[SoupDragon]

My T, thinks that anxiety is the best way to describe many of my difficulties, although I have no formal diagnosis.

I wasn't so sure that I agreed with him as this is the way I have always felt pretty much. However currently I know that my anxiety is really high and not only am I struggling with memory, but I can also feel a little...well paranoid I guess.

Yesterday I was having a bath mid morning (had woken really early at 5am and had then just pottered about the house doing stuff and lost track of time).

While in the bath I heard a knock at the door, at first I thought it was my kids being brought back by their dad and expected to hear their voices, but it wasn't them. So I thought it was a neighbour or friend and carried on with my bath. Then my phone rang which made me think it must be important, I started to think it must therefore be someone official coming to tell me that I had done something awful and would be in touble.

I was really scared and stayed in the bath.

When I finally went downstairs, I saw a note in my letter box telling me that my grocery delivery driver had tried to deliver my food that I had ordered!!! Of couse I had made the order the day before and that was the time I had booked for it to be delivered. I felt so stupid and also shocked that I could forget that I made the order.

My memory has been poor for a while now, but I haven't had these episodes of suspiciousness before and just wondered whether anyone else who suffers from anxiety can relate to this. I am terrifed of telling my T in case.... - hmm see that suspiciousness again.

[BatsAndButterflies]

I can definitely relate to that. I was recently stuck in my bathroom for a while because I was scared to leave because it was dark and stuff. My brain likes to jump to the worst conclusions and convince itself that they are true.

It very hard, but important to prevent yourself from catastophizing. Try to think positively and calm yourself, avoiding jumping to negative conclusion.

[Silent_tsol]

Yep, I think that instant jump into worrying about who *could*be at the door is pretty typical anxiety.

As far as memory goes, my old t used to remind me how hard my brain was working dealing with high anxiety that it would make sense that the memory might slip a little. And then the med I was taking made me a bit of a scatter brain

[SoupDragon]

Thanks for your replies.

The difficulty I have is working out when my "anxiety" is appropriate and when it is not. I have witnessed some fairly difficult things (near drowning, my baby getting swapped at birth, my brother being arrested due to false allegations) and so I know that shxt can happen. I know the "what ifs" can be real - how do I untangle my brain to know when it is OK to be on alert and when I am over-reacting - or is anxiety about over-reacting full stop, regardless of how intense the situation is?

[Silent_tsol]

Anxiety is when the fight or flight reflex goes into over drive when it's not necessary, soooo exactly like you said, things DO happen where the kind of thinking is useful. It takes a lot of practice to convince yourself that things ARE ok right now, you aren't in danger. Cbt is the big therapy approach to handling anxiety right now. The idea is to identify the thought patterns, like catastrophizing, that get us into the worry cycle.
Www.getselfhelp.gg (I'll check the website when I get home) is a helpful sight I find.