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- This topic has 7 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 4 months ago by Helcat.
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June 30, 2024 at 7:49 am #434396n20Participant
I’m truly wondering if it ever “gets better”. I’ve dealt with anxiety my entire life, got 100000x worse over the past year. Experience depression for the first time, got diagnosed with OCD even tho I still question if I have OCD or if I’m just going crazy. I move through my days trying to do all the things and do everything I possibly can to feel better. But nothing ever feels the same because I am so hyper focused on how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking and the intrusive thoughts I’m having. I always thought highly of myself, I was confident, opinionated, etc etc. but now I feel like I can barely think straight and I’m barely even living my own life because I’m not present at all for it. My brain just doesn’t want to hold onto any sprinkle of belief that I actually will feel better some day and I won’t always be so in my head and hyper fixated on my thoughts and things you usually wouldn’t normally think about (like how I am perceiving things, question how my brain works, noticing ever little detail of what I say in my head, and being so concerned with being a good person) anyways. This was quite the ramble, but I needed it today, and I guess Im just looking for someone that maybe experienced something similar and has gotten better? If you haven’t gotten better don’t comment cause I don’t wanna hear that lol. I want to be happy, I want to be present, I want to enjoy the little things and not be so “in my head” questioning if I’m going mentally insane or not. Anyways long story short, share your thoughts and your advice, as I would love to read it. This site is really great so far.
June 30, 2024 at 8:52 am #434412anitaParticipantDear n20:
I suffered from OCD as a child and onward, lots of obsessions/ intrusive thoughts and compulsions, was diagnosed with it, and it did get better for me, way better; so much so, that I no longer fit the diagnosis. I will be glad to share more about it with you.
I am wondering, since you were diagnosed with OCD in the last year: was any treatment offered to you? The whole idea of diagnoses is to follow them with treatments, specific treatments designed for specific diagnoses.
anita
June 30, 2024 at 8:56 am #434414HelcatParticipantHi N20
I don’t have OCD. I have C-PTSD (still an anxiety disorder) due to multiple severe traumas throughout my life. At my worst, I was doped to the gills on medication to numb myself from everything I was feeling.
Coming off the medication was overwhelming because I had forgotten how to relax without it.
Yoga helped me to learn to relax. Therapy taught me how to process my emotions. It was a long process with everything that was backed up over the years. Meditation taught me to disconnect from thoughts and created larger gaps between them. Imagine how good it would feel to have a gap where you are not worrying about these things.
It is a journey and a process letting go of these things and changing how you see yourself.
With any condition there are ups and downs. Recently, I have had a down during pregnancy and after having a baby. I learned that hormones have a significant impact on how we feel.
I dealt with intrusive thoughts after birth. Therapy was helpful with that. I learned that there are triggers that cause intrusive thoughts to occur. Lack of sleep, noise sensitivity, pain and hunger, feeling overwhelmed are some of mine. Managing needs is helpful. I would also say resentment is a factor. Do you resent yourself and who you are now?
I also learned that the more important you perceive a thought to be, the more often it will occur. So the trick is to change your views about these intrusive thoughts. If you calmly accept it is happening and move on, don’t worry about it the mind no longer flags it as important. In time intrusive thoughts occur less and less. Potentially, even stopping.
I found that creating new thought habits was beneficial. Practicing gratitude was particularly helpful. Having good experiences and meeting good people is also helpful.
That is all I have time to write at the moment. I will write more to you later.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
June 30, 2024 at 10:11 am #434425n20ParticipantDear anita,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve suffered with it. Yes I am currently seeking treatment. It started with going to therapy for anxiety induced from school and college stress and just realizing I needed to deal with it better. Then in turned into full blown chronic anxiety and some depression which I didn’t even realize I was depressed until months into it. Then it spiraled even more into paralyzing fear of decision making and intense career anxiety and ruminating on every single decision I’ve ever made wondering if things would be different. I then went on a trip and experienced some horrendous jet lag and I almost felt like that shocked my system into some state of depersonalization (?). Thennnnn that’s where the intrusive thoughts sort of started, targeting my love for children and overanalyzing my years of babysitting if I ever did anything harmful. And just horrible intrusive thoughts + a bit of existential OCD (if you are familiar with that). Intense analyzation of my own thoughts and beliefs also came with that – always focused on what my thoughts are, how my brain mechanically works and functions and just feeling like I will never be present again. Not sure if you needed this much information but to answer your question with a very long story – yes I am currently in therapy and taking medication. But I just feel like I am never going to get my brain back, I didn’t even know all of these weird mental struggles were possible. also I’m only 21 so it’s even scarier and exhausting that I have a long way to go. Thank you for writing to me and I hope you stay well.
June 30, 2024 at 10:20 am #434426n20ParticipantDear Helcat,
Thank you for your response, I really appreciate it. I’m sorry you struggle with something like that.
I definitely do resent myself in some ways but for stuff that I would tell someone else is stupid and worthless to even think about so I’m trying to work on that. Also really trying to just let myself be happy in the moment and hold onto the fact that things always change and just like I fell into this mental state maybe I will fall out of it. I appreciate you and your note, thank you!
June 30, 2024 at 10:43 am #434427anitaParticipantDear n20: I’ll reply in the next couple of hours.
anita
June 30, 2024 at 12:35 pm #434429anitaParticipantDear n20:
“It started with… anxiety induced from school and college stress… Then in turned into full blown chronic anxiety and some depression… Then it spiraled even more into paralyzing fear of decision making… then… the intrusive thoughts sort of started“- anxiety going haywire is like a forest fire going out of control. It starts small and quickly escalates, spreading from tree to tree. Anxiety gone wild takes different forms at different times, as it spreads.
I most recently communicated through 9 pages with a person your age who suffers from intrusive thoughts. The thread is called Intrusive and Anxious Thoughts. it still appears on the first page of lists of topics (same page where your thread appears). For the purpose of not repeating myself, I am directing you there to read my many posts to the OP there. If you choose to do so, please get back to me here, on this thread, and let me know your thoughts.
anita
June 30, 2024 at 1:28 pm #434433HelcatParticipantHi n20
It’s good to hear that you are receiving treatment. 😊 You are young, it might not seem like it now, but with help there is a very good chance of recovery. Being younger the mind is very flexible and not yet set in its ways. You are also very self-aware and clearly intelligent with a bright future ahead of you.
It may surprise you to learn that every single person on the planet suffers from mental health difficulties at some point in their lives. Some people recover better than others.
I found it beneficial to learn from people who are coping well in their recovery.
Believing that recovery is possible is an important part in being open to recovery. Trust that your therapist has done this before and is good at their job. It is your job to learn from your therapist how to take care of yourself and be your own therapist. Of course, if there is something that you disagree with it is a good idea to stick up for yourself and discuss it. Therapists appreciate when people do that, so they can fix any problems.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
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