One of the strangest things about anxiety, and something I do not hear many people talk about, is how completely it can take over the way you think.

When I was at my worst, I could not think about anything else. Not just when symptoms were strong. Literally all the time. My mind was locked into survival mode from the moment I woke up until I eventually fell asleep again.

Every sensation triggered a reaction or a thought. Every feeling in my body came with a question attached to it. What if this means something is wrong. What if I am about to collapse. What if this time it is not anxiety and it really is a heart attack. My thoughts were no longer mine, I didn't recognise myself. They were circling constantly, scanning my body, searching for danger and trying to work out how to keep me safe or fix the problem.

The Anxiety Loop

This wasn't me just overthinking or being a hypercondriac. It was my nervous system stuck in protection mode. My brain believed I was under threat so it did exactly what it was designed to do. Try to protect me. The problem was that it never switched off which fueled the cycle.

What confused me most was how much anxiety changed my inner world. I actually forgot what I used to think about before all of this started. Walking or running used to be my time to think about my plans for the future, to brainstorm or think where I was going to watch Arsenal later or what was for dinner.

But I couldn't remember how to think normally. That might sound strange but it is true. I was going out for walks and every walk felt the same, ike I was a zombie. I was not present noticing the scenery or letting my mind wander. I was not daydreaming or thinking about life. I was walking and thinking about my anxiety, I was in a state of panic and survival.

I was checking my breathing, monitoring how dizzy I felt, wondering whether I would make it back home without collapsing. Constantly assessing my health. After doing that day after day, (not out of choice!) it became my default way of thinking. I genuinely could not remember what my thoughts used to sound like before anxiety took over. I felt so lost and confused and that I was stuck like this forever.

This wasn't just out walking either, this was a constant state of being It took over my every waking hour, I couldn't function, I couldn't drive, I couldn't anser the phone, I couldn't write an email, I could barely shower and brush my teeth I was so scared.

Recently though something has started to change.

When I go out for a walk now I still have anxious sensations. I still get the odd intrusive thought or uncomfortable feeling in my body. But the difference is that I am no longer consumed by it. My attention does not stay locked on every sensation anymore.

I might notice something feels off and that familiar thought pattern tries to start up, but I have learned to interrupt it. And when I can do that, my mind is able to drift elsewhere.

I start thinking about what I am doing later, or an idea for my blog, or something completely ordinary and unrelated. Sometimes I suddenly realise that I have not thought about anxiety for several minutes. That might not sound like much, but when you have lived in constant survival mode it feels huge.

This is what recovery often looks like.

It does not make a big dramatic entrance "hey, Im healthy again". It does not arrive with a moment where everything suddenly feels better. It tends to show up quietly. Anxiety may still be present, but it takes up less space. It is no longer all consuming. The thoughts and sensations still appear, but they no longer dominate every second of your awareness.

Your nervous system slowly begins to realise that it does not need to stay on high alert all the time. And as that sense of safety grows, your thinking starts to change naturally. Not because you force it and not because you think positively, but because your body no longer believes you are in danger.

For a long time I think I was trying to force healing, I couldn't work out why I was so negative in my thinking and unable to shift it. I was searching for a fix, constantly analysing myself, rather than allowing the sensations to be there and letting my system settle in its own time.

Looking back now I can see that my mind was never broken. It was exhausted from trying to protect me every minute of the day. I was not weak. I had not lost who I was. I was simply living inside a nervous system that believed something terrible was about to happen at any moment.

One thing I have learned along the way is that this shift does not just happen on its own. It comes from repeatedly breaking the anxiety cycle, even when that feels incredibly difficult.

When anxiety takes hold your thoughts fall into a familiar loop. A sensation appears and the mind checks and so the body reacts, followed by fear. Before you know it you are back in survival mode again.The same pattern repeating over and over and over again.

Breaking the Anxiety Loop

Breaking that loop is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

You do not break it once and suddenly feel free. You break it and then fall back into it. Then you break it again. Then anxiety pulls you back once more and you interrupt it again. And again. And again.

That in itself is exhausting. It can feel like two systems fighting each other. Your nervous system pulling you toward fear while your logical mind tries to move you forward and away from it.

This is the part people rarely talk about.

Recovery is not about never feeling anxious. It is about recognising when the pattern has taken over and gently stepping out of it. Redirecting attention. Letting sensations be there without analysing them. Choosing not to follow every what if thought your mind throws at you.

Some days you manage it better than others. Some days you feel like you have gone backwards. But every time you interrupt the pattern, even briefly, you teach your nervous system something important.

This does not need my full attention anymore.

Those moments begin to add up. Over time anxiety loses its grip, not because it disappears, but because you stop feeding the same cycle again and again. The fear shortens. The thoughts soften. The recovery time becomes quicker. You are no longer consumed by it twenty four seven.

Slowly, almost without noticing, your mind begins to open back up.

You realise you are thinking about life again. About the world around you. About plans, ideas and ordinary moments. You begin to feel like yourself again.

Writing this blog has been a big part of my recovery. It has helped me understand what was driving the anxiety and reflect on what has helped and what has not. It has also given me a creative outlet, something that pulls my focus outward instead of inward toward my body.

It has been one of the ways I have broken the pattern of anxiety.

How to interrupt Anxious thoughts and sensations

There have been other less conventional methods too. Some of them are not easy, especially when you are in a state of panic, but sometimes you have to do things that feel uncomfortable to interrupt the cycle, almost shocking the system.

I have screamed into a pillow four or five times in a row. I have spun around in circles and touched the floor. Not because they fixed anxiety, but because they bought me a few seconds of separation from the thought loop.

I learned that doing familiar things often did not work. My brain already knew them and dismissed them. Doing something unfamiliar forced my attention elsewhere.

That led me to longer pattern interruptions. Building Lego and Drawing. Moving my body differently. Sometimes I would put music on in my room and dance on my own, something I never would have done before. But it shifted the focus, changed the sensory input and allowed my system to soften slightly.

Running towads the panic has helped too. Instead of running away from it. By that I mean making yourself do things inspite of the discomfort and panic. By avoiding the panic or situatons that cause the discomfort we are renforcing it must be dangerous. So putting yourself in those situations and going through the panic and discomfort you are teaching yourself you can go through it and survive. I took this to the extreme and massively stepped out of my current comfort zone several times in quick succession. It triggered a lot of panic attacks but each panic attack became less intense, I was able to move through them and recover quicker and recondition myself that I was safe.

Sometimes breaking the pattern can be simple. You notice yourself lying on the sofa trapped inside a thought or sensation and instead of staying there, you stand up and walk into the kitchen. You change the position. You change the environment. You change the thought and change the focus.

Once the loop is interrupted, you have to engage with something else. Otherwise the mind pulls you straight back in with the next sensation.

It is not easy.

But it works.

Rememebr the only way out is through. Face the fear, embrace the sensations and interupt the pattern.

PS just noticed as I was uploading the blog the image Chat GPT created for me, has me checking out pretty birds haha! If I'm checking out birds again I must be healing haha! Blue tits and robins of course!