Muffled Thoughts

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

I am a new member to the group. I recently started reading " Get Out

of Your Mind & Into Your Life " and have found it very informative.

I want to tell you about an experience I had recently and get

feedback from you if you've had a similar experience. I've had panic

attacks/panic disorder for about 8 years. During that time I've had

difficulty " hearing " the thoughts that were in my head during panic

attacks. It seemed as though many of my thoughts were muffled or so

automatic that I couldn't decipher what my thought machine was

saying. The more I tried to " hear " what my mind was saying the more

panic I had. I just couldn't " hear " my thoughts. Then, a few days

ago, I started the Daily Pain Diary from the book, where I track my

pain and write down my thoughts during that time. I found that I

would write down 1 or 2 thoughts associated with each entry, but it

seemed like I could write literally thousands of thoughts associated

with these events. So instead of writing down all of the thoughts, I

let my mind " say " these thoughts and just listened. I couldn't

believe how many negative thoughts I had attached to these pain

events. My mind was screaming so many vile, negative thoughts -

" You're worthless " , " You're no good " , " Why can't you stop having

panic attacks " , " There is something wrong with you " , and on and on.

For whatever reason, I didn't panic. I was able to listen to these

thoughts and not react with panic. What I've noticed since then is

that I'm " hearing " my thoughts better now - its not so muffled any

more.