For Meg

[SarahSRE]

Hi Meg

I'm new to this website but am so pleased I've found it. Firstly, apologies but I wanted to send you a message after reading "Meg's story" as it filled me with such determination and I could relate to it so much. Apols if this isn't the way to talk to you though.

I've suffered with anxiety/panic and depression for about ten years now. The first time it happend I was on honeymoon and it was two weeks of absolute hell. When I came home my aunty and mom took it in turns to stay with me for weeks until I became a little stronger. The GP just gave me anti-depressants and that was it. The second time it happened I'd just had a baby and then two years ago it happend all over again. Each time I reach out mainly to my mom as she has also suffered with it and knows just what I'm going through. Then, two weeks ago I got overly stressed with my mom, nan and sister all being ill and it started all over again, until I read your story and I thought, this is it, I'm not going to go through this for months I'm going to do something about it so I talked myself through everything I did, congratulated myself on the things I'd done well and had the determination to succeed and sent mom home. Within a week I was back on the road to recovery. Until yesterday when I came down with a nasty cold/chest infection, paniced that I couldn't cope if I was ill and hear I am again. I'm looking at this as a blip and that the cold will go away and I'll be physically well again to fight this horrible anxiety. I wanted to know though, did this happen to you? I think anxiety/panic is one of the worst things ever and I absolutely hate the bloomin thing. Just wanted a chat really as when I'm in this state I still reach out.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Sarah

[nomorepanic]

Sarah

Welcome aboard and lovely to see you here.

I will let Meg know that you asked after her as she isn't on here as much at the moment.

I am sure we can all be of some help in the meantime as well.

[Nibbles]

Hi Sarah and :welcome:

You'll get loads of advice and support here while making new friends along the way.

Take care,

Mike :)

[honeybee3939]

Hi Sarah

A BIG warm welcome from me too hun, its lovely to see you here.:hugs:

Andrea
xxxxxx

[Meg]

Hi Swad,

You are doing very well indeed so many congratulations.

Yes this is a blip and you will get past it, just like you have always got past challenging times in your past- sometimes swiftly, sometimes slower.

'paniced that I couldn't cope if I was ill and hear I am again' Paniced about what exactly ? that your cold would deteriorate to ??, that the physical feelings of being ill mimic anxiety etcetc.
You have to seek out what exactly you are afraid of and then place that fear out in the open on a scale of what is the probable outcome in relation to all the ' whats if's' , 'it mights'.

We all contemplate all possible outcomes but you need to stop dwelling and imagining the worst case scanario when the reality is that you have a common cold / LRTI and will do just fine in a few days and worse case , you may need some antibiotics - nothing you cannot cope with having already shown yourself that you can challenge and eventually sweep aside other fears.

Many congrats for soing so well this time around ..

Did I do 2 steps forward and 1 back ? YES, I sure did, until it dawned on me that I alone caused the 1 step back by listening to my remote possibilities of worries and brought them to life by giving them fuel and energy. Starve them of those and it gets easier.

[maxine]

Hiya Meg,

I remember the support you offered me when i first joined this site in an absolute mess.

Still think about you now.

Hope you're doing okay.

Maxine x

[SarahSRE]

Hi All

Thank you so much for your replies, you are soooo kind. I did reply to you yesterday but for some reason it didn't show up.

Okay, so it's two days on and I've got a really nasty cough, cold and high temp and feel pretty dreadful. I've always had a bit of a phobia of being ill and others being ill and it scares me dreadfully. I've learned however to be sensible when my little boy's ill now though and tell myself that children get poorly sometimes and all I can do is look after him. This time though with me being ill it's really hit me. I think what's made it hard is that I can't just get up and go for a really long walk, go and see people, carry on as normal, work through it, get in the garden etc etc, I'm pretty much stuck in bed with my thoughts. I've spent alot of my time saying to myself "stop that isn't a helpful thought, I'm moving on now towards much better thoughts, in a different direction" but still these thoughts keep happening. Has anyone got any advice please?

Also, I've been trying for years to do relaxation, breathing and had a go at changing my thoughts to better ones but still I keep getting the anxiety. I'm so frustrated with it. Sometimes though I don't know what to change my negative thought to, I know it needs to be a positive one but sometimes if it's a not very good situation I only see despair and terror and nothing positive.

I'd like to try CBT do you know how I can get to see a good CBT therapist? I live near Stafford.

Thanks everyone. Look forward to hearing from you.

Sarah x

[Meg]

Maxine - Thanks for such a lovely comment. I'm doing great thanks, just very busy, hope you are improving too.

