does anyone feel strange because they dont feel so anxiose?

[tricia56]

As some of you know I've been really struggling with the anxiety and usally I wake up feeling so anxiose and it stays with me allday but for the last few days I've noticed that for some reason I don't feel as anxiouse as I usualy do which it is a good thing but its kind of making me feel abit strange and scared because I don't feel so anxiouse , I don't know if its because I've had the anxirty for so long that it will feel strange and scarey not feeling so anxiouse, I know this might sound abit silly but I think I'm scared to let the anxiety go if that makes any sence to anyone as I think that if I let it go then something else will happen to me as a few yrs ago when I was really bad I bumped into a woman I knew who I hadn't saw for long time and she asked how was so I told her I was suffring with severe anxiety and straight away she said oh I had that for yrs and when it went she ended up with. Breast cancer and i remberd thinking id rather keep the anxiety if means I might get something else in its place and because of what she said , that has always stook in my mind , so not sure if thats why Im I'm scared to let it go.sorry ranting on think I'm just asking if what I'm feeling and thinking. Is normal in anxiety.

[jayb1]

Yes I'm the same if I have a few good days of feeling less anxious am absolutely convinced something even worse is going to happen. After feeling anxious for so long it feels wrong then we become anxious about not feeling anxious . vicious circle. I told my therapist although I can't wait to be well again I'm also frightened because then its back to the outside world,getting back into work. She says its perfectly normal to feel that way, just to take it slowly and to go with the flow. So that's 2 of us that feel that way there must be more!!!!!

[GingerFish]

I get this all the time. I'm in a stage at the mo where I feel like my anxiety reached a peak a few days ago and I was having severe panics and now I'm at the stage where I feel overall less anxious and slowed down which I know its probably just the aftermath of the stressful period I was in but its making me feel even more anxious than when I was in the mega anxious panicky stage if you know what I mean?

I think its just because I am so used to my mind going at 100mph with anxiety constantly, that it feels unreal to me for it to be slowed down. Worrying becomes such a habit.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi Tricia,

I would put the thought of something like that happening straight out of your mind. You know if a serious problem like that is coming to us, it will come regardless. You also have to think "why would recovering from anxiety cause cancer?". It can't and it doesn't. There is no connection, it is pure coincidence.

Back to the original issue though. This is so so common, I've seen it on threads on here and I've discussed or listened to others discussing it at the walk-in groups I used to attend. I went through it earlier on in my recovery. Anxiety disorders are largely based on "learnt behaviour" so the longer we suffer them, the more ingrained they get as we keep adding more & more to them. Our subconscious makes associations between things e.g. memories, events, sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc. So, it makes sense that someone who has had GAD for 6 months doesn't have the problems that someone who has had it for 20 years has got. So, our healhty core beliefs get mothballed in the subconscious and we build new negative ones that are based on being an anxious person. When we start to recover, we start to show behaviours that are not found in these negative core beliefs and this feels strange, alien or weird. What happens is that we are building new core beliefs, healthy ones, or amending old ones to now mothball the negative ones we built in our disorders.

What I learned going through this is that you will try to question them because they feel so strange. This results in worry and you encourage the anxiety back. This means you end up having a shorter good period than you could have. So, we need to work on accepting that we feel ok, because we are ok. Practice it in a Mindfulness sense by being in the moment, the now. This helps.

This is a good sign. When you are really bad you just don't seem to get any breaks but as you start to recover, you start to see these little bursts of light between all those gloomy clouds. This is how it can start. The result for me was more & more of these better periods and less of the bad ones and I hope this becomes the same for you.

Remember, try not to fight it. Just go with it. Tell yourself that if you wake up tomorrow and you are anxious again, so what, you normally would be anyway. Tell yourself it is ok to not feel anxious.