I can’t stop negative scenarios in my... - Anxiety and Depre...

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I can’t stop negative scenarios in my head

Sosa2017 profile image
21 Replies

Hello, it’s my first time posting. Ive been suffering from anxiety and depression for years but it’s been extra bad lately. I’m constantly and always angry for no reason, I’m always looking for confrontation, and no matter what I do I’m extremely anxious, I also have many OCD like tendencies. All of this I hide most of the day, so work is getting more and more difficult to get through. I’ve been on meds before but never really found anything that has helped long term. I might try counseling again but I have no money so I was hoping his would help.

My biggest confusion is a new issue I’ve been experiencing. My mind creates scenarios where I am confronting someone that made me mad, or intense, sometimes unrealistic, stories of getting in a car accident or being a victim in the middle of a terrorist attack. It’s as if my anger creates a release in my mind in form of a story. I convince myself this stuff actually happens without realizing it. Sometimes I think I am crazy.

Has anyone else experienced not being able to stop these negative intense scenarios from playing in their head?

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Sosa2017
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21 Replies
Loki1018 profile image
Loki1018

Sosa2017 so I've been like that for a while now like in the other post you replied too I'm diagnosed with depression, anxiety,& bipolar but I looked up also Borderline Personality disorders and there a lot that I match too I would suggest you also look it up so that maybe you talk that with your dr. When you have more then one issue most of the time BPD gets missed as a diagnosis I've done an it if research on it so while we are taking meds for other issues the BPD isn't getting treated m. This will be a discussion with my psychiatrist tomorrow as for I think I may also have BPD and we missed this diagnosis. Good luck !

aj29 profile image
aj29

I make scenarios every single day. If I'm driving somewhere I make one of how I can die and how it's going to feel. I make scenarios about confronting people as well. And also of being the victim in attacks.

I do it everyday. But what I found helpful is to stop myself as soon as I realize I'm doing it.

Try focusing on sounds around you or try rubbing your fingers together and just focus on the touch. Breath in and out and focus on the air coming in and out. I red that in a book "the power of now" try reading it. It actually talks a lot about this. Hoping you get some relief from this.

Sosa2017 profile image
Sosa2017

Thanks, I need to get an actual psychiatrist. My general doctor has given me anti depression pills before but he can’t do much beyond that. I’m just terrible with talking to people about my issues and feelings, another reason why I thought this chat group would help. But I’ll be looking into that soon, thanks again

one-love profile image
one-love

I know your pain I have my good days and my bad days I have a lot of the same issues with crazy thoughts and it's actually a form of OCD called intrusive thoughts which sounds a lot like what your experiencing. I also suffer from anxiety attacks I thought they were heart attacks in the beginning because of the physical symptoms I was always having (heart pounding, dizzy, impending doom feeling, breathing difficulty) but after years of having them and talking to doctors and therapists I realize now when I have them they are just anxiety attacks but they can be very scary for sure if you don't know what it is in the beginning. I hate taking RX meds too so it's a double edge sword, I feel like I trade one problem for another when I take the pills the doctors give me and all the side effects that come with them. To be honest I have been using medical marijuana for the last few years and I feel it really helps me and doesn't have near as many bad side effects. I know it might sound crazy but look into it and try a sativa strain it really helps with mood, anxiety and depression. But use a low does if you never tried it before

Sosa2017 profile image
Sosa2017 in reply to one-love

One-love Thanks for the info about intrusive thoughts, I might have a name for it now and that helps so much. I get anxiety attacks too but I’m lucky it’s not too often.

