Hello,My biggest problem with anxiety is obsessive thoughts.I have been fighting this for along time. It has gotten easier to deal with but the thoughts just wont go away, I have two beautiful boys they are my life and they need me, I just don't understand how I could think that I would ever hurt them, I know that it is nothing that I would ever ever do, I love them so much,they are the reason why I fight so hard. I have my good days and bad days, it seems when I'm about to start is when I can't get rid of the thoughts. Has this happened to anyone

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. You have fleeting thoughts which is the devil trying to get in your head. When the thoughts come, have a montage ready to repeat over and over, like "Jesus, take away the scary thoughts." Or say a prayer like the our Father until it passes, and it will.
Sometimes we freak ourselves out by seeing something on tv and wondering if we are capable of that, and it stays with us for a long time waiting to resurface. The thoughts will diminish and soon you'll be able to handle the ones that filter through.
I say two things I'll share with you. First is "Lord, please strike me down first should I ever go to hurt anyone." Second, "Lord, take these thoughts that are not from you and place them at the feet of Jesus' most holy cross." And "Lord, send 10,00 angels to guard my mind from the evil whispers of the devil."
Hope that helps a little. Bev

I also have a beautiful little boy who I absolutely adore. I have such a fear of harming him it brings me to tears just to write about it. I have linked it to my anxiety with the programs help, but when I'm in the midst of the obsessive thoughts, its so hard to shake the feeling that I did something wrong. I end up checking that he is ok, another symptom of OCD, which is what obsessive thinking is. Hang in there, the program works! Another member gave me soem good advice awhile back:

"You are experiencing OCD and nothing more. If you are working with the program, stay with it. Use the workbook and follow the exercises daily. Use your relaxation tape, practice your breath work and use your STOP sign. Your don't have to ruminate, shout STOP, use your calm breath work and focus on what you're doing in the present moment. You can still function even if you don't feel like it. It's OK to be uncomfortable. You can handle it. Let yourself know that this is only OCD (no big deal-and it's not, by the way) and that you are in teh practice of allowing your thoughts and images to come and go as they please. (They don;t have to affect you). Start practicing "allowing" adn let go of the resistance. If you didn't care one way or the other about these thoughts, they would cease to exist."

Practice, this can be healed.

Yes, I noticed negative thoughts would appear out of no where. Try deep breaths,think of Nice things,humming your favorite tune, step outside for freshAIR,clear your head and calm down they will go. Reassure yourself, talk to God. It will pass

Thank You all so much for the words of advice. I will continue to fight and ask God to guide me and strenghthen my mind. I just wish that I did not have to deal with these kinds of thoughts with my anxiety, I know alot of people with anxiety who could never relate to these kinds of thoughts. But again this is my fight not theres. I will never give up hope!

I know exactly how you feel! I have scary thoughts and visualizations all the time. Then after they happen I ruminate over them trying to figure out if they mean something is wrong with me. They seem so real! I know they are not but I have to face them and say so what if they are there it's just my anxiety and nothing that I want. It is actually the fear of the fear that gets to you. You want so bad for them to go away so you can feel normal again. Right now I just allow them to be there and tell myself they do not mean anything. Very hard to do when they seem so real and it seems that if you say no big deal and just let them be there that you are giving in to them but you aren't. I pray for God's help to get this to go away. I am feeling better but it seems this is the hardest thing to get to go away.

I love my daughter with all my heart and sometimes I think I would hurt her. I know I am not capable of hurting her but the thoughts cross my mind every once in awhile. It is all apart of the disorder; you know love your sons. I think that comes from maybe you being hurt by someone you love. I know for me that is why I think that way. Someone that was suppose to love me hurt me, and I guess I just wonder if I would do the same thing to her. I know I won't do it, but the thought makes me sick. She's beautiful I would never do anything to compromise her existence. Just the fact that you would share your scary thoughts pertaining to your children shows that those thought are false. If you were truly capable you would not share your thoughts with anyone. Bad people with bad intention don't share them; they hide them with intentions of one day making it a reality.

These were and still are sometimes, my biggest symptoms.
My problem is that I feel that everytime I have a thought or and image, I immediately need to tell someone (mother or boyfriend) so that they can assure me I am ok.
It is day three of me NOT doing this. I finished the program a year and a half ago and it is WONDERFUL, I highly suggest you get it if you do not have it. I am doing it a second time all the way through again right now and am on lesson 8 (What if thinking?)
It goes a long with it as well. So this again like I said before is day three of handling the thoughts by myself.
I have to say that as soon as I made the decision to handle it on my own, there seemed to be more thoughts. However, I consistently filled myself full of compassionate self talk and calmed my self down and it does help. I also have noticed that they seem to come on when my mind is idle. This is a huge key to recovery as well. Being able to recognize when I have the thoughts, sort of prepares me to hanldle them better. (Make sense?)
Also I realized that my thoughts are simply this. FEAR... Nothing more than those four little letters.
Fear is no longer going to upset me or make me beat myself up any lkonger.
I am bigger than any thought I imagine and I know that the scary thoughts are the thoughts that are false. If they were true , I probably wouldn't tell people them and they wouldn't scare me.
However, I am now working on changing this whole not telling people them because I've noticed that that in itself has become a reassurance thing for me. I look to them to make me feel better and it's time for ME to make myself feel better.
Get it?
As much as we want them to go away and the more we tell ourselves how much we hate them and want them to go away, we are reinforcing their power!
Onve we can honestly say to ourselves,
"Ok, so I'm having this wierd thought or image, .. SO what?, it's just a thought and it's definitely not a representation of who I am as a person, therefore I am not letting it affect me."
or
" Ok, I'm beginning to obsess that I had this thought, so what? what is the worst that could happen. Act on it? No! because I've had a zillion times before and never have acted on it so why would I do it now?, the worst that is going to happen is I obsess until I am blue in the face and work myself into a panic and then finally when I am exhausted, I will let it go!"
Well It's time to stop that cycle.
Don't HATE that it's there, Simply say ok, I'll invite this thought in for some tea, sit down and have a chat with it!
FACE IT! and see that it doesn't hurt you!
You can do this!!!!!
See the humor as well in it!
That always helps!
Here is a great article for anyone that has OST's..
hope I helped!
Lisa
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-eliminate-Intrusive-thoughts&id=231502

