Find a way to post something positive that you have done for yourself, tomorrow.

Thanks Sichuan. This what I am looking for needs to be done immediately when I start having the cycle full of negative thoughts but I don't know what to do.

Reading a list of affirmations works for me sometimes - as well as doing something distracting that involves my mind.

I'm sorry you're having such a difficult time. For me personally I feel doing something that usually makes me happy (although we all know with depression that things that usually make us happy, can have the possibility of not working depending on how down we feel). For me, that would be listening to a positive song, going for a walk, cooking or doing something for someone special because it makes me feel good. If those don't work, while I'm not much of a humorous person, I find that even unwelcomed humor tends to help. Jokes, a funny friend, a funny show etc... Even though I'm not very comedic, everyone loves a nice laugh now and then and it tends to distract us for a moment at least; which may be the moment that can help you out of the spiral you may be encountering. Best of luck. My thoughts are with you.

Thanks Debbalina and BE0312. Haven't tried with a list of affirmations. It sounds like a good idea. I cannot do the suggestions you mentioned BE0312 because I feel so bad I cannot do anything, that is why I am asking this question. I tend to go really down when I am sad. I am a rape survivor too.

Hi positiveoutcome, I definitely understand where you're coming from. The thoughts just keep coming, you get so wrapped up in them, and it just makes the anxiety and depression feel darker and darker. I do this one visualization, and sometimes it helps me. I think of all those negative thoughts as balloons that are attached to me by strings. I actually visualize cutting the strings, and watching the thoughts drift away. It keeps me from getting "tangled" in all the negative. Sounds a little weird, but it does seem to help.

Well as one great philosopher said, you do the opposite, so you think positive thoughts. You do shift your thinking and all of a sudden, it's different, your outlook changes. Sometimes though, even though people want to judge negative thoughts, I kind of think of it as reality. Sometimes reality is ugly, but it's part of life. Not everything is going to be sunshine and roses, welcome to the real world, and people who are constantly happy and never seem upset, or are constantly seen on fb smiling with everyone in the pictures(i have a person like this on my fb) I just want to throw up, that's not reality. lol. So much for my non negative thoughts, but seriously, it's not really as bad as it seems, just don't let it ruin your whole day, you know what I mean, shit happens, fix it, move on.

Have you been to counseling to get at the root of what's really bothering you? The better you feel about yourself will help you to think more positive thoughts about everything. Try starting with one thing that is positive and try to focus on it for a few minutes and feel positive about it. It takes work not to just brush it off and go on to something negative again. Hoping you have a better day.

listen to this for awhile, it's what I do and may help. http://wclv.ideastream.org/

Normally when I feel I can't get out of a funk, I have to force myself to do things, I have a pretty strong motivation within me so that if I fall I'm never out for too long. As for the negative thoughts, I get them a lot concerning my past too, all I have for that is to distract myself to the point where I have genuinely forgotten about it and it won't pop back in my head.

Hi, thank you for all of your replies. I cannot fix my rape soon. Have been dealing with it for 10 years now because there is no help in my country, thus have been having sessions via online. Going to check out the link you shared djchurn. Have been dealing with depression for almost 2 decades and have pushed myself the entire time, but I get tired and frustrated of dealing with it and not finding the way out.

Identifying that you are doing this is part of winning against it. Knowing it's happening, and then asking yourself what it is triggering. Why this all comes with that one small event.

Sometimes we have to grieve for ourselves. by which I mean wallow and cry. Go to bed and weep, and 'be too sick to work' for an entire week. Just lie there, recuperate, sleep, rest, and cry. Everyone distracts themselves from their pain nowadays and there are many opportunities for this kind of escape, but it's far more efficient to accept and experience your pain. If you do it right, you only have to do that once. But if you repress and block, you have to spend energy doing that for the rest of your life, and meanwhile everything else goes screwy on you too.

So it's 'cheapest' to bite the bullet and just let our bodies process that baggage, because carrying it around with us means everything that happens is the straw that breaks the camel's back all the time.

Thanks bridgie. I also have done that , but still it is difficult. My practitioner said that an event that happened to me at 12 which started my negative thoughts and the one after I was raped magnified my reaction to this last event.

My therapist through out an interesting question to me about my negative thoughts. She asked, "what function do you think they serve?" I really didn't have an answer but we talked about it and thought they 1) are protecting me from rejection 2) are there to make me suffer and thus try and motivate me into action 3) help me to avoid risk. Your answers may be entirely different. And Im not even sure those are the right answers for me. But it made me ponder a bit. Hugs.

Positiveoutcome you haven't done it, because if you had done it, it would be done. The thorn is still in your foot. You haven't done what it takes to remove it.

You might hav gouged holes in your foot looking for it, you might have got half of it out. But you're still in pain. The thorn, or some part of it, is still there, and you still have to get it out the same way we all have to get thorns out.

This stuff is physical. it's not intellectual. You can't rationalise your way through your feelings. You can't think your way out of this fix. It's like doing a pooh: your body will do it for you if you just stay out of the way.

All we've done with our higher education and our sophisticated help in this last 2 centuries is learn to block ourselves and interfere with our own growth and healing processes. We've only learned how to get in our way and wonder why we don't progress. Imagine you are cave woman. What would cave woman do?