Feels like I don't care about life and the environment anymore?

[Lovey90]

Hello, 2-3 months ago I had my first panic attacks ever at the age of 19 after watching a horror movie that initiated violent intrusive thoughts that involved hurting people that I love. When this first started I obsessed about scenes where I am losing control and doing the most disgusting things, I just could not help it. Of course I did not like this so I told my parents about how I felt and we went to a doctor and therapist. I used to love life and always had a positive view, if something bad happened to me I always thought things will get better. Now it feels like I do not care about life anymore, it feels like I am suicidal, even though I used to think about how someone could even think about throwing away his own life. Right now I obsess about if I am suicidal or not and I still feel anxious when I am around sharp objects and other people (not always but when the thoughts pop up).

At times everything seems unreal. Sometimes, like 2-3 days ago I was the person I used to be before for some hours, I went outside and thought of how ridiculous my thoughts and fears are, and I was actually irritated because I was wasting time on these things when there are so many other positive things to think about. I am probably a bit depressed right now which makes my obsession even worse. I can not focus on anything else when I am in this mode, I just began studying this year and everything was fine until the movie that triggered everything, since then I have not been able to concentrate on studying or anything. I ''know'' deep inside that I am not suicidal because I really have nothing to be sad about in life except my obsession about these stuff, I have great friends, great family, I exercise, I have everything I need and am really thankful. Still I doubt... I doubt lots of things right now, I doubt if I want to or can get better (which is funny because I take medicine against anxiety to reduce it, and I am here to get advice), I doubt if I am still the same person as before the movie. I used to love myself and people around me, love life. Have you ever woke up from a nightmare and then felt so relieved that it was only a nightmare? The period since watching the movie has felt like one nightmare, that never ends, I am still waiting for the moment where I will ''wake'' up... I still have lots of faith. Can anybody try to tell what is happening to me?

[costaboy]

i know this is of topic but if i know what movie started this maybe i could help ?

[alankay]

If the therapist found nothing "purely psychological" it could be you are just developing anxiety(as I did) at a common age(late teens and 20's, young adulthood). It does like a mix of OCD and anxiety as there often is a bit of overlap between the 2 with even some depression if it finally gets to you, dealing with it all. I was the same when I started getting anxious. A happy dude who started worrying about my heart and finally getting panic attacks in class in my first year of college. Later I realized I was indeed a worrier which is the root cause of anxiety for many.
Anyway I was lucky as I got treatment quickly from a great pdoc. I would have so much worse off if I didn't go in for treatment. I hope you are on an SSRI and maybe some psychotherapy and get some self help books on anxiety to become educated about anxiety, meds, etc. I would listen to the pdoc if you have one and work with him. Some try to tell pdocs how to treat them but that just not how it works.
If there is no psychological cause/trigger the movie may have just hit you at a moment that resulted in all this somehow but it was there all the time deeper down at some level. Could be simple coincidence but I bet the therapist went over this all. My advise would be to, for now, work with your pdoc and see if you can get allot better via meds, CBT, education on anxiety, etc. PM me any time. Alankay.

[miss_mac666]

what horror movie was it? and are your thoughts specific to hurting other people? what i mean is it like descriptive in your head what you would do

[costaboy]

i agree xxxxxx

[Lovey90]

The movie I watched is called severance, and no my thoughts are not descriptive, they just pop up and make me anxious and irritated... I will visit a pdoc as you said alankay, thanks !

[PanicCured]

I've got to see this movie!

[PanicCured]

It's ok to have weird thoughts, as long as you have the awareness that you seem to have. You clearly understand that they are weird. Maybe you are going through some spiritual growth. Ride it out! Sometimes you need to go through hell before you can grow. Just don't act on the bad thoughts. You can try a meditation where you become the observer and just watch your thoughts go by instead of latching on to them and following them. All thoughts are only thoughts if you can learn to just watch them without judging. Just let them roll right by you and give them no power. Just try being the observer.

[jessed03]

Hey Lovely,

I'd just add on PanicC's comment. I think you are going through spiritual growth, whether you like it or not. Your brain has sort of become in a 'lock', and some confusing stuff is coming up, as you see.

