Do you guys experience this and how do I change it

Hey guys/girls, I may have finally figured out what the cause of most of my symptoms/feelings/attitude/etc. is. I was talking to a friend today and she told me that I always put myself down. When she told me that I do that a lot I was surprised, but then I realized she is right.

That sparked more thinking and I came up with another thing that I do: I have these full-blown conversations (I have no idea how to explain what they are because I am concious of what I am doing, but they seem out of my control) with myself, imagining all types of situations. It is like I will start telling myself things, and convincing myself, that people are trying to annoy me, get under my skin, or take advantage of me. I play through conversations, that may happen in the future, in my head where I assume the alpha wolf role if I need to put myself in a situation where I have to talk to someone or I think someone is going to talk to me. These thoughts have been going on for as long as I can remember, now that I realize they have been going on. I am not working now, but I really feel like this is the reason I come undone when working.

The thoughts happen in my work and personal life. They can range from things like conversations to actually imagining something is going to happen. What I mean by imagining things that could happen, for example, is actual part of a day. It can be from dealing with a customer to talking to family. I would say that all these "things" are completely negative and set me up for failure.

Am I completely out of my mind? Do you guys deal with things like this? What do I do to stop it? I may not have explained it in the best way, but this is one of those things that is hard as heck to explain.

You're not out of your mind. I think it is normal to play out scenerios or have conversations with yourself in your mind. That's just thinking as long as you know it is you. Be aware of your experiences though, don't make them create unreasonable patterns in your mind but, don't let them be shaped by your beliefs either. Just be aware.

Now that you're aware of these thoughts you mentioned and how they effect you, you can work on changing your thoughts, start asking yourself questions when you have self defeating thoughts, follow a logical path in your mind and develop a more realistic perception based on that rationality. If it helps, think about what you would say to a friend dealing with this. Is that what you're doing to yourself?

When you catch yourself in those habits, acknowledge and move on to something else if you can't get into questioning it, start thinking about lunch, or your favorite tv show, book, pet, friends or family, whatever. Remember where you are and what you're doing and accept it as it is.

I used to think so negatively and just get stuck on things because that is how I felt then, I started to be more rational about the world. Emotions can't drive a person crazy! I'm smart so, why not use my brain rather than senses to figure things out? I think emotions are just a survival thing. Find for a quick reaction and to gather impressions about things but, shouldn't be used to run your life. When you're stuck in negativity you're feeding negative emotions.

sounds very familiar. I play things out in my head all of the time.

You are not alone, I have full fledged conversations with people in my head all the time. I've always considered it a symptom of my anxiety, since it gets worse when I am anxious. When I was younger it just seemed like a form of daydreaming.

The downside to this habit is when I have conversations with people in my head, for example with my new doctor, in my mind we have covered anything I want to discuss but when I speak to him in person, I am caught off guard by what he says, since that is not at all the way the conversation went in my mind!

hey john. are you on any meds? I only ask because when I finally started on meds these "conversations" slowed down quite a lot for me. it was like, hey I didn't know they COULD be stopped until they did.

I am on medication, have been on just about every medication possible (maybe not every combination though).

These things I play out in my mind feel like I have no control over them. They just start up out of nowhere and without cause.

There have been several instances where my thoughts with actually make me get angry with someone for no real reason. For example, I can meet a friend of a friend, or even a person at random, and start having these conversations with myself and can actually talk myself into hating them (or talk myself into thinking that the person is out to get me), without them even saying anything. Another example of something I do is I start cursing someone out in my head and then play out the hostility or anger at the person. Something else that comes to mind is if I have to do something like call someone I play it out in my head, making the worst of it and will actually feel embarrassed or foolish or something to that extent (something as weird as this will prevent me from doing what I need to, i.e. like making the call).

I will add more examples as I figure out how to explain them. I have been trying to explain this to my psychiatrist, but this is really the first time I've been able to explain any of what is going on to anyone or even myself for that matter.

