Hi everyone! Nice to meet you all. Hope you're all as well as possible and able to keep powering through your darker times to reach the sunnier days.

I suppose my main thing is that I spend a lot of time worrying about the future. More specifically, about all the ways the future could literally go apocalyptically, human-civilization-and-existence endingly wrong. And I don't know how to stop. For example, this evening I read the news, saw the words "North Korea" and suddenly it's hours of reading every every article I can find about nuclear war and convincing myself it's almost certainly going to happen within the next couple of years. I'm out for a walk, look around my surroundings, and just picture them in ruins. The last few years have felt like I've got a pressure cooker in my head. It feels like the world is spiralling out of control and there's nothing I can do about it. One day I feel like going full survivalist, the other I feel like doing so is utterly pointless because I don't want to live in a world of ruins.

And I hate it. I'm sick of feeling paranoid and frightened, but I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to talk to people about it without either (a) sounding absolutely ridiculous or (b) freaking them out. But I don't know how to switch it off either, so I just end up stewing in my misery and feeling like I'm wasting my finite time worrying my life away.

Anyway, that's me. Hope we all can help each other out somehow.

Welcome to the forums. I know it can be hard sometimes to reach out here, so I’m glad you did. I can hear just how anxious you’re feeling. I’ve also struggled with these same issues in the past and it often gets triggered again still. It must be really hard to live with these feelings constantly. I’m sorry that you have to go through this.

There are two things that have helped me a lot over the years to better manage this. The first is that I had to start being really strict with myself about what media I exposed myself to. I know that my mind will hook onto anything that could have even vague negative consequences, so I have to be really careful what media I consume. For me that meant no longer watching/reading any news. I also cut out tv shows and films that were based on disasters, crime, medical, etc. Anything I could catastrophise. It wasn’t easy - these days it’s so hard to get away from our 24 hour media consumption, but especially no longer going on news sites has made a big improvement in my life. I’ve noticed recently that I’ve been letting it slip a bit, and I’m really noticing the fear and catastrophising coming back. I know I need to get back on top of it because it can build up so quickly.

The other thing that I did was get some help for my anxiety, because that was what was at its core. Anxiety is a tricky thing to deal with yourself when you’re living with it in such an extreme form. I’ve been seeing a psychologist who has been teaching me lots of skills so that I can better manage my anxiety and the troubling thoughts that I get. It’s helped so much, so it’s definitely something I’d recommend considering. If you ask your GP for a Mental Health Care Plan you can see a psychologist for 10 sessions per year for free. We shouldn’t have to go through this alone and I think with this kind of thing some professional help can make a big difference.

There is also a great resource you can look at about anxiety at: https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Anxiety

Another thing to search for is ‘Cognitive Distortions’ or ‘Catastrophizing’.

I hope this helps a little. I want you to know you’re not alone in this and I understand how hard it is to manage.

Take care

Alexlisa