NoPoet
20-12-12, 21:43
Hi all,
I write this in a mixture of anger and dismay. Please don't think I am being insulting here, that is not my intention, but some people here need tough love. And I'm not being kinky.
I won't get into an extended list of reasons why the world is NOT going to end. Not only would it take the next two weeks and involve a level of super-science I am not familiar with; the most disappointing truth is that people will NOT bother reading it, because people will choose fear over hope every time.
That's why we become ill with anxiety. I'm willing to bet this is the case WITHOUT exception. Anxious illness comes when we lose control and allow fear to take the driving seat. We abandon logic and rationality because our fear seems so big and overwhelming.
In doing so, we sacrifice something of who we are. We sacrifice what we might become and live shadow-lives instead. We are, or have been, ghosts. Why does a ghost fear death?
Do we really fear death, or are we more afraid of being alive?
I've been a member of No More Panic for 3 years, and I have not lied to anyone here for any of that time. In this time I have seen people face up to truths that might seem terrible when they're half-glimpsed, but when you stand in front of them and make your hands into fists, fears back down. THAT is how to recover from anxiety - the hard way, the terrifying way, the way we all spent so long avoiding. PEOPLE HAVE DONE IT.
So now I hear the world is ending. How? Er... well, no-one knows. What does "the end of the world" mean? Presumably the destruction of the Earth, but refer back to the previous answer if you want specifics.
Maybe it's the aspergers in me, but I utterly fail to grasp the fear and uncertainty about this because it seems that there is no logical thought process and therefore no reason to come to these over-hyped, alarmist conclusions. Are we reporters for the tabloids, who make shit up to sell copies at the new price of 50p, or are we men and women - are we human beings?
So I cannot come up with any reasons WHY people would believe the world is ending, except to say we are behaving little better than pre-medieval peasants who scurry around whenever there is thunder because God is displeased.
If we want to recover, and live lives that will not be blighted by this illness again, it's time for people to start taking ownership of themselves. You have a choice. You can choose to cower in fear, or you can choose to live your life despite the fear yammering inside you.
For all the hardship you may face if you choose life, fate or God or whatever you believe in has given you this task. You can choose to believe there is no fate, in which case you must also disbelieve in the end of the world, but whether or not we are being guided by a greater power, YOU have reached the crisis point. YOUR decisions matter. YOU need to ask yourself whether you are up to the task of getting better.
There's no point me telling you that you can do this - to recover you've got to NEED to recover. You've got to want it so bad it becomes an almost tangible thing, like you can summon it just by willing it to be. If a part of you is on fire with the desire to recover, you don't need me or the forces of the universe behind you: you must make the choice to get better, and you must see this through no matter what comes next.
You CANNOT recover until you face the things you are afraid of. The "end of the world" is just an excuse for anxiety to take control once more.
For those who think I'm preaching: I took a look at my life and saw what anxiety had taken away. Then I bloody went and took it back, one piece at a time, even during the worst depressive and anxious blips, which I had to endure one day at a time, never giving up for one moment on my belief that I will get through this and I will one day live free. On a scale of 1-21, my anxiety scores came down from NINTEEN (one of the highest my therapist had ever seen) to NINE over this year.
So I chose life; I chose to master my fear, and not let fear take over, no matter what hell I had to get through in the early months.
If you follow my advice and stick to the plan through the worst your illness can throw at you, you will not really care about the doom-sayers. What power has some fear-monger got over someone who faced and mastered themselves? Our world has endured for billions of years and it will endure billions more, no matter what some lunatic says to sell a few books.
We do not have billions of years. We get one life. Live it.
IF
A poem by Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a mason.
(The mis-print edition)
I write this in a mixture of anger and dismay. Please don't think I am being insulting here, that is not my intention, but some people here need tough love. And I'm not being kinky.
I won't get into an extended list of reasons why the world is NOT going to end. Not only would it take the next two weeks and involve a level of super-science I am not familiar with; the most disappointing truth is that people will NOT bother reading it, because people will choose fear over hope every time.
That's why we become ill with anxiety. I'm willing to bet this is the case WITHOUT exception. Anxious illness comes when we lose control and allow fear to take the driving seat. We abandon logic and rationality because our fear seems so big and overwhelming.
In doing so, we sacrifice something of who we are. We sacrifice what we might become and live shadow-lives instead. We are, or have been, ghosts. Why does a ghost fear death?
Do we really fear death, or are we more afraid of being alive?
I've been a member of No More Panic for 3 years, and I have not lied to anyone here for any of that time. In this time I have seen people face up to truths that might seem terrible when they're half-glimpsed, but when you stand in front of them and make your hands into fists, fears back down. THAT is how to recover from anxiety - the hard way, the terrifying way, the way we all spent so long avoiding. PEOPLE HAVE DONE IT.
So now I hear the world is ending. How? Er... well, no-one knows. What does "the end of the world" mean? Presumably the destruction of the Earth, but refer back to the previous answer if you want specifics.
Maybe it's the aspergers in me, but I utterly fail to grasp the fear and uncertainty about this because it seems that there is no logical thought process and therefore no reason to come to these over-hyped, alarmist conclusions. Are we reporters for the tabloids, who make shit up to sell copies at the new price of 50p, or are we men and women - are we human beings?
So I cannot come up with any reasons WHY people would believe the world is ending, except to say we are behaving little better than pre-medieval peasants who scurry around whenever there is thunder because God is displeased.
If we want to recover, and live lives that will not be blighted by this illness again, it's time for people to start taking ownership of themselves. You have a choice. You can choose to cower in fear, or you can choose to live your life despite the fear yammering inside you.
For all the hardship you may face if you choose life, fate or God or whatever you believe in has given you this task. You can choose to believe there is no fate, in which case you must also disbelieve in the end of the world, but whether or not we are being guided by a greater power, YOU have reached the crisis point. YOUR decisions matter. YOU need to ask yourself whether you are up to the task of getting better.
There's no point me telling you that you can do this - to recover you've got to NEED to recover. You've got to want it so bad it becomes an almost tangible thing, like you can summon it just by willing it to be. If a part of you is on fire with the desire to recover, you don't need me or the forces of the universe behind you: you must make the choice to get better, and you must see this through no matter what comes next.
You CANNOT recover until you face the things you are afraid of. The "end of the world" is just an excuse for anxiety to take control once more.
For those who think I'm preaching: I took a look at my life and saw what anxiety had taken away. Then I bloody went and took it back, one piece at a time, even during the worst depressive and anxious blips, which I had to endure one day at a time, never giving up for one moment on my belief that I will get through this and I will one day live free. On a scale of 1-21, my anxiety scores came down from NINTEEN (one of the highest my therapist had ever seen) to NINE over this year.
So I chose life; I chose to master my fear, and not let fear take over, no matter what hell I had to get through in the early months.
If you follow my advice and stick to the plan through the worst your illness can throw at you, you will not really care about the doom-sayers. What power has some fear-monger got over someone who faced and mastered themselves? Our world has endured for billions of years and it will endure billions more, no matter what some lunatic says to sell a few books.
We do not have billions of years. We get one life. Live it.
IF
A poem by Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a mason.
(The mis-print edition)