Sorry for the long reply to a simple question, just writing this out so I can better understand it and explain it to my Pdoc.

in my 1st week in mindfulness therapy, my T asked me to just notice the self talk that goes on in my head.

i was suprised about how much went on that i never really noticed. so this is good that you are noticing it.

we all know the power of the subconscious, so once you're aware of it you can slowly begin to change it. you can learn to add in your rational fully conscious self's thoughts into the convo's. and you can learn to add more positive self talk because thoughts do have a lot to do with reality we create.

another thing we did in the mindfulness therapy was work with breathing techniques. this is useful because you focus on something other than your thoughts when you have to focus on breathing. she started with having me focus on my natural breath not trying to change it. then we advanced to some more *very cool* techniques like focusing on the small space in between breath in and breath out. (she said that was the breath buddha was doing when he he reached enlightenment - i still get tingles when i do that one)

Is this a bipolar thing, or simply a personality quirk? I've done this stuff all my life, and yeah, I sometimes get stuck in a negative groove, like an old phonograph needle.

Sheesh......I really am grateful to have found this forum, as there's always somebody around here who experiences certain situations as I do, or has odd little thoughts and moods.

I don't know if it is a bipolar thing or if it is a personality quirk. I googled it and didn't come up with a specific tie to bipolar disorder, so I posted it here to find out.

I think it may be anxiety related. The reason I think that is because in past relationships I imagine girlfriends telling me terrible things like they cheated on me or other things that I don't think I can post here. The thoughts are so intense that I start believing them and end the relationship.

I've also been caught off guard by conversations sometimes because I feel like they have already taken place, but this time they don't go anything like I thought they did. The other side to this is that I have extremely vivid dreams and feel like things have happened when they were really just a dream, very hard to determine what really happened and what was a dream.

Yes, I run through scenarios and conversations all the time. Sometimes it's just basic, other times like I'm giving an interview. Sometimes I can run it through my head just fine, other times I talk to myself and pace in circles... it all depends.

But I do put myself down a lot. It's pretty common for me.

John, thinking can be changed. I just got a book "The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder." It is supposed to help you learn how to be aware of what you are thinking, why, and how to change your thoughts. I got it at Amazon for about $22.

I have conversations in my head too and really vivid dreams where once I had to ring a friend to make sure it hadn't really happened. I find writing in a journal helps me to process things in a better way and reduces the need for those kind of conversations. I also try to be strict with myself over what is real and what comes from my negative thoughts. This is where the journalling can really help.

I think everyone rehearses/imagines conversations/interactions to greater or lesser degrees. So, in that sense, it's totally normal. But when it's having negative impact, then it's a problem, and like others have mentioned... "mindfulness", being in the present, all that stuff is a good approach to deal with it. Then there are the tapes in our heads. Mine are very noisy too. And negative. A lot of them have been playing so long, they're default.

Imagining all sorts of situations? Oh yeah. If there's a possibility -- no matter how unlikely -- I've probably run it around and around along with 300 others. Worst possible? Of course! Special consideration given there. Drives BF up a wall. "Over-thinking", he says. Haha, he's said, "nobody thinks like that!" to which of course I reply, "well somebody must, because I do!". Unlike some of what you describe, mine don't make me project onto situations so much as somehow feel "prepared". It's probably not as useful as I'd like to think, though. I've had far better luck recognizing "tapes" to challenge them. The 10,000 possible scenarios whirling 'round and 'round is out of control. (I have other issues besides BP, which probably don't help.)

Anyway! Being aware of them is a big deal, so good for you, johnf! We have to recognize them before we can work on them, you know?

I took you up on the recommendation and bought the book, thanks.

Know the feeling of being let down by the conversation, because it's totally different from the one I had in my mind.

I just wanted to add something else to this thread to keep myself aware of what is going on. I finally started to write in a journal today and noticed another element that I need to change. There have been many times that I have let people influence what I think and how I feel.

