Anxiety and Self-Sabotage

[Wilma101]

Really need some reassurance here..... I'm going crazy in my own head.
I've spent months researching and trying various methods to help with severe GAD and ridiculous racing thoughts.... think its gotten to information overload. I'm in such a state, rocking back and forth panicking, don't think about this, focus on this, if you focus on this or that thought it'll get worse... etc. Trying to just do things but having panicking thoughts saying "You can't enjoy anything", I'm obsessive about it, constantly thinking "can I divert my mind here", "Focus on this", "Don't allow the thoughts", the more I focus on trying not to focus the more the thoughts intrude!! I've tied myself in knots to the point where I'm paralysed, too scared to move because if I try something I'm scared I'm thinking wrong and feeding my anxiety. Really tried to focus on something else, something more important, but everything has become about trying to "get better", so EVERYTHING even talking or trying to tidy a room becomes an obsessive battle with trying to divert and not accomodate anxiety. I'm going mad here, it's spiralling every day, my thoughts have taken over every second of every day.
It feels like there's a part of me thats saying "you don't deserve to get better" and "you're not allowed to enjoy this" etc....
Please help with any advice or at least reassurance that someone else feels this way. LIke your mind is sabotaging everything .....
Feel so trapped I can't move

[Wilma101]

Its the thoughts that tell me I dont deserve to get better or I don't deserve to enjoy something. It's like there's a deep seated feeling of punishing myself...... don't really know a better way to describe it. Is that just normal anxiety?
I'm obsessed with anxiety, my mind churns it over every second. I'm losing the will to even move. I've tried "accepting it" but that becomes an action of trying to accept it - its always there in my mind and everything else is just a fog outside me. Every time I go to do something, even just basic day to day things, the intrusive thoughts of "you can't enjoy this", "anxiety has taken everything away from me" - just constant negativity. The physical symptoms are horrible but I can just let that be, but it's the thoughts that are paralysing me. Its constant, 100's a minute, - how do you just let it be without the automatic reactions of worry and sadness.... I know everything I've said is negative but that's what's in my head. It;s like I'm constantly testing myself, am I thinking about this or that, am I just letting it be etc. It's an obsession, my mind is obsessed with it and won't let it go, even for a second. This testing and checking is not even a conscious act, it happens before I even think about it.

[Wilma101]

No, don;t do drugs, tried a few things when I was younger but only dabbled and haven't touched anything for years. Don;t drink either, but I did drink a lot for a long time. I do smoke, which I know isn't helping but I'm reluctant to quit at the moment in case it makes things worse.
Do you recommend keeping busy? I sometimes find myself running around like a headless chicken trying to find things to do but it's like I'm running away from the anxiety which isn't the way to go.
I have tried meditation, again my mind tries to take over saying "no you can't think think".... but I admit I didn't try for very long.
I get up in the morning and I don't know what to do with myself, should I just do normal things even if I don't enjoy them? I feel like I'm just programming more negative memories if I carry on regardless, - if I just keep going will it slow down?
The doctor had prescribed me Cymbalta - haven't taken it but I'm thinking if it makes me a bit more positive about things it'll help me cope and maybe slow down the mind just a little.

[Robbed]

No, don;t do drugs, tried a few things when I was younger but only dabbled and haven't touched anything for years. Don;t drink either, but I did drink a lot for a long time. I do smoke, which I know isn't helping but I'm reluctant to quit at the moment in case it makes things worse.
Do you recommend keeping busy? I sometimes find myself running around like a headless chicken trying to find things to do but it's like I'm running away from the anxiety which isn't the way to go.
I have tried meditation, again my mind tries to take over saying "no you can't think think".... but I admit I didn't try for very long.
I get up in the morning and I don't know what to do with myself, should I just do normal things even if I don't enjoy them? I feel like I'm just programming more negative memories if I carry on regardless, - if I just keep going will it slow down?
The doctor had prescribed me Cymbalta - haven't taken it but I'm thinking if it makes me a bit more positive about things it'll help me cope and maybe slow down the mind just a little.

