Fear of Losing Control
https://www.restoredminds.com/5-Rules-For-Recovery
https://www.restoredminds.com/ocd-assessment
In this episode, I am going to discuss the fear of losing control. I will discuss how this fear develops, common symptoms and experiences, and what to expect in the healing process. Fear of losing control is very common and can become very overwhelming if left unaddressed. I am also going to discuss different ways where fear can manifest and common behaviors that reinforce it.
Hope you find this information helpful!
TRANSCRIPT
(00:00):
All right. Hey there. And welcome to this episode where we're going to talk about the fear of losing control now. Um, you know, when it comes to psychological stress and anxiety, right? It very common fear or theme, right. With, with a lot of fears, is this idea of what if I snap in lose control and do something that is completely uncharacteristic of me. Right. You know, or, you know, something I would never normally do now, this, this plays out in a variety of ways. Right? So, I mean, like I, there's no way I could list every single thought that people have or kind of theme people have about losing control. And this could be, you know, as simple as I'm driving down the road and what if I, like when I'm driving, I just don't turn at the turn and I just go right off the road or right off the cliff.
(00:50):
Right. What if, when I'm holding my baby, I just lose control and throw the baby. Right. You know what I mean? Like these are, you know, and, and again, this is the thing that I want to really, um, reiterate here is these fears are fears that are completely uncharacteristic of the individual, and they've never acted on these behaviors. Okay. So this is not like an impulse control behavior. It's a fear of losing control, right? It's not like an impulse control problem where they do this stuff. It's a thing where the person literally like, just has these thoughts about the feared event of that happening. Right. And again, this is, you know, going back to the idea of psychological stress, what is psychological stress? Well, you know, we have different types of stress that we can experience, right. We have acute danger, right? Like, uh, a lion coming at me, right?
(01:38):
Like that's an acute danger that's happening right now. And that's going to produce the stress response. We also have psychological stress. Now, the thing about that is, is that our brain has the capacity to create these futuristic events. Right. And then we actually respond to them right now, like they're happening. Like they're actually dangerous. Right. And in that response, right. Then drives us to do safety behaviors, right. To keep ourselves safe from that event. The problem is, is that, that then reinforces that that thought was actually dangerous. So then our brain keeps producing that thought and that's the loop that people get caught in. Right. And, um, and that's why, like, you know, it restored minds. Like we, we teach very specific processes on how to not get caught in that loop. I mean, that really is the struggle because, you know, the thing that thing that's important to remember with these, these fears of losing control is what you're afraid of doing is never the, actually the, the problem.
(02:34):
Right. I mean, and that's so, so important to understand that. Right. Um, the problem is, is that you're getting caught in this loop about worrying about that. Right. Does that make sense? Like, so it, because we think that the initial surface thought is the problem, right? So what if I snap and let's say, drive my car into, you know, off a cliff, right. When I'm driving just impulsively, right. Just, I just swerved the wheel and then go off. The problem is, is that if I, if I think that that's a problem, if I think that that is the problem, what am I going to do obviously, right. I'm not going to drive, or I'm going to be afraid of driving. I'm going to have other people drive. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do all these behaviors around that. But the thing is, is that driving is not actually the issue.
(03:19):
What the issue is, is that these thoughts are popping up and they're creating the stress response. And then you avoiding or doing anything that reinforces those thoughts keeps you stuck in that loop. And when you're stuck in that loop, what happens is your life gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, right. And that's like universal for almost any form of struggle with anxiety, right? Panic attacks, social anxiety, right. OCD, um, you know, phobias, right. I mean, you know, and PTSD, right? The more and more we think that the thought the content of our thought is the problem. The more and more we're going to respond to it and do behaviors that are going to revolve around that, the problem is, is that keeps us in the loop, which then limits our life. And so really understanding first and foremost, that the concept between ego syntonic and egodystonic thoughts, you know, that egosyntonic thoughts are thoughts that align with who, you know, yourself to be ego-dystonic are thoughts that are the opposite.
(04:18):
Right. First, what we want to do is we may only have been a separate ourselves from these thoughts and realize that those thoughts aren't us, right. Um, we're the one experiencing those thoughts. Right. And I go super in depth to this in, um, in our taking back control training, right. Over at restored minds. But the, the idea is, is that we wanted to begin to diffuse from those thoughts. And then we, again, we want to begin to respond the correct way to those thoughts. Right. And so, um, you know, if this is something that you struggle with, trust me, I know how, how extreme these thoughts can be sometimes. And I also know how much they can limit a person's life. And so if this is something you struggle with, you know, um, this, this episode is really about just educating you on the actual thoughts themselves, right.
(05:02):
This is not really about like how to, how to respond to them. Right. We go like me, that's going to take obviously, um, more education and we really teach the skill sets over, um, you know, in, in our programs that restored mine. So, you know, to, to the T on that. Right. So, um, but in this episode, I really wanted to go into the idea of like, just what are those, right? What are different types of those? Right. You know, and, and again, they can go, th the, the spectrum of these thoughts can, can range from anything right. Violent and sexual thoughts and all sorts of stuff. Right. But the thing is, is that it's so important to remember that the content is not the problem, right. The problem is, is that loop that you get caught in. So, you know, if you find yourself struggling with this, um, you know, we have some resources down below in the notes, um, that will, you know, take you over to our w uh, our site where you can download, um, you know, different PDFs.
(05:51):
So you also, we also have additional, um, you know, trainings that will expand upon this for you. Um, and so, yeah, we really would encourage you to check this out. Um, because again, the thing that I really want to, to you to know is that the problem with a lot of these is that people suffer in silence, right? And they don't tell anyone, and their life just becomes smaller and smaller and smaller. And this is something that you can recover from, right? This is something that you can break free from. It really is just about understanding it from a completely different perspective. So, um, you know, if this is something you struggle with, again, please check out those resources. And again, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. And I hope you guys have a great week, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode, take care.
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