How To Deal With Anxiety Over Unwanted Thoughts

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I've always been an anxious person, but recently, I've noticed that I have a tendency to over focus on ideas that I don't want in my head, and it causes me a large amount of stress. Sometimes, it comes in the form of an embarrassing incident from the past that makes me feel like a complete waste of space despite the minor event in question being forgotten by practically everyone else. Other times, when I think about my future, I feel sick to my stomach due to catastrophizing about whether or not I'm on the right path. I feel like my mind is like a sponge that absorbs and retains every bad thought I've ever had. What should I do about this?

Perhaps try to practice focusing your thoughts on the present moment instead of dwelling on the past or future. It's easier said than done, but deliberately trying to notice everything that is going on around you, or thinking intently about a hobby or interest, could help take your mind off your worries.

For me keeping busy works best. Free time makes me anxious.

There is too much pressure to be on a path: you don't necessarily have to buy into that. There again, plenty of people who think they've identified a path for themselves to follow find out later on that it was the wrong path for them anyway. Staying sane is the only path I'm interested in following.

It is true NTs have an amazing capacity for forgetting details and entire events. People have been telling me for decades to "live in the now" instead of brooding on the past and fretting about the future, and of course it is good advice, but then again, I wouldn't want to lose my photographic memory (or cinematographic memory, if there is such a thing), and it is said in order to suffer from anxiety you have to have a very vivid imagination, because you have to be able to envisage all the things that could possibly go wrong: the flip side of that coin is, you think things through carefully and you cover all the angles, so when it comes to planning and organization you can be quite useful and I wouldn't want to lose that either!

Clearly you have an active mind that sees and recalls things in Glorious Technicolor. That's a gift many people do not have, even if it can sometimes feel like a curse. Anxiety is habit-forming (as you have probably already noticed). However, you can take charge of what happens in your head: easier said than done, of course, but you can. You can entertain the negative thoughts, see the unhappy past scenes or nasty future outcomes in your mind's eye, and then take a conscious decision not to let them ruin your day.

You can't change the past, and you already know that the NTs around you have pretty much forgotten it anyway, so there's really no point wasting energy and head-space worrying about it. Rationally, although of course bad things may happen in the future, the chances of everything turning out to be a total disaster are actually less than 50%. Very few people's lives are complete wall-to-wall disaster.

I say these things breezily, as though I had completely conquered the anxiety and the vivid internal visions and recollections that have haunted me for as long as I can remember. I haven't! But they are much more under control than they used to be, and I'm managing without medication. It takes effort and it takes practice, but it can be done.

I have lot of intrusive and unwanted thoughts as well.they just take over your mind.I honestly would get involved with a good doctor

As an insomniac, intrusive thoughts are the bane of my existence. What works for me, at least to some extent:

- working out, the tough kind that leaves no room for any thoughts, you're just body

- some forms of meditation, it doesn't have to be the "conventional" type

- keeping busy with something that interests you a lot: my brain makes the shift (an inferior version, just distract yourself with whatever)

Firstly, if this is really messing with your life you should seek help from a professional. Secondly the same thing happens to me too to the point I feel hounded for several days and then when the thought goes, I am hounded by the idea of it coming back. My advice to you is first the boring things which are exercise and meditation/mindfulness. More sleep wouldn't hurt either. But also personally, I find that reminding yourself these are not thoughts coming from you and, if they are upsetting, you aren't a bad person helps me as it removes some of their power and i can see them for the fake thoughts that they are. I find mindfulness especially helpful when they are less intense. Also distract yourself in anyway possible as not to strengthen the pathways that cause these unwanted thoughts. Try your best to not engage with them because from experience you will only spiral.