View Full Version : so tierd of fighting this
hi im so tierd of fighting this anxiety , ive had it now for over 8yrs, ive tried cbt twice I don't take meds im petriefied of taking them, i do relaxation and breathing everday and try distraction but it never seems to get any better ive been trying to do the exeptance bit for a long time now ,im always over analizing every thought and feeling and dwell on them. the last four days have been so bad and ive been thinking im going mad and this cant be anxiety.and yesterday sat down to eat xmas dinner with my family at the table and i had to make out that i wanted to watch queens speech just so i can go in to the living room and eat my dinner because i felt abit funny and really anxiouse .i felt so bad about about myself for doing that and kept thinking why cant i be normal and surely anxiety cant make you feel this way, sorry for posting this as just don't know what else to do or am i doing everything wrong to overcome this anxiety or am just not really helping myself im just so tierd of trying to overcome it .maybe this is my problem and im trying to hard i just don't know anymore.
Tricia
Can identify completely please don't give up.
I've only suffered for 10 months but I've tried all the therapies you have and I know what you mean they don't seem to work do they.
Then again even though it's been the same for me this Christmas when all the family were round I wonder deep down whether I have in fact made some improvement.
Suffering as we do it's possible I suppose that sometimes we forget any progress we have made however small
There are times when like you I feel I can't go on it just gets to much particularly in the morning it's beyond awful.
However life is precious and as a new member to this board I find some comfort in our all being in it together. Don't give in.
Of all the therapies I have tried I found the breathing,meditation and muscle relaxation excersises the most helpful.it is hard but we've got to battle on after all it's only anxiety. It's the one illness that we can cure ourselves its not terminal and we are going to be around a long time
Sorry it's such a rambling post but I understand just how you feel
WHY DO YOU STILL THINK RELAXATION WILL HELP WHY
I'm sorry but I have told you more than once that relaxation, breathing and distraction do not cure anxiety, they only give you temporary relief and are a way of pushing it away. Did you take on anything from your CBT? Are you challenging your thought patterns and not giving them power?
You are not getting better because you are not doing ANYTHING to make yourself better. You ask if you are doing everything wrong, well you pretty much are. It' more beneficial to not do one single relaxation exercise and say fck it, anxiety can do what it likes to me, I'm going to live my life. Because that is possible and that is how you beat anxiety.
I told you to look at the links in my signiture. Do they tell you to do relaxation and breathing all day? No because they teach you to overcome your thought patterns and let the anxious thinking go but you are getting pulled back into it every time and just letting it win by making it more than it is.
This time I am being very blunt, I know that, and I will not be replying again unless I see you have taken something on board.
Only then will we be able to help you move forward and push you on with reassurance.
This isn't trying to be one of those nasty posts that people write to have a go at someone for not accepting help - You are always grateful for what you recieve I know that - but this is to try one last time to drill into you that you can beat your anxiety if you will let yourself move forward.
Some reminders.
relaxation will make you feel better for a short while, but does not change your thinking.
It's your thinking that is the problem, and learning to spot when you are catastrophising and changing that stops it.
Anxiety symptoms feel horrible but are totaly harmless and is just caused by adrenaline.
If you stop fuelling the adrenaline the symptoms gradally die down.
Most of the time, you can just float past these sensations and pretend they are not there.
If you gave anxiety no attention whatsoever it would go pretty quickly
By pretending you are fine, however unnatural that sounds, you are retraining your limbic system to relax
By fighting anxiety you are giving it power, but letting it come through and smiling, it goes
You are playing the game. There is no way to win the game, except not to play.
Simple things like holding your head up high, engaging mindfully in everyday tasks and staying occupied help straight away
This is only something you create. You have the power to change this. Start now.
Read Nothing Works and download CBT4PANIC again and read with passion and vigor.
Also, I want to differentiate the word "cured" with the word "healed".
It's my opinion/belief that one is never "cured" of a mental illness. I equate it to my cancer. Am I cured? No. Am I healed? Yes.
