Thoughts Become Things
So today’s post is about my thoughts and how thoughts become things. I think it’s quite a relevant topic to talk about. When we convince our mind of something, whether positive or negative it can have an effect on our physical state. Here I will talk about how my thoughts over the years have had an effect on all my mental health.
Full focus
The first recollection I have on my thoughts that contributed to my mental health decline was I started to fully focus on my breathing. I remember gasping for a deep breath and when I wasn’t able to fulfill that deep breath. This started to have an adverse effect on my thoughts. The more I thought about it, the worse I got.
I was trying to take a deep breath in and unable to do so, so I would try to yawn to fulfill that urge. Once I managed to yawn, I would feel satisfied but only for about five minutes. After that the effects would come on strong once again and I would repeat this cycle everyday, all day for roughly about four years.
Turning off the auto
I used to downplay these episodes off for a couple of years and just dealt with it. As they continued, my focus changed to what could be causing it.
I was putting so much focus on my breathing, I was making it worse without realising it. I was trying to control my breathing rather than let it be a natural thing. My breathing was now well out of control and I couldn’t seem to make it normal.
Enter panic attacks
Breathing is a natural thing we do everyday without ever having to think about it, but when I was in the moment of an episode of what I now know as a panic attack, it’s hard to get to that normal state. Constantly assessing myself and creating panic which fuelled the episodes even further.
So after dealing with this for over four years it began to weigh heavily on my mind and created such a sad feeling. I guess depression had set in, because when I felt I couldn’t control my breathing, I automatically assumed I had a physical illness. So I took my problems to google rather than speak to a doctor or anyone for that matter. I mean it was my problem, right?
Google doc
After countless searches on google, COPD caught my eye. The more I read into it and the symptoms associated with it, the more and more I convinced myself that this is what I had. I started to body check. Which involved pressing areas of my chest to see if I could feel changes, the more I would press the sorer my chest would become.
Without realising I was bruising my chest and focusing so much on the pain I was causing myself by the constant prodding, I convinced myself that I had a severe problem with my chest.
Adding fuel to the fire
This just fuelled the negative thoughts I already had and made my breathing worse, which made everything worse. I started to associate everything with COPD at that point. Everything from dizzy spells to muscle fatigue. All brought on from overthinking and over analysing.
The more and more I gave thought to these negative thoughts, it made my heart rate increase to the point it was beating out my chest. A feeling I put down to COPD as I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my body, or so I made myself believe.
So here I was, years of these thoughts and feelings. Convinced I had a physical illness like COPD. I started to look at how it affected my body and what the future would be like, living with this physical illness. I used to picture my children living without their dad and the effects of what it would mean. This deeply troubled me, enhancing my symptoms even further.
Speaking out
I used to think about how I would end up on oxygen and they would have to see me deteriorate over time, eventually succumbing to the illness. These thoughts were the worst and eventually after years of thinking that way I eventually hit a brick wall and spoke out, as I couldn’t deal with all this weight anymore.
I am so glad I finally found the strength to open up about what I was going through and after everything I had endured found a sense of relief after all those years. Its incredible looking back and thinking I created all that in my mind and let it escalate the way it did. The mind is a truly amazing machine and if we feed it negative thoughts then it can make us believe them.
Next week I will talk about the things I used to do to combat those negative thoughts and physical symptoms.