Sarah- **I've learned however to be sensible when my little boy's ill now though and tell myself that children get poorly sometimes and all I can do is look after him.** That a great skill to learn and I bet it didn't come easily and took some practice to implement. The same does apply to you but is much harder as you are left without your usual distractions to see you through and then your thoughts find a space to wheedle their way in and slowly take over.
Situations do arise in our lives where it is hard to see a positive side and indeed there may not be one. I found that taking as much control of the bad situation as possible was helpful and systematically preparing a plan for each potential outcome, so I had all bases covered was the next best thing, interchanging reality for positivity when optimism simply wasn't feasible.

**"stop that isn't a helpful thought, I'm moving on now towards much better thoughts, in a different direction" ** wow, thats certainly very planned and has all good intentions but I agree with you, my thoughts were not that easily dissuaded. I ended up resorting to JFDI - and forcing myself to do stuff that I needed to concentrate on and that needed instant attention. computer puzzles, tetris, talking in length to the bloke who only rang up from a call centre. I planned holidays I would never take, cooked things I tried to get Gary to eat, did loads of free BBC online short courses , learnt about all sorts of odd topics I had no need to know about but it all kept my brain and thus my thoughts occupied whilst that crap moment was got through..

If it's any consolation I never mastered the relaxation/breathing thing either. Just learnt to stop the hyperventilating symptoms by breathing through cupped hands . I did yoga for what seemed like years but I did best with brisk walking.

I hope you're starting to feel better now. Keep going, you're certainly on the right path and doing well.

[mirry]

welcome :hugs: , there are so many fantastic people on here ,
look foward to reading your posts :flowers:

[SarahSRE]

Hi Again

Thanks again for helping me out.

I have had a really tough few days but I'm now physically on the road to recovery and so have sent mom home as she was staying with me as I was so poorly and to look after my little boy while my hubby was at work.

I do seem to get alot of minor illnesses so wondered if anyone had heard if that's common for your immunity to drop when you are anxious? I have been taking a multi-vitamin but it's obviously not doing a gret deal.

On a positive note I am still not able to get out and about and do all the old distraction techniques much so I'm trying to concentrate on thinking better thoughts a bit at a time, one hour at a time. It's such a beautiful day outside, I can change my bed, have a drink, watch tv, do my Sudoku's and know that that's okay.

I really really want to become much more positive and optimistic so is this the way forward? To start like this and build on it bit by bit?

Meg - you seemed to decide one day that that was that and put your actions in place and away you went. Is it really that easy?

Thanks

Sarah x

[chucklehound]

Hi and welcome to nmp:)

[Meg]

Dear Sarah,

Glad you're getting better now.

*so I'm trying to concentrate on thinking better thoughts a bit at a time, one hour at a time* exactly the right thing to do. Not necessarily always have to be better thoughts but try to keep them rational and realistic and not just dwelling on the extreme negative that we usually tend to veer towards.
Yes, that is very ok to do and is the way forward.

*Meg - you seemed to decide one day that that was that and put your actions in place and away you went. Is it really that easy?*

Humm-no, not that easy. It eventually dawned on me over a couple of days that this anxiety and panic really wasn't something that 'just happened to me' and I set about proving to myself that what Mum and neighbours provided was simply distraction and company and kept me busy and comforted, but was not a cure for panic or anxiety.
So I did a lot of self analysing and then felt pretty rubbish whilst this all filtered through. Then I started to think about and challenge each crap moment, so after a run of palpitations and all the following dreadful thoughts, I took myself off to Costco instead of simply heading next door, where I knew if I collapsed in a heap they would do the necessary just as well.

When scared on a motorway of being trapped etcetc and knowing it would be a long jam I got out a learn -a -language CD and forced myself to pay attention to it instead of ringing Mum for the duration. It only worked initially for a few minutes but it was more than anything had worked before and gradually I changed my coping mechanisms and managed more independently and drew on my own resources from within, rather than turning outwards.

I did not succeed overnight and had some stumbles along the way but gradually I grew in confidence and was more able to keep panic at bay and talk myself out of all sorts of rising anxieties.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done and it didn't happen overnight but my recovery did start when I figured out that I was causing my own anxiety and panic through irrational and escalating rubbish thinking and it was not something that simply 'happened to me'

I have had moments since, where I have been really scared of a 'what if' and it's been a truly stressful situation and I've been all churny and sweaty and heart racing and I've smiled and recognised that this reaction is normal and expected and it's simply my body just doing as it should do. So it seems my innards do still work well and fortunately I am now in full control and can identify imagination from reality and keep events in perspective.

You're doing great - you've found that path forward, so keep going but it is ok to stop and rest a while when it gets bumpy along the way

[SarahSRE]

Dear Meg

Thank you so much for your reply. You make such a lot of sense. It's up to me isn't it to use the resources I have within rather than reaching out at the first sign of panic to my mom for comfort and reassurance. Gosh, it's tough though.

