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September 15, 2018 at 9:16 am #225797
BassyParticipantI have generalised anxiety disorder and adhd so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve had a pretty turbulent life. When I was 15yrs old I had a stalker. It was a girl in my class who I was friendly to a couple of times when I was a new student at the school. I quickly noticed that there was something weird about her and I kept my distance. She kept bothering me and at a certain point I began to get really frustrated and I started to bully her. I don’t want to get into specifics but I can guarantee that it was wrong. She eventually left school, I never saw her again and I basically forgot all about her. However, she recently appeared in one of my dreams. As I mentioned earlier, I have anxiety and this scared me. This whole experience has now become an unwanted, obsessive thought that doesn’t seem to go away. I really want to never think about her again because I find her to be scary but for some reason it doesn’t work. Does anyone have any advice?
September 16, 2018 at 4:46 am #225839
AnonymousGuestDear Bassy:
Without details about the nature of the stalking you mentioned as well as you bullying the girl, my only advice is to attend quality psychotherapy/counseling so to manage and start healing your anxiety. If you add details or any information that will help me understand more, please do.
Or if you want, you can share about your anxiety from before the stalking/bullying, earlier on.
anita
September 16, 2018 at 11:58 pm #226017BassyParticipantI completely understand your point and I should have been more specific. These are some of the examples of the stalking: taking my trash from the bin and keeping it, hiding in front of my house, writing a book about me etc. At a certain point I was fed up and I started bullying her. I would make fun of her in front of other people and often ridiculed her. I treated her like a lesser person, like trash to be really honest. These events occurred when I was 14 to 16 years old.
In regard to my anxiety – I know that I have always had anxiety but that it was really triggered when I was 21 years old. I thought I had a medical condition, I started googling symptoms and believing them – for the next 6 months I literally thought I would die soon. Even though this sounds stupid, it really wasn’t. I think the chronic worrying started to form a foundation for other worrying. I now worry a lot about irrational things and I often have obsessive thoughts. I think about past events more in addition to worrying about future events. It’s like my brain wants me to think about things that I would rather forget.
I don’t hold anything against myself in regard to the bullying. After all, I was a young kid who didn’t know how to deal with such a horrible situation. No kid should have to deal with something like that. I would however, like to give this a place in my life and move on.
September 17, 2018 at 6:22 am #226025AnonymousGuestDear Bassy:
I will quote from your thread of last year as well as from this one and offer you my suggestions:
“The thought of going blind was so scary… After a while I feared that my thoughts could turn into a reality.. I was scared that the fear of becoming blind was actually going to make me blind”- You can do this exercise again and again whenever you fear that a thought about something will make that something happen: stand in front of a mirror and say to yourself: I am a zebra, then watch: did you turn to a zebra? Or think: I will die in the next minute, then watch the time, are you still alive? Test your thoughts this way.
“I fear that I will read something that can worsen my anxiety”- we can do an exercise right now because you are reading these very words that I am typing to you. I will state something and let’s see if it will come true for you. Ready?
Here is my statement: by the end of this sentence you will experience a strong earthquake and a rock from someplace will smash your computer, and so you will not be able to read the next line.
Didn’t happen, did it.
“she recently appeared in one of my dreams.. and this scared me… I really want to never think about her again”- we can’t not think about any one thing. We are more likely to think about something we don’t want to think about. We therefore have to stop fearing our thoughts instead of trying to not think. Same with images from a dream.
An image, an imagination, a thought with words, these are not dangerous. You can do an exercise with an image similar to the above.
I suffered from severe anxiety myself and from the consequences of severe anxiety: decades of OCD and other symptoms. Therefore I have a lot more to suggest to you, but first I will wait for a response to you regarding what I already suggested so far.
anita
September 17, 2018 at 7:35 am #226035
coconutParticipantHi Bassy.
I have also dealt with panic attacks and with anxiety. I still have that cause it’s not something that goes away completely but now I am at a time where I feel pretty fine.
I will share with you some things about this, maybe it will help you too.
From my experience, talking to someone who trusts you, loves you and doesn’t judge you, really, really helps release a good part of the fear. Because fear has a lot more power on us when we keep it to ourselves.
