How do you escape form your own mind?? It keeps following me around with its bloody baggage!!!

[Movingon83]

Sometimes do you ever just think f*k all this s*t? I feel like a crescendo of crap is happening to me and either I just drop the baggage or I’m going to explode!

Yes I left an angry controlling husband a year ago and divorcing him is like his final curtain call but I feel like my enemy now is my mind not him! Thousands and thousands of thoughts bombard me daily and they are unwelcome. Often 2 opposing views, I’m doing the right thing......I’m not doing the right thing....or just guilt. Guilt is there festering away in the background all the time. What is happening to me? I’m seeking help but how do you just stop all these thoughts, or is this normal?

For gods sake can I divorce myself also???

Walking, running, playing sport, mindfulness (I use Headspace app).

What @bunny said...

It sounds like you are quite anxious/whirring thoughts all the time. I do either a progressive relaxation or meditation and it does help, just 15 min a day, doesn't mean you won't think about things, but it might just stop the spiralling feeling. Sounds like you got out of a difficult situation and are now reacting to it all. Speaking to someone, friend, work helpline, counsellor is another way to try to get the whirring to stop. Hope some of it helps.

What Bunny said, keeping busy is the best way to combat intrusive thoughts. Try not to sit around brooding too, stick the telly on, or music, or break out a book, even if you have to read the same page fifty times whilst you are concentrating on that you aren't rummaging around your mind.

Assuming you are waiting for counselling? In the long term that will definitely help, I did CBT with EMDR, it really helped give me strategies for dealing with my thoughts, which at the time seemed like an enemy.

You’ve done the right thing by reaching out, getting advice on how others have handled this sort of thing is going to help you formulate your own plan for calming your mind down.

Good luck.

I’m just never sure of my actions ( I know from advice on here and freedom programme) that’s part of being controlled but I’ve had enough now. I make a decision eventually then go over and over whether it’s right, am I doing it for the right reason. I feel guilty for the other person, It’s exhausting never being sure and I don’t want to be like this.

I feel your pain @Movingon83 but for different reasons. It drives me mad and I’m lucky if I get 2 hours of sleep a night. I’ve tried everting possible over the counter, Meds from GP, melatonin, every app under the sun, lavender, magnesium spray, cbt, herbs......the constant whirring in my mind is relentless. The only thing that stops it is half a bottle of baileys but not healthy drinking or for the diet!!

Yes I’m doing the freedom program which helps me with why I have these thoughts. But I don’t know what to do with them. I can’t block them out!!!

Another thing I did was write a blog, at one point I wrote about two thousand pages in a year! I really found it helped me to get it out, whether that is via talking or writing is up to you but it could help.

Was it a private blog. I found writing in the past used to help when at uni and I had ideas in the night. I couldn’t sleep till it was on paper out of my head.

Oooh, you're in the treacle, OP.

It sounds awful but this is one of the stages of moving through and beyond – seeing the thoughts and behaviours properly for the first time, and getting really angry with them...

It's the point at which you have a foot in the old way of being and the other one out in front, so you can watch yourself from the outside, to an extent.

It SUCKS. It really does, AND, if you can, embrace it. Welcome it in. Celebrate it.

It's a sign of progress.

Congratulations. Really. You're doing great.

Oh, I hear you OP.

The sooner someone invents mind bleach the better!!!

Me too- my mind never shuts up! And thank you ladybee, I hadn’t thought of it as part of the process but that makes sense

Exercising plus it’s great to find a hobby which totally absorbs you, which can be done in the house
I do things like dressmaking, cross stitch projects, and I bloody love a jigsaw. I leave it out on the table and if I need to take my mind of stuff I sit down and start doing the jigsaw.

I clean. I’m not joking, when I have this, I clean, and scrub and think and sweep and think until all I’m doing is cleaning and my mind’s focus shifts from thoughts to being pleased I achieved something.

I also run. I do fartlek when I’m angry, as in sprint, giving it all I have from one lamp post to the next, then recover to the next one and so on.

I did a CBT course which taught me about setting aside time to worry.