Honestly I use marijuana too for it. I wasn’t going to promote it but I agree and will say it’s the only thing that has helped. It has such a bad stigma but if used correctly it’s great for me.

one-love profile image
one-love in reply to Sosa2017

Yes intrusive thoughts which is a form of OCD sucks big time so I feel your pain. It comes and goes but you'll know it when it happens because the thoughts you get will make you feel very uncomfortable and can be very scary thoughts sometimes and you may question your self if your crazy or not but it's a real thing and once you realize it's just a form of OCD and that a lot of other people have it, you don't feel so alone and you know your not going crazy, OCD is also another form of anxiety from what I have been told by therapists as well as PTSD. I agree 100% medical cannabis is a great help for my symptoms I feel like it does just as good of job as the RX drugs but without all the crazy side effects. But if I was you I would still talk to a therapist so that way you can be diagnosed and treated with cognitive therapy because that is a very effective treatment for intrusive thoughts . Message me anytime

Phlexa profile image
Phlexa

Hello, I have had Anxiety for 13 years. Yes, I have something similar, but not the same... I had a bad fear of death as a child, it still haunts me today, but when you have had anxiety for so long, you tend to know your trigger points, and ways to get around/put of attacks, or say, visuals? Well I have negative thoughts like, let's say I have a heart palpation from anxiety, after just 1 I think all day and night if my heart is going to stop. Realistically, it's not going to. I know this may not be much help, but what I fo now is place positive thoughts before negative can arrive, this takes time for you to adjust, at least your brain. (And sorry if there are any typos) I'm typing very fast. I hope I could help you out just a little really try the thought process, if not, get a peir! I have one, he's a great guy, helps me in dark times. We will get through this!

JCinATL profile image
JCinATL

Hello,

I just went onto Google to see if anyone experiences negative scenarios in their head like I do. I do JUST what you do: imagine a scenario where someone makes me mad, and I tell them off.

I'm 46 years old and have put in LOTS of time into examining myself, and below are 4 conclusions I've drawn:

1. FOOD IS HUGE.

2. YOUR BREATH AFFECTS YOUR BRAIN.

3. THIS IS CONNECTED TO YOUR PAST.

4. HABITS ARE HARD TO BREAK.

FOOD IS HUGE - I decided to do Mark Hyman's 10-Day Detox a few years ago to see if there were any foods that affected my moods and have realized that, for me, white sugar affects my brain. (I don't know if it's white sugar combined with white flour, but it may be.) It wasn't until I cleaned my body out that I was able to see the effects of eating certain foods. Eating sugar creates this negative whirlwind in my head that I get very caught up in. I was doing pretty well lately, and then a week ago, I totally splurged on a bunch of "bad" (but SO tasty!) food. Now I'm stuck in the cycle of my mind again and have to wait it out. Mark Hyman is the functional medicine doctor who inspired me to explore this topic. I learned about him from an On Being podcast he was on. A woman called in to tout the benefits of eating clean by telling the panel that her compulsion to work out 3-4 hours a day went away when she changed her diet. I was floored.

YOUR BREATH AFFECTS YOUR BRAIN - I've been doing kundalini yoga breathwork almost every day since the beginning of lent. I do "cat/cow" 4 minutes a day and am seeing noticeable changes in my demeanor. I don't get bothered by things that have bothered me in the past. I have this new calm about me, and I know it's from the breathwork. I read about this in the book Inspired Living by Guru Jagat. (By the way, in my experience, this doesn't happen over night. It was not until a month in that I started noticing very subtle changes.)

THIS IS CONNECTED TO YOUR PAST - I do believe the feelings behind these thoughts aren't random. That is what you need to key into. For me, I realized it was about my mom who is always telling me what to do because the scenarios I play out in my head are usually about someone telling me what to do and me feeling frustrated with that.....just like I've discovered that I have these buried feelings of frustration toward my mom. Find out what's buried in you! I believe the theme of your thoughts is just you trying to process something. It's as if that "something" is trying to get your attention and won't let go until you acknowledge it.

HABITS ARE HARD TO BREAK - When you think a thought, there are numerous chemical reactions that happen in your body. When you keep thinking the thought, your body starts to memorize those chemical reactions and starts supporting you in a way where the chemical reactions start creating the thoughts! It's a cycle that starts moving around inside you without you having to make much effort. When you try to stop this inertia, your physical body does everything it can to not change because it's set up to "support" you by staying the same.....by keeping the status quo. (It's like your body has simply taken an instruction from you and has taken it VERY seriously and obediently.) So, you trying to change without seeing results is normal. Check out Joe Dispenza's book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Google his name and watch his videos. (He was also in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?)

