I can't make any decisions any more

[ddd3]

So I've been struggling with anxiety, depression and OCD since I was 16. I took medication and went to CBT and I got a lot better. However, after 9 years I felt that it was time to stop the medication and lead my life the way it was; normal. I wasn't depressed any more and my OCD was cured. However, the timing was very bad. I was under a lot of pressure and I was very stressed. And then I got sick, I got severe abdominal pain and I had to go back and forth to the doctor for 2 months. This triggered my OCD and in the span of 2 months, 5 years of CBT went down the drain and I feel like I am back where I was before I started CBT.

My problem at the moment, and what really keeps me from living my normal day to day life is that I can't make any decisions any more. I mean like really simple decisions. I am constantly afraid that I might make a decision and something bad happens. For example I can't decide which way to take if there are 2. What if I choose that way and something bad happens, like the road might be bad and a car hits me or I fall and break my leg etc.? Therefore I always let the person that's with me make the decision. That way it won't be my fault if something happens and I won't have to spend x amount of hours/days mentally punishing myself for it. Another example is when my brother asks to borrow my car. What if I lend it to him and he crashes it or what if I don't and I use the car instead and get in to a car crash when he could have just borrowed it instead? Leading my day-to-day life has become such a challenge and I feel like I am losing my mind. Does anyone here have similar thoughts or difficulties making decisions? If yes, how do you handle it? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

[jessed03]

"What if" questions are steroids for anxiety. They make it grow. They make it grow so powerfully in fact that it can take over lives. Sort of how it's done so with yours.

Don't engage in what if questions. They never end well for you. I mean, ever. They'll make your anxiety so powerful it will become a monster that makes a slave out of you.

If you do have a genuine problem, weigh up the logical pros and cons and make a quick decision. Stick with this decision unless there's a valid reason to change it.

Next time you think "what if something bad happens?", "what if I get sick?", "what if......?", smile to yourself. That's anxiety at work. That's anxiety lifting weights in your mind plotting to overthrow you. Simply cut it off. Cut the juice. No more attention goes to the "what if thought". Do something else. Ignore it. Reassure yourself. Whatever you want to do, that's ok. Just cut off the "what if" rumination.

This won't always be easy at first, but it will work long term. Cut anxiety's food and it eventually becomes weak. Then you overthrow it and get your regular self back.

[JohnC]

Hi dd3, welcome to the forum. I have a little bit of a problem with making decisions sometimes. My biggest problem is usually when i have time to think about the decision but when i need to make a decision in a split second i seem to do pretty good. Go with your gut and your first thought or instinct is usually the best. Good luck and i am sure others will have good words for you as well.

[Im-Suffering]

No decision is of course a decision after all. (the OP is making multiple decisions every day). The psyche uses its reasoning faculty to weigh probable events against what is desired (even if it is unwanted). In a real sense you precognate your future and move into it. (what has already be thought created), you now meet physically. The physical takes time, wheras the mental takes no time at all.

The more you endeavor to 'cut out' the what ifs the more they will pop up, only now associated with unpleasant thoughts - they will come in 'waves' and proportionate to the energy given to them. (whether suppressed or not).

In all cases, the fear is born of faulty or (illusive) value judgments or inner 'ghosts' associated with fearful ideas about self and the world - that have taken over most clear thinking.

Without all the psychological garbage (false beliefs) decisions would flow from inner self as naturally as water down a stream and if rocks should get in the way of that natural flow, there is no hesitation in changing course or moving around them.

Practice removing the garbage:

FALSE BELIEFS

.... if you practice anything at all. You cant expect to sit with your garbage and give it time to go away (or sit in a pile of garbage and pretend it isnt there- 'practice it away'), that would just increase the smell, but you can remove it entirely.

[jessed03]

The more you endeavor to 'cut out' the what ifs the more they will pop up, only now associated with unpleasant thoughts - they will coe in 'waves' and proportionate to the energy given to them.
.

Gotta call BS on that one. The mind is prone to bad habits when left unattended the same way children are. With a little gentle direction it finds its way. Energy is extremely powerful. One must be very careful where they place it or allow it to wander.

[Im-Suffering]

Gotta call BS on that one.

Call it all you like, but Id rather you call it correctly, if for only the sake of when I am gone (assuming you will be here which I feel you will). That is what I see for you.

The beliefs direct the thought (energy, if you wish) and the bad habits (in your terms), you understand. The beliefs dictate the emotions although often it appears the other way around. Even in a small child - granted there is electromagnetic attraction in the chromosomes and so forth (The instruction set or DNA). The child in those terms is equipped with sufficient knowing (inherent) to grow into an adult human and that includes the foundation for a belief system. Another words, he is born with certain inclinations and into the appropriate environs to cultivate them (choosing the parents).

