I Have General Anxiety Disorder

Dear Ms. Curtis:

I found an article on brain switching you wrote and have started using brain switching. I believe God led me to your article :)

I formed General Anxiety Disorder a couple months ago. Before this happened, I was outgoing, happy, loving life, going out with friends, and was a nanny for triplets. Now I am none of these things. I do realize that my GAD was brought on by a string of traumatic events that occurred to me literally all at once (within a 2 week period).

I'm getting a lot better, but I have developed PURE-O (a basic broken record of the same horrific intrusive thought that plays over and over in my mind all day). It is horrible in the morning, and I wake up with the shakes, and my mind races.

I have started to settle into depression, due to PURE-O and depersonalization/de-realization. Sometimes when I drive or am just sitting at home I freak out cause I say "I'm really here right now. Or, I'm really here driving." Sometimes my own voice freaks me out because it confirms I'm here. My life appears like a movie I'm watching, and I'm staring in it. The Pure-O/depersonalization/derealaztion stops me from going out with friends.

I cry a lot behind closed doors because I so desperately want to be better. I can deal with the physical pain, it's the emotion/mental pain and intrusive thoughts I can't stand. I'm anti-medication...and only do things naturally and holistically. That's why I loved your article. I have done brain switching, but found that it seems like my mind is fighting with each other. Like the "salt and pepper" thing you mentioned. I say and think "I love myself" and my mind screams back the opposite. Or that when I say "green-frog" I can still "hear" my Pure-O thought.

My fears are that I'm going to freak out one day and harm myself or someone I love. Or that I will always feel like I'm living in a dream forever. The only thing keeping me strong is my little brothers and my parents. If I didn't have them...I would be?

I just want to go back to who and how I was a couple months ago. I used to never question my existence or worry about things.

Will brain switching alone cure this? Any advice or tips you can give me would be a God send.

Thank you. C__________

Dear C___________

Brainswitching will teach you how to manage your own brain so that you are not the slave of your own brain. It may take some practice. You will not be used to ignoring thoughts that pop up by choosing another thought to think so that you don't think the negative thoughts. You will go back and forth.

The negative thought will keep popping up but you will be able to notice negative thoughts more and more quickly and be able to ignore them for longer and longer times. This is because of the neuroplasticity of the brain. You will be making new and more productive brain patterns as you do brainswitching. It takes some dedication and courage but you can do it.

A word of warning: don’t use positive affirmations like “I love myself” because the brain works by learned association and a positive affirmation could trigger it’s opposite, a negative affirmation. So only use non-emotional and neutral (neither positive nor negative) thoughts for brainswitching. When you have broken the pattern of negative thinking that is causing you acute anxiety, you can then "hang out" with more positive affirmations and visions. But if the anxiety re-surfaces, return to regular brainswitching with more neutral or non-emotional thought choices. A. B. Curtiss