressed and tired. This symptom has scared me and I have never really mentioned it for fear of being diagnosed with something very very scary they are not pleasant and for months now I have thought it was a sign of something very very weird like psychotic episode

I have had the same problem. I have learned alot about what is happening.

A lot of people tried in the past to say what this guy is saying.


sounds like intrusive thoughts a classic symptom of ocd or bipolar or whatever, but those are just both cop outs to what is happening.

For me the thoughts I have involve people and objects I have never seen before. For that matter once I went out and found some of the objects that I had never seen in before except in my dream state.

I have found several techniques on "controling" my "visions" as I like to call them. I find the best thing to do is to let them come. They may freak you out at first, but the reality is they cannot hurt you. You are in total control in your own head. "Thoughts" can be placed but you are the one that interprets them.

I like to try to inperpret them as a movie or free show.

In other words, you are not crazy, you are evolving.

P.M. me if you want to talk more.

J.

[eurotrashcub]

I get lots of odd thoughts related to different things.

It is very common with anxiety disorders.

Mine change depending on what I am worried about. (ie worried about cancer, images of my funeral..., worried about being mental, images of me hallucinating or in a menta hospital.. etc)

Try not to dwell on them.

The worst that can happen has already happened... images in your head and intrusive thoughts is as bad as it gets in terms of this sort of symptoms... so try to accept them as something irrelevant and let them go away natturally...

[NoPoet]

I used to be very troubled by thoughts and ideas about hurting or killing loved ones. I was terrified if I carried a knife or scissors I might kill someone against my own will.

When you think about it these thoughts are unrealistic and very silly, but they can be really distressing.

The important thing is how they make you feel. They scare you and they make you feel terrible because you're a good and caring person who would never do that sort of thing. Your own lack of self esteem makes you think stuff like this, and also it's a way for your mind to confront a possible fear of death.

If you see images of dead people, it's probably just your subconscious projecting your fear of death. It's like your mind telling you that there's a problem (i.e. fear of mortality) that it wants you to start dealing with.

[goingmadder]

I imagine the images are just our minds way of giving our anxiety a visual association of some sort.

I've had terrible images pop into my head, som sooooo bad and so cik i could never bring myself to tell anyone about them..

We fear them because of the emotion we are feeling just before they pop into our minds and i guess in a lot of cases sometimes they pop in our heads before the negative thought spiarl or the anctual anxiety kicks in almost like we become so used to feeling anxious and thinking negative then we have the horrible image that the minute we are in an ok place not feeling anxious etc we become aware that we are not feeling anxious and ask why? Ironic isn't it, we spent so much of our lives trying to stop feeling anxious and scared and the minute we become aware that we're having an ok moment or day we actualy question why we're not anxious and then what happens? We piture the horrible image almost i suppose like a punishment to ourselves... We the the horrible image and then the negative thoughts and then BOOM the anxiety takes over...

In a way i guess it can be compared to prosoners who have become institutionalised, when they get released they find it incredibly difficult to function out side of their prison routine... The longer we suffer the GAD the more acusomted we come to feeling it to be a normal part of our day and the harder it is to convince ourselves that we can over come it.

WE CAN OVER COME IT! AND WE WILL OVER COME IT>...

We fear the image? It is just an image, its like watching a horro movie, its scarry only if allow ourselves to beleive that what we are seeing is true or real or could happen to us, but the minute you recognise or consider that its just a movie the fear goes away... We should do the same with the images

Feel like im just waffling now.. sorry...

Keep your chin up...

X

[quilliard]

Question for you that can "see" things.

Do the images you see have borders? Are they framed like pictures or do are they just the outline of the object you are viewing?

I find I have several differnet types of "Visions", that is what I call them, becuase they are not memories and they don't fit into what I am thinking about.

What I get are actually like "movies" or "still images", they project square you can actually see the edge.

[goingmadder]

I think the type of image you get depends greatly on the kind of imagination you have.

For instance, with hypnosis some people can go under with ease and some not at all and it's usually to do with how your imagination works. Do you imagine the image but can not actually see it, can you see the image but 2d like a photograph or can you see the image in your head as if it were really there in 3d... I tend to be a 3d person as in i could mentally walk through the images in my head as if i were in some sort of parrallel universe, like being 2 places at once, where i am physically and where i am mentally.

But the main point here is that the images in your head are just images, they can not harm you, and a point made earlier by someone that it is how you choose to view them that makes all the difference. They can be very disturbing at times but they will go away if you ignore them and guide your mind to happier images...

I think meditation can do a lot for this sort of thing, whether is be focusing on your breathing or your hands, or even visual meditation where you take yourself on a pleasant journey to a happy place, where everything there is exactly as you want it, and only you control who you see there what you do there...

Big hugs to every one..

X

[Grawger]

Hi,
I get this sort of thing too, particularly when I'm getting chest pains from anxiety, these images appear in my head of my heart cramping up, struggling, being pierced with sharp things, which obviously leads to more anxiety and panic attacks. I try to get over it by accepting it, then turning the image into something less discerning, like ice cream or a chair.

Adam