Anyone else's anxiety set off by the most every day 'normal' things?

[GingerFish]

I know this probably sounds silly but as I slowly start to come out of this setback I have been in the last month or so, I have noticed its little things that seem to set me off more than the bigger things now. For example, going into a shop doesn't scare me anywhere near as much as it did whereas going on my laptop, walking into a particular room in my house, cooking or eating etc seems to set it off a lot more. I suppose its all connected to my memories of bad feelings and panic attacks in those rooms or while on my laptop, maybe? Yesterday I got so bad while cooking that it felt like I had never cooked in my flat before and that I was a stranger in my own kitchen whereas rationally I knew it was because I hadn't cooked a proper meal in nearly a month so of course it felt strange and plus my anxiety was high too.

Also, now that I am calming down from the setback (slowly but surely), I have noticed I get these kind of 'spasms' of fear. Like I can be sitting there feeling fine (as fine as I can be in this state) and then out of nowhere I'll think/feel "omg I need to go to the hospital! I am about to die at any second! I can't cope! I will be sectioned! " and then within a min it fades away again or the thought changes to "meh, if I ever do need the hospital, at least its only 10 mins away". These spasms can come every few mins, couple of times an hour etc. It seems to be random.

Can anyone else relate to any of these kind of things?

[Sparkle1984]

I can relate to the first part of this - when my anxiety was at its worst in July and August, I would feel anxious watching films, even comedies! When I'm not anxious, I really enjoy going to the cinema, watching a DVD or watching a film via online streaming such as Amazon Prime. So this came as a big shock to me. Whenever I watched a film, I kept getting flashbacks to previous times in my life that I felt anxious, even if they had nothing to do with the theme of the film. Then I would get my usual intrusive anxious thoughts about whether I would ever fully recover from this anxiety episode, and existential thoughts. I think it might be something to do with the feeling of unreality I sometimes get when watching a film, knowing that it's all acting and none of it is real. I didn't get those feelings so strongly when watching documentaries or reality TV shows. Thankfully though, as my anxiety has gradually improved, I've felt more able to enjoy watching films again.

[Harkar]

I'm getting this at the moment! I'm having a bit of a setback and finding the strangest things are causing a sudden wave of anxiety or intrusive thoughts. I'm hoping it's just a part of the recovery process. We will get through this! How are you feeling now?

[LouiseAndy]

I used to experience this too-Like one time in work I was mopping the floor when suddenly I had a panic attack. For months later I would get so worked up every-time it came up to mopping the floor again. It was a trigger point for me like- oh well I had a panic attack I last time I did it so by right it has to happen again. I was lucky enough that my manger let me change up the times I would have to mop and that slowly helped me overcome the feeling xx

[Lencoboy]

I can certainly relate to the concerns of many on this thread.

Something seemingly innocuous that most others probably wouldn't give as much as a second thought to, such as a specific lettering font, word or phrase, or random items like light fittings, water pipes, certain types of lawn mowers, etc can cause flashbacks to painful past times where those things may have been present but not necessarily the original source of the problem.

[Harkar]

It may be because your brain is pattern matching-something new I've learnt about. Your brain is constantly lookong for patterns so if you've had a bad experience and there was a random object, your brain remembers that object so next time you see it it triggers the same response. One way is to create new memories, or just to accept that its your brain pattern matching and try and see it as a test that you're not gonna fail! This has helped me