View Full Version : It's in me to be well
Hi Guys.
Been a bit of a prolific poster on here since early January since coming off my meds and having a massive massive breakdown and caused me to leave my house and job and move back in with my dad to be looked after. Since coming back on the meds, I won't lie, I've been in hell.
Even yesterday I spent a lot of the day crying feeling apathetic.
But something strange happened today.
I was sitting in the living room with my dad. We were both surfing the internet on our laptops. He was looking at cruises. He can't really afford one. This window shopping led us to look at the most expensive cruise ever. It's a round the world cruise for 5 months. We even 'booked' the penthouse suite with butler, grand piano etc etc. We then looked at all the countries there are. Then we came back to reality a bit and I told him about my lovely holiday with my girlfriend in Croatia last year which is very affordable and showed him the photos. I told him all about how amazing it is there. We spoke for hours about holidays and beautiful places and it just suddenly dawned on me how good I felt.
I suddenly wasn't Steven who had to move back to his dads house feeling upset, lightheaded, dizzy, depersonalised, depressed etc.
I felt so so good. I felt so happy thinking about the holiday, the warm sea, the hot sunshine, the lovely meals I had, the smells, the tastes, the atmosphere. I had completely forgotten about my condition.
I literally hadn't felt that good since this all started.
This makes me think that getting well is 100% within me. How do I capture this feeling and make it last? It's all within me. It's all cognitive. If I could be somehow hypnotised and taken away every single memory of anxiety, anxiety attacks, the feelings and thoughts of depression, then I wouldn't have this. I'm holding on to these negative feelings somehow.
Now we've stopped talking about it, the thoughts are slowly still in the background flooding back to me etc.
This isn't really a success story but it lets me know that somewhere in me, is ME again. When thoughts of depression and anxiety have been properly been put so far out of my mind as they were for those couple of hours tonight, I was me.
This really is the pink elephant theory in full force. Try not to think about a pink elephant for 2 minutes, it's impossible. Like trying not to think about depression and anxiety and the symptoms.
I guess on a side note, after being curled up in a ball for days, I went out to the post office today. First time I left the house in a few weeks.
I hope I can keep this level of recovery going.
Gotagetthroughthis
22-03-13, 20:59
Hi Steveo,
I have been reading through a lot of your threads and posts over the past couple of months and you remind me a lot of myself from a few months back. I was in that Dark hellish place that was so bad that I didn't even think that much emotional pain was possible. I have come a long way since and you can and will do the same.
Getting well is 100% within you, just as you say. While reading through your post I was going to say if you could fall asleep tonight and have this anxiety erased from your memory and all the stresses and hellish times it has caused, then you would be pretty much cured. But you beat me to it in saying about the hypnosis, so you have the same ideas on things.
This is wear I see recovery from anxiety a bit differently. I don't believe coping techniques and distraction is the answer as that is just fighting off and blocking out anxiety that is still at the forefront of your mind. It can help for some short relief when you are your lowest points but not in the long run. If you fight and block it out it will never go away. Where as if you accept all these hellish anxiety feelings for what they are and not be so impressed by them, then this is when they will begin to fade away ( I know this is so hard when you are in the intense state of non stop anxiety). When you are not so impressed by these feelings they begin to fade and you begin to think about the normal things in life again. Once they do start to fade away this is when you can go to those places of happiness in your mind like your holiday in Croatia and any other happy memories you have. You begin to realise these anxiety and depression feelings are not so important and not so powerful and they don't have to be in control of you.
The more you do this and the more you float through the anxiety feelings and not be so scared and bothered by them, the less important they become and the less frequently they visit. It gradually fades more and more to the back of your memory untill it is one of those old memory's that doesn't have to enter your head anymore everyday. It is hard to do and can be a long road but I believe the way to recover is to forget anxiety in a way and not to care about it, instead of distracting yourself or learning to cope, who wants to do that for the rest of there ****ing life. Not me.