Things are always much deeper than you would suppose. I am encouraging this deeper reflection in all areas, not just during mediation, but all day, every day.

More accurately :

"The mind is left to bad habits when left unattended in people who have the beliefs to support that framework". The beliefs another words come first. The psyche is built around those belief-blueprints, unattended or not.

Now the OP could learn a great deal from this post, but of course he must understand it first.

[jessed03]

The beliefs direct the thought (energy, if you wish) and the bad habits (in your terms), you understand. The beliefs dictate the emotions although often it appears the other way around.

This has been said since time-immemorial by all teachers, but who would listen?

True, I just think you misunderstand a lot of things due to your dedication to the Seth material. What I offered up the OP was a very simple answer to direct him or her to the greater technique which is CBT. Which, yes, does touch on belief work.

But the whole, you create your reality, etc, etc... That's crackpottery of the first degree. I mean, is there even one shred of evidence that backs this stuff up? Some of the stuff you write to these poor kids is worse than teaching them to believe in Harry Potter.

It's common knowledge Jane had a crippling fear of death and magnified the whole "self" stuff because of that. I mean, at best her stuff is a bad interpretation of Christianity and Buddhism. At worst it's the ramblings of a deluded egomaniac.

It does touch on some true points. But they're completely coincidental and taken from elsewhere. You really have to drop this stuff man, or stop preaching it. Because talking about such unsubstantiated stuff is bordering on harmful. These kids don't deserve that. Surely even you're not that brainwashed that you can't see that...

[jessed03]

Call it all you like, but Id rather you call it correctly, if for only the sake of when I am gone (assuming you will be here which I feel you will). That is what I see for you.

The beliefs direct the thought (energy, if you wish) and the bad habits (in your terms), you understand. The beliefs dictate the emotions although often it appears the other way around. Even in a small child - granted there is electromagnetic attraction in the chromosomes and so forth (The instruction set or DNA). The child in those terms is equipped with sufficient knowing (inherent) to grow into an adult human and that includes the foundation for a belief system. Another words, he is born with certain inclinations and into the appropriate environs to cultivate them (choosing the parents).

Things are always much deeper than you would suppose. I am encouraging this deeper reflection in all areas, not just during mediation, but all day, every day.

More accurately :

"The mind is left to bad habits when left unattended in people who have the beliefs to support that framework". The beliefs another words come first. The psyche is built around those belief-blueprints, unattended or not.

Now the OP could learn a great deal from this post, but of course he must understand it first.

Sometimes, and you have to understand I'm not meaning to be offensive here, I believe even you don't know what you're talking about.

You're forgetting I'm a trained writer. I've read more pieces of literature in my life than I care to remember. All of the good ones have one thing in common: they're so easy to understand that your grandma would get them.

When I read your stuff, I genuinely have no idea what you're saying, yet I consider myself a fairly open-minded, well-read person. I don't believe you know what you're saying, and that's why you speak in the way that you do. When a person uses elongated sentences and passive structure it's because subconsciously they're trying to hide the fact that they don't understand what they're talking about, or they don't believe it.

So why not cut all of the poetic junk, which fools no one, and talk about your concepts clearly and concisely. Speak in the active voice. Strip your sentences down so they're are direct as possible. Or can't you do that? Does the material look pretty flawed when you do that? That's ok because it looks pretty flawed to most of us who look at it objectively, too.

This is an anxiety forum. Most people on here are tired and confused. They don't need that worsened by posts that are impossibly difficult to understand, written mainly in riddles. You want to preach some very controversial things. Well do so without hiding behind your words. Let's criticise them and see how legitimate they are. That's only fair on a place such as this.

So start with the post above. What are you trying to say? That a child chooses their parents?

We aren't mediums here. We don't respect that jumbled, vague, abstract way of writing. I, and many others, are getting tired of you bombarding good threads with it, and taking away from scientifically sound advice.

[Im-Suffering]

We aren't mediums here. We don't respect that jumbled, vague, abstract way of writing. I, and many others, are getting tired of you bombarding good threads with it, and taking away from scientifically sound advice.



Why dont you call me on the telephone, where we can settle any grievances or protests, PM me for the number.

Or perhaps use the 'live' chat box at the bottom of the screen, if thats more comfortable. Dont be afraid to just 'drop in' on me, anytime. I would like some one on one time with you.