Over Thinking Anxiety? Need help please!

[mluciano888]

I am having a problem and it has been going on for a few years now or at least as long as I can remember. I tend to really over think things mainly concerning my girlfriend. For example if my girlfriend sends a picture of herself to me instead of looking at her beautiful self, I tend to look around elsewhere to see where she is what she is up to. Like once she sent me a picture of her and instead of saying oh nice picture! I instead looked at the picture and noticed she using a different set of car keys that were next to her in the picture which I knew from that she is borrowing a car from a friend that I don't like the fact that she is. That is when it comes to pictures, as for text messages anything she sends me or at least anything she doesn't say to me I end up as well overreacting. What I am mean by this is if she doesn't reply to my text message right away or at least within a few hours I tend to freak out and start thinking to myself IS SHE OK? IS SHE ANGRY AT ME? and these thoughts keep coming repeatedly and I continue to go deeper into the details of the situation and it makes me go insane to the point that I begin to have trouble breathing and no longer am thinking clearly and begin to act like an idiot. Resulting me to begin to send her so many messages and trying to call her and still no answer or reply makes me worry or over think even more. When in reality she just overslept or was busy in a meeting, or something along those lines. Also at times she can say that she is going to be sleeping early tonight after she took a shower and normally once either one of us do we tend to say good night to each other. She usually takes an hour long shower, so as I sit and wait for her to say good night Instead I notice an hour later that she posts something online and this told me that she finished her shower but after I sent her messages during that time she did not reply. This resulted in me thinking that there is no way she forgot about me and its not like she didn't notice my messages I was sending her, even I tried calling her and she did not answer. I started freaking out, unsure of the reason behind her silence and I continued sending her so many messages mainly stating how I feel she doesn't care for me or stupid stuff like that. During this time I was feeling angry and confused, this craziness lasted me from that point on until around five hours later. This results in depending on the time of day either my inability to sleep because I keep thinking and thinking and cannot sleep, or if I'm in class in my college I can't focus on the teacher or my work, or even at my job I can't think straight thinking both of what had just happened and regretting what I had did or said. Sometimes when I am home after all the things I have mentioned happened I tend to pray and most of the times in result she sent me a message. This led me to think praying helps my situation and every time I have this problem I pray, yet sadly not every time does it work. My girlfriend understands my problem and shes always there willing to help (Except for when its that time of the month for her, my over thinking things results in a huge fight and almost ends in us separating) I have no idea what exactly the problem I am having is and what there is to do to fix it. Doctors recommended medicine but both my parents and my girlfriend do not want me taking medicine, especially knowing they have bad side effects. I really prefer not relying on medication for my problem but at the same time I really want to help resolve this problem both for myself and my girlfriend. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated and I thank all in advance!

[mluciano888]

I will try what you said, thanks again for the help and advice!

[mele48]

Overthinking is very common for people who struggle with anxiety.  I can appreciate your concerns about taking medication.  Yes, many medications have side effects that can be a bummer.  It comes down to a personal choice between you and your doctor.  While getting opinions and information can be helpful, don't be afraid to reach out for options that are good for you that others may disagree with.

That being said, have you sought out counseling?  If not, I would really encourage you to do so.  Counseling has been invaluable to me in retraining my brain and giving me good coping skills.

In the meantime, try finding things to distract yourself when you find yourself in that situation.  If you already have your phone in hand, listen to some music, play a game (I like Fruit Ninja!), hop on YouTube and find some music videos or funny dog videos to watch.  

Hang in there!