Intrusive thoughts

I wish I knew why I had intrusive thoughts of scary, horrible, bad, uncomfortable things that nobody would want to think about all the time. Out of nowhere I will think of things in my life that were scary, painful, humiliating, and awful and just be unable to get these negative and intrusive thoughts out of my head. Why!?!?!? I just dredge up every thought that I would rather forget and ruminate on them without being able to stop myself from doing it! I hate it! I just wish I could stop doing it!!! I just don't know how to deal with these negative thoughts and images. It is part of having anxiety and depression, my brain does these things because those conditions alter the way it works. I don't want to have anxiety and depression anymore, they make life so difficult and I can't handle it anymore. I hope this dialectical behavioral therapy I am starting soon can help me get past these conditions. I know I have to be willing to do the work in this therapy, it will be more intense than my individual therapy and it will be a group therapy as well, which will give me people to talk to and more support during this difficult time in my life. I know my individual therapist has given me things to do outside of therapy but I haven't always done them. I should really try these things, they might help. I just wish I could supplement the therapy with medication, but I can't take my medication right now, I have too much anxiety about it to be able to do it. I hope this new therapy will help, because I am so tired of my anxiety and depression and the way they cause me to react to things. I am over being sad, scared, lonely, and stuck in this horrible dark place that depression and anxiety keeps me in. I guess I just have to be open to the therapy and willing to try to get better. I just have to be willing to work on the homework and the things we work on in the therapy sessions, and really give the therapy a chance. Because I can't keep living the way I am now, constantly afraid to actually have a life, because something bad might happen, and just hiding from life itself because I am depressed, afraid, and unable to cope with my emotions and my responses to everyday life. Writing is extremely helpful in coping with depression and anxiety, it is quite therapeutic and it just helps me get my thoughts together and express them in a way that makes sense. It allows me to figure out the things behind my feelings and reactions so I can make more sense of them. It is also just a good release for my feelings, it is good to just get things out of my system. Now most therapists I have had have suggested that I do relaxation tapes or CDs, or just practice relaxation techniques to help me deal with my feelings. I have done relaxaton tapes or CDs and they are helpful, but I don't do them regularly. If I practiced relaxation everyday, how much more helpful would it be than doing it every once in a while. If I did half of the things therapists have suggested to me to help cope with my feelings, how much better would I be doing? Well I am going to start doing relaxation everyday and see how much it helps. Once that becomes a habit, I am going to start journaling, and once that is a habit, then I will start reading affirmations everyday, and so on, until I have adopted some of the suggestions my therapists have given me over the years. My current individual therapist has asked me to keep track of my anxiety and depression in a notebook, making a note of the date, time of day, intensity, whether it was anxiety, depression, or both, what strategy I used to get through it, and the intensity after I used the strategy, so we can see if there are any patterns to my anxiety. I will continue to do that as long as she wants me to. She also wants me to do relaxation after I have used whichever strategy to get through the anxiety/depression at that time to see if I can calm down further. I will be trying that also. I have just decided that I have to give things a chance to actually help me before pushing them aside and saying that they don't help. I have to do whatever I can to get through this depression and anxiety and get to a healthier place again. I have to stop letting the anxiety and depresson win. I can't keep letting the anxiety and depression run my life, I have to take back control of my life again. And of course I have to keep on writing, it is one of the most therapeutic, helpful things I can do for myself.