To be cured is to return to the way you were before the illness. To be healed is to be free of symptoms. When you're healed, you have the symptoms under control and the disease itself in "remission" so to speak. Anxiety and other mental illnesses are a lot like cancer in that it can return. One must do the right things to keep the beast away. And just like cancer, it can rear it's ugly head no matter how hard you work at the healing.
The bottom line is that we have to continue the fight in one way or another. With my cancer, I will have side effects that remind me of my illness for the rest of my life. But as time goes on, the reminders will become quieter and quieter, eventually becoming silent enough as not to remind us of the battle, much in the way our hearts heal from heartbreak.
So do not tire of fighting. You've already fought the war and now, each little blip is but a skirmish or a bout of hand to hand combat as opposed to an all out offense. Find new weapons to use, whether it's therapy, CBT, medication or combinations thereof. Learn techniques to control the enemy advance and prevent it from breaking through the lines as often. Eventually there will be a truce and cease fire.
And please understand, that by fighting I don't mean ignoring nor denying your anxiety. What Poncho is saying is correct. It's about accepting and then doing things that challenge yourself to change your thought patterns. It's the same with me. I know what I've been through and I also know what I have to do to make the best of what my "new normal" is going to be.
Positive thoughts
pancho I didnt say that relaxation cures anxiety I know it doesn't and it just helps relieve it for a short and I do it everyday and yes I do say fck you anxiety im not going to let u beat me and yes I do do the thought challenge and I go out for walks etc and I yes I do let the anxiety wash over me and try and stay calm while its happening so am really helping myself and I have took your advice on board ,its only when I get so over welmed with anxiety everything goes out the window , so I have decided to come off this site as feel your comments to me have made very upset and the way you speak to me as if im a child I thought this site was for support and advice not for someone to be so harsh on someone who is really strugling
I agree with your comments about the word "cured" fishmanpa, it's a trap I fall into easily, anxiety does change us as people
Tricia! Right! You are doing other things to what you say you are doing which is good - we can continue to help you so leaving the site really would not be a good idea.
I am really not speaking to you like a child and I'm sorry if you feel that way, I am giving you advice that only an adult can handle and the only reason I am being like this is because I want you to be free from this, I really do and I feel you are too scared to make that brave leap. If I thought you were like a helpless child, I would not try to help you, and there are people I don't help anymore for this reason. I too have struggled, just as much as you but I no longer need reassurance because the knowlege is in me.
Lets help more - say you are feeling really anxious, you have lots of weird symptoms, what do you do? Do you relax your body and smile or do you run away? It's little things like this that change everything. Are you comfortable that all your symptoms are just anxiety? If you feel you can't do something, say go to a meal due to your anxiety, what runs through your head? Does it match what actually happens? What CBT techniques are you putting into practise? Do you find yourself getting into arguments or do you let them float away? You don't have to reply to these, just think about them. There's nothing new with anxiety, you have seen all this before and you can tell yourself, I have been here before, this is nothing new, it's just anxiety. Talk it down. Tell it how insignificant it is and how it needs no more attention.
Thought box: Tell it you will deal with it at 8 o clock Make a note of it and think of it at 8 o clock, then you can deal with it appropriately or you may find it seems totally unimportant compared to what it felt like earlier. This helps you sift through what is important or not. Sometimes you will find the same thing comes up every day even though you have dealt with it before. This is one you can tell yourself is just an anxious obsession and you can toss it aside more and more easily.
I hope you can try that technique if you have not already because it is the one I felt was most useful along with mindfulness.
Tricia
Please don't leave.
I haven't answered you before, but I can understand how upset you are. When we feel anxious it is like the whole world is against us. What this site does is help us when we need it most.