Please forgive me, Bev. I know you mean well, but there is no devil involved here, and that type of statement may scare some people.

We are born phobics. We are predisposed toward this disorder. Simply put, we must learn the tools to deal with it. Just like a diabetic must learn to deal with that issue.

Lisa - when we begin to work on ourselves - consciously work on ourselves the way you are (and many others as well), that ego-thinking mind gets LOUDER and LOUDER because it is trying to keep you stuck. If you continue to react to "it" you keep it alive, but now, you see, you are working on yourself diligently so it's fighting back. This is a very good sign. Stay with your plan. Don't deviate. You've got this thing almost licked now when you hear it get louder. Pat yourself on the back. Great job!

I'd like to add an exercise that may be helpful to those on this thread in regard to their children. First of all, I want to reassure you as well that you will not harm your children.

When thoughts of harming them come try the following:

"Oh, there are those thoughts again. I know they are not real. This time I choose to simply breathe into the feelings that these thoughts generate." (Use your calm breath work) Then get focused on something in the moment. Do your best to keep yourself out of your head by focusing on what you are presently doing. Practice this. Soon that scary voice will get bored with your lack of attention to it and leave.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Boon,

Hi all,

I have had the same annoying thoughts. They are sick and totally against my religious beliefs and values. After my son was born I had a thought of harming him. It haunted me for 9 months before I finally broke down. I sought the help of a therapist and he gave me some meds that have been helping. I just ordered Lusinda's program and am still waiting for it to arrive, has it helped any of you?

I had th esame thoughts with my first son. Don't worry you will not harm him. The thoughts are not real. Mine were from way too much stress about being a mom and the anxiety from it. I couldn't admit my thoughts to anyone and I was soo confused. I found out years later that adrenaline can produce those kind of thoughts, plus post partum. Many moms have those thoughts is what I also found out..Plus, if I saw a news cast about a crazy mom that hurt her kids that influenced me too. Try not to worry it is just your anxiety and too much mommy duties. hope this helps. i was also veryupset with my husband. He wanted me to be so perfect. This built resentent and made me feel like a horrible mom, but I wasn't. My love for him was much stronger than any other feeling and carried me through. Trust in that.

Boon and everyone who posted. My bad and my apologies if the statements were offense. I just haved said that IN MY PARTICULAR CASE, this is what is happening. This is what I believe. This is how I cope. Please forgive me for stepping one toes here.

The article posted is great- very good info.

Boon, I would like to talk more with you about the subject for my learning purposes. I am very young in my Christianity, so to speak. I would love some input. One of the books I've read is Battlefield of the Mind which says basically what I replied in my message, but I would like to hear from you if you had the chance to talk and private message me perhaps, or maybe it would be a good group discussion. Anybody up for it?

Hi Bev,

Let's post it openly for everyone to see and to learn from. We will get input from those who are interested and together we will learn and grow together.

My sincere best to you.

Let none of us forget that the devil knows the scriptures better than any of us ever will here on earth. He uses words & helpless people to share "words of wisdom" that can scare the crap out of anybody as best he can because he knows that's the only way he can keep people like us dangeling from the ledge which is just where he wants us. However there are people in this depression & anxiety laden world that do not believe in God or Satan & still suffer like we do. I am a believer & I would love to blame God or satan for all of this but it is just not their reality (if that's the right word.) Yes, for some God can make us feel better & the devil make us feel worse but turthfully it is us that must make the leap into freedom. And everybody on here is trying and that is the absolute best thing we can do for ourselves. Know we have the problem (like that can be missed) reach out, continue to reach out in asking for help & giving & keep on keeping on. Some don't realize that in stating their fears this allows someone who is too afraid to speak out know they are not alone, your helping & don't even know it. Thank You, Thank You, Thank you!!

I also have the same scary thoughts which brought me back to this program. It really helps me to see that I am not alone. What's really interesting is how hard I've been on myself for thinking these things, and now I'm trying to help you with the same problem and I'm much easier on you(someone I've never met before) than I am on myself. It's almost as if I'm writing this to myself in a way. Try not to be hard on yourself. If you didn't love your children, these thoughts wouldn't bother you. People that actually do these things are not upset by these thoughts; they enjoy them. I now realize that the world does'nt revolve around my thinking. Just because I think something, doesn't mean it will happen. Our intentions are what matter. I hope you feel better.