I hope this helps!!!

Jennifer

Bushhhbaby profile image
Bushhhbaby in reply to JCinATL

Thank you for taking the time to post this information! You can be certain you have helped at least one person a great deal, blessings (((+)))

rjpgwozdz profile image
rjpgwozdz in reply to JCinATL

This hit me over the head as extremely insightful and jumped me ahead in my own journey to get a handle on this same tendency of mine. It crystallized my own half- baked thoughts about it, like a worm-hole to a new place in my mind (metaphorically, of course - I'm not getting too far out here). Thanks very much. Note: this is my first time on this site, and I thought I already posted thi

s, but it didn't seem to be saved, so if it comes through twice, I apologize.

sudoremi profile image
sudoremi in reply to JCinATL

Thanks Jennifer. This is fantastic! I agree on all the points. The type of food and hunger does the same for me. Thirst as well. I’ll have to try yoga, I like the Idea of a quick exercise to prevent and possibly stop these thoughts.

if I feel intrusive thoughts coming to me, I do the following escalating if one does not work.

1. Drink a glass of water

2. Eat a small healthy snack

3. Exercise for a few minutes

At work exercise could be walking to the bathroom or water cooler.

I also try to get out of my head. Talk to someone etc. I used to save paperwork that needed to be dropped off to Finance on a different floor for these moments. I get some exercise and get to talk to someone even if it about "TPS" reports.

Taking any kind of step to take care of yourself will help to break the loop and change the habit cycle. My intrusive thoughts are like microphone feedback and keep amplifying until I feel nuts. The worst times are when I am alone at home and there is nothing to break the cycle. Deciding to take the trash out can short circuit the thoughts. Very seldom will it stick around after I leave the room. There is something about passing through a door that psychologically resets the mind.

I feel for all of you who suffer from this. I am 45 years old and did not even consider this as weird or abnormal until 5 years ago. I was so stuck in my head that I just went with it.

My intrusive thoughts are full of conflict. Sometimes I am the victim, other times I am the hero. But both states can cause pain. It starts on a bearable level and sometimes stops within reason. It might be someone attacking me, or someone attacking someone else and I have to respond. Could be bad people, a force of nature, aliens, zombies and other more mythical/crazy things. Sometimes the thought ends after a reasonable response to the conflict is found and can actually be entertaining and fun (Like when rescuing a dog from a burning car turns into stealing an alien spaceship and crushing their empire). Most of the time, it continues to become more fearful and stressful and this is where is gets nuts. The cycle is like this: I find a solution, then remove a variable from the scenario to invalidate my solution. I then need to solve it again. I loop this over and over in my mind continuing to increase the difficulty (and absurdity) of the situation. This will cause me to get an adrenaline rush and other flight/fight responses and lots of anxiety. This is bad when it happens before bed. I can be awake for a number of hours calming down which leads to little sleep some nights. This happens with real life conflict like an unfair situation with a bad boss, cruel people and the worst are scenarios where I feel persecuted and alone and everyone around me joins the persecutor.

Catching this cycle early is the key for me.

This is connected to my past. My little brother and sister died when I was young. Both were born with genetic defects, one after another, lived for a short time and died. I was 3 when my younger sister died, and 4 when my younger brother died. This was traumatic and I remember a lot from those days though I was young. My third sibling was born healthy and has her own family now. Doctors could not find an environmental cause and told my parents that they basically "won the lottery" twice in a row. They did not say this to be callous, just to demonstrate how statistically rare this was.

Since old people were supposed to die, when my younger siblings died, I realized the worst-case scenario could happen. This is when I started to "Game" scenarios to feel safe. If I was prepared, I would be OK. At some point this strategy started to torture me. So, a young mind trying to wrestle with unfairness, fear and my own mortality created a way to cope but it does not work anymore - if it ever did. Also, growing up in the 80's and the fear of mutually assured destruction fueled these thoughts. There are an infinite number of variables in all of the situations and I must say, all of the real scenarios in life I have had to deal with, the gamed scenarios did not address any of them.

