Ok...I know that when we are faced with situations that are anxiety producing for us...we distract ourselves with obsessive scary thoughts...but I wonder why we distract ourselves with SCARY thoughts....if we wanted to get away mentally from something anxiety producing would'nt our minds want to think of something happy or calming instead?....I don't get it LOL

I the whole distraction thing makes sense to me cause its happened to me ...but why SCARY thoughts?...anyone got any insight?

Changing times,
I've been reading that book, "Peace from Nervous suffering", by Claire Weekes, and, if I am not mistaken, she does not consider the idea that we are distracting ourselves. I believe that she is saying that our nerves are "sensitized" in that we react to fear so strongly and suddenly, that any scary thought at all can send us into the fear/adrenaline/fear cycle very quickly, and then we of course begin to fear the fear, to fear the body feelings. She does not say that we are avoiding anything...in fact, she says that it is immaterial to find out what caused the original stress. She believes that rather than avoiding, we are merely afraid of fear itself, which is why our constant struggle is against fearful thoughts.
It made sense to me...I have beaten my head against the wall trying to figure out why the hell I would put myself through so much fear only to avoid dealing with something that could be readily dealt with.
So when she said that there doesn't have to be any justification for the fear of the fear, that it just happens through the process of Sensitization, it made alot of sense to me.
Joe