dealing with obsessive thinking -please, please tell me I am not alone

[racingmind]

Have started a thread before about anxiety/obsessive thinking/ inability to make decisions. I didn't admit this in as much detail before as I am scared of identifying myself but I am desperate, I need to know I am not alone in this.

Basically, I have the same obsessive thoughts from the moment I gain consciousness in the morning until I eventually pass out heavily medicated at night. This is not an exaggeration. I am on medication for anxiety and obsessive thinking but it is not helping.

I made a bad decision nearly a year ago now and I regret it so much I can't stand to be in my own skin and I cant think about anything else. I cant talk to anyone about it as it sounds ridiculous. My dp is at the end of his tether with me and the one friend i tried to talk to about this just said she cant understand at all why this upsetting me so much and made me feel like a total idiot.

I cannot eat all day due to my nerves and my head buzzes with anxiety and I have constant headaches and migraines because of this and it is preventing me being happy despite having the most amazing beautiful and good natured child who I longed for for years I also find making any decisions ever since this totally excrutiating as I have completely lost faith in myself as a result and do not trust myself to get anything right

I hate myself so much for not being able to get past what seems quite trivial to other people. If I said on here what the problem was you would think me either totally insane or just a complete joke.

I just need to know has anyone else felt like this and how the hell did you cope/ get over it. Please please tell me. I quite literally cant live like this anymore and am totally isolated by being unable to discuss this in rl.

Hi racing.
I just want to say, you are obviously a thoughtful intelligent and sensitive person who strives to do their best and finds less than the best unacceptable.
This makes things harder for you but just because this particular thing has gone wrong does NOT mean you have bad judgement or can't make decisions.And things will get better and in the future you may well see this event in an entirely different light. If only we could see our futures as well as we see our past !!
You will trust yourself again.
If we are people who care more, process things more and are sensitive then I personally believe these are big strengths and make us quite special.
Start with processing what happened in a positive way... "I did what I thought was best last year but I am not perfect and I currently think I made a mistake. The things I can do to improve the current situation and move forwards are...."
Believe in yourself, I believe in you you sound very sensible ! xx

I do feel for you racingmind. Just your user name reminds me of how I used to feel, and it is really horrible. I wonder whether the conversation you had with your friend (the one who felt that your decision/mistake was trivial) has done more damage (quite unintentionally) than you realise?

I have one really dear friend who is truly wonderful in many ways but who is the worst person to talk to about any mental health issues. She is slightly more understanding now that she has had her own recent problems, but she had a tendency to try to "jolly me along" and try to get me to laugh at my troubles. It made me want to inflict considerable violence upon something ... usually her! :)

Your friend and your partner may be similar and may just be incapable of knowing how to listen to you helpfully (which is not their fault). Finding someone who will listen to you helpfully is likely to be the key to improvement (if my experience is anything to go by). It took me a while to find a counsellor who helped and I have to say that when she started asking me about my childhood, I thought she was a mad, mumbojumbo type and I resisted it. I wanted her to understand what my current, huge, all-encompassing, nightmare worry was and I was very frustrated by her approach. She gently encouraged me each time though and it did eventually give me the key to understand why I was reacting in the way I was to the current, huge, all-encompassing, nightmare worry. If you can find someone (and I don't think it has to be a counsellor, though the anonymity can be helpful) who will patiently and gently help you to untangle all the horrible thoughts that make your mind race, then I believe that you are likely to find that some of the things that currently make you anxious just slip away unexpectedly through the gaps you have made by untangling your thoughts.

I hope you find some comfort and a solution. There is hope, honestly, you just need to find the right people to support you while you find your way through the jungle. Those nearest to you are not necessarily the right ones to support you through this as it can feel very dangerous to be completely honest with your nearest and dearest (that's how I felt anyway).

Thanks so much for your kind posts.

Have been driving myself nuts with all kinds of crap in my head and just had meds increased yet again. Am doing stupid things like buying stuff I know I'm going to have to return (I do this compulsively) and getting obsessed with having the perfect material things that a) dont really matter and b) I spend time and money I cant afford on. I am not proud of this, but its something I always start doing when Im super anxious. It's like a security thing, as if once I have the right clothes/ pram/party bloody decorations (yup I'm nuts) etc all will be suddenly be well and I will at least appear to be ok to the outside world.

I read somewhere that adult children of alcoholics (of which I am one) often guess at what is "normal" and try to live up to whatever they imagine this to be and it really struck a chord.

I have terrible headaches every day and have made a drs appointment but am dreading they are going to say "it's just stress" which it may well be but that doesnt really help.

Its very hard work being neurotic and there isn't much reward for all the effort you put in. So why cant I just stop??

Racingmind I hope you don't mind me resurrecting your post. I just found it as I was looking forpeople who have been going through similar to me. The strange thing is I could have wriiten your post myself. I too have suffered from obsessive thinking but it became much worse after the birth of my first child. I too obsessed about a mistake I thought I had made for a year after the birth. It took over my every thought every minute of every day - so bad I felt like I had a knot in my stomach. I'm wondering if you were obsessing about a similar thing to me.
I too am a child of alcoholic parents and seem to be showing the charateristics of this. I've been on sertriline for 2months but it doesn't seem to be doing much.
How are you feeling now?