A lot of good advice has been offered in this thread already, but the problems you describe remind me very much of the issues I used to have up until a few years ago, so I thought I would share my opinion. I don't think it has been mentioned yet, but have you considered the possibility that you may suffer from
Adult ADD? Maybe you've seen the
commerical on television. While I certainly don't advise
self-diagnosis, it's likely you're going to do it anyway, and most of the comments suggest it is an anxiety disorder, so I wanted to give you another option to think about.
Let me address your points individually:
Chrono said:
1-
Disgusting and repuslive images that are just on repeat in my brain. If I see some creepy pic on the net (just yesterday I came across something to do with..
::shivers::.. number 2.
) it just won't go away. Then I develop more thoughts and worry if I'll have to live with it the rest of my life and just take hours thinking about it trying to "rationalize" my way out of it.
First, can I ask how you come across these images that you can't get out of your head? Most people, if they've been on the internet long enough, have mistakenly clicked on a goatse or tubgirl link, but the way you've written this implies that this is a frequently occuring problem. Perhaps you are visiting the wrong websites? Sites like SomethingAwful can be entertaining, but for someone like you, they are virtual minefields of questionable content and misleading links. Maybe it's the temptation of seeing what's on the other side of that link, or maybe you just enjoy other content on those sites. But if they are harming your mind, then any enjoyment you get from these places is not worth the psychological damage it incurs. Also, if you are treading into darker sites, you would do good to quit. Vile and disgusting things most people will never encounter in their lives take little effort to find on the internet, but if it upsets you, there's no reason for you to visit places even peripherally associated with that material.
Chrono said:
2- Excessive religious or moral doubt. If you read the thread I made about women and religion then you'd have an idea of how crazy I am.
I did take a look at your thread. It seems like you spend a lot of time thinking. How long were you debating that issue with yourself, before you posted it? Not to mention that this was triggered by something as innocuous as channel flipping, yet you allowed this random sound bite in a documentary fill your mind with questions. Which is not to say that there is no place for contemplation and trying to understand the world, but not everything is worth such serious thought. Suppose you had the answers to the questions you asked in your thread. Would it matter? You obviously disagreed with the person on television, but his opinion shouldn't hold so much weight with you that you have to spend hours deconstructing his arguments. You don't have to try and analyze everything, especially not at such length. I think the bigger issue is not your religious or moral doubt, but rather that you spend more time
thinking and not enough time
doing. If it's really important to you, you could study or read books on theology; at least then you will be better equipped to answer these questions, and have the benefit of being more knowledgable about religion to boot. Hell, just do
anything. I don't mean television, or other passive entertainment, either. If you fill your life with activity, you may find that you have neither the time nor the need to worry about these things.
Chrono said:
3- Thoughts about
every embarrasing and humilating experience I ever had. An anime character that looks 1% like some one I know and hate? oh the flood gates open then and i'm fucked. Thread after another my brain opens up past memories that I want to go away. They come back and I feel as bad as I used to feel WHEN THEY WERE HAPPENING. I can't move on. They come with a barrage of emotions-- this is the worst part. >__<
And they pop up when the slightest connection is made. reading the word "embarrased" or seeing the smily
or reminds me of something and that of something else and the cycle continues on and on. Lately when I download anime my blood pressure goes a bit up and I feel anxious and confused. It's because I'm afraid of the new "battles" my brain will have to go through while watching them and just feeling more anxious
because I'm having those obessive thoughts that I should not.
then I worry, and have more obessive thoughts, and what exactly classifies as obessive thoughts. Maybe others should be in "anxiety-disorder" and some are not described with 100% accuracy on the website so there's a chance theyr'e not part of OCD but does that mean I'm fucked and yet ok? I don't know.
This comment is what most strongly led me to believe that you are dealing with Adult ADD, rather than an anxiety disorder (not that I am dismissing that possibility). Specifically, you say that any random event can cause you to lose focus on what you were doing, and when that event reminds you of something, that thought in turn reminds you of something else. How long does your mind to drift from thought to thought before you regain your concentration?
I used to have the same problem, and while I can't say I never feel the way you describe anymore, there are things you can do on your own to regain control of your mind.
1. Stop thinking about every mistake you make. We all make them, but if you relive the scenario over and over in your mind, you magnify its negativity, which will only lower your self-confidence. Do this often enough, and every little screw-up will only confirm your belief that you are a loser, and this is the image you will project. Recognize your mistakes so you can avoid them in the future, and move on.
