antianxiety

[Geysha3]

well im a 20 year old female very pretty nothing really to worry about if i was normal anyway, i like to say i think i suffer from anxiety and panic attacks as anyone else who might relate i have diagnosed myself with every illness possible i have had heart test done in the past ect. everything comes out normal, now i have been dealing with this for about almost a year, i hope its not forever im open to anything therapy name it i want to leave the whole medication thing out the way. anyway i have lots of things to share and would love to just have people that are going through or kinda like what i am going through talk about it with me, not feel so alone in thiis. thats why im here. hollar

[inCOGnito]

i am sure everyone here is going through similar situations. There are a whole bunch of anxiety symptoms and effects. everyone you see will have a pic n mix of these things making it somewhat individual.

As far as therapy is concerned you might resonate with some things and not others. And at a later stage you might resonate with the things you didn't resonate with earlier and disregard the things that worked before! So my suggestion would be to jump in somewhere and see what works for you.

Personally I believe there are several facets to anxiety but at the heart of it all I believe there are several things that must be done: understanding anxiety, improve diet, exercise & relaxation, challenge your thoughts & beliefs (CBT is good for this), and deal with how you react to your thoughts and symptoms (Claire Weekes is great for this).

There isn't a quick fix but start to make changes now. I do believe anxiety is a call to wake up, to wake up to yourself.:)

[Geysha3]

Thank you for your reply it means alot to me that im certainly not alone and even if its just a website and i dont know anyone personally it kinda makes me feel better to know that im not the only one dealing with this. im starting to try everything you mentioned :D i have been healthy for almost all my life i was always into sports dont do drugs so its very hard for me to accept that someone like me can feel so unhealthy when in reality i wont even smoke a ciggerrette well anyway thank you again for your support. do you suffer from anxiety and panic attacks? if so i would love to hear some storries and how you have learned to cope with them?

[inCOGnito]

Your certainly not dealing with this alone. It can feel like it at times, especially when really anxious because it's such an immediate and subjective experience.

Anxiety symptoms are exaggerated stress symptoms so being healthy will cushion that somewhat but it doesn't make you invulnerable. When the body is in continuous 'defence mode' it can use up a lot of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental energy. Being healthy will certainly help but we're all human and subscribe to the effects of the physcho-physiologic effects of stress.

Trouble with anxiety is that it feels so physical and can have so many physical symptoms yet it stems from psychological processes (mostly). That's probably why you find it hard to accept - because you believe it's a physical cause which doesn't compute with your healthy lifestyle. This has been a problem for me too. I do believe that there is a physical component that enhances anxiety (for example nutritional deficiencies) but in the end without the power of thoughts and beliefs anxiety wouldn't be anxiety would it? It would just be physical feelings without fear. It is hard to accept because of the way it feels but i did hear a great quote yesterday - "the best antidote to fear is the truth" - so we have to challenge these beliefs :)

Yes I still get anxiety and panic attacks. I started getting them when I was around 18 but did have symptoms of anxiety long before then. That's just when it became a lot more noticeable and intrusive. I read Dr Claire Weekes' book "Essential Help for Your Nerves" a couple of years after which practically took my anxiety away. I was relatively cured and only had anxiety periodically, mostly when hungover or during naturally anxious events such as job interviews.

However it came back in a bigger, badder and bolder way last year when I had a breakdown and cannot begin to describe how horrible that period was. I am still recovering over a year later. But it did teach me several very important things about anxiety and, well, reality.

While Claire Weekes was absolutely invaluable during both these periods in life I realised that her teaching were not enough. That's not to say her words are not true because they are, more so than I think she ever realised. It is just that her work teaches to deal with the anxiety itself. It misses an important part of the puzzle: the very thoughts and beliefs that got us there in the first place. It is this that has been my focus over the last year.

Even during this last year which has basically been a year long panic attack, i have been able to deal with so many things that would have seemed impossible in that mental state. Things like move home, change jobs, deal with travel, meetings, presentations, illness, and so on. I'm certainly not trying to advocate how 'tough' I am or anything like that. But i just wanted to show that it is certainly possible to do these things having anxiety and panic. To deal with things I have had to accept the feelings that arise, challenge the thoughts and the very beliefs that they are built on.

Part of the reason why I still have anxiety to a degree is that I am challenging my own thoughts and beliefs. I put awareness and attention onto the feelings and thoughts instead of doing what most people do and try and avoid them or distract themselves from. "It's the avoidance of fear that fuels the most insanity". The mind is a storehouse of beliefs (most of which are unconscious) and how we see the world is based on those beliefs. From beliefs we derive perception, thought, actions, and reactions. Beliefs form the core of who we believe we are and the mind doesn't like it when its very core is challenged. As a result it can bring up more fear. Fun eh!

Must dash, sorry if that doesn't make much sense. It's difficult to accurately articulate this in a short post.