Thinking about it I have actually done that alot of times, looked within and used my own skills to get through bad times. I think I've been paying much too much attention to the times I have reached out though and forgotten those times where I"ve coped remarkably well!

This morning I woke up and before I had even realised that I'd had a thought I felt a bit scared, a bit down and a bit wobbly and then realised it was because I was thinking I was going to be on my own today because it's the end of the weekend and my husband is at work and my little boy at school. So, instead of dwelling how terrible my feelings were I took myself off to the shower and tried to concentrate on how nice the warm water felt and how much better you feel when you've washed your hair. That helped a bit.

My thoughts have been conditioned over many years I feel to automatically think of the worst possible case and to be quite pessimistic about things. There's no reason though why my brain can't be reconditioned to think much more optimistically and therefore healthily. I guess this is why you have all the "p's" at the bottom of your replies - perseverence, positivity etc. It takes time, effort and help doesn't it to get there.

Thanks again for your help and kindness. This website has been so helpful to me and especially talking to you Meg.

Sarah x

[Meg]

Dear Sarah,

Yes, it is really tough to become self reliant again, especially when you have thoroughly convinced yourself over time that you need external support and feel that you alone is not strong enough to cope with feelings and thoughts and physical symptoms.

There are those anxiety sufferers who far prefer to be alone when struggling and then those like you who crave company. I had no shame at all with those who knew me but I hid it from work or new people, whereas others are too embarrassed or fearful of reactions of others.

I found the hardest thing initially was to identify and pin down the thoughts that led to feeling rubbish. I can all too well remember that Monday am feeling when the world deserted me again and instantly I thought and imagined all the cars driving away from the local houses and leaving me all alone I could bring on a giddy spell in seconds quite unwittingly.
It got easier when instead I dwelled on which neighbour was around, that I could go to should I get desperate and the challenge was to keep that thought active, but not need to skid round there and woe betide them if they dared go out when I imagined them in doing the ironing. That would spin me out completely as that had been plan A, so then I made a habit of plan B,C and D. D being the local shoe shop where if all else failed, I could pretend to go and sit and make a fuss of the dog and hey, a shop, she always had to be there!! Problem solved.

Over time I stopped stalking the neighbours and started making my own plans for outings and trips where I knew noone !!

We don't have to be full time Pollyannas - always looking for the good even when there isn't any, as that just gets plain irritating and can be depressing BUT we do need to keep realistic and rational and identify and recognise real fear from a real threat from irrational fears created internally from a single escalated silly thought pattern.

I am not on site much these days but continue to think the world of NMP and all the fantastic work that Nic, Alex and all the members do for each other each and every day, so I am glad to have been able to contribute and provide a little help and comfort to you these last few days.

Keep going - you're on the right path - but it is bumpy, so wear plodding boots.

[mico]

Hope you're doing well Meg, all the appreciation is well deserved for the work done here over the years.

Take care

[Piglet]

Well said Mico!!:yesyes:

Love Piglet :flowers:

[Meg]

Mico - Many thanks indeed, that was very kind. Good to hear from you.
We're all doing very well thanks and with that comes taking on more, thus getting continually busier if that is possible.

I've not been contributing online here for so long now that it always surprises me when someone reads an old post, relates to it and makes contact with me, or when a member from a while ago just drops me a line to let me know how they are doing now which is lovely.

I'm glad to see your blog lives again and I concur entirely with your random thought which is very insightful and completely true - Now you've recognised it, is it enough maybe, to push forward another step ?

Piglet - Thank-you. You are doing soo fantastically well and I am very proud of how you have managed to make such enormous leaps in so many ways these last few weeks.

Love Meg xxxx

[Piglet]

Piglet - Thank-you. You are doing soo fantastically well and I am very proud of how you have managed to make such enormous leaps in so many ways these last few weeks.

Love Meg xxxx


((((((M)))))) :yesyes:

Love Piglet :flowers:

[mico]

Thanks for the comments, Meg. The blog is rarely updated these days though. I started out with good intentions but then I realised it was quite a monumental and time consuming task in the way I proposed to do it. So when it does get updated now it's little more than random thoughts for the most part...

That's not to say I'm not working on myself, but I'm realising it's going to be a very slow process. I've always viewed it as something entirely different to general anxiety and I feel I'm beginning to form an image of what those differences are.

I've actually came very close to publishing a general anxiety blog lately (something I feel more qualified to do through my own experiences, having overcome it) but I just don't think I would be committed enough to keep it up.

Anyway, enough rambling. I don't see why you should be surprised when you hear from people given how many of those you've helped, including myself, with consistantly solid and easy to understand advice, all backed up by your own success.

Take care and don't work too hard.