Here's Why Anxiety Creates Your Dark and Scary Thoughts

Dark and disturbing thoughts are a normal part of anxiety. So, I assure you that you’re not losing control or going insane. I promise you’re not bound for a straight-jacket and a spot at the psychiatric ward, even though it can feel that way at times. Today, we’re going to talk about why anxiety can create these dark and scary thoughts, and how to address them so can get back to living your life. 

Before we jump in, I want to let you know that a recovery is just around the corner. Every day, I mentor clients from severe anxiety back to a normal, healthy life. I take them through a step-by-step process which allows them to lose their fear of anxiety and desensitize their nervous system. It’s a unbelievably effective and proven system, and I’ve put it in the link below, called the 5 Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks. It’s absolutely free and I’m giving it you for visiting me here today. 

Dark thoughts can be really terrifying.  If you are anything like me, and most my clients, you might find yourself wondering, “What kind of person would have these thoughts? Who have I become?!” I get it because I’ve been there. I remember the first time I had a dark thought. It was probably only a week or two into having anxiety. I was in my kitchen chopping vegetables, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I had this horrifying thought that I might use the knife to hurt someone. It was just a quick thought, but it really shook me. It terrified me because I’d never, ever had that type of thought before. As I started to have more and more of these types of thoughts, it made me question what kind of person I was. It also made me incredibly afraid that I might actually act on that type of thought.

But here’s what I wish someone would have told me back then: you don’t need to be afraid of these thoughts and that you haven’t changed one bit. You are the same person that you were before you began having these strange thoughts. These thoughts don’t represent who you are, what you will actually do, or what you believe in. In fact, these thoughts don’t have any meaning at all. Dark and disturbing thoughts are simply a byproduct of a highly anxious brain - a brain that is overloaded with stress hormones and deprived of rest. That’s all.

Why do these dark thoughts happen? It all comes down to our brain's wiring and the impact of anxiety on our nervous system. When we are highly anxious, our brain is in overdrive - it is on high alert. Well, this heightened state of fear and stress can cause our brain to create random, intrusive thoughts as a way of preparing us for any possible danger. Some of these are dark and scary thoughts. But this is just your fearful brain trying to cover any scenario, no matter how unlikely or absurd the scenario might be. That’s why these bizarre and disturbing thoughts keep popping into your mind.

First off, do not allow these thoughts to frighten you. Instead, I want you to remind yourself that these are simply a normal part of anxiety and that these thoughts will soon disappear as you begin recovering from anxiety. What’s going to happen is that as the amount of adrenaline and stress hormones in your body decrease, you’ll start to have these thoughts less and less and then, one day, they’ll be completely gone. 

I know this because it happens every single time as I coach clients with anxiety. When they meet me, clients tend to be really scared about these thoughts. But at some point as they progress through recovery, I ask them how often they are having dark thoughts. Their reaction to this question is almost always the same. They pause of a couple seconds to think about it, and then say, “Oh, I guess I haven’t had one of those thoughts in a long time.” In other words, they stopped having these thoughts without even realizing it. 

OK, how do you respond to these thoughts? What I want you to do is to dismiss these thoughts and then, here’s the key, I want you to make light of that thought. For example, let’s go back to the frightening thought I had with the kitchen knife. After having that thought, here’s how I should have internally responded to that thought. I should have dismissed that thought with “Who cares! I do have some pretty creative thoughts though; I could probably be a great director of horror movies in Hollywood!” Or it another response could be: “Who cares! I bet Stephen King would be envious of my plot twists.” 

What we’re doing is we’re addressing and responding to that dark when we say “Who cares!” Then, by saying something like “I could be a great director of horror movies in Hollywood,” we are finding amusement and even humor in the dark thought. This effectively strips way all the fear that was embedded in that thought and makes it feel light and insignificant. 

This is an incredibly powerful response and it’s really going to help speed up the recovery process by removing the fear that is generated by these dark thoughts.