How do I not ruin my life with worrying?

[twelveactions]

Genuinely curious to hear from anyone who has advice or has dealt with this.

My whole life, I've been in survival mode and essentially always think worst case scenario.

DP not replied to text? Maybe he's cheating or doesn't like me anymore.
Best friend being a bit more dry than usual? Maybe she's upset with me and will betray me.
Boss wants to talk to me? I'm going to get fired.
Tell someone vulnerable information they won't think twice about? They're gonna expose me.
Puts social media profile on public or has name on profile? Maybe someone will harm me.

I've been to therapy for years, and I notice when I do go, I'm in a self help vicious circle for years and years. I have the knowledge I'm doing the above and I know why I do it - but sometimes that's not enough. I cannot rehash my childhood every week, I know it inside and out and why this is the way I am. It's got to the point I now cringe when I'm reading about anxiety and attachment and things because I know it inside out.

Any tips or any experiences for this 20 something year old so she doesn't watch the rest of her life pass her by, as she's scared to actually live her life?

I'm really glad you asked this, thank you. Hope you find some peace

Im finding sertraline helpful but beginning to get the fear again so am going to ask about increasing dose. It felt like very gentle help and been on very low dose for about 3 years but now I remember the exhaustion of the worrying. For me health anxiety.

I struggled without ADs for 15 years after terrible side effects, like you. Vowed it was better to deal with own mind not a chemical mashup but I'm really glad I tried again
Good luck

I was like this to a debilitating point and eventually I had a break down some things that helped me included;
CBT- 6m with NHS
Mindfulness course- 6 week group course with NHS
Hypnotherapy- not cheap but massively reduced my anxious feelings
Yoga and meditation
Walking
Cutting out caffeine
Eating well
Breathing technique- in for 4, hold for 4 out for 6. It reduces the carbon dioxide in your body which can cause some of the anxious feelings

It's a continuous work in progress but it does get a lot easier. And the key to happiness- gratitude. Grateful people are happy.

What kind of therapy have you had?

The kind that’s worked for me is psychotherapy. The therapist will dig with you until you’re feeling the anxiety or whatever it is you’re struggling with, and then when the feeling comes up you sit with it. It literally makes me fidget/squirm/want to run! But doing that with someone alongside you helps your brain/body learn that the feeling isn’t dangerous, it’s not going to kill you, you’re safe to feel it. So your tolerance for the feeling improves. You stop acting on it and thinking about it (see Eckhart Tolle on addiction to thinking), so your brain learns even more that you’re safe to just watch it go by. Psychotherapy can also help you dig into the real reasons for the worry - sometimes there can be unresolved grief at the bottom of it.

Addiction to thinking could actually be stopping you from feeling the feelings in your body so they never get processed because you’re staying in your head.

Another thing that’s a similar technique is mindfulness meditation, particularly Headspace as it talks you through doing the same thing - sitting with your feelings. There’s an anxiety course on there.

There’s also a technique called a ‘worry window’ which is never really done it for me, but you give yourself an allocated time to worry (think/write) each day and the rest of the time you remind yourself to focus on the present and keep any worrying thoughts for your worry window.

I’ve always suffered from catastrophising, a joy learned from my mum who still helpfully adds to it (“make sure you eat a good breakfast before travelling, accidents can happen in split seconds on a motorway, you’ll need your wits about you”, no wonder my sister is motorway phobic!). Age has got mine better unless I’m in a particularly triggering situation. My mum became horrendously anxious during the pandemic and went to an anxiety retreat which was miraculous. It’s called the Linden Retreat, and it made her go from anxious to the point of suicidal to totally sorted in four days.

Mine isn’t bad enough to justify the cost but I’d love to be free of the worst case scenario thinking - a friend said I’d be a great events organiser as a large part of the job is to think of the worst that could happen and plan around it. It must be lovely to just enjoy without always having that voice thinking about the worst and how to cope with that scenario. It’s exhausting and limiting, and you’re very much not alone.

Catastrophising isn't something you 'suffer from', any more than you 'suffer from' eating breakfast; it's something you do, and can therefore choose not to do. Unless you can't choose what to think about, this is something you can choose not to do. It's just a bad habit. An addiction. Every time you catch yourself doing it, thing about something else. Choose a particular thing, hum a particular tune, repeat a limerick or tongue twister (in your head) Repeat and repeat and repeat, just like repeating the choice not to have a cigarette or not to have another drink, until the habit is broken.

Take responsibility. It's your mind. Nobody else is in charge of it, and it's not in charge of itself unless you have a mental illness. Catastrophising isn't a mental illness.

You possibly have OCD, which presents as ruminating. Some people call it ‘pure O’, because it all happens in your mind, without external rituals, but I subscribe to the theory that the ruminating is the ritual.

I also have anxiety and ADHD, so it’s all good fun round my way!

I have it. I’m finding the following things very helpful:

CBT
Meditation
Citalopram
Exercise - particularly open water swimming and running, because I have to keep my wits about me, so they act like a chew toy for my brain.
Gardening - even tending a few pots is incredibly soothing.
Podcasts - they shut my brain up.
Being teetotal. I sleep better, and my OCD is always worse when I’m tired.

It’s a continuous work in progress, and I’ve stopped expecting to be cured. It’s my thing, and I have to manage it. In a way, it’s helpful to think like that, because it helps me to not believe my anxious and intrusive thoughts.

I wish you well.

Walking just now because I've put on a lot of weight (I eat when I'm anxious) but I will start to run again soon. Running and hillwalking I find very helpful, especially running. I started with couch to 5k.

@autienotnaughty thank you! Caffeine is something I've been hesitant on stopping but I think you're right about cutting it out. I'm going to finish the pack I have then just buy decaf.

