trying to get better

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I suffer severly from anxiety and depression. I am consciously trying to relax and to lift my spirits.

I've had about 3 major bouts of depression during my life and in between those times I would say that I've probably had low level depression.

I would say that anxiety/tension/fear is the main cause of my depression. Tension and anxiety causes me to be socially awkward and to be afraid of challenging myself with work or travel.

I know that it's a trick of the mind. I know that people who are confident, relaxed and well just focus on the here and now, whereas I scare myself by thinking about the world around me and 'what if's'.

It's just so horrible. I know i'll probably get over this bout of depression given time (it's been 4 years already), but how can I resolve this for good so that it doesn't keep ruining my life? I'm afraid of travelling in case I get somewhere and have a panic attack and want to rush home.

Why am I so afraid of everything? It's so annoying and frustrating, especially as I have done the things that I'm afraid of, but I'm still afarid of them.

People say why are you scared of going over bridges? It started because I used to have an urge to drive off them, which would cause me panic attacks. These days I don't get the urges so much, but in my mind bridges are an automatic cue for a panic attack. It isn't the thing itself that scares me, it's because the percieved threat raises my already high levels of anxiety, which causes my fight or flight response to kick in and my head floods with thoughts of death and being overwhelmed by the world.

I just wish that there was something that I could take that would calm me down physically, because I'm sure that I'd start to enjoy life more then. I don't want to get into tranquilisers. beta blockers do help. Rescue remedy has a very slight effect and luckily alcohol makes me worse than ever the morning after, so I avoid that.

Maybe I will get to a point in life where all my hard work will come together and i'll feel much more confident about myself, but (in my depressed state) it's hard to imagine it.

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[mia0621]

The "what if's" are one of the biggest problems. If I didn't imagine how things "might" escalate,the attacks would probably not ever peak. In Dr Claire Weeks book, she teaches about "right reaction readiness". If I recall, it is about not fighting the attack and going with the flow. It is pretty hard to do when you feel so panicky. I plan to go purcase that book. I had borrowed it from a neighbor. That is where I learned what was wrong with me. The book is very thorough.

Mia

[tulip123]

I can identify with the what if scenario. That is the part of anxiety many people don't understand - What if things don,t get better, what if I don't sleep, what will I feel like a week from now and so on and so on. Then this starts to effect your physical well being in the present. Breaking that circle is very hard but it can be done with as much distraction as possible.

Tulip

[W.I.F.T.S.]

I plan to buy the Claire Weekes book too, I've heard that it's very good.

I have a situation at the moment, which I know I would have dealt with differently in the past: I run a couple of football teams. Over the last few weeks we have had a lot of players unavailable because of work, holidays or injury. 14 players to be exact! We've just about been able to put a team out although we haven't had enough money to pay the fees. I've been asking everyone that I know to come and play and I have been able to get a few new recruits, although we've still been well short.

It has been quite stressful, although in the past I would have worked myself up into a total blind panic. People have been saying that we should withdraw one of the teams and I have been resisting, although on Sunday I did actually decide to end one of those teams because we owe the league about £50 already and I couldn't guarantee that we'd have a full team next weekend. The other good thing is that I didn't work myself up about trying to win the game, I was able to shrug my shoulders, realise that it would be good experience for the new players and accept whatever result we got.

We teams on a Monday night too. More by luck than judgement (really) I got the few b team players that we had to turn up for the a team game, so we had enough for one team and then we forfeited the other match.

In the past I would have got myself into a really big flap and tried to carry on regardless until the situation got so bad that it would be impossible to carry on. I'm glad that I have listened to people to a certain extent, but also used fairly good judgement. I've decided to keep the b team on a Monday, because when everyone's available we've got something like 21 players, more than enough for two 6-a-side teams and the players who have come in and helped us out deserve to be able to play regularly. Not only that, but it gives us reserves for the a team.

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.