Things I find myself thinking - high anxiety

[limon]

I think I'm experiencing mixed episodes and mood swings.

I have anxiety and depression and am on citalopram (and hrt).

I can't seem to get anyone - including the mental.health nurse I saw just before Xmas to understand. .she just recommended mindfulness (I've done it to death), yoga, exercise, and a four week course they are putting on.

I'm currently in counselling .

ive had periods of depression and anxiety since I was 9.

when I'm highly anxious I get terrible thoughts.:

I'd be better off dead - I hope I crash
I should never have had my daughter
I'm going to be sacked and lose everything
I'm a terrible person
certain people are running their privelidge in my face on purpose
people hate me
I'm being punished for leaving my ex husband
something awful is going to happen to my daughter

and I think I'm being sent signs all the time - a.christmas bauble wash shining yesterday (one of those ones with glass squares like a disco ball) and I thought it was a sign that everything is going to be ok.

I wake up at.5.or 6.am every day worrying about work/life.

I just don't know what to do.

I'm so, so tired

Oh limon, I hear how tired and fed up you are. Depression and anxiety is so awful, so draining, so debilitating.

Firstly, you have already identified that the terrible thoughts come from your anxiety. They are a symptom of an illness you have, they are NOT who you are. If you can, when you have these thoughts, try to put them in a box in your mind, a box which is SEPERATE from you and is for the symptoms of your illness.

You are not your illness. You are not Anxiety. You are not Depression. it is so hard to separate these thought, I know, I live with anxiety and depression too and sometimes the intrusive thoughts are crippling. But I work really, really hard to try identify which thoughts are a symptom of my illness and which are actually justifiable.

Without making this too much about me - some of the thoughts I have are similar to yours, my kids would be better off without me, everyone at work thinks I am useless.

A frequently occurring one is disguised as a positive thought and it says to me "the best plan from now on is not to bother with other people, just bunk down and focus on you and the kids". It took me ages to realise that this isn't about the positives of focussing on my kids but my anxiety and depression trying to isolate me from the rest of the world. I frequently decide that the best plan going forward is to not contact friends (they don't like me anyway), not bother going out (what is there out there?), not let anyone in my house (they only judge, right?) etc.

Do you think your meds are working? I took Citalopram for a while, not convinced it did much. I came off it because I thought it was making me gain weight but haven't replaced it with anything - I also have major issues with procrastination so haven't been to the doctors in a while.

Does writing stuff down help? If you have a negative thought - e.g. "Something is going to happn to my daughter" - write it down, and then try and identify where this has come from, e.g. "I feel like something bad is going to happen to my daughter. This is my Anxiety talking." Have you tried CBT? That can be helpful for identifying types of thinking and how to try and reprogramme the unhelpful ones.

I understand. I was awake at 5am panicking about money.

You are not a horrible person and chances are people don't hate you. You are ill, you have depression and anxiety, and with illness comes symptoms which can be hard to manage. But you do not have to define yourself by your illness.

When I am struggling with intrusive thoughts, I imagine a hand wiping a whiteboard with a cloth (actually a blackboard with a blackboard rubber but I'm old!) The thoughts are on the whiteboard but I can't read them because the hand wipes them off so I can't see the words. I find this oddly helpful.

Had to stop using that image when I worked in a school for a while

Limon,
How are you today?

Can I suggest the Karoke Queen makes some very good observations? Though I feel it is worth adding another and very awkward one.

She is right to say you are not your illness. Indeed no one would say that someone with cancer is just a tumour. However mental illness is just like other illnesses like cancer in that it does make life difficult for both the patient and everyone around them.

When depression strikes, as it appears to quite often, you mood will change and you are likely to be more difficult to talk to and work with. Most likely, everyone around you will react to your different mood because they can only see your behaviour and not understand the serious illness underneath. They will probably be insensitive and ignorant rather than deliberately malicious. Unfortunately, insensitive ignorance can still be hurtful when you are in a dark place. So yes, people at work and elsewhere will mostly respond to your depressed mood and give you some very negative feedback.

And this is the difficult bit, such negativity is a response to your illness, not you. As Queen says, you are not an illness.
Keep posting

Thanks. I woke again feeling anxious.

The other thought I have is that I have got cancer that the doctors have missed.

Why do you think that? Cancer is often very difficult if not impossible to spot without a battery of medical tests.
Do you have any symptoms associated with cancer? Or are you describing a general sense of things not right?

you could be me. its pants.

when you have these thoughts say to yourself it is "only anxiety" so a physical thing that happens that makes the thoughts happen.

i wake up anxious every day. its cortisol
. a stress hormone. it peaks in the morning. i try to visualise it gerting lower. its hard but focusing on that goes soneway towards the unwanted thoughts taking hold. i find the anxiety comes firdt rather than the thoughts.

i totally sympathise.

annandale I have a mental image of a big wooden broom sweeping the negative thoughts away. I think to myself every now and then "urgh, I need a brain sweep!"

I have a lump on the bridge of my mouth - both GP and dentist say it's fine but I keep getting horrible thoughts. Also a bit of breast pain (but no lumps).

Money is my biggest worry. I'm the breadwinner - late forties and a pre schooler child (bit of a miracle baby). Work is high pressured and really difficult. am worried im going to cocktail it all up.

I actually feel.a lot better right now. I've put a plan in place for this week - I'm on holiday so planning something positive to do each day.

I'm not sure my citalopram is helping but have Neen advised by camh nurse not to change it at this point.

thanks for all your messages. I stayed out a bit late last night (friemds home for xmas) and I feel a bit anxious again today. last night driving home I thought " I could crash my car and then everyone would think it was an accident" and I had an I. pulse to do it . I wo t because I have top much to live for - my little girl.