Like you said for those couple of hours the depression and anxiety feelings were so far out of your mind that you felt like YOU again. You can have that feeling for longer and longer untill anxiety isn't important anymore and instead of having 2 hours feeling like yourself and 22 hours feeling the anxiety, you can have 24 hours feeling like yourself without anxiety even entering your mind. This will take a while but I believe it can be done.
Anxiety is only in our minds because we put it there and because of the dark memories we have created during our anxiety. All memories fade.
I know what ive said may sound a bit confusing and is a lot easier said than done but it can be achieved.
I am so pleased you had that experience tonight, I had similar experiences when i was really bad and it gave me belief and it actually started me on a road to recovery. Dont get me wrong I am not quite normal or happy yet but my life is not consumed by anxiety or depression anymore, It may be for a couple of hours a day but thats a lot better than all day and night like before and I will get the few hours I have of anxiety down to none.
Keep up the good work mate, you will get back to normal and feel like YOU again, you will feel happy and good again. Always have that belief no matter how hard things get.
:)
MargaretHale
22-03-13, 22:46
Can I just say how inspirational I found your post. I'm in that dark place too at the moment and I have brief glimpses of the old me...so you're right, it IS in us.
xx
Hi Steveo,
I have been reading through a lot of your threads and posts over the past couple of months and you remind me a lot of myself from a few months back. I was in that Dark hellish place that was so bad that I didn't even think that much emotional pain was possible. I have come a long way since and you can and will do the same.
Getting well is 100% within you, just as you say. While reading through your post I was going to say if you could fall asleep tonight and have this anxiety erased from your memory and all the stresses and hellish times it has caused, then you would be pretty much cured. But you beat me to it in saying about the hypnosis, so you have the same ideas on things.
This is wear I see recovery from anxiety a bit differently. I don't believe coping techniques and distraction is the answer as that is just fighting off and blocking out anxiety that is still at the forefront of your mind. It can help for some short relief when you are your lowest points but not in the long run. If you fight and block it out it will never go away. Where as if you accept all these hellish anxiety feelings for what they are and not be so impressed by them, then this is when they will begin to fade away ( I know this is so hard when you are in the intense state of non stop anxiety). When you are not so impressed by these feelings they begin to fade and you begin to think about the normal things in life again. Once they do start to fade away this is when you can go to those places of happiness in your mind like your holiday in Croatia and any other happy memories you have. You begin to realise these anxiety and depression feelings are not so important and not so powerful and they don't have to be in control of you.
The more you do this and the more you float through the anxiety feelings and not be so scared and bothered by them, the less important they become and the less frequently they visit. It gradually fades more and more to the back of your memory untill it is one of those old memory's that doesn't have to enter your head anymore everyday. It is hard to do and can be a long road but I believe the way to recover is to forget anxiety in a way and not to care about it, not to distract yourself of learn to cope, who wants to do that for the rest of there ****ing life. Not me.
Like you said for those couple of hours the depression and anxiety feelings were so far out of your mind that you felt like YOU again. You can have that feeling for longer and longer untill anxiety isn't important anymore and instead of having 2 hours feeling like yourself and 22 hours feeling the anxiety, you can have 24 hours feeling like yourself without anxiety even entering your mind. This will take a while but I believe it can be done.
Anxiety is only in our minds because we put it there and because of the dark memories we have created during our anxiety. All memories fade.
I know what ive said may sound a bit confusing and is a lot easier said than done but it can be achieved.
I am so pleased you had that experience tonight, I had similar experiences when i was really bad and it gave me belief and it actually started me on a road to recovery. Dont get me wrong I am not quite normal or happy yet but my life is not consumed by anxiety or depression anymore, It may be for a couple of hours a day but thats a lot better than all day and night like before and I will get the few hours I have of anxiety down to none.
Keep up the good work mate, you will get back to normal and feel like YOU again, you will feel happy and good again. Always have that belief no matter how hard things get.