I understand everything you have written,and I want to tell you to stay on board as there are lots of people who may not have answered,but can give you a sensitive reply
Loreen xx
sorry pancho for my last post I do know you only try and help people and maybe I got upset because they say you have to be cruel to be kind to help some one so i am sorry for saying what i did , ill try and answer your questions the best i can and be honest with them , firstly when i am very anxiouse most times i do run away but some times i do find the courage and say fck you and just let it be there and carry one with wat im doing , the thought challenge i find very hard to do as even tho when i had the cbt the therapist only gave me sheet of paper to write my thoughts down when im anxiouse and told me to write my challenging thoughts down next to it which i did but she never read wat i had put so i used to come away from the session wondering if i challenged my thoughts the right way or not, because she never told me if i was doing it the right way, if i have to go out anyware especialy shopping or have to go to social gatherings i get very anxiouse and think wat if i get dizzy or passout or die so a lot of the time i ovoid going most of the time. but a few times i have gone out and done it even tho i felt awful and put into practice my coping skills like doing my breathing tell myself so wat if go dizzy or passout ill be fine afterwards and if i die i wont know about it. hope ive try to explain properly what you have asked so you can get a insight of wat im like
Thank you Tricia for that insight, I do get in trouble regularly for writing harsh posts and in life for saying what I think to people bluntly and end up with people crying or running away, but that seems to be how I am and it affects some worse than others!
It sounds like you've had an undertrained therapist, something we see too often here, but that doesn't matter, most of the CBT me and others have learnt is just from here and the world around us and the links I keep going on about in my signiture.
So first, you mostly do the most tempting option of running away. This can be called an anxiety urge. Other anxiety urges are
wanting to go to a safe place to "work things out"
looking for exits and toilets in a public place
wanting distraction or to fiddle with something
wanting to go out "equipped" with stuff like lucky charms, plastic bag for vomiting, anxiety books...
The need to do rituals such as relaxation and deep breathing (most relative to you)
Anxiety urges are futile and end up securing the anxiety and making it worse. You can train yourself to look out for anxiety urges - recognise that pulling feeling. Memorise them and test it by doing something that scares you and be on the lookout for that "pull" to do something like go home or get your phone out. Recognise it and then disobey it, keep distracted with mind games if you have to, and watch it go down. WHen you see it through like that, it feels really good after.
If you are panicing, number your anxiety to see where it is at. It's easy to think we have really high anxiety all the time when actually it's only a 4 or 5. This helps to rationalise us.
You should reward yourself for being able to say fck you anxiety by doing something fun, smiling and, I dunno, do something naughty! Spontineity is something us sufferers forget about.
Challenging thoughts is much easier than you think. Recognise it first - eg "I'm going to pass out" and then just give it no attention. Isn't that the best way of challenging? To recognise it and put it down instead of getting into an argument with it?
Next - misconceptions. I can assure you you will not pass out, die etc. These are things you are not very good with (sorry) but you have started doing exactly the right thing by saying so what if I die etc. You can also look back on all the other times you have nearly died and show yourself how wrong that is.
Don't let the breathing trick you - you can begin to rely on exercises or rituals as a form of comfort, your breathing sorts itself out on your own if you just relax your belly. Don't let yourself think it is important to do these exerciese or you will be stuck when you don't do them. You will get to a point where you don't have to do them. They are just an anxiety urge. Hope some of that is helpful.
thk you so very much pancho u have made me realise i haven't been taking the right approach with the anxiety , that's why i haven't got anyware wth it, so if im right in wat ur saying thing best way is to just let it be there and there is no need to do my breathing constantly or always ask for reassurance like have been doing and just say yeah i feel anxiouse so wat nothing is going to happen to me and loosen my attitude towards it they are just thoughts and feelings and cant harm me, and start to believe in myself. so once again thankyou
---------- Post added at 18:19 ---------- Previous post was at 18:15 ----------
thk you everyone for your kind support and advice you have helped me alot
That's right Tricia. If you really get into this way of thinking you will start to feel your brain rewiring, like when you used to feel anxious about something your mind will now kind of say "don't need to be anxious" and this can feel quite weird at first but then it sinks in. It can be easy to slip back into analysing mode, way to easy and you've just got to be let yourself be aware of when that happens and nip it in the but. It is very like people who can't swim who thrash about in the water and sink when they could just let themselves float with no effort at all. It's also a great reliefw when you realise you don't have to work things out, there is nothing to work out, it's so much easier than you thought!
Let us know how you are getting on and feel free to ask us any questions of things you are not sure about. It's always best to air them than to let them stew around.
And Merry Christmas!
Hi Trisha
Some good advise going on here.