Perhaps you need to increase Seretonin. OCD-related issues can sometimes be down to thinking, or can sometimes be down to low Seretonin. If the Seretonin is low, this stuff will happen, regardless. This is where the growth comes in. You're gonna learn a lot about the mind, and yourself, and of life. This deficiency is gonna trick you in every way. It'll make you obsessive, depressed, and anxious, the list will keep cycling until it's sorted. You can definetly try the non medical way first, as thinking influences your levels. You can never beat this thing by out thinking it, only by changing the rules of your thinking to create a different game.

On a more practical note, I don't think I could ever type something to accurately help you with intrsuive thoughts. Sure we can all offer you bits of advice here and there, but it will make a seemingly insignificant difference, as it will simply come up in a different form, unless understood and tackled. The best advice I have at the moment, is just avoid any kind of trigger. News, conversation topics, certain music or movies. For now, they just aren't worth it. The mind needs to calm down, not get more ammunition.

Get comfortable here any way you can. Find humour in it, or wonder. The mind is capable of this incredible imaginative simulation. It's this tool of epic proportion. Start to chuckle off the thoughts if you can "This is an intrusion". Again, the more you think, the deeper in the trap you get. Don't try to stop thinking, just minimize it when you notice yourself getting deep. A lot of therapists believe that the more absurd you make the thoughts, the easier they are to deal with. I would have intrusions about knives, and began to imagine attacking people with a baguette instead. It became sort of funny.

I'd advise you to get a couple of books on intrusive thoughts, and anxiety. We'll recommend some if you want. Do what panic said. Incoprporate some meditation in your life. Start doing some progressive muscle relaxation. (http://www.hypnos.co.uk/hypnomag/jacobson.htm) It's been proven to lower stress levels and anxiety. Avoid all triggers. Not out of fear, simply because they just aren't worth it. You wouldn't sit up all night doing maths puzzles, because it's too tiring, the same way you want to avoid anything that triggers. Not because it's scary, but because it's tiring.
Then just live well. For now. Sleep well. Exercise. Get Vitamins. Eat regularly. Monitor your life casually for things that make you feel worse. Offence isn't given, it's only ever taken. If these thoughts frustrate you, work on it. A good book will help that.

The bottom line, is it's an anxiety condition. The more uncomfortable you are, the more it stays.
This will take some time, and may seem simple, but it will take you to the next step. You'll see where to go next once you get there.

As Panic put, you'll learn to see your thoughts like clouds. Just flowing by, coming and going. Mindfulness is really good for this type of anxiety.

Be well

[Lovey90]

Thanks for the answers. Just to make sure you all understand me, the thoughts I have are only intrusive thoughts which hit me extra hard when I am depressed. The thoughts about if I am suicidal or not and hurting other people are unwanted. I have always been nice to everyone and I am especially known for this, I have always been positive and still am. It is just that when I get thoughts like these they make me anxious and I start to analyze them and seek assurance that I will not act on them. Right now a thought popped up in my head, it read like this ''What am I doing? I will never get better'', the thought makes me anxious and is intrusive, everyday I get hundreds of thoughts like this. Then I get the thought ''Maybe I just do not want to get better because I am possesed by something evil or have changed personality'', so I am in a negative circle where I doubt many things. So what I am struggling with is intrusive thoughts, and they cause me so much anxiety and it is the anxiety that makes me feel like I do not care about life and gives me these unreal feelings. I know it takes time but I wonder if I will get to a stage where these intrusive thoughts become so meaningless that I forget about them?

[jessed03]

Of course you'll reach a stage where they become meaningless. :)

When they no longer frighten you, upset you, or make you uncomfortable. The reassurance is a drug. I'm not kidding. It's like intrusive thought heroin. Weird image I know. The more you try to reassure yourself, the more you need it. You find you need it 100 times a day. Then you find you may need it from a priest, parent or doctor. It just keeps growing. As you've found out. I mean you can reassure yourself, but do it like a parent. 'This is an intrusion, caused as part of a temporary anxiety disorder" Then hang up the phone. Quit playing.

The best analogy I heard was intrusive thoughts, and actually anxiety too, are like a little brat. Imagine you're the parent, and it demands attention. So you give it to it. It feels really important. The most important person in the world now it's parent dotes on it 24/7. Now it starts to demand attention. It screams and shouts and throws a tantrum. If you keep giving into it's every demand, soon that kid is gonna grow up to be an adult, now it's gone from a baby bully, to a big bully. It will begin to make bigger, more impossible demands, until you've run yourself to the bone, and you're terrified of it. The best way to defeat that, isn't to try and sit there for hours and reason with it, as it's still attention. It's to be firm with it. To say, I know you don't like this, it's uncomfortable for you at the moment, but this is how it will be. I'm the one in control, and if you want to scream... scream... if you want to shout... shout. But this is the way things are. It's for our own good. Eventually, over time, that kids gonna learn it's place, and have a healthy respect for the parent. When it comes, make a choice not to get too involved in it. Don't hate the fact it's come, or it concerns you, but just ensure you give minimal focus to it. In other words, don't sit there endlessly and think about it. Understand it's simply an intrusion, and it will come and go. You won't see any progress doing this for ages, and it will seem really futile, but keep doing it.

Like a good parent knows, theres no harm in the occassional lapse. To reassure yourself occassionally isn't a crime. It's only a problem when it's demanding it from you 24/7. And it will come close if allowed. As you're finding out, the more you disporve one thing, the more you pick up another. Until you begin to doubt every aspect of your being. Don't worry, it doesn't happen quite as dramatically or quickly, I'm just writing it in an easy to understand way. :) Theres a difference between understanding and reassurance. Understanding will help you. Learning what they are, and why they are there is useful. Seeking for evidence, mentally, logically, or physically that something won't happen, again and again, is feeding it.

The whole idea of therapy is that very purpose. To remove emotion from the thoughts. Right now, they are thoughts and emotion. That's a strong combination. The mind will assume this is of vast importance. When the emotion eventually goes, which it will. They are just thoughts now. They'll stick around for a while longer, and they'll start to fade. You have millions of thoughts in the background daily, these will become one of them. Eventually, that neuropathway that causes you to think this, will decrease, and decrease. The brain changes every day. It just takes the easiest path given the situation and it's physiology. The best way to kill anything is boredom. Overkill it. Make it stupid, humous. Drag it out to every dramatic conclusion time and time and time again. The mind actually becomes really bored of it, really quickly. This again is something best done with a therapist, as obviously it can spike anxiety for a while before it comes all the way down.
Take any couple. Make them spend all day together for months and months. Make them do everything together, and that excitement soon fades into complete boredom, and what was once the object of extreme infatuation, has now become something that never crosses the mind.

Thats what you need to do. But I think it's really hard doing it alone. As you've found out, it's really confusing. It's better to have somebody whos trained, and external to dig for you. There are often beliefs or fears underlining it, that it can be kind of hard to find out alone. The mind is designed to chase pleasure and run from pain. Whatever is classifies as 'boring' it virtually ignores. I bet you don't remember half the stuff you see or think over the course of the day. Simply because it has no relevance to your pain or pleasure. You'll get there, it just takes some time. You're in a bit of a loop. SSRI's can be helpful to people, as they reduce the anxiety, and depression, and can often remove the emotion from the thoughts quicker than without them. But it's far from essential, as you do have a mild, and not a full blown case.

All the best :)

[Lovey90]

Jessed, what you wrote really helps, thank you. Right now after taking meds that I got against anxiety, I feel pretty calm. This friday I skipped taking the medication because it interferes with alcohol and I had planned to go out with some friends. That day was fine but both saturday and sunday felt terrible and that is why I felt the urge to post this, I felt anxious and depressed with lots of these intrusive thoughts breaking me down. Maybe I should just avoid alcohol for a while and take the medicine against anxiety everyday, because I can really feel that it reduces the fuel of the intrusive thoughts. I am actually little happy about how I feel right now :) but I know it works like a rollercoaster, it goes from good to bad over and over. But as you said I think the next and last step for me is to ''kill'' the thoughts because I have already accepted them, and I have already found someone experienced who will help me out with CBT therapy. When/if I completely recover from this I will do so many things to help out people in need, cancer, poverty, everything. After going through something like this you realize how insignificant material stuff are, compared to health and wellness :)