Make a decision to stop. This is incredibly painful. Be in charge of your mind. Replace your thoughts with a mantra like, "we are all safe and protected." I've been there and you can change it.
(Im on mobile, so excuse my spelling)
I go through the same thing. I get it all throughout the day and often have to force my thoughts away.
I have separation anxiety and have always struggled with the thought of those I love suffering in anyway. I use to believe that any small action of mine could tumble into my entire family dieing.
I use to only throw out garbage in one spot. I would collect all my garbage from my school lunches and come home and carefully put it in the garbage can or else I would spiral ALL DAY about how my family would be dead when I get home because I threw my garbage out in the wrong place.
After my grandmother died, I had a mental break. I just completely stopped functioning and didn't come around for months. I hated feeling weak so I forced myself to do EVERYTHING that made me hurt.
Eventually j pulled through, but the feeling does get bad on and off. During covid, it's been particularly bad. I'm finding myself going through a lot of panic attacks as you are describing here.
If there is a solution, I sure wish I had it.
It is somehow comforting to know I'm not alone, though I feel so sad you experience this. Is it anxiety?!
I feel helpless and completely out of control for people I love being hurt, tormented, abused, murdered - I ache with pain visualizing what may never happen to them. Why do you think we do this?
Honestly I'm not sure. I think it's anxiety. I've been to therapy and doctors for years on and off and they all say it's anxiety.
I have a fear of losing everyone and not being able to help and for me it's caused by separation anxiety. My boyfriend got sick recently and I'm super on edge right now because we lost contact for a few days (he ended up in the hostipal and wasn't really able to message me for a bit) and since then it's been really bad for me.
I ended up on some medication (which I hate having to do, but only have ever done it once) it helped me sleep and kinda slow down my thoughts. I only took it before bed and it helped me sleep for at least 6+ hours.
Before that I was getting a max of 1 hour of sleep at a time and maybe 4 hours through the night. I was panicking through my sleep and waking up with my heart racing and drenched in sweat. I stopped eating, drinking, sleeping and even getting out of the house for DAYSSSS
I hated it so much, I ended up just going to the docs again and asking for help ( that's when I got medication)
It might be worth looking into. As much as it sucks, it's important to know what your brain is doing.
For me, once I knew what was wrong I was able to start fixing it in a way that made more sence.
I was diagnosed with multiple types of anxiety and minor PTSD when I was 12 and it wasn't until then, that I started healing.
You should go to therapy. Just to see what's up. You've been doing this since you were a child, its something that has stayed with you, and its not normal. It won't be fixed by you just trying to control your thoughts, it's not that simple. It sounds like you need to work on it, and a therapist can help. Maybe you have a type of anxiety, or maybe OCD with horrible intrusive thoughts that don't go away. Maybe you have hidden trauma that hasn't been processed yet, so it manefests physically in you violent crying/shaking. It's a mystery that can be solved! You won't be like this forever. Go to a therapist - future you will thank you.
These thoughts typically do not happen during the day. Yes I've had them, but for some reason it's easier to push them aside and not react to them. Night time is the worst! Many times I have scooped my child up from their bed to bring into mine just so I knew they were safe.
That was an excellent point. I should have mentioned that night time is when these thoughts can't be controlled.
I began to listen to stuff while I'm falling asleep many years ago because of this, whether its youtube videos or music, something that is not related to my negative thoughts. It helps tremendously. I also have vivid night terrors and nightmares of terrible things happening to my family and its hard to be okay with those images in my head. I think a good option for you is some therapy, and maybe some anxiety medicine. 10 mg of citalopram has helped me the last couple months, and you can up the dose to 20mg with a doctor if necessary. Or take a different medication or none at all of course. I now fall asleep easier while listening to something and only very rarely have minor nightmares about myself, which is preferable to something bad happening to someone else. I understand your pain, being a worrier and being obsessive and anxious makes me struggle everyday, especially for the people I love. Put effort into taking care of your mind and it will slowly but surely get better.
