Controlling your racing thoughts?

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It´s hard, indeed. Especially if you´re a person who Thinks a lot naturally. When I struggle
with racing thoughts, I usually try to distract myself trough doing a 5 min meditation, playing some games
or call my parents which have been angels to me.

One meditation teacher had some helpful advice, one time, when I was in a state of distress perceptually, he said something along these lines, "just imagine your thoughts as little stones travelling down a river, just watch the thoughts and let them be, rather than attending to them, let each thought travel down the river of the mind peacefully." I took it literally and visualised a river and let my thoughts go down the river, but it was helpful anyway at the time. I have noticed that thought blocking is not a healthy way to go about dealing with racing thoughts, it creates an internal force and puts the attention on the thoughts and gives them life, rather than just letting them be but I am naturally a thinker anyway so maybe I should have never tried getting rid of them in the first place. . . . I've got a tangled mind. . . lol.

In the early 2000's I finally began to be overburdened by racing thoughts after I dropped out of school. When I was distracted by class or social interactions it wasn't so bad. But with nothing to do back then but read books and work on my garden I began to become distressed.
For those who don't understand, imagine you think verbally (just like talking but you're doing it in your own head). So one day you might think to yourself;
-What will I have for dinner tonight?
-I feel like chicken but I don't want to go shopping.
-I have beef mince in the fridge and pasta in the cupboard, I could do spaghetti.
-Oh wait, is the pasta sauce still good?
-Never mind, I just remembered I bought a new bottle a few days ago, spaghetti it is!

So in my experience all of that would happen in an instant. So not verbally of course. My mind would just blur through all those sequential thoughts as images or feelings. I began the very difficult task of not allowing myself to think at all unless I slowed the thoughts down to a speaking speed. This felt incredibly uncomfortable at first. It felt like trying to walk in slow motion 24/7. But I persevered with the help of meditation to slow down and sometimes even stop my racing consciousness.
To this day I still try to think at the same speed that I talk but if I want to or need to I can shift into overdrive. It can help with tasks that require analysis or pattern recognition. I got tested last year to see if I'm on the spectrum. Turns out I'm not autistic but the cognition test showed I'm in the top 2 percentile in processing speed index, the type of intelligence that determines this ability.
It used to be hellish but now, at 36, I just accept it as a part of who I am. It rarely gets away on my too much now but because of the constant pattern seeking I do experience paranoia and make a lot of defeatist or worst case assumptions about what other people think or do because I'm bad at reading people socially.

Sounds like you have generalised anxiety disorder, your symptoms are common among people with such a disorder.
It also sounds like you have sensory hypersensitivity which when combined with anxiety, makes you hyper vigilant.

Such conditions can be worsened by some of the standard modern antidepressants, as many of the newer antidepressants top up and optimise noradrenaline (norepinephrine), such as SNRI's SSNRI's etc.
Venlafaxine, Duloxetine etc.

If you are on one of the more modern antidepressants SSRI, SNRI's etc.
Consider asking your doctor or psychiatrist to change your med to an older tricyclic antidepressant, such as clomipramine, as the older tricyclic antidepressants stimulate norepinephrine so much and work more on serotonin and dopamine.

Antidepressants are designed for the general population who do not have Autism Spectrum Disorder and who do not have abnormal sensory sensitivities.

I believe that in people with ASD who suffer from sensory hypersensitivities, the norepinephrine levels are abnormally higher due to having sensory hypersensitivities, so taking antidepressants that increase norepinephrine any further
will likely then exhibit side effects that make them more hyper vigilant.

The problem with antidepressants and autism is that most doctors including most psychiatrists do not understand Autism Spectrum disorder and so do not understand why their patients with ASD have severe side effects when put on meds that are used for normal people with mental illness.

What can happen is that your doctor may increase your dose of an antidepressant which is causing your negative symptoms when you complain about the symptoms that you are experiencing.

This is because they don't understand ASD. That is why doctors / psychiatrists now need more training before they are capable of treating their patients effectively and humanely.

May i also make a comment about you thinking that your thoughts are not your own.
This is not an uncommon experience and experiencing them does in no means makes you mad.

Such thoughts in psychological terms are called intrusive thoughts and as mentioned before are extremely common and normal.

They are especially experienced by people who suffer from anxiety disorders.
In meditation circles, they call the racing thoughts that you feel are not your own as "mind chatter".

In therapy, they recommend you not to try to stop the thoughts from occurring, as thought stopping has been proven not to work.

Thought replacement sometimes works, and this is how some forms of meditation works. Mindful meditation that is.

A simple "breath" meditation involves sitting with your thoughts and using your breathing as the focus for the meditation. In this type of breathing meditation, you are told to follow your breath on a count.
So breath in I count one, breath out, i count one.

Do the same until you have counted to 10 and then start again.

If you find your mind drifting off and grasping thoughts as they enter your mind.
If you notice that your mind has drifted off, then, say to your self, mind drifting
and return to your count again, at number 1 again.

This is a simple exercise that can be done by anyone.
Has be done every day for some time, for it to be an effective method of relaxing you
but also reducing the amount of distress that the thoughts cause you when they pop into your head.

I personally see the thoughts as items on a conveyor belt that is inside my mind.
If you grab one of the items on the conveyor belt, the conveyor belt stops while you
explore that item

The aim of the game however is to allow the conveyor belt keep on running while doing
your best to ignore the items on the conveyor belt.
hope that helps

Yoga kind of helps . Ive been mAking a lot of progress in controlling my anxiety and anger / emotions in general doing yoga and meditating.
I highly recommend and would like to comment, it took me almost 3 years to be able to completely quiet my mind .
Dont give up