I do sympathise with how difficult this is to do though. Acceptance is totally giving up on the idea that you should try to do anything to rid yourself if the symptoms.
There are sensible things to do to help with the intensity of the suffering, including relaxing your shoulders and tummy and taking a few deep breaths, but the overriding idea is to not be too upset by the symptoms. You have no real power over when they come or how long they stay. But your struggle to get rid of them certainly makes the experience worse.
It's like a tug of war....we need to let go of the rope.
But a bit of a hug from me who also finds this hard to do.
Meditation is also a good habit, but again the aim of meditation is not to change the way you feel. It's practice is to learn how to stop allowing the mind to wander off and fret about it. It is the thoughts that do the damage. They are real thoughts but not the truth. Remember that.
Pancho, I am struggling with depression with my anxiety. I am assuming I should treat this in the same way. I keep getting the urge to go down into self pity. That hopeless feeling really gets me going, especially at this time of year. If I am totally honest, it is a choice, but an urge that is hard to resist... A good despair feels like a bit of relief, but I am not sure it does my confidence any good!
Phil
Pancho, I am struggling with depression with my anxiety. I am assuming I should treat this in the same way. I keep getting the urge to go down into self pity. That hopeless feeling really gets me going, especially at this time of year. If I am totally honest, it is a choice, but an urge that is hard to resist... A good despair feels like a bit of relief, but I am not sure it does my confidence any good!
Hi Phil, I suffer from depression too, especially around this time of year and I know what you mean by that feeling. It's like the feeling in your gut that you wake up with? Like it's full of rocks. You are totally right about it being a choice in a way too...depression can seem like a bit of an indulgence sometimes, I have to admit sometimes when very depressed I kind of imagine people being upset about me if I died for some reason and that kind of gives me a kick. Sounds very bizzarre and I look down on those thoughts more and more and realise that this element of pleasure from depression is giving it power and making it deeper. We also tend to give depression a kind of Theme Tune in that part of our lives, making it a really dark time for us.
Depression acts in the same way as anxiety...it is the same pattern, thought affects body, then body affects thought. Thoughts build up and we get lost ina maze of trying to solve and pin down the thoughts. We get more and more bewildered and our senses are heightened to look for a way out until...we breakdown.
It's the same as any emotion! With happiness, we have a happy thought, then happy feelings, and we are happy about the happy feelings and we get in a good spiral up. The reason happiness doesn't seem so bad and end in breakdown is because we don't try to fix it like unhappiness...it doesn't need fixing because it feels nice and doesn't scare us. This is the same for any emotion and proves that our desire to fix is the problem.
It is possible to rest in your depression, mindfully sit in it happily, accept this is how you feel but carry on with your life. Treat dark thoughts with a benal friendliness, you recognise them now, you're used to their old games. Depression need not be scary.
PM to discuss more if you like.
I'm not saying I am immune to blips, I'm in one now and I fall for the tricks too. It really is hard.
craigj1303
28-12-13, 16:33
Thank you Tricia for that insight, I do get in trouble regularly for writing harsh posts and in life for saying what I think to people bluntly and end up with people crying or running away, but that seems to be how I am and it affects some worse than others!
We need people like you buddy!
Hi Tricia,
I can understand why you're scared of meds, what with all the stories of possible side effects and withdrawal symptoms. Also, I don't suppose anyone wants to take meds if they can help it, especially not long-term.
However, meds can drastically alleviate, or even completely remove, anxiety symptoms. Given the benefits, they're well worth considering. I know many people see meds as a crutch, but I think a better analogy would be taking painkillers while you heal from injuries.
In other words, use meds to get you to a better place, get yourself on an even keel. Then you will be in a much better state of mind to deal with your anxiety. It also makes things a whole lot easier.
I took Seroxat (the name for Paxil in the UK). After some initial side effects during the first week or so, I had no more problems with it. It took about a month before I started noticing an improvement, but after about the two month mark my anxiety symptoms had virtually gone.
Hope this helps
Mark
Hi All,
It's really interesting hearing everyone's views on this. I have been fighting anxiety for 13 years so I can definitely relate when you say how tired you are of fighting this.
