Anxious, Weird and Inappropriate Thoughts

Flight or Fight Response

Part of the Flight or Fight response is to produce 'what if' thought processes, creating mental scenarios based on the worst case outcome in order to calculate risk. Those thought processes ask, "What if I get to the car and it explodes? What if I can't lift the passenger out? What if the car tips over onto me?" All of this 'scenario building' assessing risk before the decisions are made. This scenario assumes that REAL risk is present.

Now, transpose this same level of anxious response into your current life. You have high levels of anxiety where NO REAL threat is present! But the 'problem solving' 'scenario building' continues... it has to; it is part of the flight or fight mechanism! But, now there is no problem to be solved so these 'what if' thought processes work on the issues presented to it in your daily life, so it asks questions like:

* What if there is something 'wrong' with me the medics are 'missing'?
* What if I have a serious disease?
* What if I lose consciousness?
* What if I go mad?
* What if I die?
* What if something happens to a family member?
* What if I harm someone I love?
* What if I am gay?
*What if I do this inappropriate thing (aggressive, sexual) to that person?
* What if I... blah, blah, blah...

Do you see where this is going?
Every thought you have had since you have been anxious, has been the
product of inappropriate 'what if thoughts' building anxiety fueled scenarios in your mind.

Does this make sense?

Some OCD sufferers have been saying:
* I sometimes think about killing my kids
* I sometimes think I am gay
* I sometimes think about killing myself
* I sometimes think about incest with my mother/father

All these ‘subconscious, anxious scenarios’ are produced by the Fight or Flight respond, eagerly seeking out and questioning anything it can get its teeth into... creating 'what ifs' in your subconscious. So, when you start to think that 'perhaps there is something else wrong with me'... tell yourself that those thought processes are simply the product of the Fight or Flight response, disregard them in your decision making and move forward with positivity, KNOWING that you can become  anxiety free again.