# Anxiety Disorders > Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) >  >  Feeling like your thoughts and emotions are fake

## alwaysthinking

Hello, sorry to bother you all, I was just wondering if you've ever felt like your emotions/thoughts were fake? I have a friend who's officially diagnosed with anxiety and depression (I've only been to three therapy sessions so far so I've only been told that I probably have GAD) and she said she sometimes feels like this, but I get it all the time. Even when I'm panicking about something, I constantly feel as if I'm making it all up for attention and am somehow forcing my heart to race or for these thoughts to come into my head. It's gotten to the point where I feel like I can't trust anything I think or feel, and I'm constantly panicking about whether I'm making my symptoms up, and how embarrassing it would be if I was and what I would have to tell my therapist and my parents and my friend... I don't know if that made any sense, it just sometimes feels like I'm going crazy because of this.

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## Chantellabella

Hi and welcome to the forum. I wonder if your feelings seem fake, but are really just detached. That's pretty common with anxiety. It's as though you're watching things happen to you, but you're just not feeling it. You tell yourself you should be sad or scared, but the feeling just isn't there. It can then seem as though you are faking that you're sad or anxious, when in reality you really are. You just can't feel it. Maybe look up some stuff about detached feelings during anxiety.

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## merc

I learn something new each day. I have had this very detached feeling at times, but I never realized that it is/was related to anxiety. I'll have to read about it. I'm older than most of you on here and when I think about how much the world has changed since I was a kid I wonder how everyone doesn't have some form of anxiety.

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## zomgz

It's hard to know who _you_ really are when you're anxious. Anxiety kind of instills a overlap of feelings that drown out your true thoughts. It feels like there's a disconnection between the ego and your exterior self.

The best thing I've found that helps this is meditation and time. Understanding yourself when you're alone and not anxious (wherever that is) and clinging onto that feeling as hard as you can when you become anxious again. It takes a lot of practice but it definitely helps.

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## Chantellabella

> It's hard to know who _you_ really are when you're anxious. Anxiety kind of instills a overlap of feelings that drown out your true thoughts. It feels like there's a disconnection between the ego and your exterior self.
> 
> The best thing I've found that helps this is meditation and time. Understanding yourself when you're alone and not anxious (wherever that is) and clinging onto that feeling as hard as you can when you become anxious again. It takes a lot of practice but it definitely helps.



I agree.

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## cathering

learning to think the way the therapist wants you to is hard work... re training your brain moods and forgetting to use words like BUT, IF, YET... so they stuff like "what can you do today to make yourself feel a bit better?" and you say "Oh I could go water the garden or take a walk...but I only get chased by birds etc" they will say NOW I WILL STOP YOU RIGHT THERE WHEN  YOU SAY "THE BUT" FORGET THE LAST BUT JUST THINK AND DO AND FORGET THE EMOTION ASSOCIATED WITH THE LAST EXPERIENCE.... look i think feelings sometimes are unreal and tv and music and people everywhere over use emotion to make us buy things or do things .. like go to work or go to a movie or sign to a health insurance company etc.... emotions are real but some people are emotion junkies.... i have been there ... and people in drama class used to say to me "FEAR = false emotion appearing real"... to me it was just FEAR- my F$%^ ear infections ... and I often tell myself too that if fear is not real how many emotions are not real... its just an emotion i am feeling so what?... most emotions are not that relivant... if you just get on with stuff... and live life... its a bit like chemical equations or whatever some things are just that ... like a circumference is just 360 degrees no matter what... sometimes you have to just pass off emotions as  a not important... even when they feel important. like i am still upset over this gyno's receptionist bullying me when i rang him about a serious issue and being told "find a new gyno and we've got legal advice about you"... its so over done and upsetting when i was so so ill with feeling like i was having heart attacks and tia or strokes and head issues and vaginal issues... its so upsetting i am still UPSET HURT ANGRY, DISTRESSED, CUT OVER IT... YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO MUCH TO GET PEOPLE OFF WITH YOU NOW DAYS AND HE WAS ACTING LIKE I CAN FIT YOU IN AN EMERGENCY APPT IF YOU NEED IT... YEH, THEN YOU BECAME A COMPLETE DICKHEAD SO I THOUGHT I WOULD ATTACK YOU BACK AND FIND SOMEONE BETTER THEN YOU THEN DICKHEAD.... 

EMOTIONS ARE NOT FAKE BUT SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO STAND BACK AND THINK LIKE THEY ARE AND ITS KIND OF LIKE IF YOU READ SOMETHING THAT YOU GOT REALLY STIRED UP OVER 10 YEARS AGO AND HOW DIFFERENT YOU WOULD FEEL ABOUT IT IN YEARS TO COME... AND THINK WHY DID I CARE ABOUT THAT SO MUCH???? 

SOME EMOTIONS ARE A WASTE OF TIME TO EVEN BOTHER WORKING ON... my heart  raced over my neighbors stalking and torturing me and just telling someone i liked them... or ringing a doctor to ask for help.... or going to the dr for worries about std after rape... 

just work through it... write down and sort through the feelings ... a diary is the best thing and a friend who will help and listen... and time out ... where you just say "I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS BUT FOR THE NEXT HALF AN HOUR I AM LAYING DOWN AND HAVING A CUP OF TEA AND WATCHING A TV SHOW YOU LIKE OR WATER THE PLANTS OR PAT THE CAT OR WHATEVER YOU LIKE, OR LAY DOWN AND SAY "TO HELL WITH IT ALL -JUST RELAX IT WILL ALL WORK OUT"

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## kittyoverlord

I have a question that I think is kinda related maybe? I sometimes look around and feel like nothing is real and like I'm in a movie rather than really here. Does this ever happen to you all?

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## thebrightside

> I have a question that I think is kinda related maybe? I sometimes look around and feel like nothing is real and like I'm in a movie rather than really here. Does this ever happen to you all?



Late reply...but I've seen people talking about what you're talking about on other forums, and I've heard others calling it depersonalization disorder or defeatist ion disorder. I'm not too sure about the matter, but you should give it a look  ::D:

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