It's difficult to say how bad smoking is for anxiety disorder. There seem to be mixed opinions on this one - the verdict is not nearly as unanimous as it is when it comes to smoking and PHYSICAL health. Some people think smoking GREATLY exacerbates anxiety disorder, while others feel like smoking actually makes them feel better. However, if you want to quit smoking either because it might help with anxiety in the long run OR to avoid the serious physical health risks associated with smoking, it is probably better for you to quit gradually than 'cold turkey'. This way, you can avoid much of the nasty withdrawal (which can DEFINITELY send anxiety levels through the roof, at least in the short term). Think about it. We say that antidepressants should be tapered and that benzos should be tapered. Is smoking really THAT much different? Or do people simply say that cold turkey is the 'only way' because smoking is considered a vice rather than a 'therapy'?

It's hard to say how much Cymbalta would help you. But one of the problems with taking a drug like Cymbalta is that, although it will probably slow down your mind, it might not do so in a manner that you like. LOTS of people tend to become unmotivated, emotionally 'numb', constantly drowsy, and generally feel 'dumbed down' by medications such as antidepressants. Granted, there may be some situations where this is actually a fair tradeoff. But for the vast majority of people, it probably isn't.

As for not feeling like you deserve to get better, this can be a particularly tough thing to deal with. Believe me, I know. And if you are anything like me, if I tell you that you DO deserve to get better (and you do!), then you will probably come up with a whole laundry list of 'reasons' why you don't. But consider this: What is it about other people that makes them SO much more deserving of feeling good than you? Are you REALLY worse than other people? I'm guessing that you're probably ahead of the game.

[gaara]

No, don;t do drugs, tried a few things when I was younger but only dabbled and haven't touched anything for years. Don;t drink either, but I did drink a lot for a long time. I do smoke, which I know isn't helping but I'm reluctant to quit at the moment in case it makes things worse.
Do you recommend keeping busy? I sometimes find myself running around like a headless chicken trying to find things to do but it's like I'm running away from the anxiety which isn't the way to go.
I have tried meditation, again my mind tries to take over saying "no you can't think think".... but I admit I didn't try for very long.
I get up in the morning and I don't know what to do with myself, should I just do normal things even if I don't enjoy them? I feel like I'm just programming more negative memories if I carry on regardless, - if I just keep going will it slow down?
The doctor had prescribed me Cymbalta - haven't taken it but I'm thinking if it makes me a bit more positive about things it'll help me cope and maybe slow down the mind just a little.

What you described in your posts and in this thread..IS 100% EXACTLY HOW I WENT DOWNHILL. OMG. It feels great (but not really..you know what I mean lol) when someone posts the EXACT same feeling/symptoms.

It started off like that about a month and a half ago..it was 100 thoughts a second and triggered intense anxiety until my mind was just a cluster fuck of thoughts and analyzations...now it's just there but at a much slower pace like only 1 analyzing thought per action which really makes everything so unnatural and makes me have a pang of anxiety which turns into depression because i never ever used to be like that..it's like your brain is cloudy to everything yet extremely hyper tuned into details that SHOULD NOT MATTER AT ALL.

One thing that is really disturbing to me(not sure if you're experiencing this) is that whenever i think about the past (before all this started) i get a big pang of anxiety then depression because those days..i was a normal person, comopletely happy and normal had my good days and bad but never obsessed over anything, never had 24/7 anxiety(im not anxious all the time but it's always on my mind which means a very slight lasting axniety throughout the day with pangs whenever i analyze things before they happen or think about my pre-anxiety days). It just feels like that part of me is forver gone..it feels like it was a completely different era a different lifetime..such a disturbing and discouraging thought.

