Trying to think rationally but struggling

[rainbow]

Addiction & compulsion are often thought of as similiar but there is a dividing line. Addiction is about reward seeking, compulsion is about mitigation/prevention of feared outcome.

Addictions like gambling are reward seeking hence they are not categorised inside the neurotic disorders category that contains anxiety disorders, mood disorders like depression, etc.

The gambler gets a "high" from it, Dopamine release. The compulsive gets relief, theoretically as it doesn't always do much from my experience (which will be a different chemical).

Are you Googling your symptoms? Looking for others in the same boat to compare? Scaring yourself by looking up symptoms then focusing on the worst case scenario and being triggered further? This is all classic anxiety behaviour.

I wonder whether your therapist was just trying to use plain terms rather than get into the jargon?

Yes, it's not good for your son and the school might take note at some point but I'm sure they will be supportive. But have you missed a few and taken him to the others before & after these days? If so, then it's perhaps less of the deterioration you fear because you are still finding the strength and exercising your will because you could have easily retreated on every occasion from the initially triggering day (I did this and let it take me downhill). If you can keep doing most, you are fighting back and taking control.

On the days you didn't take him, did something make them worse than the rest?

I understand what you mean about addiction and compulsion and I did think it strange that my therapist said addiction rather than compulsion. I know it's compulsion that's making me looks at things on the net. And, yes I am googling symptoms and other people's experiences and mostly I end up scaring myself and imagining the worst case scenarios.

It's usually when my anxiety is particularly high that I find it hard to take my son to school. It diet help that he hates school and I have a struggle with him most days, he cries and says he wants to stay with me. When he's like this a d my anxiety is high it's easier to keep him at home.

---------- Post added at 16:41 ---------- Previous post was at 16:40 ----------

Doesn't*

[pulisa]

This is only significant if it becomes a habit. Your son could also be unwittingly picking up ways of getting off school by playing on your anxiety..

Do you get any pay off at all by googling symptoms and comparing "notes" with fellow sufferers? If you didn't google what would you do instead?

[rainbow]

This is only significant if it becomes a habit. Your son could also be unwittingly picking up ways of getting off school by playing on your anxiety..

Do you get any pay off at all by googling symptoms and comparing "notes" with fellow sufferers? If you didn't google what would you do instead?

I'm going to try to make sure I always get him to school. My son has anxiety issues as well and he could be playing on my anxiety.

I know googling isn't helping, it's keeping me in a perpetual cycle of short lived relief but then even more fear. If I wast sitting googling all day I'd probably be going out to town with my daughter or reading.

I'm on my break at work just now, I had a bit of an upset stomach not long after I got into work. Trying not to let it get me down, I felt like asking to go home but I'm managing to just hang on.

[ServerError]

If I wast sitting googling all day I'd probably be going out to town with my daughter or reading.

This sentence is pretty huge, in my opinion. You've basically summed up your problem in a few short words, probably without realising. There's nothing about going to town or reading that you should avoid. It's up to you to start breaking the hold this anxiety has over you. It tends to be a bit of a journey with ups and downs, but you can do it.

[pulisa]

Personally I feel that googling has become a habit/ritual which you now feel powerless to stop but the fact that you would actually be going into town with your daughter if you weren't trapped in the google cycle speaks volumes and is really positive in terms of you being able and prepared to challenge your HA

[rainbow]

I miss doing these things, a huge part of my life has gone along with a huge part of myself. I want to force myself to do these things and sometimes I feel like I can but when it comes to it I get scared and panicky and I know there's a high chance of an upset stomach.

[Fishmanpa]

I miss doing these things, a huge part of my life has gone along with a huge part of myself. I want to force myself to do these things and sometimes I feel like I can but when it comes to it I get scared and panicky and I know there's a high chance of an upset stomach.

If an upset stomach is the worst case scenario, is it worth it to at least try to push through?

Positive thoughts

[MyNameIsTerry]

That's the classic reassurance seeking behaviour then. That's a known form of compulsive activity.

Beating obsessive behaviour gets easier if you can reduce compulsive reactions to it, I found. It dialled it down from fever pitch where you feel completely trapped by it.

This means facing the building anxiety that comes from resistance. There are various ways to do this and it can be achieved through gradual elimination, which means slowly removing it. An element of not allowing yourself too much time to be sitting around thinking can be useful as well as learning to sit & tolerate it. The latter is not always practical for longer periods of time e.g. doing endless Mindfulness, just inserting sensible "blocks" of time for such activities is enough otherwise anything initially healthy can become unhealthy if it becomes obsessive again.

If you resist, the tension builds but how long have you tried to resist for? It can reduce after a certain period of time, but it is hard.

It makes sense that the days you've been unable to go, the anxiety had been worse. This still shows you can take control on the other days, that's a good thing add it shows your anxiety isn't constantly triggered to It's highest. I don't know whether this means reducing the heights it can reach through changing how you react to those triggers or reducing your overall anxiety levels so that the triggers have less impact on you. There could be gains available in either.

[pulisa]

If an upset stomach is the worst case scenario, is it worth it to at least try to push through?

Positive thoughts

Does an upset stomach mean cancer to you or is more the unpredictability of needing to find a loo asap?

[rainbow]

Does an upset stomach mean cancer to you or is more the unpredictability of needing to find a loo asap?

Yes an upset stomach does mean cancer in my mind, so I don't want to go out because if my stomach gets upset when I'm out I worry that I'll panic and it will ruin the day for my daughter. It's easier just to stay in.

My son's at school today although I didn't have to go out as he was given a lift to school. He was really unhappy that I wasn't taking him so I feel really guilty about that.

I want to try mindfulness but my mind keeps wandering back to my worries. I really am trying to beat this but it's so much more difficult this time. When I had the same worry 6 years ago it went on for about 5/6 months and only started to improve after I went on holiday to Turkey with my family. That was a turning point for me as I had to get involved with living, had to go out and do things, didn't have time for googling and I was more relaxed and happy. I wish I could just be normal!