It's not all bad. I learned many skills because they might be useful to survive but they turned out to be interesting and fun. This also helped me to write good code (because I can consider all of the cases of failure easily). But it sucks a lot of time and puts some serious emotional miles on my mind and soul.

It is hard to remember that I am really in control. I get caught up in the thoughts, though it has become easier to identify and squash them these days.

Remember you are not alone! I'm probably freaking out about something as you read this now ;)

MsGelfling1 profile image
MsGelfling1

I thought I was the only one. I didn't know how to explain this to the doctor. I started making myself do things that stopped my head from taking me on vacation without my body going along. I took up photography, (nothing fancy), if I caught myself drifting, I'd force myself to think about something else. This was definitely not an overnight cure and I still have days where I find myself kicking someone's butt somewhere and have to turn my brains around and walk away and smell the flowers instead. Jeez, I wish I could be there to talk to you. I think I know how badly you suffer from that. My daughter in law used to see someone in the car two lanes over and tell me how that stranger thought she was better and prettier than us, she thought she was better than us. I said, "Kelly, you don't even know her, how can you possibly know what she is thinking." Poor girl. I don't know if she ever got over it. Bless you, baby. I hope you can get a handle on this.

7304AmM profile image
7304AmM

I undestand you, it happens to me aswell

Alexandrea profile image
Alexandrea

I do the exact same thing. I haven’t been to a dr to see if it’s important. But I make up all these fake scenarios of terrible things. They are mostly about something awful happening to me, but none of the things have actually happened. Weird

casrsum profile image
casrsum

Honestly I have been doing some Research lately and there are plenty scientific signs of a parrallel universe, multiple actually. Each one is the same except everything is done differently. For example, say yesterday you got your dream job-thats now. In another universe, literally out of this world, you may have failed a drug test for this job instead and your life is completely different. In another you may have died in a car crash. Theyre all different and there are millions of them. My point is I beleive when that happens, youre just getting a glimpse of one of those universes. Ive had these "glimpses" a lot. I would go to pour a glass of milk and almost drop it but catch it and in that moment, in my head I imagine the milk falling to the floor busting the glass everywhere. I will be riding passenger on the interstate and we simply pass a car, i see the car wrecking and me dying amd sometimes even others. I will be buying groceries handing money to the cashier and drift away imagining bad outcomes. Good ones too but mainly bad. This world has so much more to it than anyone knows. I know this sounds batsh** crazy, but has a lot of facts behind it. There is plenty of evil out there.

Seeking098 profile image
Seeking098

Sing the name Jesus over and over softly in your head. I promise things will be different

gleason9guy profile image
gleason9guy

Yes. Stress and anxiety. Get to the doctor immediately. No reason to live like that.

Rabfn27 profile image
Rabfn27

I am like this too. I create unreal situations in my head and sometimes just thinking about everything puts me into fury. I don’t know how to fix this, but you’re not alone.

RoseWhi profile image
RoseWhi

I’ve had anxiety for about 3 years as well and the same as you I’ve been getting angry for no reason but I keep making Random stories in my head that aren’t very good like getting raped or kidnapped and for some reason I want them to happen in real life and I don’t know why. I haven’t told anyone I know about this yet or they might think I’m crazy but I’m really confused why I keep thinking these and why I want them to happen maybe it’s just normal I tell myself but I never asked anyone if they think the same and I’m scared that if I tell someone I know they will think I’m wired and just ignore me. I can’t go to therapy as I’m scared if someone finds out they will hate me or worse. At the same time i think of myself in bad ways like thinking I eat wired or I walk funny e.g. also with these stories they come up when I’m walking down a street or just sitting around. It happens to me everyday. At this point I’m not sure what to do

Feo-empire profile image
Feo-empire

Me too I think negatively especially when I can't sleep

Svvalle profile image
Svvalle

I am 3 years late to the party, but yes i just had a good 5 minute moment where i created a scenario in my head that i got diagnosed with cancer and that i went to my friend's house to receive support. I immediately started bawling as if it was real. It took me a second to calm myself down and realize that it was fake. Im genuinely concerned this has never happened to me before. I have not been diagnosed professionally.

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