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Ashdasdardly
157 M Embraced 1
PathStep 17 Compassion hearts6 Forum posts5 Forum upvotes2 Current upvotes2 Age GroupAdult Last activeMay, 2019 Member sinceAugust 19, 2015
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What is going on here? "Voices" or Intrusive thoughts?
General Support / by Ashdasdardly
Last post
 February 20th, 2017
...See more So I've been suffering from chronic depression and anxiety for about nine years. I don't have the money to see a therapist or anything and the internet isn't great for figuring things like this out because it doesn't know my situation in the least. I'm hoping some people here will be able to help me suss through this. Recently I've started to get "intrusive thoughts" but I'm not sure that's what I want to call it. I don't want to call it "voices" either. But I get these thoughts that sound like they're not my own. They're never particularly disturbing in themselves, its just disturbing that it happens at all. It feels like these thoughts are coming from an outside source and I can't make them come or go, hence why I've taken to the "intrusive" aspect of the phrase. Intellectually I know they must be my own thoughts and so I've been calling them intrusive thoughts. They usually come in sounding like someone else's voice, and normally they will just say my name once or twice and go away. They might say rude things if I'm having an anxiety or panic attack, or remind me of something that happened in a dream last night, or it might even say random gibberish. Sometimes it says things that sound significant to me at first, but turn out to be gibberish. This doesn't happen every day by the way, just every so often. I haven't noticed any patterns for what triggers it other than perhaps exhaustion. The reason I don't want to call this "intrusive thoughts" is because that seems to be something completely different than what I'm experiencing based on my short internet research. Many of these thoughts don't seem to be particularly disturbing. I don't want to say its "voices" either because its not distinct or anything, I don't feel as if I'm beset by these thoughts or controlled by them, its more like a day dream than anything and its just off putting. I'm just worried that it will get worse if I don't figure out why its happening.
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Alternatives to platitudinous "thinking positive"?
Safety & Knowledge at 7 Cups / by Ashdasdardly
Last post
 July 21st, 2016
...See more I get that positivity is a driving force in many people's lives, but I'm kind of tired of being told I just need to "think positively". Thinking positively isn't going to change my situation so much as it's going to make me feel ridiculous for trying to contrive something just for the sake of positivity. I can force myself to try to see a silver lining, but in the end, it's still just a pile of shit. Someone who suffers from deep existential dread can't just "think positive", that's like thrown a rug over a stain. Of course I can act positive, and I can see the positivity in things, but in the end, that despair, the feeling of being trapped in my world, is not going to be remedied that way. It will always be there if I keep trying to let it fester under a fake outlook. I think that we as a society put too much pressure on people to be happy all the time. I don't think we should be. It's what causes people to break down on the job, it's why people freak out in traffic. We're not thinking about those other emotions, we're just trying really hard to be happy and positive all of the time, which is just impossible, so we snap and fall over the edge. Instead of "thinking positive", what are some ways I can deal with stress, be it from existential dread or daily agitation, that don't pretend that the problem is just a mysterious "negativity" clouding things up?
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Strange Crisis Hit Me Last Night
Anxiety Support / by Ashdasdardly
Last post
 January 15th, 2017
...See more I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this, but I would really like some help in figuring out what this was, and if it's something I should be worried about. It was a stage of change of sorts-- an escalation in some negativity I've been harboring for a while. Last night, I was arguing with a friend about mental illness in the united states and how insensitivity toward it was a problem. She was convinced that we don't need sensitivity, and she insisted that she knows people who benefited from the "tough love" approach. I, on the other hand, am an extremely sensitive and touchy person, especially since my depression and anxiety really started manifesting themselves as I neared the end of high school, and now, in college, I always find myself embarrassing myself by coming to tears in situations that normal people could probably just brush off, or that I could've brushed off when I was younger and stronger. Doing badly on a test, having to perform in front of the class, someone being angry at me for the way I parked, etc. I don't benefit from tough love, I've been getting it my whole life. Just a few days ago, I experienced a panic attack and my dad told me that I needed to "toughen up" (he said some other words but that's the essence) as I was having it. It really hurt me to hear him say that, and it just made me recall all the times people have done similar things to me. After I was done with my back and forth with my friend, I sat around for a while looking in at myself and asking why I should ask people to be sensitive toward me in the first place. It felt like another part of me was in there somewhere, yelling at me, telling me I was stupid and asking me why I even bothered. This isn't something that I've experienced so intensely until last night-- it actually came to a point were it felt like it was a different voice entirely, someone who wasn't me, just berating me. I was already full on in tears. I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack, but it felt strange compared to how it usually goes; my teeth, fingers, and the right side of my face were tingling and I had this acute headache. I then started having one of the most intense panic attacks (Still not sure if it was a panic attack or something else) that I have ever had. I was having all of my usually symptoms, hyperventilating, tears, headache, but amplified, along with the usual fight or flight feelings. It felt like my chest was collapsing, and with everything else, it was so intense that I felt like I was dying-- I was considering calling 911! I could barely take any kind of gasp for breath, I imagine I must've looked like a fish at this point. I felt like I was losing my grip, like I was actually going crazy. I eventually talked myself down, used some of the relaxing activities on this website and got to a point were I was sure that I wasn't dying. But I looked back at that and I feel like I did slip from my sanity for a minute, though I'm still not sure. Today I have to get an MRI, so it might be revealed whether this was the product of some bodily problem or if it was really just a panic attack. I've had the tingling in my teeth, head, and hands before, but as a stand alone thing, not as a part of an attack. I'm usually pretty okay with myself, it's just that I wish other people saw what I saw. Thank you for reading and I'd really like to get some second opinions on this. I don't have the money to see a psychiatrist or anything, and I'm not going to talk to anyone I know about this because they're all "tough love" types.
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