I have a weird problem I've been battling
for a while: I deal with a lot of anxiety
and tension in my life, deal with social
anxiety, etc., but I have a peculiar
recurring form of tension I deal with:
oftentimes I will get these thoughts that
almost will me into linking a certain
building, class, movie, book, etc., with a
strong form of tension and a "twisted up"
state of being. They're sort of "what if"
questions like "What if this building
where your geology class is is a source of
this form of tension and twisted-up
feeling?" and oftentimes it will
"solidify", in other words it WILL end up
being a source of that tensed-up state of
being. It's almost as if I'm willing it to
happen. I've broken out of a couple of
these states, sometimes by not thinking
about it for a while, going back to the
said source of tenseness and realizing it
isn't giving that feeling anymore.
Is this some form of OCD and circular
thinking? I think I'm really overthinking
this but this is a big problem for me. I
ended up "willing" and associating my
geology class last year with this "twisted
up" feeling, and I ended up getting a C in
it because I didn't want to do a lot of
the work because of the "twisted up"
tension I felt or was telling myself I
would feel. I am currently seeing a
therapist at my university about some
problems of mine but days before going for
the first visit I ended up "willing" and
"associating" the clinic building with
this "twisted up state", which makes it
difficult because I can't focus on my
other problems I'm going in for when I'm
completely stressed out about the "twisted
up state".
I really feel that this is a combination
of some OCD, anxiety, overthinking, and
that perhaps replacing negative thoughts
with positive thoughts (a la cognitive
therapy) would help me, but does anyone
have any other advice? Or has anyone ever
heard of anything like this before? I'd
love advice on ways I could straighten out
my thinking to help this problem, and I'd
love any and all feedback, and thanks to
all for reading this and for responding if
you do.
