Do you guys feel like your brain just has to find something to be anxious over? I just feel like once I talk myself down from one thought, it immediately goes to another and I’m just in a never ending loop of anxiety.

Another perspective to consider is what’s happening in your mind and the way it’s working when it’s conjuring these thoughts. We’re so preconditioned to identify with our thoughts, that any of other relationship to them other than thoughts being the entire fabric of you as a self seems impossible to comprehend. Our brains evolved over millions of years, with really the last 100,000-200,000 being the period of what anthropologists call the “cognitive revolution”. Your brain right now is no different than the brain of our ancestors millennias ago. So it has many processes and mechanisms that in certain contexts are incredibly beneficial. Take anxiety, for example. Sometimes it’s useful. If someone’s anxious about a test or competing in a game, they might dedicate more time to practice so their feared outcome of failing doesn’t come true. If you’re walking in the woods and notice a bear a hundred yards away, anxiety might be what saves your life. Anxiety exists because our ancestors who had it were more likely to survive. As a tool of preservation, anxiety works. In the modern world, many of the threats our ancestors faced don’t exist. Few of us are at risk of having a rival tribe raid our suburb. Most of will never encounter an animal that could tear us to shreds. But our brains still look for those threats. Your brain wants you to survive. So with OCD, this primitive signal of anxiety becomes attached to events that don’t necessarily warrant its presence. And because our capacity to remember the past, and envision the future, your mind can conjure all sorts of potential “dangers” and give the sense that they’re legitimate. Your conscious mind then takes this signal, and begins ruminate on the experience: “I want to avoid this feeling,” “this thought isn’t right,” “I cannot bear this.” Then it tries to find a solution: “I’ll ask if someone else feels this way,” “let me check my thoughts and feelings to see if this threat is real,” “touching this doorknob until it feels right makes me feel better.” In the external world, avoiding threats like an actual bear is beneficial. And because that method of avoiding suffering works so well in that context, we apply that apparatus to our internal world. The problem is, you can’t run from the bear in your brain. If you try to, it just keeps chasing you. So who are you, then? If that constant chatter in between your ears isn’t you, what’s the alternative. You are the person observing this phenomenon. All the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and desires are temporary quirks of your gray matter. The only meaning they have is our attachment to them. Therapy is about changing the relationship to this experience of thinking. It is not about stopping or changing your thoughts. If you could control that, you already would have. No one controls it, it’s just people without OCD don’t experience the anxiety/panic fusion that your thoughts do. I hope that helps. Sometimes knowing why something is happening can help you disengage from it!

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I’m just saying there’s a very well-understood theory of how the mind operates and why. And that awareness of that concept can hopefully give you some space to begin to see your thoughts for what they are.

I swear it's every other post I find my self so related too is my condtion that advance , by the way that search process of skmthj g to be worried about I don't know why the hell brain dose that , and I hope we get an answer and a way to stop this even medication I need it to stop cuz it destroy my happy moments and take my in opsit direction all the time

It happens to me mostly when am feeling happy or excited about somthing my brain directly go look for something to break that happniess and excitement

For sure. Sometimes I feel the anxiety turn on, and it is a few seconds before it attaches itself to a thought. I believe it is that part of the brain misfiring. I think the idea is to mark it, and then get to the point of reengaging the brain in other activities and thoughts.

Yep. This happens to me a lot. That’s how I end up having thoughts that I must really be going into psychosis or have some other mental condition. Because I can get anxious and worried over literally anything.

Carl, Awesome breakdown of anatomy and the process that our brain goes through on a daily basis!?? Thank you for the insight

Yeah, I will actually have one moment in the day if I haven’t kept myself distracted where my mind will do 100 “what if’s” in a matter of 20 min

Wow so similar and not the dieses only, I lost my job my branch last week and am still to fire everyone and I didn't do it yet not scared just feel like I can give those people few days of happiness before we walk into the unknown am appreciating everything I have now knowing that I won't have it ,, but I started working on a plan and am optimistic and I know from previous experience that these exprinces pay off the most later I am sure of that lived it manytimes so don't stress much, most important you have your health , you know for me in suffering times this mental isuess we talking about seems to go away or get very less wlbutnonlynwith real challenges like what's happening now

I get you, but what you say means we need to get to know our selfs better and find out the reasons if that feeling and maybe replace it with real threat not real but maybe like sport hmmmmm am starting to understand lots of things doctors been saying to us, by the way also what you saying slightly means that we are not living the suitable life for our set of powers and skills You didn't say those things but I had a discussion with your points in my mind and those ideas came . By the way they been telling us do what you like find what u like all our life's no one ever told us if u don't do what you like (what you were born to do) you will lead a miserable life not always ofcourse , no one tell you that everyone of us is trully created (or evolved ) from spicifc environment and that alone guarantee you to be skillful and happy when finding similar activities to what your ancestors use to do