How can you stop worrying about things that are out of your control?

as for little things like cleaning this is the thing that bugs me the most and the best way to deal for me is just to get on with the smallest thing, and i immediately feel better when i achieve some bits and i'd get motivated to do the rest of the things.

cleaning house is actually a really good analogy for me because my room is tiny and i would always have to shift the small stuff before i can make room for the big ones... talking to friends about it helps too, see that's like being able to temporarily move all the junk from your room to the corridor to clear up more room to manoeuvre.

Try taking up a peaceful hobby. Something else to focus your attention on. Drawing or Painting .. Ant Farm ..

As someone who also suffers from stress and what I call "Thoughtworms" (when an obsessive thought comes on and will not leave you alone) ... there are a couple of things that I do.

One thing I learned from a book was that if something keeps nagging at you, try writing it down somewhere and say that you are going to write it down so you don't forget, and you can deal with it later. Sometimes this takes the form of a diary, where I write out long term worries, and sometimes it can be as simple as keeping a pad by the bed where you write those annoying little things like "don't forget that book you need for school tomorrow." That way at least your brain feels like you've done something about it.

The other thing to do is to use a thoughtworm to catch a thoughtworm. If I'm having obsessive *bad* thoughts or negative thoughts, I try to replace them with obsessive *good* thoughts or positive thoughts. Sometimes that's the usual sex fantasy type things (yeah, yeah, Libertines gay pr0n orgy now!) and sometimes it's more positive self esteem fantasies, like I try to imagine myself as a successful musician or a novelist, or something that I would really enjoy doing, and tell myself little bedtime stories about how great my life could be.

I mean, that's what I do to stop the thoughtworms. Hope that helps!

Why are you so afraid of things you can't control? What exactly *are* you afraid of?

I'm kept awake worrying about my mum who lives along thirty miles away - silly things like "what if someone broke in?"

My biggest obsession right now is Kev driving to work. Millions of people drive to work, and he's a perfectly safe driver so my fears are unfounded, but I still insist he texted me when he gets to his work every morning, if he's late doing so I feel sick with worry until I can contact him.

God knows what I'll be like when I have kids!

I think maybe applying that kind of thinking could help...?

Yeah Hannah, I feel it's good to have something else to focus on as well - with me it's decorating!

But that's easy to change - if you keep them inside, they are relatively safe from cars. Unless some maniac drives into your house, which is another thing to worry about!

i also have very bad anxiety that lives mostly in my body, wreaking havoc. It runs in the family and my mom's a shambles now. argh. Mine is really general anxiety. I always have this sense of dread as if something horrible is always right around the corner. Which is silly.

Except for this weekend when we went to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I was about to drive the car into a ditch I was so anxious on my way into the city and thought I was just a freak. But then I saw the arch and realized I had been extra anxious for a reason. It was horrible!

I really like these kind of thought processes b/c if you can get used to using them, when you really need them they can prove especially effective against obsessive thinking.

In one therapy group we learned how to make this chart (it was just on note paper) where we basically formed a proof to show ourselves that our self-talk was irrational. (in the case of being depressed something like "if I get sick again I'll be living on the street" was broken down each possiblity and probablity looked at and we were forced to admit that outcome was not likely.)

Another good one I saw was putting a rubberband on your wrist and snapping yourself everytime an unwanted thought entered your mind. (A woman was doing this everytime she berated herself internally.) I do think a lot of these kinds of thoughts become habits that we can unlearn while also perhaps going back and finding their original origin (and the ultimate origin of your stress).

Of course there are always medications but with anxiety I think meds are more effective for general anxieties (like my sense of dread when it becomes overwhelming) than obsessive thought patterns.

As for things like the rubberband snapping; when I'm ill I often self harm, so my psychiatrist suggested 'slashing' my arms with a magic marker, or snapping a rubber band against my arm. Neither does me any good, but I'm sure lots of people find it helpful.

So I can sympathise with y'all :( *hugs*