Perpetual
12-01-19, 00:16
I have had health anxiety (specifically fear of a heart problem) for a few years now. This has helped me isolate myself and stay inside for almost three years. One and a half year ago I was functioning well enough again to start living. The anxiety never subdued and my list of symptoms just keep getting longer. It doesn’t help that I have severe sleep apnea and no treatment has yet helped. Extreme fatigue and severe anxiety just keep themselves alive, it’s a vicious circle.
Very recently my relationship ended and my anxiety was probably the driving force behind that (not wanting to go out, staying the whole day inside on the couch, too tired for anything, etc).
I am more than sick and tired of this and I want to take it heads on. I’ve never been anywhere by myself for more than a day and prefer to always have somebody close (phone call away) if I experience a panic attack.
I have decided to get the bus next week to Berlin (8,5 hours of travel) with my backpack and stay there for a week. I don’t speak German nor do I know anybody there. All the cbt I have done will have to be put into full practice as I cannot hide in my comfort zone anymore.
What really inspired me is the following text written by a student of Bruce Lee:
“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile].
So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.”
I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-” if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.”
He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles.
Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?”
He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”
Very recently my relationship ended and my anxiety was probably the driving force behind that (not wanting to go out, staying the whole day inside on the couch, too tired for anything, etc).
I am more than sick and tired of this and I want to take it heads on. I’ve never been anywhere by myself for more than a day and prefer to always have somebody close (phone call away) if I experience a panic attack.
I have decided to get the bus next week to Berlin (8,5 hours of travel) with my backpack and stay there for a week. I don’t speak German nor do I know anybody there. All the cbt I have done will have to be put into full practice as I cannot hide in my comfort zone anymore.
What really inspired me is the following text written by a student of Bruce Lee:
“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile].
So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.”
I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-” if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.”
He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles.
Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?”
He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”