How to Stop Negative Thoughts Looping in Your Mind

Hey @puppydoglover

A warm welcome and thanks for sharing your experiences with the community! ✨

Sounds like you are dealing with a lot at the moment, so its great that you found SANE as a place to reach out and talk about the things you are dealing with! Feeling like you are in a depressive episode and autistic burnout sounds like a difficult space to be in both at the same time. Even if we have no "objective" reason to experience struggles, any one can - mental health doesn't discriminate. And having things going great in life does not mean your struggles are not valid. Also looking forward to a puppy sounds fantastic! 🐕

It takes courage to share your experiences with the community, and you are being really brave reaching out to your peers. 

I'm sure that the community will have some insights to share with you soon! In the mean time I thought I would share a couple of resources that might be a helpful starting place in finding some strategies that work for you. I look forward to seeing what else the SANE community can add - you are not alone in this!

Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Kids (this is aimed at kids but the pace of the talking I feel is more comfortable than others - each to their own though!)
TIP Skills: Reduce Extreme Emotions Quickly | DBT-RU
you are not your thoughts - YouTube

Take care! 🍀

@NightHedgehog Thank you for the support. I'll go check these videos out in the meantime.

Hi @puppydoglover , i hope you are still around even though only the mod responded to this post so far - I often find the ones in this Space are missed because they don't appear on the front-page listing (I assume due to the triggering aspect of SI/SH for many people). I try to keep an eye on new threads in this space as I myself know the SI struggles all too well. You post this on the same day I went away for a few weeks though, and I just got back yesterday.

When I have repetitive thoughts of SI that won't stop, the only effective thing (more than a very short term distraction) that has helped is medication. I can't say what medication specifically (forum rules), but it might be worth chatting to your GP or psychiatrist (if you have one) about options. 🙂 My old psychiatrist prescribed an antipsychotic that is sometimes also used for OCD - so that kinda made sense for "stopping the carousel" of thought in my mind. Although I could only take it for 1-2 months at a time because of the apathy side-effect; but it was enough to break the cycle.

I too love dogs. Well, I like most animals generally :P. I have 2 large dogs myself, which overall is good but sometimes I am so tired of having to be responsible for looking after them lol and I feel sorry for them when I have to leave them home alone (eg work or places I can't take them). Assistance dog would not have the latter issue of course - you'd be allowed to take it everywhere (except the zoo, for disease/bio reasons they are exempt due to the exotic animals).

Do you have a specific breed you would like to have as your assistance dog?

My first dog was a Guide Dog puppy 🙂 Raised it from 11 weeks to 12 months old.