Hitting an anxiety plateau

[cpe1978]

Hi All,

I hope you are all doing ok. I dont pop by here as much as I used to. In part because I am not entirely sure it was doing me any good, but also i had sort of run out of sensible things to say :)

However over the past few days I have found myself pondering whether or not it is possible ever to reach the end goal I aspire for.

Six months ago I was a mess. I could barely function, I would go to work and do the bare minimum, meanwhile googling frantically amongst a whole host of other negative behaviours. I took a whole host of steps to resolve that which I won't go into detail about now as I have written extensively about them here before. In reality, were you to tell me six months ago that I would even be thinking about this as a problem i would have told you, that you had lost the plot. Moreover, if you were to tell me that I could have got myself to a place where i work hard and play harder from someone who wanted to stay in bed all the time and await there fate then I would have said the same.

But.....I am stuck. I have dealt quite effectively i think with strategies to prevent the panic and anxiety response. I can as a general rule cut that off at the pass, and whilst I will always be slightly highly strung, I now have gone a number of months without any sort of melt down.

I am still anxious though. I feel like I have the sort of background insidious anxiety that just gnores away at you. I dont feel anxious, but then when I reflect on a day and think about how many times my health has featured in my thoughts I realise that my mind is still phenomenally active in that regard.

I have always been quite an optimistic person, a planner, someone who is always looking for great things to do and enjoy, but in the past year or so that has gone. And although I dont call 999 every time I see a new scratch or funny coloured stool, I do have a constant underlying concern that holds me back in a much more subtle way than the crippling panic response I once experienced.

Most of the strategies that people talk about in terms of HA respond to the panic, and in the main are about coping with that, learning to relax etc. I want to understand how to recalibrate my view on life - maybe that is expecting too much, maybe I am impatient and that will come with time.

I know statistically that there is something like a 998 in 1,000 chance of me reaching my 60th birthday. In any other field i would take those odds and be betting heavily on it, and not expecting to be disappointed. But I cant shake the feeling that i will be the 2 in 1000 and then feel horrendously guilty about the people who are.

I want to alter my initial response to things even though there are not laced with panic. So for instance, at the moment I have a bad back and it is getting worse. In the old days my brain would have ignored it completely and would only have viewed it as a problem when i basically could no longer walk through over doing it. In the old days my brain would have said I have a rubbish mattress with a new one arriving Monday. My current brain says, I have a bad back, what horrible thing could that be? Again - not in a panicky way, but in an intrusive way which then leads to negative thoughts and scenarios spending too long in my head!

I hope I have explained this ok and I have a follow up CBT appointment in a few weeks when I am going to talk this through, but I wondered if anyone had any thoughts or experience of what I perceive to be crossing the final hurdle.

Stay well everyone. Even though I havent been posting much I have been popping by to see how everyone is moving forwards.

[KLP]

I couldn't agree more that I too think visiting this site is supporting my views on anxiety and possibly exhasibating my 'issues', instead of diminishing them with time. I like you approx 4 months ago didn't think that a twitch could be just that! It's tiresome constantly thinking of numerous conditions/diseases that my have taken hold of our bodies, and yes think of all the many people out there that truly have awful things wrong with them. My problem is I have a little one and don't work mid weeks and ask myself if I've got too much time on my hands, time that allows me to consume myself with THESE THOUGHTS!

Looks as though you are clearly close to a full recovery, I too have to remind myself on a daily bases that I am much better than I was even two weeks ago. Not breaking down in tears constantly! etc...

Keep doing what your your doing. Good luck

[katesa]

Dear Chris,

I will go in to more detail in private (in the email I have been adding to bit by bit for over a week!) but I will say that I no longer feel I won't be one of those 998 most of the time.

For me, what got me there was psychotherapy. It got me to understand exactly why I felt that way, and then I saw how certain things had shaped my psyche. Once I saw that, I could see my fear for what it was - a self defense mechanism created by my damaged psyche to protect me. Once I saw that I saw fully that there was no difference between me and another person except how my psyche was shaped and could address the things that had so damaged me - most of them not at all obvious.

You have made such progress and I am certain you will get there

[Tanner40]

Good Morning Chris. Great to see you on this morning. I think that you are correct in thinking of this issue as the final hurdle. I think that there is a difference between being recovered or healed and cured. For me, I know that there is no cure for anxiety, no permanent cure. I will always have an anxiety disorder even though I may not feel overtly anxious most of the time.

It is about recalibrating our minds and our expectations. There have been times in my life, 6 mont or 1 year periods, where I basically forgot that I had an anxiety disorder. Then I have stopped doing all of the healthy recovery tools that I use on a daily basis and I have let life's stressors become bigger than they really are.

Sometimes, I think a tune up is in order, just like my car needs an annual tune up. It sounds as if you are doing well but just want to be doing better. I think it is similar to tackling regular anxiety. The more that you try to achieve that goal and the more that you think about it, the more difficult it will become.

I think that for me acceptance has always been the key. Gratitude for what I have been able to accomplish on a moment by moment basis. With that comes the ability to forget and a sense of surrender. For me, that is what has brought about anxiety disorder amnesia and the ability to live a normal life.

Hope some of this helps.

[Fishmanpa]

Hey Chris,

I'll just jump on the bandwagon here. I took a little heat on the healed vs. cured topic on another thread but those here who are battling the Dragon see it as I do. I'm blessed. I don't have the Dragon breathing down my neck but I have freakin' Eeyore come and visit now and again. It's really no different. I chat with him for a bit and he moves on. It was years between visits but who knows when he'll visit again and for what reason. Sometimes I've needed a mediator to sit in and let me know when Eeyore was talking shit but I'm pretty much on to his games.

You're relatively new to the Dragon Slayer business and have to expect that he's going to get a swipe in now and again. You've sought training from Dragon Slaying trainers and sometimes a refresher course is necessary. Perhaps there's a new technique to learn? Maybe you need to study the beast in closer detail to discern a weakness that can be exploited.

Whatever the case, don't beat yourself up. That's food for the Dragon. Keep in mind the Dragon is a wiley and incredibly strong beast. It takes a great effort and time to banish him to his cave and one must learn to be ready to wield their sword when he decides to stretch his wings.

Positive thoughts