I was also a bit wary of medication but after a mental breakdown last year from all the stress and pressure of my anxiety I felt I had no other option. Thankfully for me the medication really really helped and I'm finally starting to feel more human and as if I am healing (I don't believe I will ever be cured).
I really hope you keep pushing forward because it will get better and maybe try the medication in small steps, just take it day by day... :)
Mora Mora x
I've never taken medication, it's not essential, just up to you and how you feel about it. Nothing is right or wrong and not taking it won't stop you getting better.
How you doing these days anyway Trish?
thk every one for all your good advice.pancho im trying to take your advice but it so hard to just let it be there. can I ask your advice can a on going problem cause your anxiety to not get better? . I did try and post yesterday but because my post was very long after I wrote it and tried to post I got logged out so it didn't post so not sure how to post a long post.
Originally Posted by PanchoGoz
Thank you Tricia for that insight, I do get in trouble regularly for writing harsh posts and in life for saying what I think to people bluntly and end up with people crying or running away, but that seems to be how I am and it affects some worse than others!
Hi
firstly, may I say, some of what panchogoz says has some validity with regard to rewiring our negative thought processes.
But the strength and tone of the reply shocked me.
At best it was very assertive and at worst verged on nasty
I am really surprised that an adminstrator on this site did not intervene.
Tricia was asking for advice/reassurance/help
Some of us are on a journey with this condition and do not, all respond first time to info, CBT, meds etc. (or even second or third time)
Panchogoz, you have a good command of the English language, perhaps you should adjust the tone in your replies so that members can take advantage of your advice without feeling bullied!!
I have read and listened to every piece of medical info about panic attacks etc. I have studied biology, I understand completely the process of fight and flight, adrenaline etc and know without a doubt I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN DANGER!!
I am an intelligent, rational human being.....
until I am in the midst of a major panic attack,
then my ability to rationalise a perceived threat/danger totally evades me!
I believe this is what Tricia was trying to say.
If it was that easy to switch off negative thoughts ,many if us would not be on NMP!!
It is overwhelming for some of us.
Relaxation IS important. Practisiced regularly it may reduce our body's anxiety and prevent panic attacks from even starting.
Constructive Help, advice, and information is so valuable to NMP members
But aggressive, abusive, demeaning comments are futile.
It's hard to say Tricia, I suppose it's different for everyone and I can't pretned to be an expert but I can give you my view. I myself can say I have been going through ongoing issues since summer such as continued exposure therapy for a restricting childhood phobia, my dad suddenly leaving my family and divorcing, trying to hold my family together, my dad having an accident and ending up in a wheelchair, my best friend and housemate wanting to leave our house and course so we risk losing our house, a close family member dying, a close friend telling me he is going to die young and a group of my friends ganging up on me and another and a personal crisis/self acceptance problem.
I only list these as I think that ongoing problems like this do lengthen your recovery process and they certainly have for me. If it's just anxiety it is much easier to accept and loosen and that's just what I did last year to effect, but that was before my troubles began. This year it has been difficult for me too to put my own techniques into practise as I am in constant internal conflict and sometimes my mind is swimming, and it may be the same for others. A lot of the time I experience high anxiety due to all these things happening in my mind and I find it hard to do anything about that so I drop everything and let it be in the knowlege that it will pass in its own time if I let it...and it always does. In a strange way it's only anxiety if you want to call it that and commit yourself to a condition. I consider it a temporary state of my senses and functions.
Going back to internal conflict, I think that is at the heart of a state of anxiety. If there are things you can't bring yourself to accept or come to terms with or you are having to problem solve and take things on to your shoulders then yes, that is a cause for anxiety in itself. This is different from a stand alone anxiety disorder where it is just fear of fear.
If you look at yourself and can confidently say all you fear is anxiety and it's symptoms than that you can change with your attitude as I advised. It's just fear of fear, and take away one of the fear and it's gone.
If you fear something that is genuinely a danger and not an obsession and you are forced to problem solve eg. legal disputes, money problems, then these things won't go away on their own and need sorting out and during this you must accept the anxiety state as it is, here while it lasts. It's only your body trying to protect you during this time.