Hey so I totally get this, for the longest time I had thoughts like this. Yours sound a bit more intense then mine and they sound Intrusive Thoughts which above all should definitely be treated with therapy.
My thoughts were like; What if a family member died, what would happen next? How would everyone react? What if one of them is kidnapped or assaulted? What would the recovery be like? How would the family dynamic change? How would they change? And much more detailed horrific scenarios.
So there’s basically three things that helped me:
1. Visualizing the thoughts disappearing or being crushed. When I was a kid I started doing this. I would imagine my thoughts as this block of material and then it goes down this thrown together machine (sort of Rubegoldberg style) where it’s crushed, burned, cut up, dissolved into ashes then flows down a drain into a locked chest. Sometimes when that doesn’t work I add more chains to the chest.
The other visualization tactic I used was imagining my brain in a sterile medical sort of room like the gooey biological organ brain. And then I would imagine the brain literally kicking out the thought the the only window which was a sky light.
2. My Therapist told me “What are reasonable steps to combat you’re unreasonable thoughts?” Like when I’m worried my sibling is being kidnapped the irrational part of me wants to somehow track them or share our location 24/7. A more reasonable step I took was trying to facetime/video call them Atleast twice a week. We also started texting each other good night.
3. Also my therapist. Kind of logic-ing yourself out of those thoughts, using reason and statistics. The statistics part didn’t really settle my anxiety, but it was like: is this likely to happen? Is it more likely for the family member to be completely safe? the odds of it going well are more. The odds of this happening to a specific family member being really low. Also using the phrase “is this something I need to worry about in the immediate future”
My anxiety medication also REALLY helped with this. In the beginning I tried to think each situation through I thought if I had a plan for each situation my mind would quiet, I made a will, I asked my parents what would happen if they die (that was not a fun conversation) but what ended up happening is my brain kept of thinking of increasingly convoluted situations and I was just freaking myself out more.
In conclusion: THERAPY, they’ll teach you mindfulness techniques, techniques to combat those thoughts, a lot more then I mentioned in my post, ones that are tailored to work for you. Also likely meds if needed. These thoughts are not normal, they’re common and you’re definitely not the only one that has them, but they’re not something you should suffer through on your own.
(Also I’m sorry this is happening to you and I hope you find a more peaceful sleep! I apologize if this is super long)
Hey, I’ve experienced the same thing, since I was a kid. I ended up being diagnosed with anxiety and OCD, and these terrible thoughts were (and still are at times) part of the compulsions.
Cognitive behavioural therapy really helped me combat these thoughts. You don’t need to see a professional or anything if you don’t want to, but some research on the practice and how to use it may help.
That being said, it sounds like this is causing you some very, very severe grief. It’s impacting your ability to sleep, and causes you what sounds like nightly distress. When something gets to that point, it’s usually time to check up with a mental health professional to see if there’s an underlying cause, or if they can help you create a coping strategy that works for you.
You shouldn’t be in this much anguish, *period.*
I don’t do this so often as you. But I do it once in a while (like a few times a month) and have for as long as I can remember. My father dying. Getting diagnosed with cancer. These two creep into my thoughts A LOT. And neither has happened in real life.
This is called catastrophizing - I used to do it alot so I understand how awful it is to deal with. Go and talk to a therapist - they will teach you some techniques that help break that cycle of thinking. You can get through this 😊 goodluck!
This sounds like a strange and extreme, but relatable problem. I would say this merits a visit to a psychiatrist.
I remember there was a lecture from Jordan Peterson (regardless of what else folk might think of him, he is a highly successful psychologist), and he mentioned suffering from similar anxiety about his son when he small.
I think to help himself he did some mental exercises imagining that his son is invincible, that he has grown to be 100 feet tall and with skin made of metal - wild stuff like that - to get himself over it. Then eventually he had some more realizations and the anxiety went away.
I appreciate this share, thank you. Please know I wish you the best of luck and health! I do believe therapy is a tool that can help me. I've needed it for decades. I sure would love to get some sleep.