Do you do yoga on YouTube or something similar? Any recommendations where?

I did hypnotherapy a few years ago, she told me I only needed 3 appointments and I think it worked temporarily. Is it something you do continuously?

@Heroicallyl0st this sounds very similar to ERP which I see is the gold treatment for OCD (which I have!) so I will definitely try it. It's hard as I'm in a non speaking English country for work so I'm not sure what I could do over Skype. I'll check it out, thank you!

@bozzabollix wow I've never heard of this. They sorted her in four days?! Did she tell you what they did? Or the curriculum?

@ShirleyJackson I do have OCD! Funny you said that. Can I ask what part of my post made you think that? Because I always assumed thinking the worst wasn't ocd, it was anxiety.

Hi OP,

mainly that you seem to be anxious about one thing - your relationships.

It leapt out at me because I’m the same. It took me until my forties to realise it was OCD.

Hi there,

Same issues here. I was quite anxious in my 20s, but not very aware due to being still young. I hit rock bottom in my 30s and that's when I realized I needed to do something about it.

I was in therapy once a week for more than year and also on antidepressants, anti anxiety medication and mood regulators. I also read a lot about a anxiety and depression, I did mindful meditation and sleep hypnosis every night or as often as I could. Luckily my husband was very supportive and although my catastrophizing affected our relationship, he stood by me. My family were also great and supported me.
It got better with age and also some other stuff happened that made me shift my attention to more down to earth issues (ttcing, buying new house, my dad's illness etc).

I am currently on no medication but I am coping quite well. Mostly, I live in the moment and try not to think about tomorrow too much. I avoid reading news, I deactivated social media, I have me-time more often, enjoy my pets, days out in the sun etc.

I know how tough it is, but it can get better. You need to fight for you own well-being but trust me you can do it!
🍀

*thanks to the other posters I will do a bit od research into OCD and rumination.

@twelveactions The retreat she went on mainly work on the principle that you create new neural pathways to replace the old anxious ones. So lots and lots of activity that totally fills up the brain so it can’t wander to anxious subjects. Obviously far more to it than that and I’ve simplified it.

Its been a miracle, she says she literally finds it hard to summon up anxiety now.

Personally Citalopram and CBT helped. As I’ve become older the anxiety is less. I don’t really give a shit anymore about things like I did when younger.

I had awful awful anxiety early on in the year, fixated on something that was worrying the life out of me, to the point of me getting chronic insomnia and resulting in a bit of a manic episode.
I self referred online for CBT, felt pretty much ok after working through most of the modules so 'discharged' myself via my online supporter (the programme stays open online for a year if you need to go back into it) and put myself back on Sertraline, best thing I ever did to get me through a bit of a 'blip'
It'll get better ❤

!!! @MrsGarveyTheSecond I'm the same. Worrying about a single issue which is causing these exact issues. Do you have the name of the website?

@Fantablanket
It's the NHS website, self refer for CBT
It's really easy and takes a few days for someone to get in touch to do a telephone assesment then they set you up with the online modules and you go at your own pace

Citalopram changed my life 14 years ago. Now the worry passes over me briefly like a cloud. Exercise also helps.

I had twins and literally didn’t have the time to think or even sleep enough to have 3 coherent thoughts in a row. I literally had to stop caring and catastrophizing as I didn’t have time to even exist.
I don’t recommend it bu there is probably a logic underlying it. Find a positive thing to take your time and brain space. Running crochet baking DIY. Use your Brain so there less space for the noise.

I used to be a really anxious person and would stress about absolutely everything. It's not so bad now - I think my job has helped a lot (lots of things go wrong and I have to fix them).

When I'm stressing out I get myself to think about the next step/resolution to that problem.

eg the weather is so cold - what if my car won't start? Well I live near my boss so I can get a lift to work easily enough, and husband can do male fixing things to the car battery.

What if there's bad traffic on the way to a prebooked event and I'm late for my slot? Well I'll just explain to the staff when I get there - they'll probably understand and let me in even a little late.

Etc... I try and look at the bigger picture, follow come up with a solution to the worst case scenario, then I'm mentally prepared for things to go wrong and I can deal with it much more easily.

I'm sorry to hear you've been going through this. I have it too sometimes and it's horrible. I worked in a café as a teenager and I remember I'd accidentally sprayed a kitchen cleaner very closely to a meal that was being taken out. The woman ate it and I didn't see her again that week so I remember feeling convinced that I must have seriously harmed or even killed her with the spray.
I hadn't, she came back the next day absolutely fine. But I have had a lot of these irrational thoughts.
I have a GP phone appointment tomorrow in order to hopefully get some medication that will help. I really hope you can find a treatment plan that suits you better soon.

Buy and read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

It is absolutely life changing.

Came here to say what helps me but basically it’s already here in @ShirleyJackson ’s post (except I’m not on any medication. Which may or may not be the right choice)

CBT
Meditation
Citalopram
Exercise - particularly open water swimming and running, because I have to keep my wits about me, so they act like a chew toy for my brain.
Gardening - even tending a few pots is incredibly soothing.
Podcasts - they shut my brain up.
Being teetotal.

I’d add sewing and observational drawing to the shutting-my-brain-up strategy list (its personal, try some stuff out).

gardening is magic. Things just want to grow and don’t care whether you know what you’re doing or not, and then you get strawberries/tomatoes/cut flowers on tap - you cannot lose!

Hill running and cold water swimming are also amazing - both rip me right out of my head and into my body with no room to negotiate 😂. When things are very bad I also find it tremendously reassuring to feel (in a really tangible, physical way - I don’t mean feel emotionally) how much my body wants me to live whatever my wonky brain is saying: heart and lungs working like mad, like my body loves me and can be trusted to take over when my brain is being a wanker.