2. Don't allow your mind to wander indefinitely. When I first started college, I would sit down at a lecture with every intent to listen, but my mind would go off on a series of tangents no matter how much I tried to concentrate on what the professor was saying. When I regained my focus, I would find the hands on the clock had moved as much as 30 minutes, in what seemed to be the blink of an eye. This was disatrous for my grades, and if it happened at school, you can bet I spent hours more out of class wasting time thinking about nothing in particular. Letting yourself dwell on negative scenarios, both real and imagined, is also an effective way to feed any problems you may have with depression.
This, I feel, is what is causing a lot of the other problems in your life. Most of the other issues you mentioned could be callously described as "thinking too much", but if you can't control your thoughts, then this won't tell you how to make things better. Conversely, if you
can control them, then your other problems may solve themselves.
First, there are medications available that seem to have good success in allowing people with Adult ADD to stay focused. Note that adults are not prescribed the same thing as children diagnosed with ADD. Medication is probably the simplest and most effective way to resolve this problem, but obviously you will need to be examined by a professional first.
Additionally, neurofeedback therapy appears to be an effective way to condition your mind to be more focused. Electrical sensors are attached to the patient's head to monitor brainwaves, which are used to play a simple video game. After a few months of treatment (paired with traditional therapy) you should naturally feel more in control of your thoughts. However, this is expensive, and it's not something you can take home and use on your own.
Finally, if you are opposed to both medication and therapy, there are strategies you can use to catch yourself when your attention wanders. If you catch your mind drifting, tell yourself to stop, take a deep breath, and try to go back to the task at hand. You can also think of a special word, if that is more effective for you, and say it to snap yourself out of your daydreams. You may have to do this repeatedly, maybe even several times a minute. But if you make a habit of it, eventually you shouldn't need to say it as frequently, and the time you waste letting your mind wander should diminish.
3. Get out more. If you have the time to relive memories in your past over and over, then you aren't spending enough time making new ones. If the times you interact with people are few and far between, then you will end up repeating them in your mind in the interim. This can cause you to place an unhealthy amount of importance on those events. You'll dwell on the bad and long for the good, when what you should be doing is getting on with your life and trying to be happy. And when I say "interact with people", I don't mean on this forum, or on IRC, or in an online game. Go somewhere, and do something with somebody. It will give your mind stimulation that you can't get from a computer.
4. Stay busy. I touched on this near the start of my post, but I want to explain myself in a bit more detail. I'm not trying to pick on you, but judging by your threads you seem to watch a lot of anime. There's nothing wrong with that, but what it suggests to me is that you may spend a lot of your time doing passive activities for entertainment. Try and do things that engage your mind, instead of doing things that force it to keep itself busy. Playing video games is okay, but are there other things that you think are both interesting and challenging? Learning how to play an instrument? A foreign language? Sports? If you are determined, not only will you keep your mind on more positive things, but it can teach you how to focus, and will give you new skills that you can use to improve your life. Learning something new has the added bonus of boosting your self-confidence, rather than destroying it, which is what you are doing now.
Chrono said:
4- other things include harming others. especially kids. I feel uneasy when I pass kids on the street and if there's a car some where it freaks me out. I remember when I was a kid my bike got carried away into the street and my dad made a huge mess and started a fight over it but I'm not sure if that's why.
I don't quite understand this one. You have thoughts about hurting people? As long as you don't intend to follow these thoughts up with actions, then I would say there is nothing wrong. Everyone has violent fantasies. I also don't understand what you mean when you say seeing kids and cars freak you out. How does it freak you out?
Chrono said:
5- everything must be balanced or else it's not "right." Of course there's no logic for this balance. if Anbu does not sub licensed anime but they work with Aone and they do its' just not right. I can't accept this new information. Not because I don't like it but because I thought Aone doesn't sub licensed anime too and now I feel like I have to reboot my brain but I can't. I can't go back and continue playing Remake on my gamecube because even though I got used to the C-controls there's a new RE with a better camera system. I don't know what's going on here.
Just relax. I tended to be obsessive like this, but now I restrict my need to have things be "just so" to how I keep my belongings organized. I used to be ridiculously concerned with this when I was a child. The way I organized my SNES collection is a good example. You know the protective plastic cover that comes with the cartridge? On the bottom there is a one or 2-digit number etched into the plastic. Not only would I insist on keeping my cartridges arranged in the order I bought them, but I used those numbers to make sure each game wore only the sleeve that it was originally boxed with. This need to control the minutia of my life was definitely unnecessary, but it made up for my lack of control over larger aspects. Does this sound familiar to you? Either way, my advice to you is just to ask yourself,"who cares?" There will always be things that change, and things that are beyond your control. If there isn't a
logical reason this should affect you, don't let it become an issue.
Hope this helps.
EDIT: Typos. Still a bit obsessive.