It's weird because deep, DEEP down i know im the same guy i was always and that if the anxiety completely disappeaers i know i'll be back to my oldself and the anxiety days will be just as mysterious and "wtf..i was actually like that one time??"...but everything is so masked by anxiety/depression that i literally don't know who i am anymore or even HOW to get back to my old self at all.

[jimmy2shoes]

Hey i know exactly how you feel. It was also how my anxiety started. It was like when I was born my brain was set on automatic. When anxiety started, it was as though the auto switch turned off, and it went into manual. So i had to test everything, every thought, every behaviour (ranging from my sexuality, to my insecurities, irrational fears, etc). The racing thoughts, like forwells said is just a symptom of the mind in high stress. It will come and go... it is just a phase.

My advice is, challenge the irrational thoughts (in terms of 'do i deserve this - 'yes I do deserve it) However for a period of time, the intrusive thoughts won't stop. The repetition is what drains you, it's like no matter how much you reinforce to yourself the truth, your anxiety voice will always have the last say. This is something you have to get used to, and you need to realise that just because the anxiety voice has the last say, it doesn't mean anything. It always will (when in the high stress phase)

So, you need to just challenge th irrational, but ignore the intrusive. They will continue to keep on coming, however gradually they will become less and less. I'm sorry for what your going through, I found it one of the hardest parts of my anxiety. Glad it's all over.
In terms of anti-depressants, I take pristiq and have for almost 8 months now. I don't ever want to stop haha. The efficacy of these meds differ for everyone, but I hit rock bottom and these tablets provided a well-needed break from the madness.
I'm pretty much back to normal 100% now, i dont really think about/ get any anxiety at all.
Cheers

[Robbed]

You know i don't know what it is with meditation but everyone i have tried to help i have told them to do this , yet they never do or give up after it don't work after a couple of time . Yet everyone that i have heard of being cured and got past their anxiety have used meditation in one way or another . With anxiety your logical part of your brain just seems to stop working and i for one will tell you that if it was not for doing meditation over and over then i would never have got it back . There is no quick fix to anxiety , it is not going to go away because you change something for a week but it will go away if you change your life . You do meditation and it teachers your brain to be quite it takes a little while but once you start it becomes a learned thing and when you feel stressed at any time you simply shut you eyes and can feel the stress float away .

Again meditation is a big key in recovery .

I can't say that I agree with you that meditation is an ESSENTAIL part of recovery. Although I may still not be at 100% and I still have issues (which I am trying to work out), I have recovered ALOT compared to a few years ago. And I have never meditated (and probably couldn't for the life of me). I am sure that PLENTY of other people recover from anxiety without ever having meditated as well. Remember that, for MANY people, the meer passage of time (with little to no other intervention) is sufficient to recover. On the other hand, meditation certainly CAN help you to recover - the meer fact that you (and plenty of other people) consider it important tells me that it is certainly not without value (and, in the case of some people, LOTS of value). But I don't think it is good to believe that, unless you are able to practice meditation, you are going to be forever stuck in anxiety disorder. After all, different people find that different things help them. And that's okay, especially since we can't all be good at everything (especially something as difficult as meditation, which can literally take YEARS to perfect).

Now would I be in a better position than I am now if I DID meditate? Maybe. Certainly anything is possible. But, just like anyone else out there, I have to work with what I have.

[WendyLou]

I understand exactly your thought processes and fears about it. I was like that in the past too. I was obsessing about the anxiety. I think that's a very natural thing to do though, when your feeling anxious. It's hard to always know what comes first, the thought or the anxiety, but in your highly sensitized state it doesn't really matter. The important thing is to not frantically try and push those thoughts from your mind, just place other thoughts alongside them. A response above said challenge the irrational, and accept that the intrusive thoughts will be there for a while. I am a firm believer in anti-depressants...I personally cannot see how I would have gotten better without taking them. There are many other coping strategies, including meditation, but I think medication is often needed when we're in an acutely anxious phase. And most of all, don't lose hope, because many before you have felt this same way, and have recovered. You most certainly will too.