Thoughts on self help

[Mrsh11]

I wonder if this is something anyone else has experienced or if anyone can give me their opinion?
I have read a few self help books for anxiety and countless websites but have never really found any benefit. It feels like instead of giving me perspective it actually keeps my mind on my anxiety, like when someone says don't think about pink elephants and then that's all you think about. I have generalised anxiety, it used to mainly about my health but is now pretty much always about work, it is always there and is exhausting to experience.
I suppose what I really want to know is wether anyone has found self help useful or if distraction would take my mind off things, even If only temporarily.
I would love it if a book could help me to overcome this horrible condition but am I making things worse by focusing on it?

[Davit]

Most books go on and on with a lot of filler and example because they need to be so many pages before a publisher will touch them. Most of the time they don't say much either. My book is 47 pages of information only without a lot of repeats other than core beliefs I think. 25000 words with most of it information, there is a bit of humour. I figure if i wouldn't read it then no one else would. Besides i'm not interested in publishing. I wrote it because a friend asked me to.

[Mrsh11]

What is your book?

[Davit]

A description of what anxiety and panic are, where it comes from and a description of the five steps I used to get rid of it. It has some information on how our brain uses memory for and against us. The threads I have under panic attacks has some of it and what they don't have is related but not necessary. My friend Juanita wanted it to show people how she got cured so I wrote it for her and sent it to her. It is PDF so I just Email it now. You could read the threads under panic and see what you think. It is a different way of attacking anxiety. It is Cognitive restructuring which is a bit different than CBT. Exposure takes a back seat to core beliefs and changing thought patterns. It is quite gentle compared to exposure therapy.

[Mrsh11]

Ok thanks, I'll take a look.
What I was hoping was if someone had any experience of how focusing on anxiety keeps it going they could talk to me about it? Genuinely not sure whether to go down the self help route or just try to ignore it and keep myself distracted.

[MyNameIsTerry]

This might depend on which anxiety disorder we are talking about. For instance, ignoring anxiety in an intrusive thought scenario has been proven to make us think about it more in some studies. I've also read in clinical documents about how using distraction in ERP for OCD clients can lead to more rituals based on using the distraction itself and the original obsession just gets attached to that and the old ritual is left behind.

Some "gurus", one I am thinking of in particular who is very dubious, will say you should avoid anything to do with talking about your anxiety. Some of them tell you to avoid these forums or talking to your loved ones about it and some even tell you not to talk to your GP's about it! These people tend to look inviting but they never have any science backing them up or any proof beyond user stories that they cannot corroborate anyway. Anecdotal evidence at best.

If you are constantly searching for self help products then I do agree with you because I think you are looking for a "cure" when you know that you need to be working on recovery in that time. So, if you mean from that angle, I would say yes it can be a problem.

In recovery you need to be able to face all your fears at some point. So, even if you leave a forum or don't talk to people about it, how do you know you have recovered? Because you feel better? But what happens if you then get confronted by that fear and it kicks off again? What about if you are living a reduced version of a life, isn't that just avoidance? I believe that whilst you may eliminate triggers initially, you need to add them back in to prove that you can handle them. If you can't, you know you are not there yet.

When I see people say they are leaving this forum because they won't to just work on their recovery, thats fine. But if they then say because they find this place triggering, then I apply my above logic and wonder whether they really get past it. I guess people can, but you need to know at some point that you are not still afraid of old triggers.

[Davit]

I have to agree with Terry.
I've been free for five, going on six years but reading posts still can make me anxious, but that is okay, it is part 5 of the program I did. It is exposure to see if my coping skills are still in place and to see if the changed thought patterns still have priority. And they do.

---------- Post added at 10:39 ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 ----------

Do the self help road and if you want help then PM me. I'll help you. Some self help books are more damaging than good.