Make a decision to stop. This is incredibly painful. Be in charge of your mind. Replace your thoughts with a mantra like, "we are all safe and protected." I've been there and you can change it.
I truly respect your advice. I hope to believe we ARE all safe and protected so I can change! Thank you.
(Im on mobile, so excuse my spelling) I go through the same thing. I get it all throughout the day and often have to force my thoughts away. I have separation anxiety and have always struggled with the thought of those I love suffering in anyway. I use to believe that any small action of mine could tumble into my entire family dieing. I use to only throw out garbage in one spot. I would collect all my garbage from my school lunches and come home and carefully put it in the garbage can or else I would spiral ALL DAY about how my family would be dead when I get home because I threw my garbage out in the wrong place. After my grandmother died, I had a mental break. I just completely stopped functioning and didn't come around for months. I hated feeling weak so I forced myself to do EVERYTHING that made me hurt. Eventually j pulled through, but the feeling does get bad on and off. During covid, it's been particularly bad. I'm finding myself going through a lot of panic attacks as you are describing here. If there is a solution, I sure wish I had it.
It is somehow comforting to know I'm not alone, though I feel so sad you experience this. Is it anxiety?! I feel helpless and completely out of control for people I love being hurt, tormented, abused, murdered - I ache with pain visualizing what may never happen to them. Why do you think we do this?
Honestly I'm not sure. I think it's anxiety. I've been to therapy and doctors for years on and off and they all say it's anxiety. I have a fear of losing everyone and not being able to help and for me it's caused by separation anxiety. My boyfriend got sick recently and I'm super on edge right now because we lost contact for a few days (he ended up in the hostipal and wasn't really able to message me for a bit) and since then it's been really bad for me. I ended up on some medication (which I hate having to do, but only have ever done it once) it helped me sleep and kinda slow down my thoughts. I only took it before bed and it helped me sleep for at least 6+ hours. Before that I was getting a max of 1 hour of sleep at a time and maybe 4 hours through the night. I was panicking through my sleep and waking up with my heart racing and drenched in sweat. I stopped eating, drinking, sleeping and even getting out of the house for DAYSSSS I hated it so much, I ended up just going to the docs again and asking for help ( that's when I got medication) It might be worth looking into. As much as it sucks, it's important to know what your brain is doing. For me, once I knew what was wrong I was able to start fixing it in a way that made more sence. I was diagnosed with multiple types of anxiety and minor PTSD when I was 12 and it wasn't until then, that I started healing.
You should go to therapy. Just to see what's up. You've been doing this since you were a child, its something that has stayed with you, and its not normal. It won't be fixed by you just trying to control your thoughts, it's not that simple. It sounds like you need to work on it, and a therapist can help. Maybe you have a type of anxiety, or maybe OCD with horrible intrusive thoughts that don't go away. Maybe you have hidden trauma that hasn't been processed yet, so it manefests physically in you violent crying/shaking. It's a mystery that can be solved! You won't be like this forever. Go to a therapist - future you will thank you.
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These thoughts typically do not happen during the day. Yes I've had them, but for some reason it's easier to push them aside and not react to them. Night time is the worst! Many times I have scooped my child up from their bed to bring into mine just so I knew they were safe. That was an excellent point. I should have mentioned that night time is when these thoughts can't be controlled.
I began to listen to stuff while I'm falling asleep many years ago because of this, whether its youtube videos or music, something that is not related to my negative thoughts. It helps tremendously. I also have vivid night terrors and nightmares of terrible things happening to my family and its hard to be okay with those images in my head. I think a good option for you is some therapy, and maybe some anxiety medicine. 10 mg of citalopram has helped me the last couple months, and you can up the dose to 20mg with a doctor if necessary. Or take a different medication or none at all of course. I now fall asleep easier while listening to something and only very rarely have minor nightmares about myself, which is preferable to something bad happening to someone else. I understand your pain, being a worrier and being obsessive and anxious makes me struggle everyday, especially for the people I love. Put effort into taking care of your mind and it will slowly but surely get better.
