Getting rid of the bad thoughts

[Mark]

I have a problem where I make things out to be a LOT bigger then they actually are. My mind will start racing over the smallest negative thing possible and will turn it into a mountain impossible to get over.
While activities have helped me to forget my bad thoughts for a while. Once I have stopped the activities, the thoughts come right back. Is there a way of breaking the cycle?

I realize that if there was one solid way, then there would really be no need for an Anxiety board, what I am looking for is some tricks people have used that have turned the bad thoughts off and kept them off.

Lately, my thoughts have been about protecting my house. I don't want to leave my house because if I do then bugs and mice will run rampant and destroy the place. I had mice a while back but have seen no trace of them in weeks. I dealt with the problem and I am more then sure that there aren't any but my mind keeps pumping out the bad thoughts and it is really starting to tick me off.

I am constantly on guard when I am at home (the slightest sounds gets me up and into action looking for the source) and when I am out of the house, my mind starts wondering what is going on that I am not there.

I was hoping that with time, the bad thoughts would stop. While I do believe they have subsided a little, they are still very strong. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Mark

[Robbed]

Bad (obsessive) thoughts are simply part of the anxiety state. Because your mind is more fearful, you will tend to become more afraid of bad thoughts (which you probably actually DID have every once in a while before anxiety - it's perfectly normal). Because they are more fearful (either because you fear the content might be true, and/or simply because you interpret having the thoughts as a sign of a severe incurable problem), you remember them more and think about them more. They become intrusive in much the same way that fearful thoughts about a final exam become intrusive in the days before a final. Your mind is actually set up to fixate on that which it considers to be a threat - it's what it is SUPPOSED to do to protect us against real threats. One MAJOR difference here is that you don't fear intrusive thoughts about a final, because it is perfectly NORMAL. Furthermore, things are made worse because we tend to remember these thoughts frequently and fear having them. This, of course, just makes them happen even more.

So what to do? Try your best to just accept the fact that you WILL have such thoughts for some time to come, and let them pass. DON'T try to force them out ofyour mind, as this just makes matters worse (what you resist persists). Try not to react to them with fear to the best of your ability. Try to keep in mind that as you recover from anxiety, these thougts will gradually disappear.

[bio]

Myself being a medical record custodian can be a lot tougher.

The nature/scope of my job is to read through the medical record of each patient before classifying the diagnoses. It's tougher in the sense that knowing what are the symptoms and sickness exacerbate fear and anxiety in me. Fear that I will suffer the same sort, This is especially those chronic diseases such as End Stage Renal Failure, diabetic, hypertension let alone terminal sickness like cancer.

Day in day out, week in week out, no other matter more than patient care. All about diseases and sickness.

Currently, I am working at mental hospital where CHRONIC mental patients are treated. I did my random observation(not survey), general anxiety disorder is not a chronic mental illness.

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