So you need to ask yourself if there is an ongoing problem you can't solve or come to terms with that is not just an anxiety obsession, then that needs addressing first. Feel free to share it with us.
But at the end of the day, I am only putting across my point of view with coming to terms with anxiety. If it's not working for you, don't bother with it and feel free to seek your own path using any techniques you like. I "preach" it as it makes sense. I'm not going to post on it again anyway, as I said I'm just trying with it one last time.
To Dally. I have already stated the purpose of my post to Tricia. If you look at my other posts they aren't worded the way that one is and I am generally mild, but for that post I wanted to try one last time with Tricia to kickstart her into a new mindset. I don't believe admin involvement would have been necessary and I certainly don't think I was being aggressive.
Sometimes at NMP we see the same posts come round from the same people asking the same questions and although I don't like to say this in front of Tricia, she did tend to bring up the same problems and mention the same tactics she used each time, relaxation etc. I must admit that it can be quite frustrating to see people suffering but not moving forward with their recovery. When people seek reassurance in this way, we can see that anxiety drives them to find answers they may already have and they let the anxiety have its way.
Your anxiety fight or flight system can see that when we are trying to find an answer all the time that there is a problem so it puts you on high alert and the anxiety gets worse. Then we think there is something getting more wrong so we look harder for a solution, convinving our fight or flight system that the problem is getting worse.
If a member were to make no effort finding a solution to their anxiety and pretended to be perfectly ok inspite of the frightening feelings, the anxiety system would see that our body is relaxed, we are not looking for a solution therefore there is no problem to solve. Stops producing adrenaline.
Relaxation does reduce your adrenaline briefly and can give you space to think, but you are not learning about fear of fear; furthermore it is a way of problem solving, further inducing anxiety and adrenaline as your limbic system believes you have a problem and goes into danger mode.
It's hard when you see people making themselves worse by doing this problem solving and knowing that you can't get them out of that circle because it does momentarily make them feel better, so I wanted to try something different at the risk of causing yet another NMP dispute. I thought if it could help Tricia to be a little too harsh, it's worth the risk, and if it doesn't help, then I still consider it an effort well spent. I'm not persuing the subject further.
---------- Post added at 15:45 ---------- Previous post was at 15:39 ----------
I have read and listened to every piece of medical info about panic attacks etc. I have studied biology, I understand completely the process of fight and flight, adrenaline etc and know without a doubt I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN DANGER!!
I am an intelligent, rational human being.....
until I am in the midst of a major panic attack,
then my ability to rationalise a perceived threat/danger totally evades me!
In this scenario it is helpful to have a flashcard to remind you of what panic is, what catastrophisations you must look out for and correct, and how you can accept and relax during a panic attack. Once you are sure of how to calm a panic attack you may no longer need a flashcard. CBT4Panic is very helpful with this and it doesn't take long to put into practise.
Hi I no this an old post but I was reading some of my friends trica post and why we all come here for advice sometimes its hard some say the good side of meds and then there is panchogozo think I spelt that wrong but I am a suffer from forty years and I have been listening to a clair weeks down load on my MP3 and she says sometimes you need both you mite need to take a maybe mild med to help calm your nerves and anxiety to do all the accepting things she tells you to do like let yr mind and body do wat ever it wants and don't fight it as I said awhile back its ferry scarey wen your mind saying this is somthing else its not anxiety or panic this is something going to kill me I only took 2mg twenty six years ago and had no support as what else I should do no therapy was available as good as today I was on it for a few months then doc would not give me no more so I had nothing for years and years until 1994 had a bit therapy which was six weeks course visiting some one once week who sat there and said nothing no idea what was suppose to happen any way on Thursday I broke down to my doctor as been really bad with anxiety panic attack agoraphobia to a point of not even go in to my daughters next door I ave given into saying I need to try the meds along with therapy which starts on Monday I have been given 2mg diazipam and 10 mg of citalopram I am like trica I am tired of struggling I am afraid of the side effects but I am not living a life as it is and a few weeks of side effects got to be better than years of struggling so who is right people who say meds help or them that have fort and won without trust me I have tried so many things over the years take care thrish
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