I can't believe the way I think sometimes

[confusedbroken]

Not sure if this is anxiety or depression related.

I had this weird trigger tonight after seeing the UFC highlights. Weird, but I have had things like this before. I saw this guy whose face was bleeding and puffed out and I started to feel sick. Then I started to get nervous and think about how people are just kind of bestial awful concoctions who do horrible, meaningless things. How violence and sexual contact even are so bestial and obscene.

I then began to feel anxious/depressed about how people are just made up of organs and skeletons and blood and have bodily functions and how their bodies can just become diseased and how life can be so meaningless and obscene. I started to feel nervous about my own body and life and death.

I sometimes get upset because I feel like our parents gave birth to us to just die and have essentially murdered us. I can't understand how I can be feeling relatively "normal" and go for a walk and make dinner one minute and then a few hours later be freaking out about this stuff.

I'm almost embarrassed to post this now because it seems so bizarre for someone to have thoughts like this but I sometimes find them overwhelming and scary.

[watercolor]

I understand what you mean about being upset about our physical nature and how it seems we are so bound to it or even limited by it. I also understand the more immediate anxiety about seeing someone who is badly injured. Anyway, I don’t think being upset about something like that is necessarily in itself so “weird” or “bizarre.” Don’t misunderstand—I’m not trying to undermine the importance of your experience because it sounds like it was truly upsetting, maybe even capable of triggering a depression/anxiety—by the way, it’s hard to extricate the two at times because it’s very possible (as I have) to experience both depression and anxiety at the same time. Anyway, I just don’t think you need to feel too alienated by your experience on top of being upset by the experience itself.

I’m kind of a pessimist myself, but sometimes it helps to think of how the body can be celebrated as something beautiful. Think of all the artists and sculptors, especially in the Renaissance I guess, who have undertaken great pains to portray the human body. So, if it helps, maybe instead of thinking of all our blood and guts, think of Michelangeo’s sculpture David or his painting The Creation of Adam. Or for a woman body Titian’s Venus of Urbino. One of my favorite contemporary celebrations of the human body is the Icelandic pop singer Bjork’s song “I See Who You Are.” One line goes, “Let’s celebrate now / All this flesh on our bones / Let me push you / Up against me tightly / And enjoy every bit of you…” It's a beautiful song that, like I said, celebrates our physical nature.

In any case, I do hope you feel better.

[Guest ASchwartz]

Hi Confusedbroken,

It sounds to me like it would be a good idea for you to not watch the UFC because it sets off (triggers) too much for you. How about just not watching it?

Allan

[confusedbroken]

Thanks both of you for your help.

I see that perhaps my post may have seemed slightly misleading. While that particular image was a trigger for me, my concern is more that I even have these kind of thoughts, sometimes without even any trigger. Unfortunately, it is not solely the fault of watching something like that.

I find it's kind of a screwed up domino effect where my brain starts thinking negatively and I get anxious and it goes from one thing to the next that I am upset about. I feel like I can't handle coping with anything because I just get into this spiral of negative thoughts as soon as I'm triggered. Another big trigger for me is hearing someone discuss knowing someone with a disease or something. I get so nervous that I sometimes have to chant in my head.

I am not sure what it is, but I seem to have no coping skills for dealing with negative events. I sort of got off topic here, but I guess I am trying to explain my anxiety and depression in a bigger picture.

Thanks again!