:)
Awesome post and what I believe to be true, I pray we can all do this
---------- Post added at 00:53 ---------- Previous post was at 00:51 ----------
How DO you float??
Love this thread, Everything on here is so true. Anxiety is our own manifestation. We have the power to destroy it.
Ah floating - when people ask how do you float, I say, however you want. I wouldn't think too much into it, just do it how you would imagine it first. Just the word has the right positive affect on its own.
I love this site! And, I have dealt with this disorder for 19 years. I guess you could say I am a functioning agoraphobic. I recently started regular paxil again and can for sure feel a difference, however, this time around I will never let the medication be my only source of wellness. I never give up my faith even during horrible times. I am beginning to really try to trust in the lord more, trust has been one of my enemies for too long.my goal is to not be afraid of the feelings that anxiety and panic bring, just to keep functioning even if it is there
Thanks for taking the time to read my little story about last night.
I just wish I could find a way to capture that feeling I felt last night. Knowing that feeling is within me is going to help me with my recovery though.
Unfortunately that feeling has gone today but I know it's there somewhere waiting to come out again.
I by no means advocate pure distraction as a method to get rid of anxiety. I tried this method in early Jan 2013 and it completely burnt me out and made me alot worse! I tried to just carry on as normal, floating on through but this wasn't successful.
Hopefully this feeling I experienced will keep creeping out of me. I know it's going to be such a slow process. I'm glad you guys are on this road with me because it's scary being on my own.
You are never on your own steveo. We are always here trying to get better as well, looking for our answers. I'm glad to know you are on that road and feel the same way as me :hugs:
Gotagetthroughthis
23-03-13, 14:53
Thanks for taking the time to read my little story about last night.
I just wish I could find a way to capture that feeling I felt last night. Knowing that feeling is within me is going to help me with my recovery though.
Unfortunately that feeling has gone today but I know it's there somewhere waiting to come out again.
I by no means advocate pure distraction as a method to get rid of anxiety. I tried this method in early Jan 2013 and it completely burnt me out and made me alot worse! I tried to just carry on as normal, floating on through but this wasn't successful.
Hopefully this feeling I experienced will keep creeping out of me. I know it's going to be such a slow process. I'm glad you guys are on this road with me because it's scary being on my own.
It will keep creeping out of you and others will creep into your mind aswell as you begin to realise anxiety doesn't have such a hold over you anymore.
You say you tried to act normal, floating on through but it wasn't successful. I wasn't sure if you were referring to my previous post in this thread but I never said to act normal, acting normal is not what I suggested and I wouldn't recommend it as it is near on impossible. Even if you are trying to float through, you are just "acting" normal which is just the same as blocking out the anxiety. Blocking it out for it to return as soon as that act ends.
You are in a sensetized state of anxiety and high adrenaline which makes every small emotion, sensation, feeling, fear or sadness magnified by a 100. So acting normal is certainly not going to work while you are in this state.
Instead of acting normal you need to try and not give so much credit and time to the horrible anxiety feelings. I know im repeating myself from my earlier post now but you need to stop being so impressed by these anxiety feelings, stop being so fearfull of them, stop giving them the time of day as at the end of the day they are just feelings and emotions, they can make you feel bad but they cant hurt you.
If you begin to accept the feelings of panic/anxiety/depression but not be so impressed or concerned by them then these feelings will feel less and less important and you will gradually become less sensitized, this will take a while but when you start to come out of that sensitized state all the emotions and anxiety feelings that you had before will not be magnified by 100 anymore, they will not effect you half as much.
So don't try and push yourself into "acting" normal, or forcing yourself to do things while "acting" while you are in this sensitized state it is just about getting back to some normality and some state of calm, then you can start going out and trying to "float" through anxiety. You will still feel the anxiety but when you are less sensitized it wont bother you so much, so floating though it will not be such an impossible task.
I hope this all makes sense lol
Anyway I sound like im preaching here but im just trying to help and I know these ideas helped me a lot. A lot of these methods have come from Claire Weekes who im sure you may have heard of. I don't know if you have read or heard any of her stuff but I will put a link in here to some recordings from her which explains the things I have been talking about.