I swim endless mindless laps trying to do the same thing.

No it was a public blog, it doesn’t have to be, but I found it useful when people critiqued it and occasionally told me I was being stupid and why!

You’ll be processing everything that wasn’t safe to even contemplate in an abusive relationship, OP. Also, you may well still be hyper-vigilant if you have spent a long time ‘treading on eggshells’. Freedom Programme is great for helping you understand the patterns in an abusive relationship, but some therapy might well be helpful to feel you really have left this relationship.

I definitely feel like I’m one foot in the past one foot in the present. I think I’m struggling to really accept what has happened. I can talk about it, I understand why an abusive partner would effect judgments etc. But I find myself thinking am I remembering it all wrong, am I lying, am I mad, crazy etc etc I realise as I write that it’s his words I’m speaking! When I have talked to the support worker she was always very concerned about my ex. I speak like it’s not happening to me like he was the lovely man I thought he was. But then in the next thought I remember living scared, afraid of my own shadow. I really want to work it out as it’s effecting my actions. For example before Xmas I had to stop him seeing my ds. I tried everything to get him to be a good dad but he just can’t. Everyone tells me that I tried hard, more then they would, I had been so reasonable. But I go over and over and over the decision, feeling so guilty! I have thoughts about my poor dad H, I want to make it better like I always did! Argghhhh bloody brain!!!!!

Sorry there was meant to say poor dear H

CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) would be useful for you, OP. It teaches you how to challenge and block all the negative thoughts and replace them with positive mantras.
You have correctly identified the problem- that you have internalised your abusive ex’s comments and sneers and are repeating them in your head, criticising your judgment and abilities just as he did.
I had a similar issue, but with my parents, who spent 20 years telling me I was useless, hitting me, predicting I’d fail my exams etc.
I eventually went to a therapist in my 40’s, and a combination of CBT, relaxation therapy (for my chronic anxiety) and repeating a wonderfully positive mantra given me by the therapist, (specifically targeted at the abusive phrase my father threw at me daily) helped enormously.
The other simple but useful tip is to keep busy with your hands whenever the thoughts are intrusive. Knitting, painting, any sort of craft or DIY - it doesn’t matter what. Manual activity helps to calm and distract.
The longer you are away from your ex, and the more days and weeks you have where you can see you’re coping fine without him, the more your confidence will increase and your anxiety settle.
I think you’re in the hardest bit just now, making the transition from the old abused you to the new happy independent you. There will be a lot of “emotional work” to do, processing your suppressed feelings, releasing your anger, and coming to terms with it all. But a much more settled, happier future is just around the corner. Best wishes for your continuing progress, OP.

If you are aware of your thoughts, which you are then just observe them. Do not do anything with them, just observe them from your awareness. Do not fight them, fighting means conflict and this is what you're describing, so much so that you're being over whelmed.
You keep going from the past into the future, try staying in the now, in the present moment.
Easier said than done I know. But be mindful of the mind and what it is doing. Thoughts are not real.

So for example regarding the stopping contact. I get these thoughts of guilt. I feel terrible stopping a father seeing his son. But then I have this reason and this reason and lots of very important reasons why I had to. What do I do with the guilty thoughts? Just say yes it’s natural to feel guilt but I had this and this reason. He obviously denies everything, says I’m unreasonable. I then start to think am I! But then who admits guilt. I have all the evidence but still doubt myself. I would love to be certain of my actions.

Take one of the things he says that really hurts you. Look at the evidence for and against the comment. Is there any truth in it? What he said are words that have now become intrusive thoughts. Thoughts are not facts. Write it all down if it helps.

Ok, I have no idea of the thought process behind your guilt. What I do know is what happens afterwards if you let the guilt cloud your judgement.
I’m 4 years down the line. I’ve tried to keep the peace as best as I could.
The person my pussyfooting had the most impact on is the person I was trying to protect: my child.
She echoes her dad’s aberrations because she mistakes my leniency to weakness.

*for

Perhaps it would help if you tried looking at it objectively, so try to imagine your friend telling you this story, and what your judgement and advice would be under those circumstances.