The last job I worked at had a stigma that the owner was out to take advantage of you and that he was generally underhanded. People would come up with all kinds of stories and start all types of rumors, but for some reason I would let all these stories/rumors run wild in my mind. What I mean by that is I would actually take them seriously and start making up more nonsense. I would let every word people said, and what I added, stress me out and build to a level where I broke.

Things like this happen very often in my life, business and personal, and always end bad for me. It makes no sense to me that I would get all bent out of shape over things that probably aren't true and may not even have anything to do with me at all. I guess what I am saying is that it is amazing how your imagination, if you focus on the negative, can create such pain and cause you to act so foolishly.

Not sure if this is a bipolar thing or not. I tend to be rather gullible. But it depends on the person talking to me. Like I can always tell when my dad is telling me tales just to try to get me. I know he's like that and I grew up with him, so I know when he's trying to pull my leg. But my husband is that way, too. But I can't tell when he's pulling my leg. He could tell me the sky turned purple and I would go check. LOL.

But I think that's just me.

On the other hand, it says people with bipolar have poor judgement (which causes risk taking.) But I know it causes other problems. Like I think that's why I had so much trouble holding a job. My reasoning skills weren't what I thought they were. It seemed perfectly reasonable to quit a job at a store because I didn't want to offer people the company credit card if they spent so much money. Or to quit because "it wasn't a real enough job." Or other stupid reasons like that. So maybe believing rumors has something to do with that.

As for them getting you all upset, I have repetitive obsesive and racing thoughts. When something upsets me it races through my head on a continuous loop and makes me feel like I'm going crazy. Sometimes these thoughts last only a day or a few hours, but more likely they can be troublesom for me for weeks, months, and even years. I used to replay all the bad things that happened to me in Junior high/ high school every night and couldn't sleep due to obsessing over the past. I did this until I was 25 years old! Thankfully all of that I've put behind me now, but whenever something bad happens I just find myself trapped in the loop.

So, I would say because it has a negative impact on your life, that's something you should tell your doctor.

I think that you have been in my head. I do have conversations in my head and they greatly impact my mood and behaviors. I am on meds and they do help. I often have to stop and do a reality check.

I am not good at expressing my feelings therefore, I express them internally and have conversations with people who I need to talk to face face. By doing this I get angrier and damage the relationships I am in.

I have the same issue with the endless loop, it really annoys the heck out of me. I seem to play embarrassing and negative events over and over, sometimes from as far back as my childhood. They just pop on and start playing out of nowhere, the worst part is when they happen in middle of conversations with people.

I have been through so many doctos and I settled on the one I am with now because he is the only one who has made any kind of progress. That being said, I try to explain these things to my doctor and I feel like I can get the same response/advice from a potted plant. If I can get a job and get myself on track, I am going to start the hunt for a new doc.

People with bipolar don't inherently have poor judgement. This comes into play when you are in mania or severe depression. Between episodes this is not true.

OMG John its as if you were reading my mind lol....and I still havent found a name for what in the world goes on inside my head, but luckily, when I started taking Topamax, it controls it alot....
Myself talks to myself in my head, although one of myselfs is quite negative if that makes sense....I will think about how things could play out, or what I think someone is doing, or something someone did and get myself all worked up about it...and I will try and rationalize with my negative self and say that its not true, or stop it, and the little negative self voice says "but it could be"......for example.....
my boyfriend has dated girls in the past that never worked, etc. and has always taken care of them. Well I have a career and have never asked anything of him....the negative little voice tells me that they have something I dont so thats why he doesnt take care of me like he did them, or it will go the other end and say the only reason he is with me is because I can keep up my end of the bills.....both thoughts are totally wrong and my rational self knows this, but when Im off my meds (and before my diagnosis, I would obsess over this). And so many other crazy things I could tell you that used to race through my mind that my negative self would try and convince me was real.....I hope you find the right mix of meds, because I know how frustrating these thoughts can be....

Thank you and I really hope I get on the right mix of meds, too.