Monstro, I didn’t start getting hangovers until a few years into heavy drinking. And it’s not going to be an issue with a drink or two. Although mixing it with benzos could still affect you strangely.
Yeah running tv shows at night is the only way I’ve been able to get to sleep for a long time. I still struggle with insomnia on occasion, but other peoples’ voices helps drown out my inner monologue.
I find valerian to be very useful for calming racing thoughts, especially at bedtime. However, it’s recommended that you don’t combine it with SSRIs.
Come sit by me. I like your way of thinking.
Disclaimer: I have Bipolar Disorder. I have experienced everything from full on psychosis to the symptoms you describe. So lots of experience with racing/intrusive/unwanted thoughts.
I have had some success with what I call open eyed meditation. Anything that requires me to rattle around in my own head with my eyes closed does not work for me - and dont get me started on whale music.
Anyway I go with: colouring Coloring Therapy - How a Coloring Book and Crayons Can Help Dissolve Stress . I find this works best with agitation/intrusive thoughts.
Sorting. I get a whole bunch of something (beads/buttons/nails etc) and sort them into size/colour/shape whatever. Good for agitation.
mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy - Wikipedia
Mindfulness activities - Great Exercises For Enhancing Mindfulness
These things have worked for me. They may or may not work for you
Last night I laid in bed for a few seconds in complete silence. And oh my. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on my brain. I reached over and turned on my fan, which acts as my white noise machine. I hadn’t realized how much relief it provides until then.
This is all funny, but it’s sadly not motivating me.
I feel like a fairly intelligent person except whenever I go to the doctor. I don’t know what happens to me, but things never work out. The doctor asks simple questions that I don’t know the answer to or I’ll answer them awashed in shame, not wanting to go deeper. I have an idea about what’s wrong with me, but I have learned that doctors do not want to hear to stuff from the “wackjob” they are treating. No doctor I have ever visited has ever considered my hypothesis–it’s almost like they have the rebuttal prepared before I even get there. And I don’t want to come across as a hypochondriac or a know-it-all, so I just clam up. When I leave with no answers or hope, everything goes black. Things don’t go back to “right” until I swallow all the pain and return to my apathetic state.
Staying out of doctor’s offices is the only way I know to keep myself from being suicidal. I know that sounds so melodramatic, but that is the dilemma I’m in right now. I’m unable to find a doctor that doesn’t make me feel invisible and unworthy of attention. I have been to so many it has to be something about my personality that’s turning them off. Until I can fix myself, this is going to be a problem.
madrabbitwoman, I have a sketch app on my Kindle. I like to draw and I used to do it all the time. I should try it out. Maybe I can visualize the cacophony and “erase” it away.
Is it clear thoughts, with words? Or is it just buzz and chatter and a background hum? I have tinnitus and some days when it’s particularly bad, it sounds like hissing or TV static. I’m probably way off here, but is it possible the problem is your ears and not your brain? Especially since you also have balance problems…
monstro, do you have a very close friend or family member who could advocate for you at the doctor’s appointments? If you have difficulty advocating for yourself, you really need to look into finding someone who would be willing to do it for/with you. Maybe it’s too much for you to share, but if someone were to read through the posts you’ve put up over the years, and speak to you in depth in surroundings where you’re more comfortable, maybe they could help you get your message across to a doctor that counts.
Just throwing that idea out there. I would be hard pressed to find an advocate, myself, so maybe it’s too huge a suggestion, but I think if I had trouble with doctors listening to me, maybe finding someone to help would fit the bill. I wonder if there’s a local hospital advocacy program you could tap into.
I can’t speak for monstro but for me it’s actual thoughts, words and images, exactly as if I’m thinking a problem through, except meaningless. They are my own thoughts but they go off on tangents of random nonsense, a bit like dreaming. There are also occasionally parallel streams of thoughts, also nonsensical. It’s annoying but not debilitating. (It’s one of the DSM-V indicators of ADD, which is one of many reasons I’ve self-diagnosed.)
The reason I point this out is that I also have tinnitus. Most definitely not the same thing.
Like jimm said, it’s definitely a thought thing going on. I had a burst of tinnitus once, and that was an entirely different experience. A worse one, I think. I don’t know what other people’s tinnitus sounds like, but mine sounded like cicadas!
It’s kind of hard to explain. It certainly feels like an ADD experience because it is distracting, and then there’s the restlessness aspect of it. The best comparison that I can think of is a thumping baseline constantly going on in the back of my brain. But instead of an audible noise, it’s a bunch of nonsensical thoughts (repeated words and phrases). It exerts “pressure”, for lack of a better word, and depending on how tired I am, it’s vacillates between being semi-relaxing to being hellish.
SeaDragonTattoo, I am actually very fortunate. I do have someone who has been advocating for me–my psychotherapist. She has talked to all the doctors I have gone to, talking to them before and after my appointments and motivating me to do things that I don’t want to do. She is great. But she has been severely ill for the past several weeks. I have not seen her in awhile.
still thinking here.
I have the internal “noise” increase at night which can adversely affect my sleep. My solution is to never go to sleep in silence. I listen to audio-books, pod casts, YouTube - whatever. My aim is not to necessarily hear the end of what I am listening to. My aim is to go to sleep while the noise continues. So I don’t have to listen to the crap inside my own head.
I just read that article, and I’m wondering whether the nervous “urge to jump” feeling some people get when standing in a high place is really just the same kind of intrusive thoughts everyone occasionally gets.
I have no desire to hurt myself, but I occasionally end up in very high places, and have a hard time getting the image of me gleefully leaping to my death out of my head. The thought is horrifying, and I don’t get an actual urge or desire to jump, just the idea about what it would be like if I did.
Sort of similar. Only with various people talking to me over my left shoulder telling me
'you know you want to it, it wont hurt, everything will be better, it will make everyone happy…and on and on and on. Ignoring them can cause escalation until they are screaming at me And I cant Make Them Stop! Then I feel I have to something like smash my head into a wall etc…
These days I have the good sense to divert myself/deal before we get to the shouting phase.
So sort of similar and sort of not at least for me anyway.
No, getting drunk will only quiet the one voice in your head that says “I wouldn’t do that shit!”
This is a terrible idea. I’m sure you don’t need someone else to tell you this, but there’s a very good reason actual medication requires that you see a doctor, get a prescription, and receive that medication from a licensed pharmacist.
Alcohol is not medicine. Self-medicating with alcohol is one of the worst ideas ever. Nothing good can come of this. I’ve seen what happens, to a person in a similar circumstance, and it is not pretty. Do you really not see where that road leads?
Seriously. Anticholinergics. Benedryl.
Also strenuous exercise, mindful relaxation (must be done a lot and properly), and stress avoidance.