Urges/Compulsions

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I've read a lot about people who have panic attacks and feel like they're going to 'lose it' but, with me, it's very often the other way round. My first memories of 'panic attacks' (although I didn't know what they were at the time) were being on a ferry and having an urge to throw myself off and being high up on a balcony and feeling like jumping. The 'impulse' came first and then the panic afterwards.

When this particular bout of depression started it was because I had a recurring urge to pull my eye out. If I fly I have an urge to open the door and get out of the plane. When I'm driving I have an urge to crash into oncoming traffic. If I'm in the kitchen and I see a sharp knife I have an urge to grab it.

I have heard someone on here refer to them as 'spikes' and I guess they must be pretty common because I've heard of plenty of stories where people get their families to hide all the sharp things in the house, but I haven't actually read that much about them medically or psychologically in books to do with panic and depression.

I presume that they are an effect of depression. I visualise the 'worst case scenario' in any situation, my subconscious takes it as a literal danger and my body responds with the fight or flight response. I also think that there is an element of frustration involved because I kind of feel that by doing something so dramatic that all the pain would suddenly stop and there would be calm.

The thing that does disturb me is that I first had these 'spikes' when I was about 10 years old and on that ferry and they have been fairly regular since, which makes me feel that I have a depressive personality and that I will always have them!

Why should i get them though? Is it stress? When I felt like jumping off the balcony I didn't feel scared, I felt scared because of the struggle to resist doing it and what if I lost control.



Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[ANXIETY26]

I would say that it's all linked to the whole stress/anxiety/depression thing. I used to have urges like this and I know of many other people that have too. I remember one time when I was fishing off a pier and a little voice inside my head said " Go on, jump off, you know you want to". I did think of just walking off the pier but I made sure I stayed there to prove to myself that it was just a silly thought.

[nomorepanic]

Hi there

Try some of these posts ..

Scary thoughts
obsessional negative thoughts (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3343)
what if I kill someone? (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1972)
Horrible thoughts (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5280)
Morbid thoughts (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5482)
just needing some reassurance i'm not alone (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6532)
Feeling lonely (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6820)
What's happening to me? (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7446)


Nicola

[Meg]

Everyone has these at times, you have just allowed them to take over and impinge on you.

I once heard Ann Widdecombe say when she was talking about her fears of campaigning in a helicopter for a month when fearful of heights. Everyone either fits into the feeling you want to push someone else or jump yourself catagories. She is nearly right I think -after a month she was totally fine

I'm not wild about visualizing spikes as it encourages you to think of them as a surge on a tracer or something and that it is ok, whereas if you want to use that analagy we need really to encourage the thoughts to come back into balance and soften the peaks and flatten the line back to normal.

Do some reading of David Burns book off our reading page - chapter 3 or get some CBT to help

Meg
www.anxietymanagementltd.com

Your anxiety is the human representation of the pictures that you paint using your many vivid colours of revolving and reoccurring thoughts.
How big is your gallery ?

[jos]

hi
i've had these - the jumping, the blades, when i see broken glass, other thoughts suicide and death in general - i consider them as obsessive thoughts - which are anxiety generated. At a very acute stage i had to put all the camping knives in the kitchen and not go in there on my own.

They seem to be "no going back" actions that you know you would immediately regret which is why they are so complusive. There is no underlying intent in most cases and even my psycologist wasn't able to explain them properly - she considers we all have them but in an anxiety state we focus on them and respond emtionally to them which reinforces them and makes them seem important.

lots of friends have had these occaisionally but don't have an anxiety problem - its likely that most people have an element of obsessive thinking or actions its a natural component of the "healthy" levels of anxiety

I focused on the fact that even in the depths of depression i never acted on them as i knew they were not genuine desires - just the anxiety finding another way out

one way that amuses me now was the desire to say "i really want to f**k you" to my female boss (I didn't want to) which would have been a disaster - that lasted about a week and faded away as i kept control and recognised it as my anxiety finding another way to bug me.

I suggest you have a little game with yourself to try to guess when you will next get this type of obsessive thought and what it will be about - Accept the thought but don't react emotionally to it - in other words say to yourself "aha - another tricky obsessive thought - well i know your game and you can get lost cos i'm busy with something else" - and look for distraction to hasten its demise - Don't try to supress them just learn not to react to them and they will become less important and hopefully eventually stop - or at least if they don't they won't matter

now that things have settled considerably i can usually spot a stressor that may have pushed the anxiety a little - such as low blood sugar, something coming up at work, a difficult phone call, a few glasses of wine the previous day - recognising that you have a lot on at the moment has been very powerful in accepting and not responding to these types of thoughts - i get them very rarely now a year later

cheers jos