Hope this helps and I hope you start to feel better soon
---------- Post added at 14:53 ---------- Previous post was at 14:02 ----------
Here's the link to the recordings by claire weekes on how to recover from anxiety;
http://www.junior-anxiety-depression-exchange.org.uk/Relax.html
No worries for repeating yourself!! You got through your point alot better which I really needed as that is the biggest confusion of my recovery. I've read alot of different sources about floating and accepting and that's by far the most confusing thing to do.
I don't know what to do when that rush of feeling comes over me. Do I stop what I'm doing? Do I carry on what I'm doing? I know in my head I sometimes am able to accept, but sometimes I say to myself that I'm accepting but I know that the symptoms sometimes scare me and I probably try and fight or avoid the situation.
This is probably getting my 'success story' further and further away from the right thread for this but I'm really interested to know about this and you do make a lot of good sense!
Thanks for the replies by the way :) You are helping alot!! And yeah I have the claire weekes stuff. I kind of got the impression from her material to carry on as normal.
ChristopherT
25-03-13, 06:03
Hey Stevo. Mate if you got some positive times, I think there must be more to come. Maybe you need to remind yourself of some times where you had bad times in the past and got over it, like when you went on that Holiday.
I'm starting Prozac on day 6. Kinda of a similar but opposite case, I had to leave the country I was in and return to my home country, but lost most of what I had been working for, and back home in a spare bedroom. No work, and far from real jobs. I refuse to let it beat me, but i'm gonna use the meds to pick me up anyway.
Sorry to hear that Chris.
Same here really. I've left Wales to move back to Cornwall to move into my Dads spare bedroom so far.
I'll get there eventually I hope!
Thanks for the message my friend
Steven
Steveo what a great post fella :) and it kinda struck a chord with me.
When I was ill, I would have days full of feelings of despair and anxiety (GAD and Health anxiety mainly), but now and again I would get that feeling you did. A past memory, something I enjoyed doing, and i would get lost in it for 10 mins, feel good, then realise I had anxiety and it would come flooding back.
However it does make you think, "your mind keeps you in an anxiety state". So if its your own mind keeping you ill? how do you reverse it? Well if I knew that, I would have my own cruise ship ;)
I can tell you what worked for me though, and that was facing the fears. For example, I HATED the supermarket, but I knew if I stopped going, I would probably never step foot inside one again, and that would lead to me avoiding everything that made me feel ill.
So I would go, I might leave quick, I might manage a full shop, doesn't matter, but I went. How did I feel? oh the usual, dizzy, confused, feeling I was not actually there, heart beating like a train, you know the drill. But eventually, I grew to fear the situation less and less. And it wasn't just supermarkets, that was just an example.
I also started to exercise a lot, I did join a gym (although that's not necessary), but walking, cycling, swimming, something that gets the heart pumping a little not only strengthens the body, but also the mind in my experience.
Did I wake up one day and feel 100% better? no, but I did wake up one day and realise it was weeks ago since a panic attack, and weeks ago since I felt nervously ill for the whole day.
Gradually, by not avoiding things/places, and keeping a little exercise in my week, anxiety got less and less until it became rare for me to have an anxious day in a month, never-mind 7 in a week.
Sorry, I am waffling :) but yes, I do think its within you to recover, and I do truly believe the answer to recovery is facing the fear, and endeavor to try again (practice) when you do avoid.
Good Luck :)
I too am having a hard time grasping the "accepting" thing! I certainly don't want to accept my panic...I want to fight it. *laughs* Why would I want to accept sensations that are making me feel bad? I am doing my best to wrap my head around it and I know it will take time (and work!)
Steveo, I hope you do remember what you felt taking about your trip and how good you were feeling. I hope by writing it down and sharing it with us you gave that feeling a sense of permanence that you can refer to again and again!
~Dora
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