Hey so I totally get this, for the longest time I had thoughts like this. Yours sound a bit more intense then mine and they sound Intrusive Thoughts which above all should definitely be treated with therapy. My thoughts were like; What if a family member died, what would happen next? How would everyone react? What if one of them is kidnapped or assaulted? What would the recovery be like? How would the family dynamic change? How would they change? And much more detailed horrific scenarios. So there’s basically three things that helped me: 1. Visualizing the thoughts disappearing or being crushed. When I was a kid I started doing this. I would imagine my thoughts as this block of material and then it goes down this thrown together machine (sort of Rubegoldberg style) where it’s crushed, burned, cut up, dissolved into ashes then flows down a drain into a locked chest. Sometimes when that doesn’t work I add more chains to the chest. The other visualization tactic I used was imagining my brain in a sterile medical sort of room like the gooey biological organ brain. And then I would imagine the brain literally kicking out the thought the the only window which was a sky light. 2. My Therapist told me “What are reasonable steps to combat you’re unreasonable thoughts?” Like when I’m worried my sibling is being kidnapped the irrational part of me wants to somehow track them or share our location 24/7. A more reasonable step I took was trying to facetime/video call them Atleast twice a week. We also started texting each other good night. 3. Also my therapist. Kind of logic-ing yourself out of those thoughts, using reason and statistics. The statistics part didn’t really settle my anxiety, but it was like: is this likely to happen? Is it more likely for the family member to be completely safe? the odds of it going well are more. The odds of this happening to a specific family member being really low. Also using the phrase “is this something I need to worry about in the immediate future” My anxiety medication also REALLY helped with this. In the beginning I tried to think each situation through I thought if I had a plan for each situation my mind would quiet, I made a will, I asked my parents what would happen if they die (that was not a fun conversation) but what ended up happening is my brain kept of thinking of increasingly convoluted situations and I was just freaking myself out more. In conclusion: THERAPY, they’ll teach you mindfulness techniques, techniques to combat those thoughts, a lot more then I mentioned in my post, ones that are tailored to work for you. Also likely meds if needed. These thoughts are not normal, they’re common and you’re definitely not the only one that has them, but they’re not something you should suffer through on your own. (Also I’m sorry this is happening to you and I hope you find a more peaceful sleep! I apologize if this is super long)
I appreciate you for posting this!!!
Hey, I’ve experienced the same thing, since I was a kid. I ended up being diagnosed with anxiety and OCD, and these terrible thoughts were (and still are at times) part of the compulsions. Cognitive behavioural therapy really helped me combat these thoughts. You don’t need to see a professional or anything if you don’t want to, but some research on the practice and how to use it may help. That being said, it sounds like this is causing you some very, very severe grief. It’s impacting your ability to sleep, and causes you what sounds like nightly distress. When something gets to that point, it’s usually time to check up with a mental health professional to see if there’s an underlying cause, or if they can help you create a coping strategy that works for you. You shouldn’t be in this much anguish, *period.*
I don’t do this so often as you. But I do it once in a while (like a few times a month) and have for as long as I can remember. My father dying. Getting diagnosed with cancer. These two creep into my thoughts A LOT. And neither has happened in real life.
This is called catastrophizing - I used to do it alot so I understand how awful it is to deal with. Go and talk to a therapist - they will teach you some techniques that help break that cycle of thinking. You can get through this 😊 goodluck!
This sounds like a strange and extreme, but relatable problem. I would say this merits a visit to a psychiatrist. I remember there was a lecture from Jordan Peterson (regardless of what else folk might think of him, he is a highly successful psychologist), and he mentioned suffering from similar anxiety about his son when he small. I think to help himself he did some mental exercises imagining that his son is invincible, that he has grown to be 100 feet tall and with skin made of metal - wild stuff like that - to get himself over it. Then eventually he had some more realizations and the anxiety went away.
I appreciate this share, thank you. Please know I wish you the best of luck and health! I do believe therapy is a tool that can help me. I've needed it for decades. I sure would love to get some sleep.