Highly Sensitive People HSP Community Group
The highly sensitive person (or HSP) is someone who cares deeply about everything ... feels emotions with great intensity ... is highly conscientious ... has a rich and complex inner life ... is very intuitive ... is often creative in a variety of ways... is easily overwhelmed and/or overstimulated. A HSP needs lots of quiet time,space, and freedom. If this sounds...
How do you take control of the constant worrying. Maybe you dont have this problem. But i find myself worrying about almost everything. For example, my friend can have drove across town and i want her to text me when she gets there so i know shes ok. But if she doesnt text me then i brush it off that she just didnt have time to text by time she got there. but then i cant shrug it and i text her because i just keep thinking worse and worse and worse. and i feel like a nag but i just get very bad feelings and i feel like if i dont worry and try to contact her then something will have happened (its almost like a superstition i guess...). if that makes any sense. but it happens with everything. I could be at work and maybe i was annoyed by something and so i took it out on someone else and instead of being like everyone else and just letting it blow over (cause most people forget about that stuff anyway) i will think about it for hours and hours and either end up apologizing or trying to talk about it or just finally have it go away after thinking about it forever (but it all depends on how my relationship is with that person). I just wish i could shake it. Im that person that goes out and will have some drinks with friends but if a disagreement breaks out with someone (it could be minor) i will be thinking about it all the next day and feeling almost depressed because i feel i may have hurt someone or caused a problem or been "that" drunk. But yet everyone else has already forgot about it. Oy..it becomes very stressful. Everyone keeps saying to embrace our sensitivities but how do you do that when outcomes make you feel this way or if those closest to you dont understand and will constantly get mad at you or call you dramatic when you do express emotion.
Im sorry if my posts dont make any sense i just have sooo much going on in my head and so many questions and things i want to vent about that i just dont know where to start. ive never had anyone who actually understands what im saying. Instead its the opposite. anytime i do try to talk to those around me i feel like to them its always a bunch of excuses for my actions.
Im sorry if my posts dont make any sense i just have sooo much going on in my head and so many questions and things i want to vent about that i just dont know where to start. ive never had anyone who actually understands what im saying. Instead its the opposite. anytime i do try to talk to those around me i feel like to them its always a bunch of excuses for my actions.
Janvier - good advice. It is very hard to get that control over worry. I don't know that there is any magical solution. I think we can lessen it but the tendency to worry, or obsess over a situation, etc. is always there. This is where we have to learn to play 'mind tricks' in our own head. I like the idea of mantras - they keep the mind occupied. Also keeping active and doing something with our hands can help. It's a learning process all over again.
It is extremely hard to stop this behavior because in an odd way it is soothing cause we are ruminating the thoughts till we eventually have driven it out of our heads. The long process though is exhausting. I cannot tell you how to stop but maybe tell you what I tried and what helped.
First of all - Nothing ever will happen because of something you did not do. You know why? very simple: from nothing comes nothing. So if you do not call she or he or they will do what they would have done anyways.
Second - argue it out by all means but set a time limit, I know it sounds weird but try it. Say I think about this for ten minutes and then that's it. If you catch yourself thinking again read a book, listen to music, do some work, write make a phonecall to someone, play a game anything you like.
Third - Nobody is perfect and nobody ever will be. You will make mistakes, apologize once and go on. Believe me once is enough, if you have the need to do it again, write it down in a book which you keep.
Last but not least - give it up to the universe. It happened, you apologized, you felt bad, now it's out of your hands. You did what you could.
You are not dramatic you are HSP and you just need to have some help like we all do at times to calm and deal with situations. It takes time to get the hang of living peacefully within oneself.
I would tell my husband to leave me alone and let me go through this. There was no way I could avoid, stop, go around, prevent an episode. I had to go through it, not around it. Then I knew I would be OK.
And the darndest thing is that these things or people that put me into such a state - well, nothing ever came of the situations, etc. They went on as if nothing happened or mattered to them, it was I that suffered.
Wow - when I think of these in retrospect, I am absolutely floored about my reactions, etc. Been there - done that - hated it. That's about all I can say!
Just like what Cryingbehind describes I get stuck on a 'track'
Sometimes it takes me a while to realize I am actually on a 'track' It will slowly dawn on me that I may have been thinking about something for hours...even days. Sometimes my husband will point out that I have been talking about something (something I am worrying about or upset about) for 30 minutes. he thinks 30 minutes is too long to be 'stuck'
And it is. And I like what Bennu says. giving a time limit is a great idea.
Sometimes my husband may say "I thought this was all over and done with" LOL bless him, he doesn't quite get it, but he is a great calming presence in my life. and he will help me to get off the track.
He will say things like 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it' or "don't pay any attention to what anyone else says or thinks" or "it will be ok". When he says those thing it does help me. At least I know I have an ally in him.
Trying to practice being in the present is something I have been trying to do. Yesterday has gone, tomorrow hasn't come. there is only 'now'. When I remind myself to be 'present' it does help. For example just this morning I was cleaning my teeth and my mind was thinking about a zillion things. I caught myself in the midst of my worrying. I brought myself to the action of cleaning my teeth, watching myself in the mirror, being aware of how it felt. just for those few seconds I was being "present" and I had managed to de-rail the thinking.
I think about all the wasted energy of worrying. It is exhausting.
I feel for those of us here who have this.
There is so much wisdom in this group! You are not alone in constant worry, most of what I do is worrying, I am only now (since discovering this amazing group) learning how to begin fighting worry. One reply that really struck me was Crying's when she quite rightly said that most people we have worried about carry on regardless of how much we worried! So when I see people reacting like that I rightly or wrongly think "why did I even bother worrying? If they can so quickly move on from their own problems, quicker than I have moved on, then what was the point?!" And I no that anxiety for us is natural, we don't intend to worry, but I think constantly appraising and reflecting on our reactions is helpful.
I worry about things that haven't even happened yet, or might never happen. For example I worry about arguments brewing because I have sensed negativity between 2 people or observed dodgy body language, and anxiety in that case is not useful. At all. So maybe the next thing we need to do is worry about ourselves. My aunt tells me "the only people's problems you can solve are your own"