self-criticism

For the most part, my pattern of anxiety involves:

(1) doing or saying something (for example, making a work-related presentation, or having an important conversation with someone, or making some comment in a public setting, or maybe sending an email message),

(2) afterward, intensely regretting what I did or said, and worrying about the potential consequences,

(3) then replaying the events -- what I said, for example -- over and over and over again, in my mind, and also replaying what I should have said, maybe a hundred or a thousand times, and

(4) castigating myself for my mistake/error of judgment/stupidity/failure to adequately prepare, etc.

When this happens -- as it does far too often -- I cannot think about anything else. The thoughts and worry and regret and self-recrimination are with me all day. Sleep, if I can manage to fall asleep, is the only respite. The minute I wake up, my thoughts return to the dumb mistake I made, how I could have done it better, etc.

I have tried various ways to deal with this, including CBT (with two different, very well qualified psychologists), reading various books about anxiety, doing various exercises, reading forums, and even trying meditation. Through all of this, I have found some temporary relief -- and a better understanding of my thought patterns, including the related biochemistry. But this stuff keeps happening. It is the same pattern over and over again; only the specific details change. I am still able to function, but this pattern is extremely distressing and certainly impairs the quality of my life.

If any of you have any insights about this, I would be interested.

And if any of you suffer from the same sort of pattern of anxiety (or obsessive thinking), I would be particularly interested to hear from you. It can be helpful to compare experiences with those who suffer in the same way...

Post Edited (medved) : 1/6/2019 8:09:16 PM (GMT-7)

Great post. I totally relate. The worst is if you go out and have a couple drinks with people, especially coworkers, and later on you get all these thoughts. I hate that. I agree with weary, we must have a lack of confidence. I wish I knew how to get the thoughts out of my head - I find avoiding those situations to be the best way, but it's not necessarily a good long-term plan for our careers. The interesting part is that I know some people who are much less experienced, have less reason to be confident, say dumb things, do dumb things, and they are the most confident people on the planet. Go figure. My mother was always very concerned with what people thought, maybe it rubbed off on me in this way. I hate to blame something so far in the past, and it also feels like an excuse, but it's the only thing I can relate to this.

It seems that one of the things that may be going on, is, what was going on with me, in that unconsciously I was negative, because of the way I was raised and maybe my bipolar/anxiety.

There was a story about being positive before going into a problem with the belief that you could solve it. I didn’t know it, but before I had been thinking I couldn’t solve it, and this set my unconscious to looking for a way to fail, because my conscious had programed my unconscious to look for that, because that was the way I was taught to look at problems, as practically unsolvable.

After I read the column, I would tell myself to not look at the problem first, but to first look at my attitude, saying over and over, “Think positive, think positive, think positive” to drive out any negative in my unconscious that I couldn’t see. Only then did I start to think about the problem. Then pick the best solution that my conscious had come up with.

And it worked. I had been unconsciously negative and had been tripping myself up for many years.

If you’re going back over everything you’ve said, you seem to be looking for a way to trip yourself up, even after a conversation is over.

You could be thinking positive, and looking for the next goal to conquer.

But your unconscious is merely obeying orders from your conscious, of looking for ways to fail. Flip the switch on your unconscious by saying over and over, “think positive…” and only then thinking of the problem.

Picking the best solution your conscious comes up with, making sure your unconscious doesn’t knock it down by saying. “That won’t work, because….” Override that before it arises.

All this has worked for me.