Also, write your feelings down, write everything that you feel and however you want because no one else will read it, you’ll also get relief. I think that you felt at least a tiny bit better after your posted this here.
When I went to therapy, I also mentioned to my therapist about the fact that I always have bad thoughts that bother me and she told me that I have to accept my thoughts and they will lessen. Because as much as you want to NOT think of something, as much you’ll actually think of it.
Regarding the irrational fears, think of the probability of that actually happening. Really, there’s no magic or things like these, in this life there is no possibility for you to become blind just because you think of that. In our minds, everything is possible but in REALITY just a part of everything is actually possible. So what I’m saying is that some of your fears might be somewhat rational but they have a veeeeery, very low chance of happening. Another thing is that other thoughts of yours might be completely irrational but it’s about what you think of them. You’re really afraid of your thoughts, I’ve been there. You fear the fear and that’s because of your ideas you hold ABOUT the fear. Sure, it’s incomfortable but that’s all. Thoughts are just thoughts, you have control of your own behavior and of your own beliefs, so work on your beliefs about fear and your thoughts. You will get relief, it’s omly temporary and nothing bad will happen.
Also, stop letting fear control you. As long as you fear the fear and your thoughts, you will not get better. So, for example, if you have an irrational thought like “A plane will crash on my house.” and you start to feel scared… start asking yourself “Wait a minute… what are actually the chances of this happening? When this happened or how many times this actually happened?”. Your thoughts are NOT reality.
Regarding past situations.. just make sense to them for yourself, accept that you didn’t know any better and that’s it.
September 17, 2018 at 12:48 pm #226099BassyParticipantIn response to Anita – Thank you so much for your answer, your advice and words are very reassuring to hear. I understand that thoughts are not real and that they are not dangerous but what I find difficult is making a thought less scary.
I refer to your following sentence: “We are more likely to think about something we don’t want to think about. We therefore have to stop fearing our thoughts instead of trying to not think.”
I would really appreciate some suggestions that will enable me to do this. Thanks in advance 🙂
_______________________
In response to coconut – I also want to thank you for your warm words. I appreciate that you took time out of your day to respond to my story. Luckily I do have a solid support base and I will take your advice and start journaling.
Your following sentence really empowered me and I will write this down in my journal. “You fear the fear and that’s because of your ideas you hold ABOUT the fear. Sure, it’s uncomfortable but that’s all. Thoughts are just thoughts, you have control of your own behaviour and of your own beliefs, so work on your beliefs about fear and your thoughts. You will get relief, it’s only temporary and nothing bad will happen.”
September 17, 2018 at 2:06 pm #226101coconutParticipantI am so glad it helped you. Everything I told you is from my experience.
“I understand that thoughts are not real and that they are not dangerous but what I find difficult is making a thought less scary.” – That was my problem too and more probably still is but its not surfaced yet. To make your thought less scary is to stop thinking of your thought like is scary, automatically. You don’t have to be scared, I think you might have slipped in an automatic thought process/belief.. You already think your thoughts are scary, so they are. Because it’s about your perception. If you start to feel scared just because you have a simple thought, stop yourself and ask why am I scared? If you try to be rational, the power of fear lessens.. cause the fear has power over you exactly because you don’t question it.
Start questioning your fears.
September 17, 2018 at 2:18 pm #226103coconutParticipantI think the reason this has become a persistent thought is because you don’t want to deal with it. I know it may be very scary to deal with it, but this could help you overcome it and not give it power over you. Right now, by trying to block your thoughts about that girl, you somehow give more power to your scary thoughts and you reinforce again the belief that is very scary which in turn makes it more scary…
September 18, 2018 at 5:50 am #226151AnonymousGuestDear Bassy:
You are welcome. You wrote: “I understand that thoughts are not real and that they are not dangerous but what I find difficult is making a thought less scary… I would really appreciate some suggestions that will enable me to (stop fearing your thoughts)”-
when a scary thought occurs to you, notice the thought and notice the fear. Then if it is safe to do so, close your eyes, take a deep breath, inhale and exhale slowly, and imagine the thought drifting through the room you are in and exiting the room through a window. Imagine it drifting and leaving as you breath slowly, in and out.
Then open your eyes and keep doing what you were doing. Repeat as needed.
anita
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