- Username
- pac
- Date posted
- 4y ago
So I have had the same experience. The B in CBT is all about behavioral changes. I didn’t realize at the time that I had to, quite literally, do different things to get a different outcome. Right now, your brain is preconditioned for anxiety in the morning. It’s because it’s happened before, and that you dread the experience, that it reoccurs. Searching online is a compulsion I have as well, and it paradoxically causes the obsessional thoughts to last longer and come more frequently. So, as best you can, think about your mornings and think of something you can do differently. If you stay in bed, get up right when you wake up. If you search online, set a timer that you can’t for at least one hour. Start with a journal, exercise, meditation, or whatever activity diverts you briefly. Over time your brain comes to have a different expectation and response about mornings, and you’ll notice the thoughts are less troubling and therefore less frequent.
I know exactly how you feel. I wake up to it too and it never stops. It’s a nightmare and I’m sorry it happened to you too.
That’s true my OCD has been pretty bad for about a month and every morning I’ve been waking up anxious with the thoughts starting right away. I’m beginning to fear sleep. Thank you for the suggestions. I will def try. I try to talk myself out of it and then I get the what it thought. No this isn’t happening but what if it is and the cycle starts again. I start therapy tomorrow. And I’ve thought of cancelling purely out of fear... the constant what if and doubt. He’s going to tell me it’s not OCD and admit me somewhere for being crazy
Go to therapy! I have had this same fear, I think we all have. This is your brain telling you to fear. Try to practice some breathing exercises, come back to your breath when you start to drift. You can do this and will feel so much better after your session. I have one today. I woke up feeling the same way. As difficult as it is, you can do this. God bless
*venting* I’m so tired of life. I just woke up, and I feel like going back to bed and sleep until this nightmare passes. This week has been one of the hardest of my life. I don’t think I can face another day of intrusive thoughts, fear, anxiety. I need some moments of relief, but there are none. I wanna have a life again. Anxiety and obsessive thoughts have killed my social life, my ambitions and desires, my happiness. I’ve been fighting for the past 6 months for nothing. I don’t see any improvement. I’m on day 3 of Lexapro and of course i can’t tell if it’s gonna work for me or not. I’m on the first stages of ERP therapy and I still haven’t got any assigned homework to work on, which I really need because I need to feel like I’m doing SOMETHING to help myself with ocd and Gad. I just hope someone could just take out whatever part of my brain isn’t working properly and replace it with a new piece. I don’t wanna feel like a burden to my family or boyfriend anymore. I can’t believe all the damage that I’m causing. I don’t know what to do with all this self hate. I don’t know where to turn to. I seem to have all the help that one could need - therapy, medication, support system. Yet I feel like I can’t spend another day living like this.
Does anyone sometimes just sit and wonder how they could even have such thoughts? What could possibly have happened to make you start thinking like this, to make you genuinely fear that you are sick in the head even though you never felt or thought this way prior. Sometimes I wonder what I could have done differently in the past to have prevented this, how much better my life would be without it. My mind has successfully ruined days that I know would've been good. I can't look forward to anything anymore because I know it will be ruined
I spend a lot of my day just waiting for another panic attack to hit me. I live with anxiety about having more anxiety. Some days I do well and then I get tired from work or whatever and then it feels like